No More Learning

And he alone voted for the acquittal of the ten generals;1 and when it was in his power to escape out of prison he would not do it; and he reproved those who bewailed his fate, and even while in prison, he delivered those beautiful discourses which we still possess.

IX. He was a contented and venerable man. And once, as Pamphila says, in the seventh book of her Commentaries, when Alcibiades offered him a large piece of ground to build a house upon, he said, "But if I wanted shoes, and you had given me a piece of leather to make myself shoes, I should be laughed at if I took it. " And often, when he beheld the multitude of things which were being sold, he would say to himself, "How many things are there which I do not want. " And he was continually repeating these iambics:

For silver plate and purple useful are
For actors on the stage, but not for men.
And he showed his scorn of Archelaus the Macedonian, and Scopas the Crononian, and Eurylochus of Larissa, when he refused to accept their money, and to go and visit them. And he was so regular in his way of living, that it happened more than once when there was a plague at Athens, that he was the only person who did not catch it.

X. Aristotle says, that be had two wives. The first was Xanthippe, by whom he had a son named Lamprocles; the second was Myrto, the daughter of Aristides the Just; and he took her without any dowry, and by her he had two son Sophroniscus and Menexenus. But some say that Myrto was his first wife. And some, among whom are Satyrus, and Hieronymus, of Rhodes, say that he had them both at the same time. For they say that the Athenians, on account of the scarcity of men, passed a vote, with the view of increasing the population, that a man might marry one citizen, and might also have children by another who should be legitimate; on which account Socrates did so.

XI. And he was a man able to look down upon any who mocked him. And he prided himself upon the simplicity of his way of life; and never exacted any pay from his pupils. And he used to say, that the man who ate with the greatest appetite, had the least need of delicacies; and that he who drank with the greatest appetite, was the least inclined to look for a draught which is not at hand; and that those who want fewest things are nearest to the Gods. And thus much, indeed, one may learn from the comic poets; who, without perceiving it, praise him in the very matters for which they ridicule him. Aristophanes speaks thus :

Prudent man, who thus with justice long for mighty wisdom,
Happiness will be your lot in Athens, and all Greece too;
For you've a noble memory, and plenty of invention,
And patience dwells within your mind, and you are never tired,
Whether you're standing still or walking; and you care not for cold,
Nor do you long for breakfast time, nor e'er give in to hunger;
But wine and gluttony you shun, and and all such kind of follies.
And Ameipsias introduces him on the stage in a cloak, and speaks thus of him:

O Socrates, among few men the best,
And among many vainest; here at last
You come to us courageously-but where,
Where did you get that cloak? so strange a garment,
Some leather cutter must have given you
By way of joke: and yet this worthy man,
Though ne'er so hungry, never flatters any one.
Aristophanes too, exposes his contemptuous and arrogant disposition, speaking thus :

You strut along the streets, and look around you proudly,
And barefoot many ills endure, and hold your head above us.
And yet, sometimes he adapted himself to the occasion and dressed handsomely. As, for instance, in the banquet of Plato, where he is represented as going to find Agathon.

XII. He was a man of great ability, both in exhorting men to, and dissuading them from, any course; as, for instance, having discoursed with Theaetetus on the subject of knowledge, he sent him away almost inspired, as Plato says. And when Euthyphro had commenced a prosecution against his father for having killed a foreigner, he conversed with him on the subject of piety, and turned him from his purpose: and by his exhortations he made Lysis a most moral man. For he was very ingenious at deriving arguments from existing circumstances. And so he mollified his son Lamprocles when he was very angry with his mother, as Xenophon mentions somewhere in his works; and he wrought upon Glaucon, the brother of Plato, who was desirous to meddle with affairs of state, and induced him to abandon his purpose, because of his want of experience in such matters, as Xenophon relates. And, on the contrary, he persuaded Charmides to devote himself to politics, because he was a man very well calculated for such business. He also inspired Iphicrates, the general, with courage, by showing him the gamecocks of Midias the barber, pluming themselves against those of Callias; and Glauernides* said, that the state ought to keep him carefully, as if he were a pheasant or a peacock. He used also to say, that it was a strange thing that every one could easily tell what property he had, but was not able to name all his friends, or even to tell their number; so careless were men on that subject. Once when he saw Euclid exceedingly anxious about some dialectic arguments, he said to him, "O Euclid, you will acquire a power of managing sophists, but not of governing men. " For he thought that subtle hair-splitting on those subjects was quite useless; as Plato also records in the Euthydemus.

XIII. And when Charmides offered him some slaves, with the view to his making a profit of them, he would not have them; and, as some people say, he paid no regard to the beauty of Alcibiades.

XIV. He used to praise leisure as the most valuable of possessions, as Xenophon tells us in his Banquet. And it was a saying of his that there was one only good, namely, knowledge; and one only evil, namely ignorance; that riches and high birth had nothing estimable in them, but that, on the contrary, they were wholly evil. Accordingly, when some one told him that the mother of Antisthenes was a Thracian woman "Did you suppose," said he, "that so noble a man must be born of two Athenians? " And when Phaedo was reduced to a state of slavery, he ordered Crito to ransom him, and taught him, and made him a philosopher.

XV. And, moreover, he used to learn to play on the lyre when he had time, saying, that it it was not absurd to learn anything that one did not know; and further, he used frequently to dance, thinking such an exercise good for the health of the body, as Xenophon relates in his Banquet.

XVI. He used also to say that the daemon foretold the future to him;2

and that to begin well was not a trifling thing, but yet not far from a trifling thing; and that he knew nothing, except the fact of his ignorance. Another saying of his was, that those who bought things out of season, at an extravagant price, expected never to live till the proper season for them. Once, when he was asked what was the virtue of a young man, he said, "To avoid excess in everything. " And he used to say, that it was necessary to learn geometry only so far as might enable a man to measure land for the purposes of buying and selling. And when Euripides, in his Augur, had spoken thus of virtue :

'Tis best to leave these subjects undisturbed;
he rose up and left the theatre, saying that it was an absurdity to think it right to seek for a slave if one could not find him, but to let virtue be altogether disregarded. The question was once put to him by a man whether he would advise him to marry or not? And he replied, "Whichever you do, you will repent it. " He often said, that he wondered at those who made stone statues, when he saw how careful they were that the stone should be like the man it was intended to represent, but how careless they were of themselves, as to guarding against being like the stone. He used also to recommend young men to be constantly looking in the glass, in order that, if they were handsome, they might be worthy of their beauty; and if they were ugly, they might conceal their unsightly appearance by their accomplishments. He once invited some rich men to dinner, and when Xanthippe was ashamed of their insufficient appointments, he said, "Be of good cheer; for if our guests are sensible men, they will bear with us; and if they are not, we need not care about them. " He used to say, "That other men lived to eat, but that he ate to live. " Another saying of his was, "That to have a regard for the worthless multitude, was like the case of a man who refused to take one piece of money of four drachmas as if it were bad, and then took a heap of such coins and admitted them to be good. " When Aeschines said, "I am a poor man, and have nothing else, but I give you myself;" "Do you not," he replied, "perceive that you are giving me what is of the greatest value? " He said to some one, who was expressing indignation at being overlooked when the thirty had seized on the supreme power, "Do you, then, repent of not being a tyrant too? " A man said to him, "The Athenians have condemned you to death. " "And nature," he replied, "has condemned them. " But some attribute this answer to Anaxagoras. When his wife said to him, "You die undeservedly. " "Would you, then," he rejoined, "have had me deserve death? " He thought once that some one appeared to him in a dream, and said:

On the third day you'll come to lovely Phthia.
And so he said to Aeschines "In three days I shall die. " And when he was about to drink the hemlock, Apollodorus presented him with a handsome robe, that he might expire in it; and he said; "Why was my own dress good enough to live in; and not good enough to die in? " When a person said to him, "Such an one speaks ill of you;" "To be sure," said he, "for he has never learnt to speak well. " When Antisthenes turned the ragged side of his cloak to the light, he said, "I see your silly vanity through the holes in your cloak. " When some one said to him, "Does not that man abuse you? " "No," said he, "for that does not apply to me. " It was a saying of his, too, "That it is a good thing for a man to offer himself cheerfully to the attacks of the comic writers; for then, if they say anything worth hearing, one will be able to mend; and if they do not, then all they say is unimportant. "

XVII. He said once to Xanthippe, who first abused him, and then threw water at him, "Did I not say that Xanthippe was thundering now, and would soon rain? " When Alcibiades said to him, "The abusive temper of Xanthippe is intolerable;" "But I," he rejoined, "am used to it, just as I should be if I were always hearing the noise of a pulley; and you yourself endure to hear geese cackling. " To which Alcibiades answered, "Yes, but they bring me eggs and goslings. " "Well," rejoined Socrates, "and Xanthippe brings me children. " Once, she attacked him in the market-place, and tore his cloak off; his friends advised him to keep her off with his hands; "Yes, by Jove," said he, "that while we are boxing you may all cry out, 'Well done, Socrates, well done, Xanthippe. '" And he used to say, that one ought to live with a restive woman, just as horsemen manage violent-tempered horses; "and as they," said he, "when they have once mastered them, are easily able to manage all others; so I, after managing Xanthippe, can easily live with any one else whatever. "

XVIII. And it was in consequence of such sayings and actions as these, that the priestess at Delphi was witness in his favour, when she gave Chaerephon this answer, which is so universally known:

Socrates of all mortals is the wisest.
In consequence of which answer, he incurred great envy; and he brought envy also on himself, by convicting men who gave themselves airs of folly and ignorance, as undoubtedly he did to Anytus; and as is shown in Plato's Meno. For he, not being able to bear Socrates' jesting, first of all set Aristophanes to attack him, and then persuaded Melitus to institute a prosecution against him, on the ground of impiety and of corrupting the youth of the city. Accordingly Melitus did institute the prosecution; and Polyeuctus pronounced the sentence, as Favorinus records in his Universal History. And Polycrates, the sophist, wrote the speech which was delivered, as Hermippus says, not Anytus, as others say. And Lycon, the demagogue, prepared everything necessary to support the impeachment; but Antisthenes in his Successions of the Philosophers, and Plato in his Apology, say that these men brought the accusation: Anytus, and Lycon, and Melitus; Anytus, acting against him on behalf of the magistrates, and because of his political principles; Lycon, on behalf of the orators; and Melitus on behalf of the poets, all of whom Socrates used to pull to pieces. But Favorinus, in the first book of his Commentaries, says, that the speech of Polycrates against Socrates is not the genuine one; for in it there is mention made of the walls having been restored by Conon, which took place six years after the death of Socrates; and certainly this is true.

XIX. But the sworn informations, on which the trial proceeded, were drawn up in this fashion; for they are preserved to this day, says Favorinus, in the temple of Cybele: "Melitus, the son of Melitus, of Pittea, impeaches Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus, of Alopece: Socrates is guilty, inasmuch as he does not believe in the Gods whom the city worships, but introduces other strange deities; he is also guilty, inasmuch as he corrupts the young men, and the punishment he has incurred is death. "

XX. But the philosopher, after Lysias had prepared a defence for him, read it through, and said-"It is a very fine speech, Lysias, but is not suitable for me; for it was manifestly the speech of a lawyer, rather than of a philosopher. " And when Lysias replied, "How is it possible, that if it is a good speech, it should not be suitable to you? " he said, "Just as fine clothes and handsome shoes would not be suitable to me. " And when the trial was proceeding, Justus, of Tiberias, in his Garland, says that Plato ascended the tribune and said, "I, men of Athens, being the youngest of all those who have mounted the tribune . . . and that he was interrupted by the judges, who cried out katabanton, that is to say, 'Come down. '

XXI. So when he had been condemned by two hundred and eighty-one votes, being six more than were given in his favour, and when the judges were making an estimate of what punishment or fine should be inflicted on him, he said that he ought to be fined five and twenty drachmas; but Eubulides says that he admitted that he deserved a fine of one hundred. And when the judges raised an outcry at this proposition, he said, "My real opinion is, that as a return for what has been done by me, I deserve a maintenance in the Prytaneum for the rest of my life. " So they condemned him to death, by eighty votes more than they had originally found him guilty. And he was put into prison, and a few days afterwards he drank the hemlock, having held many admirable conversations in the meantime, which Plato has recorded in the Phaedo.

XXII. He also, according to some accounts, composed a paean, which begins

Hail Apollo, King of Delos,
Hail Diana, Leto's child.
But Dionysidorus says that this paean is not his. He also composed a fable, in the style of Aesop, not very artistically, and it begins-

Aesop one day did this sage counsel give
To the Corinthian magistrates: not to trust
The cause of virtue to the people's judgment.
XXIII. So he died; but the Athenians immediately repented3 of their action, so that they closed all the palaestrae and gymnasia; and they banished his accusers, and condemned Melitus to death; but they honoured Socrates with a brazen statue, which they erected in the place where the sacred vessels are kept; and it was the work of Lysippus. But Anytus had already left Athens; and the people of Heraclea banished him from that city the day of his arrival. But Socrates was not the only person who met with this treatment at the hands of the Athenians, but many other men received the same: for, as Heraclides says, they fined Homer fifty drachmas as a madman, and they said that Iystaeus* was out of his wits. But they honoured Astydamas, before Aeschylus, with a brazen statue. And Euripides reproaches them for their conduct in his Palamedes, saying:

Ye have slain, ye have slain,
O Greeks, the all-wise nightingale,
The favourite of the Muses, guiltless all.
And enough has been said on this head.

But Philochorus says that Euripides died before Socrates; and he was born, as Apollodorus in his Chronicles asserts, in the archonship of Apsephion, in the fourth year of the seventy-seventh Olympiad, on the sixth day of the month Thargelion, when the Athenians purify their city, and when the citizens of Delos say that Diana was born. And he died in the first year of the ninety-fifth Olympiad, being seventy years of age. And this is the calculation of Demetrius Phalereus, for some say that he was but sixty years old when he died.

XXIV. Both he and Euripides were pupils of Anaxagoras; and Euripides was born in the first year of the seventy-fifth Olympiad, in the archonship of Calliades. But Socrates appears to me to have also discussed occasionally subjects of natural philosophy, since he very often disputes about prudence and foresight, as Xenophon tells us; although he at the same time asserts that all his conversations were about moral philosophy. And Plato, in his Apology, mentions the principles of Anaxagoras and other natural philosophers, which Socrates denies; and he is in reality expressing his own sentiments about them, though he attributes them all to Socrates. And Aristotle tells us that a certain one of the Magi came from Syria to Athens, and blamed Socrates for many parts of his conduct, and also foretold that he would come to a violent death. And we ourselves have written this epigram on him

Drink now, O Socrates, in the realms of Jove,
For truly did the God pronounce you wise,
And he who said so is himself all wisdom:
You drank the poison which your country gave,
But they drank wisdom from your godlike voice.
XXV. He had, as Aristotle tells us in the third book of his Poetics, a contest with a man of the name of Antiolochus of Lemnos, and with Antipho, an interpreter of prodigies, as Pythagoras had with Cylon of Crotona; and Homer while alive with Sagaris, and after his death with Xenophanes the Colophonian; and Hesiod, too, in his lifetime with Cercops, and after his death with the same Xenophanes; and Pindar with Aphimenes of Cos; and Thales with Pherecydes; and Bias with Salamis of Priene; and Pittacus with Antimenides; and Cellaeus and Anaxagoras with Sosibrius; and Simonides with Timocrea.

XXVI. Of those who succeeded him, and who are called the Socratic school, the chiefs were Plato, Xenophon, and Antisthenes: and of the ten, as they are often called, the four most eminent were Aeschines, Phaedo, Euclides and Aristippus. But we must first speak of Xenophon, and after him of Antisthenes among the Cynics. Then of the Socratic school, and so about Plato, since he is the chief of the ten sects, and the founder of the first Academy. And the regular series of them shall proceed in this manner.

XXVII. There was also another Socrates, a historian, who wrote a description of Argos; and another, a peripatetic philosopher, a native of Bithynia; and another a writer of epigrams ; and another a native of Cos, who wrote invocations to the Gods.

1. After the battle of Arginusae.

2. "This is not quite correct. Socrates believed that the daemon which attended him, limited his warnings to his own conduct; preventing him from doing what was wrong, but not prompting him to do right. " See Grote's admirable chapter on Socrates. Hist. of Greece, vol. v.

3. Grote gives good reasons for disbelieving this.


























THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF XENOPHON


I. XENOPHON, the son of Gryllus, a citizen of Athens, was of the borough of Erchia; and he was a man of great modesty, and as handsome as can be imagined.

II. They say that Socrates met him in a narrow lane, and put his stick across it and prevented him from passing by, asking him where all kinds of necessary things were sold. And when he had answered him, he asked him again where men where made good and virtuous. And as he did not know, he said, "Follow me, then, and learn. " And from this time forth, Xenophon became a follower of Socrates.

III. And he was the first person who took down conversations as they occurred, and published them among men, calling them memorabilia. He was also the first man who wrote a history of philosophers.

IV. And Aristippus, in the fourth book of his treatise on Ancient Luxury, says that he loved Clinias; and that he said to him, "Now I look upon Clinias with more pleasure than upon all the other beautiful things which are to be seen among men; and I would rather be blind as to all the rest of the world, than as to Clinias. And I am annoyed even with night and with sleep, because then I do not see him; but I am very grateful to the sun and to daylight, because they show Clinias to me. "

V. He became a friend of Cyrus in this manner. He had an acquaintance by name Proxenus, a Boeotian by birth, a pupil of Gorgias of Leontini, and a friend of Cyrus. He being in Sardis, staying at the court of Cyrus, wrote a letter to Athens to Xenophon, inviting him to come and be a friend of Cyrus. And Xenophon showed the letter to Socrates, and asked his advice. And Socrates bade him go to Delphi, and ask counsel of the God. And Xenophon did so, and went to the God; but the question he put was, not whether it was good for him to go to Cyrus or not, but how he should go; for which Socrates blamed him, but still advised him to go. Accordingly he went to Cyrus, and became no less dear to him than Proxenus. And all the circumstances of the expedition and the retreat, he himself has sufficiently related to us.

VI. But he was at enmity with Meno the Pharsalian who was the commander of the foreign troops at the time of the expedition; and amongst other reproaches, he says that he was much addicted to the worst kind of debauchery. And he reproaches a man of the name of Apollonides with having his ears bored.

VII. But after the expedition, and the disasters which took place in Pontus, and the violations of the truce by Seuthes, the king of the Odrysae, he came into Asia to Agesilaus, the king of Lacedaemon, bringing with him the soldiers of Cyrus, to serve for pay; and he became a very great friend of Agesilaus. And about the same time he was condemned to banishment by the Athenians, on the charge of being a favourer of the Lacedaemonians. And being in Ephesus, and having a sum of money in gold, he gave half of it to Megabyzus, the priest of Diana, to keep for him till his return; and if he never returned, then he was to expend it upon a statue, and dedicate that to the Goddess; and with the other half he sent offerings to Delphi. From thence he went with Agesilaus into Greece, as Agesilaus was summoned to take part in the war against the Thebans. And the Lacedaemonians made him a friend of their city.

VIII. After this he left Agesilaus and went to Scillus, which is a strong place in the district of Elis, at no great distance from the city. And a woman followed him, whose name was Philesia, as Demetrius the Magnesian relates; and his sons, Gryllus and Diodorus, as Dinarchus states in the action against Xenophon;1 and they were also called Dioscuri. And when Megabyzus came into the country, on the occasion of some public assembly, he took back the money and bought a piece of ground, and consecrated it to the Goddess; and a river named Selinus, which is the same name as that of the river at Ephesus, flows through the land. And there he continued hunting, and entertaining his friends, and writing histories. But Dinarchus says that the Lacedaemonians gave him a house and land. They say also that Philopides,the Spartan, sent him there, as a present, some slaves, who had been taken prisoners of war, natives of Dardanus, and that he located them as he pleased. And that the Eleans, having made an expedition against Scillus, took the place, as the Lacedaemonians dawdled in coming to its assistance.

IX. But then his sons escaped privily to Lepreum, with a few servants; and Xenophon himself fled to Elis before the place fell; and from thence he went to Lepreum to his children, and from thence he escaped in safety to Corinth, and settled in that city.

X. In the meantime, as the Athenians had passed a vote to go to the assistance of the Lacedaemonians, he sent his sons to Athens, to join in the expedition in aid of the Lacedaemonians; for they had been educated in Sparta, as Diocles relates in his Lives of the Philosophers. Diodorus returned safe back again, without having at all distinguished himself in the battle. And he had a son who bore the same name as his brother Gryllus. But Gryllus, serving in the cavalry, (and the battle took place at Mantinea,) fought very gallantly, and was slain, as Ephorus tells us, in his twenty-fifth book; Cephisodorus being the Captain of the cavalry, and Hegesides the commander-in-chief. Epaminondas also fell in this battle. And after the battle, they say that Xenophon offered sacrifice, wearing a crown on his head; but when the news of the death of his son arrived, he took off the crown; but after that, hearing that he had fallen gloriously, he put the crown on again. And some say that he did not even shed a tear, but said, "I knew that I was the father of a mortal man. " And Aristotle says, that innumerable writers wrote panegyrics and epitaphs upon Gryllus, partly out of a wish to gratify his father. And Hermippus, in his Treatise on Theophrastus, says that Isocrates also composed a panegyric on Gryllus. But Timon ridicules him in these words:

A silly couplet, or e'en triplet of speeches,
Or longer series still, just such as Xenophon
Might write, or Meagre Aeschines.
Such, then, was the life of Xenophon.

XI. And he flourished about the fourth year of the ninety fourth Olympiad; and he took part in the expedition of Cyrus, in the archonship of Xenaenetus, the year before the death of Socrates. And he died, as Stesiclides the Athenian states in his List of Archons and Conquerors at Olympia, in the first year of the hundred and fifth Olympiad, in the archonship of Callidemides; in which year, Philip the son of Amyntas began to reign over the Macedonians.
And he died at Corinth, as Demetrius the Magnesian says, being of a very advanced age.

XII. And he was a man of great distinction in all points, and very fond of horses and of dogs, and a great tactician, as is manifest from his writings. And he was a pious man, fond of sacrificing to the Gods, and a great authority as to what was due to them, and a very ardent admirer and imitator of Socrates.

XIII. He also wrote near forty books; though different critics divide them differently. He wrote an account of the expedition of Cyrus, to each book of which work he prefixed a summary, though he gave none of the whole history. He also wrote the Cyropaedia, and a history of Greece, and Memorabilia of Socrates, and a treatise called the Banquet, and an essay on (Oeconomy, and one on Horsemanship, and one on Breaking Dogs, and one on Managing Horses, and a Defence of Socrates, and a Treatise on Revenues, and one called Hiero, or the Tyrant, and one called Agesilaus; one on the Constitution of the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, which, however, Demetrius the Magnesian says is not the work of Xenophon. It is said, also, that he secretly got possession of the books of Thucydides, which were previously unknown, and himself published them.

XIV. He was also called the Attic Muse, because of the sweetness of his diction, in respect of which he and Plato felt a spirit of rivalry towards one another, as we shall relate further in our life of Plato. And we ourselves have composed an epigram on him, which runs thus:

Not only up to Babylon for Cyrus
Did Xenophon go, but now he's mounted up
The path which leads to Jove's eternal realms-
For he, recounting the great deeds of Greece,
Displays his noble genius, and he shows
The depth of wisdom of his master Socrates.
And another which ends thus:

O Xenophon, if th' ungrateful countrymen
Of Cranon and Cecrops, banished you,
Jealous of Cyrus' favour which he show'd you,
Still hospitable Corinth, with glad heart,
Received you, and you lived there happily,
And so resolved to stay in that fair city.
XV. But I have found it stated in some places that he flourished about the eighty-ninth Olympiad, at the same time as the rest of the disciples of Socrates. And Ister says, that he was banished by a decree of Eubulus, and that he was recalled by another decree proposed by the same person.

XVI. But there were seven people of the name of Xenophon. First of all, this philosopher of ours; secondly, an Athenian, a brother of Pythostratus, who wrote the poem called the Theseid, and who wrote other works too, especially the lives of Epaminondas and Pelopidas ; the third was a physician of Cos; the fourth, a man who wrote a history of Alcibiades; the fifth, was a writer who composed a book full of fabulous prodigies; the sixth, a citizen of Paros, a sculptor; the seventh, a poet of the Old Comedy.

1. The Greek is, en to pros Xenophonta apostasiu-"apostasiou dike, an action against a freedman for having forsaken or slighted his prostates. " L. & S.



























THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF AESCHINES


I. Aeschines was the son of Charinus, the sausage-maker, but, as some writers say, of Lysanias; he was a citizen of Athens, of an industrious disposition from his boyhood upwards, on which account he never quitted Socrates.

II. And this induced Socrates to say, the only one who knows how to pay us proper respect is the son of the sausage-seller. Idomeneus asserts, that it was he who, in the prison, tried to persuade Socrates to make his escape, and not Crito. But that Plato as he was rather inclined to favour Aristippus, attributed his advice to Crito.

III. And Aeschines was calumniated on more than one occasion; and especially by Menedemus of Eretria, who states that he appropriated many dialogues of Socrates as his own, having procured them from Xanthippe. And those of them which are called "headless," are exceedingly slovenly performances, showing nothing of the energy of Socrates. And Pisistratus, of Ephesus, used to say, that they were not the work of Aeschines. There are seven of them, and most of them are stated by Persaeus to be the work of Pasiphon, of Eretria, and to have been inserted by him among the works of Aeschines. And he plagiarised from the Little Cyrus, and the Lesser Hercules, of Antisthenes, and from the Alcibiades, and from the Dialogues of the other philosophers. The Dialogues then of Aeschines, which profess to give an idea of the system of Socrates are, as I have said, seven in number. First of all, the Miltiades, which is rather weak; the Callias, the Axiochus, the Aspasia, the Alcibiades, the Jelanges, and the Rhino. And they say that he, being in want, went to Sicily, to Dionysius, and was looked down upon by Plato, but supported by Aristippus, and that he gave Dionysius some of his dialogues, and received presents for them.

IV. After that he came to Athens, and there he did not venture to practise the trade of a sophist, as Plato and Aristippus were in high reputation there. But he gave lectures for money, and wrote speeches to be delivered in the courts of law for persons under prosecution. On which account, Timon said of him, "The speeches of Aeschines which do not convince any one. " And they say that when he was in great straights through poverty; Socrates advised him to borrow of himself, by deducting some part of his expenditure in his food.

V. And even Aristippus suspected the genuineness of some of his Dialogues; accordingly, they say that when he was reciting some of them at Megara, he ridiculed him, and said to him, "Oh! you thief; where did you get that? "

VI. And Polycritus, of Menda, in the first book of his History of Dionysius, says that he lived with the tyrant till he was deposed, and till the return of Dion to Syracuse; and he says that Caramis, the tragedian, was also with him. And there is extant a letter of Aeschines addressed to Dionysius.

VII. But he was a man well versed in rhetorical art, as is plain from the defence of his father Phoeax*, the general; and from the works which he wrote in especial imitation of Gorgias, of Leontini. And Lysias wrote an oration against him; entitling it, On Sycophancy; from all which circumstances it is plain that he was a skilful orator. And one man is spoken of as his especial friend, Aristotle, who was surnamed The Table.

VIII. Now Panaetius thinks that the Dialogues of the following disciples of the Socratic school are all genuine, Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and Aeschines; but he doubts about those which go under the names of Phaedo, and Euclides; and he utterly repudiates all the others.

IX. And there were eight men of the name of Aeschines. The first, this philosopher of ours; the second was a man who wrote a treatise on Oratorical Art; the third was the orator who spoke against Demosthenes; the fourth was an Arcadian, a disciple of Isocrates ; the fifth was a citizen of Mitylene, whom they used to call the Scourge of the Orators; the sixth was a Neapolitan, a philosopher of the Academy, a disciple and favourite of Melanthius, of Rhodes; the seventh was a Milesian, a political writer; the eighth was a statuary.


























THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF ARISTIPPUS


I. ARISTIPPUS was by birth a Cyrenean. but he came to Athens, as Aeschines says, having been attracted thither by the fame of Socrates.

II. He having professed himself a Sophist, as Phanias, of Eresus, the Peripatetic, informs us, was the first of the pupils of Socrates who exacted money from his pupils, and who sent money to his master. And once he sent him twenty drachmas, but had them sent back again, as Socrates said that his daemon would not allow him to accept them; for, in fact, he was indignant at having them offered to him. And Xenophon used to hate him; on which account he wrote his book against pleasure as an attack upon Aristippus, and assigned the main argument to Socrates. Theodorus also, in his Treatise on Sects, has attacked him severely, and so has Plato in his book on the Soul, as we have mentioned in another place.

III. But he was a man very quick at adapting himself to every kind of place, and time, and person,1 and he easily supported every change of fortune. For which reason he was in greater favour with Dionysius than any of the others, as he always made the best of existing circumstances. For he enjoyed what was before him pleasantly, and he did not toil to procure himself the enjoyment of what was not present. On which account Diogenes used to call him the king's dog. And Timon used to snarl at him as too luxurious, speaking somewhat in this fashion:

Like the effeminate mind of Aristippus,
Who, as he said, by touch could judge of falsehood.
They say that he once ordered a partridge to be bought for him at the price of fifty drachmas; and when some one blamed him, "And would not you," said he, "have bought it if it had cost an obol? " And when he said he would, "Well," replied Aristippus, "fifty drachmas are no more to me. " Dionysius once bade him select which he pleased of three beautiful courtesans; and he carried off all three, saying that even Paris did not get any good by prefering one beauty to the rest. However, they say, that when he had carried them as far as the vestibule, he dismissed them; so easily inclined was he to select or to disregard things. On which account Strato, or, as others will have it, Plato, said to him, "You are the only man to whom it is given to wear both a whole cloak and rags. " Once when Dionysius spit at him, he put up with it; and when some one found fault with him, he said, "Men endure being wetted by the sea in order to catch a tench, and shall not I endure to be sprinkled with wine to catch a sturgeon? "

IV. Once Diogenes, who was washing vegetables, ridiculed him as he passed by, and said, "If you had learnt to eat these vegetables, you would not have been a slave in the palace of a tyrant. " But Aristippus replied, "And you, if you had known how to behave among men, would not have been washing vegetables. " Being asked once what advantage he had derived from philosophy, he said, "The power of associating confidently with every body. " When he was reproached for living extravagantly, he replied, "If extravagance had been a fault, it would not have had a place in the festivals of the Gods. " At another time he was asked what advantage philosophers had over other men; and he replied, "If all the laws should be abrogated, we should still live in the same manner as we do now. " Once when Dionysius asked him why the philosophers haunt the doors of the rich, but the rich do not frequent those of the philosophers, he said, "Because the first know what they want, but the second do not. "

On one occasion he was reproached by Plato for living in an expensive way; and he replied, "Does not Dionysius seem to you to be a good man? " And as he said that he did; "And yet," said he, "he lives in a more expensive manner than I do, so that there is no impossibility in a person's living both expensively and well at the same time. " He was asked once in what educated men are superior to uneducated men; and answered, "Just as broken horses are superior to those that are unbroken. " On another occasion he was going into the house of a courtesan, and when one of the young men who were with him blushed, he said, "It is not the going into such a house that is bad, but the not being able to go out. " Once a man proposed a riddle to him, and said, "Solve it. " "Why, you silly fellow," said Aristippus, "do you wish me to loose what gives us trouble, even while it is in bonds? " A saying of his was, "that it was better to be a beggar than an ignorant person; for that a beggar only wants money, but an ignorant person wants humanity. " Once when he was abused, he was going away, and as his adversary pursued him and said, "Why are you going away? " "Because," said he, "you have a license for speaking ill; but I have another for declining to hear ill. " When some one said that he always saw the philosophers at the doors of the rich men he said, "And the physicians also are always seen at the doors of their patients; but still no one would choose for this reason to be an invalid rather than a physician. "

Once it happened, that when he was sailing to Corinth, he was overtaken by a violent storm; and when somebody said, "We common individuals are not afraid, but you philosophers are behaving like cowards;" he said, "Very likely, for we have not both of us the same kind of souls at stake. " Seeing a man who prided himself on the variety of his learning and accomplishments, he said, "Those who eat most, and who take the most exercise, are not in better health than they who eat just as much as is good for them; and in the same way it is not those who know a great many things, but they who know what is useful who are valuable men. " An orator had pleaded a cause for him and gained it, and asked him afterwards, "Now, what good did you ever get from Socrates? " "This good," said he, "that all that you have said in my behalf is true. " He gave admirable advice to his daughter Aretes, teaching her to despise superfluity. And being asked by some one in what respect his son would be better if he received a careful education, he replied, "If he gets no other good, at all events, when he is at the theatre, he will not be one stone sitting upon another. " Once when some one brought his son to introduce to him, he demanded five hundred drachmas; and when the father said, "Why, for such a price as that I can buy a slave. " " Buy him then," he replied, "and you will have a pair. "

It was a saying of his that he took money from his acquaintances not in order to use it himself, but to make them aware in what they ought to spend their money. On one occasion, being reproached for having employed a hired advocate in a cause that he had depending: "Why not," said he; "when I have a dinner, I hire a cook. " Once he was compelled by Dionysius to repeat some philosophical sentiment; " It is an absurdity," said he, "for you to learn of me how to speak, and yet to teach me when I ought to speak:" and as Dionysius was offended at this, he placed him at the lowest end of the table; on which Aristippus said, "You wish to make this place more respectable. " A man was one day boasting of his skill as a diver; "Are you not ashamed," said Aristippus, "to pride yourself on your performance of the duty of a dolphin? " On one occasion he was asked in what respect a wise man is superior to one who is not wise; and his answer was, "Send them both naked among strangers, and you will find out. " A man was boasting of being able to drink a great deal without being drunk; and he said, "A mule can do the very same thing. " When a man reproached him for living with a mistress, he said, "Does it make any difference whether one takes a house in which many others have lived before one, or one where no one has ever lived? " and his reprover said, "No. " "Well, does it make any difference whether one sails in a ship in which ten thousand people have sailed before one, or whether one sails in one in which no one has ever embarked? " "By no means," said the other. "Just in the same way," said he, "it makes no difference whether one lives with a woman with whom numbers have lived, or with one with whom no one has lived. " When a person once blamed him for taking money from his pupils, after having been himself a pupil of Socrates: "To be sure I do," he replied, "for Socrates too, when some friends sent their corn and wine, accepted a little, and sent the rest back; for he had the chief men of the Athenians for his purveyors. But I have only Eutychides, whom I have bought with money. " And he used to live with Lais the courtesan, as Sotion tells us in the Second Book of his Successions. Accordingly, when some one reproached him on her account, he made answer, "I possess her, but I am not possessed by her; since the best thing is to possess pleasures without being their slave, not to be devoid of pleasures. " When some one blamed him for the expense he was at about his food, he said, "Would you not have bought those things yourself if they bad cost three obols? " And when the other admitted that he would, "Then," said he, "it is not that I am fond of pleasure, but that you are fond of money. " On one occasion, when Simus, the steward of Dionysius, was showing him a magnificent house, paved with marble (but Simus was a Phrygian, and a great toper), he hawked up a quantity of saliva and spit in his face; and when Simus was indignant at this, he said, "I could not find a more suitable place to spit in. "

Charondas, or as some say, Phaedo, asked him once, "Who are the people who use perfumes? " "I do," said he, "wretched man that I am, and the king of the Persians is still more wretched than I; but, recollect, that as no animal is the worse for having a pleasant scent, so neither is a man; but plague take those wretches who abuse our beautiful unguents. " On another occasion, he was asked how Socrates died; and he made answer, "As I should wish to die myself. " When Polyxenus, the Sophist, came to his house and beheld his women and the costly preparation that was made for dinner, and then blamed him for all this luxury, Aristippus after a while said, "Can you stay with me to day? " and when Polyxenus consented, "Why then," said he, "did you blame me? it seems that you blame not the luxury, but the expense of it. " When his servant was once carrying some money along the road, and was oppressed by the weight of it (as Bion relates in his Dissertations), he said to him, "Drop what is beyond your strength, and only carry what you can. " Once he was at sea, and seeing a pirate vessel at a distance, he began to count his money; and then he let it drop into the sea, as if unintentionally, and began to bewail his loss; but others say that he said besides, that it was better for the money to be lost for the sake of Aristippus, than Aristippus for the sake of his money. On one occasion, when Dionysius asked him why he had come, he said, to give others a share of what he had, and to receive a share of what he had not; but some report that his answer was, "When I wanted wisdom, I went to Socrates; but now that I want money, I have come to you. " He found fault with men, because when they are at sales, they examine the articles offered very carefully, but yet they approve of men's lives without any examination. Though some attribute this speech to Diogenes. They say that once at a banquet, Dionysius desired all the guests to dance in purple garments; but Plato refused, saying:

"I could not wear a woman's robe, when I
Was born a man, and of a manly race. "
But Aristippus took the garment, and when he was about to dance, he said very wittily:

"She who is chaste, will not corrupted be
By Bacchanalian revels. "
He was once asking a favour of Dionysius for a friend, and when he could not prevail, he fell at his feet; and when some one reproched him for such conduct, he said, "It is not I who am to blame, but Dionysius who has his ears in his feet. " When he was staying in Asia, and was taken prisoner by Artaphernes the Satrap, some one said to him, "Are you still cheerful and sanguine? " "When, you silly fellow," he replied, "can I have more reason to be cheerful than now when I am on the point of conversing with Artaphernes? " It used to be a saying of his, that those who had enjoyed the encyclic course of education, but who had omitted philosophy, were like the suitors of Penelope; for that they gained over Melantho and Polydora and the other maid-servants, and found it easier to do that than to marry the mistress. And Ariston said in like manner, that Ulysses, when he had gone to the shades below, saw and conversed with nearly all the dead in those regions, but could not get a sight of the Queen herself.

On another occasion, Aristippus being asked what were the most necessary things for well-born boys to learn, said, "Those things which they will put in practice when they become men. " And when some one reproached him for having come from Socrates to Dionysius, his reply was, "I went to Socrates because I wanted instruction (paideias), and I have come to Dionysius because I want diversion (paidias). As he had made money by having pupils, Socrates once said to him, "Where did you get so much? " and he answered, "Where you got a little. " When his mistress said to him, "I am in the family way by you," he said, "You can no more tell that, than you could tell, after you had gone through a thicket, which thorn had scratched you. " And when some one blamed him for repudiating his son, as if he were not really his, he said, "I know that phlegm, and I know that lice, proceed from us, but still we cast them away as useless. "

One day, when he had received some money from Dionysius, and Plato had received a book, he said to a man who jeered him, "The fact is, money is what I want, and books what Plato wants. " When he was asked what it was for which he was reproached by Dionysius, "The same thing," said he, "for which others reproach me. " One day he asked Dionysius for some money, who said, "But you told me that a wise man would never be in want," "Give me some," Aristippus rejoined, "and then we will discuss that point;" Dionysius gave him some, "Now then," said he, "you see that I do not want money. " When Dionysius said to him:

"For he who does frequent a tyrant's court,2
Becomes his slave, though free when first he came"
He took him up, and replied:

"That man is but a slave who comes as free. "
This story is told by Diocles, in his book on the Lives of the Philosophers; but others attribute the rejoinder to Plato. He once quarrelled with Aeschines, and presently afterwards said to him, "Shall we not make it up of our own accord, and cease this folly; but will you wait till some blockhead reconciles us over our cups? " "With all my heart," said Aeschines. "Recollect, then," said Aristippus, "that I, who am older than you, have made the first advances. " And Aschines answered, "You say well, by Juno, since you are far better than I; for I began the quarrel, but you begin the friendship. " And these are the anecdotes which are told of him.

V. Now there were four people of the name of Aristippus; one, the man of whom we are now speaking; the second, the man who wrote the history of Arcadia ; the third was one who, because he had been brought up by his mother, had the name of metrodidantos given to him; and he was the grandson of the former, being his daughter's son; the fourth was a philosopher of the New Academy.

VI. There are three books extant, written by the Cyrenaic philosopher, which are, a history of Africa, and which were sent by him to Dionysius; and there is another book containing twenty-five dialogues, some written in the Attic, and some in the Doric dialect. And these are the titles of the Dialogues-- Artabazus; to the Shipwrecked Sailors; to the Exiles; to a Beggar; to Lais; to Porus; to Lais about her Looking-glass; Mercury; the Dream; to the President of the Feast; Philomelus; to his Domestics; to those who reproached him for possessing old wine and mistresses; to those who reproached him for spending much money on his eating; a Letter to Arete his daughter; a letter to a man who was training himself for the Olympic games; a book of Questions; another book of Questions; a Dissertation addressed to Dionysius; an Essay on a Statue; an Essay on the daughter of Dionysius; a book addressed to one who thought himself neglected; another to one who attempted to give him advice. Some say, also, that he wrote six books of dissertations; but others, the chief of whom is Sosicrates of Rhodes, affirm that he never wrote a single thing. According to the assertions of Sotion in his second book; and of Panoetius, on the contrary, he composed the following books,- one concerning Education; one concerning Virtue; one called An Exhortation; Artabazus; the Shipwrecked Men; the Exiles; six books of Dissertations; three books of Apophthegms; an essay addressed to Lais; one to Porus; one to Socrates; one on Fortune. And he used to define the chief good as a gentle motion tending to sensation.

VII. But since we have written his life, let us now speak of the Cyrenaics who came after him; some of whom called themselves Hegesiaci, some Annicerci, others Theodorei. And let us also enumerate the disciples of Phaedo, the chief of whom were the Eretrians. Now the pupils of Aristippus were his own daughter Arete, and Aethiops of Ptolemais, and Antipater of Cyrene. Arete had for her pupil the Aristippus who was surnamed metrodidantos, whose disciple was Theodorus the atheist, but who was afterwards called theos. Antipater had for a pupil Epitimedes of Cyrene who was the master of Pyraebates, who was the master of Hegesias, who was surnamed peisithanatos (persuading to die), and of Anniceris who ransomed Plato.

VIII. These men then who continued in the school of Aristippus, and were called Cyrenaics, adopted the following opinions. - They said that there were two emotions of the mind, pleasure and pain; that the one, namely pleasure, was a moderate emotion; the other, namely pain, a rough one. And that no one pleasure was different from or more pleasant than another; and that pleasure was praised by all animals, but pain avoided. They said also that pleasure belonged to the body, and constituted its chief good, as Paraetius also tells us in his book on Sects; but the pleasure which they call the chief good, is not that pleasure as a state, which consists in the absence of all pain, and is a sort of undisturbedness, which is what Epicurus admits as such; for the Cyrenaics think that there is a distinction between the chief good and a life of happiness, for that the chief good is a particular pleasure, but that happiness is a state consisting of a number of particular pleasures, among which, both those which are past, and those which are future, are both enumerated. And they consider that particular pleasure is desirable for its own sake; but that happiness is desirable not for its own sake, but for that of the particular pleasure. And that the proof that pleasure is the chief good is that we are from our childhood attracted to it without any deliberate choice of our own; and that when we have obtained it, we do not seek anything further, and also that there is nothing which we avoid so much as we do its opposite, which is pain. And they assert, too, that pleasure is a good, even if it arises from the most unbecoming causes, as Hippobotus tells us in his Treatise on Sects; for even if an action be ever so absurd, still the pleasure which arises out of it is desirable, and a good.

Moreover, the banishment of pain, as it is called by Epicurus, appears to the Cyrenaics not to be pleasure; for neither is the absence of pleasure pain, for both pleasure and pain consist in motion; and neither the absence of pleasure nor the absence of pain are motion. In fact, absence of pain is a condition like that of a person asleep. They say also that it is possible that some persons may not desire pleasure, owing to some perversity of mind; and that all the pleasures and pains of the mind, do not all originate in pleasures and pains of the body, for that pleasure often arises from the mere fact of the prosperity of one's country, or from one's own; but they deny that pleasure is caused by either the recollection or the anticipation of good fortune-though Epicurus asserted that it was-for the motion of the mind is put an end to by time. They say, too, that pleasure is not caused by simple seeing or hearing. Accordingly we listen with pleasure to those who give a representation of lamentations; but we are pained when we see men lamenting in reality. And they called the absence of pleasure and of pain intermediate states; and asserted that corporeal pleasures were superior to mental ones, and corporeal sufferings worse than mental ones. And they argued that it was on this principle that offenders were punished with bodily pain; for they thought that to suffer pain was hard, but that to be pleased was more in harmony with the nature of man, on which account also they took more care of the body than of the mind.

And although pleasure is desirable for its own sake, still they admit that some of the efficient causes of it are often troublesome, and as such opposite to pleasure; so that they think that an assemblage of all the pleasures which produce happiness, is the most difficult thing conceivable. But they admit that every wise man does not live pleasantly, and that every bad man does not live unpleasantly, but that it is only a general rule admitting of some exceptions. And they think it sufficient if a person enjoys a happy time in consequence of one pleasure which befalls him. They say that prudence is a good, but is not desirable for its own sake, but for the sake of those things which result from it. That a friend is desirable for the sake of the use which we can make of him; for that the parts of the body also are loved while they are united to the body; and that some of the virtues may exist even in the foolish. They consider that bodily exercise contributes to the comprehension of virtue; and that the wise man will feel neither envy, nor love, nor superstition; for that these things originate in a fallacious opinion. They admit, at the same time, that he is liable to grief and fear, for that these are natural emotions. They said also that wealth is an efficient cause of pleasure, but that it is not desirable for its own sake. That the sensations are things which can be comprehended; but they limited this assertion to the sensations themselves, and did not extend it to the causes which produce them. They left out all investigation of the subjects of natural philosophy, because of the evident impossibility of comprehending them; but they applied themselves to the study of logic, because of its utility.

Meleager, in the second book of his Treatise on Opinions, and Clitomachus in the first book of his Essay on Sects says, that they thought natural philosophy and dialectics useless, for that the man who had learnt to understand the question of good and evil could speak with propriety, and was free from superstition, and escaped the fear of death, without either. They also taught that there was nothing naturally and intrinsically just, or honourable, or disgraceful; but that things were considered so because of law and fashion. The good man will do nothing out of the way, because of the punishments which are imposed on, and the discredit which is attached to, such actions; and that the good man is a wise man.