^ STANDARD WORKS PUBLISHED BY Dr. WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Note.— 27i Dictioi puhlisl gical J portior Wl OF THE E by Chai of Yale The peculia Dictionary for books ever pul 1. Completen words— more Dictionary; i part, unusual explanation o wanted. 2. Accuracy department t were most val and redundai which had pr sally adopted the definitioi HiethodicaUy Esq., the Re Lyman, Prof, with the assi intendence of 3. Scientific In order to se and accuracy has been e Scholars and Prof. Lyman 4. Etymolog THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT From the Library of Henry Goldman, Ph.D. 1886-1972 ilebrated Mitions Itymolo- i to this improved EB, D.D., lost useful J cheapest d as far as \ln all cases \g is given. IS been en- BB. and Mr, holars. The indicated by e explained at the bottom, ions. — No abody tiuch lors as may us, or pos- thought or I 1 are sub- they belong, lceed3000, f ornament, g of words / explained logiat. Dr. C _. , _. years to perfecting this department". 1 without pictorial aid. The Volume contains 1576 pages, more than 3000 Illustrations, and is sold for One Guinea. It will be found, on comparison, to be one of the cheapest Volumes ever issued. Cloth, 2 Is. ; half-bound in calf, 30s. ; calf or half-russia, 31s. ej. ; russia, £2. To be obtainea through all Booksellers. Published by GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON. 2 QEORGE BELL & SONS. WEBSTER'S COMPLETE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LA^S^GUAGE, AND GENERAL BOOK OF LITERARY REFERENCE. With 3000 Illustrations. Tho- roughly revised and improved by Chauncet A. Goodrich, D.D., LL.D., and Noah Portek, D,D., of Yale College, In One Volume, Quarto, strongly bound in cloth, 1840 pages, price £1 lis. Qd.; half-calf, £2 ; calf or half-russia, £2 2s. ; russia, £2 10s. Besides the matter comprised in the Webster's Guinea Dictionart, this volume contains the following Appendices, which will show that no pains have been spared to make it a complete Literaiy Eefereuee-book : — A Brief History of the English Lan- guage. By Professor Jamks Hadlet. This Work shows the Philological Rela- tions of the English Language, and traces the progress and influence of the causes which have brought it to its present con- dition. Principles of Pronunciation, By Professor Goodrich and W. A. Wheelek, M.A, Including a Synopsis of \^ord8 differently pronounced by different au- thorities. A Short Treatise on Orthography. By Abthdr W. Wright. Including a Complete List of Words that are spelt in two or more ways. An Explanatory and Prononncing Vocabulary of the Namefs of Noted Fic- titious Persons and Places, &c By W. A. ' Wheeleb, M. a. This Work includes not only persons and places noted in Fiction, whether narrative, poetical, or dramatic, but Mythological and Mythical names, names referring to the Angelology and De- monology of various races, and those found in the romance writers ; Pseu- donyms, Nick-names of eminent persons and parties, &c., &c. In fact, it is best described as explaining every name which is not strictly historical. A reference^ is given to the originator of each name, and where the origin is unknown a quotation is given to some well-known writer in which the word occurs. This vaVaabU iVoi-k may also 6« had separately, post Svo., 5s. A Pronouncing Vocabulary of Greek and Latin Proper Names. By Professor Thacheb, of Yale College. A Pronouncing Vocabulary of Scrip- ture Proper Names. By W. A. Wheex,er, M.A. Including a List of the Variations that occur in the Uouay version of the Bible. An Etymological Vocabulary of Mo- dem Geographical Names. By the Rev. C. H. Wheeleb. Containing : — i. A List of PrefixeSi Terminations, and Formative Syllables in various Languages, with their meaning an 1 derivation ; ii. A brief List of Geographical Names (not explained by the foregoing List), witb their derivation and signification, aU doubtlul and obscure derivations being excluded. Pronouncing Vocabularies of Modem Geographical and Biographical Names. By J. Thomas, M.D. A Pronouncing Vocabulary of Com- mon English Christian Names, with their derivations, signihcation, and diminutives (or nick-names), and their equivalents in several other languages. A Dictionary of Quotations. Selected and translated by William G. Webstek. Containing all Words, Phrases, Proverbs, and Colloquial Expressions from the Greek, Latin, and Modem Foreign Lan- guages, which are fiequently met with in literature and conversation. A List of Abbreviations, Contrac- tions, and Arbitrary Signs used in Writing and Printing. A Classified Selection of Pictorial Illustrations (70 pages). With references to the text. " The cheapest Dictionary ever published, as it is confessedly one of the best. The intro- duction of small woodcut illustrations of technical and scientific terms adds greatly to the utility of the Dictionary."— C7iMrc7tmmely bound m walnut. 21s. each. Final SEBIE.S — Chadcer toDrvdkn. Second Sekies — Swift to Buk.ss. ThIBO SkRIEH — WORMWOBTH TO TeNNTSON. LONDON : GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 12 GEOjRGE BELL & SONS. BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG. CAPTAIN MARRTAT'S BOOKS FOR BOTS. ?00r Jack. Witli Sixteen Illustrations after Designs by CLAKKfON Stakfibld, R.A. Twenty-seeond Edition. Post 8vo., 35. 6 , . In turning over the charmingly executed hand- coloured plates of British plants |which encumber these volumes with riches, the reader cannot help being struck with the beauty of many of the humblest flowering weeds we tread on with careless step. We cannot dwell upon many of the individuals grouped in the splendid bouquet of flowers presented in these pages, and it will be sufficient to state that fLe work is pledged to contain a figure of every wild flower indigenous to these isles."— Times. " Will be the most complete Flora of Great Britain ever brought out. This great work will find A place wherever botanical science is cultivated,^ and the study of our native plants, with aU their fascinating associations, held dear." — Athfnceum,. " A clear, bold, distinctive type enables the reader to take in at a glance the arrangement and divisions of every page. And Mrs. Lankester has added to the technical description by the editor an extremely interesting popular sketch, which follows in smaller type. The English, French, and German popular names are given, and, wherever that delicate and difficult step is at all practicable, their derivation also. Medical properties, superstitions, and fancies, and poetic tributes and Illusions, follow. In short there la nothing more left to be desired." — Guardian. " Without question, this Is the standard work on Botany, and Indispensable to every botanist. . . . The plates are most accurate and beautiful, and the entire work cannot be too strongly recommended to all who are interested in botany." — Illustrated News. Sold separately, prices as follows : — Bound cloth. Half morocco. Morocco elegant. £ s. d. £ 8. d. £ 8. d. Vol. L (Seven Parts) 1 18 2 2 2 8 6 II. ditto 1 18 2 2 2 8 6 III. (Eight Parts) 2 3 2 7 2 13 6 IV. (Nine Parts) 2 8 2 12 2 18 6 V. (Eight Parts) 2 3 2 7 2 13 6 VI. (Seven Parts) 1 18 2 2 2 8 6 VII. ditto 1 18 2 2 2 8 6 VIII. (Ten Parts) 2 13 2 17 3 3 6 IX. (Seven ^Parts) 1 18 2 2 2 8 6 X. ditto 1 18 2 2 2 8 6 XI. (Six Parts) 1 13 1 17 2 3 6 Or, the Eleven Volumes, 22Z. 8s. in cloth ; 24L 128. in half-morocco ; and 281. 3s. Gd. whole morocco. A Supplementary Volume, containing ferns and other cryptogami, in preparation by Professor Boswell (formerly Syme). LONDON : GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 14 GEORGE BELL & SONS. LIBRARY OF NATURAL HISTORY. "Each volume is elegantly printed in royal 8vo., and illustrated with a very large number of well-executed engravings, printed in colours They form a complete library ef reference on the several subjecU to which they are devoted, and nothing more complete in their way has lately appeared." — TAe Bookseller. BREE'S BIRDS OF EUROPE AND THEIR EGGS, not ob- served in the British Isles. With 252 beautifully coloured Plates. Five vols. 5/. SJ. COUCH'S HISTORY OF THE FISHES OF THE BRITISH ISLANDS. With 252 carefully coloured Plates. Four vols. 4/. i,s. GATTY'S (MRS. ALFRED) BRITISH SEAWEEDS. Nume- rous coloured Illustrations. Two vols. 2/. los. HIBBERD'S (SHIRLEY) NEW AND RARE BEAUTIFUL- LEAVED PLANTS. With 64 coloured Full-page Illustrations. Executed expressly for this work. One vol. i/. SJ. LOWE'S NATURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH AND EXOTIC FERNS. With 479 finely coloured Plates. Eight vols. 6/. ts. LOWE'S OUR NATIVE FERNS. Illustrated with 79 coloured Plates and 900 Wood Engravings. Two vols. il. is. LOWE'S NATURAL HISTORY OF NEW AND RARE FERNS. Containing Species and Varieties not included in " Ferns, British and Exotic." 72 coloured Plates and Woodcuts. One vol. 1/. i^. LOWE'S NATURAL HISTORY OF BRITISH GRASSES. With 74 finely coloured Plates. One vol. i/. if. LOWE'S BEAUTIFUL-LEAVED PLANTS : being a description of the most beautiful-leaved Plants in cultivation in this country. With 60 coloured Illustrations. One vol. i/. is. MORRIS' HISTORY OF BRITISH BIRDS. With 360 finely coloured Engravings. Six vols. 6/. 6j. MORRIS' NESTS AND EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. With 223 beautifully coloured Engravings. Three vols. 3/. 3*. MORRIS' BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. With 71 beautifully cc loured Plates. One vol. \l. u. MORRIS' BRITISH MOTHS. With coloured Illustrations of nearly 2000 specimens. Four vols. 6/. 6f . TRIPP'S BRITISH MOSSES. With 39 coloured Plates, con- taining a figure of each species. Two vols. ' il. 10s. WOOSTER'S ALPINE PLANTS. First Series. With 54 coloured Plates. 25^. WOOSTER'S ALPINE PLANTS. Second Series. With 54 coloured Plates. 25s. LONDON: GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK STREET, CO VENT GARDEN. 16 STANDARD WORKS PUBLISHED BY GEORGE BELL & SONS. For List of Bohn's Libraries me the end of tlie Volume. A .M KA^e^CZ %a^-es 217 Diogenes > . 224 MONIMUS . 248 Onesiceittjs . . . 249 Ceates . . 249 Meteocles . • • • . 253 HiPPAECTTTA 254 Mexippus . • ■ • . 256 Mexedemus • • ■ BOOK VII. 257 Zeno k • • . 259 Aeiston . • 318 Hfeillus . • . 320 DiONTSIUS • ■ 321 Cleasthes . . 322 Sph^rus • • • . 326 Chbysippcs . • • . 327 Vlll CONTENTS. BOOK VIII. Pythagoras Empedocles Epichaemus Archttas Alcm^on Hipp ASUS Philolaus EUDOXUS PAGE. 338 359 3(i8 369 371 371 372 872 BOOK IX. Heraclitus Xenophanes Parmenides Melissus Zeno, the Eleatic ' Leucippus . Democritus Protagoras . Diogenes, op Apollonia Anaxarchus Pyrrho . TiMON 376 382 384 386 386 388 390 397 400 400 402 420 BOOK X. Epicurus 424 PREFACE. Diogenes, tlie author of the following work, was a native (as is generally believed) of Laerte, in Cilicia, from which circumstance he derived the cognomen of Laertius. Little is known of him personally, nor is even the age in which he lived very clearly-ascertained. But as Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus, and Saturninus ai'e among the writers whom he quotes, he is generally believed to have lived near the end of the second century of our era : although some place him in the time of Alexander Severus, and others as late as Constantino. His work consists of ten books, variously called : The Lives of Philosophers, A History of Philosophy, and The Lives of Sophists. From internal evidence (iii. 47, 29), we learn that he wrote it for a noble lady (according to some, Arria ; according to others, Juha, the Empress of Sevenis). who occupied herself with the study of philosophy, and es- pecially of Plato. Diogenes Laertius divides the philosophy of the Greeks into the Ionic, beginning with Anaximander, and ending with Theophrastus (in which class, he includes the Socratic philo- sophy and all its various ramifications); and the Italian, beginning with Pythagoras, and ending with Epicurus, in which he .includes the Eleatics, as also Heraclitus and the Sceptics. From the minute consideration which he devotes to Epicurus and his system, it has been supposed that he himself belonged to that school. His work is the chief source of information we possess B 2 PREFACE, concerning the history of Greek philosophy, and is the foundation of nearly all the modern treatises on that sub- ject ; some of the most important of which are little more than translations or amplifications of it. It is valuable, as containing a copious collection of anecdotes illustrative of the life and manners of the Greeks ; but he has not always been very careful in his selection, and in some parts there is a confusion in his statements that makes them scarcely intelligible. These faults have led some critics to consider the work as it now exists merely a mutilated abridgment of the original. Breslceus, who in the thirteenth century, wrote a Treatise on the Lives and Manners of the Philosophers, quotes many anecdotes and sayings, which seem to be de- rived from Diogenes, but which are not to be found in our present text ; whence Schneider concludes that he had a very different and far more complete copy than has come down to us. The text used in the following translation is chiefly that of Huebner, as published at Leipsic, a.d. 1828. LIVES AND OPINIONS OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. BOOK I. — ♦ — INTRODUCTION. I. Some say tliat the study of philosophy originated with the barbarians. In that among the Persians there existed the Magi,* and among the Babylonians or Assyrians the Chaldaii,! among the Indians the Gymnosophistse,^ and among the Celts and Gauls men who were called Druids § and * " The religion of the ancient Persians was the worship of fire or of the elements, in which fire was symbolical of the Deity. At a later period, in the time of the Greeks, the ancient worship was changed into the adoration of the stars (Sabceism), especially of the sun and of the morning star. This religion was distinguished by a simple and majestic character. Its priests were called Magi." — Tcnneman's Manual of the History of Philosophy, Introd. § 70. + "The Chaldeans were devoted to the worshij) of the stars and to astrology ; the nature of their climate and country disposing them t-o it. The worship of the stars was revived by them and widely dissemi- nated even subsequently to the Christian era." — Ibid. § 71. X " Cicero speaks of those who in India are accounted philosophers, living naked and enduring the greatest severity of winter without be- traying any feeling of pain, and displaying the same insensibility when exposed to the flames." — Tusc. Qmest. v. 27. § " The religion of the Britons was one of the most considerable parts of their government, and the Druids who were their priests, pos- sessed great authority among them. Besides ministering at the altai-, and directing all religious duties, they presided over the education of youth ; they possessed both the civil and criminal jurisdiction, they decided all controversies among states as well as among private persons, and whoever refused to submit to their decree was exposed to the most severe penalties. The sentence of excommunication was pronounced B 2 4 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. Semnothei. as Aristotle relates in his book on Magic, and Sotion in the twentj^-third book of his Succession of Philoso- phers. Besides those men there were the Phoenician Ochus, the Thraciau Zamolxis,* and the Libyan Atlas. For the against him ; lie was forbidden access to the sacrifices of public worsbip ; he was debarred all intercourse with his fellow citizens even in the common affairs of life : his company was universally shunned as profane and dangerous, he was refused the protection of law, and death itself became an acceptable relief from the misery and infamy to which he was exposed. Thus the bonds of gaverum.ent, which were naturally loose among that rude and turbulent people, were happily corroborated by the terrors of their superstition. " No species of superstition was ever more terrible than that of the Druids ; besides the several penalties which it was in the power of the ecclesiastics to inflict in this world, they inculcated the eternal trans- migration of souls, and thereby extended their authority as far as the fears of their tunorous votaries. They practised their rites in dark groves or other secret recesses, and in order to throw a greater mystery over their religion, they communicated their doctrines only to the initiated, and strictly forbade the committing of them to writing, lest they should at any time be exposed to the examination of the profane and vulgar. Human sacrifices were practised among them ; the spoils of war were often devoted to their divinities, and they punished with the severest tortures whoever dared to secrete any part of the con- secrated offering. These treasures they kept secreted in woods and forests, secured by no other guard than the terrrors of their religion ; and their steady conqviest over human avidity may be regarded as more signal than their prompting men to the most extraordinary and most violent efforts. No idolatrous worship ever attained such an ascendant over mankind as that of the ancient Gauls and Britons. And the Romans after their conquest, finding it impossible to reconcile those nations to the laws and institutions of their masters while it maintained its authority, were at last obliged to abolish it by penal statutes, a violence which had never in any other instance been resorted to by those tolerating conquerors." — Hume's History of England, chap. 1. § 1. * Zamolxis, or Zalmoxis, so called from the bear-skin {^aXfioQ) in which he was wrapped as soon as he was born, was a Getan, and a slave cf Pythagoras at Samos ; having been emancipated by his master, he travelled into Egypt ; and on his return to his own country he introduced the laeas which he had acquired in his travels on the subject of civilisation, religion, and the immortality of the soul. He was made priest of the chief deity among the Getse, and was afterwards himself worshipped as a divine person. He was said to have lived in a subterraneous cavern for three years, and after that to have re-appeared among his countrymen. Herodotus, however, who records these stories (iv. 95), expresses his disbelief of them, placing him before the time of Pythagoras by many years, and seems to incline to the belief that he was an indigenous Getan deity. INTRODUCTION. 5 Egyptians say tliat Yulcau was the son of Nilus, and that lie was the author of philosophy, in which those who were especially eminent were called his priests and prophets. II. From his age to that of Alexander, king of the Mace- donians were forty-eight thousand eight hundred and sixty- three years, and during this time there were three hundred and seventy-three eclipses of the sun, and eight hundred and thirty-two eclipses of the moon. Again, from the time of the Magi, the first of whom was Zoroaster the Persian, to that of the fall of Troy, Hermodorus the Platonic philosopher, in his treatise on Mathematics, calculates that fifteen thousand years elapsed. But Xanthus the Lydian says that the passage of the Hellespont by Xerxes took place six thousand years after the time of Zoroaster,* and that after him there was a regular succession * " The real time of Zoroaster is, as may be supposed, very un- certain, but lie is said by some eminent writers to have lived in the time of Darius Hystaspes ; though others, apparently on better grounds, place him at a very far earlier date. He is not mentioned by Herodotus at all. His native country too is very uncertain. Some writers, among whom are Ctesias and Ammian, call him a Bactrian, while Porphyry speaks of him as a Chaldacan, and Pliny as a native of Proconnesus ;— Niebuhr considers him a purely mythical per- sonage. The great and fundamental article of the system (of the Persian theology) was the celebrated doctrine of the two principles ; a bold and injudicious attempt of Eastern philosophy to reconcile the existence of moral and physical evil with the attributes of a benefi- cent Creator and governor of the world. The first and original being, in whom, or by whom the universe exists, is denominated, in the writ- ings of Zoroaster, Time without bounds From either the blind or the intelligent operation of this infinite Time, which bears but too near an affinity to the Chaos of the Greeks, the two secondary but active principles of the universe were from all eternity produced ; Ormusd and Ahriman, each of them possessed of the powers of creation, but each disposed by his invariable nature to exercise them with different designs ; the principle of good is eternally absorbed in light, the prin- ciple of evil is eternally buried in darkness. The wise benevolence of Ormusd formed man capable of virtue, and abundantly provided his fair habitation with the materials of happiness. By his vigilant provi- dence the motion of the planets, the order of the seasons, and the temperate mixture of the elements are preserved. But the maker of Ahiiman has long since pierced Ormusd's Egg, or in other words, has violated the harmony of his works. Since that fatal irruption, the most minute articles of good and evU are intimately intermingled and agitated together ; the rankest poisons spring up among the most salutary plants ; deluges, earth(j[uake3, and conflagrations attest the conflict of 6 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. ^ of Magi under the names of Ostanes and Astrampsychos and Gobryas and Pazatas, until the destruction of the Persian empire by Alexander. III. But those who say this, ignorantly impute to the barbarians the merits of the Greeks, from whom not only all philosophy, but even the whole human race in reality originated. For Musaeus was born among the Athenians, and Linus among the Thebans ; and they say that the former, who was the son of Eumolpus, was the first person who taught the system of the genealogy of the gods, and who invented the spheres ; and that he taught that all things originated in one thing, and when dissolved returned to that same thing; and that he died at Phalerum, and that this epitaph was inscribed on his tomb : — Phalerum's soil beneatli this tomb contains Musseus dead, Eumolpus' darling son. And it is from the father of Musa3us that the family called Eumolpidse among the Athenians derive their name. They say too that Linus was the son of Mercury and the Muse Urania ; and that he invented a system of Cosmogony, and of the motions of the sun and moon, and of the genera- tion of animals and fruits ; and the following is the be- ginning of his poem. There was a time when all the present world Ujjrose at once. From Avhich Anaxagoras derived his theory, when he said that nature, and the little world of man is perpetually shaken by vice and misfortune. While the rest of mankind are led away captives in the chains of their infernal enemy, the faithful Persian alone reserves his religious adoration for his friend and protector Ormusd, and fights under his banner of light, in the full confidence that he shall, in the last day, share the glory of his triumph. At that decisive period, the enlightened wisdom of goodness will render the power of Ormusd superior to the furious malice of his rival ; Ahriman and his followers, disarmed and subdued, will sink into their native darkness, and virtue will maintain the eternal peace and harmony of the universe. . . . . . As a legislator, Zoroaster " discovered a liberal concern for the public and private happiness seldom to be found among the visionarj' schemes of superstition. Fasting and celibacy, the common means of purchasing the divine favour, he condemns with abhorrence, as a criminal rejection of the best gifts of FvoYidence." — Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, c. viii. INTRODUCTION, 7 all things had been produced at the same time, and tliat then intellect had come and arranged them all in order. They say, moreover, that Linus died in Euboea, having been shot with an arrow by Apollo, and that this epitaph was set over him : — The Theban Linus sleeps beneath this ground, Urania's son with fahest garlands crown'd. IV. And thus did philosophy arise among the Greeks, and indeed its very name shows that it has no connection with the barbarians. But those who attribute its origin to them, intro- duce Orpheus the Thracian, and say that he was a philosopher, and the most ancient one of all. But if one ought to call a man who has said such things about the gods as he has said, a philosopher, I do not know what name one ought to give to him who has not scrupled to attribute all sorts of human feel- ings to the gods, and even such discreditable actions as are but rarely spoken of among men ; and tradition relates that he was murdered by women ;* but there is an inscription at Dium in Macedonia, saying that he was killed by lightning, and it runs thus : — Here the bard buried by the Muses lies. The Thracian Orpheus of the golden lyre ; Whom mighty Jove, the Sovereign of the skies, Removed from earth by his dread lightning's fire. V. But they who say that philosophy had its rise among the barbarians, give also an account of the different systems prevailing among the various tribes. And they say that the Gymnosophists and the Druids philosophize, delivering their apophthegmus in enigmatical language, Indding men worship the gods and do no evil, and practise manly virtue. * This is the account given by Virgil — Spretse Ciconum quo munere matres Inter sacra DeCim noctumique orgia Bacchi, Discerptumlatos juvenem sparsere per agros. — GEORG.iv.520. Which Dry den translates — The Thracian matrons who the youth nccus'd, Of love disdain'd and marriage rites refus'd ; With furies and nocturnal orgies fir'd, At length against his sacred life conspir"d ; Whom ev'n the savage beasts had spar'd they kill'd, And strew'd his mangled limbs about the field. 8 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. VI. Accordingly Clitarchus, in liis twelfth book, says that the Gymuosophists despise death, and that the Chaldaeans study astronomy and the science of soothsaying — that the Magi occupy themselves about the service to be paid to the gods, and about sacrifices and prayers, as if they were the only people to whom the deities listen : and that they deliver accounts of the existence and generation of the gods, saying that they are fire, and earth, and water ; and they condemn the use of images, and above all things do tliey condemn those who say that the gods are male and female ; they speak much of justice, and think it impious to destroy the bodies of the dead by fire ; they allow men to marry their mothers or their daughters, as So- tion tells us in his twenty-third book ; they study the arts of soothsaying and divination, and assert that the gods reveal their will to them by those sciences. They teach also that the ^r is full of phantoms, which, by emanation and a sort of eva- poration, glide into the sight of those who have a clear percep- tion ; they forbid any extravagance of ornament, and the use of gold ; their garments are white, their beds are made of leaves, and vegetables are their food, with cheese and coarse bread ; they use a rush for a staff, the top of which they run into ths cheese, and so taking up a piece of it they eat it. Of all kinds of magical divination they are ignorant, as Aristotle asserts in his book on Magic, and Dinon in the fifth book of his Histories. And this writer says, that the name of Zoroaster being inter- preted means, a sacrifice to the stars ; and Hermodorus makes the same statement. But Aristotle, in the first book of his Treatise on Philosophy, says, that the Magi are more ancient than the Egyptians ; and that according to them there are two principles, a good demon and an evil demon, and that the name of the one is Jupiter or Oromasdes, and that of the other Pluto or Arimanius. And Hermippus gives the same account in the first book of his Histoiy of the Magi ; and so does Eudoxus in his Period ; and so does Theopompus in the eighth book of his History of the Affairs of Philip ; and this last writer tells us also, that according to the ^Magi men will have a resurrection and be immortal, and that what exists now will exist hereafter under its own present name ; and Eudemus of Rhodes coincides in this statement. But Hecataeus says, that according to their doctrines the gods also are beings who have been born. But Clearchus the Solensian, in his Treatise on INTRODUCTION. 9 Education says, that tlie Gyinnosophists are descendants of the Magi ; and some say that the Jews also are derived from them. Moreover, those -who have written on the subject of the Magi condemn Herodotus ; for they say that Xerxes would never have shot arrows against the sun, or have put fetters on the sea, as both sun and sea have been handed down by the ]\Iagi as gods, but that it was quite consistent for Xerxes to destroy the images of the gods. VII. The following is the account that authors give of the philosophy of the Egyptians, as bearing on the gods and on justice. They say that the first principle is matter; then that the four elements were formed out of matter and divided, and that some animals were created, and that the sun and moon are gods, of whom the former is called Osiris and the latter Isis, and they are symbolised under the names of beetles and dragons, and hawks, and other animals, as Manetho tells us in his abridged account of Natural Philosophy, and Hecataeus confirms the statement in the first book of his Histoiy of the Philosophy of the Egyptians. They also make images of the gods, and assign them temples because they do not know the form of God. They consider that the world had a begin- ning and will have an end, and that it is a sphere ; they think that the stars are fire, and that it is by a combination of tliem that the things on earth are generated ; that tlie moon is eclipsed when it falls into the shadow of the earth ; that the soul is eternal and migratory ; that rain is caused by the changes of the atmosphere ; and they enter into other speculations on points of natural history, as Hecataeus and Aristagoras inform us. Thej'also have made laws about justice, which they attribute to Mercury, and they consider those animals which are useful to be gods. They claim to themselves the merit of having been the inventors of geometry, and astrology, and arithmetic. So much then for the subject of invention. VIII. But Pythagoras was the first person who invented the term Philosophy, and who called himself a philosopher ; when he was conversing at Sicyon with Leon, who was tyrant of the Sicyonians or of the Phliasians (as Heraclides Ponticus relates in the book which he wrote about a dead woman) ; for he said that no man ought to be called wise, but only God. For for- merly what is now called jihilosophy (fiXcaoxia) was called 10 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. wisdom (ffo(p!a), and tliey who professed it were called wise men (aoipoi), as being endowed with great acuteness and accuracy of mind : but now he who embraces wisdom is called a philosopher But the wise men were also called Sophists. And not only they, but poets also were called Sophists : as Cratinus in his Archilochi calls Homer and Hesiod, while praising them highly. IX. Now these were they who were accounted wise men. Thales, Solon, Periander, Cleobulus, Chilo, Bias. Pittacus. To these men add Anacharsis the Scythian, Myson the Chenean, Pherecydes the Syrian, and Epimenides the Cretan ; and some add, Pisistratus, the tyrant : These then are they who were called the wise men. X. But of Philosophy there arose two schools. One de- rived from Anaximander, the other from Pythagoras. Now, Thales had been the preceptor of Anaximander, and Phere- cydes of Pythagoras. And the one school was called the Ionian, because Thales, being an Ionian (for he was a native of Miletus), had been the tutor of Anaximander ;— but the other was called the Italian from Pythagoras, because he spent the chief part of his life in Italy. And the Ionic school ends with Clitomachus, and Cln-ysippus, and Theo- phrastus ; and the Italian one with Epicurus ; for Anaxi- mander succeeded Thales, and he was succeeded again by Anaximenes, and he by Anaxagoras, and he by Archelaus", who was the master of Socrates, who was the originator of moral philosophy. And he was the master of the sect of the Socratic philosophers, and of Plato, who was the founder of the old Academy; and Plato's pupils were Speusippus and Xenocrates ; and Polemo was the pupil of Xenocrates, and Grantor and Crates of Polemo. Crates again was the master of Arcesilaus, the founder of the Middle Academy, and his pupil was Lacydes, who gave the new Academy its distinctive principles. His pupil was Carneades, and he in his turn was the master of Clitomachus. And this school ends in this way with Clitomachus and Chrysippus. Antisthenes was the pupil of Socrates, and the master of Diogenes the Cynic; and the pupil, of Diogenes was Crates the Theban ; Zeno the Cittiaean was his ; Cleanthes was his ; Chrysippus was his. Again it ends with Theophrastus in the following manner : — INTRODUCTION. IT Aristotle was the pupil of Plato. Theophrastns the pupil of Aristotle ; and in this way the Ionian school comes to an end. Now the Italian school was carried on in this way. Pythagoras was the pupil of Pherecydes ; his pupil was Telauges his son ; he was the master of Xenophaues, and he of Parmenides ; Parmenides of Zeno the Eleatic, he of Leucippus, he of Democritus : Democritus had many disciples, the most eminent of whom were Nausiphanes and Nausicydes, and they were the masters of Epicurus. XI. Now, of Philosophers some were dogmatic, and others were inclined to suspend their opinions. By dogmatic, I mean those who explain their opinions about matters^ as if they could be comprehended. By those who suspend their opinions, I mean those who give no positive judgment, think- ing that these things cannot be comprehended. And the former class have left many memorials of themselves ; but the others have never written a line ; as for in- stance, according to some people, Socrates, and Stilpo, and Philippus, and Menedemus, and Pyrrho, and Theodorus, and Carneades, and Bryson ; and, as some people say, Pythagoras, and Aristo of Chios, except that he wrote a few letters. There are some men too who have written one work only, Melissus, Parmenides, and Anaxagoras ; but Zeno wrote many works, Xenophanes still more ; Democritus more, Aristotle more, Epicurus more, and Chrysippus more. XII. Again, of j)liilosophers some derived a surname from cities, as, the Elians, and Megaric sect, the Eretrians, and the Cyrenaics. Some from the places which they frequented, as the Academics and Stoics. Some from accidental circum- stances, as the Peripatetics; or, from jests, as the Cynics. Some again from their dispositions, as the Eudaemonics ; some from an opinion, as the Elenctic, and Analogical schools. Some from their masters, as the Socratic and Epicurean phi- losophers ; and so on. The Natural Philosophers were so called from their study of nature ; the Ethical philosophers from their investigation of questions of morals (ots/ ra 'si}7i}. The Dialecticians are they who devote themselves to quibbling on words. XIII. Now there are three divisions of philosophy. Natural, Ethical, and Dialectic. Natural philosophy occupies 12 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. itself about the world and the things in it ; Ethical philosophy about life, and the things which concern us ; Dialectics are conversant with the arguments by which both the others are supported. Natural philosophy prevailed till the time of Archelaus ; but after the time of Socrates, Ethical philosophy was pre- dominant ; and after the time of Zeno the Eleatic, Dialectic philosophy got the upper hand. Ethical philosophy was subdivided into ten sects ; the Academic, the Cyrenaic, the Elian, the Megaric, the Cynic, the Eretrian, the Dialectic, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean. Of the old Academic school Plato was the president ; of the middle, Arcesilaus ; and of the New, Lacydes : — the Cyrenaic school was founded by Aristippus the Cyrenian ; the Elian, by Phoedo, of Elis ; the Megaric, by Euclid, of Megara ; the Cynic, by Antisthenes, the Athenian ; the Eretrian, by Menedemus, of Eretria ; the Dialectic by Clitomachus, the Carthaginian ; the Peripatetic, by Aristotle, the Stagirite ; the Stoic, by Zeno, the Cittiiean ; the Epicurean school derives its name from Epicurus, its founder. But Hippobotus, in his Treatise on Sects, says that there are nine sects and schools : first, the Megaric ; secondly, the Eretrian ; thirdly, the Cyrenaic ; fourthly, the Epicurean ; fifthly, the Annicerean ; sixthly, the Theodorean ; seventhly, the sect of Zeno and the Stoics ; eighthly, that of the Old Academy ; and ninthly, the Peripatetic ; — not counting either the Cynic, or the Eliac, or the Dialectic school. That also which is called the Pyhrronean is repudiated by many writers, on account of the obscurity of its princij)les. But others consider that in some particulars it is a distinct sect, and in others not. For it does appear to be a sect — for what we call a sect, say they, is one which follows, or appears to follow, a principle which appears to it to be the true one ; on which principle we correctly call the Sceptics a sect. But if by the name sect we understand those who incline to rules which are consistent with the principles which they profess, then the Pyrrhonean cannot be called a sect, for they have no rules or principles. These, then, are the beginnings, these are the successive masters, these are the divisions, and schools of philosophy. XIV. Moreover, it is not long ago, that a new Eclectic INTRODUCTION. 13 school was set up by Potamo, of Alexandria, who picked out of the doctrines of each school what pleased him most. And as he himself says, in his Elementary Instruction, he thinks that there are certain criteria of truth : first of all the faculty which judges, and this is the superior one ; the other that which is the foundation of the judgment, being a most exact appearance of the objects. And the first principles of everything he calls matter, and the agent, and the quality, and the .place. For they show out of what, and by what, and how, and where anything is done. The end is that to which everything is refeiTed ; namely, a life made perfect with every virtue, not without the natural and external qualities of the body. But we must now speak of the men themselves ; and fhst of all about Thales. 14 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. LIFE OF THAI.ES. I. Thales, then, as Herodotus and Duris and Democritus say, was the son of Euxamius and Cleohule ; of the family of the TheHdce, wlio are Phoenicians hy descent, among the most nohle of all the descendants of Cadmus and Agenor, as Plato testifies. And he was the first man to whom the name of Wise was given, when Damasius was Archon at Athens, in whose time also the seven wise men had that title given to them, as Demetrius Phalereus records in his Catalogue of the Archons. He was enrolled as a citizen at Miletus when he came thither with Neleus, who had been banished from Phoenicia ; but a more common statement is that he was a native Milesian, of noble extraction. II. After having been immersed in state affairs he applied himself to speculations in natural philosophy ; though, as some people state, he left no writings behind him. For the book on Naval Astronomy, which is attributed to him is said in reality to be the work of Focus the Samian. But Callimachus was aware that he was the discoverer of the Lesser Bear ; for in his Iambics he speaks of him thus : And, he, 'tis said, did first compute the stars Which beam in Charles's warn, and guide the bark Of the Phcenician sailor o'er the sea. According to others he wrote two books, and no more, about the solstice and the equinox ; thinking that everything else was easily to be comprehended. According to other statements, he is said to have been the first who studied astronomy, and who foretold the eclipses and motions of the sun, as Eudemus relates in his history of the discoveries made in astronomy ; on which account Xenophanes and Herodotus praise him greatly ; and Heraclitus and De- mocritus confirm this statement. III. Some again (one of whom is ChtErilus the poet) say that he was the first person who affirmed that the souls of men were immortal ; and he was the first person, too, who THALES. 15 discovered the path of the sun from one end of the ecliptic to the other ; and who, as one account tells us, defined the magnitude of the sun as being seven hundred and twenty times as great as that of the moon. He was also the first person who called the last day of the month the thirtieth. And likewise the first to converse about natural philosophy, as some say. But Aristotle and Hippias say that he attributed souls also to lifeless things, forming his conjecture from the nature of the magnet, and of amber. And Pamphile relates that he, having learnt geometry from the Egyptians, was the first person to describe a right-angled triangle in a circle, and that he sacilficed an ox in honour of his discovery. But others, among whom is Apollodorus the calculator, say that it was Pythagoras who made this discovery. It was Thales also who carried to their greatest point of advancement the discoveries which Callimachus in his iambics says were first made by Eu- phebus the Phiygian, such as those of the scalene angle, and of the triangle, and of other things which relate to investigations about lines. He seems also to have been a man of the greatest wisdom in political matters. For when Croesus sent to the Milesians to invite them to an alliance, he prevented them from agreeing to it, which step of his, as Cyrus got the victory, proved the salvation of the city. But Clytus relates, as Heraclides assures us, that he was attached to a solitary and recluse life. IV. Some assert that he was married, and that he had a son named Cibissus ; others, on the contrary, say that he never had a wife, but that he adopted the sou of his sister ; and that once being asked why he did not himself become a father, he answered, that it was because he was fond of chil- dren. They say, too, that when his mother exhorted him to marry, he said, " No, by Jove, it is not yet time." And afterwards, when he was past his youth, and she was again pressing him earnestly, he said, " It is no longer time." V. Hieronymus, of Rhodes, also tells us, in the second book of his Miscellaneous Memoranda, that when he was desirous to show that it was easy to get rich, he, foreseeing that there would be a great crop of olives, took some large plantations of olive trees, and so made a great deal of money. VI. He asserted water to be the principle of all things, 16 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEKS, and that the world had life, and was full of dtemous : they say, too, that he was the origmal definer of the seasons of the year, and that it was he who divided the year into three hundred and sixty-five days. And he never had any teacher except during the time that he went to Egypt, and associated with the priests. Hieronymus also says that he measured the Pyramids : watching their shadow, and calculating when they were of the same size as that was. He lived with Tlirasy- bulus the tyrant of Miletus, as we are informed by Minyas. VII. Now it is known to every one what happened with respect to the tripod that was found by the fishermen and sent to the wise men by the people of the Milesians. For they say that some Ionian youths bought a cast of their net from some Milesian fishermen. And when the tripod was drawn up in the net there was a dispute about it ; until the Milesians sent to Delphi : and the God gave them the following answer : — You ask about the tripod, to whom you shall present it ; j 'Tis for the wisest, I rejily, that fortune surely meant it. Accordingly they gave it to Thales, and he gave it to some one, who again handed it over to another, till it came to Solon. But he said that it was the God himself who was the first in wisdom ; and so he sent it to Delphi. But Callimachus gives a different account of this in his Iambics, taking the tradition which he mentions from Leander the Milesian; for he says that a certain Arcadian of the name of Bathydes, when dying, left a goblet behind him with an injunc- tion that it should be given to the first of the wise men. And it was given to Thales, and went the whole circle till it came back to Thales, on which he sent it to Apollo Didymaeus, adding (according to Callimachus,) the following distich : — Thales, who's twice received me as a prize. Gives me to him who rules the race of Neleus. And the prose inscription runs thus • — Thales the son of Examius, a Milesian, offers this to Apollo Didy- ma;u8, having twice received it from the Greeks aa the reward for vu'tue. And the name of the sou of Bathydes who carried the goblet THALES. 17 about from one to the other, was Thyrion, as Eleusis tells us m his History of Achilles. And Alexander the Myndian agrees with him in the ninth book of his Traditions. But Eudoxus of Cnidos, and Evanthes of Miletus, say that one of the friends of Crcesus received from the king a golden goblet, for the purpose of giving it to the wisest of the Greeks ; and that he gave it to Thales, and that it came round to Chilo, and tliat he inquired of the God at Delphi who was wiser than him- self ; and that the God replied, Myson, whom we shall mention hereafter. (He is the man whom Eudoxus places among the seven wise men instead of Cleobulus ; but Plato inserts his name instead of Periander.) The God accordingly made this reply concerning him : — I say that Myson, the ^tcean sage, ; The citizen of Chen, is wiser far In his deep mind than you. The person who went to the temple to ask the question was Anacharsis ; but again Dsedacus, the Platonic philosopher, and Clearchus, state that the goblet was sent by Crresus to Pittacus, and so was carried round to the different men. But Andron, in his book called The Tripod, says that the Argives offered the tripod as a prize for excellence to the wisest of the Greeks ; and that Aristodemus, a Spartan, was judged to deserve it, but that he yielded the palm to Chilo ; and Alcasus mentions Aristodemus in these lines : — And so they say Aristodemus once Uttered a truthful speech in noble Sparta : 'Tis money makes the man ; and he who's none, Is counted neither good nor honourable. But some say that a vessel fully loaded was sent by Periander tu Thi-asybulus the tyrant of the Milesians ; and that as the ship was wrecked in the sea, near the island of Cos, this tri- pod was afterwards found by some fishermen. Phanodicus says that it was found in the sea near Athens, and so brought into the city ; and then, after an assembly had been held to decide on the disposal, it was sent to Bias — and the reason why we will mention in our account of Bias. Others say that this goblet had been made by Vulcan, and presented by the Gods to Pelops, on his marriage ; and that subsequently it came into the possession of Menelaus, and was taken away by Paris 18 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. when he carried off Helen, and was thrown into the sea near Cos by her, as she said that it would become a cause of battle. And after some time, some of the citizens of Lebedos having bought a net, this tripod was brought up in it ; and as they quarrelled wth the fishermen about it, they went to Cos ; and not being able to get the matter settled there, they laid it before the Milesians, as Miletus was their metropohs ; and they sent ambassadors, who were treated with neglect, on which account they made war on the Coans ; and after each side had met with many revolutions of fortune, an oracle directed that the tripod should be given to the wisest ; and then both parties agreed that it belonged to Thales : and he, after it had gone the circuit of all the wise men, presented it to the Didymsean Apollo. Now, the assignation of the oracle was given to the Coans in the following words : — , The war between the brave Ionian race And the proud Meropes will never cease. Till the rich golden tripod which the God, Its maker, cast beneath the briny waves, Is from your city sent, and justly given To that wise being who knows all present things. And all that's past, and all that is to come. And the reply given to the Milesians was — You ask about the tripod : and so on, as I have related it before. And now we have said enough on this subject. But Hermippus, in his Lives, refers to Thales what has been by some people reported of Socrates ; for he recites that he used to say that he thanked fortune for three things :— first of all, that he had been born a man and not a beast ; secondly, that he was a man and not a woman ; and thirdly, that he was a Greek and not a barbarian. VIII. It is said that once he was led out of his house by an old woman for the purpose of observing the stars, and he fell into a ditch and bewailed himself, on which the old woman said to him — " Do you, Thales, who cannot see what is under your feet, think that you shall understand what is in heaven ?" Timon also knew that he was an astronomer, and in his Silli he praises him, saying : — THALES. 19 Like Thales, wisest of the seven sages, That gi-eat astronomer. And Lobon, of Argos, says, that which was written by him ex- tends to about two hundred verses ; and that the following inscription is engraved upon his statue : — Miletus, fairest of Ionian cities, Gave birth to Thales, great astronomer. Wisest of mortals in all kinds of knowledge. IX. And these are quoted as some of his lines : — It is not many words that real %visdom proves ; Breathe rather one wise thought, Select one worthy object. So shall you best the endless prate of silly men reprove. — And the follo^^'ing are quoted as sayings of his : — " God is the most ancient of all things, for he had no birth : the world is the most beautiful of things, for it is the work of God : place is the greatest of things, for it contains all things : intellect is the swiftest of things, for it runs through everything : necessity is the strongest of things, for it rules everything : time is the wisest of things, for it finds out everything." He said also that there was no difference between life and death. " Why, then," said some one to him, " do not you die?" "Because," said he, "it does make no difference." A man asked him which was made first, night or day, and he replied, " Night was made first by one day." Another man asked him whether a man who did wrong, could escape the notice of the Gods. " No, not even if he thinks wrong," said he. An adulterer inquired of him whether he shoixld swear that he had not committed adultery. " Peijury," said he, "is no worse than adultery." When he was asked what was very difficult, he said, " To know one's self." And what was easy, "To advise another." What was most pleasant? "To be successful." To the question, " What is the divinity ?" he re- plied, " That which has neither beginning nor end." When asked what hard thing he had seen, he said, " An old man a tyrant." When the question was put to him how a man might roost easily endure misfortune, he said, " If he saw his enemies more unfortunate still." When asked how men might live most virtuously and most justly, he said, "If we never do our- selves what we blame in others." To the question, "Who was c 2 20 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. happy ?" he made answer. " He who is healthy in his hody, easy in his circumstances, and well-instructed as to his mind." He said that men ought to remember those friends who were absent as well as those who were present, and not to care about adorning their faces, but to be beautified by their studies. " Do not," said he, "get rich by evil actions, and let not any one ever be able to reproach you with speaking against those who partake of your friendship. All the assistance that you give to your parents, the same you have a right to expect from your children." He said that the reason of the Nile over- flowing was, that its streams were beaten back by the Etesian winds blowing in a contrary direction. X. ApoUodorus, in his Chronicles, says, that Thales was born in the first year of the thirty-fifth Olympiad ; and he died at the age of seventy-eight years, or according to the statement of Sosicrates, at the age of ninety, for he died in the fifty-eighth Olympiad, having lived in the time of CrcESus, to whom he promised that he would enable him to pass the Halys without a bridge, by turning the course of the river. XI. There have also been other men of the name of Thales, as Demetrius of Magnesia says, in his Treatise on People and Things of the same name ; of whom five are particularly mentioned, an orator of Calatia of a very affected style of eloquence ; a painter of Sicyon, a great man ; the third was one who lived in very ancient times, in the age of Homer and Hesiod and Lycurgus ; the fourth is a man who is mentioned by Duris in his work on Painting ; the fifth is a more modern person, of no great reputation, who is mentioned by Dionysius in his Criticisms. XII. But this wise Thales died while present as a spectator at a gymnastic contest, being worn out with heat and thirst and R'eakness, for he was very old, and the following inscription was placed on his tomb : — You see this tomb is small — but recollect, The fame of Thales reaches to the skies. I have also myself composed this epigram on him in the first book of my epigrams or poems in various metres : — mighty sun, our vsdsest Thales sat Spectator of the games, when you did seize upon him ; But you were right to take him near yourself, Now that his aged sight could scarcely reach to heaven. THALES. 21 • XIII. The apophthegm, "know yourself," is his; though Antisthenes in his Successions, says that it helongs to Phemouoe, but that Chilo appropriated it as his own. XIV. Now concerning the seven, (for it is well here to speak of them all together,) the following traditions are handed down. Damon the Cyrenseau, who wrote about the philosophers, I'eproaches them all, but most especially the seven. And Anaximenes says, that they all applied themselves to poetry. But Dicajarchus says, that they were neither wise men nor philosophers, but merely shrew'd men, who had studied legislation. And Archetimus, the Syracusiau, wrote an account of their having a meeting at the palace of Cypselus, at which he says that he himself was present. Ephorus says that they all except Thales met at the court of Crcesus. And some say that they also met at the Pandionium,* and at Corinth, and at Delphi. There is a good deal of disagreement between different writers with respect to their apophthegms, as the same one is attributed by them to various authors. For instance there is the epigram : — Cliilo, the Spartan sage, tliis sentence said : Seek no excess— all timely things are good. There is also a difference of opinion with respect to their number. Leander inserts in the number instead of Cleobulus and Myson, Leophantus Gorsias, a native of either Lebedos or Ephesus ; and Epimenides, the Cretan ; Plato, in his Protagoras, reckons Myson among them instead of Periander. And Ephorus mentions Anacharsis in the place of Myson; some also add Pythagoras to the number. Dicasarchus speaks of four, as universally agreed upon, Thales, Bias, Pittacus, and Solon ; and then enumerates six more, of whom we are to select three, namely, Aristodemus, Pamphilus, Chilo the Lacedfemonian, Cleobulus, Anacharsis, and Periander. Some add Acusilaus of Argos, the son of Cabas, or Scabras. But Hermippus, in his Treatise on the Wise Men says that there were altogether seventeen, out of whom different authors selected different individuals to make up the seven. These seventeen were Solon, Thales, Pittacus, Bias, Chilo, Myson, * This was the temple of the national diety of the lonians, Neptune Heliconius, on Mount Mycale." — Vide Smith, Did. Or. and Rom. Antiq. 22 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. Cleobulus, Periander, Anacliarsis, Acusilaus, Epimenides, Leophantus. Pherecydes, Aristodemus, Pythagoras, Lasus the son of Charmantides, or Sisymbrinus, or as Aristoxenus calls him the son of Chabrinus, a citizen of Hermione, and Anaxa- goras. But Hippobotus in his Description of the Philoso- phers enumerates among them Orpheus, Linus, Solon, Peri- ander, Anacharsis, Cleobulus, Myson, Thales, Bias, Pittacus, Epichai'mus, and Pythagoras. XV. The following letters are preserved as having been •written by Thales : — THALES TO PHERECYDES. I hear that you are disposed, as no other Ionian has been, to discourse to the Greeks about divine things, and perhaps it •will be wiser of you to reserve for your own friends what you write rather than to entrust it to any chance people, without any advantage. If therefore it is agreeable to you, I should be glad to become a pupil of yours as to the matters about which you write ; and if you invite me I will come to you to Syros; for Solon' the Athenian and I must be out of our senses if we sailed to Crete to investigate the history oi that country, and to Egypt for the purpose of conferring with the priests and asti'onomei-s who are to be found there, and yet are unwilling to make a voyage to you ; for Solon will come too, if you will give him leave, for as you are fond of your present habitation you are not likely to come to Ionia, nor are you desirous of seeing strangers ; but you rather, as I hope, devote yourself wholly to the occupation of writing. We, on the other hand, who write nothing, travel over all Greece and Asia. THALES TO SOLON. XVI. If you should leave Athens it appears to me that you would find a home at Miletus among the colonists of Athens more suitably than anywhere else, for here there are no annoyances of any kind. And if you are indignant because we Milesians are governed by a tyrant, (for you yourself hate all despotic rulers), still at all events you will find it pleasant to live with us for your companions. Bias has also written to invite you to Priene, and if you prefer taking up your abode SOLON. 23 in the city of the Prieneans, then we ourselves will come thither and settle near you. LIFE OF SOLON. I. Solon the son of Execestides, a native of Salamis, was the first person who introduced among the Athenians, an ordinance for the lowering * of dehts ; for this was the name given to the release of the bodies and possessions of the debtors. For men used to borrow on the security of their own persons, and many became slaves in consequence of their inability to pay ; and as seven talents were owed to him as a part of his paternal inheritance when he succeeded to it, he was the first person who made a composition ^dth his debtors, and who exhorted the other men who had money owing to them to do likewise, and this ordinance was called (Suadyjsia ; and the reason why is plain. After that he enacted his other laws, which it would take a long time to enumerate ; and he wrote them on wooden revolving tablets. II. But what was his most important act of all was, when there had been a great dispute about his native land Salamis, between the Athenians and Megarians, and when the Athenians had met with many disasters in war, and had passed a decree that if any one proposed to the people to go to war for the sake of Salamis he should be punished with death, he then pretended to be mad and putting on a crown rushed into the market place, and there he recited to the Athenians by the agency of a crier, the elegies which he had composed, and which were all directed to the subject of Salamis, and by these means he excited them ; and so they made war again upon the Megarians and conquered them by means of Solon. And the elegies which had the greatest influence on the Athenians were these : — Would that I were a man of Pholegandros.t Or small Sicinna,:}: rather than of Athena : * Vide Thirlwall, Hist, of Greece, ii. p. 34. + One of the Sporades. t An island near Crete. 24 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. For soon tliis ■will a common proverb be, That's an Athenian who won't fight for Salamis. And another was : — Let's go and fight for lovely Salamis, And wipe off this our present infamy. He also persuaded them to take possession of the Thracian Chersonesus, and in order that it might appear that the Athenians had got possession of Salamis not by force alone, but also with justice, he opened some tombs, and showed that the corpses buried in them were all turned towards the east, according to the Athenian fashion of sepulture; likewise the tombs them-' selves all looked east, and the titles of the boroughs to which the dead belonged were inscribed on them, which was a custom peculiar to the Athenians. Some also say that it was he who added to the catalogue of Homer, after the lines : — With these appear the Salaminian bands, Whom Telamon's gigantic son commands — These other verses : — In twelve black ships to Troy they steer their course. And with the great Athenians join their force.* III. And ever after this time the people w^as wdlliugly obedient to him, and was contented to be governed by him ; but he did not choose to be their ruler, and moreover, as Sosicrates relates, he, as far a:3 in him lay, hindered also his relative Pisistratus from being so, when he saw that he was inclined to such a step. Rushing into one of the assemblies armed with a spear and shield, he forewarned the people of the design of Pisistratus, and not only that but told them that he was prepared to assist them ; and these were his words : " Ye men of Athens, I am wiser than some of you, and braver than others. Wiser than those of you who do not per- ceive the treachery of Pisistratus; and braver than those who are aware of it, but out of fear hold their peace." But the council, being in the interest of Pisistratus, said that he was mad, on which he spoke as follows: — A short time will to all my madness prove, When stern reality presents itself. * Horn. II. 2. 671. Dryden's Version. SOLON. S5' And these elegiac verses were written by liim about the tyranny of Pisistratus, which he foretold, Fierce snow and hail are from the clouds borne down, And thunder after brilliant lightning roars , And by its own great men a city falls, The ignorant mob becoming slaves to kings. > IV. And when Pisistratus had obtained the supreme power, he, as he would not influence him, laid down his arms before the chief council-house, and said, " my country, I have stood by you in word and deed." And then he sailed away to Egypt, and Cyprus, and came to Croesus. And while at his court being asked by him, " Who appears to you to be happy?"* He replied, " Tellus the Athenian, and Cleobis and Biton," and enumerated other commonly spoken of instances. But some people say, that once Crcesus adorned himself in every possible manner, and took his seat upon his throne, and then asked Solon whether he had ever seen a more beautiful sight. But he said, " Yes, I have seen cocks and pheasants, and peacocks ; for they are adorned with natural colours, and such as are ten thousand times more beautiful." Afterwards leav- ing Sardis he went to Cilicia, and there he founded a city which he called Soli after his own name ; and he placed in it a few Athenians as colonists, who in time departed from the' strict use of their native language, and were said to speak Solecisms ; and the inhabitants of that city are called Solen- sians ; but those of Soli in Cyprus are called Solians. V. And when he learnt that Pisistratus continued to rule in Athens as a tyrant, he wrote these verses on the Athenians : — If through your vices you afflicted are, Lay not the blame of your distress on God ; You made your rulers mighty, gave them guards, So now you groan 'neath slavery's heavy rod — Each one of you now treads in foxes' steps. Bearing a weak, inconstant, faithless mind, Trusting the tongue and slippery si^eech of man ; Though in his acts alone you truth can find. This, then, he said to them. VI. But Pisistratus, when he was leaving Athens, wrote him a letter in the following terms : — * Vide Herod. Ub. 1. c. 30—33. 26 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. PISISTRATUS TO SOLON. I am not the only one of the Greeks who has seized the sovereignty of his country, nor am I one who had no right ■whatever to do so, since I am of the race of Codrus ; for I have only recovered what the Athenians swore that they would give to Codrus and all his family, and what they afterwards deprived them of. And in all other respects I sin neither against men nor against gods, but I allow the Athenians to live under the laws wliich you established amongst them, and they are now living in a better manner than they would if they were under a democracy ; for I allow no one to behave with violence : and I, though I am the tyrant, derive no other advantage beyond my superiority in rank and honour, being content with the fixed honours which belonged to the former kings. And eveiy one of the Athenians brings the tithe of his possessions, not to me, but to the proper place in order that it may be devoted to the public sacrifices of the city ; and for any other public purposes, or for any emergencies of war which may arise. But I do not blame you for laying open my plans, for I know that you did so out of regard for the city rather than out of dislike to me ; and also because you did not know what sort of government I was about to establish ; since, if you had been acquainted with it, you would have been content to live under it and would not have fled. Now, therefore, return home again ; believing me even without my swearing to you that Solon shall never receive any harm at the hands of Pisistratus ; know also that none of my enemies have suffered any evil from me ; and if you will consent to be one of my friends, you shall be among the first ; for I know that there is no treachery or faithlessness in you. Or if you wish to live at Athens in any other manner, you shall be allowed to do so ; only do not deprive yourself of your country because of my actions. Thus wrote Pisistratus. VII. Solon also said, that the limit of human life was seventy years, and he appears to have been a most excellent lawgiver, for he enjoined, " that if any one did not support his parents he should be accounted infamous ; and that the man who squandered his patrimony should be equally so, and the inactive man was liable to prosecution by any one who choose to impeach him. But Lysias, in his speech against Nicias, SOLON. 27 says that Draco first proposed this law, but that it was Solon who enacted it. He also prohibited all who lived in debaucheiy from ascending the tiibunal ; and he diminished the honoui-s paid to Athletes who were victorious in the games, fixing the prize for a victor at Olympia at five hundred drachmae,* and for one who conquered at the Isthmian games at one hundred ; and in the same proportion did he fix the prizes for the other games, for he said, that it was absurd to give such great honours to those men as ought to be reserved for those only who died in the wars ; and their sons he ordered to be educated and bred up at the public expense. And owing to this encou- ragement, the Athenians behave themselves nobly and valiantly in war; as for instance, Polyzelus, and Cynaegirus, and Callimachus, and all the soldiers who fought at Marathon, and Harmodius, and Aristogiton, and Miltiades, and numberless other heroes. But as for the Athletes, their training is very expensive, and their victories injurious, and they are crowned rather as conquerors of their countiy than of their antagonists, and when they become old, as Euripides says : — Thejr're like old cloaks worn to the very •woof. IX. So Solon, appreciating these facts, treated them with moderation. This also was an admirable regulation of his, that a guardian of orphans should not live with their mother, and that no one should be appointed a guardian, to whom the orphans' property would come if they died. Another excellent law was, that a seal engraver might not keep an impression of any ring which had been sold by him, and that if a person struck out the eye of a man who had but one, he should lose both his own, and that no one should claim what he had not deposited, otherwise death should be his punishment. If an archon was detected being drunk, that too was a capital crime And he compiled the poems of Homer, so that they might be recited by different bards, taking the cue from one another, so that whei'e one had left off the next one might take him up, so that it was Solon rather than Pisistratus who brought Homer to li!?ht, as Dieuchidas says, in the fifth book of his History of Megara, and the most celebrated of his verses were : — A drachma was somethiug less than ten pence. 28 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. Full fifty more from Athens stem the main. Aud the rest of that passage — "And Solon was the first person "who called the tliirtieth day of the month svri xal via."* He was the first person also who assembled the nine archons together to deliver their opinions, as Apollodorus tells us in the second hook of his Treatise on Lawgivers. And once, when there was a sedition in the city, he took part neither with the citizens, nor with the inhabitants of the plain, nor with the men of the sea-coast. X. He used to say, too, that speech was the image of actions, and that the king was the mightiest man as to his power ; but that laws were like cobwebs — for that if any trifling or power- less thing fell into them, they held it fast ; but if a thing of any size fell into them, it broke the meshes and escaped. He used also to say that discourse ought to be sealed by silence, aud silence by opportunity. It was also a saying of his, that those who had influence wath tyrants, were like the pebbles which are used in making calculations ; for that every one of those j)ebbles were sometimes worth more, and sometimes less, and so that the tyrants sometimes made each of these men of con- sequence, and sometimes neglected them. Being asked why he had made no law concerning parricides, he made answer, that he did not expect that any such person would exist. "When he was asked how men could be most effectually deterred from committing injustice, he said," If those who are not in- jured feel as much indignation as those who are." Another apophthegm of his was, that satiety was generated by wealth, and insolence hj satiety. XI. He it was who taught the Athenians to regulate their days by the course of the moon ; and he also forbade Thespis to perform and represent his tragedies, on the ground of falsehood being unprofitable ; and when Pisistratus wounded himself, he said it all came of Thespis's tragedies, * ""Evri Kai via the last day of the month relsewhere rpiaviuQ. So called for this reason. The old Greek year was lunar ; now the moon's monthly orbit is twenty-nine and a half days. So that if the first month began with the sun and moon together at sunrise, at the month's end it would be sunset ; and the second month would begin at sunset. To prevent this irregularity, Solon made the latter half day belong to the first month ; so that this thirtieth day consisted of two halves, one belonging to the old, the other to the new moon. And when the lunar month fell into disuse, the last day of the calendar month was stUl called 'E)'); Kai via." — 1. <£; S. Greek Lexicon, La v. tvOQ. SOLON. 29 XII. He gave tlie following advice, as is recorded by Apol- lodorus in his Treatise on tlie Sects of Philosopliers : — " Con- sider your honour, as a gentleman, of more weight than an oath. — Never speak falsely. — Pay attention to matters of im- portance. — Be not hasty in making friends ; and do not cast off those whom you have made. — Rule, after you have first learnt to submit to rule. — Advise not what is most agreeable, but what is best. — Make reason your guide. — Do not asso- ciate with the wicked. — Honour the gods ; respect your parents." XIII. They say also that when Mimnermus had written : — Happy's the man who '.scapes disease and care, And dies contented in his sixtieth year : Solon rebuked him, and said : — Be guided now by me. erase this verse, Nor envy me if I'm more wise than you. If you write thu.s, your wish would not be worse, May I be eighty ere death lays me low. The follo\ving are some lines out of his poems : — "Watch well each separate citizen, Lest having in his heart of hearts A secret spear, one still may come Saluting you with cheerful face. And utter with a double tongue The feigned good wishes of his wary mind. As for his having made laws, that is notorious ; he also com- posed speeches to the people, and a book of suggestions to himself, and some elegiac poems, and five thousand verses about Salamis and the constitution of the Athenians ; and some iam- bics and epodes. XV. And on his statue is the following inscription — Salamis that checked the Persian insolence, Brought forth this holy lawgiver, wise Solon. He flourished about the forty-sixth Olympiad, in the third year of which he was archon at Athens, as Sosicrates records ; and it was in this year that he enacted his laws ; and he died in Cyprus, after he had lived eighty years, having given charge to his relations to cany his bones to Salamis, and there to burn them to ashes, and to scatter the ashes on the ground. In re- 30 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. ference to which Cratiuus in his Chiron represents him as speaking thus : — And as men say, I still this isle inhabit, Sown o'er the whole of Aj ax' famous city. There is also an epigram in the hefore mentioned collection of poems, in various metres, in which I have made a collection of notices of all the illustrious men that have ever died, in every kind of metre and rhythm, in epigrams and odes. And it runs thus : — The Cyprian flame devour'd great Solon's corpse, Far in a foreign land ; but Salamis Retains his bones, whose dust is turned to corn. The tablets of his laws do bear aloft His mind to heaven. Such a burden light Are these immortal rules to th' happy wood. XVI. He also, as some say, was the author of the apoph- thegm — " Seek excess in nothing." And Dioscoi'ides, in his Commentaries, says, that, when he was lamenting his son, who was dead (with whose name I am not acquainted), and when some one said to him, " You do no good by weeping," he replied, " But that is the very reason why I weep, because I do no good." XVII. The following letters also are attributed to him : — SOLON TO PEEIANDER. You send me w.ord that many people are plotting against you ; but if you were to think of putting everyone of them out of the way, you would do no good ; but some one whom you do not suspect would still plot against you, partly because he would fear for himself, and partly out of dislike to you for feai'ing all sorts of things ; and he would think, too, that he would make the city grateful to him, even if you were not suspected. It is better, therefore, to abstain from the tyranny, in order to es- cape from blame. But if you absolutely must be a tyrant, then you had better provide for having a foreign force in the city superior to that of the citizens ; and then no one need be for- midable to you, nor need you put any one out of the way. SOLON TO EPIMENIDES. XVIII. My laws were not destined to be long of service SOLON. 3 1 to the Athenians, nor have you done any great good by puri- fying the city. For neither can the Deity nor la-wgivers do much good to cities* by themselves ; but these people rather have this power, who, from time to time, can lead the people to any opinions they choose ; so also the Deity and the laws, when the citizens are well governed, are useful ; but when they are ill governed ,'^they are no good. Nor are my laws nor all the enactments that I made, any better ; but those who were in power transgressed them, and did great injury to the commonwealth, inasmuch as they did not hinder Pisistratus fi-om ursurping the tyranny. Nor did they believe me when I gave them warning beforehand. But he obtained more credit than I did, w'ho flattered the Athenians while I told him the truth : but I, placing my arms before the principal council- house, being ^^iser than they, told those who had no suspicion of it, that Pisistratus was desirous to make himself a tyrant ; and I showed myself more valiant than those who hesitated to de- fend the state against him. But they condemned the madness of Solon. But at last I spoke loudly — " O, my countr\-, I, Solon, here am ready to defend you by word and deed ; but to these men I seem to be mad. So I will depart from you, being the only antagonist of Pisistratus ; and let these men be his guards if they please." For you know the man, my fi'iend, and how cleverly he seized upon the tyranny. He first began by being a demagogue ; then, having mflicted wounds on him- self, he came to the Helisea, crying out, and saying, " That he had been treated in this way by his enemies.' And he en- treated the people to assign him as guards four hundred young men ; and they, disregarding my advice, gave them to him. And they were all armed with bludgeons. And after that be put down the democracy. They in vain hoped to deliver the poor from their state of slavery, and so now they are all of them slaves to Pisistratus." SOLON TO PISISTRATUS. I am well assured that I should suffer no evil at your hands. For before your assumption of the tyranny I was a friend of yours, and now my case is not different from that of any other Athenian who is not pleased with tyranny. And whether it is better for them to be governed by one individual, or to live under a democracy, that each person may decide o2 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. according to liis own sentiments. And I admit that of all tyrants you are the best. But I do not judge it to be good for me to return to Athens, lest any one should blame me, for, after having established equality of civil rights among the Athenians, and after having refused to be a tyrant myself when it was in my power, returning now and acquiescing in what you are doing. SOLON TO CECESUS. XX. I thank you for your goodwill towards me. And, by Minerva, if I did not think it precious above everything to live in a democracy, I would willingly prefer living in your palace with you to living at Athens, since Pisistratus has made himself tyrant by force. But life is more pleasant to me where justice and equality prevail universally. However, I will come and see you, being anxious to enjoy your hospi- tality for a season. LIFE OF CHILO. I. Chilo was a Lacedaemonian, the son of Damagetus. He composed verses in elegiac metre to the number of two hundred : and it was a saying of his that a foresight of future events, such as could be anived at by consideration was the virtue of a man. He also said once to his brother, who was indignant at not being an ephor, while he himself was one, " The reason is because I know how to bear injustice : but you do not," And he was made ephor in the fifty-fifth Olym- piad ; but Pamphila says that it was in the fifty-sixth. And he was made first ephor in the year of the archonship of Euthydemus, as we are told by Sosicrates. Chilo was also the first person who introduced the custom of joining the ephors to the kings as their counsellors : though Satyrus attributes this institution to Lycurgus. He, as Herodotus says in his first book, when Hippocrates was sacrificing at Olympia, and the cauldrons began to boil of their own accord, advised him either to marry, or, if he were married already, to discard his wife, and disown his children. CHILO. 33 II. They tell a story, also, of his having asked ^sop what Jupiter was doing, aud that ^sop replied, " He is lowering what is high, aud exalting what is low." Being asked in what educated men differed from those who were illiterate, he said, " In good hopes." Having had the question put to him. What was difficult, he said, " To be silent about secrets ; to make good use of one's leisure, and to be able to submit to in- justice." And besides these three things he added further, " To rule one's tongue, especially at a banquet, and not to speak ill of one's neighbours ; for if one does so one is sure to hear what one will not like." He advised, moreover, " To threaten no one ; for that is a Avomanly ti'ick. To be more pi'ompt to go to one's friends in adversity than in prosperity. To make but a moderate display at one's marriage. Not to speak evil of the dead. To honour old age. — To keep a watch upon one's self. — To prefer punishment to disgraceful gain ; for the one is painful but once, but the other for one's whole life. — Not to laugh at a person in misfortune. — If one is strong to be also merciful, so that one's neighbours may respect one rather than fear one. — To learn how to regulate one's own house well. — Not to let one's tongue outrun one's sense. — To restrain anger. — Not to dislike divination. — Not to desire what is impossible. — Not to make too much haste on one's road. — When speaking not to gesticulate with the hand; for that is like a madman. — To obey the laws. — To love quiet." And of all his songs this one was the most approved : — Gold LS best tested by a whetstone hard, Which gives a certain proof of purity ; And gold itself acts as the test of men, By which wc know the temper of their miuds. TIL They say, too. that when he was old he said, that he was not conscious of having ever done an unjust action in his life ; but .that he doubted about one thing. For that once when judging in a friend's cause he had voted liimself in accordance with the law, but had persuaded a friend to vote for his acquittal, in order that so he might maintain the law, and yet save his friend. IV. But he was most especially celebrated among the Greeks for having delivered an early opniion about Cythera an island belonging to Laconia. For having become ac- D 34 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. quainted with its nature, lie said, " I wish it had never existed, or that, as it does exist, it were sunk at the bottom of the sea." And his foresight was proved afterwards. For when Demaratus was banished by the Lacedaemonians, he advised Xerxes to keep his ships at that island : and Greece would have been subdued, if Xerxes had taken the advice. And afterwards Nicias, having reduced the island at the time of the Peloponnesian war, placed in it a garrison of Athenians, and did a great deal of harm to the Lacedaemonians. V. He was very brief in his speech. On which account Aristagoras, the Milesian, calls such conciseness, the Chilo- nean fashion ; and says that it was adopted by Branchus, who built the temple among the Branchidse. Chilo was an old man, about the fifty-second Olympiad, when Jj^sop, the fable writer, flourished. And he died, as Hermippus says, at Pisa, after embracing his son, who had gained the victory in boxing at the Olympic games. The cause of his death was excess of joy, and weakness caused by extreme old age. All the spectators who were present at the games attended his funeral, paying him the highest honours. And we have written the following epigram on him : — I thank you, brightest Pollux, that the son Of Chilo wears the wreath of victory ; Nor need we grieve if at the glorious sight His father died. May such my last end be ! And the following inscription is engraved on his statue : — The warlike Sparta called this Chilo son. The wisest man of all the seven sages. One of his sayings was, " Suretyship, and then destruction." The following letter of his is also extant : — CHILD TO PERIANDEIt. You desire me to abandon the expedition against the emigrants, as you yourself will go forth. But I tliink that a sole governor is in a slippery position at home ; and I consider that tyrant a fortunate man who dies a natural death in his own house. PJTTACUS. 35 LIFE OF PITTACUS. I. PiTTACUs was a native of Mitylene, and son of Hvrradius. But Duris says, that his father was a Thracian. He, in union with the brothers of Alcaeus, put down Melanchrus the tyrant of Lesbos. And in the battle which took place between the Athenians and Mityleneeans on the subject of the district of Achilis, he was the Mitylenaean general ; the Atheniar commander being Phrynon, a Pancratiast, who had gained the victory at Olympia. Pittacus agreed to meet him in single combat, and having a net under his shield, he entangle. Phrynon without his being aware of it beforehand, and so, having killed him, he preserved the district in dispute to his countrymen. But Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says, that subsequently, the Athenians had a trial with the Mitylenajans about the district, and that the cause was submitted to Peri- ander, who decided it in favour of the Athenians. II. In consequence of this victory the JMitylenseans held Pittacus in the greatest honour, and committed the supreme power into his hands And he held it for ten years, and then, when he had brought the city and constitution into good order, lie resigned the government. And he lived ten years after that, and the Mitylenaeans assigned him an estate, which he consecrated to tiie God, and to this day it is called the Pitta- cian land. But Sosicrates says that he cut off a small portion of it, saying that half was more than the whole ; and when Croesus offered him some money he would not accept it, as he said that he had already twice as much as he wanted ; for that he had succeeded to the inheritance of his brother, who had died without children. III. But Pamphila says, in the second book of his Com- mentaries, that he had a son named Tyrrhaius, who was killed while sitting in a barber's shop, at Cyma, by a brazier, who threw an axe at him ; and that the Cyma^ans sent the murderer to Pittacus, who when he had learnt what had been done, dismissed the man, saying, " Pardon is better than repent- ance." But Heraclitus says that the true story is, that he had got Alcseus into his power, and that he released him, saying, " Pardon is better than punishment." He was also a law- D 2 3G LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. giver ; and he made a law tliat if a man committed a crime while drunk, he should have douhle punishment ; in the hope of deterring men from getting drunk, as wine was very plentiful in the island. IV. It was a saying of his that it was a hard thing to he good, and this apophthegm is quoted by Simonides, who says, " It was a saying of Pittacus, that it is a hard thing to be really a good man." Plato also mentions it in his Protagoras. Another of his sayings was, " Even the Gods cannot strive against necessity." Another was, " Power shows the man." Being once asked what was best, he replied, " To do what one is doing at the moment well." When Croesus put the question to him, " What is the greatest power ?" " The power," he replied, " of the variegated wood," meaning the wooden tablets of the laws. He used to say too, that there were some victories without bloodshed. He said once to a man of Phocaea. who was saying that we ought to seek out a virtuous man, *' But if you seek ever so much you will not find one." Some people once asked him what thing was very grateful ? and he replied, "Time." — What was uncertain? "The future." — What was trusty ? " The Innd." — What was treacherous ? " The sea " Another saying of his was, that it was the part of wise men, before difficult circumstances arose, to provide for their not arising ; but that it was the part of brave men to make the best of existing circumstances. He used to say too, " Do not say before hand what you are going to do ; for if you fail, you will be laughed at." " Do not reproach a man with his misfortunes, fearing lest Nemesis may overtake you." " If you have received a deposit, restore it." " Forbear to speak evil not only of your friends, but also of your enemies." " Practise piety, with temperance." " Cultivate truth, good faith, experience, cleverness, sociability, and industry." V. He wrote also some songs, of which the following is the most celebrated one : — The wise will only face the wicked man, With bow in hand well bent. And quiver full of arrows — For such a tongue as his says nothing true, Prompted by a wily heart To utter double speeches. He also composed six liundred verses in elegiac metre ; and PITTACUS. 'U he ^vrote a treatise in prose, on Laws, addressed to his country- men. VI. He flourished about the forty-second Olympiad ; and he died when Aristomenes was Archon, in the third year of the fifty-second Olympiad ; having lived more than seventy years, being a very old man. And on his tomb is this in- scription : — Lesbos who bore him here, with tears doth bury Hyrradius' worthy son, wise Pittacus. Another saying of his was, " Watch your opportunity." VII. There was also another Pittacus, a lawgiver, as Favo- rinus tells us in the first book of his Commentaries ; and Demetrius says so too, in his Essay on Men and Things of the same name. And that other Pittacus was called Pittacus the less. VIII. But it is said that the wise Pittacus once, when a young man consulted him on the subject of marriage, made him the following answer, which is tlius given by Calhmachus in his Epigrams. Hyrradius' prudent son, old Pittacus The pride of Mitylene, once was asked By an Atarnean stranger ; " Tell me^ sage, I have two marriages proposed to me ; One maid my equal is in birth and riches ; The other's far above me ; — which is best ? Advise me now which shall I take to wife ?" Thus spoke the stranger ; but the aged prince, Raising his old man's staff beftn'c his face. Said, " These will tell you all you want to know ;" And pointed to some boys, who with quick lashes Were driving whipping tops along the street. " Follow their steps," said he ; so he went near them And heard them say, " Let each now mind his o\vn.'' — So when the stranger heard the boys speak thus, He pondered on their words, and laid aside Ambitious thoughts of an unequal marriage. As then he took to shame the poorer bride, , So too do you, reader, mind thy own. And it seems that he may have here spoken from experience, for his own wife was of more noble birth than himself, since she was the sister of Draco, the son of Penthilus ; and she gave lierself great airs, and tyrannized over him. 38 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. IX. Alcseas calls Pittacus ffaod'jrcu; and ffagacro?, because he was splay-footed, and used to drag his feet in walking; he also called him ^si^o'Trodrjc;, because he had scars on his feet which were called ^ii^udsg. And yaugjj^, implying that he gave himself airs withoiit reason. And (pudKuv and ydcr^uv, because he was fat. He also called him ^c(pndoprridag, because he had weak eyes, and dydavprog, because he was lazy and dirty. He used to grind corn for the sake of exercise, as Clearchus, the philosopher, relates. X. There is a letter of his extant, which runs thus : — PITTACUS TO CRffiSUS. You invite me to come to Lydia in order that I may see your riches; but I, even without seeing them, do not doubt that the son of Alyattes is the richest of monarchs. But I should get no good by going to Sardis ; for 1 do not want gold myself, but what I have is sufficient for myself and my companions. Still, I will come, in order to become acquainted with you as a hospitable man. LIFE OF BIAS. I. BtAS was a citizen of Priene, and the son of Teutamus, and by Satyrus he is put at the head of the seven wise men. Some writers affirm that he was one of the richest men of the city ; but others say that he was only a settler. And Phanodicus says, that he ransomed some Messenian maidens who had been taken prisoners, and educated them as his own daughters, and gave them dowries, and tlien sent them back to Messina to their fathers. And when, as has been mentioned before, the tripod was found near Athens by some fishermen, the brazen tripod I mean, which bore the inscription — "For the Wise ;" then Satyrus says that the damsels (but others, such as Phano- dicus, say that it was their father,) came into the assembly, and said that Bias was the wise man — recounting what he had done to them : and so the tripod was sent to him. But Bias, when he saw it, said that it was Apollo who was " the Wise," and would not receive the tripod. BIAS. 39 II. But others say that lie consecrated it at Thebes to Her- cules, because he himself was a descendant of the Thebans, who had sent a colony to Priene, as Phanodicas relates. It is said also that when Alyattes was besieging Priene, Bias fattened up two mules, and drove them into his camp ; and that the king, seeing the condition that the mules were in, was astonished at their being able to spare food to keep the brute beasts so well, and so he desired to make peace with them, and sent an am- bassador to them. On this Bias, having made some heaps of sand, and put corn on the top, showed them to the convoy ; and Alyattes, hearing from him what he had seen, made peace with the people of Priene ; and then, when he sent to Bias, desiring him to come quickly to him, " Tell Alyattes, from me," he replied, " to eat onions ;" — which is the same as if he had said, " go and weep." III. It is said that he was very energetic and eloquent when pleading causes ; but that he always reserved his talents for the right side. In reference to which Demodicus of Alerius uttered the following enigmatical saying — " If you are a judge, give a Prienian decision." And Hipponax says, " More ex- cellent in his decisions than Bias of Priene." Now he died in this manner : — IV. Having pleaded a cause for some one when he was ex- ceedingly old, after he had finished speaking, he leaned back with his head on the bosom of his daughter's son ; and after the advocate on the opposite side had spoken, and the judges had given their decision in favour of Bias's client, when the court broke up he was found dead on his grandson's bosom. And the city buried him in the greatest magnificence, and put over him this inscription — Beneath this stone lies Bias, who was born In the illustrious Prienian land, The glory of the whole Ionian race. And we ourselves have also written an epigram on him — Here Bias lies, whom, when the hoary snow Had crowned his aged temples, Mercury Unpitying led to Pluto's darken'd realms. He pleaded his friend's cause, and then reclin'd In his child's arms, repos'd in lasting sleep. Y. He also wrote about two thousand verses on Ionia, to 40 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. show in what matter a man might best arrive at happiness ; and oi" all his poetical sayings these have the greatest reputation : — Seek to please all the citizens, even though Your house may be in au ungracious city. For such a course will favour win from all : But haughty manners oft produce destruction. And this one too : — Great strength of body is the gift of nature ; But to be able to advise whate'er Is most expedient for one's country's good, Is the peculiar work of sense and wisdom. Another is: — Great riches come to many men by chance. He used also to say that that man was unfortunate who could not support misfortune; and that it is a disease of the mind to desire what was impossible, and to have no regard for the misfortunes of others. Being asked what was difficult, he said — " To bear a chauge of fortune for the worse with magna- nimity." Once he was on a voyage with some impious men, and the vessel was overtaken by a storm ; so they began to in- voke the assistance of the Gods ; on which he said, " Hold your tongues, lest they should find out that you are in this ship." When he was aslied by an impious man what piety was, he made no reply ; and when his questioner demanded the reason of his silence, he said, " I am silent because you are putting questions about things with which you have no concern." Being asked what was pleasant to men, he rephed, " Hope." It was a saying of his that it was more agreeable to decide between eneaiies than between friends ; for that of friends, one was sure to become an enemy to him; but that of enemies, one was sure to become a friend. When the question was put to him, what a man derived pleasure while he was doing, he said, " While acquiring gain." He used to say, too, that men ought to calculate life both as if they were fated to live a long and a short time : and that they ought to love one another as if at a future time they would come to hate one another ; for that most men were wicked. He used also to give the following pieces of advice : — " Choose the course which you adopt with deliberation ; but when you have adopted it, then persevere iu CLEOBULUS. 4 1 it Avith firmness. — Do not speak fast, for that shows folly. — Love prudence. — Speak of the Gods as they are. — Do not praise an undeserving man hecause of his riches. — Accept of things, having procured them by persuasion, not by force. — Whatever good fortune befalls you, attribute it to the gods. — Cherish wisdom as a means of travelling from youth to old age, for it is more lasting than any other possession." VI. Hipponax also mentions Bias, as has been said before ; and Heraclitus too, a man who was not easily pleased, has pi'aised him ; saying, in Priene there lived Bias the son of Teutamus, whose reputation is higher than that of the others ; and the Prieuians consecrated a temple to him which is called the Teutamium. A saying of his was, " Most men are wicked." LIFE OF CLEOBULUS. I. Cleobulus was a native of Lindus, and the son of Evagoras ; but according to Duris he was a Carian ; others again trace his family back to Hercules. He is reported to have been eminent for personal strength and beauty, and to have studied philosophy in Egypt ; he had a daughter named Cleobulina, who used to compose enigmas in hexameter verse, and she is mentioned by Cratinus in his play of the same name, except that the title is written in the plural number. They say also that he restored the temple of Minerva which had been built by Danaus. II. Cleobulus composed songs and obscure sayings in verse to the number of three thousand lines, and some say that it was he who composed the epigram on Midas. I am a brazen maiden lying here Upon the tomb of Midas. And as long As water flows, as trees are green with leave.s. As the sun shines and eke the silver moon. As long as rivers flow, and billows roar. So long will I upon this much wept tomb, Tell passers by, " Midas lies buried here." And as an evidence of this epigram being by him they quote a song of Simonides, which runs thus : — 4-2 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. Wliat men possessed of sense Would ever praise the Lindian Cleobulus ? Who could compare a statue made by man To everiiowing streams, To blushing flowers of spring, To the sun's rays, to beams o' the golden mom, And to the ceaseless waves of mighty Ocean ? All things are trifling when compared to God. While men beneath their hands can crush a stone ; So that such sentiments can only come from fools. And the epigram cannot possibly be by Homer, for he lived many years, as it is said, before Midas. III. There is also the following enigma quoted in the Commentaries of Pamphila, as the work of Cleobulus : — There was one father and he had twelve daughters, Each of his daughters had twice thirty children. But most unlike in figure and complexion ; For some were white, and others black to view, And though immortal they all taste of death. And the solution is, " the year." IV. Of his apophthegms, the following are the most cele- lebrated. Ignorance and talkativeness bear the chief sway among men. Opportunity will be the most powerful. Cherish not a thought. Do not be ficlde, or ungrateful. He used to say too, that men ought to give their daughters in marriage while they were girls in age, but women in sense ; as indicating by this that girls ought to be well educated. Another of his sayings was, that one ought to serve a friend that he may be- come a greater friend ; and an enemy, to make him a friend. And that one ought to guard against giving one's friends occa- sion to blame one, and one's enemies opportunity of plotting against one. Also, when a man goes out of liis house, he should consider what he is going to do : and when he comes home again he should consider what he has done. He used also to advise men to keep their bodies in health by exercise. — To be fond of hearing rather than of talking. — To be fond of learning rather than unwilling to learn. — To speak well of people. — To seek virtue and eschew vice. — To avoid injustice. — To give the best advice in one's power to one's country. — To be superior to pleasure. — To do nothing by force. — To instruct one's children, PEBIANDEK. 43 — To be ready for reconciliation after quarrels. — Not to caress one's wife, nor to quarrel with her when strangers are present, for that to do the one is a sign of folly, and to do the latter is downright madness. — Not to chastise a servant while elated with drink, for so doing one will appear to be drunk one's self. — To marry from among one's equals, for if one takes a wife of a higher rank than one's self, one will have one's connexions for one's masters. — Xot to laugh at those who are being reproved, for so one will be detested by them. — Be not haughty when prosperous. — Be not desponding when in difficulties. — Learn to bear the changes of fortune with magnanimity. V. And he died at a great age, having lived seventy years, and this insciiption was put over him : — His counti-y, Lindus, this fair sea-girt city Bewails wise Cleobulus here entombed. VI. One of his sayings was, " Moderation is the best thing." He also wrote a letter to Solon in these terms : — CLEOBULUS TO SOLON. You have many friends, and a home everywhere, but yet I think that Lindus will be the most agreeable habitation for Solon, since it enjoys a democratic government, and it is a ma- ritime island, and whoever dwells in it has nothing to fear from Pisistratus, and you will have friends flock to you from all quarters. LIFE OF PERIANDER. I. Pertander was a Corinthian, the son of Cypselus, of the family of the Heraclidae. He married Lyside (whom he himself called Melissa), the daughter of Procles the tyrant of Epidaurus, and of Eristhenea the daughter of Aristocrates, and sister of Aristodemus, who governed nearly all Arcadia, as He- raclides Ponticus says in his Treatise on Dominion and had by her two sons Cypselus and Lycophron, the younger of whom was a clever boy, but the elder was deficient in intellect. At a sub- sequent period he in a rage either kicked or threw his wife down stairs when she was pregnant, and so killed her, being wrought 44 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. Upon by the false accusations of his concubines, whom he after- wards burnt aUve. And the child, whose name was Lycophron, he sent away to Corcyra because he grieved for his mother. II. But afterwards, when he was now extremely old, he sent for him back again, in order that he might succeed to the tyranny. But the Corcyreans, anticipating his intention, put him to death, at which he was greatly enraged, and sent their children to Corcyra to be made eunuchs of ; and when the ship came near to Samos, the youths, having made supplications to Juno, were saved by the Samians. And he fell into despondency and died, being eighty years old. Sosicrates says that he died forty-one years before Croesus, in the last year of the forty- eighth Olympiad. Herodotus, in the first book of his History, says that he was connected by ties of hospitality with Thrasy- bulus the tyrant of Miletus. And Aristippus, in the first book of his Treatise on Ancient Luxury, tells the following story of him ; that his mother Cratea fell in love with him, and in- troduced herself secretly into his bed ; and he was delighted ; but when the truth was discovered he became very oppressive to all his subjects, because he was grieved at the discovery. Ephorus relates that he made a vow that, if he gained the victory at Olympia in the chariot race, he would dedicate a golden statue to the God. Accordingly he gained the victory ; but being in want of gold, and seeing the women at some national festival beautifully adorned, he took away their golden ornaments, and then sent the offering which he had vowed. III. But some writers say that he was anxious that his tomb should not be known, and that with that object he adopted the following contrivance. He ordered two young men to go out by night, indicating a particular road by which they were to go, and to kill the first man they met, and bury him ; after them he sent out four other men who were to kill and bury them. Again he sent out a still greater number against these four, with similar instructions. And in this manner he put himself in the way of the first pair, and was slain, and the Corinthians erected a cenotaph over him with the following inscription : — The sea-beat land of Corinth in her bosom, Doth here embrace her ruler Periander, Greatest of all men for his wealth and wisdom. We ourselves have also written an epigram upon him : — PERIANDER. 45 Grieve not when disappointed of a wish, But be content with what the Gods may give you — For the gi'eat Periander died unhappy, At failing in an object he desired. IV. It was a saying of his that we ought not to do anything for the sake of money ; for that we ought only to acquire such gains as are allowable. He composed apophthegms in verse to the number of two thousand lines ; and said that those who wished to wield absolute power in safety, should be guarded by the good will of their countrymen, and not by arms. And. once, being asked why he assumed tyrannical power, he replied, " Because, to abdicate it voluntarily, and to have it taken from one, are both dangerous." The following sayings also belong to him : — Tranquillity is a good thing. — Eashness is danger- ous. — Gain is disgraceful. — Democracy is better than tyranny. — Pleasures are transitory, but honour is immortal. — Be moderate when prosperous, but prudent when unfortunate. — Be the same to your friends when they are prosperous, and when they are unfortunate. — Whatever you agree to do, observe — Do not divulge secrets. — Punish not only those who do wrong, but those who intend to do so. V. This prince was the first who had body-guards, and who changed a legitimate power into a tyranny ; and he would not allow any one who chose to live in his city, as Euphorus and Aristotle tell us. VI. And he flourished about the thirty-eighth Olympiad, and enjoyed absolute power for forty years. But Sotion, and He- raclides, and Pamphila, in the fifth book of her Commen- taries, says that there were two Perianders ; the one a tyrant, and the other a wise man, and a native of Ambracia. And Neanthes of Cyzicus makes the same assertion, adding, that the two men were cousins to one another. And Aristotle says, that it was the Corinthian Periander who was the wise one ; but Plato contradicts him. The saying — " Practice does everything," is his. He it was, also, who proposed to cut through the Isthmus. VII. The following letter of his is quoted : — PERIANDER TO THE WISE JIEN. I give great thanks to Apollo of Delphi that my letters are 46 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. able to determine you all to meet together at Corinth ; and I will receive you all, as you may be well assured, in a manner that becomes free citizens. I hear also that last year you met at Sardis, at the court of the King of Lydia. So now do not hesitate to come to me, who am the tyrant of Corinth ; for the Corinthians will all be delighted to see you come to the house of Periauder. VIII. There is this letter too : — PERIANDER TO PBOCLES. The injury of my wife was unintended by me ; and you have done wrong in alienating from me the mind of my child. I desire you, therefore, either to restore me to my place in his affections, or I will revenge myself on j^ou ; for I have myself made atonement for the death of your daughter, by burning in her tomb the clothes of all the Coriutliian women.* IX. Tluasybulus also wrote him a letter in the following terms : — ' I have given no answer to your messenger; but having taken him into a field, I struck with my walking-stick all the highest ears of corn, and cut off their tops, while he was walking with me. And he will report to you, if you ask him, every- thing which he heard or saw while with me; and do you act accordingly if you wish to preserve your power safely, taking off the most eminent of the citizens, whether he seems an enemv to you or not, as even his companions are deservedly objects of suspicion to a man possessed of supreme power. LIFE OF ANACHARSIS, THE SCYTHIAN. I. Anacharsis the Scythian was the son of Gnurus, and the brother of Caduides the king of the Scythians ; but his mother was a Grecian woman ; owing to v/hich circumstance he understood both languages. II. He wrote about the laws existing among the Scythians, and also about those in force among the Greeks, urging men * Herodotus mentions the case of Periander's children, iii. 50, and the death of his wdie, and his burning the clothes of all the Corinthian women, v. 92. ANACHARSIS. 47 to adopt a temperate course of life; and he wrote also about war, his works being in verse, and amounting to eight hundred lines. He gave occasion for a proverb, because he used great freedom of speech, so that people called such freedom the Scythian conversation. III. But Sosicrates says that he came to Athens in the forty-seventh Olympiad, in the archonship of Eucrates. And Hermippus asserts that he came to Solon's house, and ordered one of the servants to go and tell his master that Anacharsis was come to visit him, and was desirous to see him, and, if possible, to enter into relations of hospitality with him. But when the servant had given the message, he was ordered by Solon to reply to him that, " Men generally limited such alliances to their own countrymen." In reply to this Anacharsis entered the house, and told the servant that now he was in Solon's country, and that it was quite consistent for them to become connected with one another in this way. On this, Solon admired the readiness of the man, and admitted liim, and made him one of his greatest friends. IV. But after some time, when he had returned to Scythia, and shown a purpose to abrogate the existing institutions of his country, being exceedingly earnest, in his fondness for Grecian customs, he was shot by his brother while he was out hunting, and so he died, saying, " That he was saved on account of the sense and eloquence which he had brought from Greece, but slain in consequence of envy in his own family." Some, how- ever, relate that he was slain while performing some Grecian sacrificatory rites. And we have written this epigram on him : — When Anacharsis to his land returned, His mind was tum'd, so that he wished to make His countrymen all live in Grecian fashion — So, ere his words had well escaped his lips, A winged arrow bore him to the Gods. V. He said that a vine bore three bunches of grapes. The first, the bunch of pleasure ; the second, that of drunkenness ; the third, that of disgust. He also said that he marvelled that among the Greeks, those who were skilful in a thing contend together ; but those who have no such skill act as judges of the contest. Being once asked how a person might be made not fond of drinking, he said, "If he always keeps in view the indecorous actions of drunken men." He used also to say. 48 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. tliat lie marvelled how the Greeks, who make laws against those who behave with insolence, honour Athletae because of their beating one another. When he had been informed that the sides of a ship were four fingers thick, he said, " That those who sailed in one were removed b}' just that distance from death. He used to say that oil was a provocative of madness, '• because Athletfe, when anointed in the oil, attacked one another with mad fur3\" " How is it," he used to say, " that those who forbid men to speak falsely, tell lies openly in their vintners' shops?" ]t was a saying of his, that he " marvelled why the Greeks, at the beginning of a banquet, drink out of small cups, but when they have drunk a good deal, then they turn to large goblets." And this inscription is on his statues — " Restrain your tongues, your appetites, and your passions." He was once asked if the flute was known among the Scythians ; and he said, " No, nor the vine either." At another time, the question was put to him, which was the safest kind of vessel? and he said, "That which is brought into dock." He said, too, that the strangest things that he had seen among the Greeks was, that " They left the smoke* in the mountains, and cari'ied the wood down to their cities." Once, when he was asked, which were the more numerous, the living or the dead? he said, " Under which head do you class those who are at sea." Being re- proached by an Athenian for being a Scythian, he said, " Well, my country is a disgrace to me, but you are a disgrace to your country." When he was asked what there was among men which was both good and bad, he replied, " The tongue." He used to say " That it was better to have one friend of great value, than many friends who were good for nothing." Another saying of his was, that " The forum was an established place for men to cheat one another, and behave covetously." Being once insulted by a young man at a drinking party, he said, "0, young man, if now that you are young you cannot bear wine, when you are old you will have to bear water." VI. Of things which are of use in life, he is said to have been the inventor of the anchor, and of the potter's wheel. * Some propose to read Kapirov, fruit, instead of KaTzvov, smoke, here ; others explain this saying as meaning that the Greeks avoided houses on the hills in order not to be annoyed with the smoke from the low cottages, and yet did not use coal, but wood, which made more smoke. MYSON. 49 VII. The following letter of liis is extant : — ANACHARSIS TO CRfESUS. king of the Lydians, I am come to the country of the Greeks, in order to become acquainted with their customs and institutions; but I have no need of gold, and shall be quite contented if I I'eturn to Scythia a better man than I left it. However I will come to Sardis, as I think it very desirable to become a friend of vours. LIFE OF MYSON. I. Myson, the son of Strymon, as Sosicrates states, quoting Hermippus as his authority, a Chenean by birth, of some jEtee&n or Laconian village, is reckoned one of the seven wise men, and they say that his father was tyrant of his country. It is said by some writers that, when Anacharsis inquired if any one was wiser than he, the priestess at Delphi gave the answer which has been already quoted in the life of Thales in reference to Chilo : — I say tbat Myson the ^Etsean sage, The citizen of Chen, is wiser far In his deep mind than you. And that he, having taken a great deal of trouble, came to the village, and found him in the summer season fitting a handle to a plough, and he addressed him, " Myson, this is not now the season for the plough." " Indeed," said he, " it is a capital season for preparing one;" but others say, that the words of the oracle are the Etean sage, and they raise the ques- tion, what the word Etean means. So Parmenides says, that it is a borough of Laconia, of which Myson was a native ; but Sosicrates, in his Successions says, that he was an Etean on his father's side, and a Chenean by his mother's. But Euthyphron, the sou of Heraclides Ponticus, says that he was a Cretan, for that Etea was a city of Crete. II. And Anaxilaus says that he was an Arcadian. Hipponax also mentions him, saying, "And Myson, whom Apollo stated 50 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. to be the most prudent of all men." But Aristoxenus, in his Miscellanies, says that his habits were not very different from those of Timon and Apemantus, for that he was a misanthrope. And that accordingly he was one day found in Lacedfemon laughing by himself in a solitary place, and when some one came up to him on a sudden and asked him why he laughed when he was by himself, he said, " For that very reason." Aristoxenus also says thft he was not thought much of, because he was not a native of any city, but only of a village, and that too one of no great note ; and according to him, it is on account of this obscurity of his that some people attribute his sayings and doings to Pisistratus the tyrant, but he excepts Plato the philosopher, for he mentions Myson in his Prota- goras, placing him among the wdse men instead of Periander. III. It used to be a common saying of his that men ought not to seek for things in words, but for words in things ; for that things are not made on account of words, but that words are put together for the sake of things. IV. He died when he had lived ninety-seven years. LIFE OF EPIMENIDES. I. Epimenides, as Theopompus and many other writers tell us, was the son of a man named Phoedrus, but some call him the son of Dosiadas ; and others of Agesarchus. He was a Cretan by birth, of the city of Gnossus ; but because he let his hair grow long, he did not look like a Cretan. II. He once, when he was sent by his father into the fields to look for a sheep, turned out of the road at mid-day and lay down in a certain cave and fell asleep, and slept there fifty- seven years ; and after that, when he awoke, he went on looking for the sheep, thinking that he had been taking a short nap ; but as he could not find it he went on to the field and there he found everything changed, and the estate in another person's possession, and so he came back again to the city in great perplexity, and as he was going into his own house he met some people who asked him who he was, until at last he found EPIMENIDES. 5 1 his younger brother who had now become an old man, and from him he learnt all the truth. III. And when he was recognized he was considered by the Greeks as a person especially beloved by the Gods, on which account when the Athenians were afflicted by a plague, and tlae priestess at Delphi enjoined them to purify their city, they sent a ship and Nicias the son of Niceratus to Crete, to invite Epimenides to Athens ; and he, coming there in the forty- sixth Olympiad, purified the city and eradicated the plague for that time ; he took some black sheep and some white ones and led them up to the Areopagus, and from thence he let them go wherever they chose, having ordered the attendants to follow them, and wherever any one of them lay down they were to sacrifice him to the God who was the patron of the spot, and so the evil was stayed ; and owing to this one may even now find in the different boroughs of the Athenians altars without names, which are a sort of memorial of the propitiation of the Gods that then took place. Some said that tlie cause of the plague was the pollution contracted by the city in the matter of Cylon, and that Epimenides pointed out to the Athenians how to get rid of it, and that in consequence they put to death two young men, Cratiuus and Ctesilius, and that thus the pestilence was put an end to. III. And the Athenians passed a vote to give him a talent and a ship to convey him back to Crete, but he would not accept the money, but made a treaty of friendship and alliance between the Gnossians and Athenians. IV. And not long after he had returned home he died, as PhlegOD relates in his book on long-lived people, after he had lived a hundred and fifty-seven years ; but as the Cretans report he had lived two hundred and ninety-nine ; but as Xenophones the Colophonian, states that he had heard it reported, he was a hundred and fifty-four years old when he died. V. He wrote a poem of five thousand verses on the Gene- ration and Theogony of the Curetes and Corybantes, and another poem of si.v thousand five hundred verses on the building of the Argo and the expedition of Jason to Colchis. VI. He also wrote a treatise in prose on the Sacrifices in Crete, and the Cretan Constitution, and on Minos and Rhodamanthus, occupying four thousand lines. E 2 52 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. VI. Likewise be built at Athens tbe temple wbicb is there dedicated to tbe venerable goddesses, as Lobon the Augur says in bis book on Poets ; and he is said to have been the first person who purified bouses and lands, and who built temples. VII. There are some people who assert that he did not sleep for tbe length of time that has been mentioned above, but that he was absent from his country for a considerable period, occupying himself with the anatomisation and ex- amination of roots. VIII. A letter of his is quoted, addressed to Solon the lawgiver, in which he discusses the constitution which Minos gave the Cretans. But Demetrius the Magnesian, in his treatise on Poets and Prose writers of the same name as one another, attempts to prove that the letter is a modern one, and is not written in the Cretan but in the Attic dialect, and the new Attic too. IX. But I have also discovered another letter of his which nms thus : — EPIMENIDES TO SOLON. Be of good cheer, my friend ; for if Pisistratus had imposed his laws on the Athenians, they being habituated to slavery and not accustomed to good laws previously, he would have maintained his dominion for ever, succeeding easily in en- slaving his fellow countrymen ; but as it is, he is lording it over men who are no cowards, but who remember the precepts of Solon and are indignant at their bonds, and who will not endure the supremacy of a tyrant. But if Pisistratus does possess the city to-day, still I have no expectation that the supreme power will ever descend to his children. For it is impossible that men who have lived in freedom and in the enjoyment of most excellent laws should be slaves perma- nently ; but as for yourself, do not you go wandering about at . random, but come and visit me, for here there is no supreme ruler to be formidable to you ; but if while you are wandering about any of the friends of Pisistratus should fall in with you, I fear you might suffer some misfortune. He then wrote thus : — X. But Demetrius says that some writers report that he used to receive food from the nymphs and keep it in a bullock's hoof; and that eating it in small quantities he never PHERECYDES. 53 required any evacuations, and was never seen eating. And Timasus mentions him in his second book. XI. Some authors say also that the Cretans sacrifice to him as a god, for they say that be was tlie wisest of men ; and accordingly, that when he saw the port of Munychia,* at Athens, he said that the Athenians did not know how many evils that place would bring upon them : since, if they did, they would tear it to pieces witli their teeth ; and he said this a long time before the event to which he alluded. It is said also, that he at first called himself .zEacus ; and that he fore- told to the Lacedaemonians the defeat which they should suffer from the Arcadians ; and that he pretended that he had lived several times. But Theopompus, in his Strange Stories, says that when he was building the temple of the Nymphs, a voice burst forth from heaven ; — " Oh ! Epimenides, build this temple, not for the Nymphs but for Jupiter." He also fore- told to the Cretans the defeat of the Lacediemonians by the Arcadians, as has been said before. And, indeed, they were beaten at Orchomenos. XII. He pretended also, that he grew old rapidly, in the same number of days as he had been years asleep ; at least, so Theopompus says. But Mysonianus, in his Coincidences, says, that the Cretans call him one of the Curetes, And the Lacedaemonians preserve his body among them, in obedience to some oracle, as Sosilius the Lacedsemonian says. XIII. There were also two other Epimenides, one the genealogist ; the other, the man who wrote a history of Rhodes in the Doric dialect. LIFE OF PHERECYDES. I. Pherecydes was a Syrian, the eon of Babys, and, as Alex- ander says, in his Successions, he had been a pupil of Pittacus. * This refers to the result of the war which Antipater, who became regent of Macedonia on the death of Alexander the Great, carried on against the confederacy of Greek states, of which Athens was the head ; and in which, after having defeated them at Cranon, he com- pelled the Athenians to abolish the democracy, and to admit a garrison into Munychia. 54 LI7ES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. II. Tlieopompus says that he was the first person who ever wrote among the Greeks on the subject of Natural Philosophy and the Gods. And there are many marvellous stories told of him. For it is said that he was walking along the sea-shore at Samos, and that seeing a ship sailing by with a fair wind, he said that it would soon sink ; and presently it sank before their eyes. At another time he was drinking some water which had been drawn up out of a well, and he foretold that within three days there would be an earthquake ; and there was one. And as he was goijig up to 01ymj)ia, and had arrived at Messene, he advised his entertainer, Perilaus, to migrate from the city with all his family, but that Perilaus would not be guided by him ; and afterwards Messene was taken. III. And he is said to have told the Lacedaemonians to honour neither gold nor silver, as Tlieopompus says in his Marvels ; and it is reported that Hercules laid this injunc- tion on him in a dream, and that the same night he appeared also to the kings of Sparta, and enjoined them to be guided by Pherecydes ; but some attribute these stories to Pythagoras. IV. And Hermippus relates that when there was a war between the Ephesians and Magnesians, he, wishing the Ephe- sians to conquer, asked some one, who was passing by, from whence he came ? and when he said, " From Ephesus," " Drag me now," said he, " by the legs, and place me in the terrritory of the Magnesians, and tell your fellow countrymen to bury me thereafter they have got the victory ; and that he went and re- ported that Pherecydes had given him this order. And so they went forth the ne.xt day and defeated the Magnesians ; and as Pherecydes was dead, they buried him there, and paid him very splendid honours. V. But some writers say that he went to Delphi, and threw himself down from the Corycian hill ; Aristoxenus, in his History of Pythagoras and his Friends, says that Pherecydes fell sick and died, and was buried by Pythagoras in Delos ; But others say that he died of the lousy disease ; and when Pythagoi'as came to see him, and asked him how he was, he put his finger through the door, and said, " You may see by my skin." And from this circumstance that expression passed into a proverb among the philosophers, when affairs are going on badly ; and those who apply it to affairs that are go ng on well, make a blunder. He used to say, also, that the Gods call their table &vcji)gug. PHERECYDES. 55 VI. But Audron, the Ephesian, saj'S that there were two men of the name of Pherecydes, both Syrians : one an astro- nomer, and the other a writer on God and the Divine Nature ; and that this last was the sou of Babys, who was also the master of Pythagoras. But Eratosthenes asserts that there was but one, who was a Syrian ; and that the other Pherecydes was an Athenian, a genealogist ; and the work of the Syrian Phere- cydes is preserved, and it begins thus : — "Jupiter, and Time, and Chthon existed externally." And the name of Cthonia became Tellus, after Jupiter gave it to her as a reward. A sun-dial is also preserved, in the island of Syra, of his making. VII. But Dmis, in the second book of his Boundaries, says that this epigram was written upon him : — The limit of all wisdom is in me ; And would be, wers it larger. But report To my Pythagoras that he's the first Of all the men that tread the Grecian soil ; I shall not speak a falsehood, saying this. And Ion, the Chian, says of him : — Adorned wiih valour while alive, and modesty. Now that he's dead he still exists in peace ; For, like the wise Pythagoras, he studied The manners and the minds of many nations. And I myself have composed an epigram on him in the Phere» cratean metre : — The story is reported, That noVjle Pherecydes Whom Syros calls her own, Was eaten up by lice ; And so he bade his friends. Convey his corpse away To the Magnesian land, That he might victory give To holy Ephesus. For well the God had said, (Though he alone did know Th' oracular prediction). That this was fate's decree. So in that land he lies. This then is surely true. That those who're really wise Are useful while alive, And e'en when breath has left them. 56 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. VIII. And he flourished about the fifty-ninth Olympiad. There is a letter of his extant in the following terms : — PHERECYDES TO THALES. May you die happily when fate overtakes you. Disease has seized upon me at the same time that I received your letter. I am all over lice, and suffering likewise under a low fever. Accordingly, I have charged my servants to convey this hook of mine to you, after they have buried me. And do you, if you think fit, after consulting with the other wise men, publish it ; but if you do not approve of doing so, then keep it unpublished, for I am not entirely pleased with it myself. The subject is not one about which there is any certain knowledge, nor do I undertake to say that I have arrived at the truth ; but I have advanced arguments, from which any one who occupies himself with speculations on the divine nature, may make a selection ; and as to other points, he must exercise his intellect, for I speak obscurely throughout. I, myself, as I am afflicted more severely by this disease every day, no longer admit any phy- sicians, or any of my friends. But when they stand at the door, and ask me how I am, I put out my finger to them through the opening of the door, and show them how I am eaten up with the evil ; and I desired them to come to-morrow to the funeral of Pherecydes. These, then, are they who were called wise men ; to which list some writers add the name of Pisistratus. But we must also speak of the philosophers. And we will begin first vnth. the Ionic philosophy, the founder of which school was Thales, who was the master of Anaximander. 57 BOOK 11. LIFE OF ANAXIMAXDER. I. Anaximander, the son of Praxiadas, was a citizen of Miletus. II. He used to assert that the principle and primary element of aU things was the Infinity, giving no exact definition as to ■whether he meant air or -water, or anything else. And he said that the parts were susceptible of change, but that the whole was unchangeable ; and that the earth lay in the middle, being placed there as a sort of centre, of a spherical shape. The moon, he said, had a borrowed light, and borrowed it from the sun ; and the sun he affirmed to be not less than the earth, and the purest possible fire. III. He also was the first discoverer of the gnomon; and he placed some in Lacedaemon on the sun-dials there, as Pharo- rinus says in his Universal History, and they showed the solstices and the equinoxes ; he also made clocks. He was the first person, too, who drew a map of the earth and sea, and he also made a globe ; and he published a concise statement of what- ever opinions he embraced or entertained ; and this treatise was met ydth by Apollodorus, the Athenian. IV. And Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, states, that in the second year of the fifty-eighth Olympiad, he was sixty-four years old. And soon after he died, having flourished much about the same time as Polycrates, the tyrant, of Samos. They say that when he sang, the children laughed ; and that he, hearing of this, said, "We must then sing better for the sake of the children." V. There was also another Anaximander, a historian ; and he too was a Milesian, and wrote in the Ionic dialect. LIFE OF ANAXIMENES. I. Akaximenes, the son of Eurystratus, a Milesian, was a pupil of Anaximander ; but some say that he was also a pupil of Parmenides. He said that the principles of everything 58 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. were the air, and the Infinite ; and that the stars moved not under the earth, but around the earth. He wrote in the pure unmixed Ionian dialect. And he lived, according to the state- ments of Apollodorus, in the sixty-third Olympiad, and died about the time of the taking of Sardis. II. There were also two other persons of the name of Anaximenes, both citizens of Lampsacus ; one an orator and the other a historian, who was the son of the sister of the orator, and who wrote an account of the exploits of Alexander. III. And this philosopher wrote the following letters : — ANAXIMENES TO PYTHAGOBAS. Thales, the son of Euxamias, has died in his old age, by an unfortunate accident. In the evening, as he was accus- tomed to do, he went forth out of the vestibule of his house with his maid-servant, to observe the stars : and (for he had forgotten the existence of the place) while he was looking up towards the skies, he fell down a precipitous place. So now the astronomer of Miletus has met with tliis end. But we who were his pupils cherish the recollection of the man, and so do our children and our own pupils: and we will lecture on his principles. At all events, the beginning of all wisdom ought to be attributed to Thales. IV. And again he writes : — ANAXIMENES TO PYTHAGORAS. You are more prudent than we, in that you have migrated from Samos to Crotona, and live there in peace. For the descendants of .^acus commit unheard-of crimes, and tyrants never cease to oppress the Milesians. The king of the Medes too is formidable to us : unless, indeed, we choose to become tributary to him. But the lonians are on the point of engaging in war with the Medes in the cause of universal freedom. For if we remain quiet there is no longer any hope of safety for us. How then can Anaximenes apply his mind to the contemplation of the skies, while he is in perpetual fear of death or slavery ? But you are beloved by the people of Crotona, and by all the rest of the Italians ; and pupils flock to you, even from Sicily. ANAXAGORAS. 59 LIFE OF ANAXAGORAS. I. Anaxagoras, the son of Hegesibulus, oi- Eubulus, was a citizen of Clazomenae. He was a pupil of Anaximenes, and was the first philosopher who attributed mind to matter, beginning his treatise on the subject in the following manner (and the whole treatise is written in a most beautiful and magnificent style) : " All things were mixed up together ; then Mind came and arranged them all in distinct order." On which account he himself got the same name of Mind. And Timon speaks thus of him in liis Silli : — They say too that wise Anaxagoras Deserves immortal fame ; they call him Mind, Because, as he doth teach. Mind came in season, Arranging all which was confus'd before. II. He was eminent for his noble birth and for his riches, and still more so for his magnanimity, inasmuch as he gave up all his patrimony to his relations ; and being blamed by them for his neglect of his estate, " Wliy, then," said he, " do not you take care of it ?" And at last he abandoned it entirely, and devoted himself to the contemplation of subjects of natural philosophy, disregarding politics. So that once when some said to him, " You have no affection for your country," " Be silent," said he, " for I have the greatest affection for my country," pointing up to heaven. III. It is said, that at the time of the passage of the Hellespont by Xerxes, he was twenty years old, and that he lived to the age of seventy-two. But Apollodorus, in his Chronicles says that he flourished in the seventieth Olympiad, and that he died in the first year of the seventy-eighth. And he began to study philosophy at Athens, in the archonship of Callias, being twenty years of age, as Demetrius Phalerius tells us in his Catalogue of the Archons, and they say that he remained at Athens thirty years. IV. He asserted that "the sun was a mass of burning iron, greater than Peloponnesus ; (that some attribute this doc- trine to Tantalus), and that the moon contained houses, and also hills and ravines : and that the primary elements of eveiything were similarities of parts ; for as we say that gold consists of a quantity of grains combined together, so too is the universe formed of a number of small bodies of similar 60 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. parts. He farther taught that Mind was the principle of motion : and that of bodies the heavy ones, such as the earth, occupied the lower situations ; and the light ones, such as fire, occupied the higher places, and that the middle spaces were assigned to water and air. And thus that the sea rested upon the eaith, which was broad, the moisture being all evaporated by the sun. • And he said that the stars originally moved about in irregular confusion, so that at first the pole star, which is continually visible, always appeared in the zenith, but that afterwards it acquired a certain declination. And that the milky way was a reflection of the light of the sun when the stars did not appear. The comets he considered to be a concourse of planets emitting rays : and the shooting stars he thought were sparks as it were leaping from the firmament. The winds he thought were caused by the rari- fication of the atmosphere, which was pi'oduced by the sun. Thunder, he said, was produced by the collision of the clouds ; and lightning by the rubbing together of the clouds. Earth- quakes, he said, were produced by the return of the air into the earth. All animals he considered were originally gene- rated out of moisture, and heat, and earthy particles : and subsequently from one another. And males he considered were derived from those on the right hand, and females from those on the left. V. They say, also, that he predicted a fall of the stones wliich fell near ^gospotami, and which he said would fall from the sun : on which account Euripides, who was a disciple of his, said in his Phaethon that the sun was a golden clod of earth. He went once to Olympia wrapped in a leathern cloak as if it were going to rain ; and it did rain. And they say that he once replied to a man who asked him whether the mountains at Lampsacus would ever become sea, " Yes, if time lasts long enough." VI. Being once asked for what end he had been born, he said, " For the contemplation of the sun, and moon, and lieaven." A man once said to him, " You have lost the Athenians ;" " No," said he, " they have lost me." When he beheld the tomb of Mausolus, he said, "A costly tomb is an image of a petrified estate." And he comforted a man who was grieving because he was dying in a foreign land, by telling him, " The descent to hell is the same from every place." ANAXAGOEAS. 61 VII. He appears to have been the first person (according to the account given by Pharorinus in his Universal Historj-), who said that the Poem of Homer was composed in praise of virtue and justice : and Metro, of Lampsacus, who was a friend of his, adopted this opinion, and advocated it ener- getically, and Metrodorus was the first who seriously studied the natural philosophy developed in the writings of the great poet. VIII. Anaxagoras was also the first man who ever wrote a work in prose ; and Silenus, in the first book of his Histories, says, that in the archonship of Lysanias a large stone fell from heaven ; and that in reference to this event Anaxagoras said, that the whole heaven was composed of stones, and that by its rapid revolutions they were all held together ; and when those revolutions get slower, they fall down. IX. Of his trial there are different accounts given. For Sotion, in his Succession of the Philosophers, says, that he was persecuted for impiety by Cleon, because he said that the sun was a fiery ball of iron. And though Pericles, who had been his pupil, defended him, he was, nevertheless, fined five talents and banished. But Satyrus, in his Lives, says that it was Thucydides by whom he was impeached, as Thiicydides Avas of the opposite party to Pericles ; and that he was pro- secuted not only for impiety, but also for Medison ; and that he was condemned to death in his absence. And when news was brought him of two misfortunes — his condemnation, and the death of his children ; concerning the condemnation he said, " Nature has long since condemned both them and me." But about his children, he said, " I knew that I had become the father of mortals." Some, however, attribute this sajiug to Solon, and others to Xenophon. And Demetrius Phale reus, in his treatise on Old Age, says that Anaxagoras buried them with his own hands. But Hermippus, in his Lives, says tliat he was thrown into prison for the purpose of being put to death : but that Pericles came forward and inquired if any one brought any accusation against him respecting his course of life. And as no one alleged anything against him : " I then," said he, " am his disciple : do not you then be led away by calumnies to put this man to death ; but be guided by me, and release him." And he was released. But, as he was indignant at the insult which had been offered to him, he left the city. o 0-2 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. But Hieronymus, in the second book of his IVIiscellaneous Commentaries, says that Pericles produced him before the court, tottering and emaciated by disease, so ;^that he was released rather out of pity, than by any deliberate decision on the merits of his case. And thus much may be said about his trial. Some people have fancied that he was very hostile to Democritus, because he did not succeed in getting admission to him for the purposes of conversation. X. And at last, liaving gone to Lampsacus, he died in that city. And it is said, that when the governors of the city asked him what he would ?ike to have done for him, he replied, " That they would allow the children to play every year during the month in which he died." And this custom is kept up even now. And when he was dead, the citizens of Lampsacus buried him with great honours, and wrote this epitaph on him : — Here Anaxagoras lies, who reached of truth The farthest bounds in heavenly speculations. "We ourselves also have written an epigram on him: — Wise Anaxagoras did call the sun A mass of glowing iron ; and for this Death was to be his fate. But Pericles Then saved hia friend ; but afterwards he died A victim of a ^Ncak philosophy. XI. There were also three other people of the name of Anaxagoras ; none of whom combined all kinds of knowledge ; But one was an orator and a pupil of Isocrates ; another was a statuaiy, who is mentioned by Aiitigonus ; another is a grammarian, a pupil of Zenodotus. LIFE OF ARCHELAUS. T. Aechklaus was a citizen of either Athens or Miletus, and his father's name was Apollodorus ; but, as some say, Mydon. He was a pupil of Anaxagoras, and the master of Socrates. II. He was the first person who imported the study of natural philosophy from Ionia to Athens, and he was called the Natural Philosopher, because natural philosophy terminated with him, as Socrates introduced ethical philosophy. And it seems probable that Archelaus too meddled in some degree SOCRATES. 63 with moral philosophy ; for iii his philosophical speculations he discussed laws and what was honourable and just. And Socrates borrowed from him ; and becaused he enlarged his principles, he was thought to be the inventor of them. III. He used to say that there were two primary causes of generation, heat and cold ; and that all animals were generated out of mud : and that what are accounted just and disgraceful are not so by nature, but only by law. And his reasoning proceeds in this way. He says, that water being melted by heat, when it is submitted to the action of fire, by which it is solidified, becomes earth ; and when it is liquefied, becomes air. And, therefore, the earth is surrounded by air and influ- enced by it, and so is the air by the revolutions of fire. And he says that animals are generated out of hot earth, which sends up a thick mud something like milk for their food. So too he says that it produced men. And he was the first person who said that sound is produced by the percussion of the air ; and that the sea is filtered in the hollows of the earth in its passage, and so is condensed ; and that the sun is the greatest of the stars, and that the universe is boundless. IV. But there were three other people of the name of Archelaus : one, a geographer, who described the countries traversed by Ale.x;ander ; the second, a man who wrote a poem on objects which have two natures ; and the third, an orator, who wrote a book containing the precepts of his art. LIFE OF SOCRATES. I. Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a statuary, and of Phaenarete, a midwife ; as Plato records in his Mia^tetus ; he was a citizen of Athens, of the borough of Alopece. II. Some people believed that he assisted Euripides in his poems ; in reference to which idea, Moresimachus speaks as follows : — The Phrygians are a new play of Euripides, But Socrates has laid the main fouudatiou.* * ipvynvcL, sticks or faggots. 64 LIVES OF EmNENT PHILOSOPHEES. Autl again he says : — Euripides : pa'cched up by Socrates. And Callias, in his Captives, says : — A . Are you so proud, giving yourself such airs ? £. And well I may, for Socrates is the cause. And Aristophanes says, in his Clouds : — This is Euripides, who doth compose Those argumentative wise tragedies. III. But, having been a pupil of Anaxagoras, as some people say, but of Damon as the other story goes, related by Alexander in his Successions, after the condemnation of Anaxagoras, he became a disciple of Archelaus, the natural philosopher. And, indeed, Aristoxenus says that he was very intimate with him. IV. But Duris says that he was a slave, and employed in carving stones. And some say that the Graces in the Acropolis are his work ; and they are clothed figures. And that it is in reference to this that Timon says, in his Silli : — From them proceeded the stone polisher, The reasoning legislator, the enchanter Of all the Greeks, making them subtle arguers, A cunning pedant, a shrewd Attic quibbler. V. For he was very clever in all rhetorical exercises, as Idomeneus also assures us. But the thirty tyrants forbade him to give lessons in the art of speaking and arguing, as Xenophon tells us. And Aristophanes turns him into ridicule in his Comedies, as making the worse appear the better reason. For he was the first man, as Pharorinus says in his Universal History, who, in conjunction with his disciple -lEschines, taught men how to become orators. And Idomeneus makes the same assertion in his essay on the Socratic School. He, likewise, was the first person who conversed about human life ; and was also the first philosopher who was condemned to death and executed. And Aristoxenus, the son of Spin- tharas, says that he lent money in usury ; and that he collected the interest and principal together, and then, when he had got the interest, he lent it out again. And Demetrius, of Byzantium, says that it was Criton who made him leave SOCRATES. 65 his workshop and instruct men, out of the admiration \\hich he conceived for his abilities. VI. He tlieu, perceiving that natural philosophy had no immediate bearing on our interests, began to enter upon moral speculations, both in his workshop and in the market- place. And he said that the objects of his search were — Whatever good or harm can man befall In his own house. And very often, while arguing and discussing points that arose, he was treated with great violence and beaten, and pulled about, and laughed at and ridiculed by the multitude. But he bore all this with great equanimity. So that once, when he had been kicked and buffeted about, and had home it all patiently, and some one expressed his surprise, he said, " Suppose an ass had kicked me, would you have had me bring an action against him ?" And this is the account of Demetrius. VII. But he had no need of travelling (though most philosophers did travel), except when he was bound to serve in the army. But all the rest of his life he remained in the same place, and in an argumentative spirit he used to dispute with all who would converse with him, not with the purpose of taking avtay their opinions from them, so much as of learn- ing the truth, as far as he could do so, himself. And they say that Euripides gave him a small work of Heraclitus to read, and asked him afterwards what he thought of it, and he replied, " What I have understood is good ; and so, I think, what I have not understood is ; only the book requires a Delian diver to get at the meaning of it." He paid great attention also to the training of the body, and was always in excellent condition himself. Accordingly, he joined in the expedition to Amphipolis, and he it was who took up and saved Xenophon in the battle of Delian, when he had fallen from his horse ; for when all the Athenians had fled, he retreated quietly, turning round slowly, and watching to repel any one who attacked him. He also joined in the expedition to PotidiBa, which was undertaken by sea; for it was impossible to get there by land, as the war impeded the communication. And they say that on this occasion he remained the whole niglit iu one place ; and that though he had deserved the prize F 66 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. of pre-eminent valour, he yielded it to Alcibiades, to -whom Aristippus, in the fourth book of his treatise on the Luxury of the Ancients, says that he was greatly attached. But Ion, of Chios, says, that while he was a very young man he left Athens, and went to Samos with Archelaus. And Aristotle says, that he went to Delphi ; and Pharorinus also, in the first book of his Commentaries, says that he went to the Isthmus. VIII. He was a man of great firmness of mind, and very much attached to the democracy, as was plain from his not submitting to Critias, when he ordered him to bring Leon of Salamis, a very rich man, before the thirty, for the purpose of being murdered. And he alone voted for the acquittal of the ten generals ;* and when it was in his power to escape out of prison he would not do it ; and he reproved those who bewailed his fate, and even while in prison, he delivered those beautiful discourses which we still possess. IX. He was a contented and venerable man. And once, as Pamphila says, in the seventh book of her Commen- taries, when Alcibiades offered him a large piece of ground to build a house upon, he said, " But if I wanted shoes, and you had given me a piece of leather to make myself shoes, I should be laughed at if I took it." And often, when he beheld the multitude of things which were being sold, he would say to himself, " How many things are there which I do not want." And he was continually repeating these iambics : — For silver plate and purple useful are "" For actors on the stage, but not for men. And he showed his scorn of Archelaus the Macedonian, and Scopas the Crononian, and Eurylochus of Larissa, when he refused to accept their money, and to go and visit them. And he was so regular in his way of living, that it happened more than once when there was a plague at Athens, that he was the only person who did not catch it. X. Aristotle says, that he had two wives. The first was Xanthippe, by whom he had a son named Lamprocles ; the second was Myrto, the daughter of Aristides the Just ; and he took her without any dowry, and by her he had two sons, Sophroniscus and Menexenus. But some say that Myrto was * After the battle of Arginusse. SOCRATES. 67 his first wife. And some, among whom are Satyrus, and Hieronymus, of Rhodes, say that he had them both at the same time. For they say that the Athenians, on account of the scarcity of men, passed a vote, with the view of increasing the population, tliat a man might marry one citizen, and might also have children by another who should be legitimate ; on which account Socrates did so. XI. And he was a man able to look down upon any who mocked him. And he prided himself upon the simplicity of his way of life ; and never exacted any pay from his pupils. And he used to say, that the man who ate with the greatest appetite, had the least need of delicacies ; and that he who drank with the greatest appetite, was the least inclined to look for a draught which is not at hand ; and that those who want fewest things are nearest to the Gods. And thus much, indeed, one may learn from the comic poets ; who, without perceiving it, praise him. in the very matters for which they ridicule him. Aristophanes speaks thus : — Prudent man, who thus with justice long for mighty wisdom, Happiness will be your lot in Athens, and all Greece too ; For you've a noble memory, and plenty of invention, And patience dwells within your mind, and you are never tired, Whether you're standing still or walking ; and you care not for cold, Nor do you long for breakfast time, nor e'er give in to hunger ; But wine and gluttony you shun, and and all such kind of follies. And Ameipsias introduces him on the stage in a cloak, and speaks thus of him : — Socrates, among few men the best, And among many vainest ; here at last You come to us courageously — but where. Where did you get that cloak ? so strange a garment, Some leather cutter must have given you By way of joke : and yet this worthy man. Though ne'er so hungry, never flatters any one. Aristophanes too, exposes his contemptuous and arrogant disposition, speaking thus : — You strut along the streets, and look around you proudly, And barefoot many Uls endure, and hold your head above us. And yet, sometimes he adapted himself to the occasion and dressed handsomely. As, for instance, in the banquet of Plato, where he is represented as going to find Agathon. F 2 68 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. XII. He was a man of great ability, both in exhorting men to, and dissuading them from, any course ; as, for instance, having discoursed witli Thea3tetus on the subject of knowledge, he sent him away almost inspired, as Plato says. And when Euthyphron had commenced a prosecution against his father , for having killed a foreigner, he conversed with him on the subject of piety, and turned him from his purpose : and by his exhortations he made Lysis a most moral man. For he was very ingenious at deriving arguments from existing circum- stances. And so he mollified his son Lamprocles when he was very angry with his mother, as Xenophon mentions some- where in his works ; and he wrought upon Glauson, the brother of Plato, who was desirous to meddle with affairs of state, and induced him to abandon his purpose, because of his want of experience in such matters, as Xenophon relates. And, on the contrary, he persuaded Charmidas to devote him- self to politics, because he was a man very well calculated for such business. He also inspired Iphicrates, the general, with courage, by showing him the gamecocks of Midias the barber, pluming themselves against those of Callias ; and Glauernides said, that the state ought to keep him carefully, as if he were a pheasant or a peacock. He used also to say, that it was a strange thing that every one could easily tell what property he had, but was not able to name all his friends, or even to tell their number ; so careless were men on that subject. Once when he saw Euclid exceedingly anxious about some dialectic arguments, he said to him, " Euclid, you will acquire a power of managing sophists, but not of governing men." For he thought that subtle hair-splitting on those subjects was quite useless ; as Plato also records in the Eu- thydemus. XIII. And when Charmidas offered him some slaves, ^^-ith the view to his making a profit of them, he would not have them ; and, as some people say, he paid no regard to the beauty of Alcibiades. XIV. He used to praise leisure as the most valuable of pos- sessions, as Xenophon tells us in his Banquet. And it was a saying of his that there was one only good, namely, knowledge ; and one only evil, namely ignorance ; that riches and high birth had nothing estimable in tliem, but that, on the contrary, they were \\ holly evil. Accordingly, when some one told him SOCRATES. 69 that the mother of Antisthenes was a Thracian woman, " Did you suppose," said he, " that so noble a man must be born of two Atlienians '?" And when Phaedo was reduced to a state of slavery, he ordered Crito to ransom him, and taught him, and made him a philosopher. XV. And, moreover, he used to learn to play on the lyre when he had time, saying, that it it was not absurd to learn anything that one did not know ; and further, he used fre- quently to dance, thinking such an exercise good for the health of the body, as Xenophon relates in his Banquet. XVI. He used also to say that the daemon foretold the future to him ; * and that to begin well was not a trifling thing, but yet not far from a trifling thing ; and that he knew nothing, except the fact of his ignorance. Another saying of his was, that those who bought things out of season, at an extravagant price, expected never to hve till the proper season for them. Once, when he was asked what was the virtue of a young man, he said, " To avoid excess in every- TJiing." And he used to say, that it was necessary to learn geometry only so far as might enable a man to measure land for the purposes of buying and selling. And when Euripides, in his Augur, had spoken thus of virtue : — 'Tis best to leave these subjects undisturbed ; • he rose up and left the theatre, saying that it was an absurdity to think it right to seek for a slave if one could not find him, but to let virtue be altogether disregarded. The question was once put to him by a man whether he would advise him to marry or not ? And he replied, " Whichever you do, you will repent it." He often said, that he wondered at those who made stone statues, when he saw how careful they were that the stone should be like the man it was intended to represent, but how careless they were of them- selves, as to guarding against being like the stone. He used also to recommend young men to be constantly looking in the glass, in order that, if they were handsome, they might be worthy of their beauty ; and if they were ugly, they * " This is not quite correct. Socrates believed that the dremon which attended him, limited his warnings to his own conduct ; pre- veutiug him from doing what was wrong, but not prompting him to do right." — See Orote's admirable chapter on Socrates. Hist, of Greece, vol. V. 70 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. might conceal their unsightly appearance by their accomplish- meuts. He once invited some rich men to dinner, and when Xanthippe was ashamed of their insufficient appointments, he said, " Be of good cheer ; for if our guests are sensible men, they will bear with us ; and if they are not, we need not care about them." He used to say. " That other men lived to eat, but that he ate to live." Another saying of his was, " That to have a regard for the worthless multitude, was like the case of a man who refused to take one piece of money of four drachmas as if it were bad, and then took a heap of such coins and ad- mitted them to be good." When ^schines said, " I am a poor man, and have nothing else, but I give you myself;" " Do you not," he replied, " perceive that you are giving me what is of the greatest value ?" He said to some one, who was expressing indignation at being overlooked when the thirty bad seized on the supreme power, " Do you, then, repent of not being a tyi'ant too ?" A man said to him, " The Athenians have con- demned you to death." "And nature," he replied, " has con- demned them.'' But some attribute this answer to Anaxagoras. When his wife said to him, " You die undeservedly." " Would you, then," he rejoined, " have had me deserve death?" He thought once that some one appeared to him in a dream, and said : — On the third day you'll come to lovely Phthia. And so he said to jEschines, " In three days I shall die." And when he was about to drink the hemlock, Apollodorus presented him with a handsome robe, that he might expire in it ; and he said, " Why was my own dress good enough to live in, and not good enough to die in ?" When a person said to him, " Such an one speaks ill of you ;" " To be sure," said he, " for he has never learnt to speak well." When An- tisthenes turned the ragged side of his cloak to the light, he said, " I see your silly vanity through the holes in yoiir cloak." When some one said to him, " Does not that man abuse you ?" '•* No," said he, " for that does not apply to me." It was a saying of his, too, " That it is a good thing for a man to offer himself cheerfully to the attacks of the comic writers ; for then, if they say anything worth hearing, one will be able to mend ; and if they do not, then all they say is unimportant." XVII. He said once to Xanthippe, who first abused him, SOCRATES. 71 and then threw water at him, " Did I not say that Xanthippe was thundering now, and would soon rain ?" When Alcihiades said to him, " The abusive temper of Xanthippe is intolerable ;" " But I," he rejoined, " am used to it, just as I should be if I ■were always hearing the noise of a pulley ; and you yourself endure to hear geese cackling." To which Alcibiades answered, " Yes, but they bring me eggs and goslings."' " Well." rejoined Socrates, " and Xanthippe brings me cliildren." Once, she attacked him in the market-place, and tore his cloak off ; his friends advised him to keep her off with his hands ; " Yes, by Jove," said he, " that while we are boxing you may all cry out, ' Well done, Socrates, well done, Xanthippe.'" And he used to say, that one ought to live with a restive woman, just as horsemen manage violent-tempered horses ; " and as they," said he, " when they have once mastered them, are easily able to manage all others ; so I, after managing Xanthippe, can easily live with any one else whatever." XVIII. And it was in consequence of such sayings and actions as these, that the priestess at Delphi was witness in his favour, when she gave Chserephon this answer, which is so universally known : — Socrates of all mortals is the wisest. In consequence of which answer, he incurred great envy ; and he brought envy also on himself, by convicting men who gave themselves airs of folly and ignorance, as undoubtedly he did to Anytus ; and as is shown in Plato's Meno. For he, not being able to bear Socrates' jesting, first of all set Aristoj^hanes to attack him, and then persuaded Melitus to institute a pro- secution against him, on the ground of impiety and of corrupt- ing the youth of the city. Accordingly Melitus did institute the prosecution ; and Polyeuctus pronounced the sentence, as Pharorinus records in his Universal History. And Polycrates, the sophist, wrote tho speech which was delivered, as Her- mippus says, not Anytus, as others say. And Lycon, the demagogue, prepared everything necessary to support the im- peachment ; but ATitisthenes in his Successions of tlie Phi- losophers, and Plato in his Apology, say that these men brought the accusation : — Anytus, and Lycon, and Melitus ; Anytus, acting against him on behalf of the magistrates, and 73 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. because of bis pobtical principles ; Lycon, on bebalf of tbe orators ; and Melitus ou bebalf of the poets, all of wboui Socrates used to pull to pieces. But Pharorinus, in tbe first book of bis Commentaries, says, tbat tbe speecb of Polycrates against Socrates is not the genuine one ; for in it there is mention made of tbe walls having been restored by Conon, which took place six years after the death of Socrates ; and certainly this is true. XIX. But the sworn informations, on which tbe trial pro- ceeded, were drawn up in this fashion ; for they are preserved to this day, says Pharorinus, in tbe temple of Cybele: — "Me- litus, the son of Melitus, of Pittea, impeaches Socrates, tbe son of Sopbroniscus, of Alopece : Socrates is guilty, inasmuch as be does not believe in tbe Gods whom the city worships, but in- troduces other strange deities ; be is also guilty, inasmuch as he corrupts the young men, and the punishment he has incurred is death." XX. But the philosopher, after Lysias had prepared a de- fence for him, read it through, and said — " It is a very fine speecb, Lysias, but is not suitable forme; for it was manifestly tbe speech of a lawyer, rather than of a philosopher." And when Lysias replied, " How is it possible, tbat if it is a good speecb, it should not be suitable to you '?"' he said, " Just as fine clothes and handsome shoes would not be suitable to me." And when the trial was proceeding, Justus, of Tiberias, in his Garland, says tbat Plato ascended tbe tribune and said, " I, men of Athens, being the youngest of all those who have mounted tbe tribune . . . and that be was interrupted by the judges, who cried out Tiara^avTo^v, tliatis to say, ' Come down.' XXI. So when he bad been condemned by two hundred and eighty-one-votes, beuig six more than wei'e given in his favour, and when the judges were making an estimate of what punish- ment or fine should be inflicted on him, he said that be ought to be fined five and twenty drachmas ; but Eubulides says that be admitted tbat he deserved a fine of one hundred. And when tbe judges raised an outcry at this proposition, he said, " My real opinion is, tbat as a return for what has been done by me, I deserve a maintenance in the Prytaneum for the rest of ray life." So they condemned him to deatli, by eighty votes more than they had originally found him guilty. And be was put into prison, and a few days afterwards he drank the hem- SOCRATES. 73' lock, haWng held many admirable conversations in the mean- time, which Plato has recorded in the Ph^do. XXII. He also, according to some accounts, composed a paean, which begins — Hail Apollo, King of Delos, Hail Diana, Leto's chUd. But Dionysidorus says that this paean is not his. He also com- posed a fable, in the style of ^sop, not very artistically, and it begins — ^sop one day did this sage counsel give To the Corinthian magistrates : not to trust The cause of virtue to the people's judgment. XXIII. So he died ; but the Athenians immediately repented* of their action, so that they closed all the palaestrae arid gymnasia ; and they banished his accusers, and condemned Melitus to death ; but they honoured Socrates with a brazen statue, which they erected in the place where the sacred vessels are kept ; and it was the work of Lysippus. But Anytus had already left Athens ; and the people of Heraclea banished him from that city the day of his arrival. But Socrates was not the only person who met with this treatment at the hands of the Athenians, but many other men received the same : for, as Heraclides says, they fined Homer fifty drachmas as a mad- man, and they said that lystseus was out of his wits. But they honoured Astydamas, before ^schylus, with a brazen statue. And Euripides reproaches them for their conduct in his Pala- medes, saying — Ye have slain, ye have slain, Greeks, the all-wise nightingale, The favourite of the Muses, guUtless all. And enough has been said on this head. But Philochorus says that Euripides died before Socrates ; and he was born, as ApoUodoras in his Chronicles asserts, in the archonship of Apsephion, in the foiu'th year of tlie seventy- seventh Olympiad, on the sixth day of the month Thargelion, when the Athenians purify their city, and when the citizens of Dclos say that Diana was born. And he died in the first * Grote gives good reasons for disbelieving this. 74 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. year of the ninety-fifth Olympiad, being seventy years of age. And this is the calculation of Demetrius Phalereus, for some say that he was but sixty years old when he died. XXIV. Botli he and Euripides were pupils of Anaxagoras ; and Euripides was bom in the first year of the seventy-fifth Olympiad, in the archonship of Calliades. But Socrates appears to me to have also discussed occasionally subjects of natural philosophy, since he very often disputes about prudence and foresight, as Xenophon tells us ; although he at the same time asserts that all his conversations were about moral phi- losophy. And Plato, in his Apology, mentions the principles of Anaxagoras and other natural philosophers, which Socrates denies ; and he is in reality expressing his own sentiments about them, though he attributes them all to Socrates. And Aristotle tells us that a certain one of the Magi came from Syria to Athens, and blamed Socrates for many parts of his conduct, and also foretold that he would come to a violent death. And we ourselves have written this epigram on him — • Drink now, Socrates, in the realms of Jove, For truly did the God pronounce you wise, And he who said so is himself all wisdom : You drank the poison which your country gave, But they drank wisdom from your godlike voice. XXV. He had, as Aristotle tells us in the third book of his Poetics, a contest with a man of the name of Antiolochus of Lemnos, and with Antipho, an interpreter of prodigies, as Pythagoras had with Cylon of Crotona ; and Homer while alive with Sagaris, and after his death with Xenophanes the Colophonian ; and Hesiod, too, in his lifetime with Cereops, and after his death with the same Xenophanes ; and Pindar with Aphimenes of Cos ; and Thales with Pherecydes ; and Bias with Salamis of Priene ; and Pittacus with Antimenides ; and CellfEus and Anaxagoras with Sosibrius ; and Simonides with Timocrea. XXVI. Of those who succeeded him, and who are called the Socratic school, the chiefs were Plato, Xenophon, and Antis- thenes : and of the ten, as they are often called, the four most eminent were ^schines, Phsedo, Euchdes, and Aristippus. But we must first speak of Xenophon, and after him of An- tisthenes among the Cynics. Then of the Socratic school, and XENOPHON. 75 SO about Plato, since he is the chief of the ten sects, and the founder of the first Academy. And the regular series of them shall proceed in this manner. XXVII. There was also another Socrates, a historian, who wrote a description of Argos ; and another, a peripatetic philo- sopher, a native of Bithynia; and another a writer of epi- grams ; and another a native of Cos, who wrote invocations to the Gods. LIFE OF XENOPHON. I. Xenophon, the son of Gryllus, a citizen of Athens, was of the borough of Erchia ; and he was a man of great modesty, and as handsome as can be imagined. II. They say that Socrates met him in a narrow lane, and put his stick across it, and prevented him from passing by, asking him where all kinds of necessaiy things were sold. And when he had answered him, he asked him again where men where made good and virtuous. And as he did dot know, he said, " Follow me, then, and learn." And from this time forth, Xenophon became a follower of Socrates. HI. And he was the first person who took down conversa- tions as they occurred, and published them among men, calling them memorabilia. He was also the first man who wi'ote a history of philosophers. IV. And Aristippus, in the fourth book of his treatise on Ancient Luxury, says that he loved Clinias ; and that he said to him, " Now I look upon Clinias with move pleasure than upon all the other beautiful things which are to be seen among men ; and I would rather be blind as to all the rest of the world, than as to Clinias. And I am annoyed even with night and with sleep, because then I do not see him ; but I am very grateful to the sun and to daylight, because they show Clinas to me." V. He became a friend of Cyrus in this manner He had an acquaintance, by name Proxenus, a BcEotian by birth, a pupil of Gorgias of Leontini, and a friend of Cyrus. He being in Sardis, staying at the court of Cyrus, wrote a letter to Athens 7 a LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. to Xenophon, inviting liim to come and be afriend of Cyrus. And Xenophon showed the letter to Socrates, and asked his advice. And Socrates bade him go to Delphi, and ask counsel of the God. And Xenophon did so, and went to the God ; but the question he put was, not whether it was good for him to go to Cyrus or not, but how he should go ; for which Socrates blamed him, but still advised him to go. Accordingly he went to Cyrus, and became no less dear to him than Proxenus. And all the circumstaufes of the expedition and the retreat, he himself has sufficiently related to us. VI. But he was at enmity with Menon the Pharsalian, who was the commander of the foreign troops at the time of the expedition ; and amongst other reproaches, he says that he was much addicted to the worst kind of debauchery. And he reproaches a man of the name of ApoUonides with having his ears bored. VII. But after the expedition, and the disasters which took place in Pontus, and the violations of the truce by Seuthes, the king of the OdrysEe, he came into Asia to Agesilaus, the king of Lacedsemon, bringing with him the soldiers of Cyrus, to serve for pay ; and he became a very great friend of Agesilaus. And about the same time he was condemned to banishment by the Athenians, on the charge of being a fa- vourer of the Lacedaemonians. And being in Ephesus, and having a sum of money in gold, he gave half of it to Mega- byzus, the priest of Diana, to keep for him till his return ; and if he never returned, then he was to expend it upon a statue, and dedicate that to the Goddess ; and with the other half he sent offerings to Delphi. From thence he went with Agesilaus into Greece, as Agesilaus was summoned to take part in the war against the Thebans. And the Lacedaemonians made him a friend of their city. VIII. After this he left Agesilaus and went to Scillus, which is a strong place in the district of Elis, at no great distance from the city. And a woman followed him, whose name was Philesia, as IDemetrius the Magnesian relates ; and his sons, Gryllus and Diodorus, as Dinarchus states in the action against Xenophon ;* and they were also called Dioscuri. And when * The Greek is, if toj irphc AtvcxpiovTa cnroaTamov — " nTroffratriow iinrj, an action again.st a freedman for liaving forsakeu or slighted his 7r()0(7rarr;(;." — L. <£• S. XENOPHON. 77 Megahyzus came into the country, on the occasion of some public assembly, he took back the money and bought a piece of ground, and consecrated it to the Goddess ; and a river named Selinus, which is the same name as that of the river at Ephe- sus, flows throuo'h the land. And there he continued huntino-, and entertaining his friends, and writing histories. But Di- narchus says that the Lacedaemonians gave him a house and land, Theysayalso that Philopide3,the Spartan, sent him there, as a present, some slaves, who had been taken prisoners of war, natives of Dardanus, and that he located them as he pleased. And that the Eleans, having made an expedition against Scillus, took the place, as the Lacedaemonians dawdled in coming to its assistance. IX. But then his sons escaped privily to Lepreum, with a few servants ; and Xenophon himself fled to Elis before the place fell ; and from thence he went to Lepreum to his chil- dren, and from thence he escaped in safety to Corinth, and settled in that city. X. In the meantime, as the Athenians had passed a vote to go to the assistance of the Lacedfemonians, he sent his sons to Athens, to join in the expedition in aid of the Lacedae- monians ; for they had been educated in Sparta, as Diodes relates in his Lives of the Philosophers. Diodorus returned safe back again, without having at all distinguished himself in the battle. And he had a son who bore the same name as his brother Gryllus. But Gryllus, serving in the cavalry, (and the battle took place at Mantinea,) fought very gallantly, and was slain, as Ephorus tells us, in his twenty-fifth book ; Cephisodonis being the Captain of the cavalry, and Hegesides the commander-in-chief. Epaminondas also fell in this battle. And after the battle, they say that Xenophon offered sacrifice, wearing a crown on his head ; but when the news of the death of his son arrived, he took off the crown ; but after that, hearing that he had fellen gloriously, he put the crown on again. And some say that he did not even shed a tear, but said, " I knew that I was the father of a mortal man." And Aristotle says, that innumerable Avriters wrote panegyrics and epitaphs upon Gryllus, partly out of a wish to gratify his father. And Hermippus, in his Treatise on Theo- phrastus, says that Isocrates also composed a panegyric on Gryllus. But Timon ridicules him m these words : — 78 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEES. A silly couplet, or e'en triplet of speeches, Or longer series still, just such as Xenophon Might write, or Meagre^ ^schines. Sucli, then, was the life of Xenophon. XI. And he flourished about the fourth year of the ninety- fourth Olympiad ; and he took part in the expedition of Cyrus, in the archonshi]) of Xensenetus, the year before the death of Socrates. And he died, as Stesiclides the Athenian states in his List of Archons and Conquerors at Olympia, in the first year of the hundred and fifth OlymiaJ, in the archonship of Callidemides ; in which year, Philip the son of Amyntas began to reign over the Macedonians. And he died at Corinth, as Demetrius the Magnesian says, being of a very advanced age. XII. And he was a man of great distinction in all points, and very fond "of horses and of dogs, and a great tactician, as is manifest from his writings. And he was a pious man, fond of sacrificing to the Gods, and a great authority as to what was due to them, and a veiy ardent . admirer and imitator of Socrates. XIII. He also wrote near forty books ; though different critics divide them differently. He wrote an account of the expedition of Cyrus, to each book of which work he prefixed a summary, though he gave none of the whole history. He also wrote the Cyropaidia, and a history of Greece, and Memorabilia of Socrates, and a treatise called the Banquet, and an essay on Economy, and one on Horsemanship, and one on Breaking Dogs, and one on Managing Horses, and a Defence of Socrates, and a Treatise on Revenues, and one called Hiero, or the Tyrant, and one called Agesilaus ; one on the Constitution of the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, which, however, Demetrius the Magnesian says is not the work of Xenophon. It is said, also, that he secretly got possession of the books of Thucydides, which were previously unknown, and himself published them. XIV. He was also called the Attic Muse, because of the sweetness of his diction, in respect of which he and Plato felt a spirit of rivalry towards one another, as we shall relate further in our life of Plato. And we ourselves have composed an epigram on him, which runs thus .— Not only up to Babylon for Cyrus Did Xenophon go, but now he's mounted up ^SCHINES. 79 The path which leads to Jove's eternal realms — For he, recoiinting the great deeds of Greece, Displays his noble genius, and he shows The depth of wisdom of his master Socrates. And another which ends thus : — Xenophon, if th' ungrateful countrymen Of Cranon and Cecrops, banished you, Jealous of Cyrus' favour which he show'd you, Still hospitable Corinth, with glad heart, Received you, and you lived there happUy, And so resolved to stay in that fair city. XV. But I have found it stated in some places that he flourished about the eighty-ninth Olympiad, at the same time as the rest of the disciples of Socrates. And Ister says, that he was banished by a decree of Eubulus, and that he was recalled by another decree proposed by the same person. XVI. But there were seven people of the name of Xenophon. First of all, this philosopher of ours ; secondly, an Athenian, a brother of Pythostratus, who wrote the poem called the Theseid, and who wrote other works too, especially the lives of Epaminondas and Pelopidas ; the third was a physician of Cos ; the fourth, a man who wrote a history of Alcibiades ; the fifth, was a writer who composed a book full of fabulous prodigies ; the sixth, a citizen of Paros, a sculptor ; the seventh, a poet of the Old Comedy. LIFE OF ^SCHINES. I. yEscHiNES 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 ( 'rito. But that Plato, as he was rather inclined to favour Aristippus, attril)uted his advice to Crito. III. And ^Eschines was calumniated on more than one occa- so LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. sion ; 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 ^schines. 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 ^Escbines. 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 iEschines, 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 Axio- chus. the Aspasia, the Alcibiades, the Jelanges, and the Rhino. And they saj that he, being in want, went to Sicily, to Diony- sius, 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 Ari- stippus 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 ^Eschiues 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 j^Eschines 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 wTote in especial imitation of Gorgias, ARISTIPPUS. 81 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 J^schines ; but he doubts about those which go under the names of Phaedon, and Euclides ; and he utterly repudiates all the others. IX. And there were eight men of the name of ^Eschines. The first, this philosojiher of ours ; the second was a man who Avrote 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 thev 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 PJiode ; the seventh was a Milesian, a political writer ; the eighth was a stati;ary. LIFE OF APJSTIPPUS. I. Aeistippus was by birth a C'yrenean. but he came to Athens, as JEschines says, having been attracted thither by the fame of Socrates. II. He, having professed himself a Sophist, as Phania?, of Eresus, the Peripatetic, informs us, was the first of tlie pupils of Socrates who exacted money from his pupils, and who sent money to his master. And once he sent him twenty drach- mas, 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 Aristippns, 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 G 82 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. every kind of place, and time, and person,* and he easily supported every change of fortune. For which reason he was iu greater favour with Dionysius than any of the others, as he always made the best of existing circumstances. For he enjoyed what was hefore 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 miud of Aristippus, .;' Who, as he said, by toiich 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 leamt 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 * This is exactly the character that Horace gives of him : — Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res ; Tentantem majora, fere prsesentibus a;quum. — ij). i. 23, 24. ARISTIPPUS. 88 with every body." When he was reproached for living extra- vagantly, 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 hve 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 %vith 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 w-ould choose for this reason to be an invahd rather than a physician." Once it happened, that when he was sailing to Corinth, be was overtaken by a violent storm ; and when somebody said. " We common individuals are not afraid, but you pliilosophers are behaving like cowards ;" he said, " Very likely, for we have not both of us the same kind of souls at stake." Seeing G 2 84 LIVES or EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. 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 after- wards, "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 acquaint- ances 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 ARISTIPPUS. 85 where uo one lias 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 hefore 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 diflference 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 heen himself a pupil of Socrates : " To be sure I do," he replied, " for Socrates too, when some friends sent their com 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 Eutvchides, 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 hy 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 had 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, Phsdon, 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 liim for all tliis luxury, Aristippus after a while said, " Can you stay with me to day ':■" and wheu 86 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. Polyxenus consented, " Why then," said he, " did you blame me"? it seems that you hlame 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, Dionysins 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 encychc course of education, but who had omitted philosophy, were like the suitors of Penelope ; for that they gained over Melautho and ARISTIPPUS. 87 Polydora and the other maid-servants, and found it easier to do that than to marry tlie 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, bis reply was, " I went to Socrates because I wanted instruction {-aiOiTag), and I have come to Dionysius because I want diversion (traidiag). As he had made money by having pupils, Socrates once said to him, " Where did you get so much?" and he answered, " AYhere you got a little." When his mistress said to him, "I am in the family Avay 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 liim ; — " For he who does frequent a tyrant's court,* 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 Diodes, in his book on the Lives of the * Plutarch, in his life of tompey, attributes these lines to Sophocles, but does not mention the play in which they occiirred. 88 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. Philosophers ; but others attribute the rejoinder to Plato. He once quarrelled with /Eschines, and jH-esently 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 ^schines. " Recollect, then," said Aristippus, " that I, who am older than you, have made the first advances." And ^scliines 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 /Mrir^odidavro; given to him ; and he was the grandson of the former, being his daughter's son ; the foiurth was a phi- losopher 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 Beg gar ; to Lais ; to Porus ; to Lais about her Looking-glass ; Mer- cury ; 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 contraiy, 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 Apoph- AKISTIPPUS. 89 thegms ; 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 Phoedo, the chief of whom were the Eretrians. Now the pupils of Aristippus were his own daughter Arete, and ^Ethiops of Ptolemais, and Antipater of Cyrene. Arete had for her puj^il the Aristippus who was surnamed firir^odidavTog, whose disciple was Theodorus the atheist, but who was afterwards called 6^05. Antipater had for a pupil Epitimedes of Cyrene, who was the master of Pyrse- bates, who was the master of Hegesias, who was surnamed miaidd^aTog (persuading to die), and of Anuiceris who ransomed Plato. VIII. These men then who continued in the school of Aris- tippus, 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 Para; tins 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 undistui'bedness, which is what Epicurus admits as such ; for the Cyrenaics think that there is a distinction bet^veen the chief good and a life of hap- piness, 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 ^vithout any deliberate choice of our own ; and that when we have obtained it, we do not seek anything further, and also that there is notliing which we avoid so much as we do its opposite. 90 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. wliicli is pain. And they assert, too, that pleasure is a good, even if it arises from the most unbecoming causes, as Hippo- botus 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 de- sirable, 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 per- versity 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 pros- perity 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. Ac- cordingly we listen with pleasure to those who give a repre- sentation 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 corpo- real 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 ARISTIPPUS. 91 goocl, but is not desirable for its own sake, but for tbe 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 super- stition, 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 con- sidered 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 tlian 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 wliich they are, and on account of these other things which cannot subsist with- out them. But they teach that complete happiness cannot 92 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. 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 clierished 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 sensa- tions, 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 hving free from all trouble antl pain ; and that this end was attained best by those who looked upon the efficient causes of pleasure as indifterent. X. TheAnnicereans,in many respects, agreed with these last ; butthey admitted the existence in life of friendship and gratitude and respect forone'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 ARISTIPPUS. 93 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 cus- tom, 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 tlie 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 Theodereans, 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 countiy, 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 tliat a wise man might steal, and commit adultery and sacrilege, at proper 94 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. 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 pro- portion to the amount of her literary knowledge ?" " Yes," said the person questioned. " And is a boy, and is a youtli, 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 hoy and a youth useful in proportion to their beauty ?" " Yes." " Well, then, a handsome hoy 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 hog 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 ^eoj," continued his questioner ; he admitted that also. ■" Then," continued the other, " you are dshg." 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. AVhile he was staying at the court of Ptolemy, the sou of Lagus, he was sent once by him to Lysimachus as au AEISTIPPUS. 95 ambassador. And as he was talking very freely, Lysimachus said to him, " Tell me, Theodorus, have not you beeu banished from Athens?" And he replied, you have beeu rightly in- formed ; 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, '• un- less 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 ? " XVIL They say also that on one occasion he came to Corinth, bringing with him a great many disciples ; and that Metrocles the Cyni(j, 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 circum- stances and opinions. But at last he went away to Gyrene, and lived there with Megas, being treated by him with the greatest distinction. And when he was first driven away from Gyrene, he is reported to have said very pleasantly, " You do wrong, O men of Gyrene, 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 geome- trician, 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 Gomposers, beginning with Terpander. The sixth was a Stoic. The seventh was the historian of Rome. The eighth wiis a Syracusan, who wrote au Essay on 96 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. Tactics. The uintli was a citizen of Byzantium, who was a political orator. The tenth was another orator, who is men- tioned 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 Tlieophanes 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 Atheuseas. The eighteenth was a Chian, a Stoic philo- sopher. The nineteenth was a citizen of Miletus, another Stoic. The twentieth was a tragic poet. LIFE OF PH(EDO. I. PnOiDO the Elean, one of the EupatridjB, was taken pri- soner 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 sus- pending 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 gen- uineness of this one is disputed); Medius, which some people attribute to ^Eschines, and others to Polygenus ; Antimachus, or the Elders (this too is a disputed one) ; the Scythian dis- courses, and these, too, some attribute to ^schines. III. But his successor was Phistamus of Elis ; and the next in succession to him were Menedemus of Eretria, and Ascle- piades 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 tlie founder of a new sect. EUCLIDES. 97 LIFE OF EUCLIDES. I. EucLTDESwas anative 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 Dialec- ticians, which name was first given to them by Dionysius the Carthaginian ; because they earned 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 dis- carded, 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 trifiers, Nor for any one else ; not for your Phsedon, 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 yEschines, the Phoenix, the Crito, the Alcibiades, and the Amatory dia- logue, IV. Next in succession to Euclides, came Eubnlides of Miletus, who handed down a great may arguments in dialec- H 98 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. tics ; such as the Lying one ; the Concealed one ; the Electra ; the Veiled one ; the Sorites ; the Horned one ; the Bald one.* 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 quaiTel with Aristotle, and was con- stantly attacldng him. V. Among the different people who succeeded Eubulides. was Alexinus of Elis, a man very fond of argunaent, on which account he was nicknamed 'EAsy^ivog.'\ 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 estabhsh a school which should be called the Olym- pic 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 tliat Alexinus lived by himself, with only one servant. And after that, when swimming in the * The French translator gives the following examples, to show what is meant by these several kinds of quibbling arguments : — The lyinr/ one is this : — Is the man a liar who says that he tells lies. If he is, then he does not teU 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 yom- 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 Joes not know, her brother at the same time. The Sorites is universally known. The hnld 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. + From iXtyx'"') t° confute. EUCLIDES. , C9 Alplieus, he was piicked 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 wi'ote 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 Olyn- thus, who wrote a history of the events of his own time ; he also composed several tragedies, for which he got great distinc- tion 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 lasos, 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 couit 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 Idng 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 : — Diodorus Cronus, v^hat 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 Cronus* better, If C and r were gone. * Kpoj'or, take away K. p., leaves oi'oc, an ass. H 2 100 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. YIII. One of the successors of Euclides -n-as Icthvas, 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. LIFE OF STILPO. I. Stilpo, a native of Megara in Greece, was a pupil of some of Euclides' school. But some say that he Avas a pupil of Euclides himself. And also of Thrasymachus, the Corin- thian, who was a friend of Icthyas, as Heraclides informs us. II. Aiid he was so much superior to all his fellows in com- mand 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 qf Megara speaks thus, word for word : — " For he carried off from Theo- phrastus, Metrodorus the speculative philosopher, and Tima- goras of Gela ; and Aristotle the Cyrenaic, he robbed of Clitar- chus 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 Myrmei 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 rheto- rician, 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 tome than I am an honour to her." STILPO. 101 IV. Ptolemy Soter, it is said, received him witli great honour ; and when he had made himself master of Megara, he gave him moue3% 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 ^gina, until Ptolemy had sailed. Also when Demetrius, the sou of Anti- gonus had taken Megara, he ordered Stilpo's house to he 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 tliis," 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 (^£og) but a Goddess (ha) ; for that Gods were of the niale sex only. However the judges of the Areopagus ordered him to leave the city ; and on this occasion, Theodorus, who was nicknamed kog, said in derision, " Whence did Stilpo learn this ? and how could he tell whether she was a God or a God- dess? "' But Theodorus was in truth a most impudent fellow. But Stilpo was a most witty and elegant-minded man. Accord- ingly 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, ! 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. Accord- The quibble here is, that Bibg is properly only masculine, though it is sometimes used as feminine. 102 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEES. ingly, wlien Cmtes the C^niic 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, " 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 : — " There* 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 tliat one ; for speaking in general, how can he speak more of this person than of that person ? therefore he is not speaking of tliis 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 dis- course to go off and huj 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 * The Greek is a parody on the descriptions of Tantalus and Sisyphus. Horn. Od. ii. 581, 592. See also, Dryden's Version, B. ii. 719. CRITO. lOo Ptolemy ; the Chcerecrates ; the Metrocles ; the Anaximenes ; the Epigenes ; the one entitled To my Daughter, and the Ainstotle. IX. Heraclides affirms that Zeuo, the founder of the Stoic school, had been one of his pupils. X. Hermippus says that he died at a gi'eat 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 %vine 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 dicourse of this Charinua. LIFE OF CRITO. I. Crito was an Athenian. He looked upon Socrates with the greatest affection ; and paid such great attention to him, that betook care that he should never be in want of anything. II. His sons also were all constant pupils of Socrates, and their names were Critobulus, Hermogenes, Epigenes, and Ctesippus. III. Crito wrote seventeen dialogues, which were all pub- lished in one volume ; and I subjoin their titles : — That men are not made good by Teaching; on Superfluity; what is Suitable, or the Statesman ; on the Honourable ; on doing ill ; on Good Government ; on Law ; on the Divine Being ; on Arts ; on Society ; Protagoras, or the Statesman ; on i Letters ; on Polititical Science ; on the Honourable ; on j Learning; on Knowledge; on Science; on what Knowledge is. 104 LIVES OF EMINE.NT PHILOSOPHERS. LIFE OF SIMON. I. Simon was an Athenian, a leather-cutter. He, when- ever Socrates came hito his workshop and conversed, vised to make memorandums of all his sayings that he recollected. II. And from this circumstance, people have called his dialogues leathern ones. But he has written thirty-three which, however, are all combined in one volume : — On the Gods ; on the Good ; on the Honourable ; what the Honour- able is ; the first Dialogue on Justice ; the second Dialogue on Justice ; on Virtue, showing that it is not to be taught ; the first Dialogue on Courage ; the second ; the third ; on Laws ; on the Art of Guiding the People ; on Honour ; on Poetry, on Good Health ; on Love ; on Philosophy : on Knowledge ; on Music ; on Poetry ; on what the Honourable is ; on Teach- ing ; on Conversation ; on Judgment ; on the Existent ; on Number ; on Dihgence ; on Activity : on Covetousness ; on Insolence ; on the Honourable ; Some also add to these dia- logues ; on taking Counsel ; on Pieason or Suitableness ; on doing Harm. HI. He is, as some people say, the first writer who reduced the conversations of Socrates into the form of dialogues. And when Pericles offered to provide for him, and invited him to come to him, he said that he would not sell his freedom of speech. IV. There was also another Simon, who wrote a treatise on Oratorical Art. And another, who was a physician in the time of Seleucus Nicanor. And another, who was a statuary. LIFE OF GLAUCO. Glauco was an Athenian ; and there are nine dialogues of his extant, which are all contained in one volume. The Phidylus ; the Euripides ; the Amyntichias ; the Euthias ; the Lysithides ; the Aristophanes ; the Cephalus ; the Anaxi- phemus ; the Minexenus. There are thirty-two others which go under his name, but they are spurious. MENEDEMUS. 105 LIFE OF SIMIAS. SiMEAS was a Tlieban ; and there are twenty-three dialogues of his extant, contained in one single volume. On Wisdom ; on Ratiocination ; on Music ; on Verses ; on Fortitude ; on Philosophy ; on Truth ; on Letters ; on Teaching ; on Art ; on Government ; on what is Becoming ; on what is Eligible, and what Proper to be Avoided ; on A Friend ; on Knowledge ; on the Soul ; on Living Well ; on what is Possible ; on Money ; on Life ; on what the Honourable is ; on Industry, and on Love. LIFE OF CEBES. Cebes was a Theban, and there are three dialogues of his extant. The Tablet ; the Seventh, and the Phrynichus. LIFE OF MENEDEMUS. I. This Menedemus was one of those who belonged to the school of Phaedo ; and he was one of those who are called Theoprobida;, being the son of Clisthenes, a man of noble family, but a poor man and a builder. And some say that he was a tent-maker, and that Menedemus himself learned both trades. On which account, when he on one occasion brought forward a motion for some decree, a man of the name of Alexinius attacked him, saying that a wise man had no need to draw a tent nor a decree. II. But when Menedemus was sent by the Eretrians to Megara, as one of the garrison, he deserted the rest, and went to the Academy to Plato ; and being charmed by him, he abandoned the army altogether. And when Asclepiades, the Phliasian, drew him over to him, he went and lived in Megara, near Stilpo, and they both became his disciples. And from thence they sailed to Elis, where they joined Anchipylus and Moschus, who belonged to Phasdo's school. And up to this time, as I have already mentioned in my account of Phsedo, 1*^0 LIVES OF EMINENT FHILOSOPHERS. they were called Eleans ; and they were also called Eretrians, from the native country of Menedemus, of whom I am now speaking. III. Now Menedemus appears to have been a very severe and rigid man, on which account Crates, parodying a description, speaks of him thus : — And Asclepiades the sage of Phlius, And the Eretrian bull. And Timon mentions him thus: — Rise up, you frowning, bristling, frothy sage. And he was a man of such excessive rigour of principle, that when Eurylochus, of Cassandra, had been invited by Antigonus, to come to him in company with Cleippides, a youth of Cyzicus, he refused to go, for he was afraid lest Menedemus should hear of it ; for he was very severe in his reproofs, and very free spoken. Accordingly, when a young man behaved with boldness towards him, he did not say a word, but took a bit of stick and drew on the floor an insulting picture ; until the young man, perceiving the insult that was meant in the presence of numbers of people, went away. And when Hierocles, the governor of the Piraeus, attacked him in the temple of Amphiaraus, and said a great deal about the taking of Eretiia, he made no other reply beyond asking him what Antigonus 's object was in treating him as he did. On another occasion, he said to a profligate man who was giving himself airs, " Do not you know that the cabbage is not the only plant that has a pleasant juice, but that radishes have it also?" And once, hearing a young man talk very loudly, he said, " See whom you have behind you." When Antigonus consulted him whether he should go to a certain revel, he made no answer beyond desiring those who brought him the message, to tell him that he was the son of a king. When a stupid fellow once said something at random to him, he asked him whether he had a farm ; and when he said that he had, and a large stock of cattle, he said, " Go then and look after them ; lest, if you neglect them, you lose them, and that elegant rusticity of yours with them.'' He was once asked whether a good man should marry, and his reply was, " Do I seem to you to be a good man, or not ?" and when the other MENEDEMUS. 1 1 1 said he did ; "Well," said he, " and I am married." On one occasion a person said that there were a great aiany good things, so he asked him how many ; and whether he thought that there were more than a hundred. And as he could not bear the extravagance of one man who used frequently to invite him to dinner, once when he was invited he did not say a single word, but admonished him of his extravagance in silence, by eating nothing but olives. IV. On account then of the great freedom of speech in which he indulged, he was veiy near while in Cyprus, at the court of Nicorreon, being in great danger with his friend Asclepiades. For when the king was celebrating a festival at the beginning of the month, and had invited them as he did all the other philosophers ; Menedemus said, " If the assem- blage of such men as are met here to-day is good, a festival like this ought to be celebrated every day : but if it is not good, even once is too often." And as the tyrant made answer to this speech, " that he kept this festival in order to have leisure in it to listen to the philosophers," he behaved with even more austerity than usual, arguing, even while the feast was going on, that it was right on every occasion to listen to philosophers ; and he went on in this way till, if a flute-player had not interrupted their discussion, they would have been put to death. In reference to which, when they were overtaken by a storm in a ship, they say that Asclepiades said, " that the fine playing of a flute-player had saved them, but the freedom of speech of Menedemus had ruined them. V. But he was, they say, inclined to depart a good deal from the usual habits and discipline of a school, so that he never regarded any order, nor were the seats arranged around properly, but ever\^ one listened to him while lecturing, stand- ing up or sitting down, just as he might chance to be at the moment, Menedemus himself setting the example of this irregular conduct. VI. But in other respects, it is said that he was a nervous man, and very fond of glory ; so that, as previously he and Asclepiades had been fellow jounieymen of a builder, when Asclepiades was naked on the roof carrying mortar, Mene- demus would stand in front of him to screen him wlien he saw any one coming. VII. When he applied himself to politics he was so nervous, 108 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. that once, when setting down the incense, he actually missed the incense burner. Aud on one occasion, when Crates was standing by him, aud reproaching him for meddling with politics, he ordered some men to put him in prison. But he, even then, continued not the less to watch him as he passed, and to stand on tiptoe and call him Agamemnon aud Hege- sipolis. VIII. He was also in some degree superstitious. Accord- ingly, once, when he was at an inn with Asclepiades, and had unintentionally eaten some meat that had been thrown away, when he was told of it he became sick, and turned pale, until Asclepiades rebuked him, telling him that it was not the meat itself which disturbed him, but only the idea that he had adopted. But in other respects he was a high minded man, with notions such as became a gentleman. IX. As to his habit of body, even when he was an old man he retained all the firmness and vigour of an athlete, with firm flesh, and a ruddy comj^lexion, and very stout and fresh looking. In stature he was of moderate size ; as is plain from the statue of him which is at Eretria, in the Old Stadium. For he is there represented seated almost naked, undoubtedly for the purpose of displaying the greater part of his body. X He was very hospitable and fond of entertaining his friends ; and because Eretria was unhealthy, he used to have a great many parties, particularly of poets and musicians. And he was very fond of Aratus and Lycophon the tragic poet, and Antagoras of Rhodes. And above all he applied himself to the study of Homer ; and next to him to that of the Lyric poets ; then to Sophocles, and also to Achaeus, to whom he assigned the second place as a writer of satiric dramas, giving aEschylus the first. And it is from Achaeus that he quoted these verses against the politicians of the opposite party : — A speedy runner once was overtaken By weaker men than he. An eagle too, Was beaten by a tortoise in a race. And these lines are out of the satiric play of Achaeus, called Omphale ; so that they are mistaken who say that he had never read anything but the Medea of Euripides, which is found, they add, in the collection of Neophron, the Sicy- ouiau. MENEDEMUS. 109 XI. Of masters of pbilosopliy, lie used to despise Plato and Xenocrates, and Paraebates of Cyrene ; and admired no one but Stilpo. And once, being questioned about liim, he said nothing more of him than that he was a gentleman. XII. Menedemus was not easy to be understood, and in his conversation he was hard to argue against ; he spoke on every subject, and had a great deal of invention and readiness. But he was very disputatious, as Antisthenes says in his Succes- sions ; and he used to put questions of this sort, " Is one thing different from another thing ?" " Yes." " And is benefiting a person something different from the good ?" " Yes." " Then the good is not benefiting a person." And he, as it is said, discarded all negative axioms, using none but affirmative ones ; and of these he only approved of the simple ones, and rejected all that were not simple ; saying that they were intricate and perplexing. But Heraclides says that in his doctrines he was a thorough disciple of Plato, and that he scorned dialectics ; so that once when Alexinus asked him whether he had left off beating his father, he said, " I have not beaten him, and I have not left off;" and when he said further that he ought to put an end to the doubt by answering explicitly yes or no, " It would be absurd," he rejoined, " to comply with your conditions, when I can stop you at the entrance." When Bion was attacking the soothsayers with great perseverance, he said that he w^as killing the dead over again. And once, when he heard some one assert that the greatest good was to succeed in everything that one desires ; he said, '• It is a much greater good to desire what is proper." But Antigonus of Carystus, tells us that he never wrote or com- posed any work, and never maintained any principle tenaciously. But in cross-questioning he was so contentious as to get quite black in the face before he went away. But though he was 80 violent in his discourse, he was wonderfully gentle in his actions. Accordingly, though he used to mock and ridicule Alexinus very severely, still he conferred great benefits on him, conducting his wife from Delphi to Chalcis for him, as she was alarmed about the danger of robbers and banditti in the road. XIIT. And he was a very warm friend, as is plain from his attachment to Asclcpiades ; which was hardly inferior to the friendship of Pylades and Oraiotes. But Asclcpiades was 110 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. the elder of the two, so that it was said that he was the poet, and Meiiedemus the actor. Aud they sa}' that on one occasion, Archipolis bequeathed them three thousand pieces of money between them, they had such a vij^orous contest as to which should take the smaller share, that neither of them would receive any of it. XIV. It is said that they were both married ; and that Asclepiades was married to the mother, and Menedemus to the daughter ; and when Asclepiades s wife died, he took the wife of Menedemus ; and Menedemus, when he became the chief man of the state, married another who was rich ; and as they still maintained one house in common, Menedemus entrusted the whole management of it to his former wife. Asclepiades died first at Eretria. being of a great age ; having lived with Menedemus with great economy, though they had ample means. So that, when on one occasion, after the death of Asclepiades, a friend of his came to a banquet, and when the slaves refused him admittance, Menedemus ordered them to admit him. saying that Asclepiades opened the door for him, even now that he was under the earth. And the men who chiefly supported them were Hyporicus the Macedonian, and Agetor the Lamiau. And Agetor gave each of them tliirty minse, and Hipporicus gave Menedemus two thousand drachmas to portion his daughters with ; and he had three, as Heraclides tells us, the children of his wife, who was a native of Oropus. XV. And he used to give banquets in this fashion :— First of all, he would sit at dinner, with two or three friends, till late in the day ; and then he would invite in any one who came to see him, even if they had already dined ; and if any one came too soon, they would walk up and dowTi, and ask those who came out of the house what there was on the table, and what o'clock it was ; and then, if there were only vegetables or salt fish, they would depart ; but if they heard it was meat, they would go in. And during the summer, mats of rushes were laid upon the couches, and in winter soft cushions ; and each guest was expected to bring a pillow for him- self. And the cup that was carried round did not hold more than a cotjda. And the second course consisted of lupins or beans, and sometimes fruits, such as pears, pomegranates, pulse, and sometimes, by Jove, dried figs. And all these circum- stances ai'e detailed by Lycophron, in his satiric dramas, which I MENEDEMUS. 11 J he inscribed with the Bame of Menedemus, makiug his play a panegyric on the philosopher. And the following are some of the lines : — After a temperate feast, a small-sized cup Is hauded round with moderation due ; And conversation wise makes the dessei't. XVI. At first, now, he was not thought much of, being called cpiic and tritler by the Eretrians ; but subsequently, he was so much admired by his countiymen, that they entrusted him with the chief government of the state. And he was sent on embassies to Ptolemy and Lysimachus, and was greatly honoured everywhere. He was sent as envoy to Demetrius ; and, as the city used to pay him two hundred talents a year, he persuaded him to remit fifty. And having been falsely accused to him, as having betrayed the city to Ptolemy, he defended himself from the charge, in a letter which begins thus : — " Menedemus to king Demetrius. — Health. I hear that information has been laid before you concerning us." . And the tradition is, that a man of the name of ^Eschylus, who was one of the opposite party in the state, was in the habit of making these false charges. It is well known too that he was sent on a most important embassy to Demetrius, on the subject of Oropus, as Euphantus relates in his History. XVII. Antigonus was gi'eatly attached to him, and professed himself his pupil ; and when he defeated the barbarians, near Lysimachia, Menedemus drew up a decree for him, in simple terms, free from all flattery, which begins thus : — " The generals and councillors have determined, since king Antigonus has defeated the barbarians in battle, and has re- turned to his own kingdom, and since he has succeeded in all his measures according to his wishes, it has seemed good to the council and to the people." . . . And from these circum- stances, and because of his fiiendship for him, as shown in other matters, he was suspected of betraying the city to him ; and being impeached by Aristodemus, he left the city, and re- turned to Oropus, and there took up his abode in the temple of Amphiaraus ; and as some golden goblets which were there were lost, he was ordered to depart by a general vote of the Boeotians. Leaving Oropus, and being in a state of great despondency, he entered his country secretly ; and taking with 112 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. him his wife and daughters, he -u'cnt to the court of Antignnus, and there died of a broken heart. But Heraclides gives an entirely different account of him ; saying, that while he was the chief councillor of the Eretrians, he more than once preserved the liberties of the city from those who would have brought in Demetrius the tyrant ; so that he never could have betrayed the city to Antigonus, and the accusation must have been false ; and that he went to the court of Antigonus, and endeavoured to effect the deliverance of his country ; and as he could make no impression on him, he fell into despondency, and starved himself for seven days, and so he died. And Antigonus of Caiystus gives a similar account : and Persfeus was the only man with whom he had an implacable quarrel ; for he thought that when Antigonus himself was willing to re-establish the democracy among the Eretrians for his sake, Persaeus prevented him. And on this account Menedemus once attacked him at a banquet, saying many other things, and among them, " He may, indeed, be a philosopher, but he is the worst man that lives or that ever will live." XVIII. And he died, according to Heraclides, at the age of seventy-four. And we have written the following epigram on him : — I've heard your fate, Menedemus, that of your own accord, You starved yourself for seven days and died ; ' Acting like an Eretrian, but not much like a man, For spiritless despair appears your guide. These men then were the disciples of Socrates, and their successors ; but we must now proceed to Plato, who founded the Academy ; and to his successors, or at least to all those of them who enjoyed any reputation. 113 BOOK III. LIFE OF PLATO. I. Plato was the son of Ariston and Perictione ;or Petone, and a citizen of Athens ; and his mother traced her family back to Solon ; for Solon had a brother named Diopidas, who had a sou named Critias, who was the father of Calloeschrus, who was the father of that Critias who was one of the thirty tyrants, and also of Glaucon, who was the father cf Charmides and Perictione. And she became the mother of Plato by her husband Ariston, Plato being the sixth in descent from Solon. And Solon traced his pedigree up to Neleus and Neptune. They say too that on the father's side, he was descended from Codnis, the son of Melanthus, and they too are said by Thra- sylus to derive their origin from Neptune. And Speusippus, in his book which is entitled the Funeral Banquet of Plato, and Clearchus in his Panegyric on Plato, and Anaxilides in the second book of his History of Philosophers, say that the report at Athens was that Peiictione was very beautiful, and that Ariston endeavoured to violate her and did not succeed ; and that he, after he had desisted from his violence saw a vision of Apollo in a dream, in consequence of which he ab- stained from approaching his wife till after her confinement. II. And Plato was born, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles, in the eighty-eighth Olympiad, on the seventh day of the month Thargelion, on which day the people of Delos say that Apollo also was born. And he died, as Hermippus says, at a marriage feast, in the first year of the hundred and eighth Olympiad, having lived eighty-one years. But Ne- anthes says that he was eighty-four years of age at his death. He is then younger than Isocrates by six years ; for Isocrates was born in the archonship of Lysimachus, and Plato in that of Aminias, in which year Pericles died. III. And he was of the borough of Colytus, as Antileon tells us in his second book on Dates. And he was born, ao- cording to some writers, in JEgina, in the house of Phidiades I It ] 14 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. the son of Thales, as Pharorinus affirms in his Universal History, as his father had been sent thither with several others as a settler, and returned again to Athens when the settlers were driven out by the Lacedaemonians, who came to the as- sistance of the ^ginetans. And he served the office of choregus at Athens, when Dion was at the expense of the spectacle exhibited, as Theodorus relates in the eighth book of his Philosophical Conservations. IV. And he had brothers, whose names were Adimantus and Olaucon, and a sister called Petone, who was the mother of Speusippus, V. And he was taught learning in the school of Dionysius, whom he mentions in his Ptival Lovers. And he learnt gym- nastic exercises under the wrestler Ariston of Argos. And it was by him that he had the name of Plato given to him in- stead of his original name, on account of liis robust figure, as he had previously been called Aristocles, after the name of his grandfather, as Alexander informs us in his Successions. But some say that he derived this name from the breadth (TXaTUT'/ig) of his eloquence, or else because he was very wide (TAarvg) across the forehead, as Neanthes affirms There are some also, among whom is DicaBarchus in the first volume on Lives, who say that he wrestled at the Isthmian games. VI. It is also said that he applied himself to the study of painting, and that he wrote poems, dithyrambics at first, and afterwards lyric poems and tragedies. VII. But he had a very weak voice, they say ; and the same fact is stated by Timotheus the Athenian, in his book on Lives. And it is said that Socrates in a dream saw a cygnet on his knees, who immediately put forth feathers, and flew up on high, uttering a sweet note, and that the next day Plato came to him, and that he pronounced him the bird which he had seen. VIII. And he used to philosophize at first in the Academy, and afterwards in the garden near Colonus, as Alexander tells us in his Successions, quoting the testimony of Heraclitus ; and subsequently, though he was about to contend for the prize in tragedy in the theatre of Bacchus, after he had heard the dis- com'se of Socrates, he learnt his poems, saying : — Vulcan, come here ; for Plato wants your aid. PLATO. 115 And from henceforth, as they say, being now twenty years old, he became a pupil of Socrates. And when he was gone, he attached himself to Cratylus, the disciple of Heraclitus, and to Hermogenes, who had adopted the principles of Parmenides. Afterwards, when he was eight and twenty years of age, as Hermodorus tells us, he withdrew to Megara to Euclid, with certain others of the pupils of Socrates ; and subsequently, he went to Gyrene to Theodorus the mathematician; and from thence he proceeded to Italy to the Pythagoreans, Philolaus and Eurytus, and from thence he went to Eurytus to the priests there ; and having fallen sick at that place, he was cured by the priests by the application of sea water, in re- ference to which he said : — The sea doth, wash away all human evils. And he said too, that, according to Homer, all the Egyptians were physicians. Plato had also formed the idea of making the acquaintance of the Magi ; but he abandoned it on account of the wars in Asia. IX. And when he returned to Athens, he settled in the Academy, and that is a suburban place of exercise planted like a grove, so named from an ancient hero named Hecademus, as Eupolis tells us in his Discharged Soldiers, In the well-shaded walks, protected well By Godlike Academus. And Timon, with reference to Plato, says : — A man did lead them on, a strong stout man, A honeyed speaker, sweet as melody Of tuneful grasshopper, who, seated high On Hecademus' tree, unwearied sings. For the word academy was formerly spelt with E. Now om' pliilosopher was a friend of Isocrates ; and Praxiphanes com- jiosed an account of a conversation which took place between them, on the subject of poets, when Isocrates was staying with Plato in the country. X. And Aristoxenus says that he was three times engaged in military expeditions; once against Tanagra; the second time against Corinth, and the third time at Delium ; and that in the battle of Delium he obtained the prize of pre-eminent valour. He combined the principles of the schools of Hera- I 2 116 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. clitus, and Pythagoras and Socrates ; for he used to philosophize on those things which are the subjects of sensation, accord- ing to the system of HeracHtus ; on those with which intellect is conversant, according to that of Pythagoras ; and on politics, according to that of Socrates. XI. And some people, (of whom Satyrus is one,) say that he sent a commission to Sicily to Dion, to buy him three books of Pythagoras from Philolaus for a hundred minse ; for they say that he was in very easy circumstances, having received from Dionysius more than eighty talents, as Onetor also asserts in his treatise which is entitled, Whether a wise Man ought to acquire Gains. XII. And he was much assisted by Epicharmus the comic poet, a great part of whose works he transcribed, as Alcinus says in his essays addressed to Amyntas, of which there are four. And in the first of thera bespeaks as follows : — " And Plato appears to utter a gi'eat many of the sentiments of Epi- charmus. Let us just examine. Plato says that that is an object of sensation, which is never stationary either as to its quality or its quantity, but which is always flowing and changing: as, for instance, if one take from any objects all number, then one cannot af&rm that they are either equal, or of any particular things, or of what quality or quantity they are. And these things are of such a kind that they are always being produced, but that they never have any invariable sub- stances." But that is a subject for intellect from which nothing is taken, and to which nothing is added. And this is the nature of things eternal, which is always similar and the same. And, indeed, Epicharmus speaks inteUigibly on the subject of what ia perceived by the senses and by the intellect : — A. But the great Gods were always present, nor Did they at any moment cease to be ; And their peculiar likeness at all times Do theyrretain, by the same principles. B. Yet chaos is asserted to have been The first existent Deity. A. How can that be ? For 'tis impossible that we should find Any first principle arise from anything. B. Is there then no first principle at all ? A. Nor second either in the things we speak of; PLATO. 117 But thus it is- — if to an even number, Or e'en an odd one, if you so prefer it, You add a unit, or if you deduct one, Say will the number still remain the same ? B. Certainly not. A. So, if you take a measure A cubit long, and add another cubit. Or cut a portion off, the measure then No longer is the same ? B. Of course it is not. A. Now turn your eyes and thoughts upon mankini — We see one grows, another perishes : So that they all exist perpetually In a condition of transition. That Whose nature changes must be different • At each successive moment, from the thing It was before. So also, you and I Are different people now from what we were But yesterday ; and then, again, to-morrow We shall be different from what we're now ; So that, by the same rule, we're always different. And Alciuus speaks as follows : — " The wise meu say that the soul perceives some things by means of the body, as for instance, when it hears and sees ; but that it also per- ceives something by its own power, without availing itself at all of the assistance of the body. On which account existent things are divisible into objects of sensation and objects of understanding. On account of which Plato used to say, that those who wished to become acquainted with the principles of everything, ought first of all to divide the ideas as he calls them, separately, such as similarity, and unity, and multitude, and magnitude, and stationariness, and motion. And secondly, that they ought to form a notion of the honourable and the good, and the just, and things of that sort, by themselves, apart from other considerations. And thirdly, that they ought to ascertain the character of such ideas as are relative to one another, such as knowledge, or magnitude, or au- thority ; considering that the things which come under our notice from partaking of their nature, have the same names that they have. I mean that one calls that just which partakes of the just ; and that beautiful which partakes of the beautiful. And each of these primary species is eternal, and is to be understood by the intellect, and is not subject to the influence of external circumstances. On which account 118 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. he says, that ideas exist in nature as models ; and that all other things are like them, and, as it were, copies of them. Accordingly Epicharmus speaks thus about the good, and about the ideas. A. Tell me, is flute-playing now a thing at all ? £. Of course it is. A. Is man then flute-playing ? £. No, nothing of the sort. A. Well, let us see — What is a flute-player ? what think you now Of him — is he a man, or is he not ? B. Of course he is a man. A. Think you not then The case is just the same about the good. That the good is something by itself, intrinsic, And he who's learnt, does at once become Himself a good man ? jtist as he who's learnt Flute-playing is a flute-player ; or dancing, A dancer ; weaving, a weaver. And in short, Whoever learns an art, does not become The art itself, but just an artist in it. Plato, in his theory of Ideas, says, " That since there is such a thing as memoiy, the ideas are in existent things, because memory is only conversant about what is stable and enduring ; and that no other thing is durable except ideas, for in what way," he continues, " could animals be presented, if they had no ideas to guide them, and if, in addition to them, they had not an intellect given to them by nature ?" But as it is they recollect similitudes, and also their food, so as to know what kind of food is fit for them ; which they learn because the notion of similarity is implanted naturally in every animal ; owing to which notion they recognize those of the same species as themselves. What is it then that Epicharmus says? Eumgeus' wisdom ? — not a scanty gift Appropriated to one single being ; But every animal that breathes and lives, Has mind and intellect.— So if you will Survey the facts attentively, you'll find. E'en in the common poultry yard, the hen Brings not her oS'spring forth at first alive, But sits upon her eggs, and by her warmth. Cherishes them into life. And all this wisdom She does derive from nature's gift alone, For nature is her only guide and teacher. PLATO. 119 And in a subsequent passage he says : — There is no wonder in my teaching this, That citizens please citizens, and seem To one another to be beautiful : For so one dog seems to another dog The fairest object in the world ; and so One ox seems to another, ass to ass, And swine to swine. And these and similar speculations are examined and com- pared by Alcinus through four books, where he shows how much assistance Plato has derived from Epicharmus. And that Epicharmus himself was not indisposed to appreciate his own wisdom, one may learn from these lines, in which he predicts that there will arise some one to imitate him : — But as I think, I surely foresee this. That these my words will be preserved* hereafter In many people's recollection. And Another man will come, who'll strip my reasons Of their poetic dress, and, clothing them In other garments and with purple broidery Will show them off ; and being invincible. Win make all rivals bow the knee to him. XIII. Plato also appears to have brought the books of Sophron, the farce-writer, to Athens, which were previously neglected ; and to have availed himself of them in his Speculations on Morals : and a copy of them was found under his head. XIV. And Plato made three voyages to Sicily, first of all for the purpose of seeing the island and the craters of volcanoes, when Dionysius, the son of Hermocrates, being the tyrant of Sicily, pressed him earnestly to come and see him ; and he, conversing about tyranny, and saying that that is not the best government which is advantageous for one individual alone, unless that individual is pre-eminent in virtue, had a quarrel with Dionysius, who got angry, and said, " Your ■words are those of an old dotard." And Plato replied, * The Greek is rov iitnoypa(pov. " A mime was a kind of prose drama, intended as a familiar representation of life and character, without any distinct plot. It was divided into ^l/iioi dvSpHot and yvvaiKtioi, also into ffifioi airovlaiujv and yiXoiiov."- - L. tb. S. in voc. 120 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. " And your language is that of a tyrant." And on this the tyrant became very indignant, and at first was inclined to put him to death ; but afterwards, being appeased by Deni and Aristimenes, he forebore to do that, but gave him to Pollis, the Lacedfemonian, who happened to have come to him on an embassy just at that time, to sell as a slave. And he took him to yEgina and sold him ; and Charmander, the son of Charmandrides, instituted a capital prosecution against him, in accordance with the law which was in force, in the island of yEgina, that the first Athenian who landed on the island should be put to death without a trial ; and he himself was the person who had originally proposed that law, as Pharorinus says, in his Universal History. But when some one said, though he said it only in joke, that it was a phi- losopher who had landed, the people released him. But some say that he was brought into the assembly and watched ; and that he did not say a word, but stood prepared to submit to whatever might befall him ; and that they determined not to put him to death, but to sell' him after the fashion of pnsouers of war. And it happened by chance that Anniceris, the Cyrenean, was present, who ransomed him for twenty minae, or, as others say, for thirty, and sent him to Athens, to his companions, and they immediately sent Anniceris his money : but he refused to receive it, saying that they were not the only people in the world who were entitled to have a regard for Plato. Some writers again say, that it was Deni who sent the money, and that he did not refuse it, but bought him the garden in the Academy. And with respect to Pollis it is said that he was defeated by Chabrias, and that he was afterwai'ds drowned in Helia, in consequence of the anger of the deity at his treatment of this philosopher. And this is the story told by Pharorinus in the first book of his Commentaries. Dionysius, however, did not remain quiet ; but when he had heard what had happened he wrote to Plato not to speak ill of him, and he wrote back in reply that he had not leisure enough to think at all of Dionysius. XV. But he went a second time to Sicily to the younger Dionysius, and asked him for some land and for some men whom he might make live according to his own theory of a constitution. And Dionysius promised to give him some, but never did it. And some say that he was in danger PLATO. 121 himself, having been suspected of exciting Dion and Thetas to attempt the deliverance of the island ; but that Archytas, the Pythagorean, wrote a letter to Dionysius, and begged Plato off and sent him back safe to Athens. And the letter is as follows : — AECHYTAS TO DIONYSIUS, GREETING. " AW of us who are the friends of Plato, have sent to you Lamiscus and Photidas, to claim of you this philosopher in accordance with the agreement which you made with us. And it is right that you should recollect the eagerness which you had to see bim, when you pressed us all to secure Plato's visit to you, promising to jjrovide for him, and to treat him hospitably in every respect, and to ensure his safety both while he remained with you, and when he departed. Remember tliis too that you were very delighted indeed at liis arrival, and that you expressed great pleasure at the time, such as you never did on any other occasion. And if any unpleasantness has arisen between you, you ought to behave with humanity, and restore the man unhurt; for by so doing you will act justly, and do us a favour." XVI. The third time that he went to Sicily was for the purpose of reconciling Dion to Dionysius. And as he could not succeed he returned back to his own country, having lost his lal)Our. XVIT. And in his own country he did not meddle with state affairs, although he was a politician as far as his writings went. And the reason was, that the people were accustomed to a form of government and constitution different from what he approved of. And Pamphile, in the twenty-fifth book of his Commentaries, says that the Arcadians and Thebans, when they were founding a great city, appointed him its lawgiver; but that he, when he had ascertained that they would not con- sent to an equality of rights, refused to go tliither. XVIII. It is said also, that he defended Chabrias the general, when he was impeached in a capital charge ; when no one else of the citizens would undertake the task : and as he was going up towards the Acropolis with his client, Crobylus the sycophant met him and said, " Are you come to plead for another, not knowing that the hemlock of Socrates is waiting 123 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. also for you ?" But he replied, "And also, ^vlieii I fought for my country I encountered dangers ; and now too I encounter them in the cause of justice and for the defence of a friend." XIX. He was the first author who wrote treatises in the form of dialogues, as Pharorinus tells us in the eighth hook of his Universal History. And he was also the first person who introduced the analytical method of investigation, which he taught to Leodamus of Thasos. He was also the first person in philosophy who spoke of antipodes, and elements, and dia- lectics, and actions (co/jj/iara), and ohlong numbers, and plane surfaces, and the providence of God. He was hkewse the first of the philosophers who contradicted the assertion of Ly- sias, the son of Cephalus, setting it out word for word in his Phaedrus. And he was also the first person who examined the subject of grammatical knowledge scientifically. And as he argued against almost every one who had lived before his time, it is often asked why he has never mentioned Democritus. XX. Xeanthes of Cyzicus says, that when he came to the Olympic games aU the Greeks who were present turned to look at him : and that it was on that occasion that he held a con- versation with Dion, who was on the point of attacking Diony- sius. Moreover, in the first book of the Commentaries of Pharorinus, it is related that Mithridates, the Persian, erected a statue of Plato in the Academy, and put on it this inscription, " Mithridates, the son of Pibodobates, a Persian, consecrated an image of Plato to the Muses, which was made by Sila- nion." XXI. And Herachdes says, that even while a young man, he was so modest and weU regulated, that he was never once seen to laugh excessively. XXII. But though he was of such a grave character him- self, he was nevertheless ridiculed by the comic poets. Ac- cordingly, Theopompus, in his Pleasure-seeker, says : — For one tiling is no longer only one, But two things now are scarcely one ; as says The solemn Plato. And Anaxandrides in his Theseus, says : — When he ate olives like our worthy Plato. And Timon speaks of him in this way, punning on his name : — PLATO. 123 As Plato placed strange platitudes on paper.* Alexis says in his Mesopis : — You've come in time : since I've been doubting long, And walking up and do-v^-n some time, like Plato ; And yet have hit upon no crafty plan, But only tir'd my legs. And in his Analion, he says : — You speak of what you do not understand, Running about like Plato : hoping thus, To learn the nature of saltpetre and onions. Amphis says in his Amphicrates : — A. But what the good is, which you hope to get By means of her, my master, I no more Can form a notion of, than of the good Of Plato. B. Listen now. ' And in his Dexidemides he speaks thus : — Plato ! how your"leaming is confined To gloomy looks, and wrinkling up your brows, Like any cockle. Cratinas in his Pseudripobolimfeus, says : — You clearly are a man, endued with sense, And so, as Plato says, I do not know ; But I suspect. Alexis, in his Olympiodorus speaks thus : — My mortal body became dry and withered : But my immortal part rose to the sky. Is not this Plato's doctrine ? And in his Parasite he says : — Or to converse alone, like Plato. Anaxilas also laughs at him in his Botrylion, and Circe, and his Rich Women. XXIII. And Aristippus, in the fourth book of his treatise upon Ancient Luxury, says that he was much attached to a youth of the name of Aster, who used to study astronomy with him; and also to Dion, whom we have already men- * The Greek is, wq aviTrXam IlXarwv irtTrXarrfiii'a Oavfiara ilSujs. Ii24 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. tioned. And some say that he was also attached to Pheedrus, and that the following epigrams which ho wrote upon them are evidences of the love he felt for them : — My Aster, you're gazing on the stars {aareptc), Woiild that I were the heavens, that so I might Gaze in return with many eyes on thee. Another of his epigrams is : — Aster, you while among the living shone, The morning star. But now that you are dead, You beam like Hesperus in the shades below. And he wrote thus on Dion : — Once, at their birth, the fates did destine tears To be the lot of all the Trojan women. And Hecuba, their Queen — to you, Dion, As the deserved reward for glorious deeds, They gave extensive and illustrious hopes. And now you lie beneath your native soil ; Honoured by all your countrymen, Dion, And loved by me with ardent, lasting love. And they say that this epigram is inscribed upon his tomb at Syracuse. They say, also, that he was in love with Alexis, and with Phgedrus, as I have already mentioned, and that he wrote an epigram on them both, which runs thus : — Now when Alexis is no longer aught, Say only how beloved, how fair he was, And every one does turn his eyes at once. Why, my mind, do you show the dogs a bone ? You're but preparing trouble for yourself : Have we not also lost the lovely Phtedrus ! There is also a tradition that he had a mistress named Ar- chianassa, on whom he wrote the following lines : — I have a mistress fair from Colophon, Archianassa, on whose very wrinkles Sits genial love : hard must have been the fate, Of him who met her earliest blaze of beauty, Surely he must have been completely scorched. He also wrote this epigram on Agathon : — While kissing Agathon, my soul did rise. And hover'd o'er my lips ; wishing perchance, O'er anxious that it was, to migrate to him. PLATO. 125 Another of his epigrams is : — I throw this apple to you. And if you Love me who love jou so, receive it gladly, And let me taste your lovely virgin charms. ] Or if that may not be, still take the fruit, ., And in your bosom cherish it, and leam How fleeting is all gracefulness and beauty. And another : — I am an apple, and am thrown to you,' By one who loves-you : but consent, Xanthippe ; For you and I shall both with time decay. They also attribute to him the following epigram on the Eretrians who had been surprised in an ambuscade : — We were Eretrians, of Eubsean race ? And now we lie near Susa, here entomb 'd, Far from my native land. And this one also : — Thus Venus to the muses spoke : Damsels submit to Venus' yoke, Or dread my Cupid's anns. Those threats, the Virgins nine replied, May weigh with Mars, but we deride Love's wrongs, or darts, or charms. Another is : — A certain person found some gold. Carried it off, and in its stead Left a strong halter neatly roU'd. The owner found his treasure fled ; And powerless to endure his fortune's wreck. Fitted the halter to his hapless neck. XXIV. But Molon, who had a great dislike to Plato, says, " There is not so much to wonder at in Dionysius being at Corinth, as in Plato's being in Sicily. Xenophon, too, does not appear to have been very friendlily disposed towards him : and accordingly they have, as if in rivalry of one another, both written books with the same title, the Banquet, the Defence of Socrates, Moral Reminiscences. Then, too, the one wTote tbe Cyropredia and the other a book on Politics ; and Plato in his Laws says, that the Cyropaedia is a mere romance, for that Cyrus was not such a person as he is described in that book. And though they both speak so much of Socrates, neither of l'-20 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. them ever mentions the other, except that Xenophon once speaks of Plato in the third hook of his Reminiscences. It is said also, that Antisthenes, being about to recite something tliat he had written, invited him to be present ; and that Plato having asked what he was going to recite, he said it was an essay on the impropriety of contradicting. " How then," said Plato, " can you write on tliis subject ?" and then he showed him that he was arguing in a circle. But Antisthenes was annoyed, and composed a dialogue against Plato, which he en- titled Sothon ; after which they were always enemies to one another ; and they say that Socrates having heard Plato read the Lysis, said, " Hercules ! what a number of lies the young man has told about me. " For he had set dovm a great many things as sayings of Socrates which he never said. Plato also was a great enemy of Aristippus ; accordingly, he speaks ill of him in his book on the Soul, and says that he was not with Socrates when he died, though he was in ^gina, at no great distance. He also had a great rivalry with jEschi- nes, for that he had been held in great esteem by Dionysius, and afterwards came to want, and was despised by Plato, but supported by Aristippus. And Idomeneus says, that the speech which Plato attributes to Crito in the prison, when he coun- selled Socrates to make his escape, was really delivered by ^schines, but that Plato attributed it to Crito because of his dislike to the other. And Plato never makes the slightest mention of him in any of his books, except in the treatise on the Soul, and the Defence of Socrates. XXV. Aristotle says, that the treatises of Plato ai'e some- thing between poems and prose ; and Pharorinus says, when Plato read his treatise on the Soul, Aristotle was the only person who sat it out, and that all the rest rose up and went away. And some say that Philip the Opuntian copied out the whole of his books upon Laws, which were written on waxen tablets only. Some people also attribute the Epinomis to him. Euphorion and Panaitius have stated that the beginning of the treatise on the Piepublic was often altered and re-written ; and that very treatise, Aristoxenus affirms, was found almost entire in the Contradictions of Protagoras ; and that the first book he wrote at all was the Phjedrus ; and indeed that composition has a good many indications of a young composer. But Dicse- archus blames the whole style of that work as vulgar. PLATO. 1^7 XXVI. A story is told, that Plato, having seen a man play- ing at dice, reproached him for it, and that he said he was playing for a trifle ; " But the habit," rejoined Plato, " is not a trifle." On one occasion he was asked whether there would be any monument of him, as of his predecessors in philosoj^hy ? and he answered, "A man must first make a name, and the monu- ment wiU follow." Once, when Xenocrates came into his house, he desired him to scourge one of his slaves for him, for that he himself could not do it because he was in a passion ; and that at another time he said to one of his slaves, " I should beat you if I were not in a passion." Having got on horseback he dismounted again immediately, saying that he was afraid that he should be infected with horse-pride. He used to advise people who got drunk to look in the glass, and then they would abandon their unseemly habit ; and he said that it was never decorous to drink to the degree of drunkenness, except at the festivals of the God who had given men wine. He also dis- approved of much sleeping : accordingly in his Laws he says, " No one while sleeping is good for anything." Another say- ing of his was, '• That tlie pleasantest of all things to hear was the truth ; but others report this saying thus, " That the sweetest of all things was to speak truth." And of tnith he speaks thus in his Laws, " Truth, my friend, is a beautiful and a durable thing ; but it is not easy to persuade men of this fact." XXVII. He used also to wish to leave a memorial of himself behind, either in the hearts of his friends, or in his books. XXVIII. He also used to travel a good deal as some authors inform us. XXIX. And he died in the manner we have already mentioned, in the thirteenth year of the reign of Philip of Macedon, as Pharorinus mentions in the third book of his Commentaries ; and Theopompus relates that Philip on one occasion reproached him. Put Mysonianus, in his Piesem- blances, says that Pliilo mentions some proverbs that were in circulation about Plato's lice ; implying that he had died of that disease. XXX. He was buried in the Academy, where he spent the greater part of his time in the practice of philosophy, from which his was called the Academic school ; and his 1'28 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. funeral was attended by all the pupils of that sect. And he made his will in the following terms : — " Plato left these things, and has bequeathed them as follows : — The farm in the district of the Hephgestiades, bounded on the north by the road from the temple of the Cephiciades, and on the south by the temple of Hercules, which is in the district of the Hepha5stiades ; and on the east by the estate of Archestratus the Phreanian, and on the west by the farm of Philip the Challidian, shall be incapable of being sold or alienated, but shall belong to my son Ademantus as far as possible. And so likewise shall my farm in the district of the Eiresides, which I bought of Calli- machus, which is bounded on the north by the property of Eui'ymedon the Myrrhinusian, on the south by that of Demostratus of Xypeta, on the east by that of Euiymedcn the Myrrhinusian, and on the west by the Cephisus ; — I also leave him three minje of silver, a silver goblet weighing a hundred and sixty-five drachms, a cup weighing forty-five drachms, a golden ring, and a golden ear-ring, weighing together four drachms and three obols. Euclides the stone- cutter owes me three minaj. I leave Diana her liberty. My slaves Sychon, Bictas, Apolloniades, and Dionysius, I bequeath to my son ; and I also give him all my furniture, of which Demetrius has a catalogue. I owe no one anything. My executors shall be Tozthenes, Speusippus, Demetrius, Hegias, Eurymedon, Callimachus, and Thrasippus." This was his will. And on his tomb the following epigrams were inscribed. First of all : — Here, first of all men for pure justice famed, And moral virtue, Aristocles lies ; And if there e'er has lived one truly wise, This man was wiser still ; too great for envy. A second is : — Here in her bosom does the tender earth' Embrace great Plato's corpse. — His soul aloft Has ta'en its place among the immortal Gods. Ariston's glorious son — whom all good men, Though in far countries, held in love and honour, Remembering his pure and god-like life. There is another which is more modern : — PLATO. 129 A. Eagle, why fly you o'er this holy tomb ? Or are you on your way, with lofty wing. To some bright starry domicile of the Gods ? B. I am the image of the soul of Plato, And to Olympus now am borne on high ; His body lies in his own native Attica. We ourselves also have -written one epigram on liim, which is as follows : — If fav'ring Phoebus had not Plato given To Grecian lands, how would the learned God Have e'er instructed mortal minds in learning ? But he did send him, that as JSsculapius His son 's the best physician of the body, So Plato should be of the immortal soul. And others, alluding to his death : — Phoebus, to bless mankind, became the father Of ^sculapius, and of god-like Plato ; That one to heal the body, this the mind. Now, from a marriage feast he's gone to heaven. To realize the happy city there, Which he has planned fit for the realms of Jove. These then are the epigrams on him. XXXI. His disciples were, Speusippus the Athenian, Zenocrates of Chalcedon, Aristotle the Stagirite, Philip of Opus, Histiseus of Perinthus, Dion of Syracuse, Amyclus of Heraclea, Erastus and Coriscus of Scejotos, Timolaus of Cyzicus, Eudon of Lampsacus, Pithon and Heraclides of .^mus, Hippothales and Callippus, Athenians, Demetrius of Amphipolis, Heraclides of Pontus, and numbers of others, among whom thei-e were also two women, Lasthenea of Mantinea, and Axiothea of Phlius, who used even to wear man's clothes, as we are told by Dicsearchus. Some say that Theophrastus also was a pupil of his ; and Chamselion says that Hyperides the orator, and Lycurgus, were so hkewise. Polemo also asserts that Demosthenes was. Sabinus adds Mnesistratus of Thasos to the number, quoting authority for tlie statement in the fourth book of his Meditative Matter ; and it is not improbable. XXXII. But as you, O lady, are riglitly very much attached to Plato, and as you are very fond of hunting out in every quarter all tlie doctrines of the philosopher with great eagei'- K 130 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEPwS. ness, I have thought it necessary to subjoin an account of the general character of his lectures, and of the arrangement of his dialogues, and of the method of his inductive argument ; going back to their elements and first principles as far as I could, so that the collection of anecdotes conceming his life which I have been able to make, may not be curtailed by the omission of any statement as to his doctrines. For it would be like sending owls to Athens, as the proverb is, if I were to descend to particular details. They say now, that Zeno, the Eleatic, was the first person who composed essays in the form of dialogue. But Aristotle, in the first book of his treatise on Poets, says that Alexander, a native of Styra, or Teos, did so before him, as Phavorinus also says in his Commentaries. But it seems to me that Plato gave this kind of writing the last polish, and that he has thei'efore, a just right to the first honour, not only as the improver, but also as inventor of that kind of writing. Now, the dialogue is a discourse carried on by way of question and answer, on some one of the subjects with wliich philosophy is conversant, or with which statesmanship is concerned, with a becoming attention to the characters of the persons who are introduced as speakers, and with a careful selection of language governed by the same consideration. And dialectics is the art of conversing, by means of which we either overturn oi" establish the proposition contended for, by means of the ques- tions and answers which are put in the mouths of the parties conversing. Now, of the Platonic discourse there are two characteristics discernible on the very surface ; one fitted for guiding, the other for investigating. The first of these has two subordinate species, one specula- tive, the other practical ; and of these two again, the speculative is divided into the natural and the logical, and the practical into the ethical and the political. Again, the kind fitted for investigating has also two primary divisions with their separate characteristics, one object of which is simply practice, the other being also disputatious : and the first of these two is again subdivided into two ; one of which may be compared to the art of the midwife, and the other is at it were tentative ; the disputatious one is also divided into the demonstrative and the distinctive. But we are not unaware that some writers distinguish the PLATO, 131 various dialogues in a different manner from what we do. For they say that some of them are dramatic, and others narrative, and others of a mixed nature. But they, in this division, are classifying the dialogues in a theatrical rather than in a philo- sophical manner. Some of the dialogues also refer to subjects of natural philosophy, such as the Timaeus. Of the logical class, there are the Politics, the Cratylus, the Parmenides, and the Sophist. Of the ethical kind there is the defence of Socrates, the Crito, the Phaedo, the Phtedrus, the Banquet, the Menexenus, the Clitiphon, the Epistles, the Philebus, the Hipparchus, and the Rival Lovers. Of the political class there is the Republic, the Laws, the Minos, the Epinomis, and the Atlantic us. Of the midwife description we have the two Alcibiades's, the Theages, the Lysis, the Laches. Of the tentative Idnd, there is the Euthyphro, the Meno. the Ion, the Charmides, and the Thesetetus. Of the demonstrative description, we have the Protagoras, and of the distinctive class the Euthydemus, the two Hippias's, and the Gorgias. And this is enough to say about the dialogues as to what they are, and what their different kinds are. XXXIII. But since there is also a great division of opinion respecting them, from some people asserting that in them Plato dogmatizes in a positive manner, while others deny this, we had better also touch upon this part of the question. Now, dogmatizing is laying down dogmas, just as legislating is making laws. Bat the word dogma is used in two senses ; to mean both that which we tliink, and opinion itself. Now of these, that which we think is tlie proposition, and opinion is the conception by which we entertain it in our minds. Plato then explains the opinions which he entertains himself, and refutes false ones ; and about doubtful matters he suspends his judgment. His opinions of matters as they appear to him he puts into the mouth of four persons, Socrates, Timfeus, an Athenian poet, and an Eleatic stranger. But the strangers are not, as some people have supposed, Plato and Parmenides, but certain nameless imaginary characters. Since Plato asserts as undeniable axioms all the opinions which he puts into the mouth of Socrates or Tima)us. But when he is refuting felse propositions, he introduces such characters as Thrasymachus, and Callicles, and Polus, and Gorgias, and Protagoras, Hippi- astro, and Euthydemus, and men of that stamp. But when K -i 132 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. he is demonstrating anything, then he chiefly uses the induc- tive form of argument, and that too not of one kind oidy, but of two. For induction is an argument, which by means of some admitted truths estabHshes naturally other truths which resemble them. But there are two kinds of induction ; the one proceeding from contraries, the other from consequents. Now, the one which proceeds from contraries, is one in which from the answer given, whatever that answer may be, the con- trary of the principle indicated in the question must follow. As for instance. My father is either a different person from your liither, or he is the same person. If now your father is a different person from my father, then as he is a different person from a father, he cannot be a father. If, on the other hand, he is the same person as my father, then, snice he is the same person as my father, he must be my father. And again, if man be not an animal, he must be either a stone or a piece of wood ; but he is not a' stone or a piece of wood, for he is a living animal, and capable of independent motion. Therefore, he is an animal. But, if he is an animal, and a dog or an ox is likewise an animal, then man must be an animal, and a dog, and an ox. — This then is the method of induction in contradiction and contention, which Plato was accustomed to employ, not for the purpose of establishing principles of his own, but with the object of refuting the arguments of others. Now, the inductive kind of argument drawn from conse- quents is of a twofold character. The one proving a particular opinion by an admitted fact of an equally particular nature ; or else going from particulars to generals. And the first of these two divisions is the oratorical one, the second the dialectic one. As for instance, in tlie former kind the ques- tion is whether this person has committed a murder ; the proof is that he was found at the time covered with blood. But this is the oratorical method of employing the induction ; since oratory is conversant about particulars, and does not concern itself about generals. For its object is not to ascer- tain abstract justice, but only particular justice. The other is the dialectic kind, the general proposition having been established by particular ones. As for instance, the question is whether the soul is immortal, and whether the living con- sist of those who have once been dead ; and this proposition PLATO. 133 Plato establishes in his hook on the Soul, hy a certain general proposition, that contraries arise out of contraries ; and this identical general proposition is established by certain particular ones. As, for instance, that sleep follows on waking, and waking from sleeping, and the greater from the less, and reversely the less from the greater. And this kind of induction he used to employ for the estabhshment of his own opinions. XXXIV. Anciently, in tragedy, it was only the chorus who did the whole work of the play ; but subsequently, Thespis introduced one actor for the sake of giving the chorus some rest, and .^schylus added a second, and Sophocles a third, and so they made tragedy complete. So in the same manner, philosophical discourse was originally uniform, con- cerning itself solely about natural philosophy ; then Socrates added to it a second character, the ethical : and Plato a thii'd, the dialectic : and so he brought philosophy to perfection. XXXV. But Thrasybulus says that he published his dia- logues as the dramatic poets published their tetralogies. For, they contended with four plays, (and at four festivals, the Dionysiac, the Lensean, the Panathenfean, and the Chytri), one of which was a satiric drama, and the whole four plays were called a tetralogy. Now, people say, the whole of his genuine dialogues amount to fifty-six; the treatise on the Republic being divided into ten books, (which Phavorinus, in the second book of his Universal History, says may be found almost entire in the Contradictions of Protagoras), and that on Laws into twelve. And there are nine tetralogies, if we consider the Piepublic as occupying the place of one book, and the Laws of another. He arranges, therefore, the first tetra- logy of these dialogues which have a common subject, wishing to show what sort of life that of the philosopher may have been. And he uses two titles for each separate book, taking one from the name of the piincipal speaker, and the other from the subject. This tetralogy then, which is the first, is commenced by the Euthyphron, or what is Holy; and that dialogue is a tentative one. The second is the Defence of Socrates, a moral one. The third is the Criton, or What is to be done, a moral one. The fourth is the Pha^do, or the Dialogue on the Soul, a moral one. 134 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. The second tetralogj' is that of which the first piece is the Cratylus, or the correctness of names, a logical one. The Mesetetus, or Knowledge, a tentative one- The Sophist, or a dialogue on the Existent, a logical one. The Statesman, or a dialogue of Monarchy, a logical one. The first dialogue in the third tetralogy is the Parmenides, or a dialogue of Ideas, a logical one. The second is the Philelus, or on Pleasure, a moral one. The Banquet, or on the Good, a moral one. The Phaedrus, or on Love, a moral one. ■ The fomlh tetralogy opens with the Alcibiades, or a treatise on the Nature of Man, a midwife-like work. The second Alcibiades, or on Prayer, a piece of the same charac- ter. The Hipparchus, or on the Love of Gain, a moral one. The Piival Lovers, or a treatise on Philosophy, a moral one. The first dialogue in the fifth is the Theages, or another treatise on Philosophy, another midwife-like work. The Charmides, or on Temperance, a tentative essay. The Laches, or on Manly Courage, midwife-like. The Lysis, or a dissertation on Friendship, also midwife-like. The sixth tetralogy commences with the Euthydemus, or the Disputatious Man, a distinctive dialogue. Then comes the Protagoras, or the Sophists, a demonstrative one. The Gorgias, or a dissertation on Rhetoric, another distinctive one. And the Mono, or on Virtue, a tentative dialogue. The seventh begins with the two Hippias's. The first being a dissertation on the Beautiful, the second one on Falsehood, both distinctive. The third is the Ion, or a dissertation on the Iliad, a tentative one. The fourth is the Menexenus, or the Funeral Oration, a moral one. The first dialogue in the eighth is the Clitophon, or the Exhortation, a moral piece. Then comes the Piepublic, or the treatise on Justice, a political one. The Timseus, or a dis- sertation on Nature, a dialogue on Natural Philosophy. And the Critias, or Atlanticus, a moral one The ninth begins with the Minos, or a treatise on Law, a political work. The Laws, or a dissertation on Legislation, another political work. The Epinomis, or the Nocturnal Conversation, or the Philosopher, a third political one. XXXVI. And this last tetralogy is completed by thirteen epistles, all moral ; to which is prefixed as a motto, sv T^drrsiv, PLATO. 135 just as Epicurus inscribed on his el didysiv, and Cleon on his %a/o£/v. They are, one letter to Aristodemns, two to Archytas, four to Dionysius, one to Hermeias, Erastus, and Coriscus, one to Leodaraas, one to Dion, one to Perdiccas, and two to the friends of Dion. ^ XXXVII. And this is the way in which some people divide his works. But others, among whom is Aristophanes, the grammarian, arrange his dialogues in trilogies ; and they make the first to consist of the Kepublic, the Timaeus and the Critias. The second of the Sophist, the Statesman, the Cratylus. The third of the Laws, the Minos, the Epinomis. The fourth of the Thesetetus, the Euthyphro, the Defence of Socrates. The fifth of the Crito, the Phaedo, the Epistles. And the rest they arrange singly and independently, without any regular order. And some authors, as has been said already, place the Eepublic at the head of his works : others begin with the Greater Alcibiades : others with the Theages ; some with the Euthyphro, others with the Clitophon ; some with the Timaeus, some with the Pha^drus, others again with the Thestetus. Many make the Defence of Socrates the first piece. There are some dialogues attributed to him which are confessedly spurious. The Midon, or the Horse-breeder ; the Eryxias, or Erasistratus ; the Alcyon ; the Acephali, or Sisyphi ; the Axiochus ; the Phaeacians ; the Demodorus ; The Chilidon ; the Seventh ; the Epimenides. Of which the Alcyon is believed to be the work of a man named Leon ; as Phavorinus tells us in the seventh book of his Commentaries. XXXVIII. But he employs a great variety of terms in order to render his philosophical system unintelligilde to the ignorant. In his phraseology he considers wisdom as the knowledge of things which can be understood by the intellect, and which have a real existence : which has the Gods for its object, and the soul as unconnected with the body. He also, with a peculiarity of expression, calls wisdom also philosophy, which he explains as a desire for divine wisdom. But wisdom and experience are also used by him in their common accepta- tion ; as, for instance, wlien he calls an artisan wise {aophg). He also uses the same words in different senses at different 136 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. times. Accordingly he uses paDXos in the sense of a'TrXovg, simple, in which meaning also the word occurs in Euripides, in the Licyraouius, where the poet speaks of Hercules in the following terms : — Mean looking {(pavXoc), rude, vii'tuoua in great affairs, Measuring all ^\dsdoui by its last results, A hero unrefined in speech. But Plato uses the word sometimes even for what is heautiful ; and sometimes for small and insignificant ; and very often he uses different words to express the same idea. Accordingly, besides the word /Sfa for a class, he uses also sJdog, and ysi/os.and -ra^ddsr/fia, and a.o'^ri, andamoi'. Sometimes he uses opposite expressions for the same thing ; accordingly, he says that it is an object of sensation that exists, while at other times he says it is that which does not exist ; speaking of it as existing because of its origin, and as non-existent with reference to its continual changes. Then again, he defines his idsa as something which is neither moving nor stationary, at one time calling the same thing, at another time one thing, at a third time many things. And he is in the habit of doing this in many instances. And the explanation of his arguments is three-fold. For first of all, it is necessary to explain what each thing that is said is ; secondly, on what account it is said, whether because of its bearing on the principal point, or figuratively, and whether it is said for the purpose of establishing an opinion of his own, or of refuting the arguments brought forward by the other party to the conversation ; and thirdly, whether it has been said truly. XXXIX. But since there are some particular marks put in his books, we must also say something about them. x indicates peculiar expressions and figures of speech, and generally any peculiarities of Plato's style. When doubled it points to the doctrines and peculiar opinions of Plato ; -i^- when dotted all round, points to some select bits of beautiful writing. When doubled and dotted it indicates corrections of some passages. A dotted obelus indicates hasty disapprovals. An inverted sigma dotted all round points out passages which may be taken in a double sense, and transpositions of words. PLATO. 137 The Ceraunium* indicates a connection of philosophical ideas. An asterisk points out an agreement in doctrine. And an obelus marks the rejection of the expression or of the passage. These then are the marginal mai'ks which occur, and the writings of which Plato was the author : — which, as Antigonus the Carj'stian says, in his treatise on Zeno, when they had been but lately published, brought in some gain to the posses- sors, if any one else was desirous of reading them. XL. These now were his chief opinions. He affirmed that the soul was immortal and clothed in many bodies successively, and that its first principle was number, and that the first principle of the body was geometry. And he defined it as an abstract idea of spirit diffused in every direction. He said also, that it was self-moving and threefold. For that that part of it which was capable of reasoning was situated in the head, that that portion which was affected by passion was seated around the heart, and that which was appetitive was placed around the navel and the liver. And that it is placed in the middle of the body, and embraces it at the same time in all its parts, and that it consists of elements ; and that when it is divided according to harmonic intervals it forms two connected circles ; of which the inner circle is divided into six portions, and makes in all seven circles ; and that this is placed on the left hand of the diameter, and situated in the interior. But the other is on the right hand of the same line ; on which account, and because it is one only, it is the superior of the two. For the other is divided internally ; and this too, is the circle of that which is always the same ; the other, the circle of that which is changeable and different. And the one he says is the motion of the soul, but the other is the motion of the universe and of the planets. On the other side, the division of the circles from the centre to the extremities, being harmoniously appropriated to the essence of the soul, the one know^s existing things and esta- blishes harmony between them, because it is itself composed of harmonious elements. The circle of what is changeable, engenders opinion by its regular movements ; but the circle of that which is always the same produces knowledge. XLI. Plato lays dowii two primary causes or principles of all things, God and matter, which he also calls mind, * This figure was like a barbed arrow, according to Zevort. 138 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEES. and the cause. And he defines matter as something without shape and vdthout limitation, and says that from it all concre- tions arise. He affiiTus also that as it was moving about at random, it was brought by God into one settled place, as God thought order better than disorder; and that this nature is divided into four elements, fire, water, air, and eaith, of which the world itseK and evervthinCT in it was made. But he savs that the eaith is the onlv thino that is unchangeable, as he considers the cause to be the difference of the figures of which it is composed ; for he says that the figures of the others are homogeneous ; for that they are all composed equally of scalene triangles. The figure of the earth, however, is peculiar to itself: for the element of fije is a pyramid ; of air, an octagon ; of water, an'eicosagou ; and of the earth, a cube ; owing to which these things cannot be changed into earth, nor earth into them. He teaches also that these elements are not separated so as to occupy each a peculiar and distinct place ; for the spherical motion collects and compresses all the small things towards the centre, and the small things sepai'ate the great ones, on which ac- count the species, as they change, do also change their positions. Moreover he asserts that the world is one, and has been pro- duced, since it has beeu made by God, in such a manner as to be an object of sensation. And he considers it endowed with life, because that which is so endowed, is superior to that which is not, and it must be the production of the most excellent pro- ducer. It is also one, and illimitable ; because the model after which it was made was one ; and it is spherical, because its creator was of that form ; for it also contains all other animals, and God who made it comprises all forms. And it is smooth, and has no instruments whatever all round it, because it has no need of any. But the whole world remains imperishable, because it cannot be resolved into God ; and God is the cause of universal production, because it is the nature of the good to be productive of good ; and the best is the cause of the production of the heaven : for the best of all productions can have no other cause than the best of all intelligible existences. And since God is of that character, and since heaven resembles the best, inasmuch as it is at least the most beautiful of aU things, it cannot be like anything else that is produced, except God. He also teaches that the world consists of fire, water, air, PLATO. 139 and earth ; of fire, in order that it may he visible ; of earth, in order that it may be firm ; of water and air, that it may not he destitute of proportion ; for two middle tenns ai-e indispensable to keep the solid bodies in due propoitiou to one another, and to realize the unity of the whole. In short, the world is foimed of all the elements together, in order that it may be perfect and imperishable. Again, time is the image of eternity ; eternity subsists for ever ; but the motion of the heaven is time ; for day, and night, and the months, and all such divisions, are parts of time, on which account there could be no such thing as time apart from the nature of the world ; for time existed contempo- raneously and simultaneously with the world. And it was with reference to time that the sim, and the moon, and the planets were made ; and it was in order that the number of the seasons might be manifest, and that the animals might partake of num- ber, that God kindled the light of the sun; and that the moon was above the circle of the earth, and that the sun was next to it, and in the still higher circles were the planets. And that the universe was animated, because it was altogether bound up in animated motion, and that the race of all other animals was produced in order that the world might be made perfect, and re- sembling an animal such as could be comprehended by intellect. Since then God had life, the heaven also must have life ; and the Gods ai-e to a great extent composed of fire. And there are three other races of animals, those which fly in the air ; those which lives in the water ; those which walk in the eaith. The oldest of all the deities in heaven is the Eailh ; she was formed in order to be the dispenser of night and day ; and as she is j)laced in the centre, she is constantly in motion around the centre. And since there are two efficient causes, some things must, he says, be affiimed to exist in consequence of intellect, and some from some necessary cause. Now necessary causes are the air, fire, earth, and water, these not beiu<]f real elements, but rather receptacles ; and they too are formed of tiiangles in combination, and are resolvable into triangles ; and their elements are the scalene triangle and the isosceles. These two before mentioned elements ai-e the principles and causes of things, of which the models are God and matter, which last must necessarily be destitute of form, as is the case of other receptacles. And that the cause of these things was a necessary 140 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. cause, whicli, receiving the ideas, produced the substances.'and was moved by the dissimilarity of its own power, and again by its motion compelled those things which were moved by it to move other things in their turn. But all these things were formerly moved without any reason or order ; but after they began to form the world by their com- bination, they then received symmetry and regularity from God, according to the principles applicable to them ; for the efficient causes, even before the creation of the heaven, were two in number. There was also a third, namely production ; but these were not very evident, but rather traces than actual things, and quite devoid of regularity. But after the world was made, then they too assumed a regular form and arrange- ment ; but the heaven was made of all existing bodies. And Plato considers that God is incorporeal just as the soul is, and that it is owing to that that he is not affected by any destruction or external circumstances. And ideas, as we have said before, he defines as certain causes and principles, owing to which it is that such and such things are by nature what they are. XLII. On the subject of good and evil, these were his sen- timents : that the end was to become like God ; and that virtue was sufficient of herself for happiness, but nevertheless required the advantages of the body as instruments to work with ; such as health, strength, the integrity of the senses, and things of that kind ; and also external advantages, such as riches, and noble birth, and glory. Still that the wise man would be not the less happy, even if destitute of these auxiliary circumstances ; for he would enjoy the constitution of his country, and would marry, and would not transgress the es- tablished laws, and that he would legislate for his country, as well as he could under existing circumstances, unless he saw affairs in an unmanageable condition, in consequence of the excessive factiousness of the people. He thinks too that tbe Gods superintend all the affairs of men, and that there are such beings as daemons. And he was the first person who defined the notion of the honourable, as that which borders on the praise- worthy, and the logical, and the useful, and the becoming, and the expedient, all which things are combined with that which is suitable to, and in accordance with, nature. XLIII. He also discussed in his dialogues the correctness of terms, so that he was the first person who reduced the science PLATO. 141 of giving correct answers, and putting correct questions to a system, which he himself used to satiety. XLI V. In his dialogues he used to speak of justice as a kind of law of God, as being of influence sufficient to excite men to act justly, in order to avoid suffering punishment as malefac- tors after death. Owing to which he appeared to some people rather fond of mythical stories, as he mingled stories of this kind with his writings, in order hy the uncertainty of all the circumstances that affect men after their death, to induce them to abstain from evil actions. And these were his opinions. XLV. He used too, says Aristotle, to divide things in this manner: — Of good, some have their place in the mind, some in the body, and some are wholly external. As, for instance, justice, and prudence, and manly courage, and temperance, and qualities of that sort exist in the soul. Beauty, and a good constitution, and health, and strength exist in the body. But friends, and the prosperity of one's country, and wealth, are external goods. There are then three species of goods, some in the soul, some in the body, and some external to either. XLVI. There are also three species of friendship. For one kind is natural, another that which arises from companionship ; and the third is that which is produced by ties of hospitality. We call that natural friendship which parents feel towards their offspring, and ]-elations towards one another; and this is partaken of by other animals besides men. We call that the friendship of companionship which arises from a habit of association, and which has no reference to ties of blood, such as the friendship of Pylades for Orestes. That which arises from ties of hospitality is one which owes its origin to agree ments, and which is carried on by means of letters between strangers. There is, therefore, natural friendship, and friend- ship between companions, and between strangers. Some also add a fourth kind, namely, the friendship of love. XLVil. Of political constitutions there are five species. There is one kind which is democratical, a second which is aristocratical, a third is oligarchical, a fourth monarchical, and the fifth is tyrannical. Now, the democratical form of con- stitution exists in those cities in which the multitude has the chief power, and elects magistrates, and passes laws at its own pleasure. But an aristocracy is that form in which neither 142 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. the rich, nor the poor, nor the most illustrious men of the city rule, but the most nobly born have the chief sway. And oligarchy is that constitution in which the magistracies are distributed according to some sort of rating : for the rich are fewer in number than the poor. The monarchical constitution is either dependent on law or on family. That in Carthage depends on law ; that in LactBdemon and Macedonia on family ; for they select their sovereign out of some particular family. But a tyranny is that kind of government in which the people are either cajoled or constrained into being governed by a single individual. Forms of government then, are divided into democracy, aristocracy, oligarchy, monarchy, and tyranny. XLVIII. Again, of justice there are three species. For there is one kind which is conversant with the gods ; a second which has reference to men ; and a third, which concerns the dead. For they who sacrifice according to the laws, and who pay due respect to the temples, are manifestly pious to the gods. And those who repay what has been lent to them, and restore tvhat has been deposited with them, act justly as to men. And those who pay due respect to the tombs, clearly are pious towards the dead. There is, therefore, one justice towards the Gods, a second towards men, and a third towards the dead. XL IX. In the same way. there are also three species of knowledge. There is one kind which is practical, a second which is productive, a third which is theoretical. For the science of building houses or ships, is production, For one can see the work which is produced by it. Political science, and the science of playing the flute, or the harp, or such things as that, is practical ; for one cannot see any visible re- sult which has been produced by them, and yet they are doing something. For one man plays the flute or plays the harp, and another occupies himself with state affairs. Again, geo- metrical, and harmonic, and astronomical science are all theoretical, for they do nothing, and produce nothing. But the geometrician theorizes as to what relation lines bear to one another ; and the harmonist speculates about sounds, and the astronomer about stars and about the world. Accordhigly, of sciences some are theoretical, others productive, and a third species is practical. PLATO. 143 L. Of medical science there are five species : one, pharma- ceutical ; a second, manual ; a third, conversant about the regulation of the manner of hfe, and the diet ; a fourth, the business of which is to detect diseases ; and the fifth is re- medial. The pharmaceutical relieves infirmities by means of medicines ; the manual heals men by cutting and cauterizing ; the one which attends to the diet, gets rid of diseases by altering and regulating the diet; the fourth produces its effects by a thorough comprehension of the nature of the disease ; and tlie last relieves men from suffering by bringing jorompt as- sistance at the moment. Medical science, then, is divided into the pharmaceutical, the manual, the dietetic, the diagnos- tic, and the remedial. LI. Of law there are two divisions. For there is a written and an unwritten law. The one by which we regulate our constitutions in our cities, is the written law ; that which arises from custom, is the unwiitten law. As, for instance, for a man to come naked into the market place, or to wear woman's clothes, are actions which are not prohibited by any law, and yet we never do them because they are forbidden by the unwritten law. Law, therefore, is divided into tlie written and the unwritten law. LIT. Discourse is divided into five heads; one of which heads is that which statesmen employ when they speak in the public assemblies ; and this is called political. Another division is that which orators use in their written harangues, and bring forward for the sake of display in panegyrics or reproaches, or impeachments. And such a description of discourse as this is the rhetorical. A third class is that which private individuals use when conversing with one another. This is called private discourse. Another kind is that which is employed when men converse by means of putting short questions and giving brief answers to those who question them. This is called the dialectic kind of discourse. The fifth division is that which artists adopt when conversing on their own particular art, and this is called professional dis- course. 1'hus discourse, then, is divided into political, rhetorical, private, dialectic, and professional. LIIL Music again is divided into three species. For there is the music of the mouth alone, such as song ; se- condly, there is the music which is performed by the hands and 144 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. mouth together, such as singing to the harp; thirdly, there is that which is executed by the hands alone, such as harp playing. Music, therefore, is divided into music of the mouth, music of the mouth and hands, and music of the hands. LIV. Xobleness of birth is divided into four species ; the first is when one's ancestors are noble, and valiant, and just ; in which case they say that their posterity are nobly born. The second kind is when one's ancestt)rs have been princes and rulers of nations, and their posterity also we call noble. Another kind is when one's ancestors have been distinguished for personal renown, such, for instance, as is gained by generalship or by victoiy at the games. For their offspring also we address as nobly bom. And the last kind is when a man is himself noble in his spirit, and magnanimous. For that man also we call noble, and this is the last kind of uobihty. There is, therefore, nobility arising from virtuous ancestors, from royal ancestors, from illustrious ancestors, and from one's own excellent qualities. LV. Beauty also is divided into three kinds. For there is one kind which is praiseworthy, as that of a beautiful face. Another which is useful, as an instrument or a house, and things of that kind which are beautiful, with reference to our use of them. There is also a beauty with reference to laws, and habits, and things of that kind, which is likewise beautiful, because of its utility. So that beauty again is looked at in three ways, with reference to its praise, its utility, and to our use of it. LVI. The soul is divided into three parts ; for one part of it is capable of reason, another is influenced by appetite, the third part is liable to passion. Of these the reasoning part is the cause of deliberating, and reasoning, and understanding, and everything of that kind. The appetite part is that portion of the soul wliich is the cause of desuing to eat, and to em- brace, and things of that Idnd. The passionate part is the cause of men feeling confidence and delight, and grief and anger. The soul therefore is di\'ided into the reasoning part, the appetitive part, and the passionate part. LVII. Of perfect virtue there are four species. One is prudence, one is justice, the third is manly gallantry, and the fourth is temperance. Of these, prudence is the cause of a PLATO. 145 man acting rightly in affairs ; justice is the cause of his acting justly in partnerships and bargains ; manly gallantry is the cause of a man's not being alarmed amid dangers and for- midable circumstances, but standing firm ; and temperance is the cause of his subduing liis appetites, and being enslaved by no pleasure, but living decorously. So that vutue is divided into prudence, justice, manly gallantry, and temperance. LVIII. Rule is divided into five parts. One is rule ac- cording to law ; another is rule according to nature ; a third kind is rule according to custom ; a fourth division is rule with reference to family ; the fifth is rule by force. Now when the rulers in cities are elected by the citizens, then they rule according to law ; those who rule according to nature are the males, not only among men, but also among all other animals ; for eveiywhere we shall find it as a general rule that the male rules the female; the rule of him who rules according to custom is such as this, when schoolmasters rule their pupils, and teachers their disciples. Rule according to family is that which prevails in places like Lacedaemon, where hereditary sovereigns reign, i'or the kingdom there belongs to a certain family ; and in Macedonia they rule on the same principle. For there, too, the kingdom depends on family. But those who rule by force, only cajoling the citizens, rule in spite of them ; and such a sway is called rule by force. So that there is rule by law, and by nature, and by custom, and by family, and by force. LIX. Of rhetoric he speaks of six species. For when orators exhort the people to make war upon or to form alliances against any one, this species of oratory is called exhortation. When they persuade the people not to make war, or to form alliances, but to keep quiet, this kind of rhetoric is called dissuasion. The third species of rhetoric, is when any one says that he has been injured by some one else, and impeaches that person as guilty of many crimes ; for this species is called accusation. The fourth kind of rhetoric is called defence, when a man shows that he has done no wrong, and that he is not guilty of anything out of the way. Such a kind of speech they call a defence. The fifth species of rhetoric, is when any one speaks well of another, and shows him to be virtuous and honourable ; and this kind is called encomium. The sixth species, is when any one shows that another person 146 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. is worthless ; and this kind is called blame. So that rhetoric is divided into encomium and blame, exhortation and dis- suasion, accusation and defence. Speaking correctly is divided under four heads. One, the saying what is right ; one, the saying as much as is right ; thirdly, the saying it to the proper people ; and fourtlily, the saying it at the proper time. Now as to the saying what is right, that is the saying what will be advantageous both to the speaker and to the hearer. The saying as much as is right, is saying neither more nor less than what is sufficient. The saying it to the proper people, is supposing one is speaking to one's elders who are mistaken in any point, the using expres- sions proper to be addressed to those older than one's self; or, on the other hand, if one is addressing those younger, then the using language such as is suitable to young people. The saying it at the proper time, is speaking neither too soon nor too late ; for if one does, one will err and speak improperly. LX. Beneficence is divided under four heads. For it may be exerted either in money, or by personal exertion, or by knowledge, or by words. In money when any one assists those who are in want, so as to put them at ease with respect to money. And men benefit one another by personal ex- ertion when they come upon those who are being beaten and assist them. Again, those who instruct, or heal, or who teach any good thing, benefit others by their knowledge ; and when one person comes down to the court of justice as an advocate for another, and delivers some speech full of sense and good feeling in his behalf, that man assists his friend by words. So that there is one beneficence which is displayed in money, another in personal exertion, a third by means of knowledge, and the fourth kind by words. LXI. Again, Plato divides the end of all affairs into four species. An affair has one end in accordance with law, when a decree is passed, and when the law establishes it ; it has an end in accordance with nature, when it is such a thing as a day, or a year, or the seasons. It has an end according to art, when it is architecture for instance, for a man builds a house ; or when it is ship-buUding, for it makes a ship. And affairs also come to an end by chance, when they turn out differently from what any one expected. So that an end of an affair is regulated either by law, or by nature, or by art, or by chance. ' PLATO. 147 LXII. Power again is divided into four species. There is one power which we possess by our abihty to reason and form conceptions by means of our intellect. There is another power which we owe to the body, such as the power of walking, or giving, or taldng, and such like. There is a third which we possess through the midtitude of soldiers or riches, on which accomit a king is said to have great power. And the fourth division of power consists in the being well or ill treated, and treating others well or ill ; as, for instance, we may be sick, or we may be taught, or we may be in vigorous health, and many more cases of that sort. So that one kind of power dwells in the intellect, another in the body, another in an army and riches, and another in our capacity as agents or patients. LXIII. Of philanthropy there are three sorts. One which is displayed in addressing people, when some persons address every one whom they meet, and give them their right hand, and greet them heartily ; another species is when one is disposed to assist every one who is unfortunate. The last kind is that sort of philanthropy which makes men pleasant boon com- panions. So that there is one kind of philanthropy dis- played in addressing people, another in benefiting them, and a third in feasting and making merry with them. LXIV. Happiness is divided into five parts. For one part of it is wisdom in counsel ; another is a healthy condition of the sensations and general health of body ; a third is good fortune in one's affairs ; a fourth kind is good reputation among men ; a fifth is abundance of riches and of all those things which are useful in life. Now wisdom in counsel arises from good instruction, and from a person's having experience of many things. A healthy condition of the sensations de- pends on the limbs of the body ; as, for instance, when one sees with one's eyes, and hears with one's ears, and smells with one's nose, and feels with one's body, just what one ought to see, and hear, and smell, and feel. Such a condition as this is a healthy condition. And good fortune is when a man does rightly and successfully what a good and energetic man ought to do. And good reputation is when a man is well spoken of. And abundance of riches is when a man has such a sufficiency of everything which relates to the uses of life, that he is able to benefit his friends, and to discharge all L 2 148 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. public obligations in a splendid and liberal manner. And the man who has all these different parts of happiness, is a per- fectly happy man. So that happiness is made up of ^visdom in counsel, a good condition of the sensations and health of body, good fortune, good reputation, and riches. LXV. The arts are divided into three kinds. The first, the second, and the third. The first are those of working mines and cutting wood, for these are preparator)' arts. The second are such as working metals and cai-pentiy, for they are alterative arts. For worldng in metals makes arms out of iron ; and carpentry makes iJutes and lyres out of wood. The third is the art which makes use of instruments ; such as horsemanship, which uses bridles ; the military art, which uses arms ; music, which uses flutes and lyres. So that there are three species of an ; one of which is the fii'st, another the second, and another the third. LXVI. Good is divided into four kinds. One of which we mean when we speak of a man endowed with private virtue, as good ; another kind is that wliich we indicate, when we call virtue and justice, good. A thu'd kind is that which we attribute to suitable food, and exercise, and medicine. The fouith good, is that which we mean, when we speak of good flute playing, good acting, and things of that sort. There are therefore four kinds of good. One the having virtue; another, virtue itself ; a third, useful food and exercise ; and fourthly, we call skill in flute playing and acting, good. LXVII. Of things existing, some are bad, some good, and some neither one thing nor the other. Of these, we call those things bad, which are invariably capable of doing injury, such as mtemperance, folly, injustice, and things of that sort. And the opposites to these qualities are good. But those things, which may at times be beneficial, and at times injurious, such as \valking, sitting do^vn, and eating ; or which have absolutely no power in any case to benefit or injure any one ; these are neither bad nor good. Of things existing then, there are some bad, and some good, and some of a neutral character, neither bad nor good. LXVIII. A good state of affairs with reference to the laws, is divided under three heads. One when the laws are good, for that is a good state of affairs ; so too is it, when the citizens abide by the existing laws ; and the third case is, when al- PLATO. 149 though there are no positive laws, still men are good citizens in deference to custom and to established institutions ; and this is also called a good state of affairs. So that of these three heads, one depends on the laws being good, another on obedience to existing laws, and the third on men yielding to good customs and institutions. So again, lawlessness is divided into three heads. One of which is, when the laws are bad, both as concerns strangers, and the citizens ; another, when the citizens do not obey the laws that are estabhshed ; and the third is when there is actually no law at all. So^that one kind of lawlessness arises from bad laws, another from disobedience to existing laws, and the third from the absence of laws. LXIX. Contraries are of three sorts ; for instance, we say that good is contrary to evil, as justice to injustice, wisdom to folly, and so on. Again, some evils are contrary to others, as extravagance is to stinginess, and the being tortured with justice to the being tortured ■nith injustice. And such evils as these are the contraries of other evils. Again, the heavy is contrary to the light, the swift to the slow, the black to the white ; so that some things which are of a neutral character, neither good nor evil, are contrary to other things of a neu- tral character. Of contraries then, there are some which are so, as what is good is contrary to what is evil ; others, as one evil is contrary to another ; and others again, as neutral things are contrary to other things of a neutral character. LXX. Of good things there are three kinds ; for there are some which can be possessed ; others, which can be shared ; others, which one realizes in one's self. Those which can be possessed, are those which it is possible for a person to have, such as justice, or good health ; those can be shai'ed, which it is not possible for a person to have entirely to himself, but which he may participate in ; as for instance, a person cannot be the sole possessor of abstract good, but he may participate in it. Those again a person realizes in himself, when they are such, that he cannot possess them himself, or share them with others, and yet they ought to exist ; as for instance, it is good to be virtuous and just, but yet a man does not pos- sess the being virtuous, or participate in it ; but the being virtuous and just ought to exist in him. Of good things, thei'efore, there are those which are possessed, those which are shared, and those which ought to exist in a man. 150 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. LXXI. In the same mauner, good counsel is divisible into three kinds. For there is one kind whicli is derived from past time, another from the future, another from the present. That which is deiived from past time is made up of instances, as for instance what the Lacedtemonians suffered by tnisting to such and such people. That which relates to the present, is when what is wanted, is to show that the foitifications are weak, the men cowardly, or the provisions scanty. That which concerns the future, is when the speaker urges that no injury ought to be offered to ambassadors, in order that Greece may not get an evil reputation ; and supports his argument by instances. So that good counsel has reference, firstly to what is past, secondly to what is present, and thirdly to the futm"e. LXXII. Voice is divided into two parts, one of which is animated, and the other inanimate. That is animated, wliich proceeds from living animals, while sounds and echoes are inanimate. A^ain. animated voice mav be divided into that which can be indicated by lettei-s. and that which cannot ; that which can be so indicated being the voice of men, and that wliich cannot being the voice of animals ; so that one kind of voice is animated, the other inanimate. LXXIII. Of existing things, some are di^•isible and some indivisible. Again, those which are divisible, consist either of similar or of dissimilar pajls. Those which are indivisible are such as have no separate parts, and are not formed by any combination, such as unity, a point, or a sound. But those are di^'isible which are formed by some combination ; as, for instance, syllables, and symphonies, and animals, and water, and gold. These too consist of similar pai'ts, which are made up of particles resembling one another, and of which the whole does not differ from any part, except in number. As for instance, water and gold, and everything which is fusible, and so on. And these consist of dissimilar parts, which ai"e made up of various things not resembling one another ; as for instance, a house, and things of that sort ; so that of existing things, some are divisible and others indi- visible. And of those which are divisible, some consist of similar and others of dissimilar parts. LXXIV. Again, of existing things, some are spoken of as having an independent, and some only a relative existence. Those which are spoken of as having an independent exist- PLATO. 151 ence, are those which require nothing else to be added to them, when we are explaining their nature ; as man, a horse, and the other animals ; for these have no need of any additional explanation. But those things are said to have a relative existence which do require some additional explana- tion. As for instance, that wliich is greater than something else, or less, or swifter, or more beautiful, and so on. For that which is gi'eater, is greater than something which is less ; and that which is swifter, is swifter than something else. So that, of existing things, some are spoken of as independently, and others relatively. And thus he divided them at first, according to Aristotle. LXXV. There was also another man of the name of Plato, aphilosopher of Ehodes, a disciple of Pansetius, as Seleucus, the grammarian says in the first book of his treatise on Pliilo- sophy ; and another was a Peripatetic, a pupil of Aristotle ; and there was a third, a pupil of Praxiphanes ; and there was besides all these, the poet of the Old Comedy, 152 BOOK lY. LIFE OF SPEUSIPPUS. I. The long account which I have given of Plato was compiled to the best of my power, and in it I collected with great zeal and industiy all that was reported of the man. II. And he was succeeded by Speusippus, the son of Eurymedon, and a citizen of Athens, of the Myrrhinusian burgh, and he was the son of Plato's sister Potone. III. He presided over his school for eight years, beginning 1o do so in the hundred and eighth olympiad. And he set up images of the Graces in the temple of the Muses, which had been built in the Academy by Plato. lY. And he always adhered to the doctrines which had been adopted by Plato, though he was not of the same dis- position as he. For he was a passionate man, and a slave to pleasure. Accordingly, they say that he once in a rage threw a puppy into a well ; and that for the sake of amusement, he went ail the way to Macedonia to the marriage of Cassander. V. The female pupils of Plato, Lasthenea of Mantinea, and Axiothea of Phlius, are said to have become disciples of Speusippus also. And Dionysius, writing to him in a petulant manner, says, " And one may learn philosophy too from your female disciple from Arcadia; moreover, Plato used to take his pupils without exacting any fee from them ; but you collect tribute from yours, whether willing or unwilling.' VI. He was the first man, as Diodorus relates in the first book of his Commentaries, who investigated in his school what was common to the several sciences ; and who endeavoured, as far as possible, to maintain their connection with each other. He was also the first who published those things which Isocrates called secrets, as Casneus tells us. And the first too who found out how to make light baskets of bundles of twigs. VII. But he became aflflicted with paralysis, aud sent to SPEUsippus. 153 Xenocrates inviting liim to come to him, and to become his successor in his school. VIII. And they say that once, -when he was being borne in a carriage into the Academy, he met Diogenes, and said. " Hail ;" and Diogenes replied, "I will not say hail to you, ■who, though in such a state as you are, endure to live." IX. And at last in despair he put an end to his life, being a man of a great age. And -we have -written this epigram on him : — Had I not known Spensippns thus had died. No one would have persuaded me that he Was e'er akin to Plato ; who would never Have died desponding for so slight a grief. But Plutarch, in his Life of Lysander, and again in his Life of Sylla, says that he was kept in a state of constant inflammation by lice. For he was of a weak habit of body, as Timotheus relates in his treatise on Lives. X. Speusippus said to a rich man who was in love with an ugly woman, " What do you want with her? I will find you a much prettier woman for ten talents." XL He left behind him a great number of commentaries, and many dialogues ; among which was one on Aristippus ; one on Riches ; one on Pleasure ; one on Justice ; one on Philosophy ; one on Friendship ; one on the Gods ; one called the Philosopher ; one addressed to Cephalus ; one called Cephalus ; one called Clinomachus. or Lysias ; one called the Citizen; one on the Soul; one addressed to Gn-llus ; one called Ai-istippus ; one called the Test of Art. There were also Commentaries by way of dialogues ; one on Art ; and ten about those things which are alike in their treatment. There are also books of divisions and arguments directed to similar things ; Essays on the Genera and Species of Examples ; an Essay addressed to Amartynus ; a Panegyric on Plato ; Lettei-s to Dion, and Dionysius, and Philip ; an Essay on Legislation. There is also, the Mathematician ; the Mandrobulus ; the Lysias ; Definitions ; and a series of Commentaries. There are in all, forty-three thousand four hundred and seventy-five lines. Simonides dedicated to him the Histories, in which he had related the actions of Dion and Bion. And in the second 154 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. book of his Commentaries, Pharorinus states that Aristotle purchased his books for three talents. XII. There was also another person of the name of Speu- sippus, a physician of the school of Herophilus,* a native of Alexandria. LIFE OF XENO CRATES. I. Xenocrates was the son of Agathenor, and a native of Chalcedon. From his early youth he was a pupil of Plato, and also accompanied him in liis voyages to Sicily. II. He was by nature of a lazy disposition, so that they say that Plato said once, when comparing him to Aristotle, — " The one requires the spur, and the other the bridle." And on another occasion, he said, " What a horse and what an ass am I dressing opposite to one another ! " III. In other respects Xenocrates was always of a solemn and grave character, so that Plato was continually saying to him, — "Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces." And he spent the greater part of his time in the Academy, and whenever he was about to go into the city, they say all the turbulent and quarrelsome rabble in the city used to make way for him to pass by. And once, Phryne the courtesan wished to try him and pretending that she was pursued by some people, she fled and took refuge in his house; and he admitted her indeed, because of what was due to humanity ; and as there was but one bed in the room, he, at her entreaty, allowed her to share it with Mm ; but at last, in spite of all her entreaties, she got up and went away, without having been able to succeed in her purpose ; and told those who asked her, that she had quitted a statue and not a man. But some say that the real story is, that his pupils put Lais into his bed, and that he was so con- tinent, that he submitted to some severe operations of excision and cauteiy. * Herophilus was one of the-most celebrated physicians of antiquity, who founded the Medical School at Alexandria, in the time of the first Ptolemy. XENOCRATES. 155 IV. And he was a very trustworthy man ; so that, though it was not la^^•ful for men to give evidence except on oath, the Athenians made an exception in his favour alone. V. He was also a man of the most contented disposition ; accordingly they say that when Alexander sent him a large sum of money, he took three thousand Attic drachmas, and sent back the rest, saying, that Alexander wanted most, as he had the greatest number of mouths to feed. And when some was sent him by Antipater, he would not accept any of it, as Myornianus tells us in his Simihtudes. And once, when he gained a golden crown, in a contest as to who could drink most, which was offered in the yearly festival of the Choes by Dionysius, he went out and placed the crown at the feet of the statue of Mercury, which was at the gate, where he was also accustomed to deposit his garlands of Sowers. It is said also, that he was once sent with some colleagues as an ambas- sador to Pliihp ; and that they were won over by gifts, and went to his banquets and conversed with Philip ; but that he would do none of these things, nor could PhiUp propitiate him by these means ; on which account, when the other am- bassadors arrived in Athens, they said that Xenocrates had gone with them to no purpose ; and the people were ready to punish him ; but when they had learnt from him that they had now more need than ever to look to the welfare of their city, for that Philip had already bribed all their counsellors, but that he had been unable to win him over by any means, then they say that the people honoured him with redoubled honour. They add also, that Philip said afterwards, that Xenocrates was the only one of those who had come to him who was in- corruptible. And when he went as ambassador to Antipater on the subject of the Athenian captives at the time of the Samian war, and was invited by him to a banquet, he addressed him in the following lines : — I answer, Goddess human, ia thy breast By justice sway'd, by tender pity prest ? Ill fits it me, whose friends are sunk to beasts, To quaff thy bowls, or riot in thy feasts : Me would'st thou please, for them thy cares employ, And them to me restore, and me to joy ?* * Horn. Od. X. 387. Pope's Version, 450. 15G LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. And Antipater, admiring the appropriateness of the quotation, immediately released them. VI. On one occasion, when a sparrow was pursued by a hawk, and flew into his bosom, he caressed it, and let it go again, saying that we ouglit not to betray a suppliant. And being ridiculed by Bion, he said that he would not answer him, for that tragedy, when ridiculed by comedy, did not con- descend to make a reply. To one who had never learnt music, or geometry, or astronomy, but Avho wished to become his dis- ciple, he said, " Be gone, for you have not yet the handles of philosophy." But some say that he said, " Be gone, for I do not card wool here." And when Dionysius said to Plato that some one would cut off his head, he, being present, showed his own, and said, " Not before they have cut off mine." VII. They say too that once, when Antipater had come to Athens and saluted him, he would not make him any reply before he had finished quietly the discourse which he was delivering. VIII. Being exceedingly devoid of every kind of pride, he often used to meditate with himself several times a day ; and always allotted one hour of each day, it is said, to silence. IX. And he left behind him a great number of writings, and books of recommendation, and verses, which are these, — six books on Natural Philosophy ; sLx on Wisdom ; one on Riches, the Arcadian ; one volume on the Indefinite ; one on a Child ; one on Temperance ; one on the Useful ; one on the Free ; one on Death ; one on the Voluntary ; two on Friend- ship ; one on Courtesy ; two on Contraries ; two on Happi- ness ; one on Writing ; one on Memory ; one on Falsehood ; the Callicles one ; two on Prudence ; one on fficonomy ; one on Temperance ; one on the Power of Law ; one on Political Constitutions ; one on Piety ; one to show that Virtue may be transmitted ; one about the Existent ; one on Fate ; one on the ' Passions ; one on Lives ; one on Unanimity ; two on Pupils ; one on Justice ; two on Virtue ; one on Species ; two on Pleasure : one on Life : one on Manly Courage ; one on The One; one on Ideas; one on Art; two on the Gods; two on the Soul ; one on Knowledge ; one on the Statesman ; one on Science ; one on Philosophy ; one on the School of Parme- nides : one the Archidemus, or an essay on Justice ; one on the Good ; eight of those things which concern the Intellect ; XENOCRATES 157 ten essays in solution of the difficulties which occur respecting Orations ; six books on the study of Natural Philosophy ; the Principal, one ; one treatise on Genus and Species ; one on the doctrines of the Pythagoreans ; two books of Solutions ; seven of Divisions ; several volumes of Propositions ; several also about the method of conducting Discussions. Besides all this, there are one set of fifteen volumes, and another of sixteen, on the subject of those studies which relate to Speaking; nine more which treat of Ratiocination ; six books on Mathe- matics ; two more books on subjects connected with the Intel- lect ; five books on Geometry ; one book of Reminiscences ; one of Contraries ; one on Arithmetic ; one on the Contem- plation of Numbers ; one on Intervals ; six on Astronomy ; four of elementary suggestions to Alexander, on the subject of Royal Power ; one addressed to Arybas ; one addressed to Hephaestion ; two on Geometry ; seven books of Verses. X. But the Athenians, though he was such a great man, once sold him, because he was unable to pay the tax to which the metics were liable. And Demetrius Phalereus purchased him, and so assisted both parties, Xenocrates by giving him his freedom, and the Athenians in respect of the tax upon metics. This circumstance is mentioned by Myronianus of Amastra. in the first book of his chapters of Historical Coincidences. XL He succeeded Spuesippus, and presided over the school for twenty-five years, beginning at the archonship of Lysi- machides, in the second year of the hundred and tenth olympiad. XII. And he died m consequence of stumbling by night against a dish, being more than eighty-two years of age. And in one of our epigrams we speak thus of him : — He .struck agaiust a brazen pot, And cut his forehead deep, And crying cruel is my lot. In death he fell asleep. So thus Xenocrates did fall, The universal friend of all. XIII. And there were five other people of the name of Xenocrates. One was an ancient tactician, a fellow citizen, and very near relation of the philosopher of whom we have been speaking ; and there is extant an oration of his which is scribed. On Arsinoe, and which was written on the death of 158 LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. Arsinoe. A third was a pliilosoplier who wrote some very in- different elegiac poetry ; and that is not strange, for when poets take to writing in prose, they succeed pretty well ; but when prose writers try their hand at poetry, they fail ; from which it is plain, that the one is a gift of nature, and the other a work of art. The fourth was a statuary ; the fifth a writer of songs, as we are told by Aristoxenus. LIFE OF POLEMO. I. PoLEMO was the son of Philostratus, an Athenian, of the burgh of Ma. And when he was young, he was so very in- temperate and profligate, that he used always to carry money about with him, to procure the instant gratification of his passions ; and he used also to hide money in the narrow alleys, for this purpose. And once there was found in the Academy a piece of three obols, hidden against one of the columns, wliich he had put there for some purpose like that which I have indi- cated ; and on one occasion he arranged beforehand with some young men, and rushed, adorned with a garland, and drunk, into the school of Xeuocrates. But he took no notice of him. and continued his discourse as he had begun it, and it was in praise of temperance ; and the young man, hearing it, was gradually charmed, and became so industrious, that he sur- passed all the rest of the disciples, and himself became the successor of Xenocrates, in his school beginning in the hundred and sixteenth olympiad. II. And Antigonus, of Carystus, says in his Lives, that his father had been the cliief man of the city, and had kept chariots for the Olympic games. III. He also asserts that Polemo was prosecuted by his wife, on the charge of ill-treatment, because he indulged in ilhcit pleasures, and despised her. IV. But that when he began to devote himself to philo- sophy, he adopted such a rigorous system of morals, that he for the future always continued the same in appearance, and never even changed his voice, on which account Grantor was charmed by him. Accordingly, on one occasion, when a dog was mad and had bitten his leg, he was the only person who did not turn POLEMO. 159 pale ; and once, when there was a great confusion in the city, he, having heard the cause, remained where he was without fleeing. In the theatres too he was quite immoveable ; accord- ingly, when Nicostratus the poet, who was surnamed Clytaem- nestra, was once reading something to him and Crates, the latter was excited to sympathy, he behaved as though he heard nothing. And altogether, he was such as Melanthius, the painter, describes in his treatise on Painting ; for he says that some kind of obstinacy and harshness ought to exist in works of art as in morals. And Polemo used to say that a man ought to exercise him- self in action, and not in dialectic speculations, as if one had di'unk in and dwelt upon a harmonious land of system of art, so as to be admired for one's shrewdness, in putting questions ; but to be inconsistent with one's self in character. He was, then, a well-bred and high-spirited man, avoiding what Aristophanes says of Euripides, speeches of vinegar and assafoetida, such as he says himself : — Are base delights compared witli better things ? V. And he did not use to lecture on the propositions before him while sitting down ; but he would walk about, it is said, and so discuss them. And he was much honoured in the city because of his noble sentiments ; and after he had been walking about, he would rest in his garden ; and liis pupils erected little cabins near it, and dwelt near his school and corridor. VT. And as it seems, Polemo imitated Xenocrates in every- thing ; and Aristippus, in the fourth book of his treatise on Ancient Luxur}% says that Xenocrates loved him ; at all events, Polemo used to be always speaking of him, and praising his guileless nature, and his rigorous virtues, and his chaste severity, like that of a Doric building. VII. He was f also very fond of Sophocles, and especially of those passages where, according to one of the comic poets, he seemed to have had a Molossian hound for his colleague in composing his poems; and when there was, to use the expression of Plnynichus : — 'No sweet or washy liquor, but purest Pramnian wiae. And he used to say that Homer was an epic Sophocles, and Sophocles a tragic Homer. YIII. And he died when he was very old, of decUne, having IRQ LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. left behind him a great number of writings. And there is this epigram of ours upon him : — Do you not hear, we've buried Polemo, Whom sickness, worst affliction of mankind Attacked, and bore off to the shades below ; Yet Polemo lies not here, but Polemo's body, And that he did himself place here on earth, Prepared in soul to mount up to the skies. LIFE OF CRATES. I. Crates was the son of Antigenes, and of the Thriasian burgh, and a pupil and attached friend of Polemo. He was also his successor as president of his school. II. And they benefited one another so much, that not only did they delight while alive in the same pursuits, but almost to their latest breath did they resemble one another, and even after they were both dead they shared the same tomb. In reference to which circumstance Antagoras has written an epigram on the pair, in which he expresses himself thus : — Stranger, who passest by, relate that here The God-like Crates lies, and Polemo ; Two men of kindred nobleness of mind ; Out of whose holy mouths pure wisdom flowed, And they with upright lives did well display. The strength of all their principles and teaching. And they say too that it was in reference to this that Arcesi- laus, when he came over to them from Theophrastus, said that they were some gods, or else a remnant of the golden race ; for they were not very fond of courting the people, but had a disposition in accordance with the saying of Dionysodorus the flute player, who is reported to have said, with great exulta- tion and pride, that no one had ever heard his music in a trireme or at a fountain as they had heard Ismenius. III. Antigonus relates that he used to be a messmate of Grantor, and that these philosophers and Arcesilaus lived to- gether ; and that Arcesilaus lived in Grantor's house, but that Polemo and Grates lived in the house of one of the citizens. CBANTOR. ] G 1 named Lysicles ; and he says that Crates was, as T have ah'eady mentioned, greatly attached to Polemo, and so was Arcesilaus to Grantor. IV. But when Crates died, as Apollodorus relates in the third book of his Chronicles, he left behind him compositions, some on philosophical subjects and some on comedy, and some which were speeches addressed to assemblies of the people, or delivered on the occasion of embassies. V. He also left behind him some eminent disciples, among •whom were Arcesilaus, about whom Ave shall speak presently, for he too was a pupil of his. and Bion of the Borysthenes, who was afterwards called a Theodorean, from the sect which he espoused, and we shall speak of him immediately after Arcesilaus. VI. But there were ten people of the name of Crates. The first was a poet of the old comedy ; the second was an orator of Tralles, a pupil of Isocrates ; the third was an engineer who served under Alexander ; the fourth a Cynic, whom we shall mention hereafter ; the fifth a Peripatetic philosopher ; the sixth the Academic philosopher, of whom we are speaking; the seventh a grammarian of Malos ; the eighth a writer in geo- metry ; the ninth an epigrammatic poet ; the tenth was an Academic philosopher, a native of Tarsus. LIFE OF CRANTOR. I. Grantor, a native of Soli, being admired very greatly in his own country, came to Athens and became a pupil of Xeno- crates at the same time with Polemo. II. And he left behind him memorials, in the shape of writings, to the number of 30,000 lines, some of which, how- ever, are by some writers attributed to Arcesilaus. III. They say of him that when he was asked what it was that he was so charmed with in Polemo, he replied, " That he had never heard him speak in too high or too low a key." IV. When he was ill he retired to the temple of ^scula- pius, and there walked about, and people came to him from all quarters, thinkng that he had gone thither, not on account of M 162 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. any disease, but because he wished to establish a school there. V. Aud among those who came to him was Arcesilaus, wish- ing to be recommended by liim to Polemo, although he was much attached to him, as we shall mention in the life of Arce- silaus. But when he got well he became a pupil of Polemo, aud was excessively admired on that account. It is said, also, that he left his property to Arcesilaus, to the amount of twelve talents ; and that, being asked by him where he would like to be buried, he said : — It is a happy fate to lie entombed In the recesses of a well-lov'd land. VI. It is said also that he wrote poems, and that he sealed them up in the temple of Minerva, in his own country ; and Mesetetus the poet wrote thus about him : — Grantor pleased men ; but greater pleasure still He to the Muses gave, ere he aged grew. Earth, tenderly embi-ace the holy man, And let him lie in quiet undisturb'd. And of all writers. Grantor admired Homer and Euripides most ; saying that the hardest thing possible was to write tra- gically and in a manner to excite sympathy, without departing from nature ; and he used to quote this line out of the Belle- rophon : — Alas ! why should I say alas ! for we Have only borne the usual fate of man. The following verses of Antagoras the poet are also attri- buted to Grantor ; the subject is love, and they run thus : — My mind is much perplexed ; for what, Love, Dare I pronounce your origin ? May I Call you chiefest of the immortal Gods, Of all the children whom dark Erebus And Royal Night bore on the billowy waves Of widest Ocean ? Or shall I bid you hail, As son of proudest Venus ? or of Earth ? Or of the untamed winds ? so fierce you rove, Bringing mankind sad cares, yet not unmixed With happy good, so two-fold is yom- natm-e. And he was very ingenious at devising new words and ex- pressions ; accordingly, he said that one tragedian had an un- hewn (d'7rsXi-/.riroi) voice, all over bark ; and he said that the ARCESILAUS. 163 verses of a certain poet were full of moths ; and that the pro- positions of Theophrastus had been written on an oyster shell. But the work of his which is most admired is his book on Mourning. VII. And he died before Polemo and Crates, having been attacked by the dropsy ; and we have written tliis epigram on him : — The worst of sicknesses has overwhelmed you, O Grantor, and you thus did quit the earth. Descending to the dark abyss of Hell. Now you are happy there ; but all the while The sad Academy, and your native land Of Soli mourn, bereaved of your eloquence. LIFE OF ARCESILAUS. I. ARCESILAUS was the son of Seuthes or Scythes, as Apollo- dorus states in the third book of his Chronicles, and a native of Pitane in vEolia. II. He was the original founder of the Middle Academy, and the first man who professed to suspend the declaration of his judgment, because of the contrarieties of the reasons alleged ou either side. He was likewise the first who attempted to ai'gue on both sides of a question, and who also made the method of discussion, whicli had been handed down by Plato, by means of question and answer, more contentious than before. III. He met with Grantor in the following manner. He was one of four brothers, two by the same father and two by the same mother. Of those who were by the same mother the eldest was Pylades, and of those by the same father the eldest was Msereas, who was his guardian ; and at first he was a pupil of Autolycus the mathematician, who happened to be a fellow citizen of his before he went to Athens ; and with Autolycus he travelled as far as Sardis. After that he became a pupil of Xanthus the musician, arid after that attended the lectures of Theophrastus, and subsequently came over to the Academy to Crantor. For Mtereas his brother, whom I have mentioned M 2 164 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS, before, urged him to apply himself to rhetoric ; hut he himself had a preference for philosophy, and when he became much attached to him Crautor asked him, quoting a hne out of the Andromeda of Euripides ; — virgin, if I save you, vnll you thank me ? And he replied by quoting the next hne to it : — take me to you, stranger, as year slave, Or wife, or what you please. And ever after that they became very intimate, so that they say Tbeophrastus was much annoyed, and said, " That a most ingenious and well-disposed young man had deserted his school." IV. For he was not only very impressive in his discourse, and displayed a great deal of learning in it, but he also tried his hand at poetry, and there is extant an epigram which is attributed to him, addressed to Attains, which is as follows : — Pergamus is not famed for arms alone, But often hears its praise resound For its fine horses, at the holy Pisa. Yet, if a mortal may declare, Its fate as hidden in the breast of Jove, It will be famous for its woes. There is another addressed to Menodorus the son of Euda- mus, who was attached to one of his fellow pupils : — Phrygia is a distant land, and so Is sacred Thyatira, and Cadanade, Yoiu' country Menodorus. But from all, As the unvaried song of bards relates. An equal road does lie to Acheron, That dark unmentioned river ; so you lie Here far from home ; and here Eudamus raises This tomb above your bones, for he did love you. Though you were poor, with an undying love. But he admired Homer above all poets, and always used to read a portion of his works before going to sleep ; and in the morning he would say that he was going to the object of his love, when he was going to read him. He said, too, that Pindar was a wonderful man for filhug the voice, and pouring AECESILAUS. 165 forth an abundant variety of words and expressions. He also, ■when be was a young man, wrote a criticism on Ion. V. And he was a pupil likewise of Hipponicus, the geome- trican, whom he used to ridicule on other points as being lazy and gaping ; but he admitted that in his own profession he was clear sighted enough, and said that geometry had flown into his mouth while he was yawning. And when he went out of his mind, he took him to his own house, and took care oi him till he recovered his senses. VI. xind when Crates died, he succeeded him in the presi- dency of his schools, a man of the name of Socrates willingly yielding to him. VII. And. as he suspended his judgment on every point, he never, as it is said, wrote one single book. But others say that he was once detected correcting some passages in a work of his ; and some assert that he published it, while others deny it, and affirm that he threw it into the fire. VIII. He seems to have been a great admirer of Plato, and he possessed all his writings. He also, according to some authorities, had a very high opinion of Pyrrho. IX. He also studied dialectics, and the discussions of the Eretrian school ; on which account Ariston said of him : — First Plato comes, and Pyrrho last, And in the middle Diodorus. And Timon speaks thus of him : — For having on this side the heavy load Of Menedemus plac'd beneath his breast, He'll to stout Pyrrho run, or Diodorus. And presently afterwards he represents him as saying : — I'll swim to Pyri'ho, or that crooked sophist Called Diodorus. X. He was exceedingly fond of employing axioms, very concise in his diction, and when speaking he laid an emphasis on each separate word. XI. He was also very fond of attacking others, and very free spoken, on which account Timon in another passage speaks of him thus : — You'll not escape all notice while yon tlnis Attack the young man with your biting sarcasm. 106 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. Once, when a young man was arguing against him with more boldness than usual, he said, " Will no one stop his mouth with the knout ?"* And to a man who lay under the general imputation of low debauchery, and who argued with him that one thing was not greater than another, he asked him whether a cup holding two pints was not larger than one which held only one. There was a certain Chian named Hemon, ex- ceedingly ugly, but who fancied himself good looking, and always went about in fine clothes ; this man asked him one day, " If he thought that a wise man could feel attachment to him ; " " Why should he not," said he, " when they love even those who are less handsome than you, and not so well-dressed either?" and when the man, though one of the vilest charac- ters possible, said to Arcesilaus as if he were addressing a very rigid man : — ^c- 0, noble man, may I a question put, Or must I hold my tongue ? Arcesilaus replied : — wretched woman, why do you thus roughen Your voice, not speaking in your usual manner ? And once, when he was j)lagued by a chattering fellow of low extraction, he said : — The sons of slaves are always talking vilely. + Another time, when a talkative man was giving utterance to a great deal of nonsense, he said, that " He had not had a nurse who was severe enough." And to some people he never gave any answer at all. On one occasion a usurer, who made pretence to some learning, said in his hearing that he did not know something or other, on which he rejoined : — For often times the passing winds do fiU The female bird, except when big with young.J * Perhaps there is a pun here ; arrrpayaXo^ means not only a knout composed of small bones strung together, but also a die. t This is a quotation from some lost play of Euripides, slightly altered ; the line, as printed in the Variorum Edition, vol. vii., Mc. Trag. cxxx. is — uKoXacfTa iravTa yiverai, doiXwv TSKva. J There is a pun here which is untranslateable. The Greek is irXrjv oTav tokoq Trapy, meaning usui-y, and also offspring or delivery. , ARCESILAUS. 167 And the lines corae out of the ^noraaus of Sophocles. He once reminded a certain dialectician, a pupil of Aleximes, who was unable to explain correctly some saying of his master, of what had been done by Philoxenus to some brick-makers. For when they were singing some of his songs very badly he came upon them, and trampled their bricks under foot, saying, " As you spoil my works so will I spoil yours." XII. And he used to be very indignant with those who neglected proper opportunities of applying themselves to learn- ing ; and he had a peculiar habit, while conversing, of using the expression, " I think," and " So and so," naming the per- son, " will not agree to this," And this was imitated by several of his pupils, who copied also his style of expression and every- thing about him. He was a man very ready at inventing new words, and very quick at meeting objections, and at bringing round the conversation to the sulyect before him, and at adapt- ing it to every occasion, and he was tlie most convincing speaker that could be found, on which account numbers of people flocked to his school, in spite of being somewhat alarmed at his severity, which however they bore with complacency, for he was a \e\y kind man, and one who inspired his hearers with abundant hope, and in his manner of life he was verv' affable and liberal, always ready to do any one a service with- out any parade, and shrinking from any expression of gratitude on the part of those whom he had obliged. Accordingly once, when he had gone to visit Ctesibius wdio was ill, seeing him in gi'eat distress from want, he secretly slipped his purse under his pillow ; and when Ctesibius found it, " This," said he, " is the amusement of Arcesilaus." And at another time he sent him a thousand drachmas. He it was also who introduced Archias the Arcadian to Eumenes, and who procured him many favours from him, XIII. And being a veiy liberal man and utterly regardless of money, he made the most splendid display of silver plate, and in his exhibition of gold plate he vied with that of Arche- crates and Callecrates ; and he was constantly assisting and contributing to the wants of others with money ; and once, when some one had borrowed from him some articles of silver plate to help him entertain his friends, and did not offer to re- turn them, he never asked for them back or reclaimed them : but some say that he lent them with the purpose that they 108 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. should be kept, and that when the man returned them, he made him a present of them as he was a poor man. He had also property in Pitana, the revenues from which were trans- mitted to him by his brother Pylades. XIV. Moreover, Eumenes, the son of Philetserus, supplied him with many things, on which account he was the only king to whom he addressed any of his discourses. And when many philosophers paid court to Antigonus and went out to meet him when he arrived, he himself kept quiet, not -vvishing to make his acquaintance. But he was a great friend of Hierocles, the governor of the harbours of Munychia and the Piraeus ; and at festivals he always paid him a visit. And when he constantly endeavoured to persuade him to pay his respects to Antigonus, he would not ; but though he accom- panied him as far as his gates, he turned back himself. And after the sea-fight of Antigonus, when many people went to him and wrote him lettei-s to comfort him for his defeat, he neither went nor wrote ; but still in the service of his country, he went to Demetrias as ambassador to Anti- gonus, and succeeded in the object of his mission. XV. And he spent all his time in the Academy, and avoided meddling with public affairs, but at times he would spend some days in the Pirteus of Athens, discoursing on philo- sophical subjects, from his friendship for Hierocles, which conduct of his gave rise to unfavourable reports being raised against him by some people. XVI. Being a man of very expensive habits, for he was in this respect a sort of second Aristippus, he often went to dine with his friends. He also lived openly with Theodote and Philgete, two courtesans of Elis ; and to those who reproached him for this conduct, he used to quote the opinions of Aris- tippus. He was also very fond of the society of young men, and of a very affectionate disposition, on which account Aristi, the Chian, a Stoic philosopher, used to accuse him of being a corrupter of the youth of the city, and a profligate man. He is said also to have been greatly attached to Demetrius, who sailed to Cyrene, and to Cleochares of Mydea, of whom he said to his messmates, that he wished to open the door to him, but that he prevented him. XVII. Demochares the son of Laches, and Pythocles the sou of Bugelus, were also among liis friends, and he said that AECESILAUS. 109 he humoured them in all their wishes because of his great patience. And, on this account, those people to whom I have before alluded, used to attack him and ridicule him as a popularity hunter and vain-glorious man. And they set upon him very violently at an entertainment given by Hieronymus, the Peripatetic, when he invited his friends on the birthday of Alcymeus, the son of Antigouus, on which occasion Anti- gonus sent him a large sum of money to promote the con- viviality. On this occasion, as he avoided all discussion during the continuance of the banquet, when Aridelus pro- posed to him a question wliich required some deliberation, and entreated him to discourse upon it, it is said that he replied, " But tlus is more especially the business of philosophy, to know the proper time for everything." With reference to the charge that was brought against him of being a popularity hunter, Timon speaks, among other matters, mentioning it in the following manner : — He spoke and glided quick among the crowd, They gazed on him as finches who behold An owl among them. You then please the people ! Alas, poor fool, 'tis no great matter that ; Why give yourself such airs for such a ti-ifle ? XVIII. However, in all other respects he was so free from vanity, that he used to advise his pupils to become the dis- ciples of other men ; and once, when a young man from Chios was not satisfied with his school, but preferred that of Hiero- nymus, whom I have mentioned before, he himself took him and introduced him to that philosopher, recommending him to preserve his regularity of conduct. And there is a very witty saying of his recorded. For when some one asked him once, why people left other schools to go to the Epicureans, but no one left the Epicureans to join other sects, he replied, " People sometimes make eunuchs of men, but no one can ever make a man out of an eunuch." XIX. At last, when he was near his end, he left all his property to his brother Pylades, because he, without the knowledge of Maereas, had taken him to Chios and had brought him from thence to Athens. He never married a wife, and never had any children. He made three copies of his will, and deposited one in Eretria with Amphicritus, and 170 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. one at Athens with some of his friends, and the third he sent to his own home to Thaumasias. one of his relations, en- treating him to keep it. And he also wrote him the following letter : — AECESILAUS TO THAUIMASIAS. *' I have given Diogenes a copy of nay will to convey to you. For, because I am frequently unwell and have got very in- firm. I have thought it right to make a will, that, if anything should happen to me I might not depart with the feehngs of having done you any injury, who have been so constantly af- fectionate to me. And as you have been at all times the most faithful to me of all my friends, I entreat you to preserve tliis for me out of regard for my old age and your regard for me. Take care then to behave justly towards me, remembering how much I entrast to your integrity, so that I may appear to have managed my affairs well, as fai' as depends on you ; and there is another copy of this will at Athens, in the care of some of my friends, and another at Eretria, in the hands of Amphicritus." XX. He died, as Hermippus relates, after having drank an excessive quantity of wine, and then became delirious, when he was seventy-five years old : and he was more beloved by the Athenians than any one else had ever been. And we have written the following epigram on him : — wise Arcesilaus, why didst thou drink So vast a quantity of unmixed wine, As to lose all your senses, and then die ? 1 pity you not so much for your death, As for the instilt that you thus did offer The Muses, by your sad excess in -wine. XXI. There were also three other persons of the name of Arcesilaus ; one a poet of the old Comedy : another an elegiac poet; the third a sculptor, on whom Simonides wi'ote the following epigram : — This is a statue of chaste Dian's self The price two hundred Parian drachmas fine, Stamp'd with the image of the wanton goat. It is the work of wise Arcesilaus, The son of Aristodicus : a man, WTiose hands Minerva guided in his art. BION. 171 The philosopher of whom we have been speaking flourished, as Apollodorus tells us in his Chronicles, about the hundred and twentieth olympiad. LIFE OF BION/ I. BioN -was a native of the country around the Borysthenes ; but as to who his parents were, and to what circumstances it was owing that he applied himself to the study of philosophy, we know no more than what he himself told Antigonus. For when Antigonus asked him :— What art thou, say ! from whence, from whom you came, Who are your parents ? tell thy race, thy name ;* He,' knowing that he had been misrepresented to the king, said to him, " My father was a freedman, who used to wipe his mouth with his sleeve," (by which he meant that he used to sell salt fish). " As to his race, he was a native of the district of the Borysthenes ; having no countenance, but only a brand in hij face, a token of the bitter cruelty of his master. My mother was such a woman as a man of that condition might marry, taken out of a brothel. Then, my father being in arrears to the tax gatherers, was sold with all his family, and with me among them ; and as I was young and good looking, a certain orator purchased me, and when he died he left me everything. And I, having burnt all his books, and torn up all his papers, came to Athens and applied myself to the study ^of Philo- sophy : — Such was my father, and from him I came, The honoured author of my birth and name.t This is all that I can tell you of myself: so that Persaius and Philonides may give up telling these stories about me : and you may judge of me on my own merits." * Hem. Od. X. 33.5. Pope's Version, 387. + Hom. II. vi. 211. Pope's Version, 254. 17 "2 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. II. And Bion was tnily a man of great versatility, and a very subtle philosopher, and a man who gave all who chose great opportunities of practising philosophy. In some respects he was of a gentle disposition, and veiy much inclined to indulge in vanity. III. And he left behind him many memorials of liimself in the way of writings, and also many apophthegms full of useful sentiments. As for instance, once when he was reproved for having failed to charm a young man, he replied, " You cannot possibly draw up cheese with a hook before it has got hard." On another occasion he was asked who was the most miserable of men, and replied, " He who has set his heart on the greatest prosperity." When he was asked whether it was advisable to marry (for this answer also is attributed to him), he replied, " If you marry an ugly woman you will have a punishment {■-oi'jr,), and if a handsome woman you will have one who is common" (xoiv/i). He called old age a port to shelter one from misfortune ; and accordingly, he said that every one fled to it. He said that glory was the mother of years ; that beauty was a good which concerned others rather than one's self; that riches were the sinews of business. To a man who had squandered his estate he said, " The earth swallowed up Amphiaraus, but you have swallowed up the earth." Another saying of his was that it was a great evil not to be able to bear evil. And he condemned those who burnt the dead as though they felt nothing, and then mocked them as though they did feel. And he was always saying that it was better to put one's own beauty at the disposal of another, than to covet the beauty of others ; for that one who did so was injuring both his body and his soul. And he used to blame Socrates saying, that if he derived no advantage from Alcibiades he was foolish, and if he never derived any advantage from him he then deserved no credit. He used to say that the way to the shades below was easy ; and accordingly, that people went there %\ith their eyes shut. He used to blame Alcibiades, saying that while he was a boy he seduced husbands from their wives, and when he had become a young man he seduced the wives from their husbands. While most of the Athenians at Rhodes practised rhetoric, he liimself used to give lectures on philoso- phical subjects ; and to one who blamed him for this he said, " I have bought wheat, and I sell barley." BION. ] T3 It was a saying of his that the inhabitants of the shades below would be more punished if they carried water in buckets that were whole, than in such as were bored. To a chattering fellow who was soliciting him for aid, he said, " I will do what is sufficient for you, if you will send deputies to me, and forbear to come yourself." Once when he was at sea in the company of some wicked men, he fell into the hands of pirates ; and when the rest said, "We are undone, if we are known." " But I," said he, " am undone if we are not known." He used to say that self-conceit was the enemy of progi'ess. Of a rich man who was mean and niggardly, he said, " That man does not possess his estate, but his estate possesses him." He used to say that stingy men took care of their property as if it was their own, but derived no advantage from it as if it belonged to other people. Another of his sayings was, that young men ought to display courage, but that old men ought to be distinguished for i>i-udence. And that prudence was as much superior to the other virtues as sight was to the other senses. And that it was not right to speak of old age, at which every one is desirous to arrive. To an envious man who was looking gloomy, he said, " I know not whether it is because some misfortune has happened to you, or some good fortune to some one else." One thing that he used to say was, that a mean extraction was a bad companion to freedom of speech. For : — It does enslave a man, however bold His speech may be.* And another was that we ought to keep our friends, what- ever sort of people they may be, so that we may not seem to have been intimate with wicked men, or to have abandoned good men. IV. Very early in his career he abandoned the school of the Academy, and at the same time became a disciple of Crates Then he passed over to the sect of the Cynics, taking their coarse cloak and wallet. For what else could ever have changed his nature into one of such apathy ? After that he adopted the Theodorean principles, having become a disciple of Theodoras the Atheist, who was used to employ every kind of I'easoning in support of his system of philosophy. After * This is a quotation from the Hippolytus of Euripides, v. 424. 174 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. leaving him, he became a pupil of Theophrastus, the Peripa tetic. V. He was very fond of theatrical entertainments, and very- skilful in distracting his hearers by exciting a laugh, giving things disparaging names. And because he used to avail himself of every species of reasoning, they relate that Eretos- thenes said that Bion was the first person who had clothed philosophy in a floweiy robe. VI. He was also very ingenious in parodying passages, and adapting them to circumstances as they arose. As for instance, I may cite the following : — Tender Archytas, born of tuneful lyre, "WTiom thoughts of happy vanity inspire ; Most skilled of mortals in appeasing ire.* And he jested on eveiy part of music and geometry. VII. He was a man of veiy expensive habits, and on this account he used to go from city to city, and at times he would contrive the most amazing devices. VIII. Accordhigly, in Rhodes, he persuaded the sailors to put on the habiliments of philosophical students and follow him about ; and then he made himself conspicuous by entering the gymnasium with this train of followers. IX. He was accustomed also to adopt young men as his sons, in order to derive assistance from them in his pleasures, and to be protected by their affection for him. But he was a very selfish man, and very fond of quoting the saying, " The property of friends is common ;" owing to which it is that no one is spoken of as a disciple of his, though so many men * I doubt if the wit of these parodies will be appreciated by the modern reader. The lines of Homer, which they are intended to parody, are : — ""Q fidicap ArpitSi], noiprjysveQ, 6\/3io^aiuwv. — II. 3, 182. rji (TV ll7]\itSi], TrduTwv tfCTrayXorar' dvSpwv. — Jl. v. 146. The first of which is translated by Pope : — Oh, blest Atrides, born of prosperous fate, Successful monarch of a mighty state ! The Greek parody in the test is : — 'Q TTtTiOV ^ApxvTa, ipa\\i]ye7'ec, oKfiioTvipt J^q vnarrjg tpicog T^dvTojv ijx-KtiporaT dvdpCjv. BION. 175 attended his school. And he made some very shameless ; accordingly, Betion, one of his intimate acquaintances, is reported to have said once to Menedemus, " So Menedemus constantly spends the evening with Bion, and I see no harm iu it." He used also to talk with great impiety to those who conversed with him, having derived his opinions on this suhject from Theodorus. X. And when at a later period he became aflflicted with disease, as the people of Chalcis said, for he died there, he was persuaded to wear amulets and charms, and to show his repentance for the insults that he had offered to the Gods. But he suffered fearfully for want of proper people to attend him, until Antigonus sent him two servants. And he followed him in a litter, as Pharorinus relates in his Universal Histoiy. And the circumstances of liis death we have oui'selves spoken of in the following lines : — We hear that Bion the Borysthenite, Whom the ferocious Scythian land brought forth, Used to deny that there were Gods at all. Now, if he'd persevered in this opinion. One would have said he speaks just as he thinks ; Though certainly his thoughts are quite mistaken. But when a lengthened sickness overtook him, And he began to fear lest he should die ; This man who heretofore denied the Gods, And would not even look upon a temple, And mocked all those who e'er approached the Gods With prayer or sacrifice ; who ne'er, not even For his own hearth, and home, and household table. Regaled the Gods with savoury fat and incense. Who never once said, " I have sinned, but spare me." Then did this atheist shrink, and give his neck To an old woman to hang charms upon. And bound his arms with magic amulets, With laurel branches blocked hia doors and windows, Ready to do and venture anything Rather than die. Fool that he was, who thought To win the Gods to come into existence. Whenever he might think he wanted them. So wise too late, when now mere dust and ashes. He put his hand forth, Hail, great Pluto, Hail ! XI. There were ten people of the name of Bion. First of all, the one who flourished at the same time witli Pherecydes of Syros, and who has left two books behind him, which are 176 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. still extant ; he was a native of Procounesas. The second was a Syracusan, the author of a system of rhetoric. The third was the man of whDm we have been speaking. The fourth was a pupil of Democritus, and a mathematician, a native of Abdera, who wrote in both the Attic and Ionic dialect. He was the person who first asserted that ^there were countries where there was night for six months, and day for six months. The fifth was a native of Soli ; who wrote a history of yEthiopia. The sixth was a rhetorician, who has left behind him nine books, inscribed with the names of the Muses, which are still extant. The eighth was a Milesian statuary, who is mentioned by Polemo. The ninth was a tragic poet of the number of those who are called Tarsicans. The tenth was a statuary, a native of Clazomence or Chios, who is mentioned by Hipponax. LIFE OF LACYDES. I. Lacydes, the sen of Alexander, was a native of Cyrene. He it is who was the founder of the New Academy, having succeeded Arcesilaus ; and he was a man of great gi'avity of character and demeanour, and one who had many imitators. II. He was industrious from his very childhood, and poor, but veiy ^jleasing and sociable in his manners. III. They say that he had a pleasant way of managing his house-keeping affairs. For when he had taken anything out of his store-chest, he would seal it up again, and throw in his seal through the hole, so that it should be impossible for any- thing of what he had laid up there to be stolen from him, or carried off. But his servants learning this contrivance of his, broke the seal, and carried off as much as they pleased, and then they put the ring back through the hole in the same manner as before ; and though they did this repeatedly, they were never detected. IV. Lacydes now used to hold his school in the Academy in the garden which had been laid out by Attains the king, aud it was called the Lacydeum, after him. And he was the CARNEADES. 1 77 only man, -who, wliile alive, resigned his school to a successor ; but he resigned this to Telicles and Evander, of Phocis ; and Hegesinus, of Pergamus, succeeded Evander; and he himself was in his turn succeeded by Carneades. V. There is a witty saying, which is attributed to Lacydes. For they say that when Attalus sent for him, he answered that statues ought to be seen at a distance. On another occasion, as it is repoited, he was studying geometry veiy late in life, and some said to him, " Is it then a time for you to be learning now?" " If it is not," he replied, " when -will it be ?" VI. And he died in the fourth year of the hundred and thirty-fourth Olympiad, when he had presided over his school twenty-six years. And his death was caused by paralysis, which was brought on by drinking. And we ourselves have Jested upon him in the following language. 'Tis an odd story that I heard of you — Lacydes, that you went with hasty steps, Spurred on by Bacchus, to the shades below. How then, if this be true, can it be said, That Bacchus e'er trips up his votai-ies' feet 'Tis a mistake his heing named Lyaeus.* LIFE OF CARNEADES. I. Carneades was the son of Epicomus, or Pliilocomus, as Alexander states in his Successions ; and a native of Cyrene. II. He read all the books of the Stoics with great care, and especially those of Chrysippus ; and then he wrote replies to them, but did it at the same time with such modestv that he used to say, " If Chi-j-sippus had not lived, I should never have existed." III. He was a man of as great industry as ever existed ; not, however, very much devoted to the investigation of subjects of natural philosophy, but more fond of the discussion of ethicfil topics, on which account he used to let his hair and his nails grow, from his entire devotion of all his time to philosophical * From Xuw, solvo, to relax or weaken the limbs. N 178 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. discussion. And he was so eminent as a philosopher, that the orators would quit their own schools and come and listen to his lectures. IV. He was also a man of a very powerful voice, so that the pi'esident of the Gymnasium sent to him once, to desire he would not shout so loudly. And he replied, " Give me then, measure for my voice." And the gymnasiarch again rejoined with great wit, for he said, "You have a measure in your pupils." V. He was a very vehement speaker, and one difficult to contend with in the investigation of a point. And he used to decline all invitations to entertainments, for the reasons I have already mentioned. VI. On one occasion, when Mentor, the Bithynian, one of his pupils, came to him to attend his school, observing that he was trying to seduce his mistress (as Phavorinus relates in his Universal History), while he was in the middle of his lecture, he made the following parody in allusion to him : — A weak old man comes hither, hke in voice, And gait, and figure, to the prudent Mentor • I order him to be expelled this school. And Mentor rising up, replied : — Thus did they speak, and straight the otViers rose. VII. He appears to have been beset with fears of death ; as he was continually saying, " Nature, who has put this frame together, will also dissolve it." And learning that Antipater had died after having taken poison, he felt a desire to imitate the boldness of his departure, and said, " Give me some too." And when they asked "What?"' "Some mead," said he. And it is said that an eclipse of the moon happened when he died, the most beautiful qf all the stars, next to the sun, in- dicating (as any one might say) its sympathy with the philo- sopher. And Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says that he died in the fourth year of the hundred and sixty-second olym- piad, being eighty-five years old. VIII. There are some letters extant addressed by him to Ariarathes, the king of the Cappadocians. All the other writings which are attributed to him were written by his disciples, for he himself left nothing behind him. And I CLITOMACHUS. 179 have written on him the following lines in logo^dical Arche- bulian metre. Why now, Muse, do you wish roe Cameades to confute ? He was an ignoramus, as he did not understand Why he should stand in fear of death : so once, when he'd a cough, The worst of all diseases that affect the human frame. He cared not for a remedy ; but when the news did reach him, That brave Antipater had ta'en some poison, and so died, " Give me, said he, some stuff to drink." " Some what ?" — " Some lus- cious mead." Moreover, he'd this saying at all times upon his lips : " Nature did^make me, and she does together keep me stUl ; But soon the time will come when she will pull me all to pieces." But still at last he yielded up the ghost : though long ago He might have died, and so escaped the evils that befell him. IX. It is said that at night he was not aware when lights were l)rought in ; and that once he ordered his servant to light the candles, and when he had brought them in and told him, " 1 have brought them;" "Well then," said he, "read by the light of them." X. He had a great many other disciples; but the most eminent of them was Clitomachus, whom we must mention presently. XL There was also another man of the name of Carneades , a very indifferent elegiac poet. LIFE OF CLITOMACHUS. I. Clitomachus was a Carthaginian. He was called Asdrubal, and used to lecture on philosophy in his own country in his native language. II. But when he came to Athens, at the age of forty years, he became a pupil of Cameades ; and, as he was pleased with his industry, he caused him to be instructed in literature, and himself educated the man carefully. And he carried his diligence to such a degree, that he composed more than four hundred books. III. And he succeeded Carneades in his schools ; and he illustrated his principles a great deal by his writings : as he N 2 180 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS himself had studied the doctrines of their sects, the Academic, the Peripatetic, and the Stoic. Timon attacks the whole school of Academics, as a body, in these lines : — Nor the unprofitable chattermg Of all the Academics. But now that we have gone through the philosophers of Plato's school, let us go to the Peripatetics, who also derived their doctrines from Plato ; and the founder of their sect was Aristotle. 181 BOOK V. LIFE OF ARISTOTLE. I. Aeistotle was the son of Nicomachus and Plifestias, a citizen of Stagira; and Xicomaclius was descended from Nicomachus, the son of Machaon, the son of ^sculapius, as Hermippus tells us in his treatise on Aristotle ; and he lived with Amyntas, the king of the Macedonians, as both a physician and a friend. II. He was the most eminent of all the pupils of Plato ; he had a lisping voice, as is asserted by Timotheus the Athenian, in his work on Lives. He had also veiy thin legs, they say, and small eyes ; but he used to indulge in very conspicuous dress, and rings, and used to dress his hak carefully. III. He had also a son named Nicomachus, by Herpyllis his concubine, as we are told by Timotheus. IV. He seceded from Plato while he was still alive ; so that they tell a story that he said, " Aristotle has kicked us off just as chickens do their mother after they have been hatched." But Hermippus says in his Lives, that while he was absent on an embassy to Philip, on behalf of the Athenians, Xenocrates became the president of the school in the Academy ; and that when he returned and saw the school under the presidency of some one else, he selected a promenade in the Lyceum, in which he used to walk up and down with his disciples, dis- cussing subjects of philosophy till the time for anointing themselves came ; on which account he was called a Peripa- tetic* But others say that he got this name because once when Alexander was walking about after recovering from a sickness, he accompanied him and kept conversing with him. But when his pupils became numerous, he then gave them seats, saying : — It would be shame for me to hold my peace, And for laocrates to keep on talking. * From Tnpnrared), "to walk about." 18^ LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. And lie used to accustom his disciples to discuss any question which might be proposed, training them just as an oi'ator might. V. After that he went to Hermias the Eunuch, the tyrant of Atarneus, who, as it is said, allowed him all kinds of liberties ; and some say that he formed a matrimonial connec- tion with him, giving him either his daughter or his niece in marriage, as is recorded by Demetrius of Magnesia, '• in his essay on Poets and Prose-writers of the same name. And the same authority says that Hermias had been the slave of Eubulus, and a Bithynian by descent, and that he slew his master. But Aristippus, in the first book of his treatise on Ancient Luxury, says that Aristotle was enamoured of the concubine of Hermias, and that, as Hermias gave his consent, he married her ; and Avas so oveijoyed that he sacrificed to her, as the Athenians do to the Eleusinian Ceres. And he wrote a hymn to Hermias, which is given at length below. VI. After that he lived in Macedonia, at the court of Philip, and was entrusted by him with his son Alexander as a pupil ; and he entreated him to restore his native city which had been destroyed by Philip, and had his request granted ; and he also made laws for the citizens. And also he used to make laws in his schools, doing this in imitation of Xeno- crates, so that he appointed a president eveiy ten days. And when he thought that he had spent time enough with Alex- ander, he departed for Athens, having recommended to him his relation Callisthenes, a native of Olynthus ; but as he spoke too freely to the king, and would not take Aiisto tie's advice, he reproached him and said : — Alas ! my child, in life's primeval bloom, Such hasty words will bring thee to thy doom.* And his prophecy was fulfilled, for as he was believed by Hermolaus to have been privy to the plot against Alexander, he was shut up in an iron cage, covered with lice, and untended ; and at last he was given to a lion, and so died, VIT. Aristotle then having come to Athens, and havins presided over his school there for thirteen years, retired secretly to Chalcis, as Eurymedon, the hierophant had im- peached him on an indictment for impiety, though Pharorinus, * II. 18, 95. ARISTOTLE. 183 in his Universal History, says that his prosecutor was Demo- phelus, on the ground of having written the hymn to the beforementioiied Hermias, and also the following epigram which was engraven on his statue at Delphi : — The tyrant of the Persian archer race, Broke thi'ough the laws of God to slay this man ; Not by the manly spear in open fight, But by the treachery of a faithless friend. And after that he died of taking a draught of aconite, as Eumelus says in the fifth book of his Histories, at the age of seventy years. And the same author says that he was thirty years old when he first became acquainted with Plato. But this is a mistake of his, for he did only live in reality sixty- three years, and he was seventeen 3'ears old when he first attached himself to Plato. And the hymn in honour of Hermias is as follows : — Virtue, won by earnest strife, And holding out the noblest prize That ever gilded earthly life, Or drew it on to seek the skies ; For thee what son of Greece would not Deem it an enviable lot. To live the life, to die the death. That fears no weary hour, shrinks from no fiery breath ? Such fruit hast thou of heavenly bloom, A lure moi-e rich than golden heap, More tempting than the joys of home, More bland than spell of soft-eyed sleep. For thee Alcides, son of Jove, And the twin boys of Leda strove, With patient toil and sinewy might, Thy glorious prize to grasp, to reach thy lofty height. Achilles, Ajax, for thy love Descended to the realms of night ; Atarneus' King thy vision drove. To quit for aye the glad sun-light. Therefore, to memory's daughters dear. His deathless name, his pure career. Live shrined in song, and link'd with awe, The awe of Xenian Jove, and faithful friendship's law.* * This very spirited version T owe to the kindness of my brother, the Rev. J. E. Yonge, of Eton College. i8i LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS, There is also an epigram of ours upon him, which runs thus : — Eurymedon, the faithful minister Of the mysterious Eleusinian Qvieen, Was once about t' impeach the Stagirite Of impious guilt. But he escaped his hands By mighty draught of friendly aconite, And thus defeated all his wicked arts. Pharorinus, in his Universal History, says that Aristotle was the first person who ever composed a speech to be delivered in his own defence in a court of justice, and that he did so on the occasion of this prosecution, and said that at Athens : — Pears upon pear-trees grow ; on fig-trees, figs. Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says that he was born in the first year of the ninety-ninth olympiad, and that he attached himself to Plato, and remained with him for twenty years, having been seventeen years of age when he originally joined him. And he went to Mitylene in the archonship of Eubulus, in the fourth year of the hundred and eighth olympiad. But as Plato had died in the first year of this same olympiad, in the archonship of Theophilus, he departed for the court of Herniias, and remained there three years. And in the archon- ship of Pythodotus he went to the court of Philip, in the second year of the hundred and ninth olympiad, when Alexander was fifteen years old ; and he came to Athens in the second year of the hundred and eleventh olympiad, and presided over his school in the Lyceum for thirteen years : after that he departed to Chalcis, in the third year of the hundred and fourteenth olympiad, and died, at about the age of sixty-three years, of disease, the same year that Demosthenes died in Calumia, in the archonship of Pliilocles. VIII. It is said also that he was offended with the king, because of the result of the conspiracy of Calisthenes against Alexander; and that the king, for the sake of annoying him, promoted Anaximenes to honour, and sent presents to Xeno- crates. And Theocritus, of Chios, wrote an epigram upon him to ridicule him, in the following terms, as it is quoted by Ambryon in his account of Theocritus : — The empty-headed Aristotle rais'd This empty tomb to Hermias the Eunuch, ARISTOTLE. 185 The ancient slave of the ill-us'd Eubulus. [Who, for his monstrous appetite, preferred The Bosphorus to Academia's groves.] And Timon attacked him too, saying of him : — - Nor the sad chattering of the empty Aristotle. Such was the life of the philosopher. IX. We have also met with his will, which is couched in the follomng terms : — " May things turn out well ; but if any thing happens to him, in that case Aristotle has made the following disposition of his affairs. That Antipater shall be the general and universal executor, And until Nicanor marries my daughtei", I appoint Aristomedes, Timarchus, Hipparchus, Dioteles, and Theophrastus, if he will consent and accept the charge, to be the guardians of my children and of Herpyllis, and the trustees of all the property I leave behind me : and I desire them, when my daughter is old enough, to give her in marriage to Nicanor ; but if any tiling should happen to the girl, which may God forbid, either before or after she is mar- ried, but before she has any children, then 1 will that Nicanor shall have the absolute disposal of my son, and of all other things, in the full confidence that he will arrange them in a manner worthy of me and of himself. Let him also be the guardian of my daughter and son Nicomachus, to act as he pleases with respect to them, as if he were their father or brother. But if anything should happen to Nicanor, which may God forbid, either before he receives my daughter in marriage, or after he is married to her, or before he has any children by her, then any arrangements which he may make by will shall stand, iiut, if Theophrastus, in this case, should choose to take my daughter in marriage, then he is to stand exactly in the same position as Nicanor. And if not, then I will, tliat my trustees, consulting with Antipater concerning l)oththe boy and girl, shall arrange everj'thing respecting them as they shall think fit ; and that my trustees and Nicanor, remembering both me and Herpyllis, and how well she has behaved to me, shall take care, if she be inclined to take a husband, that one be found for her who shall not be unworthy of us ; and shall give her, in addition to all that has been already given her, a talent of silver, and three maidservants if she please to accept them, and the handmaid whom she has 186 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. now, and the boy Pyrrhseus. And if she likes to dwell at Chalcis, she shall have the house which joins the garden ; but if she likes to dwell in Stagira, then she shall have my father's house. And whichever of these houses she elects to take, I will that my executors do funhsh it with all necessary furniture, in such manner as shall seem to them and to Herpyllis to be sufficient. And let Nicanor be the guardian of the child Myrmex, so that he shall be conducted to his friends in a manner worthy of us, with all his property which I received. I also will that Aubracis shall have her liberty, and that there shall be given to her when her daughter is married, five liundred drachmas, and the handmaid whom she now has. And I will that there be given to Thales, besides the hand- maiden whom she now has, who was bought for her, a thousand drachmas and another handmaid. And to Tiraon, in addition to the money that has been given to him before for another boy, an additional slave, or a sum of money which shall be equivalent. I also will that Tychon shall have his liberty when his daughter is married, and Philon, and Olympius, and his sou. Moreover, of those boys who wait upon me, I will that none shall be sold, but my executors may use them, and when they are grown up then they shall emancipate them if they deserve it. T desire too, that my executors will take under their care the statues which it has been entrusted to Gryllion to make, that when they are made they may be erected in their proper places ; and so too shall the statues of Nicanor, and of Proxenus, which I was intending to give him a commission for, and also that of the mother of Nicanor. I wish them also to erect in its proper place the statue of Arimnestus which is already made, that it may be a memorial of her, since she has died childless. I wish them also to dedicate a statue of my mother to Ceres at Nemea, or where- ever else they think fit. And wherever they bury me, there T desire that they shall also place the bones of Pythias, having taken them up from the place where they now lie, as she herself enjoined. And I desire that Nicanor, as he has been preserved, will perform the vow which I made on his behalf, and dedicate some figures of animals in stone, four cubits high, to Jupiter the saviour, and Minerva the saviour, in Stagira." These are the provisions of his will. X. And it is said that a great many dishes were found in ARISTOTLE. 187 his house ; and that Lycon stated that he used to bathe in a bath of warm oil, and afterwards to sell the oil. But some say that he used to place a leather bag of warm oil on his stomach. And whenever he went to bed, he used to take a brazen ball in his hand, having arranged a brazen dish below it; so that, when the ball fell into the dish, he might be awakened by the noise. XI. The following admirable apophthegms are attributed to him. He was once asked, what those who tell lies gain by it ; " They gain this," said he, " that when they speak truth they are not believed." On one occasion he was blamed for giving alms to a worth- less man, and he replied, "I did not pity the man, but his condition." He was accustomed continually to say to his friends and pupils wherever he happened to be, " That sight receives the light from the air which surrounds it, and in like manner the soul receives the light from the science." Very often, when he was inveighing against the Athenians, he would say that they had invented .both wheat and laws, but that they used only the wheat and neglected the laws. It was a saying of his that the roots of education were bitter, but the fruit sweet. Once he was asked what grew old most speedily, and he re- plied, " Gratitude." On another occasion the question was put to him, what hope is ? and his answer was, " The dream of a waking man." Diogenes once offered him a dry' fig, and as he conjectured that if he did not take it the cynic had a witticism ready pre- pared, he accepted it, and then said that Diogenes had lost his joke and his fig too ; and another time when he took one from him as he offered it, he held it up as a child does, and said, " great Diogenes ; " and then he gave it to him back again. He used to say that there were three things necessary to education ; natural qualifications, instruction, and practice. Having heard that he was abused by some one, he said, " He may beat me too, if he likes, in my absence.". He used to say that beauty is the best of all recommenda- tions, but others say that it was Diogenes who gave this de- scription of it ; and that Aristotle called beauty, " The gift of 188 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. a fair appearance ; " that Socrates called it "A short-lived tyranny ; " Plato, " The privilege of nature ; " Theophrastus, " A silent deceit;" Theocritus, "An ivory mischief ; " Car- neades, "' A sovereignty whicli stood in need of no guards." On one occasion he was asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated ; " As much," said he, " as the living are to the dead." It was a saying of his that education was an ornament in prosperity, and a refuge in adversity. And that those parents who gave their children a good education deserved more honour tlian those who merely beget them : for that the latter only enabled their children to live, but the former gave them the power of living well. When a man boasted in his presence that he was a native of an illustrious city, he said, " That is not what one ought to look at, but whether one is worthy of a great city." He was once asked what a friend is ; and is answer was, " One soul abiding in two bodies." It was a saying of his that some men were as stingy as if they expected to live for ever, and some as extravagant as if they expected to die imniediately. When he was asked why people like to spend a great deal of their time with 'handsome people, " That," said he, " is a question fit for a blind man to ask." The question was once put to him, what he had gained by philosophy ; and the answer he made was this, " That I do without being commanded, what others do from fear of the laws." He was once asked what his disciples ought to do to get on ; and he replied, " Press on upon those who are in front of them, and not wait for those who are behind to catch them." A chattering fellow, who had been abusing him, said to him, " Have not I been jeering you properly ? " Not that I know of," said he, " for I have not been listening to you." A man on one occasion reproached him for having given a contribution to one who was not a good man (for the story which I have mentioned before is also quoted in this way), and his answer was, " I gave not to the man, but to humanity." The question was once put to him, how we ought to behave to our friends ; and the answer he gave was, " As we should wish our friends to behave to us." ARISTOTLE. 189 He used to define justice as " A virtue of the soul distribu- tive of \Yhat each person deserved." Another of his sayings was, that education was the best viaticum for old age. Pharorinus, in the second book of his Commentaries, says that he was constantly repeating, " The man who has friends has no friend." And this sentiment is to be found also in the seventh book of the Ethics. These apophthegms then are attributed to him. XII. He also wrote a great number of works ; and I have thought it worth while to give a list of them, on account of the eminence of their author in every branch of philo- sophy. Four books on Justice ; three books on Poets ; three books on Philosophy ; two books of The Statesman ; one on Fihetoric, called also the Giyllus ; the Nerinthus, one ; the Sophist, one ; the Mencxenus, one ; the Erotic, one ; the Banquet, one ; on Riches, one ; the Exhortation, one ; on the Soul, one ; on Prayer, one ; on Nobility of Birth, one ; on Pleasure, one ; the Alexander, or an Essay on Colonists, one ; on Sovereignty, one ; on Education, one ; on the Good, three ; three books on things in the Laws of Plato ; two on Political Constitutions ; on Economy, one ; on Friendship, one ; on Suffering, or having Suffered, one ; on Sciences, one ; on Dis- cussions, two ; Solutions of Disputed Points, two ; Sophistical Divisions, four ; on Contraries, one ; on Species and Genera, one; on Property, one; Epicheirematic, or Argumentative Commentaries, three ; Propositions relating to Virtue, three ; Objections, one ; one book on things which are spoken of in various ways, or a Preliminary Essay ; one on the Passion of Anger ; five on Ethics ; three on Elements ; one on Science ; one on Beginning ;' seventeen on Divisions ; on Divisible Things, one ; two books of Questions and Answers ; two on Motion ; one book of Propositions ; four of Contentious Pro- positions ; one of Syllogisms ; eight of the First Analytics ; two of the second greater Analytics ; one on Problems ; eight on Method ; one on the Better ; one on the Idea ; Definitions serving as a preamble to the Topics, seven ; two books more of Syllogisms ; one of Syllogisms and Definitions ; one on what is Eligible, and on what is Suitable ; the Preface to the Topics, one ; Topics relating to the Definitions, two ; one on the Passions ; one on Divisions ; one on Mathematics : 100 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. thirteen books of Definitions ; two of Epicheiremata, or Arguments ; one on Pleasure ; one of Propositions ; on the Voluntary, one ; on the Honourable, one ; of Epicheirematic or Argumentative Propositions, twenty -five books ; of Amatory Propositions, four ;' of Propositions relating to Friendship, two ; of Propositions relating to the Soul, one ; on Politics, two ; Political Lectures, such as that of Theophrastus, eight ; on Just Actions, two ; two books entitled, A Collection of Arts ; two on the Art of Pthetoric ; one on Art ; two on other Art ; one on Method ; one, the Introduction to the Art of Theo- dectes ; two books, being a treatise on the Art of Poetry ; one book of Rhetorical Enthymemes on Magnitude ; one of Divisions of Enthymemes ; on Style, two ; on Advice, one ; on Collection, two ; on Nature, three ; on Natural Philosophy, one ; on the Philosophy of Archytas, three ; on the Philosophy of Speusippus and Xenocrates, one ; on things taken from the doctrines of Timaeus and the school of Archytas, one ; on Doctrines of Melissus, one ; on Doctrines of Alcmaeon, one ; on the Pythagoreans, one ; on the Precepts of Gorgias, one ; on the Precepts of Xenophanes, one ; on the Precepts of Zeno, one ; on the Pythagoreans, one ; on Animals, nine ; on Anatomy, eight ; one book, a Selection of Anatomical Questions ; one on Compound Animals ; one on Mythological Animals ; one on Impotence ; one on Plants ; one on Physi- ognomy ; two on Medicine ; one on the Unit ; one on Signs of Storms ; one on Astronomy ; one on Optics ; one on Motion ; one on Music ; one on Memory ; six on Doubts connected with Homer ; one on Poetry ; thirty-eight of Natural Philosophy in reference to the First Elements ; two of Problems P^esolved ; two of Encyclica, or General Know- ledge ; one on Mechanics ; two consisthig of Problems derived from the writings of Democritus ; one on Stone ; one book of Comparisons ; twelve books of Miscellanies ; fourteen books of things explained according to their Genus ; one on Rights ; one book, the Conquerors at the Olympic Games ; one, the Conquerors at the Pythian Games in the Art of Music ; one, the Pythian ; one, a List of the Victors in the Pythian Games ; one, the Victories gained at the Olympic Games ; one on Tragedies ; one, a List of Plays ; one book of Proverbs ; one on the Laws of Recommendations ; four books of Laws ; one of Categories ; one on Interpretation ; a book ARISTOTLE. 191 containing an account of the Constitutions of a hundred and fifty-eight cities, and also some individual democratic, oligarchic, aristocratic, and tyrannical Constitutions ; Letters to Philip ; Letters of the Selymbrians ; four Letters to Alexander ; nine to Antipater ; one to Mentor; one to Ariston ; one to Olympias ; one to Hephsestiou ; one to Themistagoras ; one to Philoxenus ; one to Democritus ; one hook of Poems, beginning : — Hail ! holy, sacred, distant-shooting God. A book of Elegies which begins : — Daughter of all-accomplish'd mother. The whole consisting of four hundred and forty-five thousand two hundred and seventy lines. XIII. These then are the books which were written by him. And in them he expresses the following opinions : — tliat there is in philosophy a two-fold division ; one practical, and the other theoretical. Again, the practical is divided into ethical and political, under which last head are comprised considerations affecting not only the state, but also the management, of a single house. The theoretical part, too, is subdivided into physics and logic ; the latter forming not a single division, turning on one special point, but being rather an instrument for every art brought to a high degree of accuracy. And he has laid down two separate objects as what it is conversant about, the persuasive and the true. And he has used two means with reference to each end ; dialectics and rhetoric, with reference to persuasion ; analytical examination and philosophy, with reference to truth ; omitting nothing which can bear upon discovery, or judgment, or use. Accordingly, with re- ference to discovery, he has furnished us with topics and works on method, which form a complete armoury of propo- sitions, from which it is easy to provide one's self with an abundance of probable arguments for every kind of question. \nd with reference to judgment, he has given us the former and posterior analytics ; and by means of the former ana- lytics, we may arrive at a critical examination of principles ; by means of the posterior, we may examine the conclusions which are deduced from them. With reference to the use or application of his rules, he has given us works on discussion. 192 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. on question, on disputation, on sophistical refutation, on syllogism, and on things of that sort. He has also furnished us with a double criterion of truth. One, on the perception of those effects, which are according to imagination ; the other, the intelligence of those things which are ethical, and which concern politics, and economy, and laws. The chief good he has defined to be the exercise of virtue in a perfect life. He used also to say, that happi- ness was a thing made up of three kinds of goods. First of all, the goods of the soul, which he also calls the principal goods in respect of their power ; secondly, the goods of the body, such as health, strength, beauty, and things of that sort; thirdly, external goods, such as wealth, nobility of birth, glory, and things like those. And he taught that virtue was not sufficient of itself to confer happiness ; for that it had need besides of the goods of the body, and of the external goods, for that a wise man would be miserable if he were surrounded by distress, and poverty, and circumstances of that kind. But, on the other hand, he said, that vice was sufficient of itself to cause unhappiness, even if the goods of the body and the external goods were present in the greatest possible degree. He also asserted that the virtues did not reciprocally follow one another, for that it was possible for a pinident, and just, and impartial man, to be incontinent and intemperate ; and he said, that the wise man was not des- titute of passions, but endowed with moderate passions. He also used to define friendship as an equality of mutual benevolence. And he divided it into the friendship of kindred, and of love, and of those connected by ties of hospitality. And he said, that love was divided into sensual and philo- sophical love. And that the wise man would feel the influence of love, and would occupy himself in affairs of state, and would marry a wife, and would live with a king. And as there were three kinds of life, the speculative, the practical, and the voluptuous, he preferred the speculative. He also considered the acquisition of general knowledge serviceable to the acquisition of virtue. As a natural philosopher, he was the most ingenious man that ever lived in tracing effects back to their causes, so that he could explain the principles of the most trifling circumstances; on which account he wrote a great many books of commentaries on physical questions. ARISTOTLE. 1 98 He used to teach, that God was incorporeal, as Plato also asserted, and that his providence extends over all the heavenly bodies ; also, that he is incapable of motion. And that he governs all things upon earth ^\'itll reference to their sympathy with the heavenly bodies. Another of his doctrines was, that besides the four elements there is one other, making the fifth, of which all the heavenly bodies are composed ; and that this one possesses a motion peculiar to itself, for it is a circular one. That the soul is incorporeal, being the first £i/rsXs;/£/a ; for it is the li/r£X£;/£/a of a physical and organic body, having an existence in consequence of a capacity for existence. And this is, according to him, of a twofold nature. By the word hrikiyjia, he means something which has an incoporeal species, either in capacity, as a figure of Mercury in wax, which has a capacity for assuming any shape ; or a statue in brass ; and so the perfection of the Mercury or of the statue is called hTi>^iyj.ia, with reference to its habit. But when he speaks of the ivrs- \iyj.ia* of a natural body, he does so because, of bodies some are wrought by the hands, as for instance, those which are made by artists, for instance, a tower, or a ship ; and some exist by nature, as the bodies of plants and animals. He has also used the terra with reference to an organic body, that is to say, with reference to something that is made, as the fa(;ulty of sight for seeing, or the faculty of hearing for the purpose of hearing. The capacity of having life must exist in the thing itself. But the capacity is twofold, either in habit or in operation. In operation, as a man, when awake, is said to have a soul ; in habit, as the same is said of a man when asleep. That, therefore, he may come under his definition, he has added the word capacity. He has also given other definitions on a great many sub- jects, which it would be tedious to enumerate here. For he was in every thing a man of the greatest industry and inge- nuity, as is plain from all his works which I have lately given a list of; which are in number nearly four hundred, the genuineness of which is undoubted. There are, also, a great * " evrfXex"") the actuality of a thing, as opposed to simple capahility or potentiality (dvvafjiiQ) ; a philosophic word invented by Aristotle. — . . . quite distinct from I j/^tXexf". though Cicero (Tusc. i. 10,) confounded them." — L. & S. in voc. 194 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. many other works attributed to him, and a number of apoph- thegms which he never committed to paper. XIV. There were eight persons of the name of Aristotle. First of all, the philosopher of whom we have been speaking ; the second was an Athenian statesman, some of w^hose forensic orations, of great elegance, are still extant ; the third was a man who wrote a treatise on the Iliad ; the fourth, a Siciliot orator, who wrote a reply to the Panegyric of Isocrates ; the fifth was the man who was surnamed Myth, a friend of ^Eschines, the pupil of Socrates ; the sixth was a Cyrenean, who wrote a treatise on Poetry ; the seventh was a school- master, who is mentioned by Aristoxenus in his Life of Plato ; the eighth, was an obscure grammarian, to whom a treatise on Pleonasm is attributed. XV. And the Stagirite had many friends, the most emi- nent of whom was Theophrastus, whom we must proceed to speak of. LIFE OF THEOPHRASTUS. I. Theophrastus was a native of Eresus, the son of Me- lantas, a fuller, as we are told by Athenodorus ii^ the eighth book of his Philosophical Conversations. II. He was originally a pupil of Leucippus, his fellow citizen, in his own country ; and subsequently, after having attended the lectures of Plato, he went over to Aristotle. And when he withdrew to Chalcis, he succeeded him as president of his school, in the hundred and fourteenth olympiad. III. It is also said that a slave of his, by name Pomphylus, was a philosopher, as we are told by Myronianus of Amastra, in the first book of Similar Historical Chapters. IV. Theophrastus was a man of great acuteness and in- dustry, and, as Pamphila asserts in the thirty- second book of his Commentaries, he was the tutor of Menandar, the comic poet. He was also a most benevolent man, and very affable. V. Accordingly, Cassander received him as a friend ; and Ptolemy sent to invite him to his court. And he was thought so very highly of at Athens, that when Agonides ventm-ed to THEOPHRASTUS. • ]95 impeach him on a charge of impiety, he was very nearly fined for his hardihood. And there thronged to his school a crowd of disciples to the number of two thousand. In his letter to Phanias, the Peripatetic, among other subjects he speaks of the court of justice in the following terms : " It is not only out of the question to find an assembly ('zanr/^^ii), but it is not easy to find even a company (ffuvid^iov) such as one would like ; but yet recitations produce corrections of the judgment. And my age does not allow me to put off everything and to feel indifference on such a subject." In this letter he speaks of himself as one who devotes his whole leisure to learning. And though he was of this disposition, he nevertheless went away for a short time, both he and all the rest of the philo- sophers, in consequence of Sophocles, the sou of Amphi- clides, having brought forward and carried a law that no one of the philosophers should preside over a school unless the council and the people had passed a resolution to sanction their doing so, if they did, death was to be the penalty. But they returned again the next year, when Philion had impeached Sophocles for illegal conduct ; when the Athenians abrogated his law, and fined Sophocles five talents, and voted that the philosophers should have leave to return, that Theophrastus might return and preside over his school as before. VI. His name had originally been Tyrtanius, but Aristotle changed it to Theophrastus, from the divine character of his eloquence.* VII. He is said also to have been very much attached to Aristotle's son, Nicomachus, although he was his master ; at least, this is stated by Aristippus in the fourth book of his treatise on the Ancient Luxury. VIII. It is also related that Aristotle used the same expression about him and Callisthenes, which Plato, as I have previously mentioned, employed about Xenocrates and Aristotle himself. For he is reported to have said, since Theophrastus was a man of extraordinary acuteness, who could both comprehend and exjilaiu everything, and as the other was somewhat slow in his natural character, that Theo- phrastus required a bridle, and Callisthenes a spur. IX. It is said, too, that he had a garden of his own after * From OtloQ diviuc, and (ppuaiQ diction. 02 196 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. tlie death of Aristotle, by the assistance of Demetrius Phale- rius, who was an intimate friend of his. X. The following very practical apophthegms of his are quoted. He used to say that it was better to trust to a horse without a bridle than to a discourse without arrangement. And once, when a man presei-ved a strict silence during the whole of a banquet, he said to him, " If you are an ignorant man, you are acting wisely ; but if you have had any education, you are behaving like a fool." And a very favourite expression of his was, that time was the most valuable thing that a man could spend. XI. He died when he was of a great age, ha^^ng lived eighty-five years, when he had only rested from his labours a short time. And we have composed the following epigram on him : — • The proverb then is not completely false. That wisdom's bow imbent is quickly broken ; While Theophrastus laboured, he kept sound, When he relaxed, he lost his strength and died. They say that on one occasion, when dying, he was asked by his disciples whether he had any charge to give them ; and he replied, that he had none but that they should " remember that life holds out many pleasing deceits to us by the vanity of glory; for that when we are beginning to live, then we are dying. There is, therefore, nothing more profitless than am- bition. But may you all be fortunate, and either abandon philosophy (for it is a great labour), or else cling to it dili- gently, for then the credit of it is great ; but the vanities of life exceed the advantage of it. However, it is not requisite for me now to advise you what you should do ; but do you yourselves consider what line of conduct to adopt." And when he had said this, as report goes, he expired. And the Athenians accompanied him to the grave, on foot, with the whole population of the city, as it is related, honouring the man greatly. XII. But Pharorinus says, that when he was very old he used to go about in a litter ; and that Hermippus states this, quoting Arcesilaus, the Pitansean, and the account which he sent to Lacydes of Gyrene. XIII. He also left behind him a very great number of THEOPHRASTUS. 197 works, of which I have thought it proper to give a hst on account of their being full of every sort of excellence. They are as follows : — Three books of the First Analytics ; seven of the Second Analytics ; one book of the Analysis of Syllogisms ; one book, an Epitome of Analytics ; two books, Topics for referring things to Fii-st Principles ; one book, an Examination of Speculative Questions about Discussions; one on Sensations; one addressed to Anaxagoras ; one on the Doctrines of Anaxa- goras ; one on the Doctrines of Anaximenes ; one on the Doctrines of Archelaus ; one on Salt, Nitre, and iVlum ; two on Petrifactions ; one on Indivisible Lines ; two on Hearing ; one on Words ; one on the Differences between Virtues ; one on Kingly Power ; one on the Education of a King ; three on Lives ; one on Old Age ; one on the Astronomical System of Democritus ; one on Meteorology ; one on Images or Phantoms ; one on Juices, Complexions, and Flesh ; one on the Description of the World ; one on Men ; one, a Collection of the Sayings of Diogenes ; three books of Definitions ; one treatise on Love ; another treatise on Love ; one book on Happiness ; two books on Species ; on Epilepsy, one ; on Enthusiasm, one ; on Empedocles, one ; eighteen books of Epicheiremes ; three books of Objections ; one book on the Voluntary ; two books, being an Abridgment of Plato's Polity ; one on the Difference of the Voices of Similar Animals ; one on Sudden Appearances ; one on Animals which Bite or Sting ; one on such Animals as are said to be Jealous ; one on those which live on Dry Laud ; one on those which Change their Colour ; one on those which live in Holes ; seven on Animals in General ; one on Pleasure according to the Defi- nition of Aristotle ; seventy-four books of Propositions ; one treatise on Hot and Cold ; one essay on Giddiness and Ver- tigo and Sudden Dimness of Sight ; one on Perspiration ; one on Affirmation and Denial ; the Callisthenes, or an essay on Mourning, one ; on Labours, one ; on Motion, three ; on Stones, one ; on Pestilences, one ; on Fainting Fits, one ; the Me- gai-ic Philosopher, one ; on Melancholy, one ; on Mines, two ; on Honey, one ; a collection of the Doctrines of Metrodorus, one ; two books on those Philosophers who have treated of Meteorology; on Drunkenness, one; twenty-four books of Laws, in alphabetical order; ten books, being an Abridgment 198 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. of Laws ; one on Definitions ; one on Smells ; one on Wine and Oil ; eighteen books of Primary Propositions ; three books on Lawgivers ; six books of Political Disquisitions : a treatise on Politicals, with reference to occasions as they arise, four books ; four books of Political Customs ; on the best Constitution, one ; five books of a Collection of Pro- blems ; on Proverbs, one ; on Concretion and Liquefaction, one ; on Fire, two ; on Spirits, one ; on Paralysis, one ; on Suffocation, one ; on Aberration of Intellect, one ; on the Passions, one ; on Signs, one ; two books of Sophisms ; one on the Solution of Syllogisms ; two books of Topics ; two on Punishment; one on Hair; one on Tyranny; three on Water ; one on Sleep and Dreams ; three on Friendship ; two on Liberality; three on Nature; eighteen on Questions of Natural Philosophy ; two books, being an Abridgment of Natural Philosophy ; eight more books on Natural Phi- losophy ; one treatise addressed to Natural Philosophers ; two books on the History of Plants ; eight books on the Causes of Plants ; five on Juices ; one on Mistaken Pleasures ; one, Investigation of a proposition concerning the Soul ; one on Unskilfully Adduced Proofs ; one on Simple Doubts ; one on Harmonics ; one on Virtue ; one entitled Occasions or Contradictions ; one on Denial ; one on Opinion ; one on the Ridiculous ; two called Soirees ; two books of Divisions ; one on Differences ; one on Acts of Injustice ; one on Calumny ; one on Praise ; one on Skill ; three books of Epistles ; one on Self-produced Animals ; one on Selec- tion ; one entitled the Praises of the Gods ; one on Fes- tivals ; one on Good Fortune ; one on Enthymemes ; one on Inventions ; one on Moral Schools ; one book of Moral Characters ; one treatise on Tumult ; one on History ; one on the Judgment Concerning Syllogisms; one on Flattery; one on the Sea ; one essay, addressed to Cassander, Concern- ing Kingly Power ; one on Comedy ; one on Meteors ; one on Style ; one book called a Collection of Sayings ; one book of Solutions ; three books on Music ; one on Metres ; the Me- gades, one ; on Laws, one ; on Violations of Law, one ; a collection of the Sayings and Doctrines of Xenocrates, one ; one book of Conversations ; on an Oath, one ; one of Ora- torical Precepts ; one on Eiches ; one on Poetry ; one being a collection of Political, Ethical, Physical, and amatory THEOPHEASTUS. 199 Problems ; one book of Proverbs ; one book, being a Col- lection of General Problems ; one on Problems in Natural Philosophy; one on Example ; one on Proposition and Expo- sition ; a second treatise on Poetry ; one on the Wise Men ; one on Counsel ; one on Solecisms ; one on Rhetorical Art, a collection of sixty-one figures of Oratorical Art ; one book on Hypocrisy ; six books of a Commentary of Aristotle or Theo- phrastus ; sixteen books of Opinions on Natural Pliilosophy ; one book, being an Abridgment of Opinions on Natural Phi- losophy ; one on Gratitude ; one called ]Moral Characters ; one on Truth and Falsehood; six on the History of Divine Things; three on the Gods ; four on the History of Geometry ; six books, being an Abridgment of the work of Aristotle on Animals ; two books of Epicheiremes ; three books of Propo- sitions ; two on Kingly Power ; one on Causes ; one on De- inocritus ; one on Calumny; one on Generation; one on the Intellect and Moral Character of Animals ; two on Motion ; four on Sight ; two on Definitions ; one on being given in Marriage ; one on the Greater and the Less ; one on Music ; one on Divine Happiness ; one addressed to the Philosophers of the Academy ; one Exhortatory Treatise ; one discussing how a City may be best Governed ; one called Commentaries ; one on the Crater of Mount Etna in Sicily ; one on Admitted Facts ; one on Problems in Natural Natural History ; one, What are the Different Manners of Acquiring Knowledge ; three on Telling Lies ; one book, which is a preface to the Topics ; one addressed to ^schylus ; six books of a History of Astronomy ; one book of the History of Arithmetic relating to Increasing Numbers ; one called the Acicharus ; one on Judicial Discourses ; one on Calumny ; one volume of I^etters to Astyceron, Phanias, and Nicanor ; one book on Piety ; one called the Evias ; one on Circumstances ; one volume entitled Familiar Conversations ; one on the Education of Children ; another on the same subject, discussed in a different manner ; one on Education, called also, a treatise on Virtue, or on Temperance ; one book of Exhortations ; one on Numbers ; one consisting of Definitions referring to the Enunciation of Syllogisms : one on Heaven; two on Politics; two on Nature, on Fruits, and on Animals. And these works contain in all two hundred and thirty-two thousand nine hundred and eight lines. These, then, are the books which Theoplu'ustus composed. 200 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS, XIV. I have also found his will, -which is drawn up in the following terms : — May things turn out well, but if anything should happen to me, I make the following disposition of my property. I give everything that I have in my house to Melantes and Pan- creon, the sons of Leon. And those things which have been given to me by Hipparchus, I wish to be disposed of in the following manner: — First of all, I wish everything about the Museum* and the statue of the goddesses to be made perfect, and to be adorned in a still more beautiful manner than at present, wherein there is room for improvement. Then I desire the statue of Aiistotle to be placed in the temple, and all the other offerings which were in the temple before. Then I desire the colonnade which used to be near the Museum to be rebuilt in a manner not inferior to the previous one. I also enjoin my executors to put up the tablets on which the maps of the earth are drawn, in the lower colonnade, and to take care that an altar is finished in such a manner that nothing may be wanting to its perfectness or its beauty. I also direct a statue of Nicomachus, of equal size, to be erected at the same time ; and the price for making the statue has been already paid to Praxiteles ; and he is to contribute what is wanting for the expense. And I desire that it shall be placed wherever it shall seem best to those who have the charge of pro- viding for the execution of the other injunctions contained in this will. And these are my orders respecting the temple and the offerings. The estate which I have at Stagii'a, I give to Callinus, and all my books I bequeath to Neleus. My garden, and my promenade, and my houses which join the garden, I give all of them to any of the friends whose names I set down below, who choose to hold a school in them and to devote themselves to the study of philosophy, since it is not possible for any one to be always travelling, but I give them on condition that they are not to alienate them, and that no one is to claim them as his own private property ; but they are to use them in common as if they were sacred ground, sharing them with one another in a kindred and friendly spirit, as is reasonable and just. And those Avho are to have this joint property in them are Hipparchus, Neleus. Strato, Cal- lenus, Demotimus, Demaratus, Callisthenes, Melantes, Pan- * This waa a temple of the Muses which he had built for a school. THEOPHRASTUS. '201 creon, and Nicippus. And Aristotle, the son of Metrodorus and Pythias, shall also be entitled to a share in this property, if he likes to join these men in the study of philosophy. And I beg the older men to pay great attention to his education that he may be led on to philosophy as much as possible. I also desire my executors to bury me in whatever part of the garden shall appear most suitable, incurring no superfluous expense about my funeral or monument. And, as has been said before, after the proper honours have been paid to me, and after provision has been made for the execution of my will as far as relates to the temple, and the monument, and the garden, and the promenade, then I enjoin that Pam- phylus, who dwells in the garden, shall keep it and everything else in the same condition as it has been in hitherto. And those who are in possession of these things are to take care of his interests. I further bequeath to Pamphylus and Threptes, who have been some time emancipated, and who have been of great service to me, besides all that they have previously re- ceived from me, and all that they may have earned for them- selves, and all that I have provided for being given them by Hipparchus, two thousand drachmas, and I enjoin that they should have them in firm and secure possession, as I have often said to them, and to Melantes and Pancreon, and they have agreed to provide for this my will taking effect. I also give them the little handmaid Somatale ; and of my slaves, I ratify the emancipation of Melon, and Cimon, and Parmenon which I have already given them. And I hereby give their liberty to Manes and Callias, who have remained four years in the garden, and have worked in it, and have conducted themselves in an unimpeachable manner. And I direct that my executore shall give Pamphylus as much of my household furniture as may seem to them to be proper, and shall sell the rest. And I give Carion to Demotimus, and Donar to Neleus. I order Eulius to be sold, and I request Hipparchus to give Callinus three thousand drachmas. And if I had not seen the great service that Hipparchus has been to me in former times, and the embarrassed state of his affairs at present, I should have associated Melantes and Pancreon with him in these gifts. But as I see that it would not be easy for them to arrange to manage the property together, I have thought it likely to be more advantageous for them to receive a fixed 202 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. sum from Hipparchus. Therefore, let Hipparchus pay to Melantes and to Pancreon a talent a-piece ; and let him also pay to my executors the money necessary for the expenses which I have here set down iu my will, as it shall require to be expended. And when he has done this, then I will that he shall be discharged of all debts due from him to me or to my estate. And if any profit shall accrue to him in Chalcis, from property belonging to me, it shall be all his own. My executors, for all the duties provided for in this will, shall be Hipparchus, Neleus, Strato, Callinus, Demo- timus, Callisthenes, and Ctesarchus. And this my will is copied out, and all the copies are sealed with the seal-ring of me, Theophrastus ; one copy is in the hands of Hegesias the son of Hipparchus ; the witnesses thereto are Callippus of Pallene, Philomelus of Euonymus, Lysander of Hybas, and Philion of Alopece. Another copy is deposited wdth Olym- piodorus, and the witnesses are the same. A third copy is under tlie care of Adimantus, and it was conveyed to him by Androsthenes, his son. The witnesses to that copy are Arim- nestus the son of Cleobulus, Lysistratus of Thrasos, the son of Pliidon ; Strato of Lampsacus, the son of Arcesilaus ; Thesip- pus of Cerami, the son of Thesippus ; Dioscorides of the banks of the Cephisus, the son of Dionysius. — This was his will. XV. Some writers have stated that Erasistratus, the phy- sician, was a pupil of his ; and it is very likely. LIFE OF STRATO. I. Theophrastus was succeeded in the presidency of his school by Strato of Lampsacus, the son of Arcesilaus, of whom he had made mention in his will. II. He was a man of great eminence, sumamed the Natural Philosopher, from his surpassing all men in the dilligence with which he applied himself to the investigation of matters of that nature. III. He was also the preceptor of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and received from him, as it is said, eighty talents ; and he STRATO. 203 began to preside over the school, as Apolloclorns tells us in his Chronicles, in the hundred and twenty-third olympiad, and continued in that post for eighteen years. IV. There are extant three books of his on Kingly Power ; three on Justice ; three on the Gods ; three on Beginnings ; and one on each of the subjects of Happiness, Philosophy, Manly Courage, the Vacuum, Heaven, Spirit, Human Nature, the Generation of Animals, Mixtures, Sleep, Dreams, Sight, Perception, Pleasure, Colours, Diseases, Judgments, Powers, Metallic Works, Hunger, and Dimness of Sight, Lightness and Heaviness, Enthusiasm, Pain, Nourishment and Growth, Animals whose Existence is Doubted, Fabulous Animals, Causes, a Solution of Doubts, a preface to Topics ; there are, also, treatises on Contingencies, on the Definition, on the More and Less, on Injustice, on Former and Later, on the Prior Genus, on Property, on the Future. There are, also, two books called the Examination of Inventions ; the Genu- ineness of the Commentaries attributed to him, is doubted. There is a volume of Epistles, which begins thus : " Strato wishes Arsinoe prosperity." V. They say that he became so thin and weak, that he died without its being perceived. And there is an epigram of ours upon him in the following terms : — The man was thin, believe me, from the use Of frequent unguents ; Strato was his name, A citizen of Lampsacus ; he struggled long With fell disease, and died at last unnoticed. VI. There were eight people of the name of Strato. The first was a pupil of Isocrates ; the second was the man of whom we have been speaking ; the third was a physician, a pupil of Erasistratus, or, as some assert, a foster-child of his ; the fourth was an historian, who wrote a history of the Achievements of Philip and Perses in their wars against the Komans 'J'he sixth was an epigrammatic poet ; the seventh was an ancient physician, as Aristotle tells us ; the eighth was a Peripatetic philosopher, who lived in Alex- andria. VII. But the will, too, of this natural philosopher is extant, and it is couched in the following language : — " If anything happens to me, I make this disposition of my property. I 204 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. leave all my property in my house to Lampyrion and Arce- silaus ; and with the money which I have at Athens, in the first place, let my executors provide for my funeral and for all other customaiy expenses ; without doing anything extravagant, or, on the other hand, anytliing mean. And the following shall be my executors, according to this my will : Olympichus, Aristides, Innesigenes, Hippocrates, Epicrates, Gorgylus, Diodes, Lycon, and Athanes, And my school I leave to Lycon, since of the others some are too old, and others too busy. And the rest will do well, if they ratify this arrange- ment of mine. I also bequeath to him all my books, except such as we have written ourselves ; and all my furniture in the dining-room, and the couches, and the drinking cups. And let my executors give Epicrates five hundred drachmas, and one of my slaves, according to the choice made by Arcesilaus. And first of all, let Lampyrion and ArcesHaus cancel the engagements which Daippus has entered into for Irteus. And let him be acquitted of all obligation to Lampy- rion or the heirs of Lampyrion ; and let him also be dis- charged from any bond or note of hand he may have given. And let my executors give him five hundred drachmas of silver, and one of my slaves, whichever Arcesilaus may approve, in order that, as he has done me great service, and co-operated with me in many things, he may have a competency, and be enabled to live decently. And I give their freedom to Dio- phantus, and Diodes, and Abus. Simias I give to Arcesilaus. I also give his freedom to Dromo. And when Arcesilaus arrives, let Iraeus calculate with Olympicus and Epicrates, and the rest of my executors, the amount that has been ex- pended on my funeral and on other customary expenses. And let the money that remains, be paid over to Arcesilaus by Olympichus, who shall give him no trouble, as to the time or manner of payment. And Ai'cesilaus shall discharge the engagements which Strato has entered into with Olympichus and Ausinias, which are preserved in writing in the care of Philoreatos, the son of Tisamenus. And with respect to my monument, let them do whatever seems good to Arcesilaus, and Olympichus, and Lycon. This is his will, which is still extant, as Aristo, the Chian, has collected and published it. VIII. And this Strato was a man, as has been shown above, LYCON. 205 of deservedly great popularity ; having devoted himself to the study of every kind of philosophy, and especially of that branch of it called natural philosophy, which is one of the most ancient and important bi'anches of the whole. LIFE OF LYCON. I. He was succeeded by Lycon, a native of the Troas, the son of Astyauax, a man of great eloquence, and of especial ability in the education of youth. For he used to say that it was fit for boys to be harnessed with modesty and rivalry, as much as for horses to be equipped with a spur and a bridle. And his eloquence and energy in speaking is apparent, from this instance. For he speaks of a virgin who was poor in the following manner : — " A damsel, who, for want of a dowry, goes beyond the seasonable age, is a heavy burden to her father ; " on which acccount they say that Antigonus said with reference to him, that the sweetness and beauty of an apple could not be transferred to anything else, but that one might see, in the case of this man, all these excellencies, in as great perfection as on a tree ; and he said this, because he was a surpassingly sweet speaker. On which account, some people prefixed a r to his name.* But as a writer, he was very unequal to liis reputation. And he used to jest in a careless way, upon those who repented that they had not learnt when they had the opportunity, and who now wished that they had done so, saying, said that they were accusing themselves, showing by a prayer which could not possibly be accomplished, their misplaced repentance for their idleness. He used also to say, that those who deliberated without coming to a riglit conclusion, erred in their calculations, like men who investigate a correct nature by an incorrect standard, or who look at a face in disturbed water, or a distorted mirror. Another of his saying was, that many men go in pursuit of the crown to be won in the forum, but few or none seek to attain the one to be gained at the Oljrmpic games. II. And as he in many instances gave much advice to the Athenians, he was of exceedingly great service to them. * So as to make it appear connected with yXvKVQ, sweet. 206 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. III. He was also a person of great neatness in his dress, wearing garments of an uusui'passable delicacy, as we are told by Hermippus. He was at tlie same time exceedingly devoted to the exercises of the Gymnasium, and a man who was always in excellent condition as to his body, displaying every quality of an athlete (though Antigonus of Carystus, pretends that he was bruised about the ears and dirty) ; and in his own country he is said to have wrestled and played at ball at the Iliaean games. IV. And he was exceedingly beloved by Euraenes and Attalus, who made him great presents ; and Antigonus also tried to seduce him to his court, but was disappointed. And he was so great an enemy to Hieronymus the Peripatetic, that he was the only person who would not go to see him on the anniversary festival which he used to celebrate, and which ■we have mentioned in our life of Arcesilaus. V. And he presided over his school forty-four years, as Strato had left it to him in his will, in the hundred and twenty-seventh olympiad. VI. He was also a pupil of Panthoides, the dialectician. VII. He died when he was seventy-fom' years of age, having been a great sufferer with the gout, and there is an epigram of ours upon him : — Nor shall wise Lycon be forgotten, who ._ Died of the gout, and much I wonder at it. For he who ne'er before could walk alone, Went the long road to hell in a single night. VIII. There were several people of the name of Lycon. The first was a Pythagorean ; the second was this man of whom we are speaking ; the third was an epic poet ; the fourth was an epigrammatic poet. IX. I have fallen in with the following will of this philo- sopher. " I make the following disposition of my property ; if I am unable to withstand this disease : — All the property in my house I leave to my brothers Astyanax and Lycon ; and I think that they ought to pay all that I owe at Athens, and that I may have borrowed from any one, and also all the expenses that may be incurred for my funeral, and for other customary solemnities. And all that I have in in the city, or in ^gina, I give to Lycon because he bears the same name LYCON. 2 07 that I do, and because he has spent the greater part of his life with me, showing me the greatest affection, as it was fitting that he should do, since he was in the place of a son to me. And I leave my garden walk to those of my friends who like to use it ; to Bulon, and Callinus, and Ariston, and Amplicon, and Lycon, and Python, and Aristomachus, and Heracleus, and Lycomedes, and Lycon my nephew. And I desire that they will elect as president him whom they think most likely to remain attached to the pursuit of philosophy, and most capable of holding the school together. And I entreat the rest of my friends to acquiesce in their election, for my sake and that of the place. And I desire that Bulon, and Callinus, and the rest of my friends will manage my funeral and the burning of my body, so that my obsequies may not be either mean or extravagant. And the property which I have in ./Egina shall be divided by Lycon after my decease among the young men there, for the purpose of anointing themselves, in order that the memory of me and of him who honoured me, and who showed his affection by useful presents, may be long preserved. And let him erect a statue of me ; and as for the place for it, I desire that Diophantus and Heraclides the son of Demetrius, shall select that, and take care that it be suitable for the proposed erection. With the property that I have in the city let Lycon pay all the people of whom I have borrowed any- thing since his departure; and let Bulon and Callinus join him iu this, and also in discharging all the expenses incurred for my funeral, and for all other customaiy solemnities, and let him deduct the amount from the funds which I have left in my house, and bequeathed to them both in common. Let him also pay the physicians, Pasithemis and Medias, men who, for their attention to me and for their skill, are very deserving of still greater honour. And I give to the son of Callinus my pair of Thericlean cups ; and to his wife I give my pair of Pwhodian cups, and my smooth carpet, and my double carpet, and my curtains, and the two best pillows of all that I leave behind me ; so that as far as the compliment goes, I may be seen not to have forgotten them. And with respect to those who have been my servants, I make the following disposition : — To Demetrius who has long been freed, I remit the price of his freedom, and I further give five mina;, and a cloak, and a tunic, that as he has a great deal of trouble about me, he 208 LTVFS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. may pass the rest of his Ufe comfortably. To Criton, the Chalcedonian, I also remit the price of his freedom, and I further give him four minte. Micras I hereby present with his freedom ; and I desire Lycon to maintain him, and instruct him for six years from the present time. I also give his freedom to Chares, and desire Lycon to maintain him. And I further give him tvro minse, and all my books that are published ; but those -which are not published, I give to Callinus, that he may publish them with due care. I also give to Syrus, whom I have already emancipated, four minsE, and Menedora ; and if he owes me anything I acquit him of the debt. And I give to Hilaras four miuae, and a double carpet, and two pillows, and a curtain, and any couch which he chooses to select. I also hereby emancipate the mother of Micras, and Noemon, and Dion, and Theon, and Euphranor, and Hermeas ; and I desire that Agathon shall have his freedom when he has served two years longer ; and that Ophelion, and Poseideon, my litter-bearers, shall have theirs when they have waited four years more. I also give to Demetrius, and Criton, and Syrus, a cpuch a piece, and coverlets from those which I leave behind me, according to the selection which Lycon is hereby authorised to make. And these are to be their rewards for having performed the duties to which they were ap])ointed well. Concerning my burial, let Lycon do as he pleases, and bury me here or at home, just as he likes ; for I am sure that he has the same regard for propriety that I myself have. And I give all the things herein mentioned, in the confidence that he will arrange everything properly. The witnesses to this my will are Callinus of Hermione, Ariston of Ceos, and Euphronius of Paeania." As he then was thoroughly wise in everything relating to education, and every branch of philosophy, he was no less prudent and careful in the framing of his will. So that in this resjject to he deserves to be admired and imitated. 209 LIFE OF DEMETRIUS. I. Demetrius was a native of Phalerus, and the son of Phauostratus. He was a pupil of Theophrastus. II. And as a leader of the people at Athens he governed the city for ten years, and was honoured with three hundred and sixty brazen statues, the greater part of which were equestrian ; and some were placed in carriages or in pair- hoi-se chariots, and the entire number were finished within three hundred days, so great was the zeal with which they were worked at. And Demetrius, the Magnesian, in his treatise on People of the same Name, says that he began to be the leader of the commonwealth, when Harpalus arrived in Athens, having fled from Alexander. And he governed his country for a long time in a most admirable manner. For he aggrandised the city by increased revenues and by new build- ings, although he w-as a person of no distinction by birth. III. Though Pharorinus, in the first book of his Commen- taries, asserts that he was of the family of Conon. IV. He lived with a citizen of noble birth, named Lamia, as his mistress, as the same author tells us in his first book. V. Again, in his second book he tells us that Demetrius was the slave of the debaucheries of Cleou. VI. Didymus, in his Banquets, says that he was called ^a^iro^Xstpa^os, or Beautiful Eyed, and Lampeto, by some courtesan. VII. It is said that he lost his eye-sight in Alexandria, and recovered it again by the favour of Serapis ; on which account he composed the paeans which are sung and spoken of as his composition to this day. VIII. He was held in the greatest honour among the Athe- nians, but nevertheless, he found his fame darkened by envy, which attacks every thing ; for he was impeached by some one on a capital charge, and as he did not appear, he was con demn'ed. His accusers, however, did not become masters of his person, but expended their venom on the brass, tearing down his statues and selling some and throwing others into the sea, and some they cut up into chamber-pots. For even this is stated. And one statue alone of him is preserved p QIO LIVES OF EMINEiNT PHILOSOPHERS. ■\vhicli is in the Acropolis. But Pharorinus in liis Universal History, says that the Athenians treated Demetrius in this manner at the command of the king ; and they also impeached him as guilty of illegality in his administration, as Pharorinus says. But Hermippus says, that after the death of Cassander, he feared the enmity of Antigonus, and on that account fled to Ptolemy Soter ; and that he remained at his court for a long time, and, among other pieces of advice, counselled the king to make over the kingdom to his sons by Eurydice. And as he would not agree to this measure, but gave the crown to his son by Berenice, this latter, after the death of his father, commanded Demetrius to be kept in prison until he should come to some determination about him. And there he remained in great despondency ; and while asleep on one occasion, he was bitten by an asp in the hand, and so he died. And he is buried in the district of Busiris, near Diospolis, and we have written the following epigram on him : — An asp, whose tooth of venom dire was full, Did kill the wise Demetrius. The serpent beamed not light from out his eyes, ' But dark and lurid hell. But Heraclides, in his Epitome of the Successions of Sotion, says that Ptolemy wished to transmit the kingdom to Phila- delphus, and that Demetrius dissuaded him from doing so by the argument, " If you give it to another, you will not have it yourself." And when Menander, the comic poet, had an information laid against him at Athens (for this is a state- ment which I have heard), he was very nearly convicted, for no other reason but that he was a friend of Demetrius. He was, however, successfully defended by Telesphorus, the son- in-law of Demetrius. IX. In the multitude of his writings and the number of lines which they amount to, he exceeded nearly all the Peri- patetics of his day, being a man of great learning and expe- rience on every subject. And some of his writings are his- toiical, some political, some on poets, some rhetorical, some also are speeches delivered in juiblic assemblies or on em- bassies ; there are also collections of ^sop's Fables, and many other books. There are five volumes on the Legislation of Athens ; two on Citizens of Athens ; two on the Manage- DEMETRIUS. 2 1 1 meut of tlie People; two on Political Science; one on Laws; two on Pthetoric ; two on Military Affairs ; two on the Iliad ; four on the Odyssey ; one called the Ptolemy ; one on Love ; the Phaedondas, one ; the Masdan, one ; the Cleon, one ; the Socrates, one ; the Artaxerxes, one ; the Homeric, one ; the Aristides, one ; the Aristomachus, one ; the Exhortatory, one ; one on the Constitution ; one on his Ten Years' Government ; one on the lonians ; one on Amhassadors ; one on Good Faith ; one on Gratitude ; one on Futurity ; one on Greatness of Soul ; one on Marriage ; one on Opinion ; one on Peace ; one on Laws ; one on Studies ; one on Opportunity ; the Dionysius, one ; the Chalcidean, one ; the Maxims of the Athenians, one ; on Antiphones, one ; a Historic Preface, one ; one Volume of Letters ; one called an Assembly on Oath ; one on Old Age ; one on Justice ; one volume of /Esop's Fables ; one of Apophthegms. His style is philosophical, combined with the energy and impressiveness of an orator. X, When he was told that the Athenians had thrown down his statues, he said, " But they have not thrown down my virtues, on account of which they erected them." He used to say that tlie eyebrows were not an insignificant part of a man, for that they were able to overshadow the whole life. Another of his sayings was that it was not Plutus alone who "was blind, but Fortune also, who acted as Iris guide. Another, that reason had as much influence on govei'nment, as steel had in war. On one occasion, when he saw a debauched young man, he said, " There is a square Mercury with a long robe, a belly, and a beard." It was a favourite saying of his, that in the case of men elated with pride one ought to cut some- thing off their height, and leave them their spirit. Another of his apophthegms was, that at home young men ought to show respect to their parents, and in the streets to every one whom they met, and in solitary places to themselves. Another, that friends ought to come to others in good fortune only when invited, but to those in distress of their own accord. These are the chief sayings attributed to him. XL There were twenty persons of the name of Demetrius, of sufficient consideration to be entitled to mention. ]''irst, a Chalcedonian, an orator, older than Thrasymachus ; the second, this person of whom we are speaking ; the third was a Byzantine, a Peripatetic philosopher ; the fourth was a man p 2 '2] '2 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEES. surnamed Graphicus, a very eloquent lecturer, and also a painter ; the fifth was a native of Aspendus, a disciple of Apollonius, of Soli ; the sixth was a native of Golatia, who wrote twentv books about Asia and Europe ; the seventh was a Byzantine, who wrote an account of the crossing of the Gauls from Europe into Asia, in thirteen books, and the History of Antiochus and Ptolemy, and their Administration of the Affairs of Africa, in eight more ; the eighth was a Sophist who lived in Alexandria, and who wrote a treatise on Rheto- rical Art ; the ninth was a native of Adramyttium, a gram- marian, who was nick-named Ixion, in allusion to some crime he had committed against Juno ; the tenth was a Cyrenean, a grammarian, who was surnamed Stamnus,* a very distin- guished man ; the eleventh was a Scepsian,.a rich man of noble birth, and of great eminence for learning. He it was who advanced the fortunes of Metrodorus his fellow citizen ; the twelfth was a grammarian of Euthyne, who was made a citizen of Lemnos : the thirteenth was a Bytliinian, a son of Diphilus the Stoic, and a disciple of Pamotus of PJiodes ; the fourteenth was an orator of Smyrna. All of these were prose writers. The following were poets : — The first a poet of the Old Comedy. The second an Epic poet, who has left nothing behind him that has come down to us, except these lines which he wrote against some envious people : — They disregard a man while still alive, Whom, when he's dead, they honour ; cities proud, And powerful nations, have with contest fierce, Fought o'er a tomb and unsubtantial shade. The third was a native of Tarsus ; a writer of Satires. The fourth was a composer of Iambics, a bitter man. The fifth was a statuary, who is mentioned by Polemo. The sixth was a native of ErythriE, a man who wrote on various subjects, and who composed volumes of histories and relations. * (TTa/ivoQ, means an earthenware jar for wine. f The foregoing account hardly does justice to Demetrius, who was a man of real ability, and of a very different class to the generality of those whom the ancients dignified witli the title of philosophers. He was called Phalereus, to distinguish him fi'om his contemporary Deme- trius Poliorcetes. His administration of the affairs of Athens was so successful, that Cicero gives him the praise of having re-established the sinking and almost prostrate power of the republic. 213 LIFE OF HERACLIDES. I. Heracltdes was the son of Euthyphron, and was born at Heraclea, in Pontus ; he was also a wealthy man. II. After he came to Athens, he was at "first a disciple of Speusippus, but he also attended the schools of the Pythago- rean philosophers, and he adopted the princijiles of "Plato ; last of all he became a pupil of Aristotle, as we are told by Sotion in his book entitled the Successions. III. He used to wear delicate garments, and was a man of great size, so that he was nicknamed by the Athenians Pompicus* instead of Ponticus. But he was of quiet manners and noble aspect. IV. There are several books extant by him, which are exceedingly good and admirable. They are in the form of dialogue ; some being Ethical dialogues ; three on the subject of Justice ; one on Temperance ; five on Piety ; one on Manly (Courage ; one, and a second which is distinct from it, on Virtue ; one on Happiness ; one on Supremacy ; one on Laws and questions connected with them ; one on Names ; one called Covenants ; one called The Unwilling Lover ; and the Clinias. (Cic. de Rep. ii. 1 .) As an orator, lie is .spoken of by the same great authority with the highest admiration. Cicero calls him " a subtle disputer, not vehement, but very sweet, as a pupil of Theophrastus might be expected to be." (de Off. i. 3). In another place he praises him aa possessed of great learning, and as one who " rather delighted than inflamed the Athenians." (de Clav. Orat. § 37.) And says, " that he was the fir.st person who endeavoured to soften eloquence, and who made it tender and gentle ; preferring to appear sweet, as indeed he was, rather than vehement." (Ibid § 38.) In* another place he' says, " Demetrius Phalereus the most poli.shed of all those orators " (he has been mentioning Demosthenes, Hyperides, Lycurgus, ^schines, and Dinarchus) "in my opinion." (de Orat. ii. 23.) And he praises him for not confining his learning to the schools, but for bringing it into daily use, and employing it as one of his ordinary weapons, (de Leg. iii. 14.) And asks who can be found besides him who excelled in both ways, so as to be pre-eminent at the same time as a scholar, and a governor of a state. (Ibid.) He mentions his death in the oration for Rabirius Postumus, § 9. He appears to have died about B.C. 282. • From TTo/xn-/), a procession. 214 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. Of the physical dialogues, one is on the Mind ; one on the Soul ; one on the Soul, and Nature and Appearances ; one addressed to Democritus ; one on the Heavenly Bodies ; one on the State of Things in the Shades below ; two on Lives ; one on the Causes of Diseases ; one on the Good : one on the doctrines of Zeno ; one on the Doctrines of Metron. Of his grammatical dialogues, there are two on the Age of Homer and Hesiod ; two on Archilochus and Homer. There are some on Music too ; three on Euripides and Sophocles, aiid two on Music. Tliere ai-e also two volumes. Solutions of Questions concerning Homer ; one on Specula- tions ; oiie, the Three Tragedians ; one volume of Cliaracters ; one dialogue on Poetry and the Poets ; one on Conjecture ; one on Foresight ; four, being Explanations of Heraclitus ; one, Explanations with reference to Democritus ; two books of Solutions of Disputed Points ; one, the Axiom ; one on Species ; one book of Solutions ; one of Suppositions ; one addressed to Dionysius. Of rhetorical works, there is the dialogue on the being an Orator, or the Protagoras. Of historical dialogues, there are some on the Pythagoreans, and on Inventions. Of these, some he has drawn up after the manner of Comic writers ; as, for instance, the one about Pleasure, and that about Temperance. And some in the style of the Tragedians, as, for instance, the dialogues on the State of Things in the Shades below ; and one on Piety, and that on Supremacy. And his style is a conversational and moderate one, suited to the characters of philosophers and men occupied in the military or political affairs conversing together. Some of his works also are on Geometry, and on Dialectics ; and iu all of them he displays a very varied and elevated style ; and he has great powers of persuasion. V. He appears to have delivered his country when it was under the yoke of tyrants, by slaying the monai'ch, as Deme- trius of Magnesia tells us, in his treatise on People of the Same Name. VI. And he gives the following account of him. That he brought up a young serpent, and kept it till it grew large ; and that when he was at the point of death, he desired one of his faithful friends to hide his body, and to place the serpent in his bed, that he might appear to have migrated to the HERACLIDES. 2 1 5 Gods. And all this was done ; and while the citizens were all attending his funeral and extolling his character, the serpent hearing the noise, crept out of his clothes and threw the multitude into confusion. And afterwards everything was revealed, and Heraclides was seen, not as he hoped to have been, but as he really was. And we have written an epigram on him which runs thus : — You wish d, Heraclide?, when you died, To leave a strange belief among mankind, That you, when dead, a serpent had become. But all your calculations were deceived, For this your serpent was indeed a beast, And you were thus discovered and pronounced another. And Hijipobotus gives the same account. But Hermippus says that once, when a famine oppressed the land, the people of Heraclea consulted the Pythian oracle for the way to get rid of it ; and that Heraclides corrupted the ambassadors who were sent to consult the oracle, and also the priestess, with bribes ; and that she answered that they would obtain a deliverance from their distresses, if Heraclides, the son of Euthyphron, was presented by them with a golden crown, and if when he was dead they paid him honours as a hero. Accordingly, this answer was brought back from the oracle to Heraclea, but they who brought it got no advantage from it ; for as soon as Heraclides had been crowned in the theatre, he was seized with apoplexy, and the ambassadors who had been sent to consult the oracle were stoned, and so put to death; and at the very same moment the Pythian priestess was going down to the inner shrine, and while standing there was bitten by a serpent, and died immediately. This then is the account given of his death. VII. And Aristoxenus the musician says, that he composed tragedies, and inscribed them with the name of Thespis. And Chamaeleon says, that he stole essays from him on the subject of Homer and Hesiod, and published them as his own. And Aretodorus the Epicurean reproaches him, and contradicts all the arguments which he advanced in his treatise on Justice. Moreover, Dionysius, called the Deserter, or as some say Spentharus, wrote a tragedy called Parthenopa3us, and forged the name of Sophocles to it. And Heraclides was so much deceived tliat he took some passages out of one of his 216 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. works, and cited them as the words of Sophocles ; and Diony- sius, whea he perceived it, gave him notice of the real truth ; and as he would not believe it, and denied it, he sent him word to examine the first letters of the first verses of the book, and they formed the name of Panculus, who was a friend of Dionysius. And as Heraclides still refused to believe it, and said that it was possible that such a thing might happen by chance, Dionysius sent him back word once more, " You will find this passage too : — " An aged monkey is not easily caugtt ; ^ He's caught indeed, but only after a time." And he added, " Heraclides knows nothing of letters, and has no shame." VIII. And there were fourteen persons of the name of Heraclides. First, this man of whom we are speaking ; the second was a fellow citizen of his, who composed songs for Pyrrliic dances, and other trifles ; the third was a native of CumjB, who wrote a history of the Persian war in five books ; the fourtli was also a citizen of Cumte, who was an orator, and wrote a treatise on his art ; the fifth was a native of Calatia or Alexandria, who wrote a Succession in six books, and a treatise on Ships, from which he was called Lembos ; the sixth was an Alexandrian, who wrote an account of the peculiar habits of the Persians ; the seventh was a dialectician of Bargyleia, who wrote against Epicurus ; the eighth was a physician, a pupil of Nisius ; the ninth was a physician of Tarentum, a man of great skill ; the tenth was a poet, who WTote Precepts ; the eleventh was a sculptor of Phocaea; the twelfth was an Epigrammatic poet of considerable beauty; the thirteenth was a Magnesian, who wrote a history of the reign- of Mithridates ; the fourteenth was an astronomer, who wrote a treatise on Astronomy. 217 BOOK VL LIFE OF ANTISTHENES. I. Antisthenes was an Athenian, the son of Antisthenes. And he was said not to be a legitimate Athenian ; in reference to which he said to some one who was reproaching him with the circmnstance, " The mother of the Gods too is a Phry- gian ;" for he was thouglit to have had a Thracian mother. On which account, as he had borne himself bravely in the battle of Tanagra, he gave occasion to Socrates to say that the son of two Athenians could not have been so brave. And he himself, when disparaging the Athenians who gave themselves great airs as having been boi-n out of the earth itself, said that they were not more noble as far as that went than snails and locusts. II. Originally he was a pupil of Gorgias the rhetorician ; owing to which circumstance he employs the rhetorical style of language in his Dialogues, especially in his Truth and in his Exhortations. And Hermippus says, that he had origi- nally intended in his address at the assembly, on account of the Isthmian games, to attack and also to praise the Athenians, and Thebans, and Lacedaemonians ; but that he afterwards abandoned the design, when he saw that there were a great many spectators come from those cities. Afterwards, he attached himself to Socrates, and made such progress in philosophy while with him, that he advised all his own pupils to become his fellow pupils in the school of Socrates. And as he lived in the Piraeus, he went up forty furlongs to the city every day, in order to hear Socrates, from whom he learnt the art of enduring, and of being indifferent to external circum- stances, and so became the original founder of the Cynic school. III. And he used to argue that labour was a good thing, by adducing the examples of the great Hercules, and of Cyrus, one of which he derived from the Greeks and the other from the barbarians. IV. He was also the first person who ever gave a definition of discourse, saying, " Discourse is that which shows what 218 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. anything is or was." And be used continually to say, " I would rather go mad than feel pleasure." And, " One ought to attach one's self to such women as will thank one for it." He said once to a youth from Pontus, who was on the point of coming to him to be his pupil, and was asking him what things be wanted, " You want a new book, and a new pen, and a new tablet;" — meaning a new mind. And to a person who asked him from what country he had better marry a wife, be said, " If you marry a handsome woman, she will be common ;* if an ugly woman, she will he a punishment to you." He was told once that Plato spoke ill of him, and he replied, " It is a royal privilege to do well, and to be evil spoken of." When he was being initiated into the mysteries of Orpheus, and the priest said that those who were initiated enjoyed, many good things in the shades below, " Why, then," said he " do not you die ?" Being once reproached as not being the son of two free citizens, he said, " And I am not the son of two people skilled in wrestling ; nevertheless, I am a skilful wrestler." On one occasion he was asked why he had but few disciples, and said, " Because I drove them away with a silver rod." When he was asked why be reproved his pupils with bitter language, he said, " Physicians too use severe remedies for their patients." Once he saw an adulterer run- ning away, and said, " O unhappy man ! how much danger could you have avoided for one obol !" He used to say, as Hecaton tells us in his Apophthegms, " That it was better to fall among crows, f than among flatterers ; for that they only devour the dead, but the others devour the living." When he was asked what was the most happy event that could take place in human life, he said, " To die while prosperous." On one occasion one of his friends was lamenting to him that he had lost his memoranda, and he said to him, " You ought to have written them on your mind, and not on paper." A favourite saying of his was, " That envious people were devoured by their own disposition, just as iron is by rust." Another was, " That those who wish to be immortal ought to live piously and justly." He used to say too, " That cities * There is a play on the similarity of the two sounds, koiv>), common, and TToivT], punishment. t The Greek is, eg Kopaicac, which was a proverb for utter destruc- tion. ANTISTHENES. 219 were rained when they were unable to distinguish worthless citizens from virtuous ones." On one occasion he was being praised by some wicked men, and said, " I am sadly afraid that I must have done some wicked thing." One of his favourite sayings was, " That the fellow- ship of brothers of one mind was stronger than any fortified city." He used to say, " That those things were the best for a man to take on a journey, which would float with him if he were shipwrecked." He was once reproached for being intimate with wicked men, and said, " Physicians also live with those who are sick ; and yet they do not catch fevers." He used to say, " that it was an absurd thing to clean a corn- field of tares, and in war to get rid of bad soldiers, and yet not to rid one's self in a city of the wicked citizens." When he was asked what advantage he had ever derived from philo- sophy, he replied, " The advantage of being able to converse with myself." At a drinking party, a man once said to him, " Give us a song," and he replied, " Do you play us a tune on the flute." When Diogenes asked him for a tunic, he bade him fold his cloak. He was asked on one occasion what learning was the most necessary, and he replied, " To unlearn ones bad habits." And he used to exhort those who found themselves ill spoken of, to endure it more than they would any one's throwing stones at them. He used to laugh at Plato as conceited ; accordingly, once when there was a fine proces- sion, seeing a horse neighing, he said to Plato, " I think you too would be a very frisky horse :" and he said this all the more, because Plato kept continually praising the horse. At another time, he had gone to see him when he was ill, and when he saw there a dish in which Plato had been sick, he said, " I see your bile there, but I do not see your conceit." He used to advise the Athenians to pass a vote that asses w-ere horses ; and, as they thought that irrational, he said, " Why, those whom you make generals have never learnt to be really generals, they have only been voted such." A man said to him one day, "Many people praise you." "Why, what evil," said he, " have I done ?" WHien he turned the rent in his cloak outside, Socrates seeing it, said to him, " I see your vanity thi'ough the hole in your cloak." On another occasion, the question was put to him b}- some one, as Phunias relates, in his treatise on the Philosphers of the 220 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. Socratic school, what a man could do to show himself an honourable and a virtuous man ; and he replied, " If you atttend to those who understand the subject, and learn from them that you ought to shun the bad habits which you have." Some one was praising luxury in his hearing, and he said, " May the cliildren of my enemies be luxurious." Seeing a young man place himself in a carefully studied attitude before a modeller, he said, "Tell me, if the brass could speak, on what would it pride itself?" And when the young man replied, " On its beauty.^' " Are you not then," said he, " ashamed to rejoice in the same thing as an inanimate piece of brass?" A young man from Pontus once promised to recollect him, if a vessel of salt fish arrived ; and so he took him with him, and also an empty bag, and went to a woman who sold meal, and filled his sack and went away ; and when the woman asked him to pay for it, he said, "The young man will pay you, when the vessel of salt fish comes home." He it was who appears to have been the cause of Anytua's banishment, and of Meletus's death. For having met with some young men of Pontus, who had come to Athens, on account of the reputation of Socrates, he took them to Anytus, telling them, that in moral philosophy he was wiser than Socrates ; and they who stood by were indignant at this, and drove him away. And whenever he saw a woman beautifully adorned, he would go off to her house, and desire her husband to bring forth his horse and his arms ; and then if he had such things, he would give him leave to indulge in luxury, for tJiat he had the means of defending himself ; but if he had tliem not, then he would bid him strip his wife of her ornaments. V. And the doctrines he adopted were these. He used to insist that virtue was a thing wliich miglit be taught ; also, that the nobly born and virtuously disposed, were the same people ; for that virtue was of itself sufficient for happiness, and was in need of nothing, except the strength of Socrates. He also looked upon virtue as a species of work, not wanting many arguments, or much instruction ; and he taught that the wise man was sufficient for himself ; for that everythmg tliat belonged to any one else belonged to him. He con- sidered obscurity of fame a good thing, and equally good with labour. And he used to say that the wise man would regu- ANTISTHENES. 221 late his conduct as a citizen, not according to the established laws of the state, but according to the law of virtue. And that he would marry for the sake of having children, selecting the most beautiful woman for his wife. And that he would love her ; for that the wise man alone knew what objects deserved love. Diodes also attributes the following apophthegms to him. To the wise man, nothing is strange and nothing remote. The virtuous man is worthy to be loved. Good men are friends. It is right to make the brave and just one's allies. Virtue is a weapon of which a man cannot be deprived. It is better to fight with a few good men against all the wicked, than with many wicked men against a few good men. One should attend to one's enemies, for they are the first persons to detect one's errors. One should consider a just man as of more value than a relation. Virtue is the same in a man as in a woman. "What is good is honourable, and what is bad is disgraceful. Think everything that is wicked, foreign. Prudence is the safest fortification; for it can neither fall to pieces nor be betrayed. One must prepare one's self a fortress in one's own impregnable thoughts. VI. He used to lecture in the Gymnasium, called Cjmo- sarges, not far from the gates ; and some people say that it is from that place that the sect got the name of Cynics. And he himself was called Haplocyon (downright dog). VII. He was the first person to set the fashion of doubling his cloak, as Diodes says, and he wore no other garment. And he used to carry a stick and a wallet ; but Neanthes says that he was the first person wlio wore a cloak without folding it. But Sosicrates, in the third book of his Succes- sions, says that Diodorus, of Aspendos, let his beard grow, and used to carry a stick and a wallet. VIII. He is the only one of all the pupils of Socrates, whom Theopompus praises and speaks of as clover, and able to persuade whomsoever he pleased by the sweetness of his conversation. And this is plain, both from his own writings, and from the Banquet of Xenophon. He appears to have been the founder of the more manly Stoic scliool ; on which account Athemeus, the epigrammatist, speaks thus of them : — ye, who learned are in Stoic fables, Ye who consign the wisest of all doctrines 22Q. LIVES OP EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. To your most sacred books ; you say that virtue Is the sole good ; for that alone can save The life of man, and strongly fenced cities. But if some fancy pleasure their best aim, One of the Muses 'tis who has convinc'd them. He was the original cause of the apathy of Diogenes, and the temperance of Crates, and the patience of Zeno, having himself, as it were, laid the foundations of the city which they afterwards built. And Xenophon says, that in his conver- sation and society, he was the most delightful of men, and in every respect the most temperate. IX. There are ten volumes of his writings extant. The first volume is that in which there is the essay on Style, or on Figures of Speech; the Ajax, or speech of Ajax; the Defence, of Orestes or the treatise on Lawyers ; the Isographe, or the Lysias and Isocrates ; the reply to the work of Isocrates, entitled the Absence of Witnesses. The second volume is that in which we have the treatise on the Nature of Animals ; on the Pro-creation of Children, or on Marriage, an essay of an amatory character ; on the Sophists, an essay of a physiogno- mical character ; on Justice and Manly Virtue, being three essays of an hortatory character ; two treatises on Theognis. The third volume contains a treatise on the Good ; on Manly Courage ; on Law, or Political Constitutions ; on Law, or what is Honourable and Just ; on Freedom and Slavery ; • on Good Faith; on a Guardian, or on Persuasion; on Victory, an economical essay. The fourth volume contains the Cyrus ; the Greater Heracles, or a treatise on Strength. The fifth volume contains the Cyrus, or a treatise on Ivingly Power ; the Aspasia. The sixth volume is that in which there is the treatise Truth ; another (a disputatious one) concerning Arguing ; the Sathon, or on Contradiction, in tln'ee parts ; and an essay on Dialect. The seventh contains a treatise on Educa- tion, or Names, in five books ; one on the Use of Names, or the Contentious Man ; one ou Questions and Answers ; one on Opinion and Knowledge, in four books ; one on Dying ; one on Life and Death ; one ou those who are in the Shades below ; one on Nature, in two books; two books of Questions in Natural Philosophy ; one essay, called Opinions on the Contentious Man ; one book of Problems, on the subject of ANTISTHENES. 2'23 Learniug. The eighth volume is that in which we find a treatise on Music ; one on Intei-preters ; one on Homer ; one on Injustice and Impiety ; one on Calchas ; one on a Spy ; one on Pleasure. The ninth book contains an essay on the Odyssey ; one on the Magic Wand ; the Minerva, or an essay on Telemachus ; an essay on Helen and Penelope ; one on Proteus ; the Cyclops, being an essay on Ulysses ; an essay on the Use of Wine, or on Drunkenness, or on the Cyclops; one on Circe ; one on Amphiaraus ; one on Ulysses and Penelope, and also on Ulysses' Dog. The tenth volume is occupied by the Heracles, or Medas ; the Hercules, or an Essay on Prudence or Strength ; the Lord or the Lover ; the Lord or the Spies ; the Menexenus, or an essay on Governing ; the Alcibiades ; the Archelaus, or an essay on Kingly Power. These then are the names of his works. And Timon, rebuking him because of their great number, called him a universal chatterer. X. He died of some disease ; and while he was ill Diogenes came to visit him, and said to him, " Have you no need of a friend ?" Once too he came to see him with a sword in his liand ; and when Antisthenes said, " Who can deliver me from this suffering?" he, pointing to the sword, said, "This can ;" But he rejoined, " I said from suffering,'^ but not from life ;" for he seemed to bear his disease the more calmly from his love of life. And there is an epigram on him written by ourselves, which runs thus : — In life you were a bitter dog, Antisthenes, Born to bite people's minds with sayings sharp, Not with your actual teeth. Now you are slain By fell consumption, passers by may say, Why should he not , one wants a guide to Hell. , There were also three other people of the name of Antisthenes. One, a disciple of Heraclitus ; the second, an Ephesian ; the third, a historian of Rhodes. And since we have spoken of those who pi'oceeded from the school of Aristippus and Phtedon, we may now go on to the Cynics and Stoics, who derived their origin from Antisthenes. And we wiU take them in the following order. 224 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. LIFE OF DIOGENES. I. Diogenes was a native of Sinope, the son of Tresius, a money-changer. And Diodes says that he was forced to flee from his native city, as his father liept the public bank there, and had adulterated the coinage. But Eubulides, in his essay on Diogenes, says, that it was Diogenes himself who did this, and that he was banished with his father. And, indeed, he himself, in his Perdalus, says of himself that he had adulterated the public money. Others say that he was one of the curators, and was persuaded by the artisans employed, and that he went to Delphi, or else to the oracle at Delos, and there consulted Apollo as to whether he should do what people were trying to persuade him to do ; and that, as the God gav-e liim permission to do so, Diogenes, not comprehend- ing that the God meant that he might change the political customs* of his country if he could, adulterated the coinage ; and being detected, was banished, as some people say, but as other accounts have it, took the alarm and fled away of his own accord. Some again, say that he adulterated the money which he had received from his father ; and that his father was thrown into prison and died there ; but that Diogenes escaped and went to Delphi, and asked, not whether he might tamper with the coinage, but what he could do to become very celebrated, and that in consequence he received the oracular answer which I have mentioned. II. And when he came to Athens he attached himself to Antisthenes ; but as he repelled him, because he admitted no one ; he at last forced his way to him by his pertinacity. And once, when he raised his stick at him, he put his head under it, and said, " Strike, for you will not find any stick hard enough to drive me away as long as you continue to speak." And from this time forth he was one of his pupils ; and being an exile, he naturally betook himself to a simple mode of hfe. III. And when, as Theophrastus tells us, in his Megaric Philosopher, he saw a mouse running about and not seeking * The passage is not free from difficulty ; but the thing which misled Diogenes appears to have been that v6ixinf.ia, the word here used, meant both " a coin, or coinage," and '' a custom." DIOGENES. 225 for a bed, nor taking care to keep in the dark, nor looking for any of those things w.hich appear enjoyable to such an animal, he found a remedy for his own poverty. He was, according to the account of some people, the first person who doubled up his cloak out of necessity, and who slept in it ; and who carried a wallet, in which he kept his food ; and who used whatever place was near for all sorts of purposes, eating, and sleeping, and conversing in it. In reference to which habit he used to say, pointing to the Colonnade of Jupiter, and to the Public Magazine, " that the Athenians had built him places to live in." Being attacked with illness, he supported himself with a staff; and after that he carried it continually, not indeed in the city, but whenever he was walking in the roads, together with his wallet, as Olympiodorus, the chief man of the Athenians tells us ; and Polymeter, the orator, and Lysanias, the son of ^schorion, tell the same story. When he had written to some one to look out and get ready a small house for him, as he delayed to do it, he took a cask which he found in the Temple of Cybele, for his house, as he himself tells us in his letters. And during the summer he used to roll himself in the warm sand, but in winter he would embrace statues all covered with snow, practising him- self, on every occasion, to endure anything. IV. He was veiy violent in expressing his haughty disdain of others. He said that the (Syj)'Kri (school) of Euclides was %o>.)5 (gall). And he used to call Plato's diar^i(3yi (discussions) zaraT^iSfi (disguise). It was also a saying of his that the Dionysian games were a great marvel to fools ; and that the demagogues were the ministers of the multitude. He used likewise to say, " that when in the course of his life he beheld pilots, and physicians, and philosophers, lie thought man the wisest of all animals ; but when again he beheld interpreters of dreams, and soothsayers, and those who listened to them, and men puffed up with glory or riches, then he thought that there was not a more foolish animal than man." Another of his sayings was, " that he thought a man ought oftener to provide himself with a reason than with a halter." On one occasion, when he noticed Plato at a very costly entertainment tasting some olives, he said, " O you wise man ! why, after having sailed to Sicily for the sake of such a feast, do you not now enjoy what you have before you?" And Plato replied, Q 226 LIVES OF EMINKNT PHILOSOPHERS. " By the Gods, Diogenes, while I was there I ate olives and all such things a great deal." Diogenes rejoined, " What then did you want to sail to Syracuse for '? Did not Attica at that time produce any olives ?'' But Phavorinus, in his Universal History, tells this story of Aristippus. At another time he was eating dried figs, when Plato met him, and he said to him, " You may have a share of these ;" and as he took some and ate them, he said, " I said that you might have a share of them, not that you might eat them all." On one occasion Plato had invited some friends who had come to him from Diouysius to a banquet, and Diogenes trampled on his carpets, and said, " Thus I trample on the empty pride of Plato ;" and Plato made him answer, " How much arrogance are you displaying, O Diogenes ! when you think that you are not arrogant at all." But, as others tell the story, Diogenes said, " Thus I trample on the pride of Plato ;" and that Plato rejoiricd, " With quite as much pride yourself, O Diogenes." Sotion too, in his fourth book, states, that the Cynic made the following speech to Plato : Diogenes once asked him for some wine, and then for some dried figs ; so he sent him an entire jar full ; and Diogenes said to him, " Will you, if you are asked how many two and two make, answer twenty ? In this way, you neither give with any reference to what you are asked for, nor do you answer with reference to the question put to you." He used also to ridicule him as an interminable talker. When he was asked where in Greece he saw virtuous men ; *' Men," said he, " nowhere ; but I see good boys in Lacedae- mon." On one occasion, when no one came to listen to him while he was discoursing seriously, he began to whistle. And then when people flocked round him, he reproached them for coming with eagerness to folly, but being lazy and indiffer- ent about good things. One of his frequent sayings was, " That men contended with one another in punching and kicking, but that no one showed any emulation in the pursuit of virtue." He used to express his astonishment at the grammariaiis for being desirous to learn everything about the misfortunes of Ulysses, and being ignorant of their own. He used also to say, " That the musicians fitted the strings to the lyre properly, but left all the habits of their soul ill-arranged." And, " That mathematicians kept their eyes fixed on the sua and moon, and overlooked what was under their feet." " That DIOGENES. 227 orators were anxious to speak justly, but not at all about acting so." Also, " That misers blamed money, but were preposterously fond of it." He often condemned those who praise the just for being superior to money, but who at the same time are eager themselves for great riches. He was also very indignant at seeing men sacrifice to the Gods to procure good health, and yet at the sacrifice eating in a manner injurious to health. He often expressed his surprise at slaves, who, seeing their masters eating in a gluttonous manner, still do not themselves lay hands on any of the eatables. He would frequently praise those who were about to marry, and yet did not marry ; or who were about to take a voyage, and yet did not take a voyage ; or who were about to engage in affairs of state, and did not do so ; and those who were about to rear children, yet did not rear any ; and those who were preparing to take up their abode with princes, and yet did not take it up. One of his sayings was, " Tiiat one ought to hold out one's baud to a friend without closing the fingers." Hermippus, in his Sale of Diogenes, says that he was taken prisoner and put up to be sold, and asked what he could do ; and he answered, " Govern men." And so he bade the crier " give notice that if any one wants to purchase a master, there is one here for him." When he was ordered not to «it down ; " It makes no difference," said he, " for fish are sold, be where they may." He used to say, that he wondered at men always ringing a dish or jar befoi'e buying it, but being content to judge of a man by his look alone. When Xeniades bought him, he said to him that he ought to obey him even though he was his slave ; fur that a physician or a pilot would find men to obey them even though they might be slaves. V. And Eubulus sayrs, in his essay entitled, The Sale of Diogenes, that he taught the cliildren of Xeniades, aiter their other lessons, to ride, and shoot, and sling, and dart. And then in the Gymnasium he did not permit the trainer to exer- cise them after the fashion of athletes, but exercised them him- self to just the degree sufficient to give tliem a good colour and good health. And the boys retained in their memory many sentences of poets and prose writers, and of Diogenes himself; and he used to give them a concise statement of everything q2 2Q8 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. in order to strengthen their memory ; and at home he used to teach them to wait upon themselves, contenting themselves with plain food, and drinking water. And he accustomed them to cut their hair close, and to eschew ornament, and to go without tunics or shoes, and to keep silent, looking at nothing except themselves as they walked along. He used, also to take them out hunting ; and they paid the greatest attention and respect to Diogenes himself, and spoke well of him to their parents. VI. And the same author affirms, that he grew old in the household of Xeniades, and that when he died he was buried by his sons. And that while he was living with him, Xeniades once asked him how he should bury him; and he said, " On my face ;" and when he was asked why, he said, " Because, in a little while, everything will be turned upside down." And he said this because the Macedonians were already attaining power, and becoming a mighty people from having been very inconsiderable. Once, when a man had conducted him into a magnificent hovise, and had told him that he must not spit, after hawking a little, he spit in his face, saying tbat he could not find a worse place. But some tell this story of Aristippus. Once, he called out, " Holloa, men." And when some people gathered round him in con- sequence, he drove them away with his stick, saying, " I called men, and not dregs." This anecdote I have derived "from Hecaton, in the first book of his Apophthegms. They also relate that Alexander said that if he had not been Alexander, he should have liked to be Diogenes. He used to call dvd'Trriooi (cripples), not those who were dumb and blind, but those who had no wallet (Trisa). On one occasion he went half shaved into an entertainment of young men, as Metrocles tells us in his Apophthegms, and so was beaten by them. And afterwards he wrote the names of all those who had beaten him, on a white tablet, and went about with the tablet round his neck, so as to expose them to insult, as they were generally condemned and reproached for their conduct. He used to say that he was the hound of those who were praised ; but that none of those who praised them dared to go out hunting with him. A man once said to him, " I conquered men at the Pythian games :" on which he said, " I conquer men, but you only conquer slaves." When some DIOGExNES. 2-29 people said to him, " You are an old man, and should rest for the remainder of your life ;" " Why so?" rephed he, " suppose I had run a long distance, ought I to stop when I was near the end, and not rather press on? " Once, when he was in- vited to a banquet, he said that he would not come : for that the day before no one had thanked him for coming. He used to go bare foot through the snow, and to do a number of other things wliich have been already mentioned. Once he at- tempted to eat raw meat, but he could not digest it. On one occasion he found Demosthenes, the orator, dining in an inn ; and as he was slipping away, he said to him, " You will now be ever so much more in an inn."* Once, when some strangers wished to see Demosthenes, he stretched out his middle finger, and said, " This is tiie great demagogue of the Athenian people." When some one had dropped a loaf, and was ashamed to pick it up again, he, wishing to give him a lesson, tied a cord round the neck of a bottle and dragged it all through the Ceramicus. He used to say, that he imitated the teachers of choruses, for that they spoke too loud, in order that the rest might catch the proper tone. Another of his sayings, was that most men were within a finger's breadth of being mad. If, then, any one were to walk along, stretching out his middle finger, he will seem to be mad ; but if he puts out his fore finger, he will not be thought so. Another of his sayings was, that things of great value were often sold for nothing, and vice versa. Accordingly, that a statue would fetch three thousand drachmas, and a bushel of meal only two obols ; and when Xeniades had bought him, he said to him, " Come, do what you ai'e ordered to." And when he said — " The streams of sacred rivers now Run backwards to their source !" " Suppose," rejoined Diogenes, " you had been sick, and liad bought a physician, could you refuse to be guided by him, and tell him — " The streams of sacred rivers now Run backwards to their source ?" "" Once a man came to him, and wished to study philosophy • This line is from Euripides, Medea, 411. 230 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. as his pnpil ; ami he gave him a saperda* and made him follow him. And as he from shame threw it away and departed, he soon afterwards met him and, laughing, said to him, " A saperda has dissolved your friendship for me." But Diodes tells this story in the following manner ; that when some one said to him, " Give me a commission, Diogenes," he carried him off, and gave him a halfpenny worth of cheese to carry. And as he refused to carry it, " See," said Diogenes. " a halfpenny worth of cheese has broken off our friendship." On one occasion he saw a child drinking out of its hands, and so he threw away the cup which belonged to his wallet, saying, " That child has beaten me in simplicity." He also threw away his spoon, after seeing a boy, when he had broken his vessel, take up his lentils with a crust of bread. And he used to argue thus, — " Everything belongs to the gods ; and wise men are the friends of the gods. All things are in common among friends ; therefore everything belongs to wise men." Once he saw a woman falling down before the Gods in an unbecoming attitude ; he, wishing to cure her of her super- stition, as Zoilus of Perga tells us, came up to her, and said, " Are you not afraid, woman, to be in such an indecent atti- tude, when some God may be behind you, for every place is full of him?" He consecrated a man to Jilsculapius, who was to run up and beat all these who prostrated themselves with their faces to the ground ; and he was in the habit of saying that the tragic curse had come upon him, for that he was — Houseless and citiless, a piteous exile From his dear native land ; a wandering beggar. Scraping a pittance poor from day to day. And another of his sayings was that he oj)posed confidence to fortvme, nature to law, and reason to suffering. Once, while he was sitting in the sun in the Craneum, Alexander was standing by, and said to him, "Ask any favour you choose of me," And he replied, " Cease to shade me from the sun." On one occasion a man was reading some long passages, and when he came to the end of the book and showed that there was nothing more written, " Be of good cheer, my friends," exclaimed Diogenes, " I see land." A man once proved to * The saperda was the coracinus (a kind of fish) when salted. DIOGENES. 231 him syllogistically that he had horns, so he put his hand to his forehead and said, " I do not see them." And in a similar manner he rephed to one who had been asserting that there was no such thing as motion, by getting up and walking away. When a man was talking about the heavenly bodies and meteors, " Pray how many days," said he to him, " is it since you came down from heaven ?" A profligate eunuch had written on his house, " Let no evil thing enter in." "Where," said Diogenes, "is the master of the house going?" After having anointed his feet with per- fume, he said that the ointment from his head mounted up to heaven, and that from his feet up to his nose. When the Athenians entreated him to be initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, and said that in the shades below the initiated had the best seats ; " It will," he replied, " be an absurd thing if ^gesilaus and Epaminondas are to live in the mad, and some miserable wretches, who have been initiated, are to be in the islands of the blest." Some mice crept up to his table, and he said, " See, even Diogenes maintains his favourites." Once, when he was leaving the bath, and a man asked him whether many men were bathing, he said, " No ;" but when a number of people came out, he confessed that there were a great many. When Plato called him a dog, he said, " Un- doubtedly, for I have come back to those who sold me." Plato defined man thus : " Man is a two-footed, featherless animal," and was much praised for the definition ; so Diogenes plucked a cock and brought it into his school, and said, " This is Plato's man." On which account this addition was made to the definition, " With broad flat nails." A man once asked him what was the proper time for supper, and he made answer, " If you are a rich man, whenever you please ; and if you are a poor man, whenever you can." When he was at Megara he saw some sheep carefully covered over with skins, and the children running about naked; and so he said, " It is better at Megara to be a man's ram, than his son." A man once struck him with a beam, and then said, " Take care." "What," said he, "are you going to strike me again?" He used to say that the demagogues were the ser- vants of the people ; and garlands the blossoms of glory. Having lighted a candle in the day time, he said, " 1 am looking for a man." On one occasion be stood under a foun- 932 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. tain, and as the bystanders were pitying him, Plato, who was present, said to them, " If you wish really to show your pity for him, come away;" intimating that he was only acting thus out of a desire for notoriety. Once, when a man had struck him with his fist, he said," " Hercules, what a strange thing that I should be walking about with a helmet on without know- ing it ' When Midias struck him with his fist and said, " There are three thousand drachmas for you ;" the next day Diogenes took the cestus of a boxer and beat him soundly, and said, *| There are three thousand drachmas for you."* When Lysias, the drug-seller, asked him whether he thought that there were any Gods : " How," said he, "can I help thinking so, when I consider you to be hated by them? " but some attribute this reply to Theodorus. Once he saw a man purifying himself by washing, and said to him, " Oh, wretched man, do not you know that as you cannot wash away blunders in grammar by purification, so, too, you can no more efface the errors of a life in that same manner ? " He used to say that men were wrong for complaining of fortune ; for that they ask of the Gods what appear to be good things, not what are really so. And to those who were alarmed at dreams he said, that they did not regard what they do while they are awake, but make a great fuss about what they fancy they see while they are asleep. Once, at the Olympic games, when the herald proclaimed, " Dioxippus is the conqueror of men ;" he said, " He is the conqueror of slaves, 1 am the conqueror of men." He was greatly beloved by the Athenians; accordingly, ■when a youth had broken his cask they beat him, and gave Diogenes another. And Dionysius, the Stoic, says that after the battle of Chseronea he was taken prisoner and brought to Philip ; and being asked who he was, replied, " A spy, to spy upon your insatiability." And Philip marvelled at him and let him go. Once, when Alexander had sent a letter to Athens to Antipater, by the hands of a man named Athlias, he, being present, said, " Athlias from Athlius, by means of * This is probably an allusion to a prosecution instituted by Demos- tbenes against Midias, which was afterwards compromised by Midias paying Demosthenes thirty mince, or three thousand drachmae. See Dem. Or. cont. Midias. DIOGENES. - 233 Athlias to Atlilius.^-' "When Perdiccas threatened that he would put him to death if he did not come to him, he replied, "That is nothing strange, for a scoqjion or a tarantula could do as much : you had better threaten me that, if I kept away, you should be very happy." He used constantly to repeat with emphasis that an easy life had been given to man by the Gods, but that it had been overlaid by their seeking for honey, cheese-cakes, and unguents, and things of that sort. On which account he said to a man, who had his shoes put on by his servant, " You are not thoroughly happy, unless he also wipes your nose for you ; and he will do this, if you are crippled in your hands." On one occasion, when he had seen the hieromnemones t leading off one of the stewards vtho had stolen a goblet, he said, " The great thieves are carrj-ing off the little thief." At another time, seeing a young man throw ing stones at a cross, he said, " Well done, you will be sure to reach the mark." Once, too, some boys got round him and said, " We are taking care that you do not bite us ;" but he said, "Be of good cheer, my boys, a dog does not eat beef." He saw a man giving himself airs because he was clad in a lion's skin, and said to him, " Do not go on disgracing the garb of natui-e." Wlaen people were speaking of the happiness of Calisthenes, and saying what splendid treatment he received from Alexander, he replied, " The man then is wretched, for he is forced to breakfast and dine whenever Alexander chooses." When he was in want of money, he said that he reclaimed it from his friends and did not beg for it. On one occasion he was working with his hands in the market-place, and said, " I wish I could rub my stomach in the same way, and so avoid hunger." When he saw a young man going with some satraps to supper, he dragged him away and led him off to his relations, and bade them take care of him. He was once addressed by a youth beautifully adorned, who asked him some question ; and he refused to give him any answer, till he satisfied him whether he was a man or a woinan. And on one occasion, when a youth was playing the * This is a pun upon the similarity of Athlias's name to the Greek adjective d9\iog, which signifies miserable. f The 'npiinvrjfiovn; were the sacred secretaries or recorders sent by each Amphictyonic state to the council along with their irvXayopaq, (the actual deputy or minister). L. .£//x,aa^/o^), or for other garments (ot' aXX' 'iiMOLTiov). Seeing some women hanging on olive trees, he said, " I wish every tree bore similar fruit." At another time, he saw a clothes' stealer, and addressed him thus : — What moves thee, say, when sleep has clos'd the sight, To roam the silent fields in dead of night ? Art thou some wretch by hopes of plunder led, Through heaps of carnage to despoil the dead.* When he was asked whether he had any girl or boy to wait on him, he said, " No." And as his questioner asked further, " If then you die, who will bury you?" He replied, " Who- ever wants my house." Seeing a handsome youth sleeping without any protection, he nudged him, and said, " Wake up:— Mix'd with the vulgar shall thy fate be found, Pierc'd in the back, a vile dishonest wound. t And he addressed a man who was buying delicacies at a great expense : — Not long, my son, will you on earth remain. If such your dealings. J Wlien Plato was discoursing about his " ideas," and using the nouns " tableness " and "cupness;" "I, O Plato!" inter- rupted Diogenes, " see a table and a cup, but I see no table- ness or cupness." Plato made answer, "That is natural enough, for you have eyes, by which a cup and a table are contemplated ; but you have not intellect, by which tableness and cupness are seen." On one occasion, he was asked by a certain person, " What sort of a man, Diogenes, do you think Socrates ? " and he * This is taken from Homer, II. k. 387. Pope's Version, 455. + This is also from Homer. II. Q. 95. Pope's Version, 120. t This is a parody on Homer, II %. 95, where the line ends oV uyi)i)tvii<: — "if such is your language," which Diogenes here changes to oi' dyopaC,Hi, if you buy such things. DIOGENES. 237 said, " A madman." Another time, the question was put to him, when a man ought to marry ? and his reply was, " Young men ought not to marry yet, and old men never ought to marry at all." When asked what he would take to let a man give him a blow on the head?" he replied, "A helmet." Seeing a youth smartening himself up very care- fully, he said to him, " If you are doing that for men, you are miserable ; and if for women, you are profligate." Once he saw a youth blushing, and addressed him, " Courage, my boy, that is the complexion of virtue." Having once listened to two lawyers, he condemned them both ; saying," That the one had stolen the thing in question, and that the other had not lost it." When asked what wine he liked to drink, he said, " That which belongs to another," A man said to him one day, " Many people laugh at you." " But I," he replied, " am not laughed down." W^hen a man said to him, that it was a bad thing to live ; " Not to live," said he, " but to live badly." When some people Avere advising him to make search for a slave who had run away," he said, " It would be a very absurd thing for Manes to be able to live without Diogenes, but for Diogenes not to be able to live without Manes." When he was dining on olives, a cheese-cake was brought in, on which he threw the olive away, saying: — Keep well aloof, stranger, from all tyrants,* And presently' he added : — He drove the olive ofiP (jidffTi^iv £' iXaav).^ When he was asked what sort of a dog he was, he replied, " When hungry, I am a dog of Melita ; when satisfied, a Molossian ; a sort which most of those who praise, do not like to take out hunting with them, because of the labour of keeping up with them ; and in like manner, you cannot associate wdth me, from fear of the pain I give you." The question was put to him, whether wise men ate cheese-cakes, and he replied, " They eat everything, just as the rest of mankind." When asked why people give to beggars and not to philoso- * This is a hne of the Phocni.ss.'c of Euripides, v. 40. + The pun here is on the similarity of the noun tXauv, an olive, to the verb iXaav, to drive ; the words fid(STi%tv 6' iXadv are of frequent occurrence in Homer. 238 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. phers, lie said, " Because they tliinlv it possible that tliey themselves may become lame and blind, but they do not expect ever to turn out philosophers." He once begged of a covetous man, and as he was slow to give, he said, " Man, I am asking you for something to maintain me (sig T^o(priv and not to bury me (s/'g rapi^f)." When some one reproached him for having tampered with the coinage, he said, " There was a time when I was such a person as you are now ; but there never was when you were such as I am now, and never will be." And to another person who reproached Jiim on the same grounds, he said, " There were times when I did what I did not wish to, but that is not the case now." When he went to Myndus, he saw some very large gates, but the city was a small one, and so he said, " Oh men of Myndus, shut your gates, lest your city should steal out." On one occasion, he saw a man who had been detected stealing purple, and so he said : — A purple death, and mighty fate o'ertook him* When Craterus entreated him to come and visit him, he said, " I would rather lick up salt at Athens, than enjoy a luxurious table with Craterus." On one occasion, he met Aiiaximenes, the orator, who was a fat man, and thus accosted him ; " Pray give us, who are poor, some of your belly ; for by so doing you will be relieved yourself, and you will assist us." And once, when he was discussing some point, Diogenes held up a piece of salt fish, and drew off the attention of his hearers ; and as Anaximenes was indignant at this, he said, " See, one pennyworth of salt fish has put an end to the lecture of Anaximenes." Being once reproached for eating in the market-place, he made answer, " 1 did, for it was in the market-place that I was hungry." Some authors also attri- bute the following repartee to him. Plato saw him washing vegetables, and so, coming up to him, he quietly accosted him thus, " If you had paid court to Dionysius, you would not have been washing vegetables.'' " And," he replied, with equal quietness, " if you had washed vegetables, you would never have paid court to Dionysius." When a man said to him once, " Most people laugh at you ; " " And very * This liue occurs, Eom. II. e. S3. DIOGENES. 239 likely,"' be replied, " the asses laugli at them ; but they do not regard the asses, neither do I regard them." Ouce he saw a youth studying philosophy, aud said to him, " Well done ; inasmuch as you are leading those who admire your person to contemplate the beauty of yom- mind." A certain person was admiring the offerings in the temple at Samothrace,* and he said to him, " They would have been much more numerous, if those who were lost had offered them instead of those who were saved ; " but some attribute this speech to Diagoras the Thelian. Ouce he saw a handsome youth going to a banquet, and said to him, " You will come back worse (x^'S'-^^) > " '^^^^ when he the next day after the banquet said to him, " I have left the banquet, and was no worse for it ;" he replied, " You were not Chiron, but Eury- tiou."f He was begging once of a very ill-tempered man, and as he said to him, " If you can persuade me, I will give you something;" he replied, " If I could persuade you, I would beg you to hang yourself." He was on one occasion returning from Lacedaemon to Athens ; and when some one asked him, "Whither are you going, and whence do you come?" he said, " I am going from the men's apartments to the women's." Another time he was returning from the Olympic games, and when some one asked him whether there had been a great multitude there, he said, "A great multitude, but very few men." He used to say that debauched men resembled figs growing on a precipice ; the fruit of which is not tasted by men, but devoured by crows and vultures. AVhen Phryne had dedi- cated a golden statue of Venus at Delphi, he wrote upon it, •' From the profligacy of the Greeks." Once Alexander the Great came and stood by him, and said, "• I am Alexander, the great king." " And I," said he, " am Diogenes the dog." And when he was asked to what actions of his it was owing that he was called a dog, he said, " Because I fawn upon those who give me anything, and bark at those who give me nothing, and bite the rogues." On one occasion he was gathering some of the fruit of a fig-tree, and * The Samothracian Gods were Gods of the sea, and it was custom- ary for those who had been saved from .shipwreck to make them an offering of some part of what they had saved ; and of their hair, if they had saved nothing but their lives. + Eurytion was another of the Centaurs, who was killed by Hercules. 240 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. when the man who was guarding it told him a man hung him- self on this tree the other day, " I, then," said he, " will now purify it." Once he saw a man who had heen a conqueror at the Olympic games looking very often at a courtesan ; " Look," said he, " at that warlike ram, who is taken prisoner by the first girl he meets." One of his sayings was, that good-look- ing courtesans were like poisoned mead. On one occasion he was eating his dinner in the market- place, and the bystanders kept constantly calling out " Dog ; " but he said, " It is you who are the dogs, who stand around me while I am at dinner." When two effeminate fellows were getting out of his way, he said, " Do not be afraid, a dog does not eat beetroot.'' Being once asked about a debauched boy, as to what country he came from, he said, " He is a Tegean."* Seeing an unskilful wrestler professing to heal a man he said, " What are you about, are you in hopes now to overthrow those who formerly conquered you ?" On one occasion he saw the son of a courtesan throwing a stone at a crowd, and said to him, " Take care, lest you hit your father." When a boy showed him a sword that he had received from one to whom he had done some discreditable service, he told him, " The sword is a good sword, but the handle is infamous." And when some people were praising a man who had given him some- thing, he said to them, " And do not you praise me who was worthy to receive it?" He was asked by some one to give him back his cloak ; but he replied, " If you gave it me, it is mine ; and if you only lent it me, I am using it." A suppo- sititious son (utfo/SoXz/xa/og) of somebody once said to him, that he had gold in his cloak ; " No doubt," said he, " that is the very reason why I sleeji with it under my head (virolSijSXrr /Msvog)." When he was asked what advantage he had derived from philosophy, he replied, " If no other, at least this, that I am prepared for every kind of fortune." The question was put to him what countryman he was, and he replied, " A Citizen of * This is a pim] on the shnilarity of the sound, Tegea, to rtyog, a brotheh + The Greek 13 tpavoi' cutovhivoq npoQ tov spavdpx^l^ t(pri, — tpavoq was not only a subscrijition or contribution for the support of the poor, but also a club or society of subscribers to a common fund for any purpose, social, commercial, or charitable, or especially political. . . On the various tpavoi, v. Bockh, P. E. i. 328. Att. Process, p. 540, s. 99. L. 73 seventh was a grammarian, who, besides other writings, has left some epigrams beliind him ; the eighth was a Sidonian by descent, a philosopher of the Epicurean school, a deep thinker, and very clear writer. XXXI. The disciples of Zeno were very numerous. The most eminent were, first of all, Persseus, of Cittium, the son of Demetrius, whom some call a friend of his, but others describe him as a servant and one of the amanuenses who were sent to him by Antigouus, to whose son, Halcymeus, he also acted as tutor. And Antigonus once, wishing to make trial of him, caused some false news to be brought to him that his estate had been ravaged by the enemy ; and as he began to look gloomy at this news, he said to him, " You see that wealth is not a matter of indifference." The following works are attributed to him. One on Kingly Power ; one entitled the Constitution of the Lacedaemonians ; one on Marriage ; one on Impiety ; the Thyestes ; an Essay on Love ; a volume of Exhortations ; one of Conversations ; four of Apoplithegms ; one of Reminiscences ; seven treatises, the Laws of Plato. The next was Ariston, of Chios, the son of Miltiades, who was the first author of the doctrine of indifference ; then Herillus, who called knowledge the chief good ; then Diony- sius, who transferred this description to pleasure; as, on account of the violent disease which he had in his eyes, he could not yet bring himself to call pain a thing indifferent. He was a native of Heraclea ; there was also Sphaerus, of the Bosphorus ; and Cleanthes, of Assos, the son of Phanias, who succeeded liim in his school, and whom he used to liken to tablets of hard wax, which are written upon with difficulty, but which retain what is written upon them. And after Zeno's death, Sphsenis became a pupil of Cleanthes. And we shall speak of him in our account of Cleanthes. These also were all disciples of Zeno, as we are told by Hippobotus, namely : — Philonides, of Theles ; Callippus, of Corinth ; Posidoniiis, of x\lexandria ; Athenodorus, of Soli ; and Zeno, a Sidonian. XXXII. And I hfive thought it best to give a general account of all the Stoic doctrines in the life of Zeno, because he it was who was the founder of the sect. He has written a great many books, of which I have already 274 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. given a list, in which he lias spoken as no other of the Stoics has. And his doctrines in general are these. But we will enumerate them briefly, as we have been in the habit of doing in the case of the other philosophers. XXXIII. The Stoics divide reason according to philosophy, into three parts ; and say that one part relates to natural philosophy, one to ethics, and one to logic. And Zeno, the Cittiifian, was the first who made this division, in his treatise on Reason ; and he was followed in it by Chrysippus, in the first book of his treatise on Reason, and in the first book of his treatise on Natural Philosophy ; and also by Apollodorus ; and by Syllus, in the first book of his Introduction to the Doctrines of the Stoics ; and by Eudromus, in his Ethical Elements ; and by Diogenes, the Babylonian ; and Posidorus. Now these divisions are called topics by Apollodorus, species by Chrysippus and Eudromus, and genera by all the rest. And they compare philosophy to an animal, likening logic to the bones and sinews, natural philosophy to the fleshy parts, and ethical philosophy to the soul. Again, they compare it to an egg ; calling logic the shell, and ethics the white, and natural philosophy the yolk. Also to a fertile field ; in which logic is the fence which goes round it, ethics are the fruit, and natural philosophy the soil, or the fruit-trees. Again, they compare it to a city fortified by walls, and regulated by reason ; and then, as some of them say, no one part is preferred to another, but they are all combined and united inseparably ; and so they* treat of them all in combination. But others class logic first, natural philosophy second, and ethics third ; as Zeno does in his treatise on Reason, and in this he is followed by Chrysippus, and Archidenius, and Eudromus. For Diogenes of Ptolemais begins with ethics ; but Apollo- dorus places ethics second ; and Panstius and Posidonius begin with natural philosophy, as Phanias, the friend of Posidonius asserts, in the first book of his treatise on the School of Posidonius. But Cleanthes says, that there are six divisions of reason according to philosophy : dialectics, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, and theology ; but others assert that these are not divisions of reason, but of philosophy itself ; and this is the opinion advanced by Zeno, of Tarsus, among others. XXXIV. Some again say, that the logical division is ZENO. 275 properly subdivided into two sciences, namely, rhetoric and dialectics; and some divide it also into deifinitive species, which is coversant with rules and tests ; while others deny the propriety of this last division altogether, and argue that the object of rules and tests is the discovery of the truth ; for it is in this division that they explain the differences of repre- sentations. They also argue that, on'the other side, the science of definitions has equally for its object the discovery of truth. since we only know things by the intervention of ideas. They also call rhetoric a science conversant about speaking well concerning matters which admit of a detailed narrative ; and dialectics they call the science of arguing correctly in discus- sions which can be carried on by question and answer ; on which account they define it thus : a knowledge of what is true, and false, and neither one thing nor the other. Again, rhetoric itself they divide into three kinds ; for one description they say is concerning about giving advice, another is forensic, and the third encomiastic ; and it is also divided into several parts, one relating to the discovery of arguments, one to style, one to the arrangement of arguments, and the other to the delivery of the speech. And a rhetorical oration they divide into the exordium, the narration, the reply to the statements of the adverse party, and the peroration. XXXV. Dialectics, they say, is divided into two parts ; one of which has reference to the things signified, the other to the expression. That which has reference to the things signified or spoken of, they divide again into the topic of things con- ceived in the fancy, and into those of axioms, of perfect determinations, of predicaments, of things alike, whether upright or prostrate, of tropes, of syllogisms, and of sophisms, which are derived either from the voice or from the things. And these sophisms are of various kinds ; there is the false one, the one which states facts, the negative, the sorites, and others like these ; the imperfect one, the inexplicable one, the con- clusive one, the veiled one, the horned one, the nobody, and the mower. In the second part of dialectics, that which has for its object the expression, they treat of written language, of the different parts of a discourse, of solecism and barbarism, of poetical forms of expression, of ambiguity, of a melodious voice, of music ; and some eyen add definitions, divisions, and diction. T 2 276 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEES. They say that the most useful of these parts is the con- sideration of syllogisms ; for that they show us what are the things which are capable of demonstration, and that contributes much to the formation of our judgment, and their arrangement and memory give a scientific character to our knowledge. They define reasoning to be a system composed of assumptions and conclusions ; and syllogism is a syllogistic argument pro- ceeding on them. Demonstration they define to be a method by which one pi'oceeds from that which is more known to that which is less. Perception, again, is an impression produced on the mind, its name being appropriately borrowed from impres- sions on wax made by a seal ; and perception they divide into comprehensible and incomprehensible: Comprehensible, which they call the criterion of facts, and which is produced by a real object, and is, therefore, at the same time conformable to that object; Incomprehensible, which has no relation to any real object, or else, if it has any such relation, does not correspond to it, being but a vague and indistinct representation. Dialectics itself they pronounce to be a necessary science, and a virtue which comprehends several other virtues under its species. And the disposition not to take up one side of an argument hastily, they defined to be a knowledge by which we are taught when we ought to agree to a statement, and when we ought to withhold our agreement. Discretion they consider to be a powerful reason, having reference to what is becoming, so as to prevent our yielding to an irrelevant argu- ment. Irrefutability they define to be a power in an argument, which prevents one from being drawn from it to its opposite. Freedom from vanity, according to them, is a habit which refers the perceptions back to right reason. Again, they define knowledge itself as an assertion or safe comprehension, or habit, which, in the perception of what is seen, never deviates from the truth. And they say further, that without dialectic speculation, the wise man cannot be free from all error in his reasoning. For that that is what distinguishes what is true from what is false, and which easily detects those arguments which are only plausible, and those which depend upon an ambiguity of language. And without dialectics they say it is not possible to ask or answer questions correctly. They also add, that precipitation in denials extends to those things which are done, so that those ZENO. 277 who have not properly exercised their perceptions fall into irregularity and thoughtlessness. Again, without dialectics, the wise man cannot be acute, and ingenious, and wary, and altogether dangerous as an arguer. For that it belongs to the same man to speak correctly and to reason correctly, and to discuss properly those subjects which are proposed to him, and to answer readily whatever questions are put to him, all which qualities belong to a man who is skilful in dialectics. This then is a brief summary of their opinions on logic. XXXVI. And, that we may also enter into some more minute details respecting them, we will subjoin what refers to what they call their introductory science, as it is stated by Diodes, of Magnesia, in his Excursion of Philosophers, where he speaks as follows, and we will give his account word for word. The Stoics have chosen to treat, in the first place, of percep- tion and sensation, because the criterion by which the truth of facts is ascertained is a kind of perception, and because the judgment which expresses the belief, and the comprehension, and the understanding of a thing, a judgment which precedes all others, cannot exist without perception. For pei'ception leads the way ; and then thought, finding vent in expressions, explains in words the feelings which it derives from perception. But there is a difference between (pavrasia. and (pavrxaf^a. For (,ara,)in the body, as, for instance, gout and arthritic disorders ; so too are those diseases of the soul, such as a fondness for glory, or for pleasure, and other feelings of that sort. For an agsai(rr?j/ia is a disease accompanied with Aveakness ; and a disease is an opinion of something which appears ex- ceedingly desirable. And, as in the case of the body, there are illnesses to which people are especially liable, such as colds or diarrhoea ; so also are there propensities which the mind is under the influence of, such as enviousness, pitifulness, quarrelsomeness, and so on. There are also three good dispositions of the mind ; joy, caution, and will. And joy they say is the opposite of pleasure, since it is a rational elation of the mind ; so caution is the opposite of fear, being a rational avoidance of anything, for the wise man will never be afraid, but he will act with caution ; and will, they define as the opposite of desire, since it is u rational wish. As therefore some things fall under the class of the first perturbations, in the same manner do some things fall under the class of the first good dispositions. And accordingly, under the head of will, are classed goodwill, placidity, salutation, affection ; and under the head of caution are ranged reverence and modesty ; under the head of joy, we speak of delight, mirth, and good spirits. LXIV. They say also, that the wise man is free from per- turbations, because he has no strong propensities. But that this freedom from propensities also exists in the bad man, being, however, then quite another thing, inasmuch as it pro- ceeds in him only from the hardness and unimpressibility of his nature. They also pronounce the wise man free from vanity, since he regards with equal eye what is glorious and what is inglorious. At the same time, they admit that there 30"2 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. is another character devoid of vanity, who, however, is only reckoned one of the rash men, being in fact the bad man. They also say that all the virtuous men are austere, because they do never , speak with reference to pleasure, nor do they listen to what is said by others with reference to pleasure. At the same time, they call another man austere too, using the term in nearly the same sense as they do when they speak of austere wine, which is used in compounding medicines, but not for drinking. They also pronounce the wise to be honest-hearted men, anxiously attending to those matters which may make them better, by means of some principle which conceals what is bad, and brings to light what is good. Nor is there any hypocrisy about them ; for they cut off all pretence in their voice and appearance. They also keep aloof from business ; for they guard carefully against doing any thing contrary to their duty. They drink wine, but they do not get drunk ; and they never yield to frenzy. Occasionally, extraordinary imaginations may obtain a momentary power over them, owing to some melancholy or trifling, arising not according to the principle of what is desirable, but contrary to nature. Nor, again, will the wise man feel grief; because grief is an irrational contraction of the soul, as Apollodorus defines it in his Ethics. They are also, as they say, godlike ; for they have something in them which is as it were a God. But the bad man is an atheist. Now there are two kinds of atheists; one who speaks in a spirit of hostility to, and the other, who utterly disregards, the divine nature ; but they admit that all bad men are not atheists in this last sense. The good, on the contrary, are pious ; for they have a thorough acquaintance -u'ith the laws respecting the Gods. And piety is a knowledge of the proper reverence and worship due to the Gods. Moreover they sacrifice to the Gods, and keep themselves pure; for they avoid all offences having reference to the Gods, and the Gods admire them ; for they are holy and just in all that concerns the Deity; and the wise men are the only priests ; for they consider the matters relating to sacri- fices, and the erection of temples, and purifications, and all other things which peculiarly concern the Gods. They also pronounce that men are bound to honour their parents, and their brethren, in the second place after the Gods. ZENO. 30 o They also say that parental affection for one's children is natural to them, and is a feeling which does not exist in bad men. And they lay down the position that all offences are equal, as Chrysippus argues in the fourth book of his Ethic Questions, and so say Persseus and Zeno. For if one thing that is true is not more true than another thing that is true, neither is one thing that is false more false than another thing that is false ; so too, one deceit is not greater than another, nor one sin than another. For the man who is a hundred furlongs from Canopus, and the man who is only one, are both equally not in Canopus ; and so too, he who commits a greater sin, and he who commits a less, are both equally not in the right path. Heraclides of Tarsus, indeed, the friend of Antipater, of Tarsus, and Atheuodorus, both assert that offences are not equal. Again, the Stoics, as for instance, Chrysippus, in the first book of his work on Lives, say, that the wise man will take a part in the affairs of the state, if nothing hinders him. For that he will restrain vice, and excite men to virtue. Also, they say that he will marry, as Zeno says, in his Republic, and beget children. Moreover, that the wise man will never form mere opinions, that is to say, he will never agree to anything that is false ; and that he will become a Cynic ; for that Cynicism is a short path to virtue, as x\pollodorus calls it in his Ethics ; that he will even eat human flesh, if there should be occasion ; that he is the only free man, and that the bad are slaves ; for that freedom is a power of indepen- dent action, but slaveij a deprivation of the same. That there is besides, another slavery, which consists in subjection, and a third which consists in possession and subjection ; the contrary of which is masterhood, which is likewise bad. And they say, that not only are the wise free, but that they are also kings, since kingly power is an irresponsible dominion, which can only exist in the case of the wise man, as Chr}'- sippus says in his treatise on the Proper Application of his Terms made by Zeno ; for he says that a raler ought to give decisions on good and evil, and that none of the wicked understand these things. In the same way, they assert that they are the only people who are fit to be magistrates or judges, or orators, and that none of the bad are qualified for these tasks. Moreover, that they are free from all error, in 304 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. consequence of their not being prone to any wrong actions. Also, that they are unconnected with injury, for that they never injure any one else, nor themselves. Also, that they are not pitiful, and that they never make allowance for any one ; for that they do not relax the punishments appointed by law, since yielding, and pity, and mercifulness itself, never exist in any of their souls, so as to induce an affectation of kindness in respect of punishment ; nor do they ever think any punishment too severe. Again, they say that the wise man never wonders at any of the things which appear extra- ordinary ; as for instance, at the stories about Charon, or the ebbing of the tide, or the springs of hot water, or the burst- ing forth of flames. But, say they further, the wise man will not live in solitude ; for he is by nature sociable and practical. Accordingly, he will take exercise for the sake of hardening and invigorating his body. And the wise man will pray, asking good things from the Gods, as Posidonius says in the first book of his treatise on Duties, and Hecaton says the same thing in the thirteeuth book of his treatise on Extra- ordinary Things. They also say, that friendship exists in the virtuous alone, on account of their resemblance to one another. And they describe friendship itself as a certain communion of the things which concern life, since we use our friends as ourselves. And they assert that a friend is desirable for his own sake, and that a number of friends is a good ; and that among the wicked there is no such thing as friendship, and that no wicked man can have a friend. x\gain, they say that all the foolish are mad ; for that they are not prudent, and that madness is equivalent to folly in every one of its actions ; but that the wise man does every- thing properly, just as we say that Ismenias can play every piece of flute-music well. Also, they say that everything belongs to the wise man, -for that the law has given them perfect and universal power ; but some things also are said to belong to the wicked, just ni the same manner as some things are said to belong to the unjust, or as a house is said to belong to a city in a different sense from that in which a thing belongs to the person who uses it. LXV. And they say that virtues reciprocally follow one another, and that he who has one has all ; for that the precepts ZENO. 305 of them all are common, as Clirysippus affirms in the first book of his treatise ou Laws ; and Apollodorus, in his Natural Philosophy, according to the ancient system ; and Hecaton, in the third book of his treatise ou Virtues. For they say that the man who is endued with virtue, is able to consider and also to do what must be done. But what must be done must be chosen, and encountered, and distributed, and awaited ; so that if the man does some things by deliberate choice, and some in a spirit of endurance, and some distributively, and some patiently ; he is prudent, and courageous, and just, and temperate. And each of the virtues has a particular subject of its own, about which it is conversant ; as, for instance, courage is conversant about the things which must be endured ; prudence is conversant about what must be done and what must not, and what is of a neutral or indifferent character. And in like manner, the other virtues are conversant about their own peculiar subjects ; and wisdom in counsel and shrewdness follow prudence ; and good order and decorum follow temperance ; and equality and goodness of judgment follow justice ; and constancy and energy follow courage. Another doctrine of the Stoics is, that there is nothing intermediate between virtue and \dce ; while the Peripatetics assert that there is a stage between virtue and vice, being an improvement on vice which has not yet arrived at virtue. For the Stoics say, that as a stick must be either straight or crooked, so a man must be either just or unjust, and cannot be more just than just, or more unjust than unjust; and that the same rule applies to all cases. Moreover, Chrysippus is of opinion that virtue can be lost, but Cleanthes affirms that it cannot ; the one saying that it can be lost by drunkenness or melancholy, the other maintaining that it cannot be lost on account of the firm perceptions which it implants in men. They also pronounce it a pi'oper object of choice ; accordingly, we are ashamed of actions which we do improperly, while we are aware that what is honourable is the only good. Again, they affirm that it is of itself sufficient for happiness, as Zeno says, and he is followed in this assertion by Chrysippus in the first book of his treatise on Virtues, and by Hecaton hi the second book of his treatise on Goods. " For if," says he, " magnanimity be sufficient of itself to enable us to act in a manner superior to all other men ; and X 30G LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. if that is a part of virtue, tlieii virtue is of itself sufficient for happiness, despising all things which seem troublesome to it." However, Pansetius and Posidonius do not admit that virtue has this sufficiency of itself, but say that there is also need of good health, and competency, and strength. And their opinion is that a man exercises virtue in everything, as Cleanthes asserts, for it cannot be lost; and the virtuous man on every occasion exercises his soul, which is in a state of perfection. LXVI. Again, they say that justice exists by nature, and not because of any definition or principle ; just as law does, or right reason, as Chrv^sippus tells us in his treatise on the Beautiful ; and they think that one ought not to abandon philosophy on account of the different opinions prevailing among philosophers, since on this principle one would wholly quit life, as Posidonius argues in his Exhortatory Essays. Another doctrine of Chiysyppus is, that general learning is very useful. And the School in general maintain that there are no obligations of justice binding on us with reference to other animals, on account of their dissimilarity to us, as Chrysippus asserts in the first book of his treatise on Justice, and the same opinion is maintained by Posidonius in the first book of his treatise on Duty. They say too, that the wise man will love those young men, who by their outward appearance, show a natural aptitude for virtue ; and this opinion is advanced by Zeno, in his Republic, and by Chrysippus in the first book of his work on Lives, and by ApoUodorus in his Ethics. And they describe love as an endeavour to betiefit a friend on account of his visible beauty ; and that it is an attribute not of acquaintanceship, but of friendship. Accordingly, that Thrasmides, although he had his mistress in his power, abstained from her, because he was hated by her. Love, therefore, according to them is a part of friendship, as Chry- sippus asserts in his essay on Love ; and it is not blameable. Moreover, beauty is the flower of virtue. And as there are three kinds of lives ; the theoretical, the practical, and the logical ; they say that the last is the one which ought to be chosen. For that a logical, that is a rational, animal was made by nature on purpose for speculation and action. And they say that a wise man will very rationally take himself out of life, either for the sake of Ms country or of 2EN0. 307 his friends, or if he be in bitter pain, or under the affliction of mutilation, or incurable disease. And they also teach that women ought to be in common among the wise, so that who- ever meets with any one may enjoy her, and this doctrine is maintained by Zeno in his Kepublic, and by Chrysippus in his treatise on Pohty, and by Diogenes the Cynic, and by Plato ; and then, say they, we shall love all boys equally after the manner of fathers, and all suspicion on the ground of undue familiarity will be removed. They affirm too, that the best of political constitutions is a mixed one, combined of democracy, and kingly power, and aiistocracy. And they say many things of this sort, and more too, in their Ethical Dogmas, and they maintain them by suitable explanations and arguments. But this may be enough for us to say of their doctrines on this head by way of summary, and taking them in an elementary manner. LXVII. They divide natural philosophy into the topics of bodies, and of principles, and of elements, and of Gods, and of boundaries, and of place, and of the vacuum. And they make these divisions according to species ; but according to genera they divide them into three topics, that of the world, that of the elements, and the third is that which reasons on causes. The topic about the world, they say, is subdivided into two parts. For that in one point of view, the mathematicians also have a share in it ; and according to it it is that they prosecute their investigations into the nature of the fixed stars and the planets ; as, for instance, whether the sun is of such a size as he appears to be, and similarly, whether the moon is ; and in the same way they investigate the question of spherical motion, and others of the same character. The other point of view is that which is reserved exclusively for natural philosophers, according to which it is that the existence and substance of things are examined, [for instance, whether the sun and the stars consist of matter and form,] and whether the sun is born or not born, whether it is living or lifeless, corruptible or incorruptible, whether it is regulated by Provi- dence, and other questions of this kind. The topic which examines into causes they say is also divisible into two parts ; and with reference to one of its considerations, the investigations of physicians partake of it ; according to which it is that they investigate the dominant X 2 308 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. principle of the soul, and the things which exist in the soul, and seeds, and things of this kind. And its other division is claimed as belonging to them also by the mathema- ticians, as, for instance, how we see, what is the cause of ouc appearance being reflected in a mirror, how clouds are collected, how thunder is produced, and the rainbow, and the halo, and comets, and things of that kind. LXVIII. They think that there are two general principles in the universe, the active and the passive. That the passive is matter, an existence without any distinctive quality. That the active is the reason which exists in the passive, that is to say, God. For that he, being eternal, and existing through- out all matter, makes everything. And Zeno, the Cittiaean, lays down this doctrine in his treatise on Essence, and so does Cleanthes in his essay on Atoms, Chrysippus in the iirst book of his Investigations in Natural Philosophy, towards the end, Archedemus in his work on Elements, and Posidouius in the second book of his treatise on Natural Philosophy. But they say that principles and elements differ from one another. For that the one had no generation or beginning, and will have no end ; but that the elements may be destroyed by the operation of fire. Also, that the elements are bodies, but principles have no bodies and no forms, and elements too have forms. Now a body, says Apollodorus in his Natural Philosophy, is extended in a threefold manner ; in length, in breadth, in depth ; and then it is called a solid body ; and the superficies is the limit of the body liaving length and breadth alone, but not depth. But Posidonius, in the third book of his Heavenly Phsenomena, will not allow a superficies either any substantial reality, or any intelligible existence. A line is the limit of a superficies, or length without breadth, or something which has nothing but length. A point is the boundary of a line, and is the smallest of all symbols. They also teach that God is unity, and that he is call-ed Mind, and Fate, and Jupiter, and by many other names be- sides. And that, as he was in the begiiniing by himself, he turned into water the whole substance which pervaded the air ; and as the seed is contained in the produce, so too, he being the seminal principle of the world, remained behind in moisture, making matter fit to be employed by himself in the production of those things which were to come after ; and ZENO. 309 then, first of all, he made the four elements, fire, water, air, and earth. And Zeno speaks of these in his treatise on the * Universe, and so does Chrysippus in the first book of his Physics, and so does Archedemus in some treatise on the Elements. LXIX. Now an element is that out of which at first all things which are are produced, and into which all things are resolved at last. And the four elements are all equally an essence without any distinctive quality, namely, matter ; but fire is the hot, water the moist, air the cold, and earth the dry — though this last quality is also common to the air. The fire is the highest, and that is called aether, in which first of all the sphere was generated in which the fixed stars are set, then that in which the planets revolve ; after that the air, then the water; and the sediment as it were of all is the earth, which is placed in the centre of the rest. LXX. They also speak of the world in a threefold sense : at one time meaning God himself, whom they call a being of a certain quality, having for his peculiar manifestation universal substance, a being imperishable, and who never had any generation, being the maker of the arrangement and order that we see ; and who, after certain periods of time, absorbs all substance in himself, and then re-produces it from himself. And this arrangement of the stars they call the world, and so the third sense is one composed of both the preceding ones. And the world is a thing which is peculiarly of such and such a quality consisting of universal substance, as Posidonius affirms in his Meteorological Elements, being a system com- pounded of heaven and earth, and all the creatures which exist in them ; or it may be called a system compounded of Gods and men, and of the things created on their account. And the heaven is the most remote circumference of the world, in which all the Divine Nature is situated. Again, the world is inhabited and regulated according to intellect and providence, as Chrj'sippus says, in his works on Providence, and Posidonius in the thirteenth book of his treatise on Gods, since mind penetrates into every part of the world, just as the soul pervades us ; but it is in a greater degree in some parts, and in a less degree in others. For instance, it penetrates as a habit, as, for instance, into the bones and sinews ; and into some it penetrates as the mind 310 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHEES. does, for instance, into tlie dominant principle. And thus the whole world, being a living thing, endowed with a soul and with reason, has the aether as its dominant principle, as Antipater, of Tyre, says in the eighth book of his treatise on the World. But Chiysippus, in the iii'St book of his essay on Providence, and Posidonius in his treatise on Gods, say tliat the heaven is the dominant principle of the world ; and Cleanthes attributes this to the sun. Chrysippus, however, on this point contradicts himself ; for he says in another place, that the most subtle portion of the aether, which is also called by the Stoics the first God, is what is infused in a sensible manner into all the beings which are in the air, and through every animal and eveiy plant, and through the earth itself according to a certain habit ; and that it is this which com- municates to them the faculty of feeling. They say too, that the world is one and also finite, having a spherical form. For that such a shape is the most convenient for motion, as Posidonius says, in the fifteenth book of his Discussions on Natural Philosophy, and so says Antipater also in his essay on the World. And on the outside there is diffused around it a boundless vacuum, which is incorporeal. And it is incorporeal inasmuch, as it is capable of being con- tained by bodies, but is not so. And that there is no such thing as a vacuum in the world, but that it is all closely united and compact ; for that this condition is necessarily brought about by the concord and harmony which exist between the heavenly bodies and those of the earth. And Chrysippus mentions a vacuum in his essay on a Vacuum, and also in the first book of his treatise on the Physical Arts, and so does ApoUophanes in his Natural Philosophy, and so does Apollo- dorus, and so does Posidonius in the second book of his discourses on Natural Philosophy. And they say that these tilings are all incoi-])oreal, and all alike. Moreover, that time is incorporeal, since it is an interval of the motion of the world. And that of time, the past and the future are both illimitable, but the present is limited. And they assert that the world is perishable, inasmuch as it was produced by reason, and is one of the things which are perceptible by the senses ; and whatever has its parts perishable, must also be perishable in the whole. And the parts of the world are perishable, for they change into one another. Therefore, the wliole world is ZENO. 3 1 1 perishable. And again, if anything admits of a change for the worse it is perishable ; therefore, the world is perishable, for it can be dried up, and it can be covered with water. Now the world was created when its substance was changed from fire to moisture, by the action of the air ; and then its denser parts coagulated, and so the earth was made, and the thinner portions were evaporated and became air ; and this being rarefied more and more, produced fire. And then, by the combination of all these elements, were produced plants and animals, and other kinds of things. Now Zeno speaks of the creation, and of the destruction of the world, in his treatise on the Universe, and so does Cleanthes, and so does Antipater, in the tenth book of his treatise on the World. But Pansetius asserts that the world is imperishable. Again, that the world is an animal, and that it is endued with reason, and life, and intellect, is affirmed by Chrysippus, in the first volume of his treatise on Providence, and by Apollodorus in his Natm-al Pliilosophy, and by Posidonius ; and that it is an animal in this sense, as being an essence endued with life, and with sensation. For that which is an animal, is better than that which is not an animal. But nothing is better than the world ; therefore the world is an animal. And it is endued with life, as is plain from the fact of our own soul being as it were a fragment broken off from it. But Boethus denies that the world is an animal. Again, that the world is one, is affirmed by Zeno, in his treatise on the Universe, and by Chrysippus, and by Apollo- dorus, in his Natm-al Philosophy, and by Posidonius, in the first book of his Discourses on Natural Philosophy. And by the term, the universe, according to Apollodorus, is understood both the world itself, and also the whole of the world itself, and of the exterior vacuum taken together. The world, then, is finite, and the vacuum infinite. LXXI. Of the stars, those which are fixed are only moved in connection with the movements of the entire heaven ; but the planets move according to their own peculiar and separate motions. And the sun takes an oblique path through the circle of the zodiac, and in the same manner also does the moon, Avhich is of a winding form. And the sun is pure fire, as Posidonius asserts in the seventh book of his treatise on the Heavenly Bodies, and it is larger than the earth, as the 312 LIVES OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS. same author informs us, in the sixteenth book of his Dis- closures on Natural Philosophy. Also it is spherical, as he says in another place, being made on the same principle as the world is. Therefore it is fire, because it performs all the functions of fire. And it is larger than the earth, as is proved by the fact of the whole earth being illuminated by it, and also the whole heaven. Also the fact of the earth throw- ing a conical shadow, proves that the sun is greater than it ; and the sun is seen in every part, because of its magnitude. But the moon is of a more earthy nature than the sun, inasmuch as it is nearer the earth. Moreover, they say that all these fiery bodies, and all the other stars, receive nutriment; the sun from the vast sea, being a sort of intellectual appendage ; and the moon from the fresh waters, being mingled with the air, and also near the earth, as Posidonius explains it in the sixth book of his Discourses on Natural Philosophy. And all the other stars derive their nourishment from the earth. They also consider that the stars are of a spherical figure, and that the earth is immovable. And that the moon has not a light of her own, but that she borrows it from the sun. And that the sun is eclipsed, when the moon runs in front of it on the side towards us, as Zeno describes in his work on the Universe; for when it comes across it in its passage, it conceals it, and again it reveals it ; and this is a phenomenon easily seen in a basin of water. And the moon is eclipsed when it comes below the shadow of the earth, on which account this never happens, except at the time of the full moon ; and although it is diametrically opposite to the sun every month, still it is not eclipsed every month, because when its motions are obliquely towards the sun, it does not find itself in the same place as the sun, being either a little more to the north, or a little more to the south. When therefore it is found in the same place with the sun, and with the other intermediate objects, then it takes as it were the diameter of the sun, and is eclipsed. And its place is along the line which runs between the crab and the scorpion, and the ram and the bull, as Posidonius tells us. LXXII. They also say that God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsuscept- ible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of the world ZENO^ 313 and of all that is in the world ; however, that he has not the figure of a man ; and that he is the creator of the universe, and as it were, the Father of all things in common, and that a portion of him pervades everything, which is called by different names, according to its powers ; for they call him A/a as being the person (3/ h) everything is, and Z^m, inasmuch as he is the cause of life, (rou Zfiv}, or because he pervades life. And 'A6r,va., with reference to the extension of his dominant power over the aether (sig aiSha). And "Hga, on account of his extension through the air (s/'g d's^a). And 'Hpaiffro;, on account of his pervading fire, which is the chief iustitiment of art ; and Uoa-idcrj, as pervading moisture, and Ari/Ji,7jTrio, as pervading the earth (r?/). And in the same Avay, regarding some other of his peculiar attributes, they have given him other names.* The substance of God is asserted by Zeno to be the universal world, and the heaven ; and Chrysippus agrees with this doctrine, in his eleventh book on the Gods ; and so also does Posidonius, in the first book of his treatise on the same sub- ject. Antipater, in the seventh book of his treatise on the World, says that his substance is aerial. And Boethus, in his treatise on Nature, calls the substance of God the sphere of the fixed stars. LXXIII. And his nature they define to be, that which keeps the world together, and sometimes that which produces the things upon the earth. And nature is a habit which derives its movements from, itself, perfecting and holding together all that arises out of it, according to the principles of production, in certain definite periods, and doing the same as the things fi'om which it is separated. And it has for its object, suitableness and pleasure, as is plain from its having created man. LXXIV. But Chrysippus, in his treatise on Fate, and Posidonius, in the second book of his work on Fate, and Zeno, and Boethus, in the eleventh book of his treatise on Fate, say, that all things are produced by fate. And fate, * It is hardly necessary to remark that 'A.6r]vn is the name of Minerva, not of Jupiter; "Hpa, of Juno; 'HtpaitrroQ, of Vulcan; TloffiiSoJv, of Neptune, and AT)f^ir)TT]p, of Ceres. "H^rncrro^ is properly derived from peap, a well, and avrXiw, to draw water. CLEANTHES. 323 according to the account given by Demetrius, the Magnesian, in his essay on People of the same Name. And he was greatly admii'ed by them on account of this circumstance. They also say that Antigonus, who was a pupil of his, once asked him why he drew water ; and that he made answer, " Do I do nothing beyond drawing water ? Do I not also dig, and do I not water the land, and do all sorts of things for the sake of philosophy ?" For Zeno used to accustom him to this, and used to require him to bring him an obol by way of tribute.* And once he brought one of the pieces of money which he had collected in this way, into the middle of a company of his acquaintances, and said, " Clean thes could maintain even another Cleanthes if he were to choose ; but others who have plenty of means to support themselves, seek for necessaries from others ; although they only study philo- sophy in a veiy lazy manner." And, in reference to these habits of his, Cleanthes \Nas called a second Heracles. III. He was then very industrious ; but he was not well endowed by natm-e, and was very slow in his intellect. On which account Timon says of him : — What stately ram thus measures o'er the gi-ound, And master of the flock surveys them round ? What citizen of Assos, dull and cold, Fond of long words, a mouth-piece, but not bold.+ And when he was ridiculed by his fellow pupils, he used to bear it patiently. IV. He did not even object to the name when he was called an ass ; but only said that he was the only animal able to bear the burdens which Zeno put upon him." And once, when he was reproached as a coward, he said, " That is the reason why I make but few mistakes." He used to say, in justification of his preference of his own way of life to that of the rich, " That while they were playing at ball, he was earning money by digging hard and barren ground." And he very often used to blame himself. And once, Ariston heard him doing so, and said, "Who is it that you are reproaching?" • The Greek used is airo