Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

Some say that the pursuit of philosophy began among non-Greeks. Among the Persians, they say, there were the Magi, among the Babylonians or Assyrians the Chaldaeans, among the Indians the Gymnosophists, and among the Celts and Galatians the so-called Druids and Semnotheoi, as Aristotle says in his Magicus and Sotion in the twenty-third book of his Successions. They also say that Mochus was a Phoenician, Zamolxis a Thracian and Atlas a Libyan.note

The Egyptians say that Hephaestus was the son of the Nile and that he began philosophy, whose leading exponents were priests and prophets. 2 From him to Alexander of Macedon, they say, 48,863 years passed, and in that time there were 373 eclipses of the sun and 832 of the moon.

From the Magi, the first of whom was Zoroaster the Persian, to the fall of Troy, Hermodorus the Platonist says in his On Mathematics that 5,000 years passed. Xanthus the Lydian, however, says that 6,000 years passed from Zoroaster to Xerxes’ crossing. After him, he says, there were a great many Magi in succession, men such as Ostanes, Astrampsychus, Gobryas and Pazatas, down to the overthrow of the Persians by Alexander.

But these writers fail to notice that they are attributing to non-Greeks the achievements of the Greeks. With the Greeks not only philosophy but the human race itself began. Consider that Musaeus was born among the Athenians and Linus among the Thebans. Musaeus, they say, was the son of Eumolpus. He was the first to compose a Theogony and a Sphere, and he said that all things come into being from one thing and are dissolved back into it. He died at Phalerum, and this elegiac couplet was inscribed on his tomb: The soil of Phalerum holds the dear son of Eumolpus, / Musaeus, his body dead, beneath this tomb. The Eumolpidae at Athens also take their name from Musaeus’ father.note

Linus, they say, was the son of Hermes and the Muse Urania. He composed a cosmogony and wrote on the courses of the sun and moon and on the generation of animals and fruits. His poems begin like this: There was once a time when all things had grown together. Anaxagoras took this up when he said that all things were together until mind came and set them in order. Linus died in Euboea, shot by Apollo’s arrows, and this was inscribed on his tomb: This earth received Theban Linus when he died, / son of the Muse Urania with her fair crown. So philosophy began with the Greeks, and its very name refuses any non-Greek designation.

Those who credit the non-Greeks with its invention also bring forward Orpheus the Thracian, saying that he was a philosopher and the most ancient one. For my part, I do not know whether we ought to call a man a philosopher who blurted out such things about the gods. Nor do I know what to call someone who unsparingly attributed every human passion to the gods, including the obscene acts that a few people rarely commit with the organ of speech. The myth says that he was killed by women. But the epigram at Dium in Macedonia says that he was struck by lightning. It goes like this: Here the Muses buried Thracian Orpheus of the golden lyre, / whom Zeus who rules on high killed with his smoking bolt.

Those who claim that philosophy began among non-Greeks also set out the form it took among each people. They say that the Gymnosophists and Druids philosophized in riddling sayings, telling people to worship the gods, do no wrong and practice courage. The Gymnosophists, at any rate, also despise death, as Clitarchus says in his twelfth book. The Chaldaeans, they say, occupy themselves with astronomy and prediction. The Magi spend their time on the service of the gods, on sacrifices and on prayers, believing that they alone are heard. They also set out views on the being and origin of the gods, whom they hold to be fire, earth and water. They condemn images of the gods, and especially those who say that some gods are male and some female.note

Magic in the sense of sorcery they did not even know, according to Aristotle in his Magicus and Dinon in the fifth book of his Histories. Dinon also says that the name Zoroaster, translated, means “star-sacrificer,” and Hermodorus says the same. Aristotle, in the first book of On Philosophy, says that the Magi are even older than the Egyptians. According to them, he says, there are two first principles, a good spirit and an evil spirit. The one is named Zeus and Oromasdes, the other Hades and Arimanius. This is also stated by Hermippus in the first book of On the Magi, by Eudoxus in his Circuit of the Earth and by Theopompus in the eighth book of his Philippica.

The philosophy of the Egyptians, about the gods and about justice, is said to be as follows. They say that matter was the first principle, that the four elements were then separated out of it, and that living creatures of every kind were produced. The sun and moon are gods, the one called Osiris and the other Isis. They allude to them in riddles through the beetle, the serpent, the hawk and other creatures, as Manetho says in his Epitome of Natural Doctrines and Hecataeus in the first book of On the Philosophy of the Egyptians. They also set up statues and sacred precincts because they do not know the form of the god.note

The following were considered wise: Thales, Solon, Periander, Cleobulus, Chilon, Bias and Pittacus. To these they add Anacharsis the Scythian, Myson of Chen, Pherecydes of Syros and Epimenides the Cretan, and some also add Pisistratus the tyrant. So much for the sages.

Philosophy has had two beginnings, one from Anaximander and the other from Pythagoras. Anaximander studied under Thales, and Pythagoras was taught by Pherecydes. The first was called Ionian, because Thales, an Ionian from Miletus, taught Anaximander. The second was called Italian, after Pythagoras, because he did most of his philosophizing in Italy.

To Chrysippus it runs like this. Socrates was succeeded by Antisthenes, Antisthenes by Diogenes the Dog, Diogenes by Crates of Thebes, Crates by Zeno of Citium, Zeno by Cleanthes, and Cleanthes by Chrysippus. To Theophrastus it runs like this: Plato was succeeded by Aristotle, and Aristotle by Theophrastus. That is how the Ionian line ends.note

The Italian line runs like this. Pherecydes was succeeded by Pythagoras, Pythagoras by his son Telauges, Telauges by Xenophanes, Xenophanes by Parmenides, Parmenides by Zeno of Elea, Zeno by Leucippus, and Leucippus by Democritus. Democritus had many pupils, among them, by name, Nausiphanes [and Naucydes], and they were succeeded by Epicurus.

Some philosophers have been dogmatists, others suspenders of judgment. The dogmatists are those who make assertions about things on the assumption that they can be apprehended. The suspenders of judgment are those who suspend judgment about them on the grounds that they cannot be apprehended. Some philosophers left writings behind, while others wrote nothing at all. According to some, the second group includes Socrates, Stilpo, Philip, Menedemus, Pyrrho, Theodorus, Carneades and Bryson. According to some, it also includes Pythagoras and Ariston of Chios, apart from a few letters. Others wrote one treatise each: Melissus, Parmenides and Anaxagoras. Zeno wrote many, Xenophanes more, Democritus more, Aristotle more, Epicurus more, and Chrysippus more.

Some philosophers were named after cities, like the Elians, Megarians, Eretrians and Cyrenaics. Others were named after places, like the Academics and Stoics. Some took their names from incidental circumstances, like the Peripatetics, and some from jibes, like the Cynics. Others took their names from their dispositions, like the Eudaemonists, and some from their conceit, like the Truth-lovers, the Refuters and the Analogists. Some were named after their teachers, like the Socratics and Epicureans, and so on. Those named after the study of nature are called natural philosophers. Those named after their school’s concern with character are called moral philosophers. Those who occupy themselves with verbal hair-splitting are called dialecticians.note

Philosophy has three parts: physics, ethics and dialectic. Physics deals with the universe and what is in it. Ethics deals with life and with what concerns us. Dialectic cultivates the arguments used by both. Up to Archelaus the physical branch prevailed. From Socrates, as has been said, the ethical branch began, and from Zeno of Elea the dialectical. Ethics has had ten schools: the Academic, Cyrenaic, Elian, Megarian, Cynic, Eretrian, Dialectical, Peripatetic, Stoic and Epicurean.

The Old Academy was headed by Plato, the Middle by Arcesilaus and the New by Lacydes. The Cyrenaic school was headed by Aristippus of Cyrene, the Elian by Phaedo of Elis, and the Megarian by Euclides of Megara. The Cynic school was headed by Antisthenes of Athens, the Eretrian by Menedemus of Eretria, the Dialectical by Clitomachus of Carthage, the Peripatetic by Aristotle of Stagira and the Stoic by Zeno of Citium. The Epicurean school is named after Epicurus himself.

Hippobotus, in his On Schools, says that there are nine schools or ways of life. The first is the Megarian, the second the Eretrian, the third the Cyrenaic, the fourth the Epicurean, the fifth the Annicerean, the sixth the Theodorean, the seventh the Zenonian, also called the Stoic, the eighth the Old Academic and the ninth the Peripatetic. 20 He does not include the Cynic, the Elian or the Dialectical. As for the Pyrrhonist school, most do not even recognize it, because of its lack of clarity. Some say that it is a school in one sense but not in another. It does seem, however, to be a school.note

Moreover, a short while ago Potamo of Alexandria introduced an Eclectic school, selecting what he liked from each of the schools. He holds, as he says in his Elements, that there are criteria of truth. One is the criterion by which judgment is made, namely the ruling part of the soul. The other is the criterion through which judgment is made, for example the most accurate impression. As principles of the universe he holds matter and the active cause, quality and place. These answer to what a thing comes from, what produces it, what quality it has and where it is. The end, to which everything is referred, is a life perfect in every excellence, not without the natural goods of the body and external goods.

But we must now speak about the men themselves, and first of all about Thales.

Thales, then, according to Herodotus, Duris and Democritus, was the son of Examyes and Cleobulina. He belonged to the Thelidae, who are Phoenicians and the noblest of the descendants of Cadmus and Agenor. He was one of the Seven Sages, as Plato also says. He was the first to be called wise, in the year when Damasius was archon at Athens, when the Seven Sages also received that name, as Demetrius of Phalerum says in his List of Archons. He was enrolled as a citizen at Miletus when he came there with Neleus, who had been driven out of Phoenicia. Most writers, however, say that he was a native Milesian of distinguished family.note

After his political career he turned to the study of nature. According to some, he left no writings, since the Nautical Astronomy attributed to him is said to be by Phocus of Samos. Callimachus knows him as the discoverer of the Little Bear, and says in his Iambi: He was said to have measured out the little stars / of the Wagon, by which the Phoenicians sail. According to others, he wrote only two works, On the Solstice and On the Equinox, judging everything else to be beyond apprehension. According to some, he seems to have been the first to study astronomy and to predict eclipses of the sun and the solstices, as Eudemus says in his History of Astronomy. That is why Xenophanes and Herodotus admire him. Heraclitus and Democritus also bear witness to him.note

Some say that he was also the first to declare that souls are immortal, and the poet Choerilus is one of them. He was also the first to discover the sun’s course from one solstice to the other. According to some, he was also the first to declare that the size of the sun is one seven-hundred-and-twentieth part of the solar circle, just as the size of the moon is of the lunar circle. He was also the first to call the last day of the month the thirtieth. And he was the first, as some say, to discuss nature.

Aristotle and Hippias say that he attributed soul even to lifeless things, judging from the magnet and from amber. Pamphila says that he learned geometry from the Egyptians, that he was the first to inscribe a right-angled triangle in a circle, and that he sacrificed an ox for it. 25 Others say it was Pythagoras, among them Apollodorus the arithmetician. Pythagoras carried furthest the discoveries that Callimachus, in his Iambi, says Euphorbus the Phrygian made, such as “scalenes and triangles” and whatever else belongs to the study of lines.note

He also seems to have given excellent advice in politics. When Croesus sent to the Milesians proposing an alliance, Thales prevented it, and this saved the city when Cyrus won. Heraclides reports that Thales himself says he lived alone, as a private man. 26 Some say that he married and had a son, Cybisthus. Others say that he stayed unmarried and adopted his sister’s son. On that occasion, asked why he had no children, he is said to have answered, “Because I love children.” They also say that when his mother tried to force him to marry, he said, “[By Zeus,] it’s not yet time.” Later, when he was past his prime and she kept pressing him, he said, “It’s no longer time.” Hieronymus of Rhodes, in the second book of his Miscellaneous Notes, also says that Thales wanted to show how easy it is to get rich. He foresaw that there would be a large olive crop, rented all the olive presses in advance and made a great deal of money.

He held that water is the first principle of all things, and that the world-order is alive and full of divinities. They also say that he discovered the seasons of the year and divided the year into 365 days.

No one taught him, except that he went to Egypt and spent time with the priests there. Hieronymus says that he even measured the pyramids by their shadows, watching for the moment when our own shadow is the same length as our height. He also lived in the company of Thrasybulus, the tyrant of Miletus, as Minyes says.

The story of the tripod is well known: it was found by fishermen and sent around the wise men by the people of Miletus. 28 They say that some young Ionians bought a cast of the net from Milesian fishermen. When the tripod was hauled up, there was a dispute, until the Milesians sent to Delphi, and the god gave this oracle: Offspring of Miletus, do you ask Phoebus about the tripod? / Whoever is first of all in wisdom, to him I award the tripod. So they gave it to Thales. He passed it to another, and that one to another, until it came to Solon. Solon said that the god was first in wisdom, and sent it to Delphi.

Eudoxus of Cnidus and Euanthes of Miletus say that one of Croesus’ friends received a gold cup from the king to give to the wisest of the Greeks, and that he gave it to Thales.

And that it went round to Chilon, who asked the Pythian god who was wiser than himself, and the god answered: Myson, of whom we shall speak. (Eudoxus and his followers put Myson in place of Cleobulus, and Plato in place of Periander.) About him, then, the Pythian gave this answer: I say that a certain Myson of Oeta, born in Chen, / is better furnished than you with a shrewd mind. The one who had asked was Anacharsis. Daimachus the Platonist and Clearchus say that a bowl was sent by Croesus to Pittacus, and in this way was passed around.note

Andron, in his Tripod, says that the Argives set up a tripod as a prize for excellence, for the wisest of the Greeks; that Aristodemus of Sparta was judged the winner, and that he gave way to Chilon. 31 Alcaeus too mentions Aristodemus, as follows: For once, they say, Aristodamus spoke in Sparta words not lacking sense: / Money is the man, and no poor man is ever noble. Some say that a ship with a cargo was sent by Periander to Thrasybulus, the tyrant of Miletus; that it was wrecked in the sea off Cos, and the tripod was later found by some fishermen. Phanodicus says that it was found in the sea off Athens, brought up to the city, and, after an assembly had been held, sent to Bias; 32 why, we shall say in the life of Bias.

Others say that it was made by Hephaestus and given by the god to Pelops at his wedding; that it then passed to Menelaus, was carried off by Alexander along with Helen, and was thrown into the sea off Cos by the Spartan woman, who said it would be fought over. In time some men of Lebedus bought a net’s catch there, and the tripod was caught with it. They fought with the fishermen, and the quarrel went all the way to Cos; and since they got nowhere, they reported it to the Milesians, theirs being the mother city. When the Milesians sent embassies and were ignored, they went to war with the Coans. Many fell on both sides, and then an oracle came out: give it to the wisest. Both sides agreed on Thales. He, after it had gone the rounds, dedicated it to Apollo of Didyma.note

Lobon of Argos says that his writings run to two hundred lines, and that this was inscribed on his statue: This is Thales, whom Ionian Miletus nursed and displayed, / the eldest in wisdom of all astronomers.

Among the songs sung as his are these: Many words are no proof of a sensible mind. / Seek one thing that is wise, / choose one thing that is good; / for you will tie the endlessly talking tongues of chattering men.

These sayings of his are also reported: The oldest of things is god, for he is unbegotten. / The most beautiful is the world-order, for it is god’s handiwork. / The greatest is space, for it holds all things. / The swiftest is mind, for it runs through everything. / The strongest is necessity, for it masters all. / The wisest is time, for it brings everything to light. He said that death is no different from life. “Then why,” someone said, “don’t you die?” “Because,” he said, “it makes no difference.”

Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says that he was born in the first year of the 35th [39th?] Olympiad. 38 He died at the age of seventy-eight, or, as Sosicrates says, ninety; for he died in the 58th Olympiad, having lived in the time of Croesus, to whom he also promised to get him across the Halys without a bridge, by diverting the stream.note

There have also been five other men named Thales, as Demetrius of Magnesia says in his Men of the Same Name: an orator from Callatis, with an affected style; a painter from Sicyon, of great talent; a third, very ancient, contemporary with Hesiod, Homer and Lycurgus; a fourth, mentioned by Duris in his On Painting; a fifth, more recent and obscure, whom Dionysius mentions in his Critical Writings.note

The sage, then, died while watching an athletic contest, from heat, thirst and weakness, being already old. And on his tomb is inscribed: Small indeed is this tomb—but its fame reaches the sky— / behold, this is the tomb of Thales the deep thinker. I too have an epigram on him, in the first book of my Epigrams, or Pammetros: Once as he was watching an athletic contest, Zeus, god of the sun, / you snatched the wise man Thales from the stadium. / I praise you for taking him close to you; for truly the old man / could no longer see the stars from the earth.note

His is the saying “Know yourself,” which Antisthenes, in his Successions, says belongs to Phemonoe, and that Chilon made it his own.note

About the Seven—for it is worth mentioning them here as a group—the following accounts are reported. Damon of Cyrene, who wrote On the Philosophers, finds fault with them all, but especially with the Seven. Anaximenes says that they all took up poetry; Dicaearchus says that they were neither wise men nor philosophers, but men of good sense with a gift for legislation. Archetimus of Syracuse has written up a meeting of theirs at the court of Cypselus, at which he says he himself was present; Ephorus, a meeting at the court of Croesus, without Thales. Some say that they also met at the Panionium, at Corinth and at Delphi.note

The following letters of Thales are also in circulation:

Thales to Pherecydes

“I hear that you intend to be the first of the Ionians to publish accounts of divine matters to the Greeks. And perhaps your decision is right, to put your writing before the public rather than entrust the matter to just anyone, to no good purpose. If you would like it, I am willing to discuss with you the subjects you are writing about; and if you ask me to, I will come to you in Syros.

Thales to Solon

“If you leave Athens, I think you would do best to make your home in Miletus, among your own colonists; for here you have nothing to fear. If it vexes you that we Milesians too are ruled by a tyrant—for you hate all dictators—you would still enjoy living out your life here with us, your friends. Bias too has written inviting you to come to Priene; if the city of Priene is more to your liking, live there, and we ourselves will come and live near you.”note

Solon of Salamis, son of Execestides, first introduced the seisachtheia at Athens: that is, a release of persons and of property. For people used to borrow on the security of their own persons, and many were working as hired laborers because of poverty. Seven talents were owed to him from his father’s estate; he was the first to cancel the debt, and urged the rest to do the same. This law was called the seisachtheia; it is obvious why.note

Then he enacted the rest of his laws, which it would take too long to go through, and had them set up on the axones.note

His greatest achievement was this. His native land [Salamis] was disputed between the Athenians and the Megarians, and the Athenians, who had often been beaten in the wars, had voted that anyone who still advised fighting for Salamis should be punished with death. He pretended to be mad, put a garland on his head, and burst into the marketplace. There he had a herald read the Athenians his elegiac verses about Salamis, and he roused them. They went to war with the Megarians again, and won, thanks to Solon. 47 The elegiacs that stung the Athenians most were these: Then I would rather be a man of Pholegandros or Sicinos / instead of an Athenian, having traded my country; / for soon this saying would spread among people: / This man’s an Athenian, one of those who gave up Salamis.note

From then on the people listened to him, and would gladly have had him even as their tyrant. But he declined, and even, as Sosicrates says, sensing it in advance, did all he could to stop his kinsman Pisistratus. He rushed into the assembly with spear and shield and warned them of Pisistratus’ plot; and not only that, but declared himself ready to help, with these words: “Men of Athens, I am wiser than some of you and braver than others: wiser than those who don’t see through Pisistratus’ deceit, and braver than those who know of it but keep quiet out of fear.”note

When Pisistratus was already in power and Solon could not win them over, he laid down his arms in front of the generals’ headquarters and said, “My country, I have helped you by word and by deed.” Then he sailed away to Egypt and Cyprus, and went to Croesus. It was then that Croesus asked him, “Who do you think is happy?” and he said, “Tellus of Athens, and Cleobis and Biton,” and the rest of the familiar story.note

Some say that Croesus decked himself out in every kind of finery, sat on his throne, and asked him whether he had ever seen a more beautiful sight. “Cocks,” he said, “and pheasants and peacocks; for they are decked in nature’s own colors, which are ten thousand times more beautiful.” After leaving there he went to Cilicia and founded a city which he named Soli after himself. He settled a few Athenians there, who in time, as their speech grew foreign, were said to solecize. The people from this city are called Soleis, and those from the Soli in Cyprus, Solii. When he learned that Pisistratus was now tyrant, he wrote this to the Athenians:note

If you have suffered terribly through your own wickedness, / don’t lay any share of the blame for it on the gods. / You yourselves raised these men up by granting them security, / and because of this you are held in wretched slavery. / Each one of you walks in a fox’s tracks, / but all of you together have empty minds. / For you look to the tongue and the words of a wily man, / but you never look at the deed that is being done. That is what he wrote. And Pisistratus wrote to him in exile as follows:

Pisistratus to Solon

“I am not the only Greek to have made himself tyrant, nor have I done it without a claim, since I belong to the line of Codrus. I have taken back what the Athenians swore to grant Codrus and his descendants, and then took away. In everything else I do no wrong, either toward the gods or toward men. I let the Athenians run their public life under the laws you laid down for them. And they run it better than under democracy, because I allow no one to commit outrages. I, the tyrant, take nothing more for myself than my rank and the honor that goes with it, the same stated privileges the former kings had. Each Athenian sets aside a tenth of the yield of his land, not for me but as a fund to pay for public sacrifices and any other common needs, and in case [the] war should overtake us.note

“I don’t blame you at all for exposing my intentions. You did it more out of goodwill toward the city than out of hostility to me, and also because you didn’t know what kind of rule I was going to set up. Had you known, you might well have put up with its being established, and you wouldn’t have gone into exile. So come back home, and trust me, even without an oath, that Solon will suffer nothing unpleasant at the hands of Pisistratus. You should know that none of my other enemies has suffered either. If you choose to be one of my friends, you will be among the first of them, for I see nothing treacherous or untrustworthy in you. Or if you’d rather live at Athens on some other footing, you’ll be allowed to. But don’t deprive yourself of your country on our account.”

So much for Pisistratus. Solon says that the limit of human life is seventy years.

He is also thought to have made excellent laws. If anyone fails to support his parents, he is to lose his civic rights, and so is anyone who has squandered his inheritance. The idle man is to be liable to prosecution by anyone who wishes to bring a charge. Lysias, however, says in his speech Against Nicias that it was Draco who wrote that law, and that Solon barred from the speaker’s platform any man who had prostituted himself. Solon also cut back the rewards for athletes in the games, fixing five hundred drachmas for an Olympic victor, a hundred for an Isthmian victor, and proportionate sums for the rest. It was in poor taste to inflate the rewards of athletes; such honors belonged only to those who had died in war, and their sons were to be raised and educated at public expense.note

That is why many men were eager to prove themselves brave and noble in war: Polyzelus, Cynegirus, Callimachus and all who fought at Marathon, and also Harmodius, Aristogiton, Miltiades and countless others. Athletes, by contrast, are expensive while they train and costly when they win. They are crowned at the expense of their country rather than of their opponents, and when they grow old, as Euripides puts it, they go off like threadbare cloaks that have shed their weft. Seeing this, Solon gave them only a modest welcome.note

He also prescribed in writing that Homer’s poems should be recited in sequence, each rhapsode beginning where the one before him had stopped. So it was Solon rather than Pisistratus who shed light on Homer, as Dieuchidas says in the fifth book of his Megarian History. The lines in question were chiefly these: “And those who held Athens” and what follows.note

Solon was the first to call the thirtieth day of the month the Old-and-New. He was also the first to have the nine archons meet together to confer, as Apollodorus says in the second book of his On Lawgivers. And when civil strife broke out, he took his place neither with the men of the city, nor with the men of the plain, nor even with the men of the coast.note

He used to say that speech is the image of deeds, and that the king is the man with the greatest power. He said laws are like spider webs: if something light and weak falls into them, they hold it, but if it is something bigger, it breaks through and is gone. He also said that speech is sealed by silence, and silence by the right moment. 59 He used to say that men who have influence with tyrants are like the pebbles used in reckoning: each pebble stands sometimes for more and sometimes for less, and in the same way tyrants treat each of these men at one moment as great and illustrious, at another as worthless.note

Among his songs is this one: Be on guard against every man, and see / that he does not, with hatred hidden in his heart, / speak to you with a cheerful face, / while his tongue, saying two things, / sounds out from a dark mind.

He wrote, of course, his laws, and also public speeches, exhortations to himself, elegies, poems on Salamis and on the Athenian constitution amounting to 5,000 lines, and iambics and epodes.

The following is inscribed on his statue: Salamis, which put an end to the Medes’ unjust insolence, / gave birth to this Solon, the holy lawgiver.

He flourished around the 46th Olympiad, and in its third year he was archon at Athens, as Sosicrates says; that was when he enacted his laws. He died in Cyprus at the age of eighty, having instructed his family to carry his bones to Salamis, burn them to ashes, and scatter them over the land. That is why Cratinus too, in his Chirons, has him say: I live on an island, as men tell the story, / scattered all over the city of Ajax.note

There is also an epigram of mine in the Pammetros I mentioned earlier, the work in which I have written, in every meter and rhythm, in epigrams and lyrics, about all the famous men who have died. It goes like this: Solon’s body was consumed by Cyprian fire in a foreign land; / Salamis holds his bones, whose dust turns to ears of grain. / His soul was carried straight to heaven by his axles, for he laid down / good laws, the lightest of burdens for his citizens.note

His saying, they say, was: Nothing in excess. Dioscurides says in his Memoirs that when Solon was weeping over the death of his son (a son of whom I have found no record) and someone said to him, “But it does no good,” he replied, “That is exactly why I’m weeping: because it does no good.”

The following letters are also attributed to him:

64 Solon to Periander

“You tell me that many people are plotting against you. If you mean to get rid of them all, you can’t do it too soon. But even someone you don’t suspect might plot against you, one because he fears for himself, another because he despises you for being afraid of everything. And he would earn the city’s gratitude by finding you out, unless you were above suspicion. So the best course is to give it up, and be rid of the blame. But if you must be a tyrant at all costs, make sure that your foreign force is stronger than the forces in the city. Then no one will be a danger to you any more, and you need not get rid of anyone either.”

Solon to Epimenides

“So it seems my laws were not going to help the Athenians for long, and you did not help them by purifying the city either. Neither the divine nor lawgivers can help cities on their own; it is those who at any given time lead the masses in whatever direction their own judgment takes them. So the divine and the laws are useful when the leaders lead well; when they [lead] badly, they are of no use.note

“Nor are my laws, and everything I enacted, any better for it. It was those who surrendered the common good who did the damage, by not standing in the way of Pisistratus when he went after the tyranny. And when I warned them, I was not believed. He, by flattering the Athenians, was believed more than I was when I told the truth. So I laid down my arms in front of the generals’ headquarters and said that I was wiser than those who did not see that Pisistratus was aiming at tyranny, and braver than those who shrank from resisting him. But they condemned Solon as mad. In the end I declared: ‘My country, here stands Solon, ready to defend you in word and deed; but to these people I even seem mad.

Solon to Pisistratus

“I trust that I will suffer no harm at your hands. I was your friend before the tyranny, and now I am no more at odds with you than any other Athenian who dislikes tyranny. Whether it is better for them to be ruled by one man or to live under democracy, let each of us keep to his own view. 67 And I grant that you are the best of all tyrants. But I don’t see that it would be right for me to return to Athens. Someone might blame me if, after establishing equal civic rights for the Athenians and refusing to be tyrant myself when I had the chance, I were now to come back and approve of what you are doing.”

Solon to Croesus

“I admire you for your kindness toward me. And by Athena, if living in a democracy did not matter to me more than anything, I would rather make my home in your kingdom than at Athens, where Pisistratus rules as a tyrant by force. But life is more pleasant for us where everyone has justice and equality. All the same, I will come to visit you, since I’m eager to be your guest.”

Chilon, son of Damagetus, was a Spartan. He composed elegies of some two hundred lines, and used to say that a man’s excellence is foresight about the future, grasped by reasoning. When his brother was upset at not being made ephor while Chilon was one, Chilon said, “That’s because I know how to put up with being wronged, and you don’t.” He became ephor in the 55th Olympiad (Pamphila says the 56th), and, as Sosicrates says, he first became ephor in the archonship of Euthydemus. He was also the first to propose that the ephors be paired with the kings, though Satyrus says it was Lycurgus.note

According to Herodotus in his first book, when Hippocrates was sacrificing at Olympia and the cauldrons boiled of their own accord, it was Chilon who advised him either not to marry, or, if he had a wife, to send her away and disown his children. 69 They also say he asked Aesop what Zeus was doing, and Aesop replied, “Bringing down the high and raising up the low.” Asked how the educated differ from the uneducated, he said, “In good hopes.” Asked what is difficult, he said, “To keep secrets, to make good use of leisure, and [to be able] to bear being wronged.” He also laid down these precepts: control your tongue, especially at a drinking party. Do not speak ill of your neighbors; otherwise you will hear things that will hurt you.note

Of his songs the most celebrated is this one: “On stone whetstones gold is tested, giving clear proof; and gold puts to the test the minds of men, both good and bad.” They say that once, when he was already old, he said he was not aware of having done anything unlawful in his life, except that he had doubts about one thing. Once, when he was judging a friend’s case, he himself voted according to the law, but persuaded a friend of his to vote for acquittal, so as to keep faith both with the law and with his friend.

He became most famous among the Greeks for his prediction about Cythera, the island off Laconia. Having learned what sort of place it was, he said, “If only it had never existed, or, once it existed, had sunk to the bottom of the sea.” 72 And his foresight was sound. Demaratus, an exile from Sparta, advised Xerxes to keep his fleet at the island, and Greece would have been conquered if Xerxes had listened to him. Later, during the Peloponnesian War, Nicias subdued the island, stationed an Athenian garrison there, and did the Spartans a great deal of harm.note

He was a man of few words, which is why Aristagoras of Miletus calls this manner of speaking the Chilonean. … that it was Branchus’, who founded the temple at Branchidae. He was an old man around the 52nd Olympiad, when Aesop the fable-writer was at his peak. He died, as Hermippus says, at Pisa, after embracing his son, who had won the boxing at Olympia. This happened through excess of joy and the weakness of great age. Everyone at the festival escorted his body with the highest honors.note

There is also an epigram of mine on him: 73 Light-bringer Polydeuces, I thank you, because the son / of Chilon won the green olive in boxing. / And if the father, seeing his son crowned, sank down for joy, / no one should blame him: may such a death come to me. On his statue this is inscribed: Spear-crowned Sparta brought forth this Chilon, / who was first in wisdom among the Seven Sages. His saying was “Give a pledge, and ruin is at hand.” There is also this short letter of his:note

Chilon to Periander

“You write to me about an expedition abroad, as though you yourself might march out. But I think that even affairs at home are precarious for a sole ruler, and I count that tyrant happy who dies a natural death in his own home.”note

Pittacus, son of Hyrrhadius, was from Mytilene. Duris says that his father was a Thracian. Together with the brothers of Alcaeus he overthrew Melanchrus, the tyrant of Lesbos. When the Athenians and the Mytilenaeans were fighting over the territory of Achilleitis, he himself commanded the Mytilenaeans, and Phrynon, an Olympic victor in the pancratium, commanded the Athenians. Pittacus agreed to meet him in single combat. With a net hidden under his shield, he threw it over Phrynon before he could notice, killed him, and saved the territory. Later, however, according to Apollodorus in his Chronicle, the Athenians took the dispute over the territory to arbitration with the Mytilenaeans; Periander heard the case and awarded it to the Athenians.note

At the time, at any rate, the Mytilenaeans honored Pittacus highly and entrusted him with power. He held it for ten years, put the constitution in order, and then laid down his office, living on for another ten years. The Mytilenaeans granted him land, but he dedicated it as sacred ground, and it is now called the Pittaceum. Sosicrates says that he kept a small piece for himself, saying that the half was more than the whole. He also refused money offered by Croesus, saying that he had twice as much as he wanted, since his brother had died childless and he had inherited his estate.note

Pamphila says in the second book of her Notes that his son Tyrraeus was sitting in a barber’s shop in Cyme when a smith threw an axe and killed him. When the people of Cyme sent the killer to Pittacus, he heard what had happened, set him free, and said, “Forgiveness is better than repentance.” Heraclitus, however, says that it was when he had Alcaeus in his power that he set him free and said, “Forgiveness is better than vengeance.”

He also made laws. One laid down that if a drunk man committed an offense, his penalty would be doubled. The aim was to stop people getting drunk, since the island produced a great deal of wine. He said, “It is hard to be good,” and Simonides recalls the saying too: “To become a truly good man is hard—Pittacus’ saying.” 77 Plato also mentions him in the Protagoras: “Against necessity not even the gods fight.” Another saying of his is “Office shows the man.” Once, asked what is best, he said, “To do well what is at hand.” When Croesus asked him what the greatest power is, he said, “That of the painted wood,” meaning the law. He also used to say that victories should be won without bloodshed.note

Of his songs the most celebrated was this: With bow and arrow-holding quiver / one must go against a bad man. / For the tongue speaks nothing trustworthy / through the mouth, when it holds / a double-minded thought in the heart. 79 He also composed six hundred lines of elegiac verse, and a prose work on laws for his fellow citizens.

He flourished around the 42nd Olympiad. He died in the archonship of Aristomenes, in the third year of the 52nd Olympiad, having lived more than seventy years [already an old man]. On his tomb this is inscribed: With her own tears the mother who bore him mourns / Pittacus, now dead: this holy Lesbos. His saying: Know the right moment.note

There was also another Pittacus, a lawgiver, who was called “the Little.” Favorinus says so in the first book of his Memoirs, and Demetrius in his Men of the Same Name.

At any rate, the story goes that a young man once consulted the wise Pittacus about marriage. Pittacus gave him the advice that Callimachus records in his epigrams: 80 A stranger from Atarneus once put this question to Pittacus of Mytilene, son of Hyrrhadius: Old father, two marriages invite me. One bride is my equal in wealth and in birth; the other is above me. Which is better? Come, advise me which of the two I should lead to the wedding. So he spoke. Pittacus raised his staff, an old man’s weapon, and said: Look, those boys there will tell you all you need to know. The boys were whipping swift tops, spinning them in a broad crossroads.

Alcaeus calls him “sarapous” and “sarapos” (“splay-foot”) because he was flat-footed and dragged his feet. He calls him “chiropodes” (“chap-foot”) because of the cracks in his feet, which they called “chirades,” and “gaurex” (“swaggerer”) because he swaggered for no reason. He calls him “physcon” (“pot-belly”) and “gastron” (“paunch”) because he was fat. He also calls him “zophodorpidas” (“dark-diner”) because he dined without a lamp, and “agasyrtos” (“sloven”) because he was slovenly and dirty. His exercise was grinding grain, as Clearchus the philosopher says.note

There is also a short letter of his, which reads as follows:

Pittacus to Croesus

“You bid me come to Lydia so that I may see your prosperity. Even without seeing it, I am convinced that the son of Alyattes is the richest in gold of all kings. We would gain nothing by coming to Sardis, for we have no need of gold; I have enough for myself and for my friends as well. All the same, I will come, so as to keep company with you as your guest.”

Bias, son of Teutames, was from Priene, and Satyrus ranked him first of the Seven. Some say he was rich; Duris says he was a resident alien. Phanodicus says that he ransomed some captive girls from Messenia, brought them up as his own daughters, gave them dowries and sent them back to their fathers in Messene.

It is also said that when Alyattes was besieging Priene, Bias fattened two mules and drove them out into the camp. When the king saw them, he was astonished that the people’s prosperity extended even to their animals. He wanted to make a truce, and sent an envoy into the city. Bias piled up heaps of sand, poured grain over the top and showed them to the man. When Alyattes learned of this, he finally made peace with the people of Priene. Soon afterwards Alyattes sent to Bias asking him to come to his court, and Bias said, “And I tell Alyattes to eat onions [that is, to weep].” 84 He is also said to have been a most formidable pleader in the courts. But he used the power of his words for good ends. This is what Demodicus of Leros alludes to when he says: If you happen to be judging, give the Prienian verdict. And Hipponax says: “better at pleading cases even than Bias of Priene.”

And this is how he died. He had pleaded a case on someone’s behalf when he was already very old. After finishing his speech, he rested his head on the lap of his daughter’s son. The opposing side spoke, and the jurors voted for the man Bias was defending. When the court broke up, he was found dead in his grandson’s lap. 85 The city gave him a magnificent funeral, and they inscribed: Born on the famous plains of Priene, he lies covered / by this stone: Bias, a great glory to the Ionians. And I wrote one too: Here I hide Bias, whom Hermes gently led / to Hades, his head snowed white with old age. / He spoke, he pleaded a friend’s case; then, leaning back / into a boy’s arms, he stretched out into a long sleep.

He composed a poem of two thousand lines on Ionia and how it might best prosper. Of his songs this one was celebrated: Please all the citizens, in whatever city you stay; / for that wins the most favor. But a headstrong manner has often flared up into harmful ruin.

He said that being strong is the work of nature, but being able to say what benefits one’s country belongs to the soul and to understanding. Plenty of money, he held, comes to many people even by chance. He used to say that the unfortunate man is the one who cannot bear misfortune. He also said that longing for the impossible is a sickness of the soul, but that the troubles of others should be left unmentioned. Asked what is hard, he said, “To bear a change for the worse nobly.” Once he was at sea with some impious men. When a storm struck the ship and they began calling on the gods, he said, “Quiet! Don’t let them notice you’re sailing here.” An impious man asked him what piety is, and he said nothing. When the man asked the reason for his silence, he said, “I’m silent because you’re asking about things that are none of your business.”

Asked what is sweet for human beings, he said, “Hope.” He used to say it is more pleasant to judge between enemies than between friends. Of two friends, one is certain to become your enemy; of two enemies, one will become your friend. Asked what a man enjoys doing, he said, “Making a profit.” He used to say that we should measure out our life as though we had both a long and a short time to live. We should also love as though we would one day hate, since most people are bad. His advice ran like this: Be slow to take things in hand, but whatever you choose, hold to it firmly and persevere. Don’t 88 talk fast, for that shows madness. Cherish understanding. Of the gods, say that they exist. Don’t praise an unworthy man for his wealth. Take by persuasion, not by force. Whatever good you do, credit it to the gods. Take wisdom as your provisions from youth to old age, for it is more secure than any other possession.

Hipponax also mentions Bias, as was said above. The hard-to-please Heraclitus praised him above all, writing: “In Priene lived Bias son of Teutames, who is more spoken of than the others.” The people of Priene also consecrated a precinct to him, called the Teutameum. His saying: Most men are bad.

Cleobulus, son of Euagoras, was from Lindus, though Duris says he was a Carian. Some say he traced his family back to Heracles, that he was outstanding in strength and beauty, and that he had a share in the philosophy of Egypt. They also say he had a daughter, Cleobulina, who composed riddles in hexameters. Cratinus mentions her too, in the play named after her, though he gave it a plural title. They say as well that Cleobulus restored the temple of Athena founded by Danaus. He composed songs and riddles, some three thousand lines.note

Some say he composed the epigram on Midas: I am a bronze maiden, and I lie upon the tomb of Midas. / As long as water flows and tall trees flourish, 90 and the rising sun shines, and the bright moon, / and rivers run and the sea surges, / remaining here on this much-lamented tomb / I shall tell passers-by that Midas is buried here. As evidence they cite a song of Simonides, where he says: Who, trusting in his wits, would praise / Cleobulus, dweller in Lindus, / who against ever-flowing rivers / and the flowers of spring / and the blaze of the sun and of the golden moon / and the eddies of the sea / set the strength of a statue? / For all things are weaker than the gods; but stone / even mortal hands can shatter. That was a foolish / man’s idea. The epigram, they say, is not Homer’s, since Homer lived many years before Midas.note

Pamphila’s Notes also record a riddle of his, which goes like this:

91 One is the father, twelve the children. Each of these / has twice thirty daughters of two different looks: / some are white to see, others black; / and though they are immortal, they all perish. The answer is the year.

Of his songs this one was celebrated: Lack of culture and a flood of words make up most of what is found among mortals; but the right moment will suffice. Think of something worthwhile. Do not become empty and graceless. He said that daughters should be married off when they are girls in age but women in understanding. By this he showed that girls too should be educated. He used to say that one should do good to a friend, so that he becomes still more of a friend, and should make an enemy into a friend. For one must guard against blame from friends 92 and plots from enemies. Whenever someone goes out of his house, let him first consider what he is going to do; and when he comes back in, let him consider what he has done.

He died an old man, having lived seventy years, and this was inscribed for him: The wise man Cleobulus, now dead, is mourned / by this his homeland, Lindus, proud of her sea.

His saying: Measure is best. He also wrote to Solon as follows:

Cleobulus to Solon

“You have many friends and a home everywhere. But I say that Lindus, governed as a democracy, will be the most suitable place for Solon. It is an island out at sea, and those who live here have nothing to fear from Pisistratus. Your friends, too, will come to you from every quarter.”

Periander, son of Cypselus, was a Corinthian of the family of the Heraclids. He married Lyside, whom he himself called Melissa. She was the daughter of Procles, tyrant of Epidaurus, and of Eristheneia. Eristheneia was the daughter of Aristocrates and the sister of Aristodemus, and these two between them ruled almost all of Arcadia, as Heraclides of Pontus says in his On Government. By her Periander had two sons, Cypselus and Lycophron; the younger was intelligent, the elder foolish. In time, in a fit of anger, he threw a footstool at his wife, or kicked her, while she was pregnant, and killed her. He had been persuaded by the slanders of his concubines, whom he later burned.

He also disowned his son Lycophron, who was grieving for his mother, and banished him to Corcyra. But when he was already 95 in old age, he sent for him so that he might take over the tyranny. The Corcyraeans got in first and put the young man to death. In his anger at this, Periander sent their sons to Alyattes to be castrated. But when the ship put in at Samos, the boys took refuge as suppliants of Hera and were saved by the Samians.

And he, in his despondency, died, by then eighty years old. Sosicrates says that he died forty-one years before Croesus, before the 49th Olympiad. Herodotus says in his first book that he was a guest-friend of Thrasybulus, the tyrant of Miletus.note

Aristippus, in the first book of his On the Luxury of the Ancients, says this about him. His mother, Crateia, fell in love with him and slept with him in secret, and he enjoyed it. When it came out, he turned harsh toward everyone, because he was pained at having been found out. Ephorus also records that Periander vowed to dedicate a golden statue if he won the four-horse chariot race at Olympia. He won, but he was short of gold. Then, at a local festival, he saw the women dressed in their finery, stripped them of all their ornaments and sent the offering.note

Some say that he wanted the site of his tomb to remain unknown, and devised a scheme like this. He showed two young men a certain road and ordered them to go out at night, kill whoever they met and bury him. Then he had four others go after these two, kill them and bury them, and then still more men after those. And so he himself met the first pair and was killed. The Corinthians inscribed this on a cenotaph for him: 97 Lord of wealth and wisdom, Periander—his homeland, Corinth, / the land by the sea’s bays, holds him. There is also one of mine: Never be grieved at not getting something; but / take delight in everything alike that god gives. / For the wise Periander too was snuffed out by despondency / because he did not get the thing he wanted.

His too is the saying: Do nothing for the sake of money. For one should make only the gains that ought to be made. He also composed precepts in two thousand lines. He said that those who mean to rule safely as tyrants should be guarded by goodwill and not by arms. Once he was asked why he remained tyrant, and he said, “Because stepping down voluntarily and being deposed are both dangerous.” He also used to say the following. Calm is a fine thing; rashness is perilous; gain is shameful; … democracy is better than tyranny; pleasures are perishable, but honors are immortal. 98 When fortunate, be moderate; when unfortunate, be sensible. Be the same to your friends in good fortune and in bad. Whatever you agree to, keep to it. Do not divulge secrets. Punish not only those who do wrong but also those who are about to.

He was the first to keep a bodyguard and to turn his rule into a tyranny. He would not let those who wished to live in the city do so, as Ephorus and Aristotle say. He flourished around the 38th Olympiad and was tyrant for forty years.

Sotion, Heraclides, and Pamphila in the fifth book of her Notes say that there were two Perianders: one was the tyrant, and the other was the sage, from Ambracia. 99 Neanthes of Cyzicus says this too, adding that they were cousins. Aristotle says the Corinthian was the sage, but Plato says he was not.

His is the saying: Practice is everything. He also wanted to cut a canal through the Isthmus.

A letter of his is also recorded:

Periander to the Sages

“Many thanks to Pythian Apollo that I found you gathered in one place. My letters will bring you to Corinth too. I will receive you, as you yourselves know, in the most democratic manner. I hear that last year you held a gathering at the court of the Lydian in Sardis. So now do not hesitate to come to me as well, the tyrant of Corinth. The Corinthians will be glad to see you coming to the house of Periander.”

Periander to Procles

“The pollution of my wife’s death came upon me against my will. But you are doing wrong deliberately in turning my son’s heart against me. So either put an end to the boy’s harshness, or I will take vengeance on you. For I long ago paid you the penalty for your daughter myself, by burning the clothes of all the women of Corinth along with her.”note

Thrasybulus also wrote to him as follows:

Thrasybulus to Periander

“I gave your herald no answer. Instead I took him into a field of grain, and with him following me I struck off the ears that stood too tall with a stick. If you ask him, he will report to you what he heard or saw from me. Do the same, if you want to make your sole rule secure: get rid of the outstanding citizens, whether or not any of them seems to be your enemy. For to a sole ruler even one of his own companions is suspect.”note

Anacharsis the Scythian was the son of Gnurus and the brother of Caduidas, king of the Scythians, and his mother was Greek, which is why he was bilingual. He wrote a poem of eight hundred lines on the customs of the Scythians and the Greeks, on frugal living and on warfare. Because he spoke so freely, he also gave rise to a proverb, “talking like a Scythian.”

Sosicrates says that he came to Athens in the 47th Olympiad, when Eucrates was archon. Hermippus says that he went to Solon’s house and told one of the servants to announce that Anacharsis had come to see him, wished to meet him and, if possible, to become his guest-friend. 102 The servant took the message in, and Solon told him to answer that people make guest-friends in their own countries. Anacharsis seized on this and said that he was now in his own country, so it was proper for him to make guest-friends. Solon, struck by his quick wit, let him in and made him his closest friend.note

Some time later he went back to Scythia. Because he was thought to be undermining his country’s customs with his great enthusiasm for Greek ways, he was shot with an arrow by his brother while out hunting and died. His last words were that thanks to his words he had come home safe from Greece, but through envy he had perished in his own land. Some say he was killed while performing Greek rites. There is also an epigram of mine on him: 103 When Anacharsis came back to Scythia after long wanderings, / he urged everyone to live by Greek customs. / But while the word was still unfinished on his lips, / a winged reed swiftly snatched him away to the immortals.note

He said that the vine bears three bunches of grapes: the first of pleasure, the second of drunkenness, the third of disgust. He said he was amazed that among the Greeks experts compete while non-experts judge. Asked how a man might avoid becoming a heavy drinker, he said, “By keeping before his eyes the disgraceful behavior of drunks.” He also used to say he was amazed that the Greeks, who make laws against assault, honor athletes for hitting one another. When he learned that a ship’s hull was four fingers thick, he said that this was how far the passengers were from death.

He called olive oil a drug for madness, because athletes rub themselves with it and then rage against one another. How, he used to ask, can people who forbid lying lie openly in their shops? And he says he is amazed that the Greeks drink from small cups at the start, but from large ones once they are full. On his statues is inscribed: “Master your tongue, your belly and your private parts.” Asked whether there were flutes among the Scythians, he said, “No, and no vines either.” Asked which ships were safest, he said, “The ones hauled up on dry land.” He said the most amazing thing he had seen among the Greeks was that they leave the smoke in the mountains but carry the wood into the city.

According to some, he invented the anchor and the potter’s wheel for everyday use.

He also wrote this letter:

Anacharsis to Croesus

“King of the Lydians, I have come to the land of the Greeks to be taught their customs and their ways of life. I have no need of gold; it is enough for me to return to Scythia a better man. So I am coming to Sardis, since I set great store by becoming known to you.”

Myson, son of Strymon, a native of Chen, a village in Oeta or Laconia, as Sosicrates says, citing Hermippus, is counted among the Seven Sages. They say that his father was a tyrant. It is said that when Anacharsis asked whether anyone was wiser than he, the Pythia gave the reply already quoted in the life of Thales concerning Chilon: I say that a certain Myson of Oeta, born in Chen, / is better furnished than you with a shrewd mind. Anacharsis, curious, went to the village and found him in summer fitting a handle to a plow, and said, “But, Myson, this is no season for the plow.” “Very much so,” he said, “for mending it.”

Hipponax also mentions him, saying: And Myson, whom Apollo / proclaimed the most self-controlled of all men. Aristoxenus, in his Miscellaneous Notes, says that he was not far removed from Timon and Apemantus, for he was a misanthrope. 108 At any rate, he was once seen in Sparta laughing by himself in a deserted spot; when someone suddenly came up and asked why he was laughing when no one was there, he said, “That’s exactly why.” Aristoxenus says that this is also why he was obscure: he came not from a city but from a village, and an unknown one at that. Because of his obscurity, some attributed his sayings to Pisistratus the tyrant—though not Plato the philosopher, who mentions him in the Protagoras, putting him in place of Periander.note

He used to say that we should not seek things from words, but words from things; for things are not done for the sake of words, but words for the sake of things.

He died at the age of ninety-seven.

At that time, when the Athenians [then] were in the grip of a plague, the Pythia’s oracle told them to purify the city. They sent a ship, and Nicias son of Niceratus, to Crete to summon Epimenides. He came in the 46th Olympiad, purified their city and stopped the plague in the following way. He took black and white sheep and led them to the Areopagus; from there he let them go wherever they liked, instructing his attendants to sacrifice each one, wherever it lay down, to the god concerned. And so, they say, the evil ceased.

The Athenians voted to give him a talent and a ship to take him back to Crete. He refused the money, but concluded a treaty of friendship and alliance between Cnossus and Athens.

He returned home and died not long afterward, as Phlegon says in his On Long-Lived People, at the age of 157; according to the Cretans, at 299; according to what Xenophanes of Colophon says he heard, at 154.note

He wrote The Birth of the Curetes and Corybantes and a Theogony, 5,000 lines, and The Building of the Argo and Jason’s Voyage to the Colchians, 6,500 lines. 112 He also wrote in prose On Sacrifices and On the Cretan Constitution, and On Minos and Rhadamanthys, about 4,000 lines. He also founded the shrine of the Solemn Ones at Athens, as Lobon of Argos says in his On Poets. He is also said to have been the first to purify houses and fields and to found temples. Some say he did not fall asleep at all, but went away for a time, busy gathering roots.note

There is also a letter attributed to him addressed to Solon the lawgiver, containing a constitution that Minos laid down for the Cretans. But Demetrius of Magnesia, in his work on poets and writers of the same name, tries to show that the letter is recent and not written in the Cretan dialect but in Attic, and modern Attic at that. I myself have found another letter, which runs as follows:

Epimenides to Solon

“Take heart, my friend. If Pisistratus had attacked the Athenians while they were still serfs and without good laws, he would have held power forever, having enslaved the citizens. As it is, he is enslaving men who are no cowards: men who remember Solon’s warning grieve in their shame and will not put up with being ruled by a tyrant. Even if Pisistratus himself holds the city, I do not expect his power to pass to his sons; for it is hard for people who have lived as free men under the best laws to be slaves. But don’t wander about; come to us in Crete. Here you will have no monarch to fear; whereas if his friends should come across you somewhere on your wanderings, I fear you may suffer something terrible.”

So much for that letter. Demetrius says that some report that he received a certain food from the Nymphs and kept it in an ox’s hoof; that he took it a little at a time, never needed to relieve himself, and was never seen eating. Timaeus also mentions him in his second book. Some say that the Cretans sacrifice to him as a god, for they say he had an exceptional gift of foreknowledge. At any rate, when he saw Munychia at Athens, he said that the Athenians did not know how much trouble this place would bring them; otherwise they would tear it apart even with their teeth. He said this so long before the event. It is also said that he was the first to call himself Aeacus, that he foretold to the Spartans their capture by the Arcadians, and that he claimed to have come back to life many times.note

Theopompus, in his Marvels, says that while he was building the shrine of the Nymphs a voice burst forth from heaven: “Epimenides, not of the Nymphs, but of Zeus”; and that he foretold to the Cretans the defeat of the Spartans by the Arcadians, as was mentioned above; and they were in fact defeated at Orchomenus.

Theopompus also says that he grew old in as many days as he had slept years. Myronianus, in his Parallels, says that the Cretans called him a Curete; and the Spartans keep his body among themselves in obedience to an oracle, as Sosibius the Laconian says.note

There have also been two other men named Epimenides: the genealogist, and a third who wrote about Rhodes in the Doric dialect.

Pherecydes of Syros, son of Babys, studied under Pittacus, as Alexander says in his Successions. Theopompus says that he was the first to write about nature and the gods.

Many remarkable things are told about him. For instance, they say that while walking along the beach on Samos he saw a ship running before a fair wind and said that it would soon sink; and it sank before his eyes. After drinking water drawn up from a well, he foretold that there would be an earthquake in three days, and there was. And on his way up from Olympia to Messene he advised his host Perilaus to move out with his household; Perilaus was not persuaded, and Messene was captured.note

He also told the Spartans to value neither gold nor silver, as Theopompus says in his Marvels; Heracles, he says, gave him this command in a dream, and on the same night ordered the kings to obey Pherecydes. Some attach these stories to Pythagoras.

Hermippus says that when war broke out between Ephesus and Magnesia, he wanted the Ephesians to win, and asked a passer-by where he came from. When the man said, “From Ephesus,” “Then drag me by the legs,” he said, “and put me in the territory of the Magnesians, and tell your fellow citizens to bury me there after their victory, and that Pherecydes laid this charge on them.”

Andron of Ephesus says that there were two men named Pherecydes from Syros: one an astronomer, the other a theologian, the son of Babys, under whom Pythagoras studied. Eratosthenes says there was only one from Syros, and another, an Athenian, a genealogist.

The book written by Pherecydes of Syros survives; it begins: “Zas and Chronos always were, and Chthonie; and Chthonie got the name Ge, since Zas gives her earth as a gift.” A sundial of his also survives on the island of Syros.note

Duris says, in the second book of his Annals, that the following epigram was inscribed on his tomb: 120 In me is the end of all wisdom; if there is anything more, / tell my Pythagoras this: that he is first of all / in the land of Greece. I do not lie in saying so.note

Ion of Chios says of him: So he, excelling in manliness and in modesty, / even in death has a delightful life for his soul, / if Pythagoras, wise above all, truly / knew and learned the judgments of men.note

There is also an epigram of mine in the Pherecratean meter: The famous Pherecydes, / whom Syros once bore, 121 into lice, the story goes, / changed his former form, / and gave orders to be laid at once / in the Magnesians’ land, so that victory / might go to Ephesus’ / noble citizens. / For there was an oracle, which he knew / alone, ordering this; / and he dies among them. / So this, it turns out, was true: / if someone is truly wise, / he is a benefit while living / and when he is no more.

He flourished in the 59th Olympiad. He wrote the following letter:

Pherecydes to Thales

“May you die well when your time comes. Illness overtook me just as I received your letter. I was swarming all over with lice and had a fever with chills. So I have charged my household to bring my writing to you once they have buried me. If you approve of it, together with the other sages, publish it as it is; if you do not approve of it, do not publish it. For my part, I was not yet satisfied with it. There is no exactness about the facts in it, nor do I claim to know the truth, only such things as one says when speaking about the gods. The rest must be worked out, for I speak in riddles throughout.

These, then, are the men who were called sages, to whom some also add Pisistratus the tyrant. Now we must speak about the philosophers; and we must begin first with Ionian philosophy, which was founded by Thales, under whom Anaximander studied.

Anaximander, son of Praxiades, of Miletus. He held that the first principle and element is the boundless, without defining it as air or water or anything else. He held that the parts change, but the whole is unchangeable; that the earth lies in the middle, occupying the position of a center, and is spherical; that the moon gives a borrowed light and is lit by the sun; and also that the sun is no smaller than the earth and is the purest fire.

He was also the first to invent the gnomon, and he set one up on the sundials in Sparta to mark the solstices and equinoxes, as Favorinus says in his Miscellaneous History; he also built clocks. 2 He was the first to draw the outline of land and sea, and he also made a globe.note

He wrote a summary exposition of his views, which Apollodorus of Athens, I suppose, also came across. Apollodorus says in his Chronicles that in the second year of the 58th Olympiad Anaximander was sixty-four years old and that he died shortly afterward, having flourished roughly in the time of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos. They say that when he sang, the children laughed at him, and when he heard of it he said, “Then we must sing better, for the children’s sake.”note

There was also another Anaximander, a historian, likewise from Miletus, who wrote in Ionic.

Anaximenes, son of Eurystratus, of Miletus, studied under Anaximander. Some say he also studied under Parmenides. He said that the first principle is air and the boundless. He held that the stars move not under the earth but around it. He wrote in a simple, unaffected Ionic style.

According to Apollodorus, he was born around the time of the capture of Sardis and died in the 63rd Olympiad.

There have also been two other men of the name, both from Lampsacus: a rhetorician, and a historian who was the son of the sister of the rhetorician who wrote the history of Alexander’s deeds.

This philosopher also wrote letters, as follows:

4 Anaximenes to Pythagoras

“Thales, son of Examyas, has met an unhappy end in his old age. At night, as was his habit, he went out of the courtyard with his maidservant to look at the stars, and—since he had not kept in mind where he was—while gazing he stepped over the edge of a steep drop and fell. So the Milesians’ sky-gazer has come to such an end. But let us, his companions in discussion, keep the man in memory, both ourselves and our children and pupils, and let us go on entertaining one another with his words. Let the beginning of every discourse of ours be dedicated to Thales.”

And again:

5 Anaximenes to Pythagoras

“You were the wisest of us when you moved from Samos to Croton, where you live in peace. The sons of Aeaces do unforgivable wrongs, and Miletus is never short of dictators. The king of the Medes is a danger to us too, unless we are willing to pay tribute. But the Ionians are about to go to war with the Medes for the freedom of all, and once they do, we have no further hope of safety. How then could Anaximenes still have the heart to study the heavens, living in fear of destruction or slavery? You, on the other hand, are dear to the people of Croton, and dear to the other Italian Greeks as well; and students come to you even from Sicily.”note

Anaxagoras, son of Hegesibulus or of Eubulus, of Clazomenae. He studied under Anaximenes, and was the first to set mind over matter. He began his treatise, which is written in a pleasant and lofty style, like this: “All things were together; then mind came and set them in order.” That is why he was nicknamed Mind, and Timon says of him in his Silli: And there, they say, is Anaxagoras, a valiant hero, / Mind, since he had a mind, which suddenly awoke / and bound together all that had been jumbled before.

He was distinguished by birth and wealth, and also by greatness of spirit, since he gave up his inheritance to his relatives. 7 When they accused him of neglecting it, he said, “Then why don’t you look after it?” In the end he withdrew and devoted himself to the study of nature, paying no attention to public affairs. That was when someone said to him, “Don’t you care at all about your country?” and he replied, “Hush! I care very much about my country,” and pointed to the sky.

He is said to have been twenty years old at the time of Xerxes’ crossing, and to have lived seventy-two years. Apollodorus says in his Chronicles that he was born in the 70th Olympiad and died in the first year of the 88th. He began to practice philosophy at Athens in the archonship of Callias, at the age of twenty, as Demetrius of Phalerum says in his List of Archons; and they say he spent thirty years there.note

He said that the sun is a red-hot mass of metal and larger than the Peloponnese—though others say it was Tantalus who said this—and that the moon has dwellings on it, and hills and ravines as well. He held that the first principles are the homoeomeries: just as gold is made up of what are called gold-dust particles, so the universe is compounded of small bodies with like parts. Mind, he held, is the principle of motion; of bodies, the heavy ones occupy the region below, like earth, and the light ones the region above, like fire, while water and air occupy the middle. In this way, he said, the sea settled upon the earth, which is flat, after the moisture had been evaporated by the sun.note

He held that living things arise from moisture, heat and an earthy substance, and later from one another; and that males come from the right side, females from the left.

They say he predicted the fall of the stone at Aegospotami, which he said would fall from the sun. That is why Euripides, who was his pupil, called the sun a golden clod in his Phaethon. They also say that when he went to Olympia he sat down wearing a leather cloak, as though it were going to rain; and it did. And when someone asked him whether the mountains at Lampsacus would ever become sea, they say he replied, “Yes, as long as time doesn’t run out.”note

He seems to have been the first, as Favorinus says in his Miscellaneous History, to declare that Homer’s poetry is about excellence and justice. Metrodorus of Lampsacus, his pupil, pressed the argument further and was the first to study the poet’s treatment of nature. Anaxagoras was also the first to publish a book in prose. Silenus says in the first book of his Histories that a stone fell from the sky in the archonship of Demylus, 12 and that Anaxagoras said the whole heaven was made up of stones, which held together through its rapid rotation and would come crashing down if it slackened.

Different accounts are given of his trial. Sotion says in his Successions of the Philosophers that he was prosecuted for impiety by Cleon because he said the sun was a red-hot mass of metal, and that after his pupil Pericles had spoken in his defense he was fined five talents and banished. Satyrus, in his Lives, says the charge was brought by Thucydides, Pericles’ political opponent, and that it was not only for impiety but also for siding with the Persians; and that he was condemned to death in his absence. 13 When the news of both reached him, his condemnation and the death of his sons, he said of the condemnation, “Nature condemned both my judges and me long ago,” and of his sons, “I knew I had fathered mortals.” Some attribute this to Solon, others to Xenophon.note

He also seems to have been somewhat hostile to Democritus, having failed to get a conversation with him. In the end he withdrew to Lampsacus and died there. When the magistrates of the city asked him what he would like done for him, he said, “Let the children have a holiday every year in the month in which I die.” And the custom is kept up even now. 15 When he died, the people of Lampsacus buried him with honor and inscribed on his tomb: Here, having gone furthest toward the goal of truth / about the heavenly world-order, lies Anaxagoras.

I have also written one on him: He once declared the sun a fiery mass of metal, / and for this Anaxagoras was to die. / His friend Pericles rescued him; but he / took himself out of life through the softness of his wisdom.

There have been three other men named Anaxagoras, of whom [none had every gift, but] one was a rhetorician of the school of Isocrates; another a sculptor, mentioned by Antigonus; and another a grammarian of the school of Zenodotus.

Archelaus, of Athens or of Miletus, son of Apollodorus or, as some say, of Midon; pupil of Anaxagoras and teacher of Socrates. He was the first to bring natural philosophy from Ionia to Athens, and he was called the natural philosopher; and natural philosophy came to an end with him, since Socrates introduced ethics. But he too seems to have touched on ethics, for he philosophized about laws and about what is fine and just; Socrates took this from him and, by developing it to its height, came to be thought its inventor. He said there were two causes of coming-to-be, hot and cold; that living things were generated from slime; and that what is just and what is shameful exist not by nature but by convention.

His account runs like this. He says that water, melted by heat, produces earth insofar as it settles downward because of the fiery element, and generates air insofar as it flows around. Hence earth is held fast by the air, and air by the revolution of fire. He says that living things are generated from the earth when it is warm and gives off a slime like milk, as a kind of nourishment; and that in this way it produced human beings too. He was the first to say that sound arises from the striking of air. He held that the sea formed in hollows, having filtered through the earth; that the sun is the largest of the stars; and that the universe is boundless.

There have been three other men named Archelaus: the geographer of the lands Alexander marched through; the author of Natural Oddities; and a rhetorician who wrote a handbook on the art of speaking.

Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a stonemason, and of Phaenarete, a midwife, as Plato too says in the Theaetetus; he was an Athenian, of the deme Alopece. He was thought to help Euripides write his plays; hence Mnesimachus says: This is a new play by Euripides, the Phrygians, /... to which Socrates as well / supplies the kindling. And again: “Euripideses bolted together by Socrates.” And Callias in the Prisoners: A. Why so solemn, and why so high and mighty? B. I’m entitled to be; Socrates is the reason. Aristophanes in the Clouds: And the one who writes Euripides’ tragedies for him, / the chattering, clever ones—that’s this man.note

According to some he studied under Anaxagoras, and also under Damon, as Alexander says in his Successions; after Anaxagoras’ condemnation he studied under Archelaus the natural philosopher, whose beloved, Aristoxenus says, he also was. Duris says that he was a slave and worked stone; and some say that the Graces on the Acropolis, which are clothed, are his work. Hence Timon says in his Silli: But from them turned aside the stone-chiseller, prattler about laws, / spellbinder of the Greeks, who made them split hairs, / the sneerer who sneers at orators, the half-Attic ironist. For he was also skilled in rhetoric, as Idomeneus too says; and in fact the Thirty forbade him to teach the art of speech, as Xenophon says.note

Demetrius of Byzantium says that Crito took him out of the workshop and educated him, having fallen in love with the grace of his soul. 21 Realizing that the study of nature is no concern of ours, he discussed ethics in the workshops and in the marketplace, and said that what he was looking into was this: whatever bad and good has been done in your halls. Often, because he argued too forcefully in his inquiries, people punched him and pulled his hair, and more often still he was laughed at and despised; and he bore all this patiently. So once, when he had been kicked and put up with it, and someone expressed surprise, he said, “If a donkey had kicked me, would I be taking it to court?” So much from Demetrius.note

He felt no need to travel abroad, as most did, except when he had to go on campaign. The rest of the time he stayed at home and argued rather contentiously with those who talked with him, not to rob them of their opinions but to try to learn the truth. They say Euripides gave him Heraclitus’ treatise and asked, “What do you think?” and he replied, “What I understood is excellent; and so, I think, is what I didn’t understand. It does need a Delian diver, though.”note

He also looked after his physical training and was in good condition. At any rate, he served on the campaign to Amphipolis; and in the battle at Delium, when Xenophon fell from his horse, he picked him up and saved him. 23 On that occasion, when all the Athenians were fleeing, he withdrew calmly, quietly turning round every so often and ready to defend himself if anyone attacked him. He also served at Potidaea, going there by sea, since the war prevented travel by land. They say that there he stood a whole night in one position, and that after distinguishing himself in battle he gave up the prize for valor to Alcibiades—with whom, according to Aristippus in the fourth book of On the Luxury of the Ancients, he was in love. Ion of Chios says that as a young man he also traveled to Samos with Archelaus; Aristotle says he went to Delphi; and he also went to the Isthmus, as Favorinus says in the first book of his Memoirs.

He was also firm in his convictions and committed to democracy. This is clear from his refusal to give way to Critias and his associates when they ordered him to bring Leon of Salamis, a rich man, before them to be put to death, and also from the fact that he alone voted to acquit the ten generals. And when he could have escaped from prison he refused; he rebuked those who wept for him, and while in chains delivered those finest of discourses.note

He was self-sufficient and dignified. Once, as Pamphila says in the seventh book of her Notes, when Alcibiades offered him a large plot of land to build a house on, he said, “If I needed shoes and you offered me a hide to make shoes for myself, I’d look ridiculous taking it.” 25 Often, looking at the mass of goods for sale, he would say to himself, “How many things I have no need of!” And he was forever reciting these iambic lines: Silver plate and purple robes / are useful for tragic actors, not for life. He also looked down on Archelaus of Macedon, Scopas of Crannon and Eurylochus of Larissa, neither accepting money from them nor going to visit them. He was so orderly in his way of life that though plague often broke out at Athens, he alone never fell ill.note

Aristotle says he married two wives: first Xanthippe, by whom he had Lamprocles; and second Myrto, daughter of Aristides the Just, whom he took without a dowry and by whom he had Sophroniscus and Menexenus. Others say he married Myrto first; and some, including Satyrus and Hieronymus of Rhodes, say he had both at the same time. They say that the Athenians, wishing to increase their numbers because of a shortage of men, decreed that a man should marry one citizen woman but might also have children by another; and that Socrates accordingly did so.

He was able to look down on those who mocked [him]. He took pride in his frugality and never charged a fee. He used to say that the one who eats with most pleasure has least need of relish, and the one who drinks with most pleasure is least inclined to wait for a drink that isn’t there; and that the one who needs least is nearest to the gods. This can be gathered even from the comic poets, who, without realizing it, praise him by the very things they mock him for. Aristophanes puts it this way: You who rightly longed for great wisdom, / how happily you will live among the Athenians and the Greeks! / For you have a good memory and are a thinker, and endurance is in / your character; you never tire, whether standing or walking; / you’re not much troubled by cold, you don’t crave breakfast, and you keep away from wine and gluttony and all the other follies.

Amipsias, bringing him on stage in a threadbare cloak, says this: Socrates, best of few men and by far the vainest of many, have you come / to us as well? You’re a tough one. Where could you ever get a cloak? / B. This misfortune has come about to spite the shoemakers. / A. And yet, hungry as he is, he has never stooped to flattery. This arrogance and loftiness of his is also brought out by Aristophanes when he says: because you swagger along the streets and cast your eyes sideways, / and barefoot you endure many hardships, and put on a solemn face for us. Yet sometimes, adapting to the occasion, he even dressed in fine clothes, as in Plato’s Symposium when he is on his way to Agathon’s.

He was able to do both: to turn people toward something and to turn them away from it. So, after discussing knowledge with Theaetetus, he sent him away inspired, as Plato too says; and when Euthyphro had brought a charge of killing a foreigner against his own father, Socrates talked with him about piety and led him away from it. He made Lysis, too, a person of excellent character by his exhortations, for he had a knack for drawing arguments from the facts at hand. He also shamed his son Lamprocles when he was raging at his mother, as Xenophon says somewhere. And he dissuaded Glaucon, Plato’s brother, from going into politics because of his inexperience, as Xenophon says; whereas Charmides, who on the contrary was well suited to it, he encouraged to take it up.

He also roused the general Iphicrates to a proud spirit by showing him the fighting cocks of Midias the barber flapping their wings against those of Callias. And Glauconides thought the city ought to keep him for itself, like a pheasant or a peacock.

He used to say it was remarkable that anyone could easily tell you how many sheep he had, but couldn’t name how many friends he had made; that was how little people cared about them. Seeing Euclides absorbed in eristic arguments, he said, “Euclides, you’ll be able to deal with sophists, but not with human beings at all.” He thought such hair-splitting about these questions was useless, as Plato too says in the Euthydemus.

When Charmides offered him slaves so that he could live off the income from them, he declined. According to some, he also looked down on the beauty of Alcibiades. He praised leisure as the finest of possessions, as Xenophon too says in his Symposium. He also used to say that there is only one good, knowledge, and only one bad thing, ignorance. Wealth and good birth, he said, have nothing worthy of respect about them; on the contrary, they are wholly bad. At any rate, when someone told him that Antisthenes’ mother was Thracian, he said, “Did you think so noble a man could have been born of two Athenians?” When Phaedo, after being taken prisoner in war, was kept in a brothel, he had Crito ransom him and made a philosopher of him.

What is more, he was learning to play the lyre when he was already old, saying there was nothing odd in learning what one doesn’t know. He also danced regularly, believing that such exercise was good for the body’s fitness, as Xenophon too says in his Symposium. He said too that the divine sign gave him advance warning of what was to come; that [to begin] well is no small thing, but hangs on a small thing; and that he knew nothing except [knowing] this very fact. He used to say that people who pay a high price for early produce despair of living until the proper season. Once, asked what excellence in a young man is, he said, “Nothing in excess.” He held that one should study geometry only so far as to be able to take over and hand over land by measure.

When Euripides, in his Auge, said of excellence: It is best to let these things go loose, at random, he got up and walked out. It was ridiculous, he said, to think a slave who couldn’t be found worth searching for, but to let excellence be lost like that. Asked whether one should marry or not, he said, “Whichever you do, you’ll regret it.” He used to say he was amazed that people who make stone statues take pains to make the stone as lifelike as possible, while neglecting to make sure they themselves don’t look like the stone. He thought young men should look at themselves in the mirror regularly, so that if they were handsome they might become worthy of their looks, and if they were ugly they might cover up their ugliness with education.

Once he invited some rich men to dinner, and when Xanthippe was embarrassed he said, “Cheer up. If they’re reasonable, they’ll put up with us; if they’re worthless, we won’t give them a thought.” He used to say that other people live to eat, while he ate to live. Of the masses, who count for nothing, he said it was as if someone rejected a single four-drachma coin as counterfeit but accepted a heap made of such coins as good. When Aeschines said, “I’m poor and have nothing else, but I give you myself,” he replied, “Don’t you realize you’re giving me the greatest gift of all?” To a man who was resentful at being overlooked when the Thirty came to power, he said, “You don’t regret it, do you?”

It was for saying and doing these things and the like that he received the testimony of the Pythia, who gave Chaerephon that famous response: Of all men Socrates is wisest.note

This, above all, was what made him envied—and also the fact that he would expose as fools those who thought highly of themselves, as he certainly did Anytus, as we find in Plato’s Meno. Anytus, unable to bear Socrates’ mockery, first stirred up Aristophanes and his circle against him, and then helped persuade Meletus to bring an indictment against him for impiety and corrupting the young.

So Meletus brought the indictment, and Polyeuctus delivered the speech for the prosecution, as Favorinus says in his Miscellaneous History. The speech was written by Polycrates the sophist, as Hermippus says, or by Anytus, as some say; and Lycon the demagogue made all the preparations.

Antisthenes in his Successions of the Philosophers and Plato in the Apology say there were three accusers, Anytus, Lycon and Meletus: Anytus was angry on behalf of the craftsmen and the politicians, Lycon on behalf of the orators, and Meletus on behalf of the poets—all of whom Socrates used to pull to pieces. Favorinus, however, says in the first book of his Memoirs that Polycrates’ speech against Socrates is not genuine; for in it, he says, Polycrates mentions the walls rebuilt by Conon, which happened six years after Socrates’ death. And that is indeed the case.

And they condemned him to death, adding another eighty votes. He was put in chains, and not many days later he drank the hemlock, after much fine and noble conversation, which Plato records in the Phaedo. According to some, he also composed a paean, which begins: Delian Apollo, hail, and Artemis, glorious pair of children. But Dionysodorus says the paean is not his. He also composed a fable in the manner of Aesop, not very successfully, which begins: Aesop once told the people who dwell in the city of Corinth / not to judge excellence by the wisdom of a popular jury.

So he was gone from among men. The Athenians repented at once, so much so that they closed the wrestling schools and gymnasia. They banished the others and condemned Meletus to death; and they honored Socrates with a bronze statue, the work of Lysippus, which they set up in the Pompeion. When Anytus visited Heraclea, the people of Heraclea expelled him by proclamation that same day. It is not only in Socrates’ case that the Athenians have behaved like this, but in a great many others. As Heraclides says, they fined Homer fifty drachmas as a madman, said Tyrtaeus was out of his mind, and honored Astydamas with a bronze statue before Aeschylus and his like. 44 Euripides even reproaches them in his Palamedes, saying: “You have killed, you have killed the all-wise, the harmless nightingale of the Muses.” So much for that. Philochorus, though, says that Euripides died before Socrates.note

He was born, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles, in the archonship of Apsephion, in the fourth year of the 77th Olympiad, on the sixth of Thargelion, when the Athenians purify the city and when the Delians say Artemis was born. He died in the first year of the 95th Olympiad, at the age of seventy. Demetrius of Phalerum says the same. Some, however, say he was sixty when he died.note

Both of them studied under Anaxagoras, he and Euripides; Euripides was born in the first year of the 75th Olympiad, in the archonship of Calliades.

In my view Socrates also discussed natural philosophy. At any rate, he holds certain discussions about providence, as Xenophon too says—although Xenophon declares that he talked only about ethics. And Plato too, in the Apology, after mentioning Anaxagoras and certain other natural philosophers—subjects Socrates disowns—speaks about these things himself, even though he attributes everything to Socrates.

Aristotle says that a Magus who came from Syria to Athens found fault with Socrates on various counts, and in particular predicted that he would die a violent death.

I have also written a poem on him, which goes like this: Drink now, Socrates, in the house of Zeus; for truly the god / called you wise, and wisdom is a god. / You simply took the hemlock from the Athenians, / but they themselves drank it down with your mouth.

According to Aristotle in the third book of his On Poetry, a certain Antilochus of Lemnos and Antiphon the interpreter of portents were his rivals, as Cylon of Croton was Pythagoras’; Syagrus was Homer’s while he lived, and Xenophanes of Colophon after his death; Cercops was Hesiod’s while he lived, and the Xenophanes just mentioned after his death; Amphimenes of Cos was Pindar’s; Pherecydes was Thales’, and Salarus of Priene Bias’; Antimenidas and Alcaeus were Pittacus’, Sosibius Anaxagoras’, and Timocreon Simonides’.

Of those who succeeded him, the so-called Socratics, the leading figures were Plato, Xenophon and Antisthenes; and of the ten who are traditionally listed, the four most distinguished were Aeschines, Phaedo, Euclides and Aristippus. I must speak first of Xenophon, then of Antisthenes among the Cynics, then of the Socratics, and after that of Plato, since he heads the ten schools and himself founded the first Academy. Let that, then, be the order.

There was also another Socrates, a historian, who wrote a guide to Argos; another, a Peripatetic from Bithynia; another, a writer of epigrams; and Socrates of Cos, who wrote on the epithets of the gods.

Xenophon was the son of Gryllus, an Athenian of the deme Erchia. He was modest and extraordinarily handsome. They say that Socrates met him in a narrow lane, stretched his stick across it to stop him passing, and asked him where each kind of food was sold. When he had answered, Socrates asked him again where people become fine and good. When he was at a loss, Socrates said, “Then follow me and learn.” From then on he was Socrates’ pupil. He was the first to take notes of what was said and make it public, calling the work Memorabilia. He was also the first to write a history of philosophers.

Aristippus says in the fourth book of On the Luxury of the Ancients that he was in love with Clinias, 49 and that he said this about him: “Now I take more pleasure in looking at Clinias than at all the other beautiful things among men. I would rather be blind to everything else than to Clinias alone. I resent night and sleep because I can’t see him, and I am deeply grateful to the day and the sun because they show me Clinias.”note

He became a friend of Cyrus in the following way. He had an acquaintance named Proxenus, a Boeotian by birth, a pupil of Gorgias of Leontini and a friend of Cyrus. Proxenus, who was staying with Cyrus at Sardis, sent a letter to Xenophon in Athens, inviting him to come and become Cyrus’ friend. Xenophon showed the letter to Socrates and asked his advice.note

After the march up country, the disasters in Pontus and the broken agreements of Seuthes, king of the Odrysians, he went to Asia to join Agesilaus, king of the Spartans, providing him with Cyrus’ soldiers as mercenaries; and he became an extraordinarily close friend of his. It was at this time that the Athenians condemned him to exile for siding with Sparta. While he was at Ephesus, having some gold, he gave half of it to Megabyzus, the priest of Artemis, to keep for him until he returned—or, if he did not, to have a statue made and dedicate it to the goddess. With the other half he sent offerings to Delphi. From there he came to Greece with Agesilaus, who had been recalled for the war against Thebes; and the Spartans made him their proxenos.note

Then, leaving Agesilaus, he went to Scillus, a place in the territory of Elis not far from the city. He was accompanied by a woman named Philesia, as Demetrius of Magnesia says, and by his two sons, Gryllus and Diodorus, as Dinarchus says in his speech against Xenophon in a case of desertion; they were also called the Dioscuri. When Megabyzus arrived, on the pretext of attending the festival, Xenophon recovered the money, bought an estate and consecrated it to the goddess; a river Selinus ran through it, with the same name as the one at Ephesus. From then on he spent his time hunting, entertaining his friends and writing his histories. Dinarchus says that the Spartans also gave him a house and land.note

They also say that Phylopidas the Spartan sent him there, as a gift, slaves captured at Dardanus, and that he disposed of them as he wished. They say that the Eleans marched on Scillus [and], since the Spartans were slow to come, took the place. At that point, they say, his sons slipped away to Lepreum with a few servants, while Xenophon himself went first to Elis, then [also] to Lepreum to join his sons, and from there got safely away with them to Corinth and settled there. Meanwhile, when the Athenians voted to help the Spartans, he sent his sons to Athens to serve in the army on the Spartans’ behalf.

He died, as Ctesiclides of Athens says in his List of Archons and Olympic Victors, in the first year of the 105th Olympiad, in the archonship of Callidemides, the year in which Philip son of Amyntas became king of the Macedonians. He died at Corinth, as Demetrius of Magnesia says, evidently at a good old age. He was a good man in every respect, and in particular a lover of horses and of hunting and a skilled tactician, as is clear from his writings; he was pious, fond of sacrificing, competent to judge sacrificial victims, and a faithful follower of Socrates.

He wrote some forty books, though different people divide them differently: 57 The March Up Country, for which he wrote a preface to each book but not to the whole; The Education of Cyrus, Greek History and Memorabilia; Symposium, Household Management, On Horsemanship, On Hunting and The Cavalry Commander; Apology of Socrates, On Revenues, and Hiero, or On Tyranny; Agesilaus, and Constitution of the Athenians and the Spartans, which Demetrius of Magnesia says is not by Xenophon. It is said, too, that though he could have appropriated the books of Thucydides, which were then unknown, he brought them to fame himself. He was also called the Attic Muse for the sweetness of his style; that is why he and Plato were jealous of each other, as I shall tell in the life of Plato.

I have also written epigrams on him, which go like this: Xenophon went up to the Persians not only for Cyrus’ sake, / but seeking a way up that would lead to the house of Zeus. / For having shown Greek affairs as the fruit of his education, / he recalled how fine a thing Socrates’ wisdom was. Another, on how he died: Xenophon, though the citizens of Cranaus and Cecrops / condemned you to exile for the sake of your friend Cyrus, / hospitable Corinth welcomed you, and you delighted in it / and were well content; there you resolved to stay.note

I have found elsewhere that he flourished around the 89th Olympiad, along with the other Socratics; and Istrus says that he was exiled by a decree of Eubulus and recalled by a decree of the same man.

There have been seven Xenophons: first, this one; second, an Athenian, brother of the Pythostratus who wrote the Theseid, who wrote, among other things, a life of Epaminondas and Pelopidas; third, a doctor from Cos; fourth, the author of a history of Hannibal; fifth, a writer on mythical marvels; sixth, a sculptor from Paros; seventh, a poet of Old Comedy.

Aeschines was the son of Charinus the sausage-maker (others say of Lysanias). He was an Athenian and hard-working from his youth, which is why he never left Socrates. Hence Socrates used to say, “The sausage-maker’s son is the only one who knows how to honor us.” Idomeneus said that it was Aeschines, not Crito, who advised Socrates in prison about escaping, and that Plato gave the speeches to Crito because Aeschines was more a friend of Aristippus than of his. Aeschines was attacked, especially by Menedemus of Eretria, for passing off as his own most of the dialogues that were really Socrates’, which he had got from Xanthippe. Of these, the so-called “headless” ones are very slack and show nothing of Socratic vigor. Pisistratus of Ephesus also said that these were not by Aeschines.note

They say that poverty drove him to Sicily, to Dionysius, and that Plato ignored him but Aristippus recommended him, and that he gave Dionysius some of his dialogues and received gifts in return. 62 Then, when he got back to Athens, he did not dare to set up as a sophist, since Plato and Aristippus and their circles were in high repute at the time. Instead he gave lectures for a fee, and later wrote courtroom speeches for people who had been wronged. That is why Timon said of him, “the force of Aeschines, not unpersuasive at writing.” They say that Socrates, seeing him hard pressed by poverty, told him to borrow from himself by cutting down on his food. Aristippus too was suspicious of his dialogues. At any rate, they say that when Aeschines was reading them aloud in Megara, Aristippus mocked him: “Where did you get these, you thief?”note

Polycritus of Mende says in the first book of his On Dionysius that Aeschines lived with the tyrant until his expulsion and until Dion’s return to Syracuse, and he says that Carcinus the tragic poet was with him too. A letter of Aeschines to Dionysius is also in circulation. He was well trained in rhetoric as well, as is clear from his defense of the father of Phaeax the general, and of Dion. He imitates Gorgias of Leontini most of all. Lysias, too, wrote a speech against him, which he titled [On] Malicious Prosecution. From all this it is clear that he was something of an orator. One pupil of his is recorded, Aristotle, nicknamed “the Tale.”note

Of all the Socratic dialogues, however, Panaetius thinks that those of Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes and Aeschines are genuine. He is doubtful about those of Phaedo and Euclides, and he rejects all the others.note

There have been eight men named Aeschines. The first is this one. The second wrote the handbooks of rhetoric. The third is the orator who opposed Demosthenes. The fourth was an Arcadian, a pupil of Isocrates. The fifth was from Mytilene; they also called him the “scourge of orators.” The sixth was from Neapolis, an Academic philosopher, the pupil and beloved of Melanthius of Rhodes. The seventh was from Miletus, a political writer. The eighth was a sculptor.

Aristippus was a Cyrenaean by birth, and came to Athens, as Aeschines says, drawn by Socrates’ fame. Having set up as a sophist, as Phanias of Eresus the Peripatetic says, he was the first of the Socratics to charge fees and to send money to his teacher. Once he sent Socrates twenty minas and got them straight back, Socrates saying that the divine sign would not allow him to accept them; for he disliked the practice. Xenophon was hostile to Aristippus, which is why he put the speech against pleasure into Socrates’ mouth, directed against Aristippus. Not only that: Theodorus also disparaged him in his On Schools, and Plato did in his On the Soul, as we have said elsewhere.note

He was able to adapt himself to place, time and person, and to play his part fittingly in any situation. That is why he was in higher favor with Dionysius than the others, since he always made the best of whatever came his way. He enjoyed the pleasure of what was at hand, but did not toil to hunt down the enjoyment of what was not. Hence Diogenes the Cynic called him “the king’s dog.” Timon took a bite at him for his softness, saying something like this: such was the delicate nature of Aristippus, groping after falsehoods. They say he once ordered a partridge to be bought for fifty drachmas. When someone criticized him, he said, “Wouldn’t you have bought it for an obol?” When the man nodded, he said, “Well, fifty drachmas mean no more than that to me.”note

Once, as he was passing by, Diogenes, who was washing vegetables, mocked him and said, “If you had learned to live on these, you wouldn’t be paying court to tyrants.” He replied, “And if you knew how to deal with people, you wouldn’t be washing vegetables.” Asked what he had gained from philosophy, he said, “The ability to talk with anyone with confidence.” Once, when he was reproached for living extravagantly, he said, “If this were a bad thing, it wouldn’t happen at the festivals of the gods.” Asked once what advantage philosophers have, he said, “If all the laws were abolished, we would live just the same.”

When someone put a riddle to him and said, “Unravel it,” he said, “Why, you fool, would you want to unravel something that gives us trouble even when it’s tied up?” He said it was better to be a beggar than uneducated: beggars lack money, the uneducated lack humanity. Once, when he was being abused, he walked away. When the man went after him and said, “Why are you running away?” he said, “Because you have the right to speak ill, and I have the right not to listen.” When someone said that he always saw philosophers at the doors of the rich, he said, “So too doctors at the doors of the sick; but that’s no reason anyone would choose to be sick rather than to be a doctor.”note

Once, when he was sailing to Corinth and was caught in a storm, he happened to be frightened. So to the man who said, “We ordinary people aren’t afraid, but you philosophers are cowards,” he said, “That’s because we aren’t each worried about the same kind of soul.” When someone was priding himself on his wide learning, he said, “Just as it isn’t those who eat the most [and exercise] who are healthier than those who take what they need, so it isn’t those who read a lot but those who read what is useful who are worth anything.” To the speechwriter who had pleaded a case for him and won, and then said to him, “What good did Socrates do you?” he said, “This: that the speeches you made on my behalf were true.”

He gave his daughter Arete the best advice, training her to look down on having more than enough. Asked by someone how his son would be better for being educated, he said, “If nothing else, at least in the theater he won’t sit there like one stone on another.” When someone was introducing his son to him, he asked for five hundred drachmas. When the man said, “For that much I can buy a slave,” he said, “Buy one, and you’ll have two.” He said he took money from his pupils not so that he himself could use it, but so that they would know what money should be used for. Once, reproached for hiring an orator when he had a lawsuit, he said, “Well, when I give a dinner, I hire a cook.”

Once, when Dionysius was pressing him to say something philosophical, he said, “It’s absurd that you learn from me how to speak, and yet you teach me when to speak.” At this Dionysius was annoyed and had him recline in the lowest place at table; and Aristippus said, “You wanted to make the place more distinguished.” When someone was boasting of his swimming, he said, “Aren’t you ashamed to brag about a dolphin’s achievements?” Asked once how the wise man differs from one who isn’t wise, he said, “Send them both naked among strangers, and you’ll find out.” When someone was boasting that he could drink a lot without getting drunk, he said, “So can a mule.”

To the man who criticized him for living with a courtesan he said, “Tell me, would it make any difference whether you took a house that many people had once lived in or one that no one had?” When the man said no, he went on, “And what about sailing in a ship that countless people have sailed in before, or in one that no one has?” “None at all.” “Then neither does it make any difference,” he said, “whether you are with a woman whom many have had or one whom no one has.” To the man who criticized him for taking money when he was a pupil of Socrates, he said, “I certainly do. For Socrates too, when people sent him grain and wine, would take a little and send the rest back; for he had the leading men of Athens as his stewards, while I have Eutychides, a slave I bought.” He also had relations with Lais the courtesan, as Sotion says in the second book of his Successions.note

To Charondas (others say to Phaedo), who asked, “Who’s the one wearing perfume?” he said, “I am, poor wretch—and the King of Persia is a worse wretch than I. But consider: just as no other animal is any the worse for this, neither would a man be. Damn those debauchees, may they come to a bad end, for giving our fine perfume a bad name.” Asked how Socrates died, he said, “As I would pray to die.” Once Polyxenus the sophist came to see him, and when he saw women and a lavish spread of food he found fault with it. After a short pause Aristippus said, “Can you join us today too?”

Once, when he was pleading with Dionysius on behalf of a friend and getting nowhere, he fell at his feet. So to the man who mocked him for it he said, “It’s not my fault but Dionysius’, who has his ears in his feet.” While he was staying in Asia he was taken prisoner by Artaphernes the satrap. To the man who said, “Are you confident even here?” he replied, “You fool, when would I be more confident than now, when I’m about to have a conversation with Artaphernes?”note

Anyway, when Aristippus was asked what handsome boys ought to learn, he said, “What they will use when they become men.” To the man who blamed him for going from Socrates to Dionysius, he said, “I went to Socrates for education, and to Dionysius for recreation.” When he had made money from his teaching, Socrates said to him, “Where did you get so much?” And he replied, “From where you got so little.”

When a courtesan said to him, “I’m pregnant by you,” he said, “You don’t know that any more than if you’d walked through a bed of rushes and claimed that this particular one had pricked you.” Someone blamed him for disowning his son as if the boy were not his own. He replied, “We know that phlegm and lice are produced from us too, but since they’re useless we throw them as far away as we can.” He had accepted money from Dionysius while Plato took a book, and to the man who criticized him for it he said, “Well, I’m short of money, and Plato is short of books.” To the man who asked why Dionysius kept finding fault with him, he said, “For the same reason that everyone else does.”

He was asking Dionysius for money, and Dionysius said, “But you said the wise man would never be at a loss.” He cut in: “Give it to me, and then we’ll look into that.” When Dionysius had given it, he said, “You see? I’m not at a loss.” When Dionysius said to him: whoever goes to a tyrant to do business / is his slave, even if he comes a free man, he cut in: he is no slave, if he comes a free man. Diocles says this in his On the Lives of Philosophers; others attribute it to Plato. Not long after, when he was angry with Aeschines, he said, “Aren’t we going to make it up? Aren’t we going to stop this nonsense? Or will you wait for someone to reconcile us over the wine cup?”note

There have been four men named Aristippus: the one we are discussing; second, the one who wrote about Arcadia; third, the one called “Mother-taught,” the first one’s grandson through his daughter; fourth, the one from the New Academy.

Of the Cyrenaic philosopher there are said to be three books of a history of Libya, sent to Dionysius, and one book containing twenty-five dialogues, some written in the Attic dialect, some in the Doric, as follows: 84 Artabazus. To the Shipwrecked. To the Exiles. To a Beggar. To Lais. To Porus. To Lais, on the Mirror. Hermias. A Dream. To the Man in Charge of the Wine Cup. Philomelus. To His Household. To Those Who Criticize Him for Owning Old Wine and Courtesans. To Those Who Criticize Him for Spending Lavishly on Food. Letter to His Daughter Arete. To the Man Training Himself for Olympia. A Question. Another Question. Anecdote, to Dionysius. Another, on the Statue. Another, on Dionysius’ Daughter. To the Man Who Thought He Was Slighted. To the Man Who Tried to Give Advice.note

Some say he also wrote six books of Lectures; others, among them Sosicrates of Rhodes, that he wrote nothing at all.

85 According to Sotion in his second book, and Panaetius, his writings are these: On Education. On Excellence. Exhortation to Philosophy. Artabazus. The Shipwrecked. The Exiles. Lectures, 6 books. Anecdotes, 3 books. To Lais. To Porus. To Socrates. On Fortune.

He declared the end to be smooth motion transmitted to perception.

Now that we have written his life, let us go through the Cyrenaics descended from him, some of whom called themselves Hegesians, others Annicerians, and others Theodoreans. We will also cover those descended from Phaedo, the most eminent of whom are the Eretrians. 86 The succession runs like this. Aristippus’ pupils were his daughter Arete, Aethiops of Ptolemais and Antipater of Cyrene. Arete’s pupil was Aristippus, called the Mother-taught, and his pupil was Theodorus the atheist, later called “god.” Antipater’s pupil was Epitimides of Cyrene; his was Paraebates; and his were Hegesias the Death-Persuader and Anniceris [who ransomed Plato].note

Those, then, who kept to Aristippus’ way of thinking and were called Cyrenaics held views like these. They posited two feelings, pain and pleasure: pleasure a smooth motion, pain a rough motion. 87 They held that one pleasure does not differ from another, and that nothing is more pleasant than anything else; and that pleasure is welcome to all animals, while pain repels them.

They held, too, that a particular pleasure is choiceworthy for its own sake, while happiness is choiceworthy not for its own sake but for the sake of the particular pleasures. As proof that pleasure is the end they cited the fact that from childhood we are drawn to it without choosing to be, and that once we have it we look for nothing more, and avoid nothing so much as its opposite, pain. Pleasure, they held, is good even if it comes from the most shameful things, as Hippobotus says in his On Schools. For even if the act is out of place, the pleasure at least is choiceworthy for its own sake and good.

Their view is that the wise man does not live pleasantly in every case, nor the bad man painfully in every case, but only for the most part. It is enough if one enjoys even a single pleasure as it comes along. They say that understanding is a good, but not choiceworthy for its own sake, only for what results from it. A friend, likewise, is valued for his usefulness, since we cherish even a part of the body only as long as we have it. Some of the excellences are found even among fools. Bodily training contributes to the acquisition of excellence. The wise man will not feel envy, or fall in love, or be superstitious, since these things come from empty opinion. He will, however, feel grief and fear, since these arise naturally. 92 Wealth, too, produces pleasure, though it is not choiceworthy for its own sake.

Feelings, they held, can be apprehended; that is, they meant the feelings themselves, not the things they come from. They gave up the study of nature because of the non-apprehension evident in it, but took up logic because of its usefulness. Meleager in the second book of his On Opinions and Clitomachus in the first book of his On Schools say that they regarded both physics and dialectic as useless. For a person who has thoroughly learned the account of good and bad things can speak well, stay free of superstition and escape the fear of death.

Those called Hegesians had the same aims, pleasure and pain. They held that there is no such thing as gratitude, friendship or kindness, since we do not choose these for their own sake but for the uses they bring, and without those uses they do not exist either. 94 Happiness is altogether impossible: the body is full of many sufferings, the soul shares in the body’s sufferings and is disturbed by them, and fortune thwarts much of what we hope for; so for these reasons happiness has no real existence. Both life and death are choiceworthy.

The Annicerians agreed with these in other respects, but they left room in life for friendship, gratitude, respect for parents and doing something for one’s country. For these reasons, they held, even if the wise man takes on troubles, he will be no less happy, even if few pleasures come his way. A friend’s happiness is not choiceworthy for its own sake, since it cannot be perceived by the person next to him. Reason is not sufficient by itself to give us confidence and raise us above the opinion of the many; we must form new habits, because of the bad disposition that has grown up in us over a long time.

Those called Theodoreans took their name from the Theodorus mentioned above, and followed his doctrines. Theodorus was a man who did away entirely with beliefs about the gods. I have come across a book of his entitled On the Gods, which is not to be despised; they say Epicurus took most of what he said from it.

Theodorus also studied under Anniceris and under Dionysius the dialectician, as Antisthenes says in his Successions of Philosophers. He held that the end is joy and grief: the one comes from understanding, the other from folly. Goods are understanding and justice, bad things the opposite states, and pleasure and pain are intermediate. He also did away with friendship, on the ground that it exists neither among fools nor among the wise: for fools, once its usefulness is gone, friendship disappears too, while the wise, being self-sufficient, have no need of friends. He also said that it is reasonable for the good man not to give up his life for his country, since he will not throw away his understanding for the benefit of fools.

He held that the world is one’s country, and that the wise man will steal, commit adultery and rob temples when the occasion is right. For none of these acts is shameful by nature, once you remove the opinion about them, which exists to keep fools in check. The wise man, he held, will make use of his beloveds openly, without any misgiving. That is why he also put questions of this kind: “Would a woman skilled in letters be useful insofar as she is skilled in letters?” “Yes.” “And would a boy or a youth skilled in letters be useful insofar as he is skilled in letters?” “Yes.”

He seems to have been called “God” after Stilpo questioned him like this: “Tell me, Theodorus: whatever you say is, you also are?” He nodded. “And you say a god is?” He agreed. “Then you are a god,” said Stilpo. Theodorus accepted this with pleasure, and Stilpo laughed and said, “But, you wretch, by this argument you would admit to being a jackdaw as well, and countless other things.”note

At any rate, Theodorus once sat down beside Euryclides the hierophant and said, “Tell me, Euryclides, who are the people guilty of impiety concerning the Mysteries?” When Euryclides answered, “Those who divulge them to the uninitiated,” Theodorus said, “Then you are impious too, since you explain them to the uninitiated.” And in fact he came close to being hauled before the Areopagus, and would have been, had Demetrius of Phalerum not rescued him. Amphicrates, in his On Famous Men, says that he was condemned and drank hemlock.note

While he was living at the court of Ptolemy son of Lagus, he was once sent by him as an envoy to Lysimachus. On that occasion, when he was speaking very freely, Lysimachus said to him, “Tell me, Theodorus, aren’t you the one who was thrown out of Athens?” He replied, “You heard right. The city of Athens couldn’t bear me, just as Semele couldn’t bear Dionysus, and cast me out.” When Lysimachus said again, “[See to it] that you don’t come to us again,” he said, “I won’t, unless Ptolemy sends me.”note

Such was Theodorus, in these matters too. In the end he went to Cyrene, lived with Magas, and continued to be held in every honor there. When he was first banished from Cyrene, he is said to have made a witty remark: “You do well, men of Cyrene, to banish me from Libya to Greece.”note

There have been twenty men named Theodorus. The first was from Samos, the son of Rhoecus. He is the one who advised putting charcoal under the foundations of the temple at Ephesus: since the site was very damp, he said, the charcoal, having lost its woody part, would keep its solid part unaffected by water. The second was from Cyrene, a geometer under whom Plato studied. The third is the philosopher described above. The fourth is the man to whom a very fine book on voice training is attributed.

Phaedo of Elis, from one of the noble families, was taken prisoner when his country was captured and was forced to work in a brothel. But he would shut the door and join Socrates’ company, until Socrates prompted Alcibiades or Crito and their friends to ransom him; and from then on he practiced philosophy as a free man. Hieronymus, attacking him in his On Suspension of Judgment, called him a slave. He wrote dialogues: the genuine ones are Zopyrus and Simon; Nicias is doubted; Medius some attribute to Aeschines, others to Polyaenus; Antimachus, or The Elders, is also doubted; and Cobblers’ Talks, which some also attribute to Aeschines.note

His successor was Plistanus of Elis, and two generations after him came Menedemus of Eretria and Asclepiades of Phlius and their circle, who had come over from Stilpo. Up to their time the school was called the Elian school; from Menedemus on, they were called Eretrians. I will speak of him later, since he too founded a school.

Euclides was from Megara on the Isthmus, or from Gela according to some, as Alexander says in his Successions. He also took up the doctrines of Parmenides, and his followers were called Megarians, then Eristics, and later Dialecticians. They were first given this last name by Dionysius of Chalcedon, because they set out their arguments in the form of question and answer. Hermodorus says that Plato and the other philosophers went to him after Socrates’ death, fearing the cruelty of the tyrants. He declared that the good is one thing, called by many names: sometimes understanding, sometimes god, at other times mind, and so on. Whatever is opposed to the good he did away with, saying that it does not exist.

He attacked demonstrations not at their premises but at their conclusion. He also rejected argument by comparison, saying that it is made up either of similar things or of dissimilar ones: if of similar things, one ought to deal with the things themselves rather than with what they resemble; if of dissimilar ones, the comparison is pointless. That is why Timon says this about him, taking a bite out of the other Socratics as well: But I care nothing for these babblers, nor for anyone else, not Phaedo, whoever he was, nor quarrelsome Euclides, who put into the Megarians a mad passion for wrangling.

He wrote six dialogues: Lamprias, Aeschines, Phoenix, Crito, Alcibiades and On Love. To Euclides’ succession also belongs Eubulides of Miletus, who devised many arguments in dialectic: the Liar, the Unnoticed Man, the Electra, the Veiled Man, the Heap, the Horned Man and the Bald Man. One of the comic poets says of him: The eristic Eubulides, who asked his horned questions and tumbled the orators about with lying, boastful arguments, has gone off with Demosthenes’ r-r-rattling bombast. For Demosthenes seems to have studied under him too, and to have stopped mispronouncing his r’s. 109 Eubulides also quarreled with Aristotle and slandered him a great deal.note

Among others belonging to Eubulides’ succession was Alexinus of Elis, an extremely contentious man; that is why he was nicknamed Elenxinus, “the Refuter.” His chief quarrel was with Zeno. Hermippus says of him that he left Elis for Olympia and practiced philosophy there. When his pupils asked him why he was living there, he said he wanted to found a school that would be called the Olympian school. But his pupils, short of provisions and judging the place unhealthy, left, and from then on Alexinus lived there alone with a single servant. Later, however, while swimming in the Alpheus, he was pricked by a reed, and that was how he died.

And there is a poem of mine on him, which goes like this: So that story was not idle after all, / about how some unlucky man / while swimming somehow ran a nail through his foot. / For that solemn man, / Alexinus, before he could cross the Alpheus, / died pricked by a reed. He wrote not only against Zeno but other books too, including one against Ephorus the historian.

Eubulides’ pupils also included Euphantus of Olynthus, who wrote a history of his own times. He also composed a number of tragedies, with which he won acclaim in the competitions. He was also the teacher of King Antigonus, to whom he addressed a treatise On Kingship, which was very highly regarded. He died of old age.

There were also others who studied under Eubulides, among them Apollonius Cronus, whose pupil was Diodorus son of Ameinias, of Iasus, also nicknamed Cronus. Callimachus says of him in his epigrams: Momus himself / wrote on the walls, “Cronus is wise.” He too was a dialectician, and according to some he was the first to devise the Veiled Man and the Horned Man arguments. While he was staying at the court of Ptolemy Soter, Stilpo put some dialectical arguments to him; and since he could not solve them on the spot, the king rebuked him in various ways and, in particular, called him “Cronus” as a jibe.note

Among the followers of Euclides there was also Ichthyas son of Metallus, a man of noble character, to whom Diogenes the Cynic addressed a dialogue; Clinomachus of Thurii, who was the first to write about propositions, predicates and the like; and Stilpo of Megara, a most distinguished philosopher, of whom I must now speak.

Stilpo, of Megara in Greece, studied under some of Euclides’ followers; others say that he studied under Euclides himself, and also under Thrasymachus of Corinth, who was a pupil of Ichthyas, as Heraclides says. He so surpassed the others in ingenuity of argument and sophistry that almost the whole of Greece fixed its eyes on him and went Megarian. Philip the Megarian says of him, word for word: “From Theophrastus he drew away Metrodorus the Theorist and Timagoras of Gela, and from Aristotle the Cyrenaic he drew away Clitarchus and Simmias. Among the dialecticians, he won Paeonius away from Aristides; and Diphilus of the Bosporus, son of Euphantus, and Myrmex son of Exaenetus, who had both come to refute him, he turned into his devoted followers.”

He was also highly skilled in public affairs.

He married, and he also lived with a courtesan, Nicarete, as Onetor says somewhere. He had a dissolute daughter, who was married to a pupil of his, Simmias of Syracuse. Since she did not live as she should, someone told Stilpo that she was disgracing him. He said, “No more than I am a credit to her.”

Ptolemy Soter, too, they say, held him in high regard. When Ptolemy had made himself master of Megara, he offered Stilpo money and invited him to sail with him to Egypt. Stilpo accepted a modest portion of the money but declined the journey, and withdrew to Aegina until Ptolemy had sailed away. Demetrius son of Antigonus, too, when he took Megara, made sure that Stilpo’s house was protected and that everything plundered from it was returned. And when Demetrius wanted him to draw up a list of what he had lost, Stilpo said that he had lost nothing of his own: no one had carried off his education, and he still had his reason and his knowledge.

By talking with Demetrius about doing good to people, Stilpo won him over so thoroughly that the king paid close attention to him. They say Stilpo put an argument of roughly this kind about Phidias’ Athena: “Is Athena, daughter of Zeus, a god?” When the man said, “Yes,” he said, “But this one isn’t Zeus’s, she’s Phidias’.” When this was granted, he said, “Then she isn’t a god.” For this he was summoned before the Areopagus. He did not deny it, but maintained that he had argued correctly: she was not a god but a goddess, since gods are the males. Even so, the Areopagites at once ordered him to leave the city. It was then that Theodorus, nicknamed “God,” said mockingly, “How did Stilpo know that? Did he lift her dress and inspect her garden?” Theodorus was truly the most audacious of men, and Stilpo the most refined.note

When Crates asked him whether the gods take pleasure in acts of homage and in prayers, they say he answered, “Don’t ask about such things in the street, you idiot. Ask when we’re alone.” Bion, too, they say, gave the same answer when asked whether there are gods: Won’t you scatter the crowd away from me, long-suffering old man?note

Stilpo was simple, unaffected and easy to get on with for ordinary people. Once, for instance, when Crates the Cynic did not answer the question he had been asked but farted instead, Stilpo said, “I knew you’d utter anything rather than what you ought to.” 118 And once, when Crates held out a dried fig to him along with a question, Stilpo took the fig and ate it. Crates said, “Heracles! I’ve lost the fig.” “Not just that,” he said, “but the question too, for which the fig was the down payment.” Another time, seeing Crates shriveled with cold in winter, he said, “Crates, you look to me as if you need a new cloak.”note

It is said that at Athens he so turned people’s heads that they came running out of their workshops to get a look at him. When someone said, “Stilpo, they gape at you as if you were some wild animal,” he replied, “Not at all—as if I were a real human being.” Being exceedingly clever at eristic argument, he did away even with the forms. He used to say that whoever says “man” means no one: for he means neither this man nor that one; for why this one rather than that one?

Nine dialogues of his are in circulation, rather lifeless ones: Moschus; Aristippus, or Callias; Ptolemy; Chaerecrates; Metrocles; Anaximenes; Epigenes; To His Daughter; Aristotle. Heraclides says that Zeno too, the founder of the Stoa, studied under him. Hermippus says that he died old, after taking wine so as to die more quickly.

There is also an epigram of mine on him: Stilpo of Megara—you know him, perhaps— / old age and then disease brought down, a team hard to fight; / but he found wine a better driver than that wicked pair: / he gulped it down and drove off. He was also mocked by Sophilus the comic poet in his play The Wedding:

Charinus’ argument is nothing but Stilpo’s stuffing.

Crito of Athens. He was the most devoted of all to Socrates, and looked after him so well that Socrates never lacked anything he needed. His sons, too, studied under Socrates: Critobulus, Hermogenes, Epigenes, Ctesippus. Crito wrote seventeen dialogues, collected in one book, as listed below: That Men Are Not Made Good by Learning. On Having More. What Is Fitting, or The Statesman. On the Beautiful. On Doing Wrong. On Good Order. On Law. On the Divine. On the Arts. On Companionship. On Wisdom. Protagoras, or The Statesman. On Letters. On Poetry, [On the Beautiful]. On Learning. On Knowing, or On Knowledge. What Knowing Is.

Simon of Athens, a shoemaker. Whenever Socrates came to his workshop and discussed something, Simon would make notes of whatever he remembered; hence his dialogues are called the “Leather Dialogues.” There are thirty-three of them, collected in one book: On the Gods. On the Good. On the Beautiful. What the Beautiful Is. On the Just, 1, 2. On Excellence, That It Cannot Be Taught. On Courage, 1, 2, 3. On Law. On Leading the People. On Honor. On Poetry. On Well-Being. On Love. On Philosophy. On Knowledge. On Music. On Poetry. 123 What the Beautiful Is. On Teaching. On Discussion. On Judgment. On What Is. On Number. On Care. On Working. On Love of Gain. On Boastfulness. On the Beautiful. Others add: On Deliberation. On Reason, or On Fitness. On Wrongdoing.

He was the first, they say, to put Socratic conversations into the form of dialogues. When Pericles promised to support him and urged him to come and live with him, he said he would not sell his freedom of speech.

There was also another Simon, who wrote handbooks of rhetoric; another, a physician in the time of Seleucus Nicanor; and a sculptor.

Glaucon of Athens. Nine dialogues of his too are in circulation, in one book: Phidylus. Euripides. Amyntichus. Euthias. Lysithides. Aristophanes. Cephalus. Anaxiphemus. Menexenus. Thirty-two others are also in circulation, but they are judged spurious.

Simmias of Thebes. Twenty-three dialogues of his too are in circulation, in one book: On Wisdom. On Reasoning. On Music. On Epic Verse. On Courage. On Philosophy. On Truth. On Letters. On Teaching. On Art. On Being in Charge. On the Fitting. On What Is to Be Chosen and Avoided. On the Friend. On Knowing. On the Soul. On Living Well. On the Possible. On Money. On Life. What the Beautiful Is. On Care. On Love.

Cebes of Thebes. Three dialogues of his are in circulation: The Tablet. The Seventh. Phrynichus.

[Menedemus] Menedemus, one of the followers of Phaedo, was the son of Cleisthenes, of the family called the Theopropidae, a man of good birth but a builder and poor. Some say he was also a scene-painter, and that Menedemus learned both trades. So when Menedemus proposed a decree, a follower of Alexinus attacked him, saying that it doesn’t become a wise man to draw up either a stage set or a decree. Menedemus was sent to Megara by the Eretrians as part of a garrison, but went up to the Academy to Plato, was captivated, and abandoned his military service.note

Menedemus seems to have been rather solemn. Hence Crates, in a parody, calls him: Asclepiades of Phlius and the Eretrian bull. And Timon puts it this way: Puffing up his pomp, eyebrows raised, a booming fool.

He was so solemn that when Eurylochus of Cassandreia was invited by Antigonus together with Cleippides, a young man from Cyzicus, he declined: he was afraid that Menedemus would hear of it. For Menedemus was cutting and outspoken. Once, for instance, when a young man was being impudent, he said nothing, but took a twig and traced on the ground the figure of a man being penetrated, until, with everyone watching, the young man understood the insult and took himself off. When Hierocles, the commander of the Piraeus, was walking up and down with him in the sanctuary of Amphiaraus and talking at length about the capture of Eretria, Menedemus said nothing else, but asked him to what end Antigonus was penetrating him.note

To an adulterer who was boasting, he said, “Don’t you know that it’s not only cabbage that has good juice, but radish too?” To a young man who was bawling, he said, “Check you haven’t got something behind you without noticing.” When Antigonus consulted him about whether he should go to a revel, he said nothing on anything else and only told the messenger to report that Antigonus was a king’s son. A dull fellow kept bringing up things with him at random; Menedemus asked him whether he had a farm. When the man said he did, and a great many possessions besides, he said, “Then go and look after them, in case you end up ruining them as well and losing a polished layman.” To someone who asked whether the good man would marry, he said, “Do I seem to you to be a good man, or not?” When the man said he did, “Well then,” he said, “I am married.”note

He was, they say, careless of convention and indifferent to the arrangements of his school. No order could be seen there, and no benches were set out in a circle; each listened wherever he happened to be, walking about or sitting, and Menedemus himself behaved the same way. 131 Otherwise, though, they say, he was nervous and anxious for reputation. Earlier on, for instance, when he and Asclepiades were working as builders’ laborers for a carpenter, Asclepiades would show himself naked on the roof carrying up the clay, while Menedemus, if he saw anyone coming, would hide.

He was also somewhat inclined to superstition. Once, for instance, at an inn with Asclepiades, he unknowingly ate some meat that had been thrown out; when he found out, he felt sick and turned pale, until Asclepiades reproached him, [saying] that it was not the meat that had upset him but his suspicion about it. In other respects he was a high-minded and generous man. In bodily condition, even when already an old man, he was as solid as an athlete and sunburnt in appearance, well-fleshed and sleek, and of moderate height, as is clear from the little statue at Eretria in the old stadium. For it is, as if on purpose, half-naked, showing most parts of his body.

He was also hospitable, and because Eretria was an unhealthy place he gave a good many drinking parties, among them parties for poets and musicians. He was fond of Aratus, of Lycophron the tragic poet, and of Antagoras of Rhodes. Above all he devoted himself to Homer, next to the lyric poets, then to Sophocles, and also to Achaeus, to whom he gave second place in satyr plays, awarding first to Aeschylus. Hence, they say, he used to quote these lines against his political opponents: So even the swift is caught by the weak, / and the eagle by the tortoise, in a short time.note

These lines come from Achaeus’ satyr play Omphale. So those who say that he had read nothing but Euripides’ Medea—which some say is by Neophron of Sicyon—are mistaken.

Of his teachers he despised Plato and Xenocrates, and also Paraebates of Cyrene, but he had admired Stilpo; once, when asked about him, he said nothing except that he was generous. Menedemus was hard to read and a hard man to beat in argument. He twisted every way and was inventive with words; he was extremely eristic, as Antisthenes says in his Successions. He used, for instance, to ask this question: “Is one thing different from another?” “Yes.” “And is benefiting different from the good?” “Yes.” “Then benefiting is not good.”

They say he did away with negative propositions, accepting affirmative ones; and of these he admitted the simple ones and did away with the non-simple—I mean conditional and conjunctive ones. Heraclides says that in his doctrines he was a Platonist but made fun of dialectic. So when Alexinus once asked him whether he had stopped beating his father, he said, “I wasn’t beating him, and I haven’t stopped.” And when Alexinus went on to say that he should have cleared up the ambiguity by saying yes or no, he said, “It would be ridiculous to follow your rules when I can stop you at the gates.” When Bion kept diligently running down the seers, Menedemus said he was butchering corpses.

Once, hearing someone say that the greatest good was to get everything one desires, he said, “A much greater one is to desire what one ought.” Antigonus of Carystus says that he wrote nothing and composed nothing, so that he did not commit himself to any doctrine. In debates, Antigonus says, he was so combative that he went away with black eyes. Yet for all that he was like this in argument, in his actions he was most gentle. Alexinus, for instance, though Menedemus mocked him a great deal and jeered at him harshly, he nevertheless did a kindness: he escorted his wife from Delphi as far as Chalcis, since she was afraid of thieves and highway robbers along the road.note

He was a devoted friend, as is clear from his close bond with Asclepiades, which was in no way inferior to the devotion of Pylades. But Asclepiades was the elder, so that people said he was the playwright and Menedemus the actor. They say that once, when Archipolis made out a draft for three thousand to them, they stood firm over which of them should be second to take it, and neither took it. It is said that they also married: Asclepiades the daughter, Menedemus the mother. When Asclepiades’ wife died, he took Menedemus’ wife; and Menedemus, when he became the leading man in the state, married a rich woman. Nonetheless, since they shared one household, Menedemus entrusted its management to his former wife.note

His dinner parties went like this. He would take an early meal with two or three companions until late in the day; then someone would call in those who had arrived, and they too had already dined. So if anyone came too early, he would turn back and ask those coming out what was on the table and how far along the time was; if it was greens or salt fish, they went away; if it was a bit of meat, they went in. In summer there was a rush mat on the couches, in winter a fleece; each had to bring his own pillow. The cup passed round held no more than a cotyle; dessert was lupines or beans, and sometimes fruit in season, a pear or a pomegranate or vetch, or even, by Zeus, dried figs.note

At first he was despised, and the Eretrians called him “dog” and “babbler”; but later he was so much admired that they entrusted the city to him. He went on embassies to Ptolemy and Lysimachus, and was honored everywhere; and to Demetrius as well. When the city was paying Demetrius two hundred talents a year, he got fifty of them remitted. Accused before Demetrius of planning to hand the city over to Ptolemy, he defends himself in a letter which begins: 141 “Menedemus to King Demetrius, greetings. I hear that a report has been made to you about us.”

Because of this, and because of their friendship generally, he was suspected of betraying the city to Antigonus; and when Aristodemus accused him, he withdrew. He stayed at Oropus, in the sanctuary of Amphiaraus. There, when some golden cups went missing, as Hermippus says, he was ordered by a joint decree of the Boeotians to move elsewhere. Disheartened by this, he slipped secretly back into his native city, took his wife and daughters, went to Antigonus, and ended his life in despondency.

Heraclides, however, says the exact opposite: that as a councillor of the Eretrians he several times freed the city from tyrants by bringing in Demetrius; that he would therefore not have betrayed the city to Antigonus, but had incurred a false accusation; and that he kept visiting Antigonus because he wanted to free his native city, and when Antigonus would not yield, he went without food for seven days out of despondency and departed this life. Antigonus of Carystus gives a similar account. With Persaeus alone he waged open war: for it was thought that when Antigonus wanted to restore democracy to the Eretrians as a favor to Menedemus, Persaeus prevented it. 144 So once at a drinking party, after refuting him in argument, Menedemus said, among other things, “As a philosopher [, I grant you,] he’s what he is; but as a man he’s the worst of all who are or ever will be.”note

He died, according to Heraclides, in his seventy-fourth year. And there is this epigram of mine on him: I heard of your fate, Menedemus: how you willingly went out in seven days, eating nothing. / Then you did a deed worthy of Eretria, but unmanly all the same; for faintheartedness was the leader that drove you on.

So much for the Socratics and their successors. We must now pass on to Plato, who founded the Academy, and to those of his successors who became notable.

Plato was the son of Ariston and Perictione (or Potone), an Athenian; his mother traced her family back to Solon. Solon’s brother was Dropides; his son was Critias; his son was Callaeschrus; his sons were Critias, one of the Thirty, and Glaucon; Glaucon’s children were Charmides and Perictione; and Perictione and Ariston had Plato, sixth in descent from Solon. Solon traced his family back to Neleus and Poseidon. They say that Plato’s father, too, traced his line back to Codrus son of Melanthus, and according to Thrasyllus both of these are recorded as descended from Poseidon.

Speusippus, in the work entitled Plato’s Funeral Feast, Clearchus in his Encomium of Plato, and Anaxilaides in the second book of On Philosophers say that there was a story at Athens that Ariston tried to force himself on Perictione, who was in the bloom of youth, and did not succeed. As he gave up his attempt, he saw a vision of Apollo, and so he kept her untouched by married intercourse until she had given birth.

Plato was born, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles, in the 88th Olympiad, on the seventh of Thargelion, the day on which the Delians say Apollo was born. He died, as Hermippus says, while dining at a wedding, in the first year of the 108th Olympiad, having lived eighty-one years.note

He learned his letters under Dionysius, whom he mentions in the Rivals. He did his physical training under Ariston of Argos, the wrestler, and it was from him that he got the name Plato because of his sturdy build. Before that he had been called [by name] Aristocles, after his grandfather, as Alexander says in his Successions. Some say he was named this for the breadth of his style; or, as Neanthes says, because he had a broad forehead. There are some who say he even wrestled at the Isthmian games, as Dicaearchus does in the first book of On Lives, 5 and that he took up painting and wrote poems, first dithyrambs and then lyric poems and tragedies.note

At first he did philosophy in the Academy, and then in the garden by Colonus, as Alexander says in his Successions, following Heraclitus. Later, though, when he was about to compete with a tragedy at the theater of Dionysus, he heard Socrates and burned his poems, saying: Hephaestus, come forth here: Plato has need of you.note

From then on, they say, at the age of twenty, he studied under Socrates. After Socrates’ death he attached himself to Cratylus the Heraclitean and to Hermogenes, who followed the philosophy of Parmenides. Then, at twenty-eight, as Hermodorus says, he withdrew to Megara, to Euclides, along with some other followers of Socrates. Next he went off to Cyrene, to Theodorus the mathematician, and from there to Italy, to the Pythagoreans Philolaus and Eurytus. From there he went to Egypt, to the prophets. They say Euripides went with him there too, and that, falling ill there, he was cured by the priests with a seawater treatment; which is presumably why he says: The sea washes away all the ills of men.note

And, following Homer, he said that the Egyptians are physicians beyond all other people. Plato also decided to meet the Magi, but gave up the idea because of the wars in Asia. Returning to Athens, he spent his time in the Academy. This is a wooded gymnasium outside the city, named after a hero, Hecademus, as Eupolis too says in his Shirkers: In the shady walks of the god Hecademus. Timon, too, speaking of Plato, says: And leading them all was the broadest of fish, but a speaker / sweet of voice, who writes like the cicadas that on Hecademus’ / tree sit and pour out their lily-soft song.note

For it was formerly spelled with an e, Hecademia. The philosopher, at any rate, was also a friend of Isocrates. Praxiphanes wrote up a conversation of theirs about poets, held at Plato’s place in the country when Isocrates was staying with him as a guest. Aristoxenus says that Plato served on campaign three times: once to Tanagra, a second time to Corinth, and a third time at Delium, where he distinguished himself. He made a blend of Heraclitean, Pythagorean and Socratic doctrines: about the sensible world he philosophized after Heraclitus, about the intelligible after Pythagoras, and about politics after Socrates.note

Some say, Satyrus among them, that he wrote to Dion in Sicily asking him to buy three Pythagorean books from Philolaus for a hundred minas. For he was well off, they say, having received more than eighty talents from Dionysius, as Onetor too says in the work entitled “Whether the Wise Man Will Make Money.” He also profited a great deal from Epicharmus the comic poet, having transcribed most of his work, as Alcimus says in his books To Amyntas, of which there are four. In the first of these he says this:

“Plato too is clearly saying many things that come from Epicharmus. Let us look. Plato says that the sensible is what never stays the same in quality or quantity but is always flowing and changing, 10 so that things from which one takes away number are neither equal, nor anything definite, nor of any quantity or quality. These are the things of which there is always becoming, but which by nature never have being. The intelligible is that from which nothing is taken away and to which nothing is added. This is the nature of eternal things, which is always alike and the same.

Alcimus also says this: “The wise say that the soul perceives some things through the body, as when it hears and sees, while other things it considers itself by itself, without using the body at all. That is why, of the things that exist, some are sensible and others intelligible. For this reason Plato too used to say that those who want to grasp the principles of the universe must first distinguish the forms themselves by themselves, such as likeness, unity, plurality, magnitude, rest and motion; second, posit, itself by itself, the 13 beautiful and good and just and the like;

“Plato, in his conception of the forms, says that if there is memory, the forms exist among the things that are, because memory is of something that is still and abiding, and nothing abides except the forms. ‘For how,’ he says, ‘would living creatures survive if they did not lay hold of the form, and had not received a natural intelligence for this purpose? As it is, they remember likeness, and what sort of food suits them, which shows that the recognition of likeness is innate in all living creatures. That is why they perceive those of their own kind.’ What, then, does Epicharmus say?

These and similar passages Alcimus sets side by side throughout his four books, pointing out how much Plato gained from Epicharmus. That Epicharmus himself was not unaware of his own wisdom can also be learned from the lines in which he foretells the man who would emulate him: As I think—and when I think, I know this clearly— / there will one day still be a memory of these words of mine. / Someone will take them, strip off the meter they now have, / give them a purple robe and embroider them with fine words, / and, hard to throw himself, will show up the others as easy to throw.

Plato also seems to have been the first to bring to Athens the books of Sophron the mime-writer, which had been neglected, and to have modeled his character-drawing on him; and the books are said to have been found under his head. He sailed to Sicily three times. The first time was to see the island and the craters, when Dionysius son of Hermocrates, who was tyrant, compelled him to meet with him. Plato discussed tyranny and maintained that what is to the advantage of the stronger is not, simply by itself, best, unless he is also superior in excellence, and so he offended him. Dionysius was angry and said, “Your words smack of senility,” and Plato replied, “And yours of tyranny.” 19 At this the tyrant, furious, at first set out to have him killed;note

Anniceris of Cyrene, who happened to be there, ransomed him for twenty minas (some say thirty) and sent him back to Athens, to his friends. They immediately sent the money, but Anniceris would not accept it, saying that they were not the only ones worthy of looking after Plato. Some say that Dion also sent the money, and that Anniceris would not accept it but even bought Plato the little garden in the Academy. Pollis, however, is said to have been defeated by Chabrias and afterwards drowned at Helice, because the divine power was angry over the philosopher, as Favorinus too says in the first book of his Memoirs. 21 Dionysius did not let it rest, though. When he found out, he wrote to Plato telling him not to speak ill of him. And Plato wrote back that he did not have so much leisure as to give Dionysius a thought.note

The second time, he went to the younger Dionysius, asking for land and people who would live according to his Republic; and Dionysius promised but did not do it. Some say he was also in danger, suspected of urging Dion and Theodotas to free the island. On that occasion Archytas the Pythagorean wrote a letter to Dionysius, obtained his release and got him safely back to Athens. The letter is as follows:

“Archytas to Dionysius: good health.

22 “All of us who are Plato’s friends have sent you Lamiscus, Photidas and their party, to take the man back in accordance with the agreement made with you. You would do well to remember how eager you were when you urged all of us to bring about Plato’s visit, asking us to encourage him and to vouch for, among other things, his safety both while he stayed and when he left. Remember this too: that you set great store by his coming, and from that time on cared for him as you did for no one else at your court. If any friction has arisen, you ought to behave humanely and return the man to us unharmed. By doing this you will act justly and do us a favor.”note

The third time, he came to reconcile Dion with Dionysius; but he failed and returned home with nothing accomplished. There he took no part in politics, although, to judge from his writings, he was a political man. The reason was that the people were by then used to other forms of government. Pamphila says in the twenty-fifth book of her Notes that the Arcadians and Thebans, when they were founding Megalopolis, invited him to be their lawgiver; but when he learned that they were unwilling to have equality, he did not go. There is a story that he also spoke in defense of Chabrias the general when he was on trial for his life, though none of the citizens was willing to do so.

He was the first to conduct an argument by question and answer, as Favorinus says in the eighth book of his Miscellaneous History. He was also the first to teach Leodamas of Thasos the method of inquiry by analysis. And he was the first in philosophy to use the terms antipodes, element, dialectic and quality; among numbers, the oblong; among boundaries, the plane surface; and divine providence.note

He was also the first of the philosophers to reply to the speech of Lysias son of Cephalus, setting it out word for word in the Phaedrus. And he was the first to study the power of grammar. Since he was the first to argue against nearly all his predecessors, the question is raised why he never mentioned Democritus. Neanthes of Cyzicus says that when he went up to Olympia all the Greeks turned to look at him; and that it was then that he met Dion, who was about to go to war against Dionysius. In the first book of Favorinus’ Memoirs it is recorded that Mithradates the Persian set up a statue of Plato in the Academy with the inscription: “Mithradates son of Orontobates, a Persian, dedicated to the Muses this likeness of Plato, which Silanion made.”note

Heraclides says that as a young man he was so modest and well-behaved that he was never seen laughing too much. Even so, he too was mocked by the comic poets. Theopompus, for instance, says this in his Hedychares: For one is not even one, / and two are hardly one, as Plato says. Anaxandrides too, in his Theseus: When he was gobbling olives just like Plato. And Timon, punning on his name like this: As Plato fabricated, a man who knew fabricated wonders.note

Alexis, in Meropis: You’ve come just in time. Here I am, at my wits’ end, / walking up and down like Plato, / and I’ve found nothing wise, I’ve only tired my legs. And in Ancylion: You’re talking about things you don’t know. Run off and spend time / with Plato, and you’ll learn about soda and onions. Amphis, in Amphicrates: As for the good, whatever it is, that you’re / going to get through her, I know less about it, / master, than about Plato’s good. — Pay attention, then.

Aristippus, in the fourth book of On the Luxury of the Ancients, says that Plato fell in love with a youth named Aster, who studied astronomy with him, and also with Dion, whom I mentioned earlier. Some say with Phaedrus as well. He says that Plato’s love is shown by the following epigrams, which Plato wrote for them: You gaze at the stars, my Star; I wish I could become / the sky, so that I might look at you with many eyes. And another: Star, once you shone among the living as the Morning Star; / now, in death, you shine among the dead as the Evening Star.note

They say that he also fell in love with Alexis, and with Phaedrus, as I said earlier, and wrote about it like this: Now, when I have said no more than that Alexis is beautiful, / he is stared at, and everyone everywhere turns to look. / My heart, why show a bone to dogs? Won’t you be sorry for it / later? Isn’t that how we lost Phaedrus? They also say he had Archeanassa, and wrote this about her too: I have Archeanassa, the courtesan from Colophon; / even on her wrinkles fierce love sat. / Ah, poor wretches, who met that youth of hers / on its first voyage, what a blaze you passed through!

They also say that the epigram on the Eretrians who were swept up as if in a dragnet is his: We are Eretrians by descent, from Euboea, and near Susa / we lie. Alas, how far from our own land! And this one: Cypris to the Muses: “Girls, honor Aphrodite, / or I’ll arm Eros against you.” / The Muses to Cypris: “Save that chatter for Ares; / that little boy doesn’t fly our way.” And another: A man who found gold left behind a noose; but the man whose gold / it was, not finding what he had left, put on the noose he found.note

Molon, though, who was hostile to him, said: “What’s remarkable is not that Dionysius is in Corinth, but that Plato is in Sicily.” Xenophon too seems not to have been well disposed toward him. At any rate, as though competing with each other, they wrote works on the same subjects: a Symposium, an Apology of Socrates, memoirs on ethics. Then the one wrote a Republic, the other an Education of Cyrus. And in the Laws Plato says that Xenophon’s account of Cyrus’ education is fiction, since Cyrus was not like that. Both of them mention Socrates, but neither mentions the other anywhere, except that Xenophon mentions Plato in the third book of his Memorabilia.note

Plato was also hostile toward Aristippus. At any rate, in On the Soul he disparages him by saying that he was not present when Socrates died, but was in Aegina, close by. And they say he felt a certain rivalry toward Aeschines as well, because Aeschines too was in good standing with Dionysius. When Aeschines arrived there out of poverty, Plato ignored him, but Aristippus introduced him. And Idomeneus says that the arguments Plato gave to Crito, who in the prison advises Socrates to escape, were really Aeschines’; Plato assigned them to Crito because of his ill will toward Aeschines.note

Nowhere in his writings does Plato mention himself, except in On the Soul and the Apology. Aristotle says that the style of his dialogues lies between poetry and prose. Favorinus says somewhere that when Plato was reading On the Soul, Aristotle alone stayed to the end; all the others got up and left. Some say that Philip of Opus copied out his Laws, which were still on wax tablets. They say the Epinomis is also Philip’s.

Plato, at any rate, is said to have reproached a man he saw playing dice. When the man said it was only for small stakes, Plato replied, “But the habit is not small.” Asked whether there would be memoirs of him, as there were of earlier men, he answered: “First one must make a name; then there will be plenty.” Once, when Xenocrates came in, Plato asked him to whip his slave, since he himself could not, because he was angry. 39 And to one of his slaves he said, “You’d have been whipped if I weren’t angry.” Having mounted a horse, he got straight down again, saying he was wary of being seized by horse-pride. He advised drunkards to look at themselves in a mirror, for then they would give up such disgraceful behavior.

He died in the way we have described, in the thirteenth year of Philip’s reign, as Favorinus too says in the third book of his Memoirs. Theopompus says that Philip even rebuked him. Myronianus, in his Parallels, says that Philo mentions proverbs about Plato’s lice, implying that this was how he died. 41 He was buried in the Academy, where he spent most of his time doing philosophy; that is why the school he founded was called the Academic school. The whole population there escorted his funeral. He made his will as follows:note

“These are the things Plato has left and bequeathed. The estate at Iphistiadae, bounded on the north by the road from the sanctuary at Cephisia, on the south by the Heracleum at Iphistiadae, on the east by Archestratus of Phrearri, and on the west by Philip of Cholleidae. No one is to be permitted to sell or exchange it; it is to belong to the boy Adeimantus as far as possible. 42 Also the estate at Eiresidae, which I bought from Callimachus, bounded on the north by Eurymedon of Myrrhinus, on the south by Demostratus of Xypete, on the east by Eurymedon of Myrrhinus, and on the west by the Cephisus. Three minas of silver.

That was how he made his will. The following epigrams were inscribed on his tomb. First: Surpassing all mortals in self-control and just character, / here lies the divine Aristocles; / if anyone of all men won great praise for wisdom, / he has the most, and envy does not follow him. 44 Another: Earth hides in her bosom this body of Plato, / but his soul holds its immortal rank among the blessed, / the soul of Ariston’s son, whom every good man, even living far away, / honors, for he looked upon a divine life. And another, more recent: Eagle, why have you come to stand above this tomb? Tell me, are you gazing / at the starry house of one of the gods? / —I am the image of Plato’s soul, which has flown off to Olympus; / his earth-born body the soil of Attica holds.note

His pupils were Speusippus of Athens, Xenocrates of Chalcedon, Aristotle of Stagira, Philip of Opus, Hestiaeus of Perinthus, Dion of Syracuse, Amyclus of Heraclea, Erastus and Coriscus of Scepsis, Timolaus of Cyzicus, Euaeon of Lampsacus, Python and Heraclides of Aenus, Hippothales and Callippus of Athens, Demetrius of Amphipolis, Heraclides of Pontus and many others. Among them were two women, Lastheneia of Mantinea and Axiothea of Phlius, who even wore men’s clothes, as Dicaearchus says. Some say that Theophrastus also studied under him, and Chamaeleon says that the orator Hyperides did too, and Lycurgus. 47 Polemo gives the same account. Sabinus says Demosthenes did as well, citing Mnesistratus of Thasos in the fourth book of his Materials for Exercises; and it is likely enough.note

Since you are, rightly, a lover of Plato, and eager to seek out the philosopher’s doctrines in preference to anyone else’s, I thought it necessary to sketch the nature of his discourses, the order of the dialogues and the method of his induction, as elementarily and summarily as I can, so that my collection of facts about his life should not lack his doctrines. For it would be bringing owls to Athens, as they say, if I had to explain the details to you.note

They say, then, that the first to write dialogues was Zeno of Elea; but Aristotle, in the first book of On Poets, says it was Alexamenus of Styra or of Teos, as Favorinus also says in his Memoirs. To my mind Plato, who brought the genre to perfection, would justly carry off the first prize for inventing it, just as he does for its beauty. A dialogue is a discourse made up of question and answer on some philosophical or political subject, with characterization appropriate to the persons introduced and with careful attention to style. Dialectic is the art of discourse by which we refute or establish something through the questions and answers of those taking part in the conversation.

The Platonic dialogue, then, has two most general types: the instructive and the investigative. The instructive is divided into two further types, the theoretical and the practical. Of these, the theoretical divides into the physical and the logical, the practical into the ethical and the political. The investigative also has two primary types, the training type and the combative type. The training type divides into the midwifely and the testing, the combative into the exposing and the refuting.

We are not unaware that some distinguish the dialogues differently: they call some of them dramatic, some narrative and some mixed. But these people have named the differences between the dialogues in the terms of tragedy rather than of philosophy. Examples of the physical type are the Timaeus; of the logical, the Statesman, the Cratylus, the Parmenides and the Sophist; of the ethical, the Apology, the Crito, the Phaedo, the Phaedrus, the Symposium, the Menexenus, the Clitophon, the Letters, the Philebus, the Hipparchus and the Rival Lovers; of the political, the Republic, the Laws, the Minos, the Epinomis and the Atlanticus;

Since there is much dispute, some saying that he lays down doctrines and others that he does not, let us deal with this question too. To lay down doctrines is to establish tenets, just as to legislate is to establish laws. And “doctrine” is used in two senses: for what is opined and for the opinion itself.

Of these, what is opined is a proposition, and the opinion is a supposition. Plato, then, declares his views on things he has apprehended, refutes what is false, and suspends judgment on what is unclear. His own views he declares through four characters: Socrates, Timaeus, the Athenian Stranger and the Eleatic Stranger. The strangers are not, as some have supposed, Plato and Parmenides; they are nameless fictional figures. For even when he speaks through Socrates and Timaeus, it is Plato who is laying down doctrine. To deal with false views he brings in people who are refuted, such as Thrasymachus, Callicles, Polus, Gorgias and Protagoras, and also Hippias, Euthydemus and others like them.

In constructing his proofs he mostly uses the method of induction, not in a single form but in two. Induction is an argument that, from certain truths, properly infers a further truth similar to them. There are two kinds of induction: by contradiction and from consequence. Induction by contradiction is the kind in which, whatever answer the person questioned gives, the opposite will follow. For example: my father is either other than your father or the same.

In tragedy in the old days the chorus at first performed the whole drama alone; later Thespis invented a single actor to give the chorus a rest, Aeschylus added a second, and Sophocles a third, completing tragedy. In the same way the discourse of philosophy was at first of one kind only, namely physics; second, Socrates added ethics; and third, Plato added dialectic and brought philosophy to completion. Thrasyllus says that Plato also published his dialogues in tetralogies, on the model of the tragic tetralogy. The tragedians competed with four plays—at the Dionysia, the Lenaea, the Panathenaea and the Chytri—of which the fourth was a satyr play; and the four plays together were called a tetralogy.note

Altogether, he says, there are fifty-six genuine dialogues, the Republic being divided into ten—Favorinus says in the second book of his Miscellaneous History that it is found almost entire in Protagoras’ Contradictory Arguments—and the Laws into twelve. There are nine tetralogies, with the Republic taking the place of one book and the Laws of one. As the first tetralogy, then, he puts the one with a common subject, since he wants to show what the life of the philosopher would be like. He uses double titles for each of the books, one taken from the name, the other from the subject.

The fourth tetralogy is headed by the Alcibiades, or On the Nature of Man, midwifely. Then come the Second Alcibiades, or On Prayer, midwifely; the Hipparchus, or The Lover of Gain, ethical; and the Rival Lovers, or On Philosophy, ethical. The fifth is headed by the Theages, or On Philosophy, midwifely. Then come the Charmides, or On Temperance, testing; the Laches, or On Courage, midwifely; and the Lysis, or On Friendship, midwifely. The sixth is headed by the Euthydemus, or The Eristic, refuting. Then come the Protagoras, or The Sophists, exposing; the Gorgias, or On Rhetoric, refuting; and the Meno, or On Excellence, testing. 60 The seventh is headed by the two Hippias dialogues, both refuting: the first On the Beautiful, the second On Falsehood. Then come the Ion, or On the Iliad, testing; and the Menexenus, or The Funeral Oration, ethical.

Some, among them Aristophanes the grammarian, force the dialogues into trilogies. 62 As the first they put the one headed by the Republic, followed by the Timaeus and the Critias. The second is the Sophist, the Statesman and the Cratylus. The third is the Laws, the Minos and the Epinomis. The fourth is the Theaetetus, the Euthyphro and the Apology. The fifth is the Crito, the Phaedo and the Letters. The rest they list one by one, in no particular order.note

He used a variety of terms so that his system would not be easy for the uninstructed to take in at a glance. In the most proper sense he holds that wisdom is the knowledge of the intelligible things, the things that truly are. This knowledge, he says, is concerned with god and with the soul separated from the body. In a special sense he also calls philosophy wisdom, since it is a longing for divine wisdom. In a general sense, he also uses “wisdom” for any kind of expertise, as when he calls a craftsman wise. He also uses the same words for things that mean different things. Thus phaulos is used by him also for what is simple, just as in Euripides’ Licymnius it is said of Heracles in these words: plain, unpolished, in the greatest things good, / cutting all his wisdom down to deeds, / no hand at idle talk.note

Plato sometimes uses this word for what is bad, and at times for what is small. He also often uses different words for the same thing. Thus he calls the form both idea and eidos, and also “kind,” “model,” “principle” and “cause.” He also uses opposite expressions for the same thing. Thus he calls the sensible both being and not-being: being because it comes to be, not-being because it is continually changing. He calls the form neither moving nor at rest, and both the same and one and many. He makes a habit of doing the same in many other cases too.

Interpreting his discourses is a threefold task. First, one must explain what each thing that is said actually is. Next, one must explain why it has been said: whether as a main point or by way of illustration, and whether to establish doctrines or to refute the person he is talking with. Third, one must ask whether it has been said correctly.

Since certain critical signs are also added to his books, let me say something about these too. The chi is used for expressions and figures of speech and, generally, for Platonic usage. The diple marks Plato’s doctrines and opinions. 66 The dotted chi marks select passages and fine writing. The dotted diple marks corrections made by certain editors. The dotted obelus marks rash rejections of passages. The dotted antisigma marks double readings and transpositions in the text. The keraunion marks the method of the philosophy. The asterisk marks agreement between doctrines. The obelus marks the rejection of a passage. These are the signs, and this is the number of the books. Antigonus of Carystus says in his On Zeno that when they had just been published, anyone who wanted to read them through had to pay a fee to their owners.note

His views were these. He said that the soul is immortal and puts on many bodies in turn. He said that it has an arithmetical principle, while the body has a geometrical one, and he defined it as the form of breath extended in every direction. He held that it is self-moving and has three parts. Its reasoning part is seated in the head, its spirited part around the heart, and its appetitive part is situated around the navel and the liver.

He held that the soul encloses the body all round in a circle, reaching out from the center, and that it is composed of the elements. Divided at harmonic intervals, it forms two circles joined together. The inner circle, cut six times, makes seven circles in all. The inner one moves along the diagonal to the left, from within, and the other along the side to the right. That is why the outer circle prevails, being single, for the other has been divided within. The single one is the circle of the Same, and the others are circles of the Other. By this he means that the motion of the soul is the motion of the universe and the revolutions of the planets.

Since the division from the center is fitted in this way to the extremities, he held that the soul knows the things that are and brings them into harmony, because it contains the elements within itself in harmonious proportion. Opinion arises in accordance with the circle of the Other when it runs straight, and knowledge in accordance with the circle of the Same. He declared that there are two principles of all things, god and matter. God he also calls mind and cause. Matter, he held, is shapeless and unlimited, and composite things come to be from it. He says that matter was once moving in disorder and was brought together into one place by god, who judged order better than disorder.

He held that each element has not been sorted out into its own region because the revolution of the heavens compresses them and drives them together toward the center. This combines the small particles and separates the large ones. That is why, as they change their kind, they also change their place.

He held that the world-order is one and has come to be, since it is perceptible and was constructed by god. It is ensouled, because what has soul is better than what has none, and this work is assumed to be the product of the best cause. It was made one and not unlimited because the model from which god crafted it was also one. It is spherical because its begetter has that shape too.

He held that the world-order is composed of fire, water, air and earth. It is made of fire so that it may be visible, and of earth so that it may be solid. It is made of water and air so that it may be proportionate, for the powers of solids are brought into proportion by two means, so that the whole becomes one. And it is made of all of them so that it may be complete and imperishable.

He held that time came to be as an image of the eternal. The eternal always remains, while the revolution of the heaven is time. For night and day and month and all such things are parts of time. Therefore without the nature of the world-order there is no time, for time exists as soon as the world-order does.

He held that the sun, the moon and the planets came to be so that time could come to be. So that the number of the seasons might be plain and living things might share in number, god kindled the light of the sun. The moon is in the circle just above the earth, the sun in the next, and the planets in the circles above. Each is fully ensouled, because each is bound to an ensouled motion. So that the world-order, once it had come to be, might be completed in the likeness of the intelligible living thing, the nature of the other living things came to be. Since the intelligible living thing had them, the heaven had to have them too. So it has gods, mostly made of fire, and the other living things are of three kinds: winged, water-dwelling and land-dwelling.

The principles and causes, then, are the two just mentioned: god as model, and matter. Matter must be formless, as is the case with the other receptacles too. The cause of these things, he held, arises from necessity. For matter somehow receives the forms and so generates the substances. It moves because its powers are unlike one another, and in being moved it moves in turn the things that come to be from it. Before, these things moved irrationally and without order. But once they began to make up the world-order, god made them come to be in due measure and in order, as far as possible.

On good and bad he said the following. He held that the end is becoming like god. Excellence is sufficient for happiness. But it also needs as instruments the advantages of the body, such as strength, health, keen senses and the like, and external advantages, such as wealth, good birth and reputation. Yet the wise man will be no less happy even if these are absent.

He also discussed the correctness of names. In fact, he was the first to establish the science of correct questioning and answering, which he used to excess. In the dialogues he took justice to be the law of god, since this was a stronger incentive to do what is just, so that people might not pay the penalty as wrongdoers even after death. 80 This is why some thought him too fond of myth: he mixed such stories into his writings so that, through uncertainty about what happens after death, people would keep away from wrongdoing. These, then, were his views.

Aristotle says that he also divided things in the following way. Of goods, some are in the soul, some in the body, and some external. For example, justice, understanding, courage, temperance and the like are in the soul. Beauty, good condition, health and strength are in the body. Friends, the prosperity of one’s country and wealth are among the external goods.note

So there are three kinds of goods: those in the soul, those in the body, and external ones. Friendship has three kinds: natural friendship, the friendship of companions, and friendship between hosts and guests. By natural friendship we mean the affection parents have for their children and relatives have for one another; the other animals have been given a share of this kind too. The friendship of companions is the kind that arises from spending time together and has nothing to do with kinship, like that of Pylades for Orestes. Friendship between hosts and guests is the kind formed with foreigners through an introduction or through letters. So one kind of friendship is natural, another is that of companions, another that of hosts and guests. Some add a fourth, erotic friendship.

There are five kinds of constitution: democratic, aristocratic, oligarchic, kingly and tyrannical. A constitution is democratic in cities where the majority hold power and choose the officials and the laws themselves. Aristocracy is the constitution in which neither the rich nor the poor nor the famous rule, but the best citizens lead the city. Oligarchy is when officials are chosen on the basis of property, for the rich are fewer than the poor. Of kingship, one kind is by law and another by birth. The kingship at Carthage is by law, for it can be bought.

Justice has three kinds: one concerns gods, another human beings, and another the departed. Those who sacrifice according to the laws and look after the temples are clearly pious toward the gods. Those who repay loans and return deposits act justly toward human beings. And those who look after tombs are clearly just toward the departed. So one kind of justice concerns gods, another human beings, and another the departed.

Knowledge has three kinds: practical, productive and theoretical. House-building and shipbuilding are productive, for one can see a finished product of their work. Statesmanship, pipe-playing, lyre-playing and the like are practical, for nothing visible is produced by them, but they do something: the one plays the pipe or the lyre, the other engages in politics. Geometry, harmonics and astronomy are theoretical, for they neither do nor make anything. The geometer studies how lines are related to one another, the student of harmonics studies musical sounds, and the astronomer studies the stars and the universe. So some kinds of knowledge are theoretical, others practical, and others productive.

Medicine has five kinds: pharmacology, surgery, dietetics, diagnosis and first aid. Pharmacology cures illnesses with drugs. Surgery restores health by cutting and cauterizing. Dietetics frees people from illnesses by means of regimen. Diagnosis works by identifying the illness. First aid relieves pain by giving help on the spot. So one kind of medicine is pharmacology, another surgery, another dietetics, another first aid, and another diagnosis.

Law has two divisions: one kind is written, the other unwritten. The law by which we govern ourselves as citizens in our cities is written. The law that arises from custom is called unwritten. Examples are not walking naked into the marketplace and not putting on a woman’s cloak. No law forbids these things, yet we still do not do them, because an unwritten law forbids them. So one kind of law is written and the other unwritten.

Speech is divided into five kinds. One is the speech that politicians deliver in the assemblies, and this is called political. 87 A second division of speech is the kind that orators write and deliver as a display piece, in praise, in censure and in accusation. This sort is rhetorical. A third division is the speech in which private individuals talk with one another, and this mode is called private. Another division is the speech of those who converse by asking short questions and answering the people who question them. This is called dialectical speech. A fifth division is the speech in which craftsmen talk about their own craft, and this is called technical. So one kind of speech is political, another rhetorical, another private, another dialectical and another technical.

Music is divided into three. One kind is produced by the mouth alone, such as singing. A second is produced by the mouth and the hands, such as singing to the lyre. A third is produced by the hands alone, such as playing the lyre. So one kind of music comes from the mouth alone, another from the mouth and the hands, and another from the hands.

Good birth is divided into four kinds. In the first, if someone’s ancestors were fine, good and just people, those born of them are said to be well born. In another, if the ancestors held power and served as rulers, those born of them are said to be well born. In another, if the ancestors were famous, for example for their generalship or for victories in the games where the prize is a crown, we also call those born of them well born. 89 In another kind, a person is himself noble in soul and great-souled. People call him well born too, and this is the best kind of good birth. So one kind of good birth comes from worthy ancestors, another from powerful ones, another from famous ones, and another from one’s own fineness and goodness.

Beauty is divided into three. One kind is praiseworthy, such as good looks that strike the eye. Another is useful: a tool, a house and things like that are beautiful with a view to use. The third concerns laws, practices and the like, which are beautiful with a view to benefit. So one kind of beauty is for praise, another for use and another for benefit.

The soul is divided into three. One part of it is rational, another appetitive and another spirited. The rational part is responsible for deliberating, reasoning, thinking and all such activities. The appetitive part of the soul is responsible for the desire to eat, for sexual intercourse and for all such things. The spirited part is responsible for confidence, pleasure, pain and anger. So the soul has a rational part, an appetitive part and a spirited part.

Complete excellence has four kinds: understanding, justice, courage and temperance. 91 Understanding is responsible for doing things rightly. Justice is responsible for acting justly in partnerships and transactions. Courage makes a person stand firm in dangers and frightening situations instead of giving way. Temperance is responsible for mastering one’s desires and for being enslaved to no pleasure but living in an orderly way. So one kind of excellence is understanding, another justice, the third courage and the fourth temperance.

Rule is divided into five parts: rule by law, rule by nature, rule by custom, fourth, rule by birth, and fifth, rule by force. 92 Those who rule in cities after being elected by the citizens rule by law. Those who rule by nature are the males, and not only among human beings but among the other animals too, since for the most part males everywhere rule females. Rule by custom is the kind that children’s attendants exercise over children and teachers over their pupils.

Rhetoric has six kinds. When speakers urge going to war or making an alliance with someone, this kind is called exhortation. When they call for not going to war or not making an alliance, and for keeping the peace instead, this kind is dissuasion. The third kind of rhetoric is when someone claims to have been wronged by another person and shows that person to be the cause of many evils. This kind is called accusation. The fourth kind of rhetoric [is called defense] is when someone shows that he has done no wrong and nothing else improper. This kind is called defense.

Speaking rightly is divided into four: what one should say, how much one should say, to whom one should say it, and when one should say it. What one should say is whatever will benefit both the speaker and the listener. How much one should say means neither more nor less than is sufficient. 95 As for whom one should speak to: if you are talking with older people [who are at fault], your words must be suited to older people, and if you are talking with younger people, they must be suited to younger people. As for when to speak, it should be neither too early nor too late. Otherwise you will miss the mark and fail to speak rightly.

Benefaction is divided into four kinds, since it is done with money, with one’s body, with knowledge or with words. It is done with money when someone helps a person in need so that he is well off as far as money goes. People do each other good with their bodies when they arrive on the scene and come to the aid of someone being beaten. 96 Those who educate, heal or teach something good confer benefits through knowledge. And when people go into a lawcourt, one as an advocate for another, and the advocate says something fitting on the other’s behalf, he confers a benefit through words. So one kind of benefaction is through money, another through the body, another through knowledge, and a fourth through words.

The completion of things is divided into four kinds. In one, things are completed by law, when a decree is passed and the law brings it to completion. Things are completed by nature, as the day, the year and the seasons are. Things are completed by art, as in house-building, where someone completes a house, and in shipbuilding, where someone completes ships. 97 Things are completed by chance when they turn out differently from what one expects. So the completion of things comes by law, by nature, by art or by chance.

Power is divided into four kinds. One is what we are capable of with the mind, such as reasoning and conjecturing. Another is what we are capable of with the body, such as walking, giving, taking and the like. A third is what we are capable of through large numbers of soldiers and money, which is why a king is said to have great power. The fourth division of power is the capacity to be acted on and to fare well or badly. For example, we are capable of falling ill, being educated, becoming healthy and all such things. So one kind of power lies in the mind, another in the body, another in an army and money, and another in acting and being acted on.

Kindness to others has three kinds. One works through greeting, as when some people address everyone they meet and greet them by giving them their right hand. Another kind is when someone is ready to help anyone who is in misfortune. Another kind of kindness to others belongs to people who are fond of giving dinners. So one kind of kindness is shown by greeting, another by doing good, and another by entertaining and enjoying company.

Happiness is divided into five parts. One part is good judgment, another is sound senses and bodily health, a third is success in one’s undertakings, a fourth is good repute among people, and a fifth is plenty of money and of the things useful for life. 99 Good judgment comes from education and from experience of many things. Sound senses come from the parts of the body, for instance when someone sees with his eyes, hears with his ears, and perceives with his nose and mouth what he ought to perceive. That is what sound senses are.

The arts are divided into three: first, second and third. The first are mining and woodcutting, since these supply the materials. Smithing and carpentry are second because they reshape materials: smithing makes weapons out of iron, and carpentry makes pipes and lyres out of wood. The third is the art of use: horsemanship uses bridles, the art of war uses weapons, and music uses pipes and the lyre. So the arts have three kinds: one first, another second and another third.

The good is divided into four kinds. We say that one is the person who has excellence, who is good in his own right. Another we say is excellence itself, and justice. A third kind is things such as suitable food, exercise and medicines. A fourth kind is things like pipe-playing, acting and the like, which we also say are good. So there are four kinds of good: having excellence, excellence itself, beneficial food and exercise, and fourth, pipe-playing, acting and poetry, which we say are good.

Good order under law is divided into three. In one, the laws are good, and we say there is good order. In another, the citizens abide by the established laws, and we say this too is good order. In the third, there are no laws, but people conduct their civic life well according to customs and practices, and we also call this good order. So one kind of good order is having good laws, another is abiding by the existing laws, and a third is conducting civic life by good customs and practices.

Lawlessness is divided into three. One is when the laws are bad toward both foreigners and citizens. 104 Another is when people do not obey the existing laws. Another is when there is no law at all. So one kind of lawlessness is having bad laws, another is not obeying the laws that exist, and the third is having no law.

Opposites are divided into three. We say that goods are opposite to bads, as justice is opposite to injustice, understanding to folly, and so on. Bads are also opposite to bads, as prodigality is opposite to stinginess, and being tortured unjustly to being tortured justly. Bads like these are opposite to bads. Heavy is opposite to light, fast to slow, and black to white, as things that are neither good nor bad opposed to other things that are neither. 105 So some opposites are opposed as goods to bads, some as bads to bads, and some as neutral things to neutral things.

Goods come in three kinds: some can be had, some can be shared in and some can only be the case. Those that can be had are the ones it is possible to possess, such as justice and health. Those that can be shared in are the ones it is not possible to possess but possible to share in: the good itself, for example, cannot be possessed, but one can share in it. Those that can only be the case are the ones it is possible neither to share in nor to possess, but which must simply be the case. For example, being good and being just is a good, and one can neither possess nor share in these things; they must simply be the case [being good and being just]. So some goods can be had, some can be shared in and some can only be the case.

Advice is divided into three. One kind draws on times past, another on the future and another on the present. Advice drawn from the past uses examples, such as what happened to the Spartans because they trusted others. Advice drawn from the present consists, for instance, in pointing out that the walls are weak, the men cowardly and the grain scarce. Advice drawn from the future consists, for instance, in urging people not to wrong embassies out of suspicion, so that Greece may not fall into disrepute. So some advice draws on the past, some on the present and some on the future.

Sound is divided into two. One kind is animate and the other inanimate. Animate sound is the voice of living creatures, and inanimate sound is notes and echoes. Animate sound is either articulate or inarticulate. Articulate sound belongs to human beings and inarticulate sound to animals. So one kind of sound is animate and the other inanimate.

Of the things that exist, some are divisible and some indivisible. Of the divisible ones, some are made of like parts and others of unlike parts. Indivisible things are those that admit of no division and are not composed of anything, such as the unit, the point and the musical note. Divisible things are those composed of something, such as syllables, chords, animals, water and gold.

Of the things that exist, some are spoken of by themselves and others in relation to something. Things spoken of by themselves are those that need nothing added when they are expressed, such as a human being, a horse and the other animals. 109 None of these needs any further explanation. Among the things spoken of in relation to something are those that need some explanation added, such as greater than something, faster than something, more beautiful and the like. The greater is greater than a lesser, and the faster is faster than something. So of the things that exist, some are spoken of in and by themselves and others in relation to something. This, according to Aristotle, is how he also divided the primary concepts.

There was also another Plato, a philosopher from Rhodes and a pupil of Panaetius, as Seleucus the grammarian says in the first book of his On Philosophy. There was another, a Peripatetic and a pupil of Aristotle, another who was a pupil of Praxiphanes, and the poet of Old Comedy.note

So much for Plato. This is all we have been able to collect, after carefully sifting what is said about the man. He was succeeded by Speusippus, son of Eurymedon, an Athenian of the deme of Myrrhinus and the son of Plato’s sister Potone. He was head of the school for eight years, beginning in the 108th Olympiad. He set up statues of the Graces in the shrine of the Muses that Plato had founded in the Academy. He kept to the same doctrines as Plato, but his character did not stay the same, for he was quick-tempered and could not resist pleasure. They say, at any rate, that in a fit of anger he threw his little dog into the well, and that for pleasure’s sake he went to Macedonia for Cassander’s wedding.note

Plato’s two women pupils, Lastheneia of Mantinea and Axiothea of Phlius, were also said to have studied under him. That is why Dionysius, writing to him, says mockingly: “One can learn your wisdom from your Arcadian pupil, too. And Plato let those who came to study with him off paying tribute, while you levy it and take it from the willing and the unwilling alike.” He was the first, as Diodorus says in the first book of his Memoirs, to look for what the branches of learning have in common and to connect them with one another as far as possible. He was also the first to publish what Isocrates called his secrets, 3 as Caeneus says. And he was the first to invent the device by which loads of brushwood are packed into compact bundles.note

Plutarch, in his Lives of Lysander and of Sulla, says that his body broke out in lice. His body was also flabby, as Timotheus says in his On Lives. According to Timotheus, he said to a rich man who was in love with an ugly woman: “What do you need this one for? I’ll find you a better-looking one for ten talents.”

He left a great many memoirs and a number of dialogues, among them Aristippus the Cyrenaic. On Wealth, 1 book. On Pleasure, 1 book. On Justice, 1 book. On Philosophy, 1 book. On Friendship, 1 book. On the Gods, 1 book. The Philosopher, 1 book. Reply to Cephalus, 1 book. Cephalus, 1 book. Clinomachus, or Lysias, 1 book. The Citizen, 1 book. On the Soul, 1 book. Reply to Gryllus, 1 book. 5 Aristippus, 1 book. Refutation of the Arts, 1 book. Dialogues in Memoir Form. Technical Handbook, 1 book. Dialogues on Similar Things in the Study of the Subject, 10 books. Divisions, and Hypotheses Relating to Similars. On Examples of Genera and Species. Against the Speech Without Witnesses. Encomium of Plato. Letters to Dion, Dionysius and Philip. On Legislation. The Mathematician. Mandrobolus. Lysias. Definitions. Arrangements of Commentaries.

In all, 43,475 lines. Timonides also addresses his histories to him; in them he recorded the deeds of Dion and of Bion. And Favorinus says in the second book of his Memoirs that Aristotle bought his books for three talents.note

There was also another Speusippus, an Alexandrian physician of the school of Herophilus.note

Xenocrates, son of Agathenor, of Chalcedon. He studied under Plato from his youth and even went with him to Sicily. He was slow by nature, so that Plato, comparing him with Aristotle, said, “One needs a spur, the other a bridle,” and, “What a donkey I’m training, and against what a horse!” In other respects, too, Xenocrates was solemn and always grave-faced, so that Plato was constantly telling him, “Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces.” He spent most of his time in the Academy, and whenever he was about to go up into the city, they say, all the rowdies and hooligans would keep themselves in check as he passed. 7 They also say that Phryne the courtesan once wanted to test him and, pretending to be chased by some men, took refuge in his little house.note

Once, when a sparrow being chased by a hawk darted into the fold of his robe, he stroked it and let it go, saying that one must not give up a suppliant. When Bion mocked him, he said he would not answer him, since tragedy does not deign to answer comedy when comedy mocks it. To someone who had learned neither music nor geometry nor astronomy but wanted to study with him, he said, “Be on your way. You have no handles for philosophy.” Others say his words were, “Raw fleece isn’t carded at my place.”

When Dionysius told Plato that someone would have his head off, Xenocrates, who was present, pointed to his own neck and said, “Not before this one.” They also say that when Antipater once came to Athens and greeted him, he did not return the greeting until he had finished the speech he was giving. Being entirely free of vanity, he would often meditate by himself in the course of the day, and he set aside one hour, they say, for silence.

He left a great many treatises, poems and exhortations, which are as follows: On Nature, 6 books. On Wisdom, 6 books. On Wealth, 1 book. The Arcadian, 1 book. On the Indefinite, 1 book. 12 On the Child, 1 book. On Self-Control, 1 book. On the Useful, 1 book. On the Free, 1 book. On Death, 1 book. On the Voluntary, 1 book. On Friendship, 2 books. On Fairness, 1 book. On the Contrary, 2 books. On Happiness, 2 books. On Writing, 1 book. On Memory, 1 book. On Falsehood, 1 book. Callicles, 1 book. On Understanding, 2 books. On Household Management, 1 book. On Temperance, 1 book. On the Power of Law, 1 book. On the Constitution, 1 book. On Piety, 1 book.

In all, 224,239 lines.

Yet for all that he was such a man, the Athenians once put him up for sale, because he could not pay the resident-alien tax. Demetrius of Phalerum bought him and restored both: to Xenocrates his freedom, to the Athenians their tax. Myronianus of Amastris reports this in the first book of his Chapters of Historical Parallels. He succeeded Speusippus and was head of the school for twenty-five years, beginning in the archonship of Lysimachides, in the second year of the 110th Olympiad. He died at night after tripping over a basin, by then in his eighty-second year.note

I have written this about him, too: Tripping once over a bronze basin and striking his forehead, / he let out a shrill “Oh!” and then he died— / Xenocrates, who had been in every way a man through and through.

There have been six other men named Xenocrates. The first was the tactician, a very ancient figure … Another was a kinsman and fellow citizen of the philosopher just discussed; a speech of his survives, the Arsinoetic, written about the death of Arsinoe. The fourth was a philosopher who wrote elegiac verse without success. That is a curious thing: poets who set out to write prose succeed, but prose writers who try their hand at poetry stumble, which makes it plain that the one is a gift of nature and the other a product of art. The fifth was a sculptor. The sixth wrote songs, as Aristoxenus says.

Polemo was the son of Philostratus, an Athenian of the deme of Oe. As a young man he was so dissolute and abandoned that he even carried money around with him so that his desires could be satisfied on the spot, and he would also keep it hidden in the alleys. In the Academy, too, a three-obol coin was found that he had stuck to a pillar for [the] same kind of reason as the one just mentioned. Once, by arrangement with his young friends, drunk and wearing a garland, he burst into Xenocrates’ school. Xenocrates, not in the least put out, carried on with his lecture just as before; it happened to be on temperance. As he listened, the young man was caught little by little. He became so hardworking that he surpassed all the others and himself succeeded to the school, beginning in the 116th Olympiad.

Antigonus of Carystus says in his Lives that Polemo’s father was the foremost of the citizens and bred chariot horses. He says that Polemo was prosecuted by his wife for ill-treatment, on the grounds that he had relations with youths. Once he had taken up philosophy, he so strengthened his character that he always kept the same bearing and expression. His voice, too, never changed, and that is why Crantor was won over by him. When a rabid dog tore the back of his knee, at any rate, he did not so much as turn pale; and when an uproar broke out in the city as people heard what had happened, he remained unmoved. In the theater, too, he was utterly unaffected.

He was, then, a man of polished speech and noble character, who steered clear of what Aristophanes says of Euripides, “vinegared and silphium-flavored,” 19 which, as the same poet says, is mere debauchery next to a good big hunk of meat. Moreover, they say, he did not sit down to argue his theses but argued them while walking about. It was for his noble character, then, that he was honored in the city. Even so, he had withdrawn from public life and spent his time in the garden. Next to it his pupils built little huts and lived near the shrine of the Muses and the covered hall.

He died of consumption when he was already old, leaving a good number of writings. And there is an epigram of mine on him: Don’t you hear? We have buried Polemo, whom illness, that dread affliction of mankind, laid here. / Not Polemo, rather, but his body. For he himself, / going up to the stars, left it on the ground, wasted away.

Crates, son of Antigenes, was an Athenian of the deme of Thria. He was both a pupil and the beloved of Polemo, and he went on to succeed him as head of the school. The two loved each other so much that in life they not only shared the same pursuits but grew alike almost down to their breathing, and in death they shared the same tomb. So Antagoras wrote this on both of them: In this tomb god-fearing Crates and Polemo, / say, stranger, as you pass, lie hidden, / men great-hearted in their oneness of mind, from whom sacred / speech darted forth from an inspired mouth, / and a pure life of wisdom adorned them for a divine / age, obedient to unswerving doctrines.

That is why Arcesilaus, when he moved over to them from Theophrastus, said that they were gods of a sort, or survivors of the golden race. They had no interest in popular favor. They were like the piper Dionysodorus, who once, they say, prided himself that no one had ever heard his music on board a trireme or at a fountain, as they had heard Ismenias’. Antigonus says that Crates took his meals at Crantor’s house, and that these two and Arcesilaus lived together in harmony. As for where they lived, Arcesilaus shared a house with Crantor, while Polemo and Crates lived with Lysicles, one of the citizens. Crates, he says, was the beloved of Polemo, as I said before, and Arcesilaus the beloved of Crantor.

When Crates died, as Apollodorus says in the third book of his Chronicles, he left books, some philosophical, some on comedy, and others that were speeches to the assembly and speeches made on embassies. He also left distinguished pupils. Among them were Arcesilaus, of whom I shall speak, for he studied under Crates as well, and Bion of Borysthenes, later nicknamed “the Theodorean” after the school he joined. I shall speak of him too, right after Arcesilaus.note

There have been ten men named Crates. The first was the poet of Old Comedy. The second was a rhetorician from Tralles, a follower of Isocrates. The third was a trench-digger who accompanied Alexander. The fourth was the Cynic, of whom I shall speak. The fifth was a Peripatetic philosopher, and the sixth the Academic discussed above. The seventh was a grammarian from Mallus, the eighth a writer on geometry, and the ninth a writer of epigrams. The tenth was an Academic philosopher from Tarsus.

Crantor of Soli was admired in his own country, but he left for Athens and studied under Xenocrates, attending the school together with Polemo. He left commentaries running to 30,000 lines, some of which a few people attribute to Arcesilaus. They say that when he was asked what had captivated him in Polemo, he said it was that he had never heard him speak in a voice either higher or lower than usual. When he fell ill he withdrew to the shrine of Asclepius and walked about there. People came to him from everywhere, thinking that he had not gone there because of illness but wanted to set up a school there. One of them was Arcesilaus, who wanted Crantor to introduce him to Polemo, even though Crantor was in love with him, as I shall tell in the life of Arcesilaus.note

Crantor admired Homer and Euripides above everyone, saying that it was hard to write in plain, ordinary language tragically and with feeling at the same time. He would quote the line from the Bellerophon: Alas! But why “alas”? What we have suffered is what mortals suffer. It is said too that these lines of the poet Antagoras on Eros circulate as a poem by Crantor: My heart is in two minds, since your birth is disputed: / should I call you, Eros, the first of the gods who live for ever, / of all the children that Erebus and queenly / Night bore long ago beneath the waters of broad Ocean, 27 or the son of wise Cypris, or of Earth, / or of the Winds? So you wander about, devising evil / for men, and good as well; that is why your body is twofold.note

He was also clever at coining words. He said, for instance, that a tragic actor had a voice “unhewn and full of bark,” that a certain poet’s verses were “full of woodworm,” and that Theophrastus’ theses had been written “in shellfish purple.” His most admired book is On Grief. He died before Polemo and Crates, of a dropsical condition. And there is my epigram on him: The worst of diseases flooded over you too, Crantor, / and so you went down into Pluto’s black abyss. / You are happy there, but bereft of your words / stand the Academy and Soli, your native land.note

Arcesilaus, son of Seuthes [or Scythes], as Apollodorus says in the third book of his Chronicles, came from Pitane in Aeolis. He was the founder of the Middle Academy, and the first to suspend his assertions because of the contrary arguments that could be set against each other. He was also the first to argue on both sides of a question, and the first to unsettle the style of discourse handed down by Plato, making it more combative by means of question and answer. He came to Crantor in the following way. He was the youngest of four brothers, two of whom shared his father and two his mother. The elder of his half-brothers on his mother’s side was Pylades, and on his father’s side Moereas, who was his guardian.

From then on the two were inseparable. That is why, they say, Theophrastus, stung, remarked what a gifted and quick-witted young man had left his school. He was very weighty in argument and quite a lover of literature, and he also tried his hand at poetry. An epigram of his on Attalus circulates, which goes like this: Pergamum is famous not for arms alone; for its horses too / it is often proclaimed at holy Pisa. / But if a mortal may speak what Zeus has in mind, / it will be far more celebrated in song hereafter.note

He admired Homer above all. He always read a little of him before going to sleep, and at dawn too; whenever he wanted to read him, he would say he was going off to his beloved. He used to say that Pindar was wonderful at filling the mouth with sound and providing a wealth of nouns and verbs. And when he was young he also wrote a study of the style of Ion.note

He also studied under Hipponicus the geometer, and he mocked him for being sluggish and given to yawning in everything else, yet expert in his science, saying that geometry had flown into his mouth while he was yawning. When Hipponicus went out of his mind, Arcesilaus took him into his own house and looked after him until he was restored to health. When Crates died, Arcesilaus took over the school, after a certain Socratides stood aside for him. Some say that because he suspended judgment about everything he did not write a single book. Others say that he was caught correcting some works of Crantor’s, which some say he published and others that he burned. He seems to have admired Plato, and he owned copies of his books.

He had great authority of manner and was concise. In conversation he chose his words with precision, and he was quite cutting and outspoken. 34 That is why Timon again says of him: and … mixing his mind with wheedling rebukes. So, to a young man who was speaking rather impudently, he said, “Won’t someone catch this fellow with a knucklebone?” A man accused of taking the passive role with men put it to him that one thing did not seem to him greater than another; Arcesilaus asked whether ten fingers’ length wasn’t greater than six either. A certain Hemon of Chios, who was ugly but thought himself handsome and always went about in fine cloaks, said that he did not think the wise man would fall in love. Arcesilaus said: What, not even if someone is as handsome as you, or wears such handsome clothes?

To a dialectician of Alexinus’ school who could not give a proper account of one of Alexinus’ arguments, he told the story of what Philoxenus did to the brickmakers. Finding them singing his songs badly, he trampled on their bricks himself, saying, “As you ruin my work, so I ruin yours.” So he was annoyed with those who had not taken up their studies at the proper time. In discussion he had a natural habit of using the expressions “I assert” and “So-and-so will not assent to this,” giving the person’s name. Many of his pupils imitated this, as they did his way of speaking and his whole manner.note

He was extremely inventive at meeting objections aptly, at bringing the course of a discussion back to the question at hand, and at adapting himself to every occasion. He was more persuasive than anyone at all, and that is why more and more people flocked to his school, even though his sharpness meant they were rebuked. But they put up with it gladly, for he was a very good man and filled his hearers with hope. In his life he was extremely generous with what he had, ready to do a kindness, and wholly without vanity in keeping his favors unnoticed. Once, for instance, he visited Ctesibius when he was ill, and seeing that he was hard pressed by poverty, he secretly slipped a purse under his pillow. When Ctesibius found it, he said, “This is one of Arcesilaus’ little games.” On another occasion, too, he sent him a thousand drachmas.

He recommended Archias the Arcadian to Eumenes and got him a position of great honor. Being liberal and utterly indifferent to money, he was the first to turn up at displays of silver plate, and he was more eager than anyone to go to Archecrates’ and Callicrates’ parties with their displays of gold. He helped many people and contributed to collections for them. Once, when someone had borrowed his silver plate to entertain friends and then kept it, he neither asked for it back nor let on that he noticed. Others say that he lent it on purpose, and that when the man brought it back he made him a present of it, since he was poor. He did have property in Pitane too, from which his brother Pylades sent him money. Besides, Eumenes son of Philetaerus provided him with a great deal, and that is why he addressed himself to him alone among the kings.note

While many people paid court to Antigonus and went out to meet him whenever he came, Arcesilaus kept quiet, not wanting to push himself forward to make his acquaintance. He was a close friend of Hierocles, who commanded Munychia and the Piraeus, and at every festival he went down to see him. And although Hierocles pressed him hard to pay his respects to Antigonus, he was not persuaded: he went as far as the gates and turned back. After Antigonus’ sea battle, when many people approached the king and wrote him letters of encouragement, he kept silent. Nevertheless he did go on an embassy for his country to Antigonus at Demetrias, though without success. He spent all his time in the Academy, keeping clear of public life.

Once, at Athens, he stayed a long time in the Piraeus lecturing on set topics, because he was on friendly terms with Hierocles, and for this some people attacked him. He was very extravagant—what was he, after all, but a second Aristippus?—and he did go to dinners, though only with people of his own sort. He lived openly with Theodote and Phila, courtesans from Elis, and to those who disparaged him he would quote the sayings of Aristippus. He was fond of youths and quick to fall for them. That is why the Stoics around Ariston of Chios reproached him, calling him a corrupter of the young, a purveyor of lewd talk, and brazen.

Yet he was so free of vanity that he urged his pupils to attend other teachers as well. When a young man from Chios was not satisfied with his school but preferred that of Hieronymus, the man mentioned above, Arcesilaus himself took him there and introduced him to that philosopher, urging him to behave himself.

Another witty remark of his is also reported. Someone asked him why people go over from the other schools to the Epicurean one, but never from the Epicureans to the others. He said, “Because men can become Galli, but Galli can’t become men.”note

At last, when he was nearing his end, he left everything he owned to his brother Pylades, in return for Pylades’ having taken him to Chios without Moereas’ knowledge and from there to Athens. In his lifetime he never took a wife or had children. He made three wills. One he deposited at Eretria with Amphicritus, another at Athens with some of his friends, and the third he sent home to Thaumasias, one of his relatives, asking him to keep it safe. To him he writes as follows:

“Arcesilaus to Thaumasias, greetings.

44 “I’ve given Diogenes copies of my will to bring to you. Since I’m often ill and my body is weak, I decided to make a will, so that if anything unexpected should happen, I wouldn’t depart having wronged you, who have been so devoted and generous toward me. Of everyone here, you are the person I can most rely on to keep it, both because of your age and because of how close you are to me. So remember that I’m entrusting you with the most binding of trusts, and try to deal justly with me, so that, as far as it depends on you, my affairs may be settled with propriety. Copies are also deposited at Athens with some of my acquaintances, and at Eretria with Amphicritus.”

He died, as Hermippus says, after drinking a great deal of unmixed wine and going out of his mind. He was already seventy-five, and the Athenians held him in higher esteem than anyone.note

There is also my epigram on him: Arcesilaus, why did you gulp down so much unmixed wine, / so unsparingly, that you slipped out of your own mind? / I pity you not so much because you died, but because you / outraged the Muses by not using a moderate cup.

There have also been three other men named Arcesilaus: a poet of Old Comedy, another who wrote elegies, and a sculptor, on whom Simonides wrote this epigram: This is a statue of Artemis; the fee was two hundred / Parian drachmas, the ones stamped with a goat. / It was made by one skilled in the crafts of Athena, / the worthy Arcesilas, son of Aristodicus.

The philosopher discussed above flourished, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles, around the 120th Olympiad.note

Bion was a Borysthenite by birth. Who his parents were, and what circumstances brought him to philosophy, he explains himself to Antigonus. When Antigonus asked him, Who are you among men, and from where? Where are your city and your parents? Bion saw that he had already been slandered to the king, and said to him: “My father was a freedman who wiped his nose on his elbow” (he meant that he was a dealer in salt fish), “a Borysthenite by birth, with not so much a face as a written record on his face, the mark of his master’s harshness. My mother was the kind of woman such a man would marry, from a brothel. Then my father cheated the customs in some way and was sold, with his whole household, us included.note

Bion really was versatile in other respects, a subtle sophist who gave plenty of openings to anyone who wanted to ride roughshod over philosophy. In some ways he was also showy and capable of enjoying his own vanity. He left a great many writings, and also useful sayings with practical substance to them. For instance, when he was reproached for not going after a youth, he said, “You can’t hook a soft cheese.”

He used to say that those in Hades would be punished more if they carried water in whole vessels rather than pierced ones. To a chatterbox who kept begging him to help him, he said, “I’ll do what you need if you send people to plead for you and don’t come yourself.” Sailing with some scoundrels, he fell in with pirates. When the others said, “We’re done for if we’re recognized,” he said, “And I am, if I’m not.” He called conceit a setback to progress. Of a stingy rich man he said, “He doesn’t own his property; his property owns him.” He used to say that misers look after what they have as if it were their own, but get no benefit from it, as if it belonged to someone else. He said that we use courage while young, but reach our prime in understanding as we grow old.note

At first he rejected the doctrines of the Academy, at the time when he was studying under Crates. Then he took up the Cynic way of life, adopting the rough cloak and the wallet. 52 And what else, after all, would have converted him to freedom from passion? Next he went over to the school of Theodorus, after studying under Theodorus the Atheist, who argued as a sophist in every kind of discourse; after him he studied under Theophrastus the Peripatetic. He was also theatrical and much given to tearing things apart with ridicule, using vulgar names for things. Because he blended every kind of discourse, they say that Eratosthenes said of him that Bion was the first to dress philosophy in flowery clothes.note

Yet even so he died, and I have taken him to task as follows: 55 Bion, whom the Scythian land of Borysthenes bore, / we hear used to say that the gods really are nothing. / And if he had stuck to holding this doctrine, it would be fair / to say: he thinks as he sees fit; wrongly, but that was his view. / But now, having fallen into a long illness and afraid he’d die, / the man who said there were no gods, who wouldn’t even look at a temple, 56 who often mocked the mortals who sacrificed to gods, / not only feasted the gods’ nostrils over hearth, altars and table / with the savor, fat and offerings of sacrifice; / nor did he only say, I have sinned, forgive what’s past; but / he also readily gave his neck to an old woman for a charm / and with full conviction bound leather straps around his arms;

There have been ten men named Bion. The first was a contemporary of Pherecydes of Syros; two books in Ionic are attributed to him, and he was from Proconnesus. The second was a Syracusan who wrote handbooks of rhetoric; the third is this man himself; the fourth, a Democritean and mathematician from Abdera, who wrote in Attic and in Ionic. He was the first to say that there are certain inhabited places where the night lasts six months and the day six. The fifth, from Soli, wrote an Ethiopian History; the sixth was a rhetorician, under whose name nine books entitled Muses are in circulation; the seventh a lyric poet; the eighth a Milesian sculptor, mentioned by Polemo as well; the ninth a tragic poet, one of the so-called Tarsian poets; the tenth a sculptor from Clazomenae or Chios, mentioned by Hipponax as well.

Lacydes, son of Alexander, of Cyrene. He is the one who began the New Academy and succeeded Arcesilaus: a most dignified man, who had a good many admirers. He was industrious from his youth, and poor, but otherwise charming and pleasant company. They say he ran his household in a delightfully quaint way. Whenever he took something out of the storeroom, he would seal it up again and throw his signet ring back inside through the hole, so that nothing stored there could ever be taken out and carried off. His servants found this out, broke the seal and carried off whatever they liked; then they would drop the ring back through the hole into the storeroom in the same way. And they were never caught doing it.

Lacydes, then, taught in the Academy, in the garden built by King Attalus, and it was called the Lacydeum after him. He alone of all the heads of the school since its beginning handed it over while still alive, to Telecles and Evander of Phocaea. From Evander the succession passed to Hegesinus of Pergamum, and from him to Carneades. A witty remark is attributed to Lacydes: when Attalus sent for him, they say, he answered that statues should be viewed from a distance. When he was studying geometry late in life, someone said to him, “So now is the time?” And he replied, “So not even now?”note

He died, having begun as head of the school in the fourth year of the 134th Olympiad, after leading the school for twenty-six years. His death was caused by paralysis brought on by heavy drinking. I have made fun of him as follows: Of you too, Lacydes, I heard the tale, that you too / Bacchus seized and dragged to Hades by the tips of your toes. / Clearly, when Dionysus enters the body in force, / he loosens the limbs; isn’t that why he was born the Loosener, Lyaeus?note

Carneades, son of Epicomus or of Philocomus, as Alexander says in his Successions, was from Cyrene. He read the books of the Stoics carefully, especially those of Chrysippus, argued against them skillfully, and was so successful that he used to add this: If there had been no Chrysippus, there would have been no me. He was as hard-working a man as any who ever lived, less at home in physics, more so in ethics. That is why he even let his hair and nails grow long, so absorbed was he in arguments. So strong was he in philosophy that even the rhetoricians would dismiss their classes and go to him to hear him.note

He also had an extremely loud voice, so that the gymnasiarch sent word to him not to shout like that. He said, “Then give me a measure for my voice.” The gymnasiarch seized the opening neatly and replied, “You have your measure: your listeners.” He was a formidable critic and hard to beat in debate; and from then on he declined dinner invitations for the reasons already mentioned. Once Mentor of Bithynia, who was his pupil, came to his school; Mentor had tried to seduce his concubine, as Favorinus says in his Miscellaneous History. So in the middle of his lecture Carneades aimed a parody at him: 64 There goes about here an old man of the sea, unerring, / like Mentor in build and in voice; / I declare him banished from this school. And Mentor stood up and said: They made the proclamation, and the men gathered very quickly.note

He seems to have behaved rather timidly in the face of death: he kept saying, “The nature that put me together will also take me apart.” And when he learned that Antipater had died by drinking poison, he was stirred by the boldness of that departure and said, “Then give some to me too.” When they asked, “What?” he said, “Honeyed wine.” They say that when he died there was an eclipse of the moon, as if the most beautiful of the heavenly bodies after the sun were hinting, as one might put it, at its sympathy.note

Apollodorus says in his Chronicles that he departed from among men in the fourth year of the 162nd Olympiad, at the age of eighty-five. Letters of his to Ariarathes, king of Cappadocia, are in circulation. Everything else of his was written up by his pupils; he himself left nothing.

It is said too that his eyes clouded over one night without his realizing it, and that he told his slave to light a lamp. When the slave brought it in and said, “I’ve brought it,” he said, “Then you read.”

He had many other pupils, but the most distinguished was Clitomachus, of whom I must speak as well.

There was also another Carneades, a frigid elegiac poet.

Clitomachus of Carthage. His name was Hasdrubal, and he practiced philosophy in his homeland in his own language. He came to Athens when he was already forty and studied under Carneades. Carneades, appreciating his industry, had him taught letters and trained him. He went so far in his diligence that he wrote more than four hundred books. He succeeded Carneades, and above all shed light on his views through his writings. He was a man who distinguished himself in three schools: the Academic, the Peripatetic and the Stoic.

Timon disparages the Academics as a whole in this way: Nor the insipid long-windedness of the Academics.

Now that I have gone through the Academics descended from Plato, let me move on to the Peripatetics, who also descend from Plato, and whose founder was Aristotle.

Aristotle, son of Nicomachus and Phaestis, was from Stagira. Nicomachus was descended from Nicomachus, son of Machaon, son of Asclepius, as Hermippus says in his On Aristotle, and he lived at the court of Amyntas, king of the Macedonians, as his physician and friend. Aristotle was the most genuine of Plato’s pupils. He had a lisp, as Timotheus the Athenian says in his On Lives. They say he also had thin legs and small eyes, and wore conspicuous clothes, rings and a fashionable haircut. He also had a son, Nicomachus, by his concubine Herpyllis, as Timaeus says.note

He broke away from Plato while Plato was still alive, so that Plato is said to have remarked, “Aristotle has kicked us away, just as newborn colts kick their mother.” Hermippus says in his Lives that while Aristotle was away as the Athenians’ envoy to Philip, Xenocrates became head of the school in the Academy. When Aristotle came back and saw the school under someone else, he chose the covered walk in the Lyceum, and would walk up and down there until it was time to be oiled, doing philosophy with his pupils. That, Hermippus says, is how he came to be called “Peripatetic.” Others say it was because he kept Alexander company on his walks while he was recovering from an illness, and talked with him about various things.note

When his pupils grew more numerous, he even sat down to lecture, saying, “It is shameful to keep silent and let Xenocrates speak.” He trained his pupils to argue on a set thesis, and gave them practice in rhetoric at the same time. Later, though, he went off to Hermias the eunuch, tyrant of Atarneus. Some say Hermias was his beloved. Others say Aristotle became related to him by marriage, Hermias giving him his daughter or his niece, as Demetrius of Magnesia says in his On Poets and Writers of the Same Name. Demetrius also says that Hermias had been the slave of Eubulus, that he was a Bithynian by birth and that he killed his master. Aristippus, in the first book of On the Luxury of the Ancients, says that Aristotle fell in love with a concubine of Hermias.note

Aristotle, then, came to Athens and led the school for thirteen years. Then he withdrew to Chalcis, when Eurymedon the hierophant indicted him for impiety. Favorinus, in his Miscellaneous History, says it was Demophilus. The charge was that he had composed the hymn to the 6 Hermias mentioned above, and also an epigram for his statue at Delphi, which goes like this: This man, in unholy breach of the pure law of the blessed gods, / the king of the bow-bearing Persians killed, / not overcoming him openly with the spear in bloody combat, / but by exploiting a treacherous man’s trust.note

There he died by drinking aconite, as Eumelus says in the fifth book of his Histories, at the age of seventy. The same writer says that he joined Plato at thirty, but he is wrong. Aristotle lived sixty-three years, and he joined Plato at seventeen.note

The hymn runs like this: 7 Excellence, hard-won by the race of mortals, / finest prize for a life to hunt, / for your beauty, maiden, / even to die is an enviable fate in Greece, / and to endure fierce, unwearying toils. / Such is what you cast into the mind: / an immortal strength, better than gold, / than parents, than soft-eyed sleep. / For your sake Heracles, son of Zeus, and the sons of Leda / endured much in their deeds, / hunting your power. 8 Out of longing for you Achilles / and Ajax went to the house of Hades. / For the sake of your dear beauty the nursling of Atarneus too has widowed the sun’s rays. / Therefore, famed in song for his deeds, he will be made immortal by the Muses, / the daughters of Memory, who exalt the majesty of Zeus, god of guest-friendship, and the honor of steadfast friendship.note

There is also one of mine on him, which goes like this: Eurymedon once meant to charge Aristotle with impiety, / being a minister of Deo’s mysteries; / but Aristotle drank aconite and escaped. So this, it seems, was how, / with no dust raised, to beat unjust slanders.note

Favorinus says in his Miscellaneous History that Aristotle was the first to write a courtroom speech in his own defense, for this very trial, and that he said that at Athens pear grows old upon pear, and fig upon fig.note

Apollodorus says in his Chronicles that Aristotle was born in the first year of the 99th Olympiad. He says Aristotle joined Plato at seventeen and spent twenty years with him, and went to Mytilene in the fourth year of the 108th Olympiad, when Eubulus was archon. According to Apollodorus, when Plato died, in the first year, in the archonship of Theophilus, Aristotle left for Hermias’ court and stayed three years. 10 In the archonship of Pythodotus, in the second year of the 109th Olympiad, he went to Philip, when Alexander was already fifteen.note

Theocritus of Chios also mocked him in an epigram, which he composed as follows, according to Ambryon in his On Theocritus: For Hermias the eunuch, and Eubulus’ slave besides, / empty-headed Aristotle built an empty tomb. / Because of his belly’s lack of restraint he chose to live, / instead of in the Academy, at the mouth of the Borborus. Timon also attacked him, saying: Nor the grievous frivolity of Aristotle.note

That is the philosopher’s life. I have also come across his will, which runs roughly as follows:

“All will be well. But if anything should happen, these are Aristotle’s dispositions. Antipater is to be executor of everything and in every respect. 12 Until Nicanor arrives, Aristomenes, Timarchus, Hipparchus, Dioteles and Theophrastus, if he is willing and able, are to take care of the children, of Herpyllis and of the estate. When the girl is old enough, she is to be given in marriage to Nicanor. If anything should happen to the girl before she marries, or after she has married but before there are children (which heaven forbid, and it will not happen), Nicanor is to have full authority over the boy and over everything else, and is to manage them in a manner worthy of himself and of us. Nicanor is to take care of the girl and of the boy Nicomachus as he thinks fit in everything that concerns them, as both father and brother to them.note

That is how his will runs. It is said, too, that a great many dishes belonging to him were found. Lyco is said to have claimed that Aristotle bathed in a tub of warm oil and then sold the oil. Some also say that he used to put a little skin of warm oil on his stomach. They say that when he slept, a bronze ball was placed in his hand with a basin underneath, so that when the ball fell into the basin the noise would wake him.note

These very fine sayings are also attributed to him. Asked what liars gain, he said, “That when they tell the truth, they aren’t believed.” Once, when he was reproached for giving charity to a wicked man, he said, “It wasn’t his character I pitied, but the man.” He used to say constantly to his friends and to those who attended his lectures, wherever he happened to be teaching, that sight takes in light from the surrounding [air], and the soul takes it from learning. He often inveighed against the Athenians, declaring that they had discovered wheat and laws, but used the wheat and not the laws.note

He said that the roots of education are bitter, but its fruit is sweet. Asked what grows old quickly, he said, “Gratitude.” Asked what hope is, he said, “A waking man’s dream.” When Diogenes the Cynic offered him a dried fig, Aristotle realized that if he didn’t take it, Diogenes would have a quip ready. So he took it, and said that Diogenes had lost his quip along with his fig. When Diogenes offered him one again, he took it, held it up high as children do, said “Great Diogenes!”, and handed it back to him. He said education needs three things: nature, learning and training. Hearing that someone was abusing him, he said, “While I’m away, he can flog me too.” He used to say that beauty is a better recommendation than any letter.

He wrote a great many books. Because of the man’s excellence in every field of discourse, I have thought it fitting to list them: 22 On Justice, 4 books. On Poets, 3 books. On Philosophy, 3 books. On the Statesman, 2 books. On Rhetoric, or Gryllus, 1 book. Nerinthus, 1 book. Sophist, 1 book. Menexenus, 1 book. On Love, 1 book. Symposium, 1 book. On Wealth, 1 book. Exhortation, 1 book. On the Soul, 1 book. On Prayer, 1 book. On Noble Birth, 1 book. On Pleasure, 1 book. Alexander, or On Colonists, 1 book. On Kingship, 1 book. On Education, 1 book. On the Good, 3 books. Extracts from Plato’s Laws, 3 books. Extracts from the Republic, 2 books.note

In all they come to 445,270 lines.

Such is the number of books he wrote. In them he holds the following views. Philosophical discourse is twofold, one part practical, the other theoretical. The practical part comprises ethics and politics, and under politics he outlined what concerns both the city and the household. The theoretical part comprises physics and logic, and logic he worked out with precision not as a part in its own right but as an instrument. For logic he set down two aims, the persuasive and the true, and explained both. For each he used two faculties: dialectic and rhetoric for the persuasive, analytics and philosophy for the true. He left out nothing that serves discovery, or judgment, or use.

He laid down a single end: the exercise of excellence in a complete life. He said too that happiness is made up of three kinds of goods. First come the goods of the soul, which he in fact calls first in power. Second come those of the body: health, strength, beauty and the like. Third come external goods: wealth, good birth, reputation and the like. He held that excellence is not self-sufficient for happiness, since it also needs the bodily and the external goods: the wise man will be unhappy if he lives in pain or poverty and the like.

He defined friendship as an equality of reciprocal goodwill. One kind of friendship, he held, is between kin, another is between lovers, another is between host and guest. Love too, he held, is not only for the sake of intercourse but also for the sake of philosophy. The wise man will fall in love and take part in politics, and he will also marry and live at a king’s court. Of the three lives, the contemplative, the practical and the life of pleasure, he ranked the contemplative first. He held that the standard subjects of general education are also useful for acquiring excellence.

In natural science he went further than anyone in seeking out causes, so that he gave the causes even of the smallest things; that is why he also wrote a good many books of notes on nature. He declared god to be incorporeal, as Plato did too. He held that god’s providence extends as far as the heavenly bodies and that god himself is unmoved, while earthly things are governed by their sympathy with the heavenly ones. Besides the four elements there is also a fifth, of which the ethereal bodies are composed. Its motion is of a different kind, namely circular. The soul too he held to be incorporeal, being the first entelechy of a [for] natural and organic body potentially possessing life.

Potentiality is itself of two kinds, either as a state or as activity. As activity, the waking man is said to have a soul; as a state, the sleeping man is. So it was to make the sleeper fall under the definition too that he added “potentially.”

He expressed many other views on many subjects, which it would take too long to list. For in everything he was exceptionally industrious and inventive, as is clear from the writings listed above. They come to nearly four hundred, counting only those whose authenticity is undisputed. Many other writings are attributed to him as well, and sayings too, happy hits of unwritten speech.

There have been eight Aristotles. The first is this man himself. The second was active in politics at Athens; some elegant forensic speeches of his are in circulation. The third wrote a treatise on the Iliad. The fourth was a Sicilian orator who wrote a reply to Isocrates’ Panegyric. The fifth, nicknamed Mythus (“Tale”), was a pupil of Aeschines the Socratic. The sixth was a man of Cyrene who wrote on poetics. The seventh was a gymnastics trainer, whom Aristoxenus mentions in his Life of Plato. The eighth was an obscure grammarian, to whom a handbook on pleonasm is attributed.

The Stagirite had many pupils, but by far the most distinguished was Theophrastus, of whom we must now speak.

Theophrastus of Eresus was the son of Melantas, a fuller, as Athenodorus says in the eighth book of his Walks. He first studied under his fellow citizen Alcippus in his native city; then, after studying under Plato, he went over to Aristotle. When Aristotle withdrew to Chalcis, he himself succeeded to the school, in the 114th Olympiad. A slave of his named Pompylus is also said to have been a philosopher, as Myronianus of Amastris says in the first book of his Parallel Historical Chapters. Theophrastus was a man of great intelligence and great industry and, as Pamphila says in the thirty-second book of her Notes, the teacher of Menander the comic poet; 37 he was, besides, generous and a lover of learning.note

Even such a man as this, however, left Athens for a short while, he and all the other philosophers too, when Sophocles son of Amphiclides brought in a law that no philosopher should preside over a school unless the Council and the people approved, the penalty otherwise being death. But they came back the following year, when Philo prosecuted Sophocles for an illegal proposal. The Athenians then annulled the law, fined Sophocles five talents and voted the philosophers’ return, so that Theophrastus too might come back and be on the same footing as before.note

He died an old man, having lived eighty-five years, just after he had eased off a little from his labors. And here is my own epigram on him: It was no idle word, then, that some mortal spoke, / that the bow of wisdom breaks when it is slackened. / For Theophrastus too, so long as he labored, was sound / in body; then he slackened, and died with his limbs crippled.note

They say that when his pupils asked him whether he had any last instructions, he said: “I have no instructions, except that life cheats us of many pleasures with its empty boast of glory. 41 For just when we begin to live, we die. So nothing is more unprofitable than the love of glory. Farewell, then; and either give up the study, since the labor is great, or stand by it well, since the glory is great. The emptiness in life outweighs what is useful. But for me there is no longer time to deliberate on what I should do; it’s for you to consider what must be done.”

He too left a great many books, which I have thought it worth listing as well, because they are full of excellence of every kind. They are these: Prior Analytics, 3 books. Posterior Analytics, 7 books. On the Analysis of Syllogisms, 1 book. Epitome of the Analytics, 1 book. Topics Reduced to Principles, 2 books. Polemical Treatise on the Theory of Arguments about Love. On the Senses, 1 book. Reply to Anaxagoras, 1 book. On the Views of Anaxagoras, 1 book. On the Views of Anaximenes, 1 book. On the Views of Archelaus, 1 book. On Salt, Soda and Alum, 1 book. On Petrifactions, 2 books. On Indivisible Lines, 1 book. Lectures, 2 books. On Winds, 1 book. Differences between the Excellences, 1 book. On Kingship, 1 book.

These amount to 232,808 lines. So many, then, are his books too.

51 I have also come across his will, which runs as follows:

“All will be well; but in case anything should happen, I make these dispositions. All my property at home I give to Melantes and Pancreon, the sons of Leon. From the funds I have placed with Hipparchus, I wish the following to be done. First, the work on the Museum and the statues of the goddesses is to be completed, and any further improvement that can be made to them is to be added to make them more beautiful. Next, the statue of Aristotle is to be placed in the shrine, together with the other dedications that were in the shrine before. Then the little colonnade next to the Museum is to be rebuilt no worse than it was. The tablets showing the maps of the earth are also to be set up in the lower colonnade.note

Such, then, is his will.

Some say that Erasistratus the physician also studied under him; and it is likely.

His school was taken over by Strato son of Arcesilaus, of Lampsacus, whom he also mentioned in his will. Strato was a most distinguished man, nicknamed “the Physicist” because he devoted himself to the study of nature more diligently than anyone else. He was also the tutor of Ptolemy Philadelphus and received from him, they say, eighty talents. As Apollodorus says in his Chronicles, he became head of the school in the 123rd Olympiad, and he led the school for eighteen years.note

The books ascribed to him are: On Kingship, 3 books. On Justice, 3 books. On the Good, 3 books. On Gods, 3 books. On First Principles, 3 books. On Ways of Life. On Happiness. On the Philosopher-King. On Courage. On the Void. On the Heaven. On Breath. On Human Nature. On the Generation of Animals. On Mixture. On Sleep. On Dreams. On Sight. On Sensation. On Pleasure. On Colors. On Diseases. On Crises. On Powers. On Mining Machines. On Hunger and Dizziness. On the Light and the Heavy. On Inspiration. On Time. On Nutrition and Growth. On Doubtful Animals. On Legendary Animals. On Causes. Solutions of Difficulties. Introductions to Topics. On Accident.

They say he became so thin that he died without feeling it. And there is an epigram of mine on him, which runs thus: Thin in body was the man, if you will heed me, from his ointments: / this Strato, I tell you, / whom Lampsacus once bore. Forever wrestling with diseases, / he dies unnoticed, and never felt it.

There have been eight men named Strato. The first was a pupil of Isocrates; the second is our man; the third a physician, a pupil of Erasistratus or, as some say, his foster-son; the fourth a historian, who wrote the history of Philip and Perseus, who made war on the Romans; … the sixth a writer of epigrams; the seventh an ancient physician, as Aristotle says; the eighth a Peripatetic who lived in Alexandria.

Of the Physicist, at any rate, a will is also preserved, which runs as follows:

“I make these dispositions, in case anything should happen to me. All my property at home I leave to Lampyrion and Arcesilaus. From the money I have at Athens, the executors are first to see to the funeral and to the customary rites after it, doing nothing either excessive or mean. 62 The executors of the provisions of this will shall be: Olympichus, Aristides, Mnesigenes, Hippocrates, Epicrates, Gorgylus, Diocles, Lyco, Athanes. I leave the school to Lyco, since of the others some are too old and others too busy. And the rest would do well to help him build it up.

This is the will ascribed to him, as Ariston of Ceos, I believe, also collected it. Strato himself, as has been shown above, was a man who deserves high regard: he excelled in every kind of discourse, and above all in the so-called physical kind, which is the older and weightier one.note

Strato was succeeded by Lyco son of Astyanax, of the Troad, an eloquent man and supremely well organized in the education of boys. He used to say that modesty and love of honor should be harnessed to boys as spur and bridle are to horses. The expressiveness and resonance of his style can be seen from this too. Of a poor girl he says: “For a heavy burden to her father is a girl who, for want of a dowry, runs past the prime of her youth.” That is why, they say, Antigonus remarked of him that, as with an apple, you couldn’t carry the fragrance and charm off anywhere else: each of his sayings had to be appreciated on the man himself, like fruit on the tree.

He was also extremely fastidious about his dress, so much so that he wore clothes of unsurpassed softness, as Hermippus says. He was also very keen on exercise and in fine physical condition, with the whole look of an athlete, battered ears and grimy skin, as Antigonus of Carystus says. That, it is said, is why he wrestled and played ball at the Ilian games in his homeland. He was a friend of Eumenes and Attalus and their circle as no one else was, and they gave him a great deal of support. Antiochus too tried to get him, but failed. 68 He was so hostile to Hieronymus the Peripatetic that he alone would not go to him on the annual day, which I discussed in the life of Arcesilaus.note

He headed the school for forty-four years, Strato having left it to him in his will in the 127th Olympiad. He also studied under Panthoides the dialectician. He died at the age of seventy-four, worn down by gout. And there is an epigram of mine on him: No, by —, I won’t pass Lyco by either: crippled with gout, / he died. And what amazes me most is this: / that a man who used to walk on feet / not his own ran the long road to Hades in a single night.

There have also been other men named Lyco: the first a Pythagorean, the second our man, the third an epic poet, the fourth a writer of epigrams.

I have also come across the philosopher’s will, which runs as follows:

“These are my dispositions concerning my affairs, in case I cannot survive this illness. All my property at home I give to my brothers Astyanax and Lyco. I think that out of it should be repaid whatever I have used up at Athens, whether I held it on loan from someone or ran it up as a debt, together with whatever is spent on my funeral and the other customary rites.note

So, just as he handled everything intelligently, both in education and in every kind of discourse, his will too is, in its way, no less extremely careful and well managed; so that here too he deserves to be imitated.

Demetrius, son of Phanostratus, of Phalerum. He studied under Theophrastus. As a speaker in the Athenian assembly he led the city for ten years, and was honored with three hundred and sixty bronze statues, most of them on horseback or in four-horse and two-horse chariots, all completed in under three hundred days, so great was the enthusiasm for him. Demetrius of Magnesia says in his Men of the Same Name that he began his political career when Harpalus came to Athens in flight from Alexander. As a statesman he did a great deal for his country, and of the finest kind. For he enriched the city with revenues and buildings, although he was not of noble birth.note

Brilliant as he was among the Athenians, he too was nonetheless eclipsed by envy, which devours everything. 77 Some people plotted against him, and he was condemned to death in his absence. They did not get hold of his person, but they spewed their venom onto the bronze: they pulled down his statues, selling some, sinking others in the sea, and cutting others up into chamber pots, for this too is said. Only one survives, on the Acropolis. Favorinus says in his Miscellaneous History that the Athenians did this at the command of King Demetrius. They even recorded the year of his archonship as a year “of lawlessness”, as Favorinus says.note

Hermippus says that after the death of Cassander, fearing Antigonus, he went to Ptolemy Soter; and that, spending a good long time there, he advised Ptolemy, among other things, to confer the kingdom on his sons by Eurydice. Ptolemy was not persuaded, but handed the diadem to his son by Berenice; and after Ptolemy’s death, by this son’s decision, Demetrius was kept under guard in the countryside until some decision should be made about him. There he lived in low spirits; and somehow, while he was asleep, he was bitten on the hand by an asp and departed this life. He is buried in the Busirite nome, near Diospolis.note

And I wrote this epigram on him: An asp did away with Demetrius the wise, / an asp that held plenty of venom / no polish can remove, flashing no light from its eyes, / but black Hades. Heraclides, in his Epitome of Sotion’s Successions, says that Ptolemy wanted to hand over the kingdom to Philadelphus, and that Demetrius tried to dissuade him, saying: “If you give it to someone else, you won’t have it yourself.” When he was being maliciously prosecuted in Athens (for I learn this too), Menander the comic poet came close to being put on trial for no other reason than that he was his friend; but Telesphorus, Demetrius’ cousin, got him off.note

In the number of his books and of their lines he outstripped nearly all the Peripatetics of his day, being as well educated and widely experienced as anyone. Of his works some are historical, some political, some about poets, some rhetorical, both assembly speeches and speeches as envoy; there are also collections of Aesop’s fables and much else besides. They are: On Legislation at Athens, 5 books. On the Constitutions of Athens, 2 books. On Demagogy, 2 books. On Politics, 2 books. On Laws, 1 book. On Rhetoric, 2 books. On Generalship, 2 books.

His style is philosophical, blended with rhetorical vigor and force. When he heard that the Athenians had thrown down his statues, he said, “But not the excellence for which they put them up.” He used to say that the eyebrows are a small part of us, yet they can cast a shadow over a whole life. He said that not only wealth is blind, but also the fortune that leads it by the hand. He said that as much as iron can do in war, so much does speech prevail in politics. Seeing a dissolute young man once, he said, “Look, a square Hermes, complete with trailing robe, belly, genitals and beard.” Of conceited men he said that one should cut away their height but leave them their spirit.note

There have been twenty Demetriuses worth mentioning. The first, of Chalcedon, an orator older than Thrasymachus; the second, this man himself; the third, of Byzantium, a Peripatetic; the fourth, one called the Graphic, a lucid narrator, who was also a painter; the fifth, of Aspendus, a pupil of Apollonius of Soli; the sixth, of Callatis, who wrote twenty books on Asia and Europe; the seventh, of Byzantium, who wrote in thirteen books about the crossing of the Gauls from Europe into Asia, and in eight more about Antiochus and Ptolemy and their administration of Libya; 84 the eighth, the sophist who lived in Alexandria, author of handbooks of rhetoric; the ninth, a grammarian from Adramyttium, nicknamed Ixion because he was thought to have committed some offense concerning Hera; the tenth, a grammarian of Cyrene, nicknamed Stamnus (“Wine-Jar”), a notable man;note

Heraclides, son of Euthyphro, of Heraclea on the Pontus, a rich man. At Athens he first attached himself to Speusippus; but he also studied with the Pythagoreans and admired Plato’s writings; and later he studied under Aristotle, as Sotion says in his Successions. He wore soft clothes and was enormously fat, so that the Athenians called him not Ponticus but Pompicus. His expression was gentle and dignified. Works of his are in circulation, very fine and excellent: dialogues, of which the ethical are: On Justice, 3 books.note

On natural philosophy: On Mind. On the Soul, and a separate On the Soul, and On Nature, and On Images. Against Democritus. On the Things in the Heavens, 1 book. On the Things in Hades. On Lives, 2 books. Causes of Diseases, 1 book. On the Good, 1 book. Against the Doctrines of Zeno, 1 book. Against the Doctrines of Metron, 1 book.

On grammar: On the Age of Homer and Hesiod, 2 books. On Archilochus and Homer, 2 books.

And on music: On Passages in Euripides and Sophocles, 3 books. On Music, 2 books. 88 Solutions to Homeric Problems, 2 books. On Theorems, 1 book. On the Three Tragic Poets, 1 book. Characters, 1 book. On Poetry and the Poets, 1 book. On Conjecture, 1 book. On Foresight, 1 book. Expositions of Heraclitus, 4 books. Expositions, against Democritus, 1 book. Solutions to Eristic Problems, 2 books. Axiom, 1 book. On Forms, 1 book. Solutions, 1 book. Precepts, 1 book. Against Dionysius, 1 book.

On rhetoric: On Public Speaking, or Protagoras.

On history: On the Pythagoreans and On Discoveries.

Of these he composed some in the comic manner, such as On Pleasure and On Temperance; others in the tragic manner, such as On the Things in Hades, On Piety and On Power.

He also has a kind of middle, conversational style, in which philosophers, generals and statesmen talk with one another. There are also geometrical and dialectical works by him. Besides, in all of them he is varied and elevated in his diction, and well able to captivate the mind.

He is also thought to have freed his country when it was under a tyranny, by killing the sole ruler, as Demetrius of Magnesia says in his Men of the Same Name. Demetrius also tells this story about him: “He raised a snake from when it was young, and when it was full-grown and he was about to die, he told one of his trusted men to hide his body and to put the snake on his bier, so that he would be thought to have passed over to the gods. 90 Everything was done. And while the citizens were escorting Heraclides in procession and singing his praises, the snake heard the shouting, slipped out from among the garments and threw most of them into confusion. Afterwards, though, everything came out, and Heraclides was seen not as he had seemed, but as he was.”

And I have an epigram on him that runs like this: You wanted to leave a story among mankind, Heraclides, / that when you died you became a living snake for all to see. / But you were mistaken, clever fellow: for the beast / was indeed a snake, but you were caught out as a beast, not a sage. Hippobotus tells the same story.note

Hermippus says that when a famine gripped their land, the people of Heraclea asked the Pythia for deliverance; and that Heraclides bribed both the sacred envoys and the priestess to proclaim that they would be rid of the evil if Heraclides son of Euthyphro were crowned by them with a golden crown while he lived, and honored as a hero after his death. The supposed oracle was brought back, and those who had made it up got no good from it. For the moment Heraclides was being crowned in the theater, he was struck by apoplexy, and the envoys were stoned to death. What is more, at that same hour the Pythia, going down into the inner sanctuary, stepped on one of the snakes, was bitten and died on the spot. So much for the circumstances of his death.note

Aristoxenus the musician says that he also wrote tragedies and put Thespis’ name on them. Chamaeleon says that he stole Chamaeleon’s own work when writing about Hesiod and Homer. Autodorus the Epicurean also censures him, writing against his views on justice. Moreover, Dionysius the Renegade (or Spintharus, as some say) wrote the Parthenopaeus and put Sophocles’ name on it. Heraclides believed it and, in one of his own works, cited passages from it as evidence, as being by Sophocles.note

There have been fourteen men named Heraclides. The first, this man himself; the second, his fellow citizen, who composed war-dance songs 94 and trifles; the third, of Cyme, who wrote a History of Persia in five books; the fourth, of Cyme, an orator who wrote handbooks of rhetoric; the fifth, of Callatis or Alexandria, who wrote the Succession in six books and a Lembeutic Discourse, which is why he was also called Lembus; the sixth, of Alexandria, who wrote Persian Peculiarities; the seventh, a dialectician from Bargylia, who wrote against Epicurus; the eighth, a physician of the school of Hicesius; the ninth, a physician of Tarentum, an Empiricist; the tenth, a poet who wrote exhortations; the eleventh, a sculptor from Phocaea; the twelfth, a sweet-voiced writer of epigrams; the thirteenth, of Magnesia, who wrote a History of Mithridates; the fourteenth, who compiled a work on astronomy.

Antisthenes, son of Antisthenes, was an Athenian. It was said, though, that he was not of pure Athenian descent. So when someone taunted him with this, he replied, “The Mother of the Gods is a Phrygian too.” His mother was believed to be Thracian. For this reason, when he distinguished himself in the battle at Tanagra, he gave Socrates occasion to say that he would not have turned out so noble if both his parents had been Athenians. He himself belittled the Athenians who prided themselves on being born from the earth: he used to say they were no better born than snails and locusts.note

At first he studied under Gorgias the rhetorician. This is why he brings the rhetorical style into his dialogues, especially in the Truth and the Exhortations. 2 Hermippus says that he planned to deliver a speech of censure and praise of the Athenians, the Thebans and the Spartans at the festival of the Isthmian Games. Then, however, he begged off when he saw how many people had come from those cities.

Later he joined Socrates, and he gained so much from him that he urged his own pupils to become his fellow pupils under Socrates. He lived in the Piraeus, and every day he walked the forty stades up to the city to hear Socrates. From him he took his endurance, and in emulating his freedom from passion he became the founder of Cynicism. He demonstrated that toil is a good by the examples of the great Heracles and of Cyrus, drawing the one from the Greeks and the other from the non-Greeks.note

He was the first to define “account,” saying, “An account is what shows what a thing was or is.” He constantly said, “I’d rather go mad than feel pleasure,” and, “One should go to bed only with women who will be grateful for it.” A young man from Pontus was about to attend his lectures and asked what he would need. “A new little book, a new pen and a new little tablet,” he said, hinting at a mind. To someone who asked what sort of woman he should marry, he said, “If she’s beautiful, you’ll share her; if she’s ugly, you’ll suffer her.” Once, hearing that Plato was speaking ill of him, he said, “It’s a king’s lot to do good and be spoken ill of.”note

Once, when he was being initiated into the Orphic mysteries and the priest said that those initiated would share in many good things in Hades, he asked, “Then why don’t you die?” Once, taunted that he was not the son of two free parents, he said, “Nor am I the son of two wrestlers, but I am a wrestler.” Asked why he had so few pupils, he said, “Because I drive them out with a silver rod.” Asked why he rebuked his pupils so harshly, he said, “Doctors do the same with their patients.” Seeing an adulterer running away, he said, “Poor wretch, what a great danger you could have escaped for an obol!” He used to say, as Hecato says in his Anecdotes, that it is better to fall among crows (korakes) than among flatterers (kolakes): the former eat the dead, the latter the living.note

Asked what is most blessed for human beings, he said, “To die while things are going well.” When one of his pupils once lamented to him that he had lost his notes, he said, “You should have written them on your soul, not on paper.” He used to say that the envious are eaten away by their own character, as iron is by rust. He said that those who want to be immortal must live piously and justly. He said that cities are ruined when they can no longer tell the worthless from the worthy. Once, when he was praised by wicked men, he said, “I’m worried I may have done something bad.”

He said that brothers who live together in harmony are stronger than any wall. He said one should lay in such provisions for the journey as will swim ashore with one even after a shipwreck. Once, reproached for associating with wicked men, he said, “Doctors too spend their time with the sick, but they don’t catch the fever.” He said it was absurd to pick the darnel out of the grain and the unfit out of the army, and yet not to exclude the wicked from public life. Asked what he had gained from philosophy, he said, “The ability to converse with myself.” When someone at a drinking party said to him, “Sing!”, he replied, “You play the pipe for me.” When Diogenes asked him for a tunic, he told him to fold his cloak double. 7 Asked what lesson is most necessary, he said, “Getting rid of things: unlearning.” He urged that when people speak ill of us we should endure it more steadfastly than if someone were pelting us with stones.

He used to mock Plato for being full of himself. At a procession, for instance, he saw a snorting horse and said to Plato, “I think you too would have made a fine prancing horse”—this because Plato was constantly praising horses. And once, visiting him when he was ill, he saw the basin Plato had vomited into and said, “I see bile here, but I don’t see the hot air.”

To a young man who was striking poses for a sculptor he said, “Tell me, if the bronze got a voice, what do you think it would pride itself on?” When the young man said, “Its beauty,” he said, “Then aren’t you ashamed to take delight in the same thing as a lifeless object?” A young man from Pontus promised to look after him well if his ship of salt fish came in. Antisthenes took him along with an empty sack to a woman who sold barley meal, had the sack filled and walked off. When she asked for payment, he said, “The young man will pay, if his ship of salt fish comes in.”

He is also thought to have been responsible for the exile of Anytus and the death of Meletus. 10 For he came across some young men from Pontus who had come drawn by Socrates’ fame, and he took them to Anytus, saying ironically that Anytus was wiser than Socrates. At this the bystanders were so indignant that they drove Anytus out of the city. Whenever he saw a woman dressed up in finery, he would go to her house and tell her husband to bring out his horse and his armor. If he had them, he should let her enjoy her luxury, since he could defend it with them; if not, he should strip off her finery.note

These too were his views. He showed that excellence can be taught. He held that the nobly born are the same people as the excellent; 11 that excellence is sufficient for happiness, needing nothing in addition except the strength of a Socrates; that excellence is a matter of deeds and needs neither a great many words nor much learning; that the wise man is self-sufficient, since everything that belongs to others is his; that obscurity is a good, on a par with toil; that the wise man will live as a citizen not by the established laws but by the law of excellence; that he will marry for the sake of having children, uniting with the most gifted women; and that he will also love, for only the wise man knows whom one ought to love.

Diocles also records these sayings of his. Nothing is foreign or impossible to the wise man. The good man is worthy of love. The worthy are friends. Make allies of those who are both brave and just. Excellence is a weapon that cannot be taken away. It is better to fight with a few good men against all the bad than with many bad men against a few good ones. Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to notice your mistakes. Value a just man more than a kinsman. The excellence of a man and of a woman is the same. Good things are fine, bad things shameful. Regard everything wicked as foreign to you.

Understanding is the safest wall, for it neither crumbles nor is betrayed. Walls must be built in our own impregnable reasonings. He held his discussions in the gymnasium of Cynosarges, a little way outside the gates, and some say the Cynic school took its name from there. He himself was nicknamed “the Plain Dog.” And he was the first, as Diocles says, to double his cloak and wear only that, and he took up a staff and a bag. Neanthes too says he was the first to double his cloak. But Sosicrates, in the third book of his Successions, says it was Diodorus of Aspendus, who also let his beard grow and used a bag and a staff.note

Of all the followers of Socrates, Theopompus praises him alone. He says he was clever and could win over anyone at all with agreeable conversation. This is clear from his writings and from Xenophon’s Symposium. He also seems to have been the founder of the manliest school, the Stoic. This is why Athenaeus the writer of epigrams says of them: You who are versed in Stoic lore, you who have set down / the finest doctrines in your sacred pages: / that excellence alone is the good of the soul, for it alone / has saved the lives of men and their cities. / But the pampering of the flesh, the cherished goal of other men, / was the work of just one of Memory’s daughters.note

He led the way to the freedom from passion of Diogenes, the self-control of Crates and the endurance of Zeno, and he himself laid the foundations of their commonwealth. Xenophon says that he was the most delightful of men in conversation and the most self-controlled in everything else.

His writings survive in ten volumes. The first contains: On Style, or On Types of Style; Ajax, or The Speech of Ajax; Odysseus, or On Odysseus; The Defense of Orestes, or On the Writers of Law-Court Speeches; Isography, or Lysias and Isocrates; Reply to Isocrates’ “Without Witnesses.”

The second volume contains: 16 On the Nature of Animals; On Begetting Children, or On Marriage, a discourse on love; On the Sophists, a work on physiognomy; On Justice and Courage, an exhortation, 1, 2, 3; On Theognis, 4, 5.

The third volume contains: On the Good; On Courage; On Law, or On the Constitution; On Law, or On the Fine and the Just; On Freedom and Slavery; On Trust; On the Guardian, or On Obedience; On Victory, a work on household management.

The fourth volume contains: Cyrus; The Greater Heracles, or On Strength. The fifth volume contains: Cyrus, or On Kingship; Aspasia. The sixth volume contains: Truth; On Discussion, a work on contradiction; Sathon, or On Contradicting, 1, 2, 3; On Language.note

The seventh volume contains: On Education, or On Names, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; On the Use of Names, an eristic work; On Question and Answer; On Opinion and Knowledge, 1, 2, 3, 4; On Dying; On Life and Death; On Those in Hades; On Nature, 1, 2; A Question about Nature, 2; Opinions, or The Eristic; Problems about Learning.

The eighth volume contains: On Music; On Interpreters; On Homer; On Injustice and Impiety; On Calchas; On the Scout; On Pleasure.

The ninth volume contains: On the Odyssey; On the Staff; Athena, or On Telemachus; On Helen and Penelope; On Proteus; Cyclops, or On Odysseus; 18 On the Use of Wine, or On Drunkenness, or On the Cyclops; On Circe; On Amphiaraus; On Odysseus and Penelope, and On the Dog.

The tenth volume contains: Heracles, or Midas; Heracles, or On Understanding or Strength; Cyrus, or The Beloved; Cyrus, or The Scouts; Menexenus, or On Ruling; Alcibiades; Archelaus, or On Kingship.

These, then, are his writings.

Timon, finding fault with him for their number, calls him “a babbler who turns out every kind of thing.” He died of an illness. During it Diogenes came in to see him and asked, “Do you need a friend?” Once he even came in carrying a dagger. When Antisthenes said, “Who will release me from my pains?”, he showed him the dagger and said, “This will.” And Antisthenes replied, “From my pains, I said, not from life.” 19 For it seemed that his love of life made him bear his illness rather weakly. And here is my own epigram on him: In life you were a dog, Antisthenes, so made by nature / as to bite the heart with words, not with your mouth. / But you died of consumption, someone may well say. So what? / One needs some guide to Hades anyway.note

There have also been three other men named Antisthenes: one a follower of Heraclitus, another from Ephesus, and a historian from Rhodes.

Since we have gone through the followers of Aristippus and of Phaedo, let us now draw out the Cynics and Stoics who derive from Antisthenes. Let it proceed as follows.

Diogenes, son of Hicesias the banker, was from Sinope. Diocles says that his father ran the public bank and debased the coinage, and that Diogenes went into exile. But Eubulides, in his On Diogenes, says that Diogenes himself did this and went into exile with his father. Indeed, Diogenes himself says in his Pordalus that he debased the coinage.

When he came to Athens, he attached himself to Antisthenes. Antisthenes pushed him away, since he admitted no one, but Diogenes forced his way in by sheer persistence. Once, when Antisthenes raised his staff at him, he offered his head and said, “Strike! You won’t find any wood hard enough to keep me away, as long as I think you have something to say.” From then on he was Antisthenes’ pupil, and, being an exile, he took up the simple life.

As Theophrastus says in his Megarian, he watched a mouse scurrying about, not looking for a bed, not afraid of the dark, not longing for any of the things people think enjoyable, and so he found a way out of his circumstances. According to some, he was the first to double his cloak, because he also had to sleep in it. He carried a bag in which he kept his food, and he used any place for any purpose: eating breakfast, sleeping, conversing. He would say, pointing to the Stoa of Zeus and the Pompeion, that the Athenians had built him places to live in.note

He was good at pouring scorn on others. He called Euclides’ school (scholē) bile (cholē), and Plato’s lectures (diatribē) a waste of time (katatribē). He called the Dionysiac contests great marvels for fools, and the demagogues the mob’s lackeys. He also used to say that when he looked at ship-pilots, doctors and philosophers in life, he thought man the most intelligent of animals; but when, on the other hand, he looked at dream-interpreters and seers and those who heed them, or at people puffed up with fame and wealth, he thought nothing more foolish than man. He constantly said that for life one should have prepared either reason or a rope.

Once at an expensive dinner he noticed Plato helping himself to olives. “Why is it,” he said, “that you, the wise man who sailed to Sicily for the sake of tables like these, don’t enjoy them now that they’re set before you?” Plato said, “By the gods, Diogenes, there too I mostly lived on olives and things like that.” Diogenes replied, “Then why did you need to sail to Syracuse? Or didn’t Attica grow olives in those days?” Favorinus, however, in his Miscellaneous History, says it was Aristippus who said this. Another time, when he was eating dried figs, he met Plato and said, “You may have a share.” Plato took them and ate them, and he said, “I said have a share, not eat them all.”note

Once, when Plato had invited some friends who had come from Dionysius, Diogenes trampled on his carpets and said, “I trample on Plato’s empty vanity.” Plato replied, “How much pride you show, Diogenes, by seeming not to be proud!” Others say that Diogenes said, “I trample on Plato’s pride,” and Plato replied, “Yes, Diogenes, with a pride of a different kind.” Sotion, in his fourth book, says that the Dog said this to Plato himself. Diogenes once asked him for some wine, and at the same time for some dried figs, and Plato sent him a whole jar. Diogenes said, “If you’re asked how much two and two make, will you answer, ‘Twenty’? You don’t give what you’re asked for, and you don’t answer what you’re asked.” So he mocked him as someone who talked without end.note

Asked where in Greece he had seen good men, he said, “Men, nowhere; boys, in Sparta.” Once, when he was speaking seriously and nobody came near him, he started to whistle a tune. When people gathered, he rebuked them for coming eagerly to nonsense but being slow [and careless] about serious things. He used to say that people compete at gouging and kicking, but no one competes at being fine and good. And he was amazed at the grammarians, who investigate the troubles of Odysseus but know nothing of their own.

The boys learned by heart many passages of poets and prose writers and of Diogenes’ own writings, and he drilled them in every shortcut to a good memory. At home he taught them to wait on themselves, eating plain food and drinking water. He had their hair cropped close and kept them unadorned, without tunics, barefoot, silent, and keeping their eyes to themselves in the streets. He also took them out hunting. They, for their part, looked after Diogenes himself and asked their parents for favors on his behalf. The same author says that he grew old in Xeniades’ house and that when he died he was buried by Xeniades’ sons.

He said the maimed were not the deaf and the blind but those who had no bag. Once he went half-shaved into a young men’s drinking party, as Metrocles says in his Anecdotes, and was beaten up. Afterwards he wrote the names of the men who had hit him on a whitened board and went around with it hung on him, until he had covered them with disgrace, censured and rebuked by everyone. He said he was one of the dogs that people praise, but none of those who praise them dared to go out hunting with him. To the man who said, “At the Pythian games I defeat men,” he said, “No: I defeat men. You defeat slaves.”note

To those who said, “You’re old now; take it easy,” he said, “What? If I were running the long race, should I slow down near the finish instead of pushing harder?” Invited to dinner, he said he would not come, because they hadn’t thanked him last time either. He would walk barefoot on snow and do the other things described above. He even tried to eat raw meat, but couldn’t digest it. Once he caught Demosthenes the orator having lunch in a tavern. When Demosthenes drew back inside, he said, “That way you’ll be all the more in the tavern.” Once, when some foreigners wanted to see Demosthenes, he stretched out his middle finger and said, “There’s your Athenian demagogue.” 35 When someone dropped a loaf of bread and was too embarrassed to pick it up, Diogenes wanted to teach him a lesson, so he tied a string around the neck of a jar and dragged it through the Ceramicus.note

He said that he imitated the chorus trainers, who also pitch the note too high so that the rest will hit the right one. He said most people are mad by a finger’s breadth. If someone walks along holding out his middle finger, he will be thought mad; if it’s his index finger, he won’t. He said that things worth a great deal are sold for nothing, and the reverse. A statue, at any rate, sells for three thousand drachmas, and a quart of barley meal for two coppers.note

To Xeniades, who had bought him, he said, “Come on, see that you do what you’re told.” When Xeniades replied, Upstream the springs of the rivers flow, he said, “If you were ill and had bought a doctor, wouldn’t you obey him instead of saying, ‘Upstream the springs of the rivers flow’?” Someone wanted to study philosophy with him. Diogenes gave him a salt fish and told him to follow him. The man was embarrassed, threw it away and left. Some time later Diogenes met him, laughed and said, “A salt fish broke up the friendship between you and me.” Diocles, though, records it like this. When someone said to him, “Give us orders, Diogenes,” he took him off and gave him half an obol’s worth of cheese to carry. When the man refused, he said, “Half an obol’s worth of cheese has broken up the friendship between you and me.”note

Once, seeing a child drinking from his hands, he threw the cup out of his bag, saying, “A child has beaten me at plain living.” He also threw away his bowl when, in the same way, he saw a child who had broken his dish scooping up his lentils in the hollow of a piece of bread. He also used to reason like this. Everything belongs to the gods; the wise are friends of the gods; and friends share what they have. Therefore everything belongs to the wise. Once he saw a woman prostrating herself before the gods in a rather unseemly posture. Wanting to rid her of her superstition, as Zoilus of Perga says, he went up to her and said, “Aren’t you afraid, madam, that a god may be standing behind you (for everything is full of him), and you’ll be exposing yourself?” 38 He dedicated to Asclepius a bruiser who would run up to people who fell on their faces and beat them.

He was also loved by the Athenians. At any rate, when a youth smashed his jar, they gave the youth a beating and gave Diogenes another jar. Dionysius the Stoic says that after Chaeronea he was captured and taken to Philip. Asked who he was, he answered, “A spy on your greed.” He was admired for this and set free.note

Once, when Alexander sent a letter to Antipater in Athens by a man called Athlios, Diogenes, who was there, said: a wretch from a wretch by a wretch to a wretch.note

When Perdiccas threatened to kill him if he did not come to him, he said, “That’s nothing much. A beetle or a tarantula could do as much.” The threat he thought Perdiccas ought to make was rather this: “that even if he lived without me, he would live happily.” He often cried out that the gods had given human beings an easy life, but that it had been hidden from them because they go after honey cakes, perfumes and the like. Hence to a man who was having his shoes put on by his servant he said, “You won’t be truly blessed until he wipes your nose for you too. And that will come once you’ve lost the use of your hands.”