ANACHARSIS the
Scythian
was the son of Gnurus, and the brother of Caduides the king of the Scythians; but his mother was a Grecian woman; owing to which circumstance he understood both languages.
Diogenes Laertius
II. Cleobulus composed songs and obscure sayings in verse to the number of three thousand lines, and some say that it was he who composed the epigram on Midas.
I am a brazen maiden lying here
Upon the tomb of Midas. And as long
As water flows, as trees are green with leaves,
As the sun shines and eke the silver moon,
As long as rivers flow, and billows roar,
So long will I upon this much wept tomb,
Tell passers by, "Midas lies buried here. "
And as an evidence of this epigram being by him they quote a song of Simonides, which runs thus:
What men possessed of sense
Would ever praise the Lindian Cleobulus?
Who could compare a statue made by man
To everflowing streams,
To blushing flowers of spring,
To the suns rays, to beams o' the golden morn,
And to the ceaseless waves of mighty Ocean?
All things are trifling when compared to God.
While men beneath their hands can crush a stone;
So that such sentiments can only come from fools.
And the epigram cannot possibly be by Homer, for he lived many years, as it is said, before Midas.
III. There is also the following enigma quoted in the Commentaries of Pamphila, as the work of Cleobulus :
There was one father and he had twelve daughters,
Each of his daughters had twice thirty children.
But most unlike in figure and complexion;
For some were white, and others black to view,
And though immortal they all taste of death.
And the solution is, "the year. "
IV. Of his apophthegms, the following are the most celebrated. Ignorance and talkativeness bear the chief sway among men. Opportunity will be the most powerful. Cherish not a thought. Do not be fickle, or ungrateful. He used to say too, that men ought to give their daughters in marriage while they were girls in age, but women in sense; as indicating by this that girls ought to be well educated. Another of his sayings was, that one ought to serve a friend that he may become a greater friend; and an enemy, to make him a friend. And that one ought to guard against giving one's friends occasion to blame one, and one's enemies opportunity of plotting against one. Also, when a man goes out of his house, he should consider what he is going to do: and when he comes home again he should consider what he has done. He used also to advise men to keep their bodies in health by exercise. --To be fond of hearing rather than of talking. --To be fond of learning rather than unwilling to learn. --To speak well of people. --To seek virtue and eschew vice. --To avoid injustice. --To give the best advice in one's power to one's country. --To be superior to pleasure. --To do nothing by force. --To instruct one's children,--To be ready for reconciliation after quarrels. --Not to caress one's wife, nor to quarrel with her when strangers are present, for that to do the one is a sign of folly, and to do the latter is downright madness. --Not to chastise a servant while elated with drink, for so doing one will appear to be drunk one's self. --To marry from among one's equals, for if one takes a wife of a higher rank than one's self, one will have one's connexions for one's masters. --Not to laugh at those who are being reproved, for so one will be detested by them. --Be not haughty when prosperous. --Be not desponding when in difficulties. --Learn to bear the changes of fortune with magnanimity.
V. And he died at a great age, having lived seventy years, and this inscription was put over him :
His country, Lindus, this fair sea-girt city
Bewails wise Cleobulus here entombed.
VI. One of his sayings was, "Moderation is the best thing. " He also wrote a letter to Solon in these terms:
CLEOBULUS TO SOLON.
You have many friends, and a home everywhere, but yet I think that Lindus will be the most agreeable habitation for Solon, since it enjoys a democratic government, and it is a maritime island, and whoever dwells in it has nothing to fear from Pisistratus, and you will have friends flock to you from all quarters.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF PERIANDER
I. PERIANDER was a Corinthian, the son of Cypselus, of the family of the Heraclidae. He married Lyside (whom he himself called Melissa), the daughter of Procles the tyrant of Epidaurus, and of Eristhenea the daughter of Aristocrates, and sister of Aristodemus, who governed nearly all Arcadia, as Heraclides Ponticus says in his Treatise on Dominion and had by her two sons Cypselus and Lycophron, the younger of whom was a clever boy, but the elder was deficient in intellect. At a subsequent period he in a rage either kicked or threw his wife down stairs when she was pregnant, and so killed her, being wrought upon by the false accusations of his concubines, whom he afterwards burnt alive. And the child, whose name was Lycophron, he sent away to Corcyra because he grieved for his mother.
II. But afterwards, when he was now extremely old, he sent for him back again, in order that he might succeed to the tyranny. But the Corcyreans, anticipating his intention, put him to death, at which he was greatly enraged, and sent their children to Corcyra to be made eunuchs of; and when the ship came near to Samos, the youths, having made supplications to Juno, were saved by the Samians. And he fell into despondency and died, being eighty years old. Sosicrates says that he died forty-one years before Croesus, in the last year of the forty-eighth Olympiad. Herodotus, in the first book of his History, says that he was connected by ties of hospitality with Thrasybulus the tyrant of Miletus. And Aristippus, in the first book of his Treatise on Ancient Luxury, tells the following story of him; that his mother Cratea fell in love with him, and introduced herself secretly into his bed; and he was delighted; but when the truth was discovered he became very oppressive to all his subjects, because he was grieved at the discovery. Ephorus relates that he made a vow that, if he gained the victory at Olympia in the chariot race, he would dedicate a golden statue to the God. Accordingly he gained the victory; but being in want of gold, and seeing the women at some national festival beautifully adorned, he took away their golden ornaments, and then sent the offering which he had vowed.
III. But some writers say that he was anxious that his tomb should not be known, and that with that object he adopted the following contrivance. He ordered two young men to go out by night, indicating a particular road by which they were to go, and to kill the first man they met, and bury him; after them he sent out four other men who were to kill and bury them. Again he sent out a still greater number against these four, with similar instructions. And in this manner he put himself in the way of the first pair, and was slain, and the Corinthians erected a cenotaph over him with the following inscription:
The sea-beat land of Corinth in her bosom,
Doth here embrace her ruler Periander,
Greatest of all men for his wealth and wisdom.
We ourselves have also written an epigram upon him:
Grieve not when disappointed of a wish,
But be content with what the Gods may give you --
For the great Periander died unhappy,
At failing in an object he desired.
IV. It was a saying of his that we ought not to do anything for the sake of money; for that we ought only to acquire such gains as are allowable. He composed apophthegms in verse to the number of two thousand lines; and said that those who wished to wield absolute power in safety, should be guarded by the good will of their countrymen, and not by arms. And once, being asked why he assumed tyrannical power, he replied, "Because, to abdicate it voluntarily, and to have it taken from one, are both dangerous. " The following sayings also belong to him:--Tranquillity is a good thing. --Rashness is dangerous. --Gain is disgraceful. --Democracy is better than tyranny. --Pleasures are transitory, but honour is immortal. --Be moderate when prosperous, but prudent when unfortunate. Be the same to your friends when they are prosperous, and when they are unfortunate. --Whatever you agree to do, observe--Do not divulge secrets. --Punish not only those who do wrong, but those who intend to do so.
V. This prince was the first who had body-guards, and who changed a legitimate power into a tyranny; and he would not allow any one who chose to live in his city, as Ephorus and Aristotle tell us.
VI. And he flourished about the thirty-eighth Olympiad, and enjoyed absolute power for forty years. But Sotion, and Heraclides, and Pamphila, in the fifth book of her Commentaries, says that there were two Perianders; the one a tyrant, and the other a wise man, and a native of Ambracia. And Neanthes of Cyzicus makes the same assertion, adding, that the two men were cousins to one another. And Aristotle says, that it was the Corinthian Periander who was the wise one; but Plato contradicts him. The saying--"Practice does everything," is his. He it was, also, who proposed to cut through the Isthmus.
VII. The following letter of his is quoted:
PERIANDER TO THE WISE MEN.
I give great thanks to Apollo of Delphi that my letters are able to determine you all to meet together at Corinth; and I will receive you all, as you may be well assured, in a manner that becomes free citizens. I hear also that last year you met at Sardis, at the court of the King of Lydia. So now do not hesitate to come to me, who am the tyrant of Corinth; for the Corinthians will all be delighted to see you come to the house of Periander.
VIII. There is this letter too:
PERIANDER TO PROCLES.
The injury of my wife was unintended by me; and you have done wrong in alienating from me the mind of my child. I desire you, therefore, either to restore me to my place in his affections, or I will revenge myself on you; for I have myself made atonement for the death of your daughter, by burning in her tomb the clothes of all the Corinthian women. 1
IX. Thrasybulus also wrote him a letter in the following terms:
I have given no answer to your messenger; but having taken him into a field, I struck with my walking-stick all the highest ears of corn, and cut off their tops, while he was walking with me: And he will report to you, if you ask him, everything which he heard or saw while with me; and do you act accordingly if you wish to preserve your power safely, taking off the most eminent of the citizens, whether he seems an enemy to you or not, as even his companions are deservedly objects of suspicion to a man possessed of supreme power.
1. Herodotus mentions the case of Periander's children, iii. 50, and the death of his wife, and his burning the clothes of all the Corinthian women, v. 92.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF ANACHARSIS
I. ANACHARSIS the Scythian was the son of Gnurus, and the brother of Caduides the king of the Scythians; but his mother was a Grecian woman; owing to which circumstance he understood both languages.
II. He wrote about the laws existing among the Scythians, and also about those in force among the Greeks, urging men to adopt a temperate course of life; and he wrote also about war, his works being in verse, and amounting to eight hundred lines: he gave occasion for a proverb, because he used great freedom of speech, so that people called such freedom the Scythian conversation.
III. But Sosicrates says that he came to Athens in the forty-seventh Olympiad, in the archonship of Eucrates. And Hermippus asserts that he came to Solon's house, and ordered one of the servants to go and tell his master that Anacharsis was come to visit him, and was desirous to see him, and, if possible, to enter into relations of hospitality with him. But when the servant had given the message, he was ordered by Solon to reply to him that, "Men generally limited such alliances to their own countrymen. " In reply to this Anacharsis entered the house, and told the servant that now he was in Solon's country, and that it was quite consistent for them to become connected with one another in this way. On this, Solon admired the readiness of the man, and admitted him, and made him one of his greatest friends.
IV. But after some time, when he had returned to Scythia, and shown a purpose to abrogate the existing institutions of his country, being exceedingly earnest, in his fondness for Grecian customs, he was shot by his brother while he was out hunting, and so he died, saying, "That he was saved on account of the sense and eloquence which he had brought from Greece, but slain in consequence of envy in his own family. " Some, however, relate that he was slain while performing some Grecian sacrificatory rites. And we have written this epigram on him:
When Anacharsis to his land returned,
His mind was turn'd, so that he wished to make
His countrymen all live in Grecian fashion--
So, ere his words had well escaped his lips,
A winged arrow bore him to the Gods.
V. He said that a vine bore three bunches of grapes. The first, the bunch of pleasure; the second, that of drunkenness; the third that of disgust. He also said that he marvelled that among the Greeks, those who were skilful in a thing contend together; but those who have no such skill act as judges of the contest. Being once asked how a person might be made not fond of drinking, he said, "If he always keeps in view the indecorous actions of drunken men. " He used also to say, that he marvelled how the Greeks, who make laws against those who behave with insolence, honour Athletae because of their beating one another. When he had been informed that the sides of a ship were four fingers thick, he said, "That those who sailed in one were removed by just that distance from death. " He used to say that oil was a provocative of madness, "because Athletae, when anointed in the oil, attacked one another with mad fury. "
"How is it," he used to say, "that those who forbid men to speak falsely, tell lies openly in their vintners' shops? " It was a saying of his, that he "marvelled why the Greeks, at the beginning of a banquet, drink out of small cups, but when they have drunk a good deal, then they turn to large goblets. " And this inscription is on his statues--"Restrain your tongues, your appetites, and your passions. " He was once asked if the flute was known among the Scythians; and he said, "No, nor the vine either. " At another time, the question was put to him, which was the safest kind of vessel? and he said, "That which is brought into dock. " He said, too, that the strangest things that he had seen among the Greeks was, that "They left the smoke1 in the mountains, and carried the wood down to their cities. " Once, when he was asked, which were the more numerous, the living or the dead? he said, "Under which head do you class those who are at sea. " Being reproached by an Athenian for being a Scythian, he said, "Well, my country is a disgrace to me, but you are a disgrace to your country. " When he was asked what there was among men which was both good and bad, he replied, "The tongue. " He used to say "That it was better to have one friend of great value, than many friends who were good for nothing. " Another saying of his was, that "The forum was an established place for men to cheat one another, and behave covetously. " Being once insulted by a young man at a drinking party, he said, "O, young man, if now that you are young you cannot bear wine, when you are old you will have to bear water. "
VI. Of things which are of use in life, he is said to have been the inventor of the anchor, and of the potter's wheel.
VII. The following letter of his is extant:
ANACHARSIS TO CROESUS.
O king of the Lydians, I am come to the country of the Greeks, in order to become acquainted with their customs and institutions; but I have no need of gold, and shall be quite contented if I return to Scythia a better man than I left it. However I will come to Sardis, as I think it very desirable to become a friend of yours.
1. Some propose to read karpon, fruit, instead of kapnon, smoke, here; others explain this saying as meaning that the Greeks avoided houses on the hills in order not to be annoyed with the smoke from the low cottages, and yet did not use coal, but wood, which made more smoke.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF ANACHARSIS
I. ANACHARSIS the Scythian was the son of Gnurus, and the brother of Caduides the king of the Scythians; but his mother was a Grecian woman; owing to which circumstance he understood both languages.
II. He wrote about the laws existing among the Scythians, and also about those in force among the Greeks, urging men to adopt a temperate course of life; and he wrote also about war, his works being in verse, and amounting to eight hundred lines: he gave occasion for a proverb, because he used great freedom of speech, so that people called such freedom the Scythian conversation.
III. But Sosicrates says that he came to Athens in the forty-seventh Olympiad, in the archonship of Eucrates. And Hermippus asserts that he came to Solon's house, and ordered one of the servants to go and tell his master that Anacharsis was come to visit him, and was desirous to see him, and, if possible, to enter into relations of hospitality with him. But when the servant had given the message, he was ordered by Solon to reply to him that, "Men generally limited such alliances to their own countrymen. " In reply to this Anacharsis entered the house, and told the servant that now he was in Solon's country, and that it was quite consistent for them to become connected with one another in this way. On this, Solon admired the readiness of the man, and admitted him, and made him one of his greatest friends.
IV. But after some time, when he had returned to Scythia, and shown a purpose to abrogate the existing institutions of his country, being exceedingly earnest, in his fondness for Grecian customs, he was shot by his brother while he was out hunting, and so he died, saying, "That he was saved on account of the sense and eloquence which he had brought from Greece, but slain in consequence of envy in his own family. " Some, however, relate that he was slain while performing some Grecian sacrificatory rites. And we have written this epigram on him:
When Anacharsis to his land returned,
His mind was turn'd, so that he wished to make
His countrymen all live in Grecian fashion--
So, ere his words had well escaped his lips,
A winged arrow bore him to the Gods.
V. He said that a vine bore three bunches of grapes. The first, the bunch of pleasure; the second, that of drunkenness; the third that of disgust. He also said that he marvelled that among the Greeks, those who were skilful in a thing contend together; but those who have no such skill act as judges of the contest. Being once asked how a person might be made not fond of drinking, he said, "If he always keeps in view the indecorous actions of drunken men. " He used also to say, that he marvelled how the Greeks, who make laws against those who behave with insolence, honour Athletae because of their beating one another. When he had been informed that the sides of a ship were four fingers thick, he said, "That those who sailed in one were removed by just that distance from death. " He used to say that oil was a provocative of madness, "because Athletae, when anointed in the oil, attacked one another with mad fury. "
"How is it," he used to say, "that those who forbid men to speak falsely, tell lies openly in their vintners' shops? " It was a saying of his, that he "marvelled why the Greeks, at the beginning of a banquet, drink out of small cups, but when they have drunk a good deal, then they turn to large goblets. " And this inscription is on his statues--"Restrain your tongues, your appetites, and your passions. " He was once asked if the flute was known among the Scythians; and he said, "No, nor the vine either. " At another time, the question was put to him, which was the safest kind of vessel? and he said, "That which is brought into dock. " He said, too, that the strangest things that he had seen among the Greeks was, that "They left the smoke1 in the mountains, and carried the wood down to their cities. " Once, when he was asked, which were the more numerous, the living or the dead? he said, "Under which head do you class those who are at sea. " Being reproached by an Athenian for being a Scythian, he said, "Well, my country is a disgrace to me, but you are a disgrace to your country. " When he was asked what there was among men which was both good and bad, he replied, "The tongue. " He used to say "That it was better to have one friend of great value, than many friends who were good for nothing. " Another saying of his was, that "The forum was an established place for men to cheat one another, and behave covetously. " Being once insulted by a young man at a drinking party, he said, "O, young man, if now that you are young you cannot bear wine, when you are old you will have to bear water. "
VI. Of things which are of use in life, he is said to have been the inventor of the anchor, and of the potter's wheel.
VII. The following letter of his is extant:
ANACHARSIS TO CROESUS.
O king of the Lydians, I am come to the country of the Greeks, in order to become acquainted with their customs and institutions; but I have no need of gold, and shall be quite contented if I return to Scythia a better man than I left it. However I will come to Sardis, as I think it very desirable to become a friend of yours.
1. Some propose to read karpon, fruit, instead of kapnon, smoke, here; others explain this saying as meaning that the Greeks avoided houses on the hills in order not to be annoyed with the smoke from the low cottages, and yet did not use coal, but wood, which made more smoke.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF ANACHARSIS
I.
ANACHARSIS the Scythian was the son of Gnurus, and the brother of Caduides the king of the Scythians; but his mother was a Grecian woman; owing to which circumstance he understood both languages.
II. He wrote about the laws existing among the Scythians, and also about those in force among the Greeks, urging men to adopt a temperate course of life; and he wrote also about war, his works being in verse, and amounting to eight hundred lines: he gave occasion for a proverb, because he used great freedom of speech, so that people called such freedom the Scythian conversation.
III. But Sosicrates says that he came to Athens in the forty-seventh Olympiad, in the archonship of Eucrates. And Hermippus asserts that he came to Solon's house, and ordered one of the servants to go and tell his master that Anacharsis was come to visit him, and was desirous to see him, and, if possible, to enter into relations of hospitality with him. But when the servant had given the message, he was ordered by Solon to reply to him that, "Men generally limited such alliances to their own countrymen. " In reply to this Anacharsis entered the house, and told the servant that now he was in Solon's country, and that it was quite consistent for them to become connected with one another in this way. On this, Solon admired the readiness of the man, and admitted him, and made him one of his greatest friends.
IV. But after some time, when he had returned to Scythia, and shown a purpose to abrogate the existing institutions of his country, being exceedingly earnest, in his fondness for Grecian customs, he was shot by his brother while he was out hunting, and so he died, saying, "That he was saved on account of the sense and eloquence which he had brought from Greece, but slain in consequence of envy in his own family. " Some, however, relate that he was slain while performing some Grecian sacrificatory rites. And we have written this epigram on him:
When Anacharsis to his land returned,
His mind was turn'd, so that he wished to make
His countrymen all live in Grecian fashion--
So, ere his words had well escaped his lips,
A winged arrow bore him to the Gods.
V. He said that a vine bore three bunches of grapes. The first, the bunch of pleasure; the second, that of drunkenness; the third that of disgust. He also said that he marvelled that among the Greeks, those who were skilful in a thing contend together; but those who have no such skill act as judges of the contest. Being once asked how a person might be made not fond of drinking, he said, "If he always keeps in view the indecorous actions of drunken men. " He used also to say, that he marvelled how the Greeks, who make laws against those who behave with insolence, honour Athletae because of their beating one another. When he had been informed that the sides of a ship were four fingers thick, he said, "That those who sailed in one were removed by just that distance from death. " He used to say that oil was a provocative of madness, "because Athletae, when anointed in the oil, attacked one another with mad fury. "
"How is it," he used to say, "that those who forbid men to speak falsely, tell lies openly in their vintners' shops? " It was a saying of his, that he "marvelled why the Greeks, at the beginning of a banquet, drink out of small cups, but when they have drunk a good deal, then they turn to large goblets. " And this inscription is on his statues--"Restrain your tongues, your appetites, and your passions. " He was once asked if the flute was known among the Scythians; and he said, "No, nor the vine either. " At another time, the question was put to him, which was the safest kind of vessel? and he said, "That which is brought into dock. " He said, too, that the strangest things that he had seen among the Greeks was, that "They left the smoke1 in the mountains, and carried the wood down to their cities. " Once, when he was asked, which were the more numerous, the living or the dead? he said, "Under which head do you class those who are at sea. " Being reproached by an Athenian for being a Scythian, he said, "Well, my country is a disgrace to me, but you are a disgrace to your country. " When he was asked what there was among men which was both good and bad, he replied, "The tongue. " He used to say "That it was better to have one friend of great value, than many friends who were good for nothing. " Another saying of his was, that "The forum was an established place for men to cheat one another, and behave covetously. " Being once insulted by a young man at a drinking party, he said, "O, young man, if now that you are young you cannot bear wine, when you are old you will have to bear water. "
VI. Of things which are of use in life, he is said to have been the inventor of the anchor, and of the potter's wheel.
VII. The following letter of his is extant:
ANACHARSIS TO CROESUS.
O king of the Lydians, I am come to the country of the Greeks, in order to become acquainted with their customs and institutions; but I have no need of gold, and shall be quite contented if I return to Scythia a better man than I left it. However I will come to Sardis, as I think it very desirable to become a friend of yours.
1. Some propose to read karpon, fruit, instead of kapnon, smoke, here; others explain this saying as meaning that the Greeks avoided houses on the hills in order not to be annoyed with the smoke from the low cottages, and yet did not use coal, but wood, which made more smoke.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF MYSON
I. MYSON, the son of Strymon, as Sosicrates states, quoting Hermippus as his authority, a Chenean by birth, of some Aetaean or Laconian village, is reckoned one of the seven wise men, and they say that his father was tyrant of his country. It is said by some writers that when Anacharsis inquired if any one was wiser than he, the priestess at Delphi gave the answer which has been already quoted in the life of Thales in reference to Chilon:
I say that Myson the Aetaean sage,
The citizen of Chen, is wiser far
In his deep mind than you.
And that he, having taken a great deal of trouble, came to the village, and found him in the summer season fitting a handle to a plough, and he addressed him, "O Myson, this is not now the season for the plough. " "Indeed," said he, "it is a capital season for preparing one;" but others say, that the words of the oracle are the Etean sage, and they raise the question, what the word Etean means. So Parmenides says, that it is a borough of Laconia, of which Myson was a native; but Sosicrates, in his Successions says, that he was an Etean on his father's side, and a Chenean by his mother's. But Euthyphro, the son of Heraclides Ponticus, says that he was a Cretan, for that Etea was a city of Crete.
II. And Anaxilaus says that he was an Arcadian. Hipponax also mentions him, saying, "And Myson, whom Apollo stated to be the most prudent of all men. " But Aristoxenus, in his Miscellanies, says that his habits were not very different from those of Timon and Apemantus, for that he was a misanthrope. And that accordingly he was one day found in Lacedaemon laughing by himself in a solitary place, and when some one came up to him on a sudden and asked him why he laughed when he was by himself, he said, "For that very reason. " Aristoxenus also says that he was not thought much of, because he was not a native of any city, but only of a village, and that too one of no great note; and according to him, it is on account of this obscurity of his that some people attribute his sayings and doings to Pisistratus the tyrant, but he excepts Plato the philosopher, for he mentions Myson in his Protagoras, placing him among the wise men instead of Periander.
III. It used to be a common saying of his that men ought not to seek for things in words, but for words in things; for that things are not made on account of words, but that words are put together for the sake of things.
IV. He died when he had lived ninety-seven years.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF EPIMENIDES
I. EPIMENIDES, as Theopompus and many other writers tell us, was the son of a man named Phaedrus*, but some call him the son of Dosiadas; and others of Agesarchus. He was a Cretan by birth, of the city of Cnossus; but because he let his hair grow long, he did not look like a Cretan.
II. He once, when he was sent by his father into the fields to look for a sheep, turned out of the road at mid-day and lay down in a certain cave and fell asleep and slept there fifty-seven years; and after that, when he awoke, he went on looking for the sheep, thinking that he had been taking a short nap; but as he could not find it he went on to the field and there he found everything changed, and the estate in another person's possession, and so he came back again to the city in great perplexity, and as he was going into his own house he met some people who asked him who he was, until at last he found his younger brother who had now become an old man, and from him he learnt all the truth.
III. And when he was recognized he was considered by the Greeks as a person especially beloved by the Gods, on which account when the Athenians were afflicted by a plague, and the priestess at Delphi enjoined them to purify their city; they sent a ship and Nicias the son of Niceratus to Crete, to invite Epimenides to Athens; and he, coming there in the forty-sixth Olympiad, purified the city and eradicated the plague for that time; he took some black sheep and some white ones and led them up to the Areopagus, and from thence he let them go wherever they chose, having ordered the attendants to follow them, and wherever any one of them lay down they were to sacrifice him to the God who was the patron of the spot, and so the evil was stayed; and owing to this one may even now find in the different boroughs of the Athenians altars without names, which are a sort of memorial of the propitiation of the Gods that then took place. Some said that the cause of the plague was the pollution contracted by the city in the matter of Cylon, and that Epimenides pointed out to the Athenians how to get rid of it, and that in consequence they put to death two young men, Cratinus and Ctesilius*, and that thus the pestilence was put an end to.
And the Athenians passed a vote to give him a talent and a ship to convey him back to Crete, but he would not accept the money, but made a treaty of friendship and alliance between the Cnossians and Athenians.
IV. And not long after he had returned home he died, as Phlegon relates in his book on long-lived people, after he had lived a hundred and fifty-seven years; but as the Cretans report he had lived two hundred and ninety-nine; but as Xenophanes the Colophonian, states that he had heard it reported, he was a hundred and fifty-four years old when he died.
V. He wrote a poem of five thousand verses on the Generation and Theogony of the Curetes and Corybantes, and another poem of six thousand five hundred verses on the building of the Argo and the expedition of Jason to Colchis.
VI. He also wrote a treatise in prose on the Sacrifices in Crete, and the Cretan Constitution, and on Minos and Rhadamanthus, occupying four thousand lines.
Likewise he built at Athens the temple which is there dedicated to the venerable goddesses, as Lobon the Augur says in his book on Poets; and he is said to have been the first person who purified houses and lands, and who built temples.
VII. There are some people who assert that he did not sleep for the length of time that has been mentioned above, but that he was absent from his country for a considerable period, occupying himself with the anatomisation and examination of roots.
VIII. A letter of his is quoted, addressed to Solon the lawgiver, in which he discusses the constitution which Minos gave the Cretans. But Demetrius the Magnesian, in his treatise on Poets and Prose writers of the same name as one another, attempts to prove that the letter is a modern one, and is not written in the Cretan but in the Attic dialect, and the new Attic too.
IX. But I have also discovered another letter of his which runs thus:
EPIMENIDES TO SOLON.
Be of good cheer, my friend; for if Pisistratus had imposed his laws on the Athenians, they being habituated to slavery and not accustomed to good laws previously, he would have maintained his dominion for ever, succeeding easily in enslaving his fellow countrymen; but as it is, he is lording it over men who are no cowards, but who remember the precepts of Solon and are indignant at their bonds, and who will not endure the supremacy of a tyrant. But if Pisistratus does possess the city to-day, still I have no expectation that the supreme power will ever descend to his children. For it is impossible that men who have lived in freedom and in the enjoyment of most excellent laws should be slaves permanently; but as for yourself, do not you go wandering about at random, but come and visit me, for here there is no supreme ruler to be formidable to you; but if while you are wandering about any of the friends of Pisistratus should fall in with you, I fear you might suffer some misfortune.
He wrote thus.
X. But Demetrius says that some writers report that he used to receive food from the nymphs and keep it in a bullock's hoof; and that eating it in small quantities he never required any evacuations, and was never seen eating. And Timaeus mentions him in his second book.
XI. Some authors say also that the Cretans sacrifice to him as a god, for they say that he was the wisest of men; and accordingly, that when he saw the port of Munychia,1 at Athens, he said that the Athenians did not know how many evils that place would bring upon them: since, if they did, they would tear it to pieces with their teeth; and he said this a long time before the event to which he alluded. It is said also, that he at first called himself Aeacus; and that he foretold to the Lacedaemonians the defeat which they should suffer from the Arcadians; and that he pretended that he had lived several times. But Theopompus, in his Strange Stories, says that when he was building the temple of the Nymphs, a voice burst forth from heaven;--"Oh! Epimenides, build this temple, not for the Nymphs but for Jupiter. " He also foretold to the Cretans the defeat of the Lacedaemonians by the Arcadians as has been said before. And, indeed, they were beaten at Orchomenos.
XII. He pretended also, that he grew old rapidly, in the same number of days as he had been years asleep; at least, so Theopompus says. But Mysonianus*, in his Coincidences, says, that the Cretans call him one of the Curetes. And the Lacedaemonians preserve his body among them, in obedience to some oracle, as Sosilius the Lacedaemonian says.
XIII. There were also two other Epimenides, one the genealogist; the other, the man who wrote a history of Rhodes in the Doric dialect.
1. This refers to the result of the war which Antipater, who became regent of Macedonia on the death of Alexander the Great, carried on against the confederacy of Greek states, of which Athens was the head; and in which, after having defeated them at Cranon, he compelled the Athenians to abolish the democracy, and to admit a garrison into Munychia.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF PHERECYDES
I. PHERECYDES was a Syrian, the son of Babys, and, as Alexander says, in his Successions, he had been a pupil of Pittacus.
II. Theopompus says that he was the first person who ever wrote among the Greeks on the subject of Natural Philosophy and the Gods. And there are many marvellous stories told of him. For it is said that he was walking along the sea-shore at Samos, and that seeing a ship sailing by with a fair wind, he said that it would soon sink; and presently it sank before their eyes. At another time he was drinking some water which had been drawn up out of a well, and he foretold that within three days there would be an earthquake; and there was one. And as he was going up to Olympia, and had arrived at Messene, he advised his entertainer, Perilaus, to migrate from the city with all his family, but that Perilaus would not be guided by him; and afterwards Messene was taken.
III. And he is said to have told the Lacedaemonians to honour neither gold nor silver, as Theopompus says in his Marvels; and it is reported that Hercules laid this injunction on him in a dream, and that the same night he appeared also to the kings of Sparta, and enjoined them to be guided by Pherecydes; but some attribute these stories to Pythagoras.
IV. And Hermippus relates that when there was a war between the Ephesians and Magnesians, he, wishing the Ephesians to conquer, asked some one, who was passing by, from whence he came? and when he said, "From Ephesus," "Drag me now," said he, "by the legs, and place me in the territory of the Magnesians, and tell your fellow countrymen to bury me there after they have got the victory; and that he went and reported that Pherecydes had given him this order. And so they went forth the next day and defeated the Magnesians; and as Pherecydes was dead, they buried him there, and paid him very splendid honours.
V. But some writers say that he went to Delphi, and threw himself down from the Corycian hill; Aristoxenus, in his History of Pythagoras and his Friends, says that Pherecydes fell sick and died, and was buried by Pythagoras in Delos. But others say that he died of the lousy disease; and when Pythagoras came to see him, and asked him how he was, he put his finger through the door, and said, "You may see by my skin. " And from this circumstance that expression passed into a proverb among the philosophers, when affairs are going on badly; and those who apply it to affairs that are going on well, make a blunder. He used to say, also, that the Gods call their table thuoros.
VI. But Andron, the Ephesian, says that there were two men of the name of Pherecydes, both Syrians: one an astronomer, and the other a writer on God and the Divine Nature; and that this last was the son of Babys, who was also the master of Pythagoras. But Eratosthenes asserts that there was but one, who was a Syrian; and that the other Pherecydes was an Athenian, a genealogist; and the work of the Syrian Pherecydes is preserved and it begins thus:--"Jupiter, and Time, and Chthon existed externally. " And the name of Cthonia became Tellus, after Jupiter gave it to her as a reward. A sun-dial is also preserved, in the island of Syra, of his making.
VII. But Duris, in the second book of his Boundaries, says that this epigram was written upon him:
The limit of all wisdom is in me;
And would be, were it larger. But report
To my Pythagoras that he's the first
Of all the men that tread the Grecian soil;
I shall not speak falsehood, saying this.
And Ion, the Chian, says of him:
Adorned with valour while alive, and modesty,
Now that he's dead he still exists in peace;
For, like the wise Pythagoras, he studied
The manners and the minds of many nations.
And I myself have composed an epigram on him in the Pherecratean metre :
The story is reported,
That noble Pherecydes
Whom Syros calls her own,
Was eaten up by lice;
And so he bade his friends,
Convey his corpse away
To the Magnesian land,
That he might victory give
To holy Ephesus.
For well the God had said,
(Though he alone did know
Th' oracular prediction),
That this was fate's decree.
So in that land he lies.
This then is surely true,
That those who're really wise
Are useful while alive,
And e'en when breath has left them.
VIII. And he flourished about the fifty-ninth Olympiad. There is a letter of his extant in the following terms:
PHERECYDES TO THALES.
May you die happily when fate overtakes you. Disease has seized upon me at the same time that I received your letter. I am all over lice, and suffering likewise under a low fever. Accordingly, I have charged my servants to convey this book of mine to you, after they have buried me. And do you, if you think fit, after consulting with the other wise men, publish it; but if you do not approve of doing so, then keep it unpublished, for I am not entirely pleased with it myself. The subject is not one about which there is any certain knowledge, nor do I undertake to say that I have arrived at the truth; but I have advanced arguments, from which any one who occupies himself with speculations on the divine nature, may make a selection; and as to other points, he must exercise his intellect, for I speak obscurely throughout. I, myself, as I am afflicted more severely by this disease every day, no longer admit any physicians, or any of my friends. But when they stand at the door, and ask me how I am, I put out my finger to them through the opening of the door, and show them how I am eaten up with the evil; and I desired them to come to-morrow to the funeral of Pherecydes.
These, then, are they who were called wise men; to which list some writers add the name of Pisistratus. But we must also speak of the philosophers. And we will begin first with the Ionic philosophy, the founder of which school was Thales, who was the master of Anaximander.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF ANAXIMANDER
I. ANAXIMANDER, the son of Praxiadas, was a citizen of Miletus.
II. He used to assert that the principle and primary element of all things was the Infinity, giving no exact definition as to whether he meant air or water, or anything else. And he said that the parts were susceptible of change, but that the whole was unchangeable; and that the earth lay in the middle, being placed there as a sort of centre, of a spherical shape. The moon, he said, had a borrowed light, and borrowed it from the sun; and the sun he affirmed to be not less than the earth, and the purest possible fire.
III. He also was the first discoverer of the gnomon; and he placed some in Lacedaemon on the sun-dials there, as Favorinus says in his Universal History, and they showed the solstices and the equinoxes; he also made clocks. He was the first person, too, who drew a map of the earth and sea, and he also made a globe; and he published a concise statement of whatever opinions he embraced or entertained; and this treatise was met with by Apollodorus the Athenian.
IV. And Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, states, that in the second year of the fifty-eighth Olympiad, he was sixty-four years old. And soon after he died, having flourished much about the same time as Polycrates, the tyrant, of Samos. They say that when he sang, the children laughed; and that he, hearing of this, said, "We must then sing better for the sake of the children. "
V. There was also another Anaximander, a historian; and he too was a Milesian, and wrote in the Ionic dialect.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF ANAXAGORAS
I. ANAXAGORAS, the son of Hegesibulus, or Eubulus, was a citizen of Clazomenae. He was a pupil of Anaximenes, and was the first philosopher who attributed mind to matter, beginning his treatise on the subject in the following manner (and the whole treatise is written in a most beautiful and magnificent style): "All things were mixed up together; then Mind came and arranged them all in distinct order. " On which account he himself got the same name of Mind. And Timon speaks thus of him in his Silli:
They say too that wise Anaxagoras,
Deserves immortal fame; they call him Mind,
Because, as he doth teach, Mind came in season,
Arranging all which was confus'd before.
II. He was eminent for his noble birth and for his riches, and still more so for his magnanimity, inasmuch as he gave up all his patrimony to his relations; and being blamed by them for his neglect of his estate "Why, then," said he, "do not you take care of it? " And at last he abandoned it entirely, and devoted himself to the contemplation of subjects of natural philosophy, disregarding politics. So that once when some said to him "You have no affection for your country," "Be silent," said he, "for I have the greatest affection for my country," pointing up to heaven.
III. It is said, that at the time of the passage of the Hellespont by Xerxes, he was twenty years old, and that he lived to the age of seventy-two. But Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says that he flourished in the seventieth Olympiad, and that he died in the first year of the seventy-eighth. And he began to study philosophy at Athens, in the archonship of Callias, being twenty years of age, as Demetrius Phalerius tells us in his Catalogue of the Archons, and they say that he remained at Athens thirty years.
IV. He asserted that the sun was a mass of burning iron, greater than Peloponnesus; (but some attribute this doctrine to Tantalus), and that the moon contained houses, and also hills and ravines: and that the primary elements of everything were similarities of parts; for as we say that gold consists of a quantity of grains combined together, so too is the universe formed of a number of small bodies of similar parts. He further taught that Mind was the principle of motion: and that of bodies the heavy ones, such as the earth, occupied the lower situations; and the light ones, such as fire, occupied the higher places, and that the middle spaces were assigned to water and air. And thus that the sea rested upon the earth, which was broad, the moisture being all evaporated by the sun. And he said that the stars originally moved about in irregular confusion, so that at first the pole star, which is continually visible, always appeared in the zenith, but that afterwards it acquired a certain declination. And that the milky way was a reflection of the light of the sun when the stars did not appear. The comets he considered to be a concourse of planets emitting rays: and the shooting stars he thought were sparks as it were leaping from the firmament. The winds he thought were caused by the rarification of the atmosphere, which was produced by the sun. Thunder, he said, was produced by the collision of the clouds; and lightning by the rubbing together of the clouds. Earthquakes, he said, were produced by the return of the air into the earth. All animals he considered were originally generated out of moisture, and heat, and earthy particles: and subsequently from one another. And males he considered were derived from those on the right hand, and females from those on the left.
