He discarded
friendship
from his system, because it could not exist either in foolish men or in wise men.
Diogenes Laertius
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. They admit, too, that there is such a thing as improvement in philosophy, and in other good studies. And they say that one man feels grief more than another; and that the sensations are not always to be trusted as faithful guides.
IX. But the philosophers who were called Hegesiaci, adopted the same chief goods, pleasure and pain; and they denied that there was any such thing as gratitude, or friendship, or beneficence, because we do not choose any of those things for their own sake, but on account of the use of which they are, and on account of these other things which cannot subsist without them. But they teach that complete happiness cannot possibly exist; for that the body is full of many sensations, and that the mind sympathizes with the body, and is troubled when that is troubled, and also that fortune prevents many things which we cherished in anticipation; so that for all these reasons, perfect happiness eludes our grasp. Moreover, that both life and death are desirable. They also say that there is nothing naturally pleasant or unpleasant, but that owing to want, or rarity, or satiety, some men are pleased and some vexed; and that wealth and poverty have no influence at all on pleasure, for that rich men are not affected by pleasure in a different manner from poor men. In the same way they say that slavery and freedom are things indifferent, if measured by the standard of pleasure, and nobility and baseness of birth, and glory and infamy. They add that, for the foolish man it is expedient to live, but to the wise man it is a matter of indifference; and that the wise man will do everything for his own sake; for that he will not consider any one else of equal importance with himself; and he will see that if he were to obtain ever such great advantages from any one else, they would not be equal to what he could himself bestow. They excluded the sensations, inasmuch as they had no certain knowledge about them; but they recommended the doing of everything which appeared consistent with reason.
They asserted also that errors ought to meet with pardon; for that a man did not err intentionally, but because he was influenced by some external circumstance; and that one ought not to hate a person who has erred, but only to teach him better. They likewise said that the wise man would not be so much absorbed in the pursuit of what is good, as in the attempt to avoid what is bad, considering the chief good to be living free from all trouble and pain: and that this end was attained best by those who looked upon the efficient causes of pleasure as indifferent.
X. The Annicereans, in many respects, agreed with these last; but they admitted the existence in life of friendship and gratitude and respect for one's parents, and the principle of endeavouring to serve one's country. On which principle, even if the wise man should meet with some annoyance, he would be no less happy, even though he should have but few actual pleasures. They thought that the happiness of a friend was not to be desired by us for its own sake; for that in fact such happiness was not capable of being felt by the person's neighbour; and that reason is not sufficient to give one confidence, and to authorise one to look down upon the opinions of the multitude; but that one must learn a deference for the sentiments of others by custom, because the opposite bad disposition being bred up with infirm and early age. They also taught that one ought not to make friends solely on account of the advantage that we may derive from them, and not discard them when these hopes or advantages fail; but that we ought rather to cultivate them on account of one's natural feelings of benevolence, in compliance with which we ought also to encounter trouble for their sakes, so that though they consider pleasure the chief good, and the deprivation of it an evil, still they think that a man ought voluntarily to submit to this deprivation out of his regard for his friend,
XI. The Theodoreans, as they are called, derived their name from the Theodorus who has been already mentioned, and adopted all his doctrines.
XII. Now Theodorus utterly discarded all previous opinions about the Gods: and we have met with a book of his which is entitled, On Gods, which is not to be despised; and it is from that that they say that Epicurus derived the principal portions of his sentiments. But Theodorus had been a pupil of Anniceris, and of Dionysius the Dialectician, as Antisthenes tells us in his Successions of Philosophers.
XIII. He considered joy and grief as the chief goods: and that the former resulted from knowledge, and the latter from ignorance. And he called prudence and justice goods: the contrary qualities evils, and pleasure and pain something intermediate.
He discarded friendship from his system, because it could not exist either in foolish men or in wise men. For that, in the case of the former, friendship was at an end the moment that the advantage to be derived from it was out of sight. And that wise men were sufficient for themselves, and so had no need of friends. He used also to say that it was reasonable for a good man not to expose himself to danger for the sake of his country, for that he ought not to discard his own prudence for the sake of benefiting those who had none. And he said that a wise man's country was the World. He allowed that a wise man might steal, and commit adultery and sacrilege, at proper seasons: for that none of these actions were disgraceful by nature, if one only put out of sight the common opinion about them, which owes its existence to the consent of fools. And he said that the wise man would indulge his passions openly, without any regard to circumstances: on which principle he used to ask the following questions: "Is a woman who is well instructed in literature of use just in proportion to the amount of her literary knowledge? " "Yes," said the person questioned. "And is a boy, and is a youth, useful in proportion to his acquaintance with literature? " "Yes. " "Is not then, also, a beautiful woman useful in proportion as she is beautiful; and a boy and a youth useful in proportion to their beauty? " "Yes. " "Well then, a handsome boy and a handsome youth must be useful exactly in proportion as they are handsome? " "Yes. " "Now the use of beauty is, to be embraced. " And when this was granted he pressed the argument thus:- If then a man embraces a woman just as it is useful that he should, he does not do wrong; nor, again, will he be doing wrong in employing beauty for the purposes for which it is useful. And with such questions as these he appeared to convince his hearers.
XIV. But he appears to have got the name of theos from Stilpo one day asking him, "Are you, Theodorus, what you say you are? " And when he said he was, "And you said that you are theos," continued his questioner; he admitted that also. "Then," continued the other, "you are theos. " And as he willingly received the title, the other laughed and said, "But you, wretched man, according to this principle, you would also admit that you were a raven, or a hundred other things. " One day Theodorus sat down by Euryclides the hierophant, and said to him, "Tell me now, Euryclides, who are they who behave impiously with respect to the mysteries? " And when Euryclides answered, "Those who divulge them to the uninitiated;" "Then," said he, " you also are impious, for you divulge them to those who are not initiated. "
XV. And indeed he was very near being brought before the Areopagus if Demetrius of Phalereus had not saved him. But Amphicrates in his Essay on Illustrious Men, says that he was condemned to drink hemlock.
XVI. While he was staying at the court of Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, he was sent once by him to Lysimachus as an ambassador. And as he was talking very freely, Lysimachus said to him, "Tell me, Theodorus, have not you been banished from Athens? " And he replied, "you have been rightly informed; for the city of the Athenians could not bear me, just as Semele could not bear Bacchus; and so we were both cast out. " And when Lysimachus said again, "Take care that you do not come to me again;" "I never will," he replied, "unless Ptolemy sends me. " And as Mythras, the steward of Lysimachus was present, and said, "You appear to me to be the only person who ignores both Gods and Sovereigns;" "How," rejoined Theodorus, "can you say that I ignore the Gods, when I look upon you as their enemy? "
XVII. They say also that on one occasion he came to Corinth, bringing with him a great many disciples; and that Metrocles the Cynic, who was washing leeks said so him, "You, who are a Sophist, would not have wanted so many pupils, if you had washed vegetables. " And Theodorus, taking him up, replied, "And if you had known how to associate with men, you would not have cared about those vegetables. " But this rejoinder, as I have said already, is attributed both to Diogenes and Aristippus.
XVIII. Such was Theodorus, and such were his circumstances and opinions. But at last he went away to Cyrene, and lived there with Megas, being treated by him with the greatest distinction. And when he was first driven away from Cyrene, he is reported to have said very pleasantly, "You do wrong, O men of Cyrene, driving me from Africa to Greece. "
XIX. But there were twenty different people of the name of Theodorus. The first was a Samian, the son of Rhoeus; he it was who advised the putting of coals under the foundations of the temple of Diana at Ephesus; for as the ground was very swampy, he said that the coals, having got rid of their ligneous qualities would retain their solidity in a way that could not be impaired by water. The second was a Cyrenean, a geometrician, and had Plato for one of his pupils. The third was the philosopher whom we have been describing. The fourth was an author who wrote a very remarkable treatise on the art of exercising the voice. The fifth was a man who wrote a treatise on Musicial Composers, beginning with Terpander. The sixth was a Stoic. The seventh was the historian of Rome. The eighth was a Syracusan, who wrote an Essay on Tactics. The ninth was a citizen of Byzantium, who was a political orator. The tenth was another orator, who is mentioned by Aristotle in his Epitome of the Orators. The eleventh was a Theban, a statuary. The twelfth was a painter, who is mentioned by Polemo. The thirteenth was also a painter, who is spoken of by Menodotus. The fourteenth was an Ephesian, a painter, mentioned by Theophanes in his Essay on Painting. The fifteenth was an epigrammatic poet. The sixteenth wrote an essay on Poets. The seventeenth was a physician, a pupil of Athenaeas. The eighteenth was a Chian, a Stoic philosopher. The nineteenth was a citizen of Miletus, another Stoic. The twentieth was a tragic poet.
1. This is exactly the character that Horace gives of him:
Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res;
Tentantem majora, fere praesentibus aequum.
Ep. i. 23, 24.
2. Plutarch, in his life of Pompey, attributes these lines to Sophocles, but does not mention the play in which they occurred.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF PHAEDO
I. PHAEDO the Elean, one of the Eupatridae, was taken prisoner at the time of the subjugation of his country, and was compelled to submit to the vilest treatment. But while he was standing in the street, shutting the door, he met with Socrates, who desired Alcibiades, or as some say, Crito, to ransom him. And after that time he studied philosophy as became a free man. But Hieronymus, in his essay on suspending one's judgment, calls him a slave.
II. And he wrote dialogues, of which we have genuine copies ; by name- Zopyrus, Simon, and Nicias (but the genuineness of this one is disputed); Medius, which some people attribute to Aeschines, and others to Polyaenus; Antimachus, or the Elders (this too is a disputed one); the Scythian discourses, and these, too, some attribute to Aeschines.
III. But his successor was Phistamus of Elis; and the next in succession to him were Menedemus of Eretria, and Asclepiades of Philias, who came over from Stilpo. And down to the age of these last, they were called the Eliac school; but after the time of Menedemus, they were called the Eretrians. And we will speak of Menedemus hereafter, because he was the founder of a new sect.
* Yonge transliterates the name as "Phoedo"
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF EUCLIDES
I. EUCLIDES was a native of Megara on the Isthmus, or of Gela, according to some writers, whose statement is mentioned by Alexander in his Successions. He devoted himself to the study of the writings of Parmenides; and his successors were called the philosophers of the Megaric school; after that they were called the Contentious school, and still later, the Dialecticians, which name was first given to them by Dionysius the Carthaginian; because they carried on their investigations by question and answer. Hermodorus says that after the death of Socrates, Plato and the other philosophers came to Euclides, because they feared the cruelty of the tyrants.
II. He used to teach that the chief good is unity; but that it is known by several names; for at one time people call it prudence; at another time God; at another time intellect, and so on. But everything which was contrary to good, he discarded, denying its existence. And the proofs which he used to bring forward to support his arguments, were not those which proceed on assumptions, but on conclusions. He also rejected all that sort of reasoning which proceeds on comparison, saying that it must be founded either on things which are like, or on things which are unlike. If on things which are like, then it is better to reason about the things themselves, than about those which resemble them; and if on things which are unlike, then the comparison is quite useless. And on this account Timon uses the following language concerning him, where he also attacks all the other philosophers of the Socratic school:
But I do care for none of all these triflers,
Nor for any one else; not for your Phaedon,
Whoever he may be; not for the quarrelsome
Euclides, who bit all the Megareans
With love of fierce contention.
III. He wrote six dialogues-the Lamprias, the Aeschines, the Phoenix, the Crito, the Alcibiades, and the Amatory dialogue.
IV. Next in succession to Euclides, came Eubulides of Miletus, who handed down a great many arguments in dialectics; such as the Lying one; the Concealed one; the Electra; the Veiled one; the Sorites; the Horned one; the Bald one. 1
And one of the Comic poets speaks of him in the following terms :
Eubulides, that most contentious sophist,
Asking his horned quibbles, and preplexing
The natives with his false arrogant speeches,
Has gone with all the fluency of Demosthenes.
For it seems that Demosthenes had been his pupil, and that being at first unable to pronounce the C, he got rid of that defect. Eubulides had a quarrel with Aristotle, and was constantly attacking him.
V. Among the different people who succeeded Eubulides, was Alexinus of Elis, a man very fond of argument, on which account he was nicknamed Elenchinos. 2 He had an especial quarrel with Zeno; and Hermippus relates of him that he went from Elis to Olympia, and studied philosophy there; and that when his pupils asked him why he lived there, he said that he wished to establish a school which should be called the Olympic school; but that his pupils being in distress, through want of means of support and finding the situation unhealthy for them, left him; and that after that Alexinus lived by himself, with only one servant. And after that, when swimming in the Alpheus, he was pricked by a reed, and the injury proved fatal, and he died. And we have written an epigram on him which runs thus :
Then the report, alas! was true,
That an unhappy man,
While swimming tore his foot against a nail;
For the illustrious sage,
Good Alexinus, swimming in the Alpheus,
Died from a hostile reed.
And he wrote not only against Zeno, but he composed other works also, especially one against Ephorus the historian.
VI. One of the school of Eubulides was Euphantus of Olynthus, who wrote a history of the events of his own time; he also composed several tragedies, for which he got great distinction at the festivals. And he was the preceptor of Antigonus, the king to whom he dedicated a treatise on Monarchy, which had an exceedingly high reputation. And at last he died of old age.
VII. There are also other pupils of Eubulides, among whom is Apollonius Cronus, who was the preceptor of Diodorus of Iasos, the son of Aminias; and he too was surnamed Cronus, and is thus mentioned by Callimachus in his epigrams:
Momus himself did carve upon the walls,
Cronus is wise.
And he was a dialectician, and, as some believe, he was the first person who invented the Concealed argument, and the Horned one. When he was staying at the court of Ptolemy Soter, he had several dialectic questions put to him by Stilpo; and as he was not able to solve them at the moment, he was reproached by the king with many hard words, and among other things, he was nicknamed Cronus, out of derision. So he left the banquet, and wrote an essay on the question of Stilpo, and then died of despondency. And we have written the following epigram on him:
O Diodorus Cronus, what sad fate
Buried you in despair?
So that you hastened to the shades below,
Perplexed by Stilpo's quibbles-
You would deserve your name of Cronus3 better,
If C and r were gone.
VIII. One of the successors of Euclides was Icthyas, the son of Metellus, a man of great eminence, to whom Diogenes the Cynic addressed a dialogue. And Clinomachus of Therium, who was the first person who ever wrote about axioms and categorems, and things of that kind. And Stilpo the Megarian, a most illustrious philosopher, whom we must now speak of.
1. The French translator gives the following examples, to show what is meant by these several kinds of quibbling arguments:
The lying one is this: Is the man a liar who says that he tells lies. If he is, then he does not tell lies; and if he does not tell lies, is he a liar?
The concealed one: Do you know this man who is concealed? If you do not, you do not know your own father; for he it is who is concealed.
The veiled one is much the same as the preceding.
The electra is a quibble of the same kind as the two preceding ones. Electra sees Orestes : she knows that Orestes is her brother, but does not know that the man she sees is Orestes; therefore she does know, and does not know, her brother at the same time.
The Sorites is universally known.
The bald one is a kind of Sorites; pulling one hair out of a man's head will not make him bald, nor two, nor three, and so on till every hair in his head is pulled out.
The horned one: You have what you have not lost. You have not lost horns, therefore you have horns.
2. From elencho, to confute.
3. Kronos, take away K. , r. , leaves onos, an ass.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF STILPO
I. STILPO, a native of Megara in Greece, was a pupil of some of Euclides' school. But some say that he was a pupil of Euclides himself. And also of Thrasymachus, the Corinthian, who was a friend of Icthyas, as Heraclides informs us.
II. And he was so much superior to all his fellows in command of words and in acuteness, that it may almost be said that all Greece fixed its eyes upon him, and joined the Megaric school. And concerning him Philippus of Megara speaks thus, word for word: "For he carried off from Theophrastus, Metrodorus the speculative philosopher, and Timagoras of Gela; and Aristotle the Cyrenaic, he robbed of Clitarchus and Simias; and from the dialecticians' school also he won men over, carrying off Poeoneius from Aristides, and Dippilus of the Bosphorus from Euphantus, and also Myrmex of the Venites, who had both come to him to argue against him, but they became converts and his disciples. " And besides these men, he attracted to his school Phrasidemus the Peripatetic, a natural philosopher of great ability; and Alcimus the rhetorician, the most eminent orator in all Greece at that time; and he won over Crates, and great numbers of others, and among them Zeno the Phoenician.
III. And he was very fond of the study of politics. And he was married. But he lived also with a courtesan, named Nicarete, as Onetor tells us somewhere. And he had a licentious daughter, who was married to a friend of his named Simias, a citizen of Syracuse. And as she would not live in an orderly manner, some one told Stilpo that she was a disgrace to him. But he said, "She is not more a disgrace to me than I am an honour to her. "
IV. Ptolemy Soter, it is said, received him with great honour; and when he had made himself master of Megara, he gave him money, and invited him to sail with him to Egypt. But he accepted only a moderate sum of money, and declined the journey proposed to him, but went over to Aegina, until Ptolemy had sailed. Also when Demetrius, the son of Antigonus had taken Megara, he ordered Stilpo's house to be saved, and took care that everything that had been plundered from him should be restored to him. But when he wished Stilpo to give him in a list of all that he had lost, he said that he had lost nothing of his own; for that no one had taken from him his learning, and that he still had his eloquence and his knowledge. And he conversed with Demetrius on the subject of doing good to men with such power, that he became a zealous hearer of his.
V. They say that he once put such a question as this to a man, about the Minerva of Phidias: "Is Minerva the Goddess the daughter of Jupiter? " And when the other said, "Yes;" "But this," said he, "is not the child of Jupiter, but of Phidias. " And when he agreed that it was so- "This then," he continued, "is not a God. " And when he was brought before the Areopagus for this speech, he did not deny it, but maintained that he had spoken correctly; for that she was not a God (theos) but a Goddess (thea); for that Gods were of the male sex only. 1 However the judges of the Areopagus ordered him to leave the city; and on this occasion, Theodorus, who was nicknamed theos, said in derision, "Whence did Stilpo learn this? and how could he tell whether she was a God or a Goddess? " But Theodorus was in truth a most impudent fellow. But Stilpo was a most witty and elegant-minded man. Accordingly when Crates asked him if the Gods delighted in adoration and prayer; they say that he answered, "Do not ask these questions, you foolish man, in the road, but in private. " And they say too that Bion, when he was asked whether there were any Gods, answered in the same spirit:
"Will you not first, O! miserable old man, Remove the multitude? "
VI. But Stilpo was a man of simple character, and free from all trick and humbug, and universally affable. Accordingly, when Crates the Cynic once refused to answer a question that he had put to him, and only insulted his questioner-- "I knew," said Stilpo, " that he would say anything rather than what he ought. " And once he put a question to him, and offered him a fig at the same time; so he took the fig and ate it, on which Crates said "O Hercules I have lost my fig. " "Not only that," he replied, "but you have lost your question too, of which the fig was the pledge. " At another time, he saw Crates shivering in the winter, and said to him, "Crates, you seem to me to want a new dress," meaning, both a new mind and a new garment; and Crates, feeling ashamed, answered him in the following parody:
"There2 Stilpo too, through the Megarian bounds,
Pours out deep groans, where Syphon's voice resounds,
And there he oft doth argue, while a school
Of eager pupils owns his subtle rule,
And virtue's name with eager chase pursues. "
And it is said that at Athens he attracted all the citizens to such a degree, that they used to run from their workshops to look at him; and when some one said to him, "Why, Stilpo, they wonder at you as if you were a wild beast," he replied, "Not so; but as a real genuine man. "
VII. And he was a very clever arguer; and rejected the theory of species. And he used to say that a person who spoke of man in general, was speaking of nobody; for that he was not speaking of this individual, nor of that one; for speaking in general, how can he speak more of this person than of that person? therefore he is not speaking of this person at all. Another of his illustrations was, "That which is shown to me, is not a vegetable; for a vegetable existed ten thousand years ago, therefore this is not a vegetable. " And they say that once when he was conversing with Crates, he interrupted the discourse to go off and buy some fish; and as Crates tried to drag him back, and said, "You are leaving the argument;" "Not at all," he replied," "I keep the argument, but I am leaving you; for the argument remains, but the fish will be sold to some one else. "
VIII. There are nine dialogues of his extant, written in a frigid style: The Moschus; the Cnistippus or Callias; the Ptolemy; the Choerecrates; the Metrocles; the Anaximenes; the Epigenes; the one entitled To my Daughter, and the Aristotle.
IX. Heraclides affirms that Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, had been one of his pupils.
X. Hermippus says that he died at a great age, after drinking some wine, in order to die more rapidly. And we have written this epigram upon him:
Stranger, old age at first, and then disease,
A hateful pair, did lay wise Stilpo low.
The pride of Megara: he found good wine
The best of drivers for his mournful coach,
And drinking it, he drove on to the end.
And he was ridiculed by Sophibus the comic poet, in his play called Marriages:
The dregs of Stilpo make the whole discourse of this Charinus.
1.
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. They admit, too, that there is such a thing as improvement in philosophy, and in other good studies. And they say that one man feels grief more than another; and that the sensations are not always to be trusted as faithful guides.
IX. But the philosophers who were called Hegesiaci, adopted the same chief goods, pleasure and pain; and they denied that there was any such thing as gratitude, or friendship, or beneficence, because we do not choose any of those things for their own sake, but on account of the use of which they are, and on account of these other things which cannot subsist without them. But they teach that complete happiness cannot possibly exist; for that the body is full of many sensations, and that the mind sympathizes with the body, and is troubled when that is troubled, and also that fortune prevents many things which we cherished in anticipation; so that for all these reasons, perfect happiness eludes our grasp. Moreover, that both life and death are desirable. They also say that there is nothing naturally pleasant or unpleasant, but that owing to want, or rarity, or satiety, some men are pleased and some vexed; and that wealth and poverty have no influence at all on pleasure, for that rich men are not affected by pleasure in a different manner from poor men. In the same way they say that slavery and freedom are things indifferent, if measured by the standard of pleasure, and nobility and baseness of birth, and glory and infamy. They add that, for the foolish man it is expedient to live, but to the wise man it is a matter of indifference; and that the wise man will do everything for his own sake; for that he will not consider any one else of equal importance with himself; and he will see that if he were to obtain ever such great advantages from any one else, they would not be equal to what he could himself bestow. They excluded the sensations, inasmuch as they had no certain knowledge about them; but they recommended the doing of everything which appeared consistent with reason.
They asserted also that errors ought to meet with pardon; for that a man did not err intentionally, but because he was influenced by some external circumstance; and that one ought not to hate a person who has erred, but only to teach him better. They likewise said that the wise man would not be so much absorbed in the pursuit of what is good, as in the attempt to avoid what is bad, considering the chief good to be living free from all trouble and pain: and that this end was attained best by those who looked upon the efficient causes of pleasure as indifferent.
X. The Annicereans, in many respects, agreed with these last; but they admitted the existence in life of friendship and gratitude and respect for one's parents, and the principle of endeavouring to serve one's country. On which principle, even if the wise man should meet with some annoyance, he would be no less happy, even though he should have but few actual pleasures. They thought that the happiness of a friend was not to be desired by us for its own sake; for that in fact such happiness was not capable of being felt by the person's neighbour; and that reason is not sufficient to give one confidence, and to authorise one to look down upon the opinions of the multitude; but that one must learn a deference for the sentiments of others by custom, because the opposite bad disposition being bred up with infirm and early age. They also taught that one ought not to make friends solely on account of the advantage that we may derive from them, and not discard them when these hopes or advantages fail; but that we ought rather to cultivate them on account of one's natural feelings of benevolence, in compliance with which we ought also to encounter trouble for their sakes, so that though they consider pleasure the chief good, and the deprivation of it an evil, still they think that a man ought voluntarily to submit to this deprivation out of his regard for his friend,
XI. The Theodoreans, as they are called, derived their name from the Theodorus who has been already mentioned, and adopted all his doctrines.
XII. Now Theodorus utterly discarded all previous opinions about the Gods: and we have met with a book of his which is entitled, On Gods, which is not to be despised; and it is from that that they say that Epicurus derived the principal portions of his sentiments. But Theodorus had been a pupil of Anniceris, and of Dionysius the Dialectician, as Antisthenes tells us in his Successions of Philosophers.
XIII. He considered joy and grief as the chief goods: and that the former resulted from knowledge, and the latter from ignorance. And he called prudence and justice goods: the contrary qualities evils, and pleasure and pain something intermediate.
He discarded friendship from his system, because it could not exist either in foolish men or in wise men. For that, in the case of the former, friendship was at an end the moment that the advantage to be derived from it was out of sight. And that wise men were sufficient for themselves, and so had no need of friends. He used also to say that it was reasonable for a good man not to expose himself to danger for the sake of his country, for that he ought not to discard his own prudence for the sake of benefiting those who had none. And he said that a wise man's country was the World. He allowed that a wise man might steal, and commit adultery and sacrilege, at proper seasons: for that none of these actions were disgraceful by nature, if one only put out of sight the common opinion about them, which owes its existence to the consent of fools. And he said that the wise man would indulge his passions openly, without any regard to circumstances: on which principle he used to ask the following questions: "Is a woman who is well instructed in literature of use just in proportion to the amount of her literary knowledge? " "Yes," said the person questioned. "And is a boy, and is a youth, useful in proportion to his acquaintance with literature? " "Yes. " "Is not then, also, a beautiful woman useful in proportion as she is beautiful; and a boy and a youth useful in proportion to their beauty? " "Yes. " "Well then, a handsome boy and a handsome youth must be useful exactly in proportion as they are handsome? " "Yes. " "Now the use of beauty is, to be embraced. " And when this was granted he pressed the argument thus:- If then a man embraces a woman just as it is useful that he should, he does not do wrong; nor, again, will he be doing wrong in employing beauty for the purposes for which it is useful. And with such questions as these he appeared to convince his hearers.
XIV. But he appears to have got the name of theos from Stilpo one day asking him, "Are you, Theodorus, what you say you are? " And when he said he was, "And you said that you are theos," continued his questioner; he admitted that also. "Then," continued the other, "you are theos. " And as he willingly received the title, the other laughed and said, "But you, wretched man, according to this principle, you would also admit that you were a raven, or a hundred other things. " One day Theodorus sat down by Euryclides the hierophant, and said to him, "Tell me now, Euryclides, who are they who behave impiously with respect to the mysteries? " And when Euryclides answered, "Those who divulge them to the uninitiated;" "Then," said he, " you also are impious, for you divulge them to those who are not initiated. "
XV. And indeed he was very near being brought before the Areopagus if Demetrius of Phalereus had not saved him. But Amphicrates in his Essay on Illustrious Men, says that he was condemned to drink hemlock.
XVI. While he was staying at the court of Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, he was sent once by him to Lysimachus as an ambassador. And as he was talking very freely, Lysimachus said to him, "Tell me, Theodorus, have not you been banished from Athens? " And he replied, "you have been rightly informed; for the city of the Athenians could not bear me, just as Semele could not bear Bacchus; and so we were both cast out. " And when Lysimachus said again, "Take care that you do not come to me again;" "I never will," he replied, "unless Ptolemy sends me. " And as Mythras, the steward of Lysimachus was present, and said, "You appear to me to be the only person who ignores both Gods and Sovereigns;" "How," rejoined Theodorus, "can you say that I ignore the Gods, when I look upon you as their enemy? "
XVII. They say also that on one occasion he came to Corinth, bringing with him a great many disciples; and that Metrocles the Cynic, who was washing leeks said so him, "You, who are a Sophist, would not have wanted so many pupils, if you had washed vegetables. " And Theodorus, taking him up, replied, "And if you had known how to associate with men, you would not have cared about those vegetables. " But this rejoinder, as I have said already, is attributed both to Diogenes and Aristippus.
XVIII. Such was Theodorus, and such were his circumstances and opinions. But at last he went away to Cyrene, and lived there with Megas, being treated by him with the greatest distinction. And when he was first driven away from Cyrene, he is reported to have said very pleasantly, "You do wrong, O men of Cyrene, driving me from Africa to Greece. "
XIX. But there were twenty different people of the name of Theodorus. The first was a Samian, the son of Rhoeus; he it was who advised the putting of coals under the foundations of the temple of Diana at Ephesus; for as the ground was very swampy, he said that the coals, having got rid of their ligneous qualities would retain their solidity in a way that could not be impaired by water. The second was a Cyrenean, a geometrician, and had Plato for one of his pupils. The third was the philosopher whom we have been describing. The fourth was an author who wrote a very remarkable treatise on the art of exercising the voice. The fifth was a man who wrote a treatise on Musicial Composers, beginning with Terpander. The sixth was a Stoic. The seventh was the historian of Rome. The eighth was a Syracusan, who wrote an Essay on Tactics. The ninth was a citizen of Byzantium, who was a political orator. The tenth was another orator, who is mentioned by Aristotle in his Epitome of the Orators. The eleventh was a Theban, a statuary. The twelfth was a painter, who is mentioned by Polemo. The thirteenth was also a painter, who is spoken of by Menodotus. The fourteenth was an Ephesian, a painter, mentioned by Theophanes in his Essay on Painting. The fifteenth was an epigrammatic poet. The sixteenth wrote an essay on Poets. The seventeenth was a physician, a pupil of Athenaeas. The eighteenth was a Chian, a Stoic philosopher. The nineteenth was a citizen of Miletus, another Stoic. The twentieth was a tragic poet.
1. This is exactly the character that Horace gives of him:
Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res;
Tentantem majora, fere praesentibus aequum.
Ep. i. 23, 24.
2. Plutarch, in his life of Pompey, attributes these lines to Sophocles, but does not mention the play in which they occurred.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF PHAEDO
I. PHAEDO the Elean, one of the Eupatridae, was taken prisoner at the time of the subjugation of his country, and was compelled to submit to the vilest treatment. But while he was standing in the street, shutting the door, he met with Socrates, who desired Alcibiades, or as some say, Crito, to ransom him. And after that time he studied philosophy as became a free man. But Hieronymus, in his essay on suspending one's judgment, calls him a slave.
II. And he wrote dialogues, of which we have genuine copies ; by name- Zopyrus, Simon, and Nicias (but the genuineness of this one is disputed); Medius, which some people attribute to Aeschines, and others to Polyaenus; Antimachus, or the Elders (this too is a disputed one); the Scythian discourses, and these, too, some attribute to Aeschines.
III. But his successor was Phistamus of Elis; and the next in succession to him were Menedemus of Eretria, and Asclepiades of Philias, who came over from Stilpo. And down to the age of these last, they were called the Eliac school; but after the time of Menedemus, they were called the Eretrians. And we will speak of Menedemus hereafter, because he was the founder of a new sect.
* Yonge transliterates the name as "Phoedo"
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF EUCLIDES
I. EUCLIDES was a native of Megara on the Isthmus, or of Gela, according to some writers, whose statement is mentioned by Alexander in his Successions. He devoted himself to the study of the writings of Parmenides; and his successors were called the philosophers of the Megaric school; after that they were called the Contentious school, and still later, the Dialecticians, which name was first given to them by Dionysius the Carthaginian; because they carried on their investigations by question and answer. Hermodorus says that after the death of Socrates, Plato and the other philosophers came to Euclides, because they feared the cruelty of the tyrants.
II. He used to teach that the chief good is unity; but that it is known by several names; for at one time people call it prudence; at another time God; at another time intellect, and so on. But everything which was contrary to good, he discarded, denying its existence. And the proofs which he used to bring forward to support his arguments, were not those which proceed on assumptions, but on conclusions. He also rejected all that sort of reasoning which proceeds on comparison, saying that it must be founded either on things which are like, or on things which are unlike. If on things which are like, then it is better to reason about the things themselves, than about those which resemble them; and if on things which are unlike, then the comparison is quite useless. And on this account Timon uses the following language concerning him, where he also attacks all the other philosophers of the Socratic school:
But I do care for none of all these triflers,
Nor for any one else; not for your Phaedon,
Whoever he may be; not for the quarrelsome
Euclides, who bit all the Megareans
With love of fierce contention.
III. He wrote six dialogues-the Lamprias, the Aeschines, the Phoenix, the Crito, the Alcibiades, and the Amatory dialogue.
IV. Next in succession to Euclides, came Eubulides of Miletus, who handed down a great many arguments in dialectics; such as the Lying one; the Concealed one; the Electra; the Veiled one; the Sorites; the Horned one; the Bald one. 1
And one of the Comic poets speaks of him in the following terms :
Eubulides, that most contentious sophist,
Asking his horned quibbles, and preplexing
The natives with his false arrogant speeches,
Has gone with all the fluency of Demosthenes.
For it seems that Demosthenes had been his pupil, and that being at first unable to pronounce the C, he got rid of that defect. Eubulides had a quarrel with Aristotle, and was constantly attacking him.
V. Among the different people who succeeded Eubulides, was Alexinus of Elis, a man very fond of argument, on which account he was nicknamed Elenchinos. 2 He had an especial quarrel with Zeno; and Hermippus relates of him that he went from Elis to Olympia, and studied philosophy there; and that when his pupils asked him why he lived there, he said that he wished to establish a school which should be called the Olympic school; but that his pupils being in distress, through want of means of support and finding the situation unhealthy for them, left him; and that after that Alexinus lived by himself, with only one servant. And after that, when swimming in the Alpheus, he was pricked by a reed, and the injury proved fatal, and he died. And we have written an epigram on him which runs thus :
Then the report, alas! was true,
That an unhappy man,
While swimming tore his foot against a nail;
For the illustrious sage,
Good Alexinus, swimming in the Alpheus,
Died from a hostile reed.
And he wrote not only against Zeno, but he composed other works also, especially one against Ephorus the historian.
VI. One of the school of Eubulides was Euphantus of Olynthus, who wrote a history of the events of his own time; he also composed several tragedies, for which he got great distinction at the festivals. And he was the preceptor of Antigonus, the king to whom he dedicated a treatise on Monarchy, which had an exceedingly high reputation. And at last he died of old age.
VII. There are also other pupils of Eubulides, among whom is Apollonius Cronus, who was the preceptor of Diodorus of Iasos, the son of Aminias; and he too was surnamed Cronus, and is thus mentioned by Callimachus in his epigrams:
Momus himself did carve upon the walls,
Cronus is wise.
And he was a dialectician, and, as some believe, he was the first person who invented the Concealed argument, and the Horned one. When he was staying at the court of Ptolemy Soter, he had several dialectic questions put to him by Stilpo; and as he was not able to solve them at the moment, he was reproached by the king with many hard words, and among other things, he was nicknamed Cronus, out of derision. So he left the banquet, and wrote an essay on the question of Stilpo, and then died of despondency. And we have written the following epigram on him:
O Diodorus Cronus, what sad fate
Buried you in despair?
So that you hastened to the shades below,
Perplexed by Stilpo's quibbles-
You would deserve your name of Cronus3 better,
If C and r were gone.
VIII. One of the successors of Euclides was Icthyas, the son of Metellus, a man of great eminence, to whom Diogenes the Cynic addressed a dialogue. And Clinomachus of Therium, who was the first person who ever wrote about axioms and categorems, and things of that kind. And Stilpo the Megarian, a most illustrious philosopher, whom we must now speak of.
1. The French translator gives the following examples, to show what is meant by these several kinds of quibbling arguments:
The lying one is this: Is the man a liar who says that he tells lies. If he is, then he does not tell lies; and if he does not tell lies, is he a liar?
The concealed one: Do you know this man who is concealed? If you do not, you do not know your own father; for he it is who is concealed.
The veiled one is much the same as the preceding.
The electra is a quibble of the same kind as the two preceding ones. Electra sees Orestes : she knows that Orestes is her brother, but does not know that the man she sees is Orestes; therefore she does know, and does not know, her brother at the same time.
The Sorites is universally known.
The bald one is a kind of Sorites; pulling one hair out of a man's head will not make him bald, nor two, nor three, and so on till every hair in his head is pulled out.
The horned one: You have what you have not lost. You have not lost horns, therefore you have horns.
2. From elencho, to confute.
3. Kronos, take away K. , r. , leaves onos, an ass.
THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS
BY DIOGENES LAERTIUS, TRANSLATED BY C. D. YONGE
LIFE OF STILPO
I. STILPO, a native of Megara in Greece, was a pupil of some of Euclides' school. But some say that he was a pupil of Euclides himself. And also of Thrasymachus, the Corinthian, who was a friend of Icthyas, as Heraclides informs us.
II. And he was so much superior to all his fellows in command of words and in acuteness, that it may almost be said that all Greece fixed its eyes upon him, and joined the Megaric school. And concerning him Philippus of Megara speaks thus, word for word: "For he carried off from Theophrastus, Metrodorus the speculative philosopher, and Timagoras of Gela; and Aristotle the Cyrenaic, he robbed of Clitarchus and Simias; and from the dialecticians' school also he won men over, carrying off Poeoneius from Aristides, and Dippilus of the Bosphorus from Euphantus, and also Myrmex of the Venites, who had both come to him to argue against him, but they became converts and his disciples. " And besides these men, he attracted to his school Phrasidemus the Peripatetic, a natural philosopher of great ability; and Alcimus the rhetorician, the most eminent orator in all Greece at that time; and he won over Crates, and great numbers of others, and among them Zeno the Phoenician.
III. And he was very fond of the study of politics. And he was married. But he lived also with a courtesan, named Nicarete, as Onetor tells us somewhere. And he had a licentious daughter, who was married to a friend of his named Simias, a citizen of Syracuse. And as she would not live in an orderly manner, some one told Stilpo that she was a disgrace to him. But he said, "She is not more a disgrace to me than I am an honour to her. "
IV. Ptolemy Soter, it is said, received him with great honour; and when he had made himself master of Megara, he gave him money, and invited him to sail with him to Egypt. But he accepted only a moderate sum of money, and declined the journey proposed to him, but went over to Aegina, until Ptolemy had sailed. Also when Demetrius, the son of Antigonus had taken Megara, he ordered Stilpo's house to be saved, and took care that everything that had been plundered from him should be restored to him. But when he wished Stilpo to give him in a list of all that he had lost, he said that he had lost nothing of his own; for that no one had taken from him his learning, and that he still had his eloquence and his knowledge. And he conversed with Demetrius on the subject of doing good to men with such power, that he became a zealous hearer of his.
V. They say that he once put such a question as this to a man, about the Minerva of Phidias: "Is Minerva the Goddess the daughter of Jupiter? " And when the other said, "Yes;" "But this," said he, "is not the child of Jupiter, but of Phidias. " And when he agreed that it was so- "This then," he continued, "is not a God. " And when he was brought before the Areopagus for this speech, he did not deny it, but maintained that he had spoken correctly; for that she was not a God (theos) but a Goddess (thea); for that Gods were of the male sex only. 1 However the judges of the Areopagus ordered him to leave the city; and on this occasion, Theodorus, who was nicknamed theos, said in derision, "Whence did Stilpo learn this? and how could he tell whether she was a God or a Goddess? " But Theodorus was in truth a most impudent fellow. But Stilpo was a most witty and elegant-minded man. Accordingly when Crates asked him if the Gods delighted in adoration and prayer; they say that he answered, "Do not ask these questions, you foolish man, in the road, but in private. " And they say too that Bion, when he was asked whether there were any Gods, answered in the same spirit:
"Will you not first, O! miserable old man, Remove the multitude? "
VI. But Stilpo was a man of simple character, and free from all trick and humbug, and universally affable. Accordingly, when Crates the Cynic once refused to answer a question that he had put to him, and only insulted his questioner-- "I knew," said Stilpo, " that he would say anything rather than what he ought. " And once he put a question to him, and offered him a fig at the same time; so he took the fig and ate it, on which Crates said "O Hercules I have lost my fig. " "Not only that," he replied, "but you have lost your question too, of which the fig was the pledge. " At another time, he saw Crates shivering in the winter, and said to him, "Crates, you seem to me to want a new dress," meaning, both a new mind and a new garment; and Crates, feeling ashamed, answered him in the following parody:
"There2 Stilpo too, through the Megarian bounds,
Pours out deep groans, where Syphon's voice resounds,
And there he oft doth argue, while a school
Of eager pupils owns his subtle rule,
And virtue's name with eager chase pursues. "
And it is said that at Athens he attracted all the citizens to such a degree, that they used to run from their workshops to look at him; and when some one said to him, "Why, Stilpo, they wonder at you as if you were a wild beast," he replied, "Not so; but as a real genuine man. "
VII. And he was a very clever arguer; and rejected the theory of species. And he used to say that a person who spoke of man in general, was speaking of nobody; for that he was not speaking of this individual, nor of that one; for speaking in general, how can he speak more of this person than of that person? therefore he is not speaking of this person at all. Another of his illustrations was, "That which is shown to me, is not a vegetable; for a vegetable existed ten thousand years ago, therefore this is not a vegetable. " And they say that once when he was conversing with Crates, he interrupted the discourse to go off and buy some fish; and as Crates tried to drag him back, and said, "You are leaving the argument;" "Not at all," he replied," "I keep the argument, but I am leaving you; for the argument remains, but the fish will be sold to some one else. "
VIII. There are nine dialogues of his extant, written in a frigid style: The Moschus; the Cnistippus or Callias; the Ptolemy; the Choerecrates; the Metrocles; the Anaximenes; the Epigenes; the one entitled To my Daughter, and the Aristotle.
IX. Heraclides affirms that Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, had been one of his pupils.
X. Hermippus says that he died at a great age, after drinking some wine, in order to die more rapidly. And we have written this epigram upon him:
Stranger, old age at first, and then disease,
A hateful pair, did lay wise Stilpo low.
The pride of Megara: he found good wine
The best of drivers for his mournful coach,
And drinking it, he drove on to the end.
And he was ridiculed by Sophibus the comic poet, in his play called Marriages:
The dregs of Stilpo make the whole discourse of this Charinus.
1.
