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■The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
by Diogenes Laertius.
BOOK VI.LIFE OF ANTISTHENES.
I. Antisthenes was an Athenian, the son of Antisthenes. And he was said not to be a legitimate Athenian; in reference to which he said to some one who was reproaching him with the circumstance, “The mother of the Gods too is a Phrygian;” for he was thought to have had a Thracian mother. On which account, as he had borne himself bravely in the battle of Tanagra, he gave occasion to Socrates to say that the son of two Athenians could not have been so brave. And he himself, when disparaging the Athenians who gave themselves great airs as having been born out of the earth itself, said that they were not more noble as far as that went than snails and locusts.
II. Originally he was a pupil of Gorgias the rhetorician; owing to which circumstance he employs the rhetorical style of language in his Dialogues, especially in his Truth and in his Exhortations. And Hermippus says, that he had originally intended in his address at the assembly, on account of the Isthmian games, to attack and also to praise the Athenians, and Thebans, and Lacedæmonians; but that he afterwards abandoned the design, when he saw that there were a great many spectators come from those cities. Afterwards, he attached himself to Socrates, and made such progress in philosophy while with him, that he advised all his own pupils to become his fellow pupils in the school of Socrates. And as he lived in the Piræus, he went up forty furlongs to the city every day, in order to hear Socrates, from whom he learnt the art of enduring, and of being indifferent to external circumstances, and so became the original founder of the Cynic school.
III. And he used to argue that labour was a good thing, by adducing the examples of the great Hercules, and of Cyrus, one of which he derived from the Greeks and the other from the barbarians.
IV. He was also the first person who ever gave a definition of discourse, saying, “Discourse is that which shows what[218] anything is or was.” And he used continually to say, “I would rather go mad than feel pleasure.” And, “One ought to attach one’s self to such women as will thank one for it.” He said once to a youth from Pontus, who was on the point of coming to him to be his pupil, and was asking him what things he wanted, “You want a new book, and a new pen, and a new tablet;”—meaning a new mind. And to a person who asked him from what country he had better marry a wife, he said, “If you marry a handsome woman, she will be common;[54] if an ugly woman, she will be a punishment to you.” He was told once that Plato spoke ill of him, and he replied, “It is a royal privilege to do well, and to be evil spoken of.” When he was being initiated into the mysteries of Orpheus, and the priest said that those who were initiated enjoyed many good things in the shades below, “Why, then,” said he “do not you die?” Being once reproached as not being the son of two free citizens, he said, “And I am not the son of two people skilled in wrestling; nevertheless, I am a skilful wrestler.” On one occasion he was asked why he had but few disciples, and said, “Because I drove them away with a silver rod.” When he was asked why he reproved his pupils with bitter language, he said, “Physicians too use severe remedies for their patients.” Once he saw an adulterer running away, and said, “O unhappy man! how much danger could you have avoided for one obol!” He used to say, as Hecaton tells us in his Apophthegms, “That it was better to fall among crows,[55] than among flatterers; for that they only devour the dead, but the others devour the living.” When he was asked what was the most happy event that could take place in human life, he said, “To die while prosperous.”
On one occasion one of his friends was lamenting to him that he had lost his memoranda, and he said to him, “You ought to have written them on your mind, and not on paper.” A favourite saying of his was, “That envious people were devoured by their own disposition, just as iron is by rust.” Another was, “That those who wish to be immortal ought to live piously and justly.” He used to say too, “That cities[219] were ruined when they were unable to distinguish worthless citizens from virtuous ones.”
On one occasion he was being praised by some wicked men, and said, “I am sadly afraid that I must have done some wicked thing.” One of his favourite sayings was, “That the fellowship of brothers of one mind was stronger than any fortified city.” He used to say, “That those things were the best for a man to take on a journey, which would float with him if he were shipwrecked.” He was once reproached for being intimate with wicked men, and said, “Physicians also live with those who are sick; and yet they do not catch fevers.” He used to say, “that it was an absurd thing to clean a cornfield of tares, and in war to get rid of bad soldiers, and yet not to rid one’s self in a city of the wicked citizens.” When he was asked what advantage he had ever derived from philosophy, he replied, “The advantage of being able to converse with myself.” At a drinking party, a man once said to him, “Give us a song,” and he replied, “Do you play us a tune on the flute.” When Diogenes asked him for a tunic, he bade him fold his cloak. He was asked on one occasion what learning was the most necessary, and he replied, “To unlearn one’s bad habits.” And he used to exhort those who found themselves ill spoken of, to endure it more than they would any one’s throwing stones at them. He used to laugh at Plato as conceited; accordingly, once when there was a fine procession, seeing a horse neighing, he said to Plato, “I think you too would be a very frisky horse:” and he said this all the more, because Plato kept continually praising the horse. At another time, he had gone to see him when he was ill, and when he saw there a dish in which Plato had been sick, he said, “I see your bile there, but I do not see your conceit.” He used to advise the Athenians to pass a vote that asses were horses; and, as they thought that irrational, he said, “Why, those whom you make generals have never learnt to be really generals, they have only been voted such.”
A man said to him one day, “Many people praise you.” “Why, what evil,” said he, “have I done?” When he turned the rent in his cloak outside, Socrates seeing it, said to him, “I see your vanity through the hole in your cloak.” On another occasion, the question was put to him by some one, as Phanias relates, in his treatise on the Philosophers of the[220] Socratic school, what a man could do to show himself an honourable and a virtuous man; and he replied, “If you attend to those who understand the subject, and learn from them that you ought to shun the bad habits which you have.” Some one was praising luxury in his hearing, and he said, “May the children of my enemies be luxurious.” Seeing a young man place himself in a carefully studied attitude before a modeller, he said, “Tell me, if the brass could speak, on what would it pride itself?” And when the young man replied, “On its beauty.” “Are you not then,” said he, “ashamed to rejoice in the same thing as an inanimate piece of brass?” A young man from Pontus once promised to recollect him, if a vessel of salt fish arrived; and so he took him with him, and also an empty bag, and went to a woman who sold meal, and filled his sack and went away; and when the woman asked him to pay for it, he said, “The young man will pay you, when the vessel of salt fish comes home.”
He it was who appears to have been the cause of Anytus’s banishment, and of Meletus’s death. For having met with some young men of Pontus, who had come to Athens, on account of the reputation of Socrates, he took them to Anytus, telling them, that in moral philosophy he was wiser than Socrates; and they who stood by were indignant at this, and drove him away. And whenever he saw a woman beautifully adorned, he would go off to her house, and desire her husband to bring forth his horse and his arms; and then if he had such things, he would give him leave to indulge in luxury, for that he had the means of defending himself; but if he had them not, then he would bid him strip his wife of her ornaments.
V. And the doctrines he adopted were these. He used to insist that virtue was a thing which might be taught; also, that the nobly born and virtuously disposed, were the same people; for that virtue was of itself sufficient for happiness, and was in need of nothing, except the strength of Socrates. He also looked upon virtue as a species of work, not wanting many arguments, or much instruction; and he taught that the wise man was sufficient for himself; for that everything that belonged to any one else belonged to him. He considered obscurity of fame a good thing, and equally good with labour. And he used to say that the wise man would regulate[221] his conduct as a citizen, not according to the established laws of the state, but according to the law of virtue. And that he would marry for the sake of having children, selecting the most beautiful woman for his wife. And that he would love her; for that the wise man alone knew what objects deserved love.
Diocles also attributes the following apophthegms to him. To the wise man, nothing is strange and nothing remote. The virtuous man is worthy to be loved. Good men are friends. It is right to make the brave and just one’s allies. Virtue is a weapon of which a man cannot be deprived. It is better to fight with a few good men against all the wicked, than with many wicked men against a few good men. One should attend to one’s enemies, for they are the first persons to detect one’s errors. One should consider a just man as of more value than a relation. Virtue is the same in a man as in a woman. What is good is honourable, and what is bad is disgraceful. Think everything that is wicked, foreign. Prudence is the safest fortification; for it can neither fall to pieces nor be betrayed. One must prepare one’s self a fortress in one’s own impregnable thoughts.
VI. He used to lecture in the Gymnasium called Cynosarges, not far from the gates; and some people say that it is from that place that the sect got the name of Cynics. And he himself was called Haplocyon (downright dog).
VII. He was the first person to set the fashion of doubling his cloak, as Diocles says, and he wore no other garment. And he used to carry a stick and a wallet; but Neanthes says that he was the first person who wore a cloak without folding it. But Sosicrates, in the third book of his Successions, says that Diodorus, of Aspendos, let his beard grow, and used to carry a stick and a wallet.
VIII. He is the only one of all the pupils of Socrates, whom Theopompus praises and speaks of as clever, and able to persuade whomsoever he pleased by the sweetness of his conversation. And this is plain, both from his own writings, and from the Banquet of Xenophon. He appears to have been the founder of the more manly Stoic school; on which account Athenæus, the epigrammatist, speaks thus of them:—
O ye, who learned are in Stoic fables,
Ye who consign the wisest of all doctrines
[222]
To your most sacred books; you say that virtue
Is the sole good; for that alone can save
The life of man, and strongly fenced cities.
But if some fancy pleasure their best aim,
One of the Muses ’tis who has convinc’d them.
He was the original cause of the apathy of Diogenes, and the temperance of Crates, and the patience of Zeno, having himself, as it were, laid the foundations of the city which they afterwards built. And Xenophon says, that in his conversation and society, he was the most delightful of men, and in every respect the most temperate.
IX. There are ten volumes of his writings extant. The first volume is that in which there is the essay on Style, or on Figures of Speech; the Ajax, or speech of Ajax; the Defence, of Orestes or the treatise on Lawyers; the Isographe, or the Lysias and Isocrates; the reply to the work of Isocrates, entitled the Absence of Witnesses. The second volume is that in which we have the treatise on the Nature of Animals; on the Pro-creation of Children, or on Marriage, an essay of an amatory character; on the Sophists, an essay of a physiognomical character; on Justice and Manly Virtue, being three essays of an hortatory character; two treatises on Theognis. The third volume contains a treatise on the Good; on Manly Courage; on Law, or Political Constitutions; on Law, or what is Honourable and Just; on Freedom and Slavery; on Good Faith; on a Guardian, or on Persuasion; on Victory, an economical essay. The fourth volume contains the Cyrus; the Greater Heracles, or a treatise on Strength. The fifth volume contains the Cyrus, or a treatise on Kingly Power; the Aspasia.
The sixth volume is that in which there is the treatise Truth; another (a disputatious one) concerning Arguing; the Sathon, or on Contradiction, in three parts; and an essay on Dialect. The seventh contains a treatise on Education, or Names, in five books; one on the Use of Names, or the Contentious Man; one on Questions and Answers; one on Opinion and Knowledge, in four books; one on Dying; one on Life and Death; one on those who are in the Shades below; one on Nature, in two books; two books of Questions in Natural Philosophy; one essay, called Opinions on the Contentious Man; one book of Problems, on the subject of[223] Learning. The eighth volume is that in which we find a treatise on Music; one on Interpreters; one on Homer; one on Injustice and Impiety; one on Calchas; one on a Spy; one on Pleasure. The ninth book contains an essay on the Odyssey; one on the Magic Wand; the Minerva, or an essay on Telemachus; an essay on Helen and Penelope; one on Proteus; the Cyclops, being an essay on Ulysses; an essay on the Use of Wine, or on Drunkenness, or on the Cyclops; one on Circe; one on Amphiaraus; one on Ulysses and Penelope, and also on Ulysses’ Dog. The tenth volume is occupied by the Heracles, or Medas; the Hercules, or an Essay on Prudence or Strength; the Lord or the Lover; the Lord or the Spies; the Menexenus, or an essay on Governing; the Alcibiades; the Archelaus, or an essay on Kingly Power.
These then are the names of his works. And Timon, rebuking him because of their great number, called him a universal chatterer.
X. He died of some disease; and while he was ill Diogenes came to visit him, and said to him, “Have you no need of a friend?” Once too he came to see him with a sword in his hand; and when Antisthenes said, “Who can deliver me from this suffering?” he, pointing to the sword, said, “This can;” But he rejoined, “I said from suffering, but not from life;” for he seemed to bear his disease the more calmly from his love of life. And there is an epigram on him written by ourselves, which runs thus:—
In life you were a bitter dog, Antisthenes,
Born to bite people’s minds with sayings sharp,
Not with your actual teeth. Now you are slain
By fell consumption, passers by may say,
Why should he not, one wants a guide to Hell.
There were also three other people of the name of Antisthenes. One, a disciple of Heraclitus; the second, an Ephesian; the third, a historian of Rhodes. And since we have spoken of those who proceeded from the school of Aristippus and Phædon, we may now go on to the Cynics and Stoics, who derived their origin from Antisthenes. And we will take them in the following order.
[224]
LIFE OF DIOGENES.
I. Diogenes was a native of Sinope, the son of Hicesius, a money-changer. And Diocles says that he was forced to flee from his native city, as his father kept the public bank there, and had adulterated the coinage. But Eubulides, in his essay on Diogenes, says, that it was Diogenes himself who did this, and that he was banished with his father. And, indeed, he himself, in his Pordalus, says of himself that he had adulterated the public money. Others say that he was one of the curators, and was persuaded by the artisans employed, and that he went to Delphi, or else to the oracle at Delos, and there consulted Apollo as to whether he should do what people were trying to persuade him to do; and that, as the God gave him permission to do so, Diogenes, not comprehending that the God meant that he might change the political customs[56] of his country if he could, adulterated the coinage; and being detected, was banished, as some people say, but as other accounts have it, took the alarm and fled away of his own accord. Some again, say that he adulterated the money which he had received from his father; and that his father was thrown into prison and died there; but that Diogenes escaped and went to Delphi, and asked, not whether he might tamper with the coinage, but what he could do to become very celebrated, and that in consequence he received the oracular answer which I have mentioned.
II. And when he came to Athens he attached himself to Antisthenes; but as he repelled him, because he admitted no one; he at last forced his way to him by his pertinacity. And once, when he raised his stick at him, he put his head under it, and said, “Strike, for you will not find any stick hard enough to drive me away as long as you continue to speak.” And from this time forth he was one of his pupils; and being an exile, he naturally betook himself to a simple mode of life.
III. And when, as Theophrastus tells us, in his Megaric Philosopher, he saw a mouse running about and not seeking[225] for a bed, nor taking care to keep in the dark, nor looking for any of those things which appear enjoyable to such an animal, he found a remedy for his own poverty. He was, according to the account of some people, the first person who doubled up his cloak out of necessity, and who slept in it; and who carried a wallet, in which he kept his food; and who used whatever place was near for all sorts of purposes, eating, and sleeping, and conversing in it. In reference to which habit he used to say, pointing to the Colonnade of Jupiter, and to the Public Magazine, “that the Athenians had built him places to live in.” Being attacked with illness, he supported himself with a staff; and after that he carried it continually, not indeed in the city, but whenever he was walking in the roads, together with his wallet, as Olympiodorus, the chief man of the Athenians tells us; and Polyeuctus, the orator, and Lysanias, the son of Æschrion, tell the same story.
When he had written to some one to look out and get ready a small house for him, as he delayed to do it, he took a cask which he found in the Temple of Cybele, for his house, as he himself tells us in his letters. And during the summer he used to roll himself in the warm sand, but in winter he would embrace statues all covered with snow, practising himself, on every occasion, to endure anything.
IV. He was very violent in expressing his haughty disdain of others. He said that the σχολὴ (school) of Euclides was χολὴ (gall). And he used to call Plato’s διατριβὴ (discussions) κατατριβὴ (disguise). It was also a saying of his that the Dionysian games were a great marvel to fools; and that the demagogues were the ministers of the multitude. He used likewise to say, “that when in the course of his life he beheld pilots, and physicians, and philosophers, he thought man the wisest of all animals; but when again he beheld interpreters of dreams, and soothsayers, and those who listened to them, and men puffed up with glory or riches, then he thought that there was not a more foolish animal than man.” Another of his sayings was, “that he thought a man ought oftener to provide himself with a reason than with a halter.” On one occasion, when he noticed Plato at a very costly entertainment tasting some olives, he said, “O you wise man! why, after having sailed to Sicily for the sake of such a feast, do you not now enjoy what you have before you?” And Plato replied,[226] “By the Gods, Diogenes, while I was there I ate olives and all such things a great deal.” Diogenes rejoined, “What then did you want to sail to Syracuse for? Did not Attica at that time produce any olives?” But Phavorinus, in his Universal History, tells this story of Aristippus. At another time he was eating dried figs, when Plato met him, and he said to him, “You may have a share of these;” and as he took some and ate them, he said, “I said that you might have a share of them, not that you might eat them all.” On one occasion Plato had invited some friends who had come to him from Dionysius to a banquet, and Diogenes trampled on his carpets, and said, “Thus I trample on the empty pride of Plato;” and Plato made him answer, “How much arrogance are you displaying, O Diogenes! when you think that you are not arrogant at all.” But, as others tell the story, Diogenes said, “Thus I trample on the pride of Plato;” and that Plato rejoined, “With quite as much pride yourself, O Diogenes.” Sotion too, in his fourth book, states, that the Cynic made the following speech to Plato: Diogenes once asked him for some wine, and then for some dried figs; so he sent him an entire jar full; and Diogenes said to him, “Will you, if you are asked how many two and two make, answer twenty? In this way, you neither give with any reference to what you are asked for, nor do you answer with reference to the question put to you.” He used also to ridicule him as an interminable talker. When he was asked where in Greece he saw virtuous men; “Men,” said he, “nowhere; but I see good boys in Lacedæmon.” On one occasion, when no one came to listen to him while he was discoursing seriously, he began to whistle. And then when people flocked round him, he reproached them for coming with eagerness to folly, but being lazy and indifferent about good things. One of his frequent sayings was, “That men contended with one another in punching and kicking, but that no one showed any emulation in the pursuit of virtue.” He used to express his astonishment at the grammarians for being desirous to learn everything about the misfortunes of Ulysses, and being ignorant of their own. He used also to say, “That the musicians fitted the strings to the lyre properly, but left all the habits of their soul ill-arranged.” And, “That mathematicians kept their eyes fixed on the sun and moon, and overlooked what was under their feet.” “That[227] orators were anxious to speak justly, but not at all about acting so.” Also, “That misers blamed money, but were preposterously fond of it.” He often condemned those who praise the just for being superior to money, but who at the same time are eager themselves for great riches. He was also very indignant at seeing men sacrifice to the Gods to procure good health, and yet at the sacrifice eating in a manner injurious to health. He often expressed his surprise at slaves, who, seeing their masters eating in a gluttonous manner, still do not themselves lay hands on any of the eatables. He would frequently praise those who were about to marry, and yet did not marry; or who were about to take a voyage, and yet did not take a voyage; or who were about to engage in affairs of state, and did not do so; and those who were about to rear children, yet did not rear any; and those who were preparing to take up their abode with princes, and yet did not take it up. One of his sayings was, “That one ought to hold out one’s hand to a friend without closing the fingers.”
Hermippus, in his Sale of Diogenes, says that he was taken prisoner and put up to be sold, and asked what he could do; and he answered, “Govern men.” And so he bade the crier “give notice that if any one wants to purchase a master, there is one here for him.” When he was ordered not to sit down; “It makes no difference,” said he, “for fish are sold, be where they may.” He used to say, that he wondered at men always ringing a dish or jar before buying it, but being content to judge of a man by his look alone. When Xeniades bought him, he said to him that he ought to obey him even though he was his slave; for that a physician or a pilot would find men to obey them even though they might be slaves.
V. And Eubulus says, in his essay entitled, The Sale of Diogenes, that he taught the children of Xeniades, after their other lessons, to ride, and shoot, and sling, and dart. And then in the Gymnasium he did not permit the trainer to exercise them after the fashion of athletes, but exercised them himself to just the degree sufficient to give them a good colour and good health. And the boys retained in their memory many sentences of poets and prose writers, and of Diogenes himself; and he used to give them a concise statement of everything[228] in order to strengthen their memory; and at home he used to teach them to wait upon themselves, contenting themselves with plain food, and drinking water. And he accustomed them to cut their hair close, and to eschew ornament, and to go without tunics or shoes, and to keep silent, looking at nothing except themselves as they walked along. He used, also to take them out hunting; and they paid the greatest attention and respect to Diogenes himself, and spoke well of him to their parents.
VI. And the same author affirms, that he grew old in the household of Xeniades, and that when he died he was buried by his sons. And that while he was living with him, Xeniades once asked him how he should bury him; and he said, “On my face;” and when he was asked why, he said, “Because, in a little while, everything will be turned upside down.” And he said this because the Macedonians were already attaining power, and becoming a mighty people from having been very inconsiderable. Once, when a man had conducted him into a magnificent house, and had told him that he must not spit, after hawking a little, he spit in his face, saying that he could not find a worse place. But some tell this story of Aristippus. Once, he called out, “Holloa, men.” And when some people gathered round him in consequence, he drove them away with his stick, saying, “I called men, and not dregs.” This anecdote I have derived from Hecaton, in the first book of his Apophthegms. They also relate that Alexander said that if he had not been Alexander, he should have liked to be Diogenes. He used to call ἀνάπηροι (cripples), not those who were dumb and blind, but those who had no wallet (πήρα). On one occasion he went half shaved into an entertainment of young men, as Metrocles tells us in his Apophthegms, and so was beaten by them. And afterwards he wrote the names of all those who had beaten him, on a white tablet, and went about with the tablet round his neck, so as to expose them to insult, as they were generally condemned and reproached for their conduct.
He used to say that he was the hound of those who were praised; but that none of those who praised them dared to go out hunting with him. A man once said to him, “I conquered men at the Pythian games:” on which he said, “I conquer men, but you only conquer slaves.” When some[229] people said to him, “You are an old man, and should rest for the remainder of your life;” “Why so?” replied he, “suppose I had run a long distance, ought I to stop when I was near the end, and not rather press on?” Once, when he was invited to a banquet, he said that he would not come: for that the day before no one had thanked him for coming. He used to go bare foot through the snow, and to do a number of other things which have been already mentioned. Once he attempted to eat raw meat, but he could not digest it. On one occasion he found Demosthenes, the orator, dining in an inn; and as he was slipping away, he said to him, “You will now be ever so much more in an inn.”[57] Once, when some strangers wished to see Demosthenes, he stretched out his middle finger, and said, “This is the great demagogue of the Athenian people.” When some one had dropped a loaf, and was ashamed to pick it up again, he, wishing to give him a lesson, tied a cord round the neck of a bottle and dragged it all through the Ceramicus. He used to say, that he imitated the teachers of choruses, for that they spoke too loud, in order that the rest might catch the proper tone. Another of his sayings, was that most men were within a finger’s breadth of being mad. If, then, any one were to walk along, stretching out his middle finger, he will seem to be mad; but if he puts out his fore finger, he will not be thought so. Another of his sayings was, that things of great value were often sold for nothing, and vice versâ. Accordingly, that a statue would fetch three thousand drachmas, and a bushel of meal only two obols; and when Xeniades had bought him, he said to him, “Come, do what you are ordered to.” And when he said—
“The streams of sacred rivers now
Run backwards to their source!”
“Suppose,” rejoined Diogenes, “you had been sick, and had bought a physician, could you refuse to be guided by him, and tell him—
“The streams of sacred rivers now
Run backwards to their source?”
Once a man came to him, and wished to study philosophy[230] as his pupil; and he gave him a saperda[58] and made him follow him. And as he from shame threw it away and departed, he soon afterwards met him and, laughing, said to him, “A saperda has dissolved your friendship for me.” But Diocles tells this story in the following manner; that when some one said to him, “Give me a commission, Diogenes,” he carried him off, and gave him a halfpenny worth of cheese to carry. And as he refused to carry it, “See,” said Diogenes, “a halfpenny worth of cheese has broken off our friendship.”
On one occasion he saw a child drinking out of its hands, and so he threw away the cup which belonged to his wallet, saying, “That child has beaten me in simplicity.” He also threw away his spoon, after seeing a boy, when he had broken his vessel, take up his lentils with a crust of bread. And he used to argue thus,—“Everything belongs to the gods; and wise men are the friends of the gods. All things are in common among friends; therefore everything belongs to wise men.” Once he saw a woman falling down before the Gods in an unbecoming attitude; he, wishing to cure her of her superstition, as Zoilus of Perga tells us, came up to her, and said, “Are you not afraid, O woman, to be in such an indecent attitude, when some God may be behind you, for every place is full of him?” He consecrated a man to Æsculapius, who was to run up and beat all these who prostrated themselves with their faces to the ground; and he was in the habit of saying that the tragic curse had come upon him, for that he was—
Houseless and citiless, a piteous exile
From his dear native land; a wandering beggar,
Scraping a pittance poor from day to day.
And another of his sayings was that he opposed confidence to fortune, nature to law, and reason to suffering. Once, while he was sitting in the sun in the Craneum, Alexander was standing by, and said to him, “Ask any favour you choose of me.” And he replied, “Cease to shade me from the sun.” On one occasion a man was reading some long passages, and when he came to the end of the book and showed that there was nothing more written, “Be of good cheer, my friends,” exclaimed Diogenes, “I see land.” A man once proved to[231] him syllogistically that he had horns, so he put his hand to his forehead and said, “I do not see them.” And in a similar manner he replied to one who had been asserting that there was no such thing as motion, by getting up and walking away. When a man was talking about the heavenly bodies and meteors, “Pray how many days,” said he to him, “is it since you came down from heaven?”
A profligate eunuch had written on his house, “Let no evil thing enter in.” “Where,” said Diogenes, “is the master of the house going?” After having anointed his feet with perfume, he said that the ointment from his head mounted up to heaven, and that from his feet up to his nose. When the Athenians entreated him to be initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, and said that in the shades below the initiated had the best seats; “It will,” he replied, “be an absurd thing if Agesilaus and Epaminondas are to live in the mud, and some miserable wretches, who have been initiated, are to be in the islands of the blest.” Some mice crept up to his table, and he said, “See, even Diogenes maintains his favourites.” Once, when he was leaving the bath, and a man asked him whether many men were bathing, he said, “No;” but when a number of people came out, he confessed that there were a great many. When Plato called him a dog, he said, “Undoubtedly, for I have come back to those who sold me.”
Plato defined man thus: “Man is a two-footed, featherless animal,” and was much praised for the definition; so Diogenes plucked a cock and brought it into his school, and said, “This is Plato’s man.” On which account this addition was made to the definition, “With broad flat nails.” A man once asked him what was the proper time for supper, and he made answer, “If you are a rich man, whenever you please; and if you are a poor man, whenever you can.” When he was at Megara he saw some sheep carefully covered over with skins, and the children running about naked; and so he said, “It is better at Megara to be a man’s ram, than his son.” A man once struck him with a beam, and then said, “Take care.” “What,” said he, “are you going to strike me again?” He used to say that the demagogues were the servants of the people; and garlands the blossoms of glory. Having lighted a candle in the day time, he said, “I am looking for a man.” On one occasion he stood under a fountain,[232] and as the bystanders were pitying him, Plato, who was present, said to them, “If you wish really to show your pity for him, come away;” intimating that he was only acting thus out of a desire for notoriety. Once, when a man had struck him with his fist, he said, “O Hercules, what a strange thing that I should be walking about with a helmet on without knowing it!”
When Midias struck him with his fist and said, “There are three thousand drachmas for you;” the next day Diogenes took the cestus of a boxer and beat him soundly, and said, “There are three thousand drachmas for you.”[59] When Lysias, the drug-seller, asked him whether he thought that there were any Gods: “How,” said he, “can I help thinking so, when I consider you to be hated by them?” but some attribute this reply to Theodorus. Once he saw a man purifying himself by washing, and said to him, “Oh, wretched man, do not you know that as you cannot wash away blunders in grammar by purification, so, too, you can no more efface the errors of a life in that same manner?”
He used to say that men were wrong for complaining of fortune; for that they ask of the Gods what appear to be good things, not what are really so. And to those who were alarmed at dreams he said, that they did not regard what they do while they are awake, but make a great fuss about what they fancy they see while they are asleep. Once, at the Olympic games, when the herald proclaimed, “Dioxippus is the conqueror of men;” he said, “He is the conqueror of slaves, I am the conqueror of men.”
He was greatly beloved by the Athenians; accordingly, when a youth had broken his cask they beat him, and gave Diogenes another. And Dionysius, the Stoic, says that after the battle of Chæronea he was taken prisoner and brought to Philip; and being asked who he was, replied, “A spy, to spy upon your insatiability.” And Philip marvelled at him and let him go. Once, when Alexander had sent a letter to Athens to Antipater, by the hands of a man named Athlias, he, being present, said, “Athlias from Athlius, by means of[233] Athlias to Athlius.”[60] When Perdiccas threatened that he would put him to death if he did not come to him, he replied, “That is nothing strange, for a scorpion or a tarantula could do as much: you had better threaten me that, if I kept away, you should be very happy.” He used constantly to repeat with emphasis that an easy life had been given to man by the Gods, but that it had been overlaid by their seeking for honey, cheese-cakes, and unguents, and things of that sort. On which account he said to a man, who had his shoes put on by his servant, “You are not thoroughly happy, unless he also wipes your nose for you; and he will do this, if you are crippled in your hands.” On one occasion, when he had seen the hieromnemones[61] leading off one of the stewards who had stolen a goblet, he said, “The great thieves are carrying off the little thief.” At another time, seeing a young man throwing stones at a cross, he said, “Well done, you will be sure to reach the mark.” Once, too, some boys got round him and said, “We are taking care that you do not bite us;” but he said, “Be of good cheer, my boys, a dog does not eat beef.” He saw a man giving himself airs because he was clad in a lion’s skin, and said to him, “Do not go on disgracing the garb of nature.” When people were speaking of the happiness of Callisthenes, and saying what splendid treatment he received from Alexander, he replied, “The man then is wretched, for he is forced to breakfast and dine whenever Alexander chooses.” When he was in want of money, he said that be reclaimed it from his friends and did not beg for it.
On one occasion he was working with his hands in the market-place, and said, “I wish I could rub my stomach in the same way, and so avoid hunger.” When he saw a young man going with some satraps to supper, he dragged him away and led him off to his relations, and bade them take care of him. He was once addressed by a youth beautifully adorned, who asked him some question; and he refused to give him any answer, till he satisfied him whether he was a man or a woman. And on one occasion, when a youth was playing the[234] cottabus in the bath, he said to him, “The better you do it, the worse you do it.” Once at a banquet, some of the guests threw him bones, as if he had been a dog; so he, as he went away, put up his leg against them as if he had been a dog in reality. He used to call the orators, and all those who speak for fame τρισάνθρωποι (thrice men), instead of τρισάθλιοι (thrice miserable). He said that a rich but ignorant man, was like a sheep with a golden fleece. When he saw a notice on the house of a profligate man, “To be sold.” “I knew,” said he, “that you who are so incessantly drunk, would soon vomit up your owner.” To a young man, who was complaining of the number of people who sought his acquaintance, he said, “Do not make such a parade of your vanity.”
Having been in a very dirty bath, he said, “I wonder where the people, who bathe here, clean themselves.” When all the company was blaming an indifferent harp-player, he alone praised him, and being asked why he did so, he said, “Because, though he is such as he is, he plays the harp and does not steal.” He saluted a harp player who was always left alone by his hearers, with, “Good morning, cock;” and when the man asked him, “Why so?” he said, “Because you, when you sing, make every one get up.” When a young man was one day making a display of himself, he, having filled the bosom of his robe with lupins, began to eat them; and when the multitude looked at him, he said, “that he marvelled at their leaving the young man to look at him.” And when a man, who was very superstitious, said to him, “With one blow I will break your head;” “And I,” he replied, “with one sneeze will make you tremble.” When Hegesias entreated him to lend him one of his books, he said, “You are a silly fellow, Hegesias, for you will not take painted figs, but real ones; and yet you overlook the genuine practice of virtue, and seek for what is merely written.” A man once reproached him with his banishment, and his answer was, “You wretched man, that is what made me a philosopher.” And when, on another occasion, some one said to him, “The people of Sinope condemned you to banishment,” he replied, “And I condemned them to remain where they were.” Once he saw a man who had been victor at the Olympic games, feeding (νέμοντα) sheep, and he said to him, “You have soon come across my friend from the Olympic games, to the Nemean.”[235] When he was asked why athletes are insensible to pain, he said, “Because they are built up of pork and beef.”
He once asked for a statue; and being questioned as to his reason for doing so, he said, “I am practising disappointment.” Once he was begging of some one (for he did this at first out of actual want), he said, “If you have given to any one else, give also to me; and if you have never given to any one, then begin with me.” On one occasion, he was asked by the tyrant, “What sort of brass was the best for a statue?” and he replied, “That of which the statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton are made.” When he was asked how Dionysius treats his friends, he said, “Like bags; those which are full he hangs up, and those which are empty he throws away.” A man who was lately married put an inscription on his house, “Hercules Callinicus, the son of Jupiter, lives here; let no evil enter.” And so Diogenes wrote in addition, “An alliance is made after the war is over.” He used to say that covetousness was the metropolis of all evils. Seeing on one occasion a profligate man in an inn eating olives, he said, “If you had dined thus, you would not have supped thus.” One of his apophthegms was, that good men were the images of the Gods; another, that love was the business of those who had nothing to do. When he was asked what was miserable in life, he answered, “An indigent old man.” And when the question was put to him, what beast inflicts the worst bite, he said, “Of wild beasts the sycophant, and of tame animals the flatterer.”
On one occasion he saw two Centaurs very badly painted; he said, “Which of the two is the worst?”[62] He used to say that a speech, the object of which was solely to please, was a honeyed halter. He called the belly, the Charybdis of life. Having heard once that Didymon the adulterer, had been caught in the fact, he said, “He deserves to be hung by his name.”[63] When the question was put to him, why gold is of a pale colour, he said, “Because it has so many people plotting[236] against it.” When he saw a woman in a litter, he said, “The cage is not suited to the animal.” And seeing a runaway slave sitting on a well, he said, “My boy, take care you do not fall in.” Another time, he saw a little boy who was a stealer of clothes from the baths, and said, “Are you going for unguents, (ἐπ’ ἀλειμμάτιον), or for other garments (ἐπ’ ἄλλ’ ἱμάτιον).” Seeing some women hanging on olive trees, he said, “I wish every tree bore similar fruit.” At another time, he saw a clothes stealer, and addressed him thus:—
“What moves thee, say, when sleep has clos’d the sight,
To roam the silent fields in dead of night?
Art thou some wretch by hopes of plunder led,
Through heaps of carnage to despoil the dead.”[64]
When he was asked whether he had any girl or boy to wait on him, he said, “No.” And as his questioner asked further, “If then you die, who will bury you?” He replied, “Whoever wants my house.” Seeing a handsome youth sleeping without any protection, he nudged him, and said, “Wake up:—
“Mix’d with the vulgar shall thy fate be found,
Pierc’d in the back, a vile dishonest wound.”[65]
And he addressed a man who was buying delicacies at a great expense:—
“Not long, my son, will you on earth remain,
If such your dealings.”[66]
When Plato was discoursing about his “ideas,” and using the nouns “tableness” and “cupness;” “I, O Plato!” interrupted Diogenes, “see a table and a cup, but I see no tableness or cupness.” Plato made answer, “That is natural enough, for you have eyes, by which a cup and a table are contemplated; but you have not intellect, by which tableness and cupness are seen.”
On one occasion, he was asked by a certain person, “What sort of a man, O Diogenes, do you think Socrates?” and he[237] said, “A madman.” Another time, the question was put to him, when a man ought to marry? and his reply was, “Young men ought not to marry yet, and old men never ought to marry at all.” When asked what he would take to let a man give him a blow on the head? he replied, “A helmet.” Seeing a youth smartening himself up very carefully, he said to him, “If you are doing that for men, you are miserable; and if for women, you are profligate.” Once he saw a youth blushing, and addressed him, “Courage, my boy, that is the complexion of virtue.” Having once listened to two lawyers, he condemned them both; saying, “That the one had stolen the thing in question, and that the other had not lost it.” When asked what wine he liked to drink, he said, “That which belongs to another.” A man said to him one day, “Many people laugh at you.” “But I,” he replied, “am not laughed down.” When a man said to him, that it was a bad thing to live; “Not to live,” said he, “but to live badly.” When some people were advising him to make search for a slave who had run away, he said, “It would be a very absurd thing for Manes to be able to live without Diogenes, but for Diogenes not to be able to live without Manes.” When he was dining on olives, a cheese-cake was brought in, on which he threw the olive away, saying:—
Keep well aloof, O stranger, from all tyrants.[67]
And presently he added:—
He drove the olive off (μαστίξεν δ’ ἐλάαν).[68]
When he was asked what sort of a dog he was, he replied, “When hungry, I am a dog of Melita; when satisfied, a Molossian; a sort which most of those who praise, do not like to take out hunting with them, because of the labour of keeping up with them; and in like manner, you cannot associate with me, from fear of the pain I give you.” The question was put to him, whether wise men ate cheese-cakes, and he replied, “They eat everything, just as the rest of mankind.” When asked why people give to beggars and not to philosophers,[238] he said, “Because they think it possible that they themselves may become lame and blind, but they do not expect ever to turn out philosophers.” He once begged of a covetous man, and as he was slow to give, he said, “Man, I am asking you for something to maintain me (εἰς τροφὴν) and not to bury me (εἰς ταφὴν).” When some one reproached him for having tampered with the coinage, he said, “There was a time when I was such a person as you are now; but there never was when you were such as I am now, and never will be.” And to another person who reproached him on the same grounds, he said, “There were times when I did what I did not wish to, but that is not the case now.” When he went to Myndus, he saw some very large gates, but the city was a small one, and so he said, “Oh men of Myndus, shut your gates, lest your city should steal out.” On one occasion, he saw a man who had been detected stealing purple, and so he said:—
A purple death, and mighty fate overtook him.[69]
When Craterus entreated him to come and visit him, he said, “I would rather lick up salt at Athens, than enjoy a luxurious table with Craterus.” On one occasion, he met Anaximenes, the orator, who was a fat man, and thus accosted him; “Pray give us, who are poor, some of your belly; for by so doing you will be relieved yourself, and you will assist us.” And once, when he was discussing some point, Diogenes held up a piece of salt fish, and drew off the attention of his hearers; and as Anaximenes was indignant at this, he said, “See, one pennyworth of salt fish has put an end to the lecture of Anaximenes.” Being once reproached for eating in the market-place, he made answer, “I did, for it was in the market-place that I was hungry.” Some authors also attribute the following repartee to him. Plato saw him washing vegetables, and so, coming up to him, he quietly accosted him thus, “If you had paid court to Dionysius, you would not have been washing vegetables.” “And,” he replied, with equal quietness, “if you had washed vegetables, you would never have paid court to Dionysius.” When a man said to him once, “Most people laugh at you;” “And very[239] likely,” he replied, “the asses laugh at them; but they do not regard the asses, neither do I regard them.” Once he saw a youth studying philosophy, and said to him, “Well done; inasmuch as you are leading those who admire your person to contemplate the beauty of your mind.”
A certain person was admiring the offerings in the temple at Samothrace,[70] and he said to him, “They would have been much more numerous, if those who were lost had offered them instead of those who were saved;” but some attribute this speech to Diagoras the Melian. Once he saw a handsome youth going to a banquet, and said to him, “You will come back worse (χείρων);” and when he the next day after the banquet said to him, “I have left the banquet, and was no worse for it;” he replied, “You were not Chiron, but Eurytion.”[71] He was begging once of a very ill-tempered man, and as he said to him, “If you can persuade me, I will give you something;” he replied, “If I could persuade you, I would beg you to hang yourself.” He was on one occasion returning from Lacedæmon to Athens; and when some one asked him, “Whither are you going, and whence do you come?” he said, “I am going from the men’s apartments to the women’s.” Another time he was returning from the Olympic games, and when some one asked him whether there had been a great multitude there, he said, “A great multitude, but very few men.” He used to say that debauched men resembled figs growing on a precipice; the fruit of which is not tasted by men, but devoured by crows and vultures. When Phryne had dedicated a golden statue of Venus at Delphi, he wrote upon it, “From the profligacy of the Greeks.”
Once Alexander the Great came and stood by him, and said, “I am Alexander, the great king.” “And I,” said he, “am Diogenes the dog.” And when he was asked to what actions of his it was owing that he was called a dog, he said, “Because I fawn upon those who give me anything, and bark at those who give me nothing, and bite the rogues.” On one occasion he was gathering some of the fruit of a fig-tree, and[240] when the man who was guarding it told him a man hung himself on this tree the other day. “I, then,” said he, “will now purify it.” Once he saw a man who had been a conqueror at the Olympic games looking very often at a courtesan; “Look,” said he, “at that warlike ram, who is taken prisoner by the first girl he meets.” One of his sayings was, that good-looking courtesans were like poisoned mead.
On one occasion he was eating his dinner in the market-place, and the bystanders kept constantly calling out “Dog;” but he said, “It is you who are the dogs, who stand around me while I am at dinner.” When two effeminate fellows were getting out of his way, he said, “Do not be afraid, a dog does not eat beetroot.” Being once asked about a debauched boy, as to what country he came from, he said, “He is a Tegean.”[72] Seeing an unskilful wrestler professing to heal a man he said, “What are you about, are you in hopes now to overthrow those who formerly conquered you?” On one occasion he saw the son of a courtesan throwing a stone at a crowd, and said to him, “Take care, lest you hit your father.” When a boy showed him a sword that he had received from one to whom he had done some discreditable service, he told him, “The sword is a good sword, but the handle is infamous.” And when some people were praising a man who had given him something, he said to them, “And do not you praise me who was worthy to receive it?” He was asked by some one to give him back his cloak; but he replied, “If you gave it me, it is mine; and if you only lent it me, I am using it.” A supposititious son (ὑποβολιμαῖος) of somebody once said to him, that he had gold in his cloak; “No doubt,” said he, “that is the very reason why I sleep with it under my head (ὑποβεβλημένος).” When he was asked what advantage he had derived from philosophy, he replied, “If no other, at least this, that I am prepared for every kind of fortune.” The question was put to him what countryman he was, and he replied, “A Citizen of[241] the world.” Some men were sacrificing to the Gods to prevail on them to send them sons, and he said, “And do you not sacrifice to procure sons of a particular character?” Once he was asking the president of a society for a contribution,[73] and said to him:—
“Spoil all the rest, but keep your hands from Hector.”
He used to say that courtesans were the queens of kings; for that they asked them for whatever they chose. When the Athenians had voted that Alexander was Bacchus, he said to them, “Vote, too, that I am Serapis.” When a man reproached him for going into unclean places, he said, “The sun too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them.” When supping in a temple, as some dirty loaves were set before him, he took them up and threw them away, saying that nothing dirty ought to come into a temple; and when some one said to him, “You philosophize without being possessed of any knowledge,” he said, “If I only pretend to wisdom, that is philosophizing.” A man once brought him a boy, and said that he was a very clever child, and one of an admirable disposition. “What, then,” said Diogenes, “does he want of me?” He used to say, that those who utter virtuous sentiments but do not do them, are no better than harps, for that a harp has no hearing or feeling. Once he was going into a theatre while every one else was coming out of it; and when asked why he did so, “It is,” said he, “what I have been doing all my life.” Once when he saw a young man putting on effeminate airs, he said to him, “Are you not ashamed to have worse plans for yourself than nature had for you? for she has made you a man, but you are trying to force yourself to be a woman.” When he saw an ignorant man tuning a psaltery, he said to him, “Are you not ashamed to be arranging proper sounds on a wooden instrument, and not arranging your soul to a proper life?” When a man said to him, “I am not calculated for philosophy,” he said, “Why then do you live, if you have no desire to live properly?” To a man who treated his father with contempt, he said, “Are you not ashamed to despise him to whom you owe it that you have it in your power to give yourself airs at all?” Seeing a handsome young man chattering in an unseemly manner,[242] he said, “Are you not ashamed to draw a sword cut of lead out of a scabbard of ivory?” Being once reproached for drinking in a vintner’s shop, he said, “I have my hair cut, too, in a barber’s.” At another time, he was attacked for having accepted a cloak from Antipater, but he replied:—
“Refuse not thou to heed
The gifts which from the mighty Gods proceed.”[74]
A man once struck him with a broom, and said, “Take care,” so he struck him in return with his staff, and said, “Take care.”
He once said to a man who was addressing anxious entreaties to a courtesan, “What can you wish to obtain, you wretched man, that you had not better be disappointed in?” Seeing a man reeking all over with unguents, he said to him, “Have a care, lest the fragrance of your head give a bad odour to your life.” One of his sayings was, that servants serve their masters, and that wicked men are the slaves of their appetites. Being asked why slaves were called ἀνδράποδα, he replied, “Because they have the feet of men (τοὺς πόδας ἀνδρῶν), and a soul such as you who are asking this question.” He once asked a profligate fellow for a mina; and when he put the question to him, why he asked others for an obol, and him for a mina, he said, “Because I hope to get something from the others another time, but the Gods alone know whether I shall ever extract anything from you again.” Once he was reproached for asking favours, while Plato never asked for any; and he said:—
“He asks as well as I do, but he does it
Bending his head, that no one else may hear.”
One day he saw an unskilful archer shooting; so he went and sat down by the target, saying, “Now I shall be out of harm’s way.” He used to say, that those who were in love were disappointed in regard of the pleasure they expected. When he was asked whether death was an evil, he replied, “How can that be an evil which we do not feel when it is present?” When Alexander was once standing by him, and saying, “Do not you fear me?” He replied, “No; for what are you, a good or an evil?” And as he said that he was[243] good, “Who, then,” said Diogenes, “fears the good?” He used to say, that education was, for the young sobriety, for the old comfort, for the poor riches, and for the rich an ornament. When Didymus the adulterer was once trying to cure the eye of a young girl (κόρης), he said, “Take care, lest when you are curing the eye of the maiden, you do not hurt the pupil.”[75] A man once said to him, that his friends laid plots against him; “What then,” said he, “are you to do, if you must look upon both your friends and enemies in the same light?”
On one occasion he was asked, what was the most excellent thing among men; and he said, “Freedom of speech.” He went once into a school, and saw many statues of the Muses, but very few pupils, and said, “Gods, and all my good schoolmasters, you have plenty of pupils.” He was in the habit of doing everything in public, whether in respect of Venus or Ceres; and he used to put his conclusions in this way to people: “If there is nothing absurd in dining, then it is not absurd to dine in the market-place. But it is not absurd to dine, therefore it is not absurd to dine in the market-place.” And as he was continually doing manual work in public, he said one day, “Would that by rubbing my belly I could get rid of hunger.” Other sayings also are attributed to him, which it would take a long time to enumerate, there is such a multiplicity of them.
He used to say, that there were two kinds of exercise: that, namely, of the mind and that of the body; and that the latter of these created in the mind such quick and agile phantasies at the time of its performance, as very much facilitated the practice of virtue; but that one was imperfect without the other, since the health and vigour necessary for the practice of what is good, depend equally on both mind and body. And he used to allege as proofs of this, and of the ease which practice imparts to acts of virtue, that people could see that in the case of mere common working trades, and other employments of that kind, the artisans arrived at no inconsiderable accuracy by constant practice; and that any one may see how much one flute player, or one wrestler, is superior to another, by his own continued practice. And that if these[244] men transferred the same training to their minds they would not labour in a profitless or imperfect manner. He used to say also, that there was nothing whatever in life which could be brought to perfection without practice, and that that alone was able to overcome every obstacle; that, therefore, as we ought to repudiate all useless toils, and to apply ourselves to useful labours, and to live happily, we are only unhappy in consequence of most exceeding folly. For the very contempt of pleasure, if we only inure ourselves to it, is very pleasant; and just as they who are accustomed to live luxuriously, are brought very unwillingly to adopt the contrary system; so they who have been originally inured to that opposite system, feel a sort of pleasure in the contempt of pleasure.
This used to be the language which he held, and he used to show in practice, really altering men’s habits, and deferring in all things rather to the principles of nature than to those of law; saying that he was adopting the same fashion of life as Hercules had, preferring nothing in the world to liberty; and saying that everything belonged to the wise, and advancing arguments such as I mentioned just above. For instance: every thing belongs to the Gods; and the Gods are friends to the wise; and all the property of friends is held in common; therefore everything belongs to the wise. He also argued about the law, that without it there is no possibility of a constitution being maintained; for without a city there can be nothing orderly, but a city is an orderly thing; and without a city there can be no law; therefore law is order. And he played in the same manner with the topics of noble birth, and reputation, and all things of that kind, saying that they were all veils, as it were, for wickedness; and that that was the only proper constitution which consisted in order. Another of his doctrines was that all women ought to be possessed in common; and he said that marriage was a nullity, and that the proper way would be for every man to live with her whom he could persuade to agree with him. And on the same principle he said, that all people’s sons ought to belong to every one in common; and there was nothing intolerable in the idea of taking anything out of a temple, or eating any animal whatever, and that there was no impiety in tasting even human flesh; as is plain from the habits of foreign nations; and he said that this principle might be correctly extended to[245] every case and every people. For he said that in reality everything was a combination of all things. For that in bread there was meat, and in vegetables there was bread, and so there were some particles of all other bodies in everything, communicating by invisible passages and evaporating.
VII. And he explains this theory of his clearly in the Thyestes, if indeed the tragedies attributed to him are really his composition, and not rather the work of Philiscus, of Ægina, his intimate friend, or of Pasiphon, the son of Lucian, who is stated by Phavorinus, in his Universal History, to have written them after Diogenes’ death.
VIII. Music and geometry, and astronomy, and all things of that kind, he neglected, as useless and unnecessary. But he was a man very happy in meeting arguments, as is plain from what we have already said.
IX. And he bore being sold with a most magnanimous spirit. For as he was sailing to Ægina, and was taken prisoner by some pirates, under the command of Scirpalus, he was carried off to Crete and sold; and when the crier asked him what art he understood, he said, “That of governing men.” And presently pointing out a Corinthian, very carefully dressed, (the same Xeniades whom we have mentioned before), he said, “Sell me to that man; for he wants a master.” Accordingly Xeniades bought him and carried him away to Corinth; and then he made him tutor of his sons, and committed to him the entire management of his house. And he behaved himself in every affair in such a manner, that Xeniades, when looking over his property, said, “A good genius has come into my house.” And Cleomenes, in his book which is called the Schoolmaster, says, that he wished to ransom all his relations, but that Diogenes told him that they were all fools; for that lions did not become the slaves of those who kept them, but, on the contrary, those who maintained lions were their slaves. For that it was the part of a slave to fear, but that wild beasts were formidable to men.
X. And the man had the gift of persuasion in a wonderful degree; so that he could easily overcome any one by his arguments. Accordingly, it is said that an Æginetan of the name of Onesicritus, having two sons, sent to Athens one of them, whose name was Androsthenes, and that he, after having heard Diogenes lecture, remained there; and that after[246] that, he sent the elder, Philiscus, who has been already mentioned, and that Philiscus was charmed in the same manner. And last of all, he came himself, and then he too remained, no less than his son, studying philosophy at the feet of Diogenes. So great a charm was there in the discourses of Diogenes. Another pupil of his was Phocion, who was surnamed the Good; and Stilpon, the Megarian, and a great many other men of eminence as statesmen.
XI. He is said to have died when he was nearly ninety years of age, but there are different accounts given of his death. For some say that he ate an ox’s foot raw, and was in consequence seized with a bilious attack, of which he died; others, of whom Cercidas, a Megalopolitan or Cretan, is one, say that he died of holding his breath for several days; and Cercidas speaks thus of him in his Meliambics:—
He, that Sinopian who bore the stick,
Wore his cloak doubled, and in th’ open air
Dined without washing, would not bear with life
A moment longer: but he shut his teeth,
And held his breath. He truly was the son
Of Jove, and a most heavenly-minded dog,
The wise Diogenes.
Others say that he, while intending to distribute a polypus to his dogs, was bitten by them through the tendon of his foot, and so died. But his own greatest friends, as Antisthenes tells us in his Successions, rather sanction the story of his having died from holding his breath. For he used to live in the Craneum, which was a Gymnasium at the gates of Corinth. And his friends came according to their custom, and found him with his head covered; and as they did not suppose that he was asleep, for he was not a man much subject to the influence of night or sleep, they drew away his cloak from his face, and found him no longer breathing; and they thought that he had done this on purpose, wishing to escape the remaining portion of his life.
On this there was a quarrel, as they say, between his friends, as to who should bury him, and they even came to blows; but when the elders and chief men of the city came there, they say that he was buried by them at the gate which leads to the Isthmus. And they placed over him a pillar, and on that a dog in Parian marble. And at a later period his fellow[247] citizens honoured him with brazen statues, and put this inscription on them:—
E’en brass by lapse of time doth old become,
But there is no such time as shall efface
Your lasting glory, wise Diogenes;
Since you alone did teach to men the art
Of a contented life: the surest path
To glory and a lasting happiness.
We ourselves have also written an epigram on him in the proceleusmatic metre.
A. Tell me, Diogenes, tell me true, I pray,
How did you die; what fate to Pluto bore you?
B. The savage bite of an envious dog did kill me.
Some, however, say that when he was dying, he ordered his friends to throw his corpse away without burying it, so that every beast might tear it, or else to throw it into a ditch, and sprinkle a little dust over it. And others say that his injunctions were, that he should be thrown into the Ilissus; that so he might be useful to his brethren. But Demetrius, in his treatise on Men of the Same Name, says that Diogenes died in Corinth the same day that Alexander died in Babylon. And he was already an old man, as early as the hundred and thirteenth olympiad.
XII. The following books are attributed to him. The dialogues entitled the Cephalion; the Icthyas; the Jackdaw; the Leopard; the People of the Athenians; the Republic; one called Moral Art; one on Wealth; one on Love; the Theodorus; the Hypsias; the Aristarchus; one on Death; a volume of Letters; seven Tragedies, the Helen, the Thyestes, the Hercules, the Achilles, the Medea, the Chrysippus, and the Œdipus.
But Sosicrates, in the first book of his Successions, and Satyrus, in the fourth book of his Lives, both assert that none of all these are the genuine composition of Diogenes. And Satyrus affirms that the tragedies are the work of Philiscus, the Æginetan, a friend of Diogenes. But Sotion, in his seventh book, says that these are the only genuine works of Diogenes: a dialogue on Virtue; another on the Good; another on Love; the Beggar; the Tolmæus; the Leopard; the Cassander; the Cephalion; and that the Aristarchus, the[248] Sisyphus, the Ganymede, a volume of Apophthegms, and another of Letters, are all the work of Philiscus.
XIII. There were five persons of the name of Diogenes. The first a native of Apollonia, a natural philosopher; and the beginning of his treatise on Natural Philosophy is as follows: “It appears to me to be well for every one who commences any kind of philosophical treatise, to lay down some undeniable principle to start with.” The second was a Sicyonian, who wrote an account of Peloponnesus. The third was the man of whom we have been speaking. The fourth was a Stoic, a native of Seleucia, but usually called a Babylonian, from the proximity of Seleucia to Babylon. The fifth was a native of Tarsus, who wrote on the subject of some questions concerning poetry which he endeavours to solve.
XIV. Athenodorus, in the eighth book of his Conversations, says, that the philosopher always had a shining appearance, from his habit of anointing himself.
LIFE OF MONIMUS.
I. Monimus was a Syracusan, and a pupil of Diogenes, but also a slave of some Corinthian money-changer, as Sosicrates tells us. Xeniades, who bought Diogenes, used often to come to him, extolling the excellency of Diogenes both in actions and words, till he excited a great affection for the man in the mind of Monimus. For he immediately feigned madness, and threw about all the money and all the coins that were on the table, until his master discarded him, and then he straightway went to Diogenes and became his pupil. He also followed Crates the Cynic a good deal, and devoted himself to the same studies as he did; and the sight of this conduct of his made his master all the more think him mad.
II. And he was a very eminent man, so that even Menander, the comic poet, speaks of him; accordingly, in one of his plays, namely in the Hippocomus, he mentions him thus:—
There is a man, O Philo, named Monimus,
A wise man, though but little known, and one
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Who bears a wallet at his back, and is not
Content with one but three. He never spoke
A single sentence, by great Jove I swear,
Like this one, “Know thyself,” or any other
Of the oft-quoted proverbs: all such sayings
He scorned, as he did beg his way through dirt;
Teaching that all opinion is but vanity.
But he was a man of such gravity that he despised glory, and sought only for truth.
III. He wrote some jests mingled with serious treatises, and two essays on the Appetites, and an Exhortation.
LIFE OF ONESICRITUS.
I. Onesicritus is called by some authors an Æginetan, but Demetrius the Magnesian affirms that he was a native of Astypalæa. He also was one of the most eminent of the disciples of Diogenes.
II. And he appears in some points to resemble Xenophon. For Xenophon joined in the expedition of Cyrus, and Onesicritus in that of Alexander; and Xenophon wrote the Cyropædia, and Onesicritus wrote an account of the education of Alexander. Xenophon, too, wrote a Panegyric on Cyrus, and Onesicritus one on Alexander. They were also both similar to one another in style, except that a copyist is naturally inferior to the original.
III. Menander, too, who was surnamed Drymus, was a pupil of Diogenes, and a great admirer of Homer: and so was Hegesæus of Sinope, who was nicknamed Clœus, and Philiscus the Æginetan, as we have said before.
LIFE OF CRATES.
I. Crates was a Theban by birth, and the son of Ascondus. He also was one of the eminent disciples of the Cynic. But Hippobotus asserts that he was not a pupil of Diogenes, but of Bryson the Achæan.
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II. There are the following sportive lines of his quoted:—
The waves surround vain Peres’ fruitful soil,
And fertile acres crown the sea-born isle;
Land which no parasite e’er dares invade,
Or lewd seducer of a hapless maid;
It bears figs, bread, thyme, garlic’s savoury charms,
Gifts which ne’er tempt men to detested arms,
They’d rather fight for gold than glory’s dreams.
There is also an account-book of his much spoken of, which is drawn up in such terms as these:—
Put down the cook for minas half a score,
Put down the doctor for a drachma more:
Five talents to the flatterer; some smoke
To the adviser, an obol and a cloak
For the philosopher; for the willing nymph,
A talent.
He was also nicknamed Door-opener, because he used to enter every house and give the inmates advice. These lines, too, are his:—
All this I learnt and pondered in my mind,
Drawing deep wisdom from the Muses kind,
But all the rest is vanity.
There is a line, too, which tells us that he gained from philosophy:—
A peck of lupins, and to care for nobody.
This, too, is attributed to him:—
Hunger checks love; and should it not, time does.
If both should fail you, then a halter choose.
III. He flourished about the hundred and thirteenth olympiad.
IV. Antisthenes, in his Successions, says that he, having once, in a certain tragedy, seen Telephus holding a date basket, and in a miserable plight in other respects, betook himself to the Cynic philosophy; and having turned his patrimony into money (for he was of illustrious extraction), he collected three hundred talents by that means, and divided them among the citizens. And after that he devoted himself to philosophy with such eagerness, that even Philemon the comic poet mentions him. Accordingly he says:—
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And in the summer he’d a shaggy gown,
To inure himself to hardship: in the winter
He wore mere rags.
But Diocles says that it was Diogenes who persuaded him to discard all his estate and his flocks, and to throw his money into the sea; and he says further, that the house of Crates was destroyed by Alexander, and that of Hipparchia under Philip. And he would very frequently drive away with his staff those of his relations who came after him, and endeavoured to dissuade him from his design; and he remained immoveable.
V. Demetrius, the Magnesian, relates that he deposited his money with a banker, making an agreement with him, that if his sons turned out ordinary ignorant people, he was then to restore it to them; but if they became philosophers, then he was to divide it among the people, for that they, if they were philosophers, would have no need of anything. And Eratosthenes tells us that he had by Hipparchia, whom we shall mention hereafter, a son whose name was Pasicles, and that when he grew up, he took him to a brothel kept by a female slave, and told him that that was all the marriage that his father designed for him; but that marriages which resulted in adultery were themes for tragedians, and had exile and bloodshed for their prizes; and the marriages of those who lived with courtesans were subjects for the comic poets, and often produced madness as the result of debauchery and drunkenness.
VI. He had also a brother named Pasicles, a pupil of Euclides.
VII. Phavorinus, in the second book of his Commentaries, relates a witty saying of his; for he says, that once, when he was begging a favour of the master of a gymnasium, on the behalf of some acquaintance, he touched his thighs; and as he expressed his indignation at this, he said, “Why, do they not belong to you as well as your knees?” He used to say that it was impossible to find a man who had never done wrong, in the same way as there was always some worthless seed in a pomegranate. On one occasion he provoked Nicodromus, the harp-player, and received a black eye from him; so he put a plaster on his forehead and wrote upon it, “Nicodromus did this.” He used to abuse prostitutes designedly, for the purpose of practising himself in enduring reproaches. When[252] Demetrius Phalereus sent him some loaves and wine, he attacked him for his present, saying, “I wish that the fountains bore loaves;” and it is notorious that he was a water drinker.
He was once reproved by the ædiles of the Athenians, for wearing fine linen, and so he replied, “I will show you Theophrastus also clad in fine linen.” And as they did not believe him, he took them to a barber’s shop, and showed him to them as he was being shaved. At Thebes he was once scourged by the master of the Gymnasium, (though some say it was by Euthycrates, at Corinth), and dragged out by the feet; but he did not care, and quoted the line:—
I feel, O mighty chief, your matchless might,
Dragged, foot first, downward from th’ ethereal height.[76]
But Diocles says that it was by Menedemus, of Eretria, that he was dragged in this manner, for that as he was a handsome man, and supposed to be very obsequious to Asclepiades, the Phliasian, Crates touched his thighs and said, “Is Asclepiades within?” And Menedemus was very much offended, and dragged him out, as has been already said; and then Crates quoted the above-cited line.
VIII. Zeno, the Cittiæan, in his Apophthegms, says, that he once sewed up a sheep’s fleece in his cloak, without thinking of it; and he was a very ugly man, and one who excited laughter when he was taking exercise. And he used to say, when he put up his hands, “Courage, Crates, as far as your eyes and the rest of your body is concerned:—
IX. “For you shall see those who now ridicule you, convulsed with disease, and envying your happiness, and accusing themselves of slothfulness.” One of his sayings was, “That a man ought to study philosophy, up to the point of looking on generals and donkey-drivers in the same light.” Another was, that those who live with flatterers, are as desolate as calves when in the company of wolves; for that neither the one nor the other are with those whom they ought to be, or their own kindred, but only with those who are plotting against them.
X. When he felt that he was dying, he made verses on himself, saying:—
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You’re going, noble hunchback, you are going
To Pluto’s realms, bent double by old age.
For he was humpbacked from age.
XI. When Alexander asked him whether he wished to see the restoration of his country, he said, “What would be the use of it? for perhaps some other Alexander would come at some future time and destroy it again.
“But poverty and dear obscurity,
Are what a prudent man should think his country
For these e’en fortune can’t deprive him of.”
He also said that he was:—
A fellow countryman of wise Diogenes,
Whom even envy never had attacked.
Menander, in his Twin-sister, mentions him thus:—
For you will walk with me wrapped in your cloak,
As his wife used to with the Cynic Crates.
XII. He gave his daughter to his pupils, as he himself used to say:—
To have and keep on trial for a month.
LIFE OF METROCLES.
I. Metrocles was the brother of Hipparchia; and though he had formerly been a pupil of Theophrastus, he had profited so little by his instructions, that once, thinking that, while listening to a lecture on philosophy, he had disgraced himself by his inattention, he fell into despondency, and shut himself up in his house, intending to starve himself to death. Accordingly, when Crates heard of it, he came to him, having been sent for; and eating a number of lupins, on purpose, he persuaded him by numbers of arguments, that he had done no harm; for that it was not to be expected that a man should not indulge his natural inclinations and habits; and he comforted him by showing him that he, in a similar case, would certainly have behaved in a similar manner.[254] And after that, he became a pupil of Crates, and a man of great eminence as a philosopher.
II. He burnt all his writings, as Hecaton tells us in the first book of his Apophthegms, and said:—
These are the phantoms of infernal dreams;
As if he meant that they were all nonsense. But some say that it was the notes which he had taken of the lectures of Theophrastus which he burnt, quoting the following verse:—
Vulcan, draw near, ’tis Thetis asks your aid.[77]
III. He used to say that some things could be bought with money, as for instance a house; and some with time and industry, as education; that wealth was mischievous, if a man did not use it properly.
IV. He died at a great age, having suffocated himself.
V. His pupils were Theombrotus and Cleomenes, Demetrius of Alexandria, the son of Theombrotus, Timarchus of Alexandria, the son of Cleomenes, and Echecles, of Ephesus. Not but what Echecles was also a pupil of Theombrotus; and Menedemus, of whom we shall speak hereafter, was his pupil. Menippus, of Sinope, too, was a very eminent person in his school.
LIFE OF HIPPARCHIA.
I. Hipparchia, the sister of Metrocles, was charmed among others, by the doctrines of this school.
II. Both she and Metrocles were natives of Maronea. She fell in love with both the doctrines and manners of Crates, and could not be diverted from her regard for him, by either the wealth, or high birth, or personal beauty, of any of her suitors, but Crates was everything to her; and she threatened her parents to make away with herself, if she were not given in marriage to him. Crates accordingly, being entreated by her parents to dissuade her from this resolution, did all he[255] could; and at last, as he could not persuade her, he rose up, and placing all his furniture before her, he said, “This is the bridegroom whom you are choosing, and this is the whole of his property; consider these facts, for it will not be possible for you to become his partner, if you do not also apply yourself to the same studies, and conform to the same habits that he does.” But the girl chose him; and assuming the same dress that he wore, went about with him as her husband, and appeared with him in public everywhere, and went to all entertainments in his company.
III. And once when she went to sup with Lysimachus, she attacked Theodorus, who was surnamed the Atheist; proposing to him the following sophism; “What Theodorus could not be called wrong for doing, that same thing Hipparchia ought not to be called wrong for doing. But Theodorus does no wrong when he beats himself; therefore Hipparchia does no wrong when she beats Theodorus.” He made no reply to what she said, but only pulled her clothes about; but Hipparchia was neither offended nor ashamed, as many a woman would have been; but when he said to her:—
“Who is the woman who has left the shuttle
So near the warp?”[78]
“I, Theodorus, am that person,” she replied; “but do I appear to you to have come to a wrong decision, if I devote that time to philosophy, which I otherwise should have spent at the loom?” And these and many other sayings are reported of this female philosopher.
IV. There is also a volume of letters of Crates[79] extant, in which he philosophizes most excellently; and in style is very little inferior to Plato. He also wrote some tragedies, which are imbued with a very sublime spirit of philosophy, of which the following lines are a specimen:—
’Tis not one town, nor one poor single house,
That is my country; but in every land
Each city and each dwelling seems to me,
A place for my reception ready made.
And he died at a great age, and was buried in Bœotia.
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LIFE OF MENIPPUS.
I. Menippus was also a Cynic, and a Phœnician by descent, a slave by birth, as Achaicus tells us in his Ethics; and Diocles informs us that his master was a native of Pontus, of the name of Baton; but that subsequently, in consequence of his importunities and miserly habits, he became rich, and obtained the rights of citizenship at Corinth.
II. He never wrote anything serious; but his writings are full of ridiculous matter; and in some respects similar to those of Meleager, who was his contemporary. And Hermippus tells us that he was a man who lent money at daily interest, and that he was called a usurer; for he used to lend on nautical usury, and take security, so that he amassed a very great amount of riches.
III. But at last he fell into a snare, and lost all his money, and in a fit of despair he hung himself, and so he died. And we have written a playful epigram on him:—
This man was a Syrian by birth,
And a Cretan usurious hound,
As the name he was known by sets forth,
You’ve heard of him oft I’ll be bound;
His name was Menippus—men entered his house,
And stole all his goods without leaving a louse,
When (from this the dog’s nature you plainly may tell)
He hung himself up, and so went off to hell.
IV. But some say that the books attributed to him are not really his work, but are the composition of Dionysius and Zopyrus the Colophonians, who wrote them out of joke, and then gave them to him as a man well able to dispose of them.
V. There were six persons of the name of Menippus; the first was the man who wrote a history of the Lydians, and made an abridgment of Xanthus; the second was this man of whom we have been speaking; the third was a sophist of Stratonice, a Carian by descent; the fourth was a statuary; the fifth and the sixth were painters, and they are both mentioned by Apollodorus.
VI. The writings left by the Cynic amount to thirteen volumes; a Description of the Dead; a volume called Wills;[257] a volume of Letters in which the Gods are introduced; treatises addressed to the Natural Philosophers, and Mathematicians, and Grammarians; one on the Generations of Epicurus, and on the Observance of the Twentieth Day by the philosophers of his school; and one or two other essays.
THE LIFE OF MENEDEMUS.
I. Menedemus was a disciple of Colotes of Lampsacus.
II. He proceeded, as Hippobotus tells, to such a great degree of superstition, that he assumed the garb of a fury, and went about saying that he had come from hell to take notice of all who did wrong, in order that he might descend thither again and make his report to the deities who abode in that country. And this was his dress: a tunic of a dark colour reaching to his feet, and a purple girdle round his waist, an Arcadian hat on his head with the twelve signs of the zodiac embroidered on it, tragic buskins, a preposterously long beard, and an ashen staff in his hand.
III. These then are the lives of each of the Cynics; and we shall also subjoin some of the doctrines which they all held in common, if indeed it is not an abuse of language to call that a sect of philosophy at all, instead of, as some contend it should be termed, a mere system of life.
They wished to abolish the whole system of logic and natural philosophy, like Aristo of Chios, and thought that men should study nothing but ethics; and what some people assert of Socrates was described by Diocles as a characteristic of Diogenes, for he said that his doctrine was, that a man ought to investigate—
Only the good and ill that taketh place
Within our houses.
They also discard all liberal studies. Accordingly, Antisthenes said that wise men only applied themselves to literature and learning for the sake of perverting others; they also wish to abolish geometry and music, and everything of that[258] kind. Accordingly, Diogenes said once to a person who was showing him a clock; “It is a very useful thing to save a man from being too late for supper.” And once when a man made an exhibition of musical skill before him, he said:—
“Cities are governed, so are houses too,
By wisdom, not by harp-playing and whistling.”[80]
Their doctrine is, that the chief good of mankind is to live according to virtue, as Antisthenes says in his Hercules, in which they resemble the Stoics. For those two sects have a good deal in common with one another, on which account they themselves say that cynicism is a short road to virtue; and Zeno, the Cittiæan lived in the same manner.
They also teach that men ought to live simply, using only plain food in moderate quantities, wearing nothing but a cloak, and despising riches, and glory, and nobleness of birth; accordingly some of them feed upon nothing beyond herbs and cold water, living in any shelter that they can find, or in tubs as Diogenes did; for he used to say that it was the peculiar property of the Gods to want nothing, and that, therefore, when a man wished for nothing he was like the Gods.
Another of their doctrines is, that virtue is a thing which may be taught, as Antisthenes affirms in his Heraclides; and that when it has once been attained it can never be lost. They also say that the wise man deserves to be loved, and cannot commit error, and is a friend to every one who resembles him, and that he leaves nothing to fortune. And everything which is unconnected with either virtue or vice they call indifferent, agreeing in this with Aristo, the Chian.
These then were the Cynics; and now we must pass on to the Stoics, of which sect the founder was Zeno, who had been a disciple of Crates.
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BOOK VII.LIFE OF ZENO.
I. Zeno was the son of Mnaseas, or Demeas, and a native of Citium, in Cyprus, which is a Grecian city, partly occupied by a Phœnician colony.
II. He had his head naturally bent on one side, as Timotheus, the Athenian, tells us, in his work on Lives. And Apollonius, the Tyrian, says that he was thin, very tall, of a dark complexion; in reference to which some one once called him an Egyptian Clematis, as Chrysippus relates in the first volume of his Proverbs: he had fat, flabby, weak legs, on which account Persæus, in his Convivial Reminiscences, says that he used to refuse many invitations to supper; and he was very fond, as it is said, of figs both fresh and dried in the sun.
III. He was a pupil, as has been already stated, of Crates. After that, they say that he became a pupil of Stilpon and of Xenocrates, for ten years, as Timocrates relates in his Life of Dion. He is also said to have been a pupil of Polemo. But Hecaton, and Apollonius, of Tyre, in the first book of his essay on Zeno, say that when he consulted the oracle, as to what he ought to do to live in the most excellent manner, the God answered him that he ought to become of the same complexion as the dead, on which he inferred that he ought to apply himself to the reading of the books of the ancients. Accordingly, he attached himself to Crates in the following manner. Having purchased a quantity of purple from Phœnicia, he was shipwrecked close to the Piræus; and when he had made his way from the coast as far as Athens, he sat down by a bookseller’s stall, being now about thirty years of age. And as he took up the second book of Xenophon’s Memorabilia and began to read it, he was delighted with it, and asked where such men as were described in that book lived; and as Crates happened very seasonably to pass at the moment, the bookseller pointed him out, and said, “Follow that man.” From[260] that time forth he became a pupil of Crates; but though he was in other respects very energetic in his application to philosophy, still he was too modest for the shamelessness of the Cynics. On which account, Crates, wishing to cure him of this false shame, gave him a jar of lentil porridge to carry through the Ceramicus; and when he saw that he was ashamed, and that he endeavoured to hide it, he struck the jar with his staff, and broke it; and, as Zeno fled away, and the lentil porridge ran all down his legs, Crates called after him, “Why do you run away, my little Phœnician, you have done no harm?” For some time then he continued a pupil of Crates, and when he wrote his treatise entitled the Republic, some said, jokingly, that he had written it upon the tail of the dog.
IV. And besides his Republic, he was the author also of the following works:—a treatise on a Life according to Nature; one on Appetite, or the Nature of Man; one on Passions; one on the Becoming; one on Law; one on the usual Education of the Greeks; one on Sight; one on the Whole; one on Signs; one on the Doctrines of the Pythagoreans; one on Things in General; one on Styles; five essays on Problems relating to Homer; one on the Bearing of the Poets. There is also an essay on Art by him, and two books of Solutions and Jests, and Reminiscences, and one called the Ethics of Crates. These are the books of which he was the author.
V. But at last he left Crates, and became the pupil of the philosophers whom I have mentioned before, and continued with them for twenty years. So that it is related that he said, “I now find that I made a prosperous voyage when I was wrecked.” But some affirm that he made this speech in reference to Crates. Others say, that while he was staying at Athens he heard of a shipwreck, and said, “Fortune does well in having driven us on philosophy.” But as some relate the affair, he was not wrecked at all, but sold all his cargo at Athens, and then turned to philosophy.
VI. And he used to walk up and down in the beautiful colonnade which is called the Peisianactium, and which is also called ποικίλη, from the paintings of Polygnotus, and there he delivered his discourses, wishing to make that spot tranquil; for in the time of the thirty, nearly fourteen hundred of the citizens had been murdered there by them.
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VII. Accordingly, for the future, men came thither to hear him, and from this his pupils were called Stoics, and so were his successors also, who had been at first called Zenonians, as Epicurus tells us in his Epistles. And before this time, the poets who frequented this colonnade (στοὰ) had been called Stoics, as we are informed by Eratosthenes, in the eighth book of his treatise on the Old Comedy; but now Zeno’s pupils made the name more notorious. Now the Athenians had a great respect for Zeno, so that they gave him the keys of their walls, and they also honoured him with a golden crown, and a brazen statue; and this was also done by his own countrymen, who thought the statue of such a man an honour to their city. And the Cittiæans, in the district of Sidon, also claimed him as their countryman.
VIII. He was also much respected by Antigonus, who, whenever he came to Athens, used to attend his lectures, and was constantly inviting him to come to him. But he begged off himself, and sent Persæus, one of his intimate friends, who was the son of Demetrius, and a Cittiæan by birth, and who flourished about the hundred and thirtieth olympiad, when Zeno was an old man. The letter of Antigonus to Zeno was as follows, and it is reported by Apollonius, the Syrian, in his essay on Zeno.
KING ANTIGONUS TO ZENO THE PHILOSOPHER, GREETING.
“I think that in good fortune and glory I have the advantage of you; but in reason and education I am inferior to you, and also in that perfect happiness which you have attained to. On which account I have thought it good to address you, and invite you to come to me, being convinced that you will not refuse what is asked of you. Endeavour, therefore, by all means to come to me, considering this fact, that you will not be the instructor of me alone, but of all the Macedonians together. For he who instructs the ruler of the Macedonians, and who leads him in the path of virtue, evidently marshals all his subjects on the road to happiness. For as the ruler is, so is it natural that his subjects for the most part should be also.”
And Zeno wrote him back the following answer.
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ZENO TO KING ANTIGONUS, GREETING.
“I admire your desire for learning, as being a true object for the wishes of mankind, and one too that tends to their advantage. And the man who aims at the study of philosophy has a proper disregard for the popular kind of instruction which tends only to the corruption of the morals. And you, passing by the pleasure which is so much spoken of, which makes the minds of some young men effeminate, show plainly that you are inclined to noble pursuits, not merely by your nature, but also by your own deliberate choice. And a noble nature, when it has received even a slight degree of training, and which also meets with those who will teach it abundantly, proceeds without difficulty to a perfect attainment of virtue. But I now find my bodily health impaired by old age, for I am eighty years old: on which account I am unable to come to you. But I send you some of those who have studied with me, who in that learning which has reference to the soul, are in no respect inferior to me, and in their bodily vigour are greatly my superiors. And if you associate with them you will want nothing that can bear upon perfect happiness.”
So he sent him Persæus and Philonides, the Theban, both of whom are mentioned by Epicurus, in his letter to his brother Aristobulus, as being companions of Antigonus.
IX. And I have thought it worth while also to set down the decree of the Athenians concerning him; and it is couched in the following language.
“In the archonship of Arrhenides, in the fifth presidency of the tribe Acamantis, on the twenty-first day of the month Maimacterion, on the twenty-third day of the aforesaid presidency, in a duly convened assembly, Hippo, the son of Cratistoteles, of the borough of Xypetion, being one of the presidents, and the rest of the presidents, his colleagues, put the following decree to the vote. And the decree was proposed by Thrason, of Anacæa, the son of Thrason.
“Since Zeno the son of Mnaseas, the Cittiæan, has passed many years in the city, in the study of philosophy, being in all other respects a good man, and also exhorting all the young men who have sought his company to the practice of virtue, and encouraging them in the practice of temperance; making his own life a model to all men of the greatest[263] excellence, since it has in every respect corresponded to the doctrines which he has taught; it has been determined by the people (and may the determination be fortunate), to praise Zeno, the son of Mnaseas, the Cittiæan, and to present him with a golden crown in accordance with the law, on account of his virtue and temperance, and to build him a tomb in the Ceramicus, at the public expense. And the people has appointed by its vote five men from among the citizens of Athens, who shall see to the making of the crown and the building of the tomb. And the scribe of the borough shall enrol the decree and engrave it on two pillars, and he shall be permitted to place one pillar in the Academy, and one in the Lyceum. And he who is appointed to superintend the work shall divide the expense that the pillars amount to, in such a way that every one may understand that the whole people of Athens honours good men both while they are living and after they are dead. And Thrason of Anacæa, Philocles of the Piræus, Phædrus of Anaphlystos, Medon of Acharnæ, Micythus of Sypalettus, and Dion of Pæania, are hereby appointed to superintend the building of the tomb.”
These then are the terms of the decree.
X. But Antigonus, of Carystos, says, that Zeno himself never denied that he was a native of Cittium. For that when on one occasion, there was a citizen of that town who had contributed to the building of some baths, and was having his name engraved on the pillar, as the countryman of Zeno the philosopher, he bade them add, “Of Cittium.”
XI. And at another time, when he had had a hollow covering made for some vessel, he carried it about for some money, in order to procure present relief for some difficulties which were distressing Crates his master. And they say that he, when he first arrived in Greece, had more than a thousand talents, which he lent out at nautical usury.
XII. And he used to eat little loaves and honey, and to drink a small quantity of sweet smelling wine.
XIII. He had very few youthful acquaintances of the male sex, and he did not cultivate them much, lest he should be thought to be a misogynist. And he dwelt in the same house with Persæus; and once, when he brought in a female flute-player to him, he hastened to bring her back to him.
XIV. And he was, it is said, of a very accommodating[264] temper; so much so, that Antigonus, the king, often came to dine with him, and often carried him off to dine with him, at the house of Aristocles the harp-player; but when he was there, he would presently steal away.
XV. It is also said that he avoided a crowd with great care, so that he used to sit at the end of a bench, in order at all events to avoid being incommoded on one side. And he never used to walk with more than two or three companions. And he used at times to exact a piece of money from all who came to hear him, with a view of not being distressed by numbers; and this story is told by Cleanthes, in his treatise on Brazen Money. And when he was surrounded by any great crowd, he would point to a balustrade of wood at the end of the colonnade which surrounded an altar, and say, “That was once in the middle of this place, but it was placed apart because it was in people’s way; and now, if you will only withdraw from the middle here, you too will incommode me much less.”
XVI. And when Demochares, the son of Laches, embraced him once, and said that he would tell Antigonus, or write to him of everything which he wanted, as he always did everything for him, Zeno, when he had heard him say this, avoided his company for the future. And it is said, that after the death of Zeno, Antigonus said, “What a spectacle have I lost.” On which account he employed Thrason, their ambassador, to entreat of the Athenians to allow him to be buried in the Ceramicus. And when he was asked why he had such an admiration for him, he replied, “Because, though I gave him a great many important presents, he was never elated, and never humbled.”
XVII. He was a man of a very investigating spirit, and one who inquired very minutely into everything; in reference to which, Timon, in his Silli, speaks thus:—
I saw an aged woman of Phœnicia,
Hungry and covetous, in a proud obscurity,
Longing for everything. She had a basket
So full of holes that it retained nothing.
Likewise her mind was less than a skindapsus.[81]
He used to study very carefully with Philo, the dialectician, and to argue with him at their mutual leisure; on which[265] account he excited the wonder of the younger Zeno, no less than Diodorus his master.
XVIII. There were also a lot of dirty beggars always about him, as Timon tells us, where he says:—
Till he collected a vast cloud of beggars,
Who were of all men in the world the poorest,
And the most worthless citizens of Athens.
And he himself was a man of a morose and bitter countenance, with a constantly frowning expression. He was very economical, and descended even to the meanness of the barbarians, under the pretence of economy.
XIX. If he reproved any one, he did it with brevity and without exaggeration, and as it were, at a distance. I allude, for instance, to the way in which he spoke of a man who took exceeding pains in setting himself off, for as he was crossing a gutter with great hesitation, he said, “He is right to look down upon the mud, for he cannot see himself in it.” And when some Cynic one day said that he had no oil in his cruise, and asked him for some, he refused to give him any, but bade him go away and consider which of the two was the more impudent. He was very much in love with Chremonides; and once, when he and Cleanthes were both sitting by him, he got up; and as Cleanthes wondered at this, he said, “I hear from skilful physicians that the best thing for some tumours is rest.” Once, when two people were sitting above him at table at a banquet, and the one next him kept kicking the other with his foot, he himself kicked him with his knee; and when he turned round upon him for doing so, he said, “Why then do you think that your other neighbour is to be treated in this way by you?”
On one occasion he said to a man who was very fond of young boys, that “Schoolmasters who were always associating with boys had no more intellect than the boys themselves.” He used also to say that the discourses of those men who were careful to avoid solecisms, and to adhere to the strictest rules of composition, were like Alexandrine money, they were pleasing to the eye and well-formed like the coin, but were nothing the better for that; but those who were not so particular he likened to the Attic tetradrachmas, which were struck at random and without any great nicety, and so he said that their[266] discourses often outweighed the more polished styles of the others. And when Ariston, his disciple, had been holding forth a good deal without much wit, but still in some points with a good deal of readiness and confidence, he said to him, “It would be impossible for you to speak thus, if your father had not been drunk when he begat you;” and for the same reason he nicknamed him the chatterer, as he himself was very concise in his speeches. Once, when he was in company with an epicure who usually left nothing for his messmates, and when a large fish was set before him, he took it all as if he could eat the whole of it; and when the others looked at him with astonishment, he said, “What then do you think that your companions feel every day, if you cannot bear with my gluttony for one day?”
On one occasion, when a youth was asking him questions with a pertinacity unsuited to his age, he led him to a looking-glass and bade him look at himself, and then asked him whether such questions appeared suitable to the face he saw there. And when a man said before him once, that in most points he did not agree with the doctrines of Antisthenes, he quoted to him an apophthegm of Sophocles, and asked him whether he thought there was much sense in that, and when he said that he did not know, “Are you not then ashamed,” said he, “to pick out and recollect anything bad which may have been said by Antisthenes, but not to regard or remember whatever is said that is good?” A man once said, that the sayings of the philosophers appeared to him very trivial; “You say true,” replied Zeno, “and their syllables too ought to be short, if that is possible.” When some one spoke to him of Polemo, and said that he proposed one question for discussion and then argued another, he became angry, and said, “At what value did he estimate the subject that had been proposed?” And he said that a man who was to discuss a question ought to have a loud voice and great energy, like the actors, but not to open his mouth too wide, which those who speak a great deal but only talk nonsense usually do. And he used to say that there was no need for those who argued well to leave their hearers room to look about them, as good workmen do who want to have their work seen; but that, on the contrary, those who are listening to them ought to be so attentive to all that is said as to have no leisure to take notes.
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Once when a young man was talking a great deal, he said, “Your ears have run down into your tongue.” On one occasion a very handsome man was saying that a wise man did not appear to him likely to fall in love; “Then,” said he, “I cannot imagine anything that will be more miserable than you good-looking fellows.” He also used often to say that most philosophers were wise in great things, but ignorant of petty subjects and chance details; and he used to cite the saying of Caphesius, who, when one of his pupils was labouring hard to be able to blow very powerfully, gave him a slap, and said, that excellence did not depend upon greatness, but greatness on excellence. Once, when a young man was arguing very confidently, he said, “I should not like to say, O youth, all that occurs to me.” And once, when a handsome and wealthy Rhodian, but one who had no other qualification, was pressing him to take him as a pupil, he, as he was not inclined to receive him, first of all made him sit on the dusty seats that he might dirt his cloak, then he put him down in the place of the poor that he might rub against their rags, and at last the young man went away. One of his sayings used to be, that vanity was the most unbecoming of all things, and especially so in the young. Another was, that one ought not to try and recollect the exact words and expressions of a discourse, but to fix all one’s attention on the arrangement of the arguments, instead of treating it as if it were a piece of boiled meat, or some delicate eatable. He used also to say that young men ought to maintain the most scrupulous reserve in their walking, their gait, and their dress; and he was constantly quoting the lines of Euripides on Capaneus, that—
His wealth was ample.
But yet no pride did mingle with his state,
Nor had he haughty thought, or arrogance
More than the poorest man.
And one of his sayings used to be, that nothing was more unfriendly to the comprehension of the accurate sciences than poetry; and that there was nothing that we stood in so much need of as time. When he was asked what a friend was, he replied, “Another I.” They say that he was once scourging a slave whom he had detected in theft; and when he said to him, “It was fated that I should steal;” he rejoined, “Yes, and that you should be beaten.” He used to call beauty the[268] flower of the voice; but some report this as if he had said that the voice is the flower of beauty. On one occasion, when he saw a slave belonging to one of his friends severely bruised, he said to his friend, “I see the footsteps of your anger.” He once accosted a man who was all over unguents and perfumes, “Who is this who smells like a woman?” When Dionysius Metathemenus asked him why he was the only person whom he did not correct, he replied, “Because I have no confidence in you.” A young man was talking a great deal of nonsense, and he said to him, “This is the reason why we have two ears and only one mouth, that we may hear more and speak less.”
Once, when he was at an entertainment and remained wholly silent, he was asked what the reason was; and so he bade the person who found fault with him tell the king that there was a man in the room who knew how to hold his tongue; now the people who asked him this were ambassadors who had come from Ptolemy, and who wished to know what report they were to make of him to the king. He was once asked how he felt when people abused him, and he said, “As an ambassador feels when he is sent away without an answer.” Apollonius of Tyre tells us, that when Crates dragged him by the cloak away from Stilpo, he said, “O Crates, the proper way to take hold of philosophers is by the ears; so now do you convince me and drag me by them; but if you use force towards me, my body may be with you, but my mind with Stilpo.”
XX. He used to devote a good deal of time to Diodorus, as we learn from Hippobotus; and he studied dialectics under him. And when he had made a good deal of progress he attached himself to Polemo because of his freedom from arrogance, so that it is reported that he said to him, “I am not ignorant, O Zeno, that you slip into the garden-door and steal my doctrines, and then clothe them in a Phœnician dress.” When a dialectician once showed him seven species of dialectic argument in the mowing argument,[82] he asked him how much he charged for them, and when he said “A hundred drachmas,” he gave him two hundred, so exceedingly devoted was he to learning.
XXI. They say too, that he was the first who ever employed[269] the word duty (καθῆκον), and who wrote a treatise on the subject. And that he altered the lines of Hesiod thus:—
He is the best of all men who submits
To follow good advice; he too is good,
Who of himself perceives whate’er is fit.[83]
For he said that that man who had the capacity to give a proper hearing to what was said, and to avail himself of it, was superior to him who comprehended everything by his own intellect; for that the one had only comprehension, but the one who took good advice had action also.
XXII. When he was asked why he, who was generally austere, relaxed at a dinner party, he said, “Lupins too are bitter, but when they are soaked they become sweet.” And Hecaton, in the second book of his Apophthegms, says, that in entertainments of that kind, he used to indulge himself freely. And he used to say that it was better to trip with the feet, than with the tongue. And that goodness was attained by little and little, but was not itself a small thing. Some authors, however, attribute this saying to Socrates.
XXIII. He was a person of great powers of abstinence and endurance; and of very simple habits, living on food which required no fire to dress it, and wearing a thin cloak, so that it was said of him:—
The cold of winter, and the ceaseless rain,
Come powerless against him; weak is the dart
Of the fierce summer sun, or fell disease,
To bend that iron frame. He stands apart,
In nought resembling the vast common crowd;
But, patient and unwearied, night and day,
Clings to his studies and philosophy.
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XXIV. And the comic poets, without intending it, praise him in their very attempts to turn him into ridicule. Philemon speaks thus of him in his play entitled the Philosophers:—
This man adopts a new philosophy,
He teaches to be hungry; nevertheless,
He gets disciples. Bread his only food,
His best desert dried figs; water his drink.
But some attribute these lines to Posidippus. And they have become almost a proverb. Accordingly it used to be said of him, “More temperate than Zeno the philosopher.” Posidippus also writes thus in his Men Transported:—
So that for ten whole days he did appear
More temperate than Zeno’s self.
XXV. For in reality he did surpass all men in this description of virtue, and in dignity of demeanour, and, by Jove, in happiness. For he lived ninety-eight years, and then died, without any disease, and continuing in good health to the last. But Persæus, in his Ethical School, states that he died at the age of seventy-two, and that he came to Athens when he was twenty-two years old. But Apollonius says that he presided over his school for forty-eight years.
XXVI. And he died in the following manner. When he was going out of his school, he tripped, and broke one of his toes; and striking the ground with his hand, he repeated the line out of the Niobe:—
I come: why call me so?
And immediately he strangled himself, and so he died. But the Athenians buried him in the Ceramicus, and honoured him with the decrees which I have mentioned before, bearing witness to his virtue. And Antipater, the Sidonian, wrote an inscription for him, which runs thus:—
Here Cittium’s pride, wise Zeno, lies, who climb’d
The summits of Olympus; but unmoved
By wicked thoughts ne’er strove to raise on Ossa
The pine-clad Pelion; nor did he emulate
Th’ immortal toils of Hercules; but found
A new way for himself to th’ highest heaven,
By virtue, temperance, and modesty.
And Zenodotus, the Stoic, a disciple of Diogenes, wrote another:—
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You made contentment the chief rule of life,
Despising haughty wealth, O God-like Zeno.
With solemn look, and hoary brow serene,
You taught a manly doctrine; and didst found
By your deep wisdom, a great novel school,
Chaste parent of unfearing liberty.
And if your country was Phœnicia,
Why need we grieve, from that land Cadmus came,
Who gave to Greece her written books of wisdom.
And Athenæus, the Epigrammatic poet, speaks thus of all the Stoics in common:—
O, ye who’ve learnt the doctrines of the Porch,
And have committed to your books divine
The best of human learning; teaching men
That the mind’s virtue is the only good.
And she it is who keeps the lives of men,
And cities, safer than high gates or walls.
But those who place their happiness in pleasure,
Are led by the least worthy of the Muses.
And we also have ourselves spoken of the manner of Zeno’s death, in our collection of poems in all metres, in the following terms:—
Some say that Zeno, pride of Cittium,
Died of old age, when weak and quite worn out;
Some say that famine’s cruel tooth did slay him;
Some that he fell, and striking hard the ground,
Said, “See, I come, why call me thus impatiently?”
For some say that this was the way in which he died. And this is enough to say concerning his death.
XXVII. But Demetrius, the Magnesian, says, in his essay on People of the Same Name, that his father Mnaseas often came to Athens, as he was a merchant, and that he used to bring back many of the books of the Socratic philosophers, to Zeno, while he was still only a boy; and that, from this circumstance, Zeno had already become talked of in his own country; and that in consequence of this he went to Athens, where he attached himself to Crates. And it seems, he adds, that it was he who first recommended a clear enunciation of principles, as the best remedy for error. He is said, too, to have been in the habit of swearing “By Capers,” as Socrates swore “By the Dog.”
XXVIII. Some, indeed, among whom is Cassius the Sceptic, attack Zeno on many accounts, saying first of all that he denounced the general system of education in vogue at the[272] time, as useless, which he did in the beginning of his Republic. And in the second place, that he used to call all who were not virtuous, adversaries, and enemies, and slaves, and unfriendly to one another, parents to their children, brethren to brethren, and kinsmen to kinsmen; and again, that in his Republic, he speaks of the virtuous as the only citizens, and friends, and relations, and free men, so that in the doctrine of the Stoic, even parents and their children are enemies; for they are not wise. Also, that he lays down the principle of the community of women both in his Republic and in a poem of two hundred verses, and teaches that neither temples nor courts of law, nor gymnasia, ought to be erected in a city; moreover, that he writes thus about money, “That he does not think that men ought to coin money either for purposes of traffic, or of travelling.” Besides all this, he enjoins men and women to wear the same dress, and to leave no part of their person uncovered.
XXIX. And that this treatise on the Republic is his work we are assured by Chrysippus, in his Republic. He also discussed amatory subjects in the beginning of that book of his which is entitled the Art of Love. And in his Conversations he writes in a similar manner.
Such are the charges made against him by Cassius, and also by Isidorus, of Pergamus, the orator, who says that all the unbecoming doctrines and assertions of the Stoics were cut out of their books by Athenodorus, the Stoic, who was the curator of the library at Pergamus. And that subsequently they were replaced, as Athenodorus was detected, and placed in a situation of great danger; and this is sufficient to say about those doctrines of his which were impugned.
XXX. There were eight different persons of the name of Zeno. The first was the Eleatic, whom we shall mention hereafter; the second was this man of whom we are now speaking; the third was a Rhodian, who wrote a history of his country in one book; the fourth was a historian who wrote an account of the expedition of Pyrrhus into Italy and Sicily; and also an epitome of the transactions between the Romans and Carthaginians; the fifth was a disciple of Chrysippus, who wrote very few books, but who left a great number of disciples; the sixth was a physician of Herophila, a very shrewd man in intellect, but a very indifferent writer; the[273] seventh was a grammarian, who, besides other writings, has left some epigrams behind him; the eighth was a Sidonian by descent, a philosopher of the Epicurean school, a deep thinker, and very clear writer.
XXXI. The disciples of Zeno were very numerous. The most eminent were, first of all, Persæus, of Cittium, the son of Demetrius, whom some call a friend of his, but others describe him as a servant and one of the amanuenses who were sent to him by Antigonus, to whose son, Halcyoneus, he also acted as tutor. And Antigonus once, wishing to make trial of him, caused some false news to be brought to him that his estate had been ravaged by the enemy; and as he began to look gloomy at this news, he said to him, “You see that wealth is not a matter of indifference.”
The following works are attributed to him. One on Kingly Power; one entitled the Constitution of the Lacedæmonians; one on Marriage; one on Impiety; the Thyestes; an Essay on Love; a volume of Exhortations; one of Conversations; four of Apophthegms; one of Reminiscences; seven treatises, the Laws of Plato.
The next was Ariston, of Chios, the son of Miltiades, who was the first author of the doctrine of indifference; then Herillus, who called knowledge the chief good; then Dionysius, who transferred this description to pleasure; as, on account of the violent disease which he had in his eyes, he could not yet bring himself to call pain a thing indifferent. He was a native of Heraclea; there was also Sphærus, of the Bosphorus; and Cleanthes, of Assos, the son of Phanias, who succeeded him in his school, and whom he used to liken to tablets of hard wax, which are written upon with difficulty, but which retain what is written upon them. And after Zeno’s death, Sphærus became a pupil of Cleanthes. And we shall speak of him in our account of Cleanthes.
These also were all disciples of Zeno, as we are told by Hippobotus, namely:—Philonides, of Thebes; Callippus, of Corinth; Posidonius, of Alexandria; Athenodorus, of Soli; and Zeno, a Sidonian.
XXXII. And I have thought it best to give a general account of all the Stoic doctrines in the life of Zeno, because he it was who was the founder of the sect.
He has written a great many books, of which I have already[274] given a list, in which he has spoken as no other of the Stoics has. And his doctrines in general are these. But we will enumerate them briefly, as we have been in the habit of doing in the case of the other philosophers.
XXXIII. The Stoics divide reason according to philosophy, into three parts; and say that one part relates to natural philosophy, one to ethics, and one to logic. And Zeno, the Cittiæan, was the first who made this division, in his treatise on Reason; and he was followed in it by Chrysippus, in the first book of his treatise on Reason, and in the first book of his treatise on Natural Philosophy; and also by Apollodorus; and by Syllus, in the first book of his Introduction to the Doctrines of the Stoics; and by Eudromus, in his Ethical Elements; and by Diogenes, the Babylonian; and Posidonius. Now these divisions are called topics by Apollodorus, species by Chrysippus and Eudromus, and genera by all the rest. And they compare philosophy to an animal, likening logic to the bones and sinews, natural philosophy to the fleshy parts, and ethical philosophy to the soul. Again, they compare it to an egg; calling logic the shell, and ethics the white, and natural philosophy the yolk. Also to a fertile field; in which logic is the fence which goes round it, ethics are the fruit, and natural philosophy the soil, or the fruit-trees. Again, they compare it to a city fortified by walls, and regulated by reason; and then, as some of them say, no one part is preferred to another, but they are all combined and united inseparably; and so they treat of them all in combination. But others class logic first, natural philosophy second, and ethics third; as Zeno does in his treatise on Reason, and in this he is followed by Chrysippus, and Archedemus, and Eudromus.
For Diogenes of Ptolemais begins with ethics; but Apollodorus places ethics second; and Panætius and Posidonius begin with natural philosophy, as Phanias, the friend of Posidonius asserts, in the first book of his treatise on the School of Posidonius.
But Cleanthes says, that there are six divisions of reason according to philosophy: dialectics, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, and theology; but others assert that these are not divisions of reason, but of philosophy itself; and this is the opinion advanced by Zeno, of Tarsus, among others.
XXXIV. Some again say, that the logical division is[275] properly subdivided into two sciences, namely, rhetoric and dialectics; and some divide it also into definitive species, which is conversant with rules and tests; while others deny the propriety of this last division altogether, and argue that the object of rules and tests is the discovery of the truth; for it is in this division that they explain the differences of representations. They also argue that, on the other side, the science of definitions has equally for its object the discovery of truth, since we only know things by the intervention of ideas. They also call rhetoric a science conversant about speaking well concerning matters which admit of a detailed narrative; and dialectics they call the science of arguing correctly in discussions which can be carried on by question and answer; on which account they define it thus: a knowledge of what is true, and false, and neither one thing nor the other.
Again, rhetoric itself they divide into three kinds; for one description they say is concerning about giving advice, another is forensic, and the third encomiastic; and it is also divided into several parts, one relating to the discovery of arguments, one to style, one to the arrangement of arguments, and the other to the delivery of the speech. And a rhetorical oration they divide into the exordium, the narration, the reply to the statements of the adverse party, and the peroration.
XXXV. Dialectics, they say, is divided into two parts; one of which has reference to the things signified, the other to the expression. That which has reference to the things signified or spoken of, they divide again into the topic of things conceived in the fancy, and into those of axioms, of perfect determinations, of predicaments, of things alike, whether upright or prostrate, of tropes, of syllogisms, and of sophisms, which are derived either from the voice or from the things. And these sophisms are of various kinds; there is the false one, the one which states facts, the negative, the sorites, and others like these; the imperfect one, the inexplicable one, the conclusive one, the veiled one, the horned one, the nobody, and the mower.
In the second part of dialectics, that which has for its object the expression, they treat of written language, of the different parts of a discourse, of solecism and barbarism, of poetical forms of expression, of ambiguity, of a melodious voice, of music; and some even add definitions, divisions, and diction.
[276]
They say that the most useful of these parts is the consideration of syllogisms; for that they show us what are the things which are capable of demonstration, and that contributes much to the formation of our judgment, and their arrangement and memory give a scientific character to our knowledge. They define reasoning to be a system composed of assumptions and conclusions: and syllogism is a syllogistic argument proceeding on them. Demonstration they define to be a method by which one proceeds from that which is more known to that which is less. Perception, again, is an impression produced on the mind, its name being appropriately borrowed from impressions on wax made by a seal; and perception they divide into comprehensible and incomprehensible: Comprehensible, which they call the criterion of facts, and which is produced by a real object, and is, therefore, at the same time conformable to that object; Incomprehensible, which has no relation to any real object, or else, if it has any such relation, does not correspond to it, being but a vague and indistinct representation.
Dialectics itself they pronounce to be a necessary science, and a virtue which comprehends several other virtues under its species. And the disposition not to take up one side of an argument hastily, they defined to be a knowledge by which we are taught when we ought to agree to a statement, and when we ought to withhold our agreement. Discretion they consider to be a powerful reason, having reference to what is becoming, so as to prevent our yielding to an irrelevant argument. Irrefutability they define to be a power in an argument, which prevents one from being drawn from it to its opposite. Freedom from vanity, according to them, is a habit which refers the perceptions back to right reason.
Again, they define knowledge itself as an assertion or safe comprehension, or habit, which, in the perception of what is seen, never deviates from the truth. And they say further, that without dialectic speculation, the wise man cannot be free from all error in his reasoning. For that that is what distinguishes what is true from what is false, and which easily detects those arguments which are only plausible, and those which depend upon an ambiguity of language. And without dialectics they say it is not possible to ask or answer questions correctly. They also add, that precipitation in denials extends to those things which are done, so that those[277] who have not properly exercised their perceptions fall into irregularity and thoughtlessness. Again, without dialectics, the wise man cannot be acute, and ingenious, and wary, and altogether dangerous as an arguer. For that it belongs to the same man to speak correctly and to reason correctly, and to discuss properly those subjects which are proposed to him, and to answer readily whatever questions are put to him, all which qualities belong to a man who is skilful in dialectics. This then is a brief summary of their opinions on logic.
XXXVI. And, that we may also enter into some more minute details respecting them, we will subjoin what refers to what they call their introductory science, as it is stated by Diocles, of Magnesia, in his Excursion of Philosophers, where he speaks as follows, and we will give his account word for word.
The Stoics have chosen to treat, in the first place, of perception and sensation, because the criterion by which the truth of facts is ascertained is a kind of perception, and because the judgment which expresses the belief, and the comprehension, and the understanding of a thing, a judgment which precedes all others, cannot exist without perception. For perception leads the way; and then thought, finding vent in expressions, explains in words the feelings which it derives from perception. But there is a difference between φαντασία and φάντασμα. For φάντασμα is a conception of the intellect, such as takes place in sleep; but φαντασία is an impression, τύπωσις, produced on the mind, that is to say, an alteration, ἀλλοίωσις, as Chrysippus states in the twelfth book of his treatise on the Soul. For we must not take this impression to resemble that made by a seal, since it is impossible to conceive that there should be many impressions made at the same time on the same thing. But φαντασία is understood to be that which is impressed, and formed, and imprinted by a real object, according to a real object, in such a way as it could not be by any other than a real object; and, according to their ideas of the φαντασίαι, some are sensible, and some are not. Those they call sensible, which are derived by us from some one or more senses; and those they call not sensible, which emanate directly from the thought, as for instance, those which relate to incorporeal objects, or any others which are embraced by reason. Again, those which are sensible, are produced by a[278] real object, which imposes itself on the intelligence, and compels its acquiescence; and there are also some others, which are simply apparent, mere shadows, which resemble those which are produced by real objects.
Again, these φαντασίαι are divided into rational and irrational; those which are rational belong to animals capable of reason; those which are irrational to animals destitute of reason. Those which are rational are thoughts; those which are irrational have no name; but are again subdivided into artificial and not artificial. At all events, an image is contemplated in a different light by a man skilful in art, from that in which it is viewed by a man ignorant of art.
By sensation, the Stoics understand a species of breath which proceeds from the dominant portion of the soul to the senses, whether it be a sensible perception, or an organic disposition, which, according to the notions of some of them, is crippled and vicious. They also call sensation the energy, or active exercise, of the sense. According to them, it is to sensation that we owe our comprehension of white and black, and rough and smooth: from reason, that we derive the notions which result from a demonstration, those for instance which have for their object the existence of Gods, and of Divine Providence. For all our thoughts are formed either by indirect perception, or by similarity, or analogy, or transposition, or combination, or opposition. By a direct perception, we perceive those things which are the objects of sense; by similarity, those which start from some point present to our senses; as, for instance, we form an idea of Socrates from his likeness. We draw our conclusions by analogy, adopting either an increased idea of the thing, as of Tityus, or the Cyclops; or a diminished idea, as of a pigmy. So, too, the idea of the centre of the world was one derived by analogy from what we perceived to be the case of the smaller spheres. We use transposition when we fancy eyes in a man’s breast; combination, when we take in the idea of a Centaur; opposition, when we turn our thoughts to death. Some ideas we also derive from comparison, for instance, from a comparison of words and places.
There is also nature; as by nature we comprehend what is just and good. And privation, when for instance, we form a notion of a man without hands. Such are the doctrines of[279] the Stoics, on the subject of phantasia, and sensation, and thought.
XXXVII. They say that the proper criterion of truth is the comprehension, φαντασία; that is to say, one which is derived from a real object, as Chrysippus asserts in the twelfth book of his Physics; and he is followed by Antipater and Apollodorus. For Boethus leaves a great many criteria, such as intellect, sensation, appetite, and knowledge; but Chrysippus dissents from his view, and in the first book of his treatise on Reason, says, that sensation and preconception are the only criteria. And preconception is, according to him, a comprehensive physical notion of general principles. But others of the earlier Stoics admit right reason as one criterion of the truth; for instance, this is the opinion of Posidonius, and is advanced by him in his essay on Criteria.
XXXVIII. On the subject of logical speculation, there appears to be a great unanimity among the greater part of the Stoics, in beginning with the topic of the voice. Now voice is a percussion of the air; or, as Diogenes, the Babylonian, defines it, in his essay on the Voice, a sensation peculiar to the hearing. The voice of a beast is a mere percussion of the air by some impetus: but the voice of a man is articulate, and is emitted by intellect, as Diogenes lays it down, and is not brought to perfection in a shorter period than fourteen years. And the voice is a body according to the Stoics; for so it is laid down by Archedemus, in his book on the Voice, and by Diogenes, and Antipater, and also by Chrysippus, in the second volume of his Physics. For everything which makes anything, is a body; and the voice makes something when it proceeds to those who hear from those who speak.
A word (λέξις), again, is, according to Diogenes, a voice consisting of letters, as “Day.” A sentence (λόγος) is a significant voice, sent out by the intellect, as for instance, “It is day;” but dialect is a peculiar style imprinted on the utterance of nations, according to their race; and causes varieties in the Greek language, being a sort of local habit, as for instance, the Attics say θάλαττα, and the Ionians say ἡμέρη. The elements of words are the twenty-four letters; and the word letter is used in a triple division of sense, meaning the element itself, the graphical sign of the element, and the name, as Alpha. There are seven vowels, α, ε, η, ι, ο, υ, ω; six mutes, β, γ, δ, κ, π, τ. But voice is different from[280] a word, because voice is a sound; but a word is an articulate sound. And a word differs from a sentence, because a sentence is always significative of something, but a word by itself has no signification, as for instance, βλίτρι. But this is not the case with a sentence. Again, there is a difference between speaking and pronouncing; the sounds are pronounced, but what are spoken are things which are capable of being spoken of.
XXXIX. Now of sentences there are five parts, as Diogenes tells us in his treatise on Voice; and he is followed by Chrysippus. There is the noun, the common noun, the verb, the conjunction, and the article. Antipater adds also quality, in his treatise upon Words and the things expressed by them. And a common noun (προσηγορία) is, according to Diogenes, a part of a sentence signifying a common quality, as for instance, man, horse. But a noun is a part of a sentence signifying a peculiar quality, such as Diogenes, Socrates. A verb is a part of a sentence signifying an uncombined categorem, as Diogenes (ὁ Διογένης) or, as others define it, an element of a sentence, devoid of case, signifying something compound in reference to some person or persons, as, “I write,” “I say.” A conjunction is a part of a sentence destitute of case, uniting the divisions of the sentence. An article is an element of a sentence, having cases, defining the genders of nouns and their numbers, as ὁ, ἡ, τὸ, οἱ, αἱ, τὰ.
XL. The excellences of a sentence are five,—good Greek, clearness, conciseness, suitableness, elegance. Good Greek (Ἑλληνισμὸς) is a correct style, according to art, keeping aloof from any vulgar form of expression; clearness is a style which states that which is conceived in the mind in such a way that it is easily known; conciseness is a style which embraces all that is necessary to the clear explanation of the subject under discussion; suitableness is a style suited to the subject; elegance is a style which avoids all peculiarity of expression. Of the vices of a sentence, on the other hand, barbarism is a use of words contrary to that in vogue among the well-educated Greeks; solecism is a sentence incongruously put together.
XLI. A poetical expression is, as Posidonius defines it in his introduction on Style, “A metrical or rhythmical diction, proceeding in preparation, and avoiding all resemblance to prose.” For instance, “The vast and boundless earth,” “Th’ expanse of heaven,” are rhythmical expressions; and[281] poetry is a collection of poetical expressions signifying something, containing an imitation of divine and human beings.
XLII. A definition is, as Antipater explains it in the first book of his treatise on Definitions, a sentence proceeding by analysis enunciated in such a way as to give a complete idea; or, as Chrysippus says in his treatise on Definitions, it is the explanation of an idea. Description is a sentence which, in a figurative manner, brings one to a knowledge of the subject, or it may be called a simpler kind of definition, expressing the power of a definition in plainer language. Genus is a comprehending of many ideas indissolubly connected, as animal; for this one expression comprehends all particular kinds of animals. An idea is an imagination of the mind which does not express actually anything real, or any quality, but only a quasi reality and a quasi quality; such, for instance, is the idea of a horse when a horse is not present. Species is that which is comprehended under genus, as man is comprehended under animal.
Again, that is the most general genus which, being a genus itself, has no other genus, as the existent. And that is the most special species, which being a species has no other species, as, for instance, Socrates.
XLIII. The division of genus is a dissection of it into the proximate species; as, for instance, “Of animals, some are rational, others irrational.” Contrary division is the dissection of genus into species on the principle of the contrary; so as to be by a sort of negation; as, for instance, “Of existent things, some are good and some not good;” and, “Of things which are not good, some are bad and some indifferent.” Partition is an arrangement of a genus with reference to place, as Crinis says, for instance, “Of goods, some have reference to the mind and some to the body.”
XLIV. Ambiguity (ἀμφιβολία) is an expression signifying two or more things having an ordinary or a peculiar meaning, according to the pronunciation, in such a way that more things than one may be understood by the very same expression. Take, for instance, the words αὐλητρὶς πέπτωκε. For you may understand by them, a house has fallen down three times (αὐλὴ τρὶς πέπτωκε), or, a female flute-player has fallen, taking αὐλητρὶς as synonymous with αὐλητρία.
LV. Dialectics are, as Posidonius explains them, the science[282] of what is true and false, and neither one or the other, and it is, as Chrysippus explains it, conversant about words that signify and things that are signified; these then are the doctrines asserted by the Stoics in their speculations on the subject of the voice.
XLVI. But in that part of dialectics which concerns things and ideas signified, they treat of propositions, of perfect enunciations, of judgments, of syllogisms, of imperfect enunciations, of attributes and deficiencies, and of both direct and indirect categorems or predicaments.
XLVII. And they say that enunciation is the manifestation of the ideal perception; and these enunciations the Stoics pronounce some to be perfect in themselves, and some to be defective; now those are defective, which furnish an incomplete sense, as for instance, “He writes.” For then we ask further, “Who writes?” But those are perfect in themselves, which give a sense entirely complete, as for instance, “Socrates writes.” Accordingly, in the defective enunciations, categorems are applied; but in those which are perfect in themselves, axioms, and syllogisms, and questions, and interrogations, are brought into play. Now a categorem is something which is predicated of something else, being either a thing which is added to one or more objects, according to the definition of Apollodorus, or else a defective enunciation added to the nominative case, for the purpose of forming a proposition.
Now of categorems, some are accidents …[84] as for instance, “The sailing through a rock.” … And of categorems, some are direct, some indirect, and some neither one nor the other. Now those are correct, which are construed with one of the oblique cases, in such a manner as to produce a categorem, as for instance, “He hears, he sees, he converses.” And those are indirect, which are construed with the passive voice, as for instance, “I am heard, I am seen.”[283] And those which are neither one nor the other, are those which are construed in a neutral kind of manner, as for instance, “To think, to walk.” And those are reciprocal, which are among the indirect ones, without being indirect themselves. Those are effects, ἐνεργήματα, which are such words as, “He is shaved;” for then, the man who is shaved, implies himself.
The oblique cases, are the genitive, the dative, and the accusative.
XLVIII. An axiom, is that thing which is true, or false, or perfect in itself, being asserted, or denied positively, as far as depends upon itself; as Chrysippus explains it in his Dialectic Definitions; as for instance, “It is day,” “Dion is walking.” And it has received the name of axiom, ἀξίωμα, because it is either maintained, ἀξιοῦται, or repudiated. For the man who says, “It is day,” appears to maintain the fact of its being day. If then it is day, the axiom put before one is true; but if it is not day, the axiom is false. And an axiom, a question, and an interrogation, differ from one another, and so does an imperative proposition from one which is adjurative, or imprecatory, or hypothetical, or appellative, or false. For that is an axiom which we utter, when we affirm anything positively, which is either true or false. And a question is a thing complete in itself, as also is an axiom, but which requires an answer, as for instance, “Is it day?” Now this is neither true nor false; but, as “It is day” is an axiom; so is, “Is it day?” a question. But an interrogation, πύσμα, is a thing to which it is not possible to make an answer symbolically, as in the case of a question, ἐρώτημα, saying merely “Yes,” but we must reply, “He does live in this place.”
The imperative proposition is a thing which we utter when we give an order, as for instance this:—
Do you now go to the sweet stream of Inachus.[85]
…
The appellative proposition is one which is used in the case in which, when a man says anything, he must address somebody, as for instance:—
Atrides, glorious king of men,
Most mighty Agamemnon.[86]
A false judgment is a proposition, which, while it has at the[284] same time the appearance of a real judgment, loses this character by the addition, and under the influence of, some particle, as for instance:
The Parthenon at least is beautiful.
How like the herdsman is to Priam’s sons.
There is also the dubitative proposition, which differs from the judgment, inasmuch as it is always uttered in the form of a doubt; as for instance:—
Are not, then, grief and life two kindred states?[87]
But questions, and interrogations, and things like these, are neither true nor false, while judgments and propositions are necessarily one or the other.
Now of axioms, some are simple, and others are not simple; as Chrysippus, and Archedemus, and Athenodorus, and Antipater, and Crinis, agree in dividing them. Those are simple, which consist of an axiom or proposition, which is not ambiguous, (or of several axioms, or propositions of the same character,) as for instance the sentence, “It is day.” And those are not simple, which consist of an axiom or proposition which is ambiguous, or of several axioms or propositions of that character. Of an axiom, or proposition, which is ambiguous, as “If it is day;” of several axioms, or propositions of that character, as, “If it is day, it is light.”
And simple propositions are divided into the affirmative, the negative, the privative, the categorical, the definite, and the indefinite; those which are not simple, are divided into the combined, and the adjunctive, the connected and the disjunctive, and the causal and the augmentative, and the diminutive. That is an affirmative proposition, “It is not day.” And the species of this is doubly affirmative. That again is doubly affirmative, which is affirmative of an affirmative, as for instance, “It is not not day;” for this amounts to, “It is day.” That is a negative proposition, which consists of a negative particle and a categorem, as for instance, “No one is walking.” That is a privative proposition which consists of a privative particle and an axiom according to power, as “This man is inhuman.” That is a categorical proposition, which consists of a nominative case and a categorem, as for instance, “Dion is walking.” That is a definite proposition,[285] which consists of a demonstrative nominative case and a categorem, as for instance, “This man is walking.” That is an indefinite one which consists of an indefinite particle, or of indefinite particles, as for instance, “Somebody is walking,” “He is moving.”
Of propositions which are not simple, the combined proposition is, as Chrysippus states, in his Dialectics, and Diogenes, too, in his Dialectic Art; that which is held together by the copulative conjunction “if.” And this conjunction professes that the second member of the sentence follows the first, as for instance, “If it is day, it is light.” That which is adjunctive is, as Crinis states in his Dialectic Art, an axiom which is made to depend on the conjunction “since” (ἐπεὶ), beginning with an axiom and ending in an axiom, as for instance, “Since it is day, it is light.” And this conjunction professes both that the second portion of the proposition follows the first, and the first is true. That is a connected proposition which is connected by some copulative conjunctions, as for instance, “It both is day, and it is light.” That is a disjunctive proposition which is disconnected by the disjunctive conjunction, “or” (ἤτοι), as for instance, “It is either day or night.” And this proposition professes that one or other of these propositions is false. That is a causal proposition which is connected by the word, “because;” as for instance, “Because it is day, it is light.” For the first is, as it were, the cause of the second. That is an augmentative proposition, which explains the greater, which is construed with an augmentative particle, and which is placed between the two members of the proposition, as for instance, “It is rather day than night.” The diminutive proposition is, in every respect, the exact contrary of the preceding one; as for instance, “It is less night than day.” Again, at times, axioms or propositions are opposed to one another in respect of their truth and falsehood, when one is an express denial of the other; as for instance, “It is day,” and, “It is not day.”
Again, a conjunctive proposition is correct, when it is such that the opposite of the conclusion is contradictory of the premiss; as for instance, the proposition, “If it is day, it is light,” is true; for, “It is not light,” which is the opposite to the conclusion expressed, is contradictory to the premiss, “It is day.” And a conjunctive proposition is incorrect, when it[286] is such that the opposite of the conclusion is not inconsistent with the premiss, as for instance, “If it is day, Dion is walking.” For the fact that Dion is not walking, is not contradictory of the premiss, “It is day.”
An adjunctive proposition is correct, which begins with a true premiss, and ends in a consequence which follows of necessity, as for instance, “Since it is day, the sun is above the earth.” But it is incorrect when it either begins with a false premiss, or ends with a consequence which does not follow properly; as for instance, “Since it is night, Dion is walking,” for this may be said in the day-time.
A causal proposition is correct, when it begins with a true premiss, and ends in a consequence which necessarily follows from it, but yet does not have its premiss reciprocally consequent upon its conclusion; as for instance, “Because it is day, it is light.” For the fact of its being light, is a necessary consequence of its being day; but the fact of its being day, is not necessarily a consequence of its being light. A causal proposition is incorrect, which either begins with a false premiss, or ends with a conclusion that does not follow from it, or which has a premiss which does not correspond to the conclusion; as for instance, “Because it is night, Dion is walking.”
A proposition is persuasive, which leads to the assent of the mind, as for instance, “If she brought him forth, she is his mother.” But still this is a falsehood, for a hen is not the mother of an egg. Again, there are some propositions which are possible, and some which are impossible; and some which are necessary, and some which are not necessary. That is possible, which is capable of being true, since external circumstances are no hindrance to its being true; as for instance, “Diocles lives.” And that is impossible which is not capable of being true; as for instance, “The earth flies.” That is necessary which, being true, is not capable of being false; or perhaps is intrinsically capable of being false, but still has external circumstances which hinder its being false, as for instance, “Virtue profits a man.” That again, is not necessary, which is true, but which has a capacity of being false, though external circumstances offer no hindrance to either alternative; as for instance, “Dion walks.”
That is a reasonable or probable proposition, which has a[287] great preponderance of opportunities in favour of its being true; as for instance, “I shall be alive to-morrow.” And there are other different kinds of propositions and conversions of them, from true to false, and re-conversions again; concerning which we must speak at some length.
XLIX. An argument, as Crinis says, is that which is composed of a lemma or major premiss, an assumption or minor premiss, and a conclusion; as for instance this, “If it is day, it is light;” “But it is day, therefore it is light.” For the lemma, or major premiss, is, “If it is day, it is light.” The assumption, or minor premiss, is, “It is day.” The conclusion follows, “Therefore it is light.” The mode of a proposition is, as it were, a figure of an argument, as for instance, such as this, “If it is the first, it is the second; but it is the first, therefore it is the second.”
A conditional syllogism is that which is composed of both the preceding arguments; as for instance, “If Plato is alive, Plato breathes; but the first fact is so, therefore so is the second.” And this conditional syllogism has been introduced for the sake, in long and complex sentences, of not being forced to repeat the assumption, as it was a long one, and also the conclusion; but of being able, instead, to content one’s self with summing it up briefly thus, “The first case put is true, therefore so is the second.”
Of arguments, some are conclusive, others are inconclusive. Those are inconclusive which are such, that the opposite of the conclusion drawn in them is not necessarily incompatible with the connection of the premisses. As for instance, such arguments as these, “If it is day, it is light; but it is day, therefore, Dion is walking.” But of conclusive arguments, some are called properly by the kindred name conclusions, and some are called syllogistic arguments. Those then are syllogistic which are either such as do not admit of demonstration, or such as are brought to an indemonstrable conclusion, according to some one or more propositions; such for instance as the following: “If Dion walks, then Dion is in motion.” Those are conclusive, which infer their conclusion specially, and not syllogistically; such for instance, as this, “The proposition it is both day and night is false. Now it is day; therefore, it is not night.”
Those again, are unsyllogistic arguments which have an air[288] of probability about them, and a resemblance to syllogistic ones, but which still do not lead to the deduction of proper conclusions. As for instance, “If Dion is a horse, Dion is an animal; but Dion is not a horse, therefore, Dion is not an animal.”
Again, of arguments, some are true, and some are false. Those are true which deduce a conclusion from true premisses, as, for instance, “If virtue profits, then vice injures.” And those are false which have some falsehood in their premisses, or which are inconclusive; as, for instance, “If it is day, it is light; but it is day, therefore, Dion is alive.”
There are also arguments which are possible, and others which are impossible; some likewise which are necessary, and others which are not necessary. There are too, some which are not demonstrated from their not standing in need of demonstration, and these are laid down differently by different people; but Chrysippus enumerates five kinds, which serve as the foundation for every kind of argument; and which are assumed in conclusive arguments properly so called, and in syllogisms, and in modes.
The first kind that is not demonstrated, is that in which the whole argument consists of a conjunctive and an antecedent; and in which the first term repeats itself so as to form a sort of conjunctive proposition, and to bring forward as the conclusion the last term. As, for instance, “If the first be true, so is the second; but the first is true, therefore, so is the second.” The second kind that is not demonstrated, is that which, by means of the conjunctive and the opposite of the conclusion, has a conclusion opposite to the first premiss. As, for instance, “If it be day, it is light; but it is night, therefore it is not day.” For here the assumption arises from the opposite of the conclusion, and the conclusion from the opposite of the first term. The third kind that is not demonstrative, is that which, by a negative combination, and by one of the terms in the proposition, produces the contradictory of the remainder; as, for instance, “Plato is not dead and alive at the same time but Plato is dead; therefore, Plato is not alive.” The fourth kind that is not demonstrative, is that which, by means of a disjunctive, and one of those terms which are in the disjunctive, has a conclusion opposite to what remains; as, for instance, “It is either the first, or the second; but it[289] is the first; therefore, it is not the second.” The fifth kind that is not demonstrative, is that in which the whole argument consists of a disjunctive proposition, and the opposite of one of the terms, and then one makes the conclusion identical with the remainder; as, for instance, “It is either day or night; but it is not night; therefore it is day.”
According to the Stoics, truth follows upon truth, as “It is light,” follows upon “It is day.” And falsehood follows upon falsehood; as, “If it is false that it is night, it is also false that it is dark.” Sometimes too, truth follows from falsehood; for instance, though it is false that “the earth flies,” it is true that “there is the earth.” But falsehood does never follow from truth; for, from the fact that “there is the earth,” it does not follow “that the earth flies.”
There are also some arguments which are perplexed, being veiled and escaping notice; or such as are called sorites, the horned one, or the nobody. That is a veiled argument[88] which resembles the following one; “two are not a few, nor three, nor those, nor four, and so on to ten; but two are few; therefore, so are ten few.”
The nobody is a conjunctive argument, and one that consists of the indefinite and the definite, and which has a minor premiss and a conclusion; as, for instance, “If any one is here, he is not in Rhodes.”
L. Such then are the doctrines which the Stoics maintain on the subject of logic, in order as far as possible to establish their point that the logician is the only wise man. For they assert that all affairs are looked at by means of that speculation[290] which proceeds by argument, including under this assertion both those that belong to natural and also those which belong to moral philosophy: for, say they, how else could one determine the exact value of nouns, or how else could one explain what laws are imposed upon such and such actions? Moreover, as there are two habits both incidental to virtue, the one considers what each existing thing is, and the other inquires what it is called. These then are the notions of the Stoics on the subject of logic.
LI. The ethical part of philosophy they divide into the topic of inclination, the topic of good and bad, the topic of the passions, the topic of virtue, the topic of the chief good, and of primary estimation, and of actions; the topic of what things are becoming, and of exhortation and dissuasion. And this division is the one laid down by Chrysippus, and Archedemus, and Zeno, of Tarsus, and Apollodorus, and Diogenes, and Antipater, and Posidonius. For Zeno, of Cittium, and Cleanthes, have, as being more ancient they were likely to, adopted a more simple method of treating these subjects. But these men divided logical and the natural philosophy.
LII. They say that the first inclination which an animal has is to protect itself, as nature brings herself to take an interest in it from the beginning, as Chrysippus affirms in the first book of his treatise on Ends; where he says, that the first and dearest object to every animal is its own existence, and its consciousness of that existence. For that it is not natural for any animal to be alienated from itself, or even to be brought into such a state as to be indifferent to itself, being neither alienated from nor interested in itself. It remains, therefore, that we must assert that nature has bound the animal to itself by the greatest unanimity and affection; for by that means it repels all that is injurious, and attracts all that is akin to it and desirable. But as for what some people say, that the first inclination of animals is to pleasure, they say what is false. For they say that pleasure, if there be any such thing at all, is an accessory only, which, nature, having sought it out by itself, as well as those things which are adapted to its constitution, receives incidentally in the same manner as animals are pleased, and plants made to flourish.
Moreover, say they, nature makes no difference between[291] animals and plants, when she regulates them so as to leave them without voluntary motion or sense; and some things too take place in ourselves in the same manner as in plants. But, as inclination in animals tends chiefly to the point of making them pursue what is appropriate to them, we may say that their inclinations are regulated by nature. And as reason is given to rational animals according to a more perfect principle, it follows, that to live correctly according to reason, is properly predicated of those who live according to nature. For nature is as it were the artist who produces the inclination.
LIII. On which account Zeno was the first writer who, in his treatise on the Nature of Man, said, that the chief good was confessedly to live according to nature; which is to live according to virtue, for nature leads us to this point. And in like manner Cleanthes speaks in his treatise on Pleasure, and so do Posidonius and Hecaton in their essays on Ends as the Chief Good. And again, to live according to virtue is the same thing as living according to one’s experience of those things which happen by nature; as Chrysippus explains it in the first book of his treatise on the Chief Good. For our individual natures are all parts of universal nature; on which account the chief good is to live in a manner corresponding to nature, and that means corresponding to one’s own nature and to universal nature; doing none of those things which the common law of mankind is in the habit of forbidding, and that common law is identical with that right reason which pervades everything, being the same with Jupiter, who is the regulator and chief manager of all existing things.
Again, this very thing is the virtue of the happy man and the perfect happiness of life when everything is done according to a harmony with the genius of each individual with reference to the will of the universal governor and manager of all things. Diogenes, accordingly, says expressly that the chief good is to act according to sound reason in our selection of things according to our nature. And Archedemus defines it to be living in the discharge of all becoming duties. Chrysippus again understands that the nature, in a manner corresponding to which we ought to live, is both the common nature, and also human nature in particular; but Cleanthes will not admit of any other nature than the common one alone, as that to which people ought to live in a manner corresponding; and repudiates[292] all mention of a particular nature. And he asserts that virtue is a disposition of the mind always consistent and always harmonious; that one ought to seek it out for its own sake, without being influenced by fear or hope by any external influence. Moreover, that it is in it that happiness consists, as producing in the soul the harmony of a life always consistent with itself; and that if a rational animal goes the wrong way, it is because it allows itself to be misled by the deceitful appearances of exterior things, or perhaps by the instigation of those who surround it; for nature herself never gives us any but good inclinations.
LIV. Now virtue is, to speak generally, a perfection in everything, as in the case of a statue; whether it is invisible as good health, or speculative as prudence. For Hecaton says, in the first book of his treatise on Virtues, that the scientific and speculative virtues are those which have a constitution arising from speculation and study, as, for instance, prudence and justice; and that those which are not speculative are those which are generally viewed in their extension as a practical result or effect of the former; such for instance, as health and strength. Accordingly, temperance is one of the speculative virtues, and it happens that good health usually follows it, and is marshalled as it were beside it; in the same way as strength follows the proper structure of an arch.—And the unspeculative virtues derive their name from the fact of their not proceeding from any acquiescence reflected by intelligence; but they are derived from others, are only accessories, and are found even in worthless people, as in the case of good health, or courage. And Posidonius, in the first book of his treaties on Ethics, says that the great proof of the reality of virtue is that Socrates, and Diogenes, and Antisthenes, made great improvement; and the great proof of the reality of vice may be found in the fact of its being opposed to virtue.
Again, Chrysippus, in the first book of his treatise on the Chief Good, and Cleanthes, and also Posidonius in his Exhortations, and Hecaton, all agree that virtue may be taught. And that they are right, and that it may be taught, is plain from men becoming good after having been bad. On this account Panætius teaches that there are two virtues, one speculative and the other practical; but others make three kinds, the logical, the natural, and the ethical. Posidonius[293] divides virtue into four divisions; and Cleanthes, Chrysippus, and Antipater make the divisions more numerous still; for Apollophanes asserts that there is but one virtue, namely, prudence.
Among the virtues some are primitive and some are derived. The primitive ones are prudence, manly courage, justice, and temperance. And subordinate to these, as a kind of species contained in them, are magnanimity, continence, endurance, presence of mind, wisdom in council. And the Stoics define prudence as a knowledge of what is good, and bad, and indifferent; justice as a knowledge of what ought to be chosen, what ought to be avoided, and what is indifferent; magnanimity as a knowledge of engendering a lofty habit, superior to all such accidents as happen to all men indifferently, whether they be good or bad; continence they consider a disposition which never abandons right reason, or a habit which never yields to pleasure; endurance they call a knowledge or habit by which we understand what we ought to endure, what we ought not, and what is indifferent; presence of mind they define as a habit which is prompt at finding out what is suitable on a sudden emergency; and wisdom in counsel they think a knowledge which leads us to judge what we are to do, and how we are to do it, in order to act becomingly. And analogously, of vices too there are some which are primary, and some which are subordinate; as, for instance, folly, and cowardice, and injustice, and intemperance, are among the primary vices; incontinence, slowness, and folly in counsel among the subordinate ones. And the vices are ignorance of those things of which the virtues are the knowledge.
LV. Good, looked at in a general way, is some advantage, with the more particular distinction, being partly what is actually useful, partly what is not contrary to utility. On which account virtue itself, and the good which partakes of virtue are spoken of in a threefold view of the subject. First, as to what kind of good it is, and from what it ensues; as, for instance, in an action done according to virtue. Secondly, as to the agent, in the case of a good man who partakes of virtue.…[89]
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At another time, they define the good in a peculiar manner, as being what is perfect according to the nature of a rational being as rational being. And, secondly, they say that it is conformity to virtue, so that all actions which partake of virtue, and all good men, are themselves in some sense the good. And in the third place, they speak of its accessories, joy, and mirth, and things of that kind. In the same manner they speak of vices, which they divide into folly, cowardice, injustice, and things of that kind. And they consider that those things which partake of vices, and actions done according to vice, and bad men, are themselves in some sense the evil; and its accessories are despondency, and melancholy, and other things of that kind.
LVI. Again, of goods, some have reference to the mind, and some are external; and some neither have reference to the mind, nor are external. The goods having reference to the mind are virtues, and actions according to the virtues. The external goods are the having a virtuous country, a virtuous friend, and the happiness of one’s country and friend. And those which are not external, and which have no reference to the mind, are such as a man’s being virtuous and happy to himself. And reciprocally, of evils, some have reference to the mind, such as the vices and actions according to them; some are external, such as having a foolish country, or a foolish friend, or one’s country or one’s friend being unhappy. And those evils which are not external, and which have no reference to the mind, are such as a man’s being worthless and unhappy to himself.
LVII. Again, of goods, some are final, some are efficient, and some are both final and efficient. For instance, a friend,[295] and the services done by him to one, are efficient goods; but courage, and prudence, and liberty, and delight, and mirth, and freedom from pain, and all kinds of actions done according to virtue, are final goods. There are too, as I said before, some goods which are both efficient and final; for inasmuch as they produce perfect happiness they are efficient, and inasmuch as they complete it by being themselves parts of it, they are final. And in the same way, of evils, some are final, and some efficient, and some partake of both natures. For instance, an enemy and the injuries done to one by him, are efficient evils; fear, meanness of condition, slavery, want of delight, depression of spirits, excessive grief, and all actions done according to vice, are final evils; and some partake of both characters, since, inasmuch as they produce perfect unhappiness, they are efficient; and inasmuch as they complete it in such a way as to become parts of it, they are final.
LVIII. Again, of the goods which have reference to the mind, some are habits, some are dispositions, and some are neither habits nor dispositions. Dispositions are virtues, habits are practices, and those which are neither habits nor dispositions are energies. And, speaking generally, the following may be called mixed goods: happiness in one’s children, and a happy old age. But knowledge is a pure good. And some goods are continually present, such as virtue; and some are not always present, as joy, or taking a walk.
LIX. But every good is expedient, and necessary, and profitable, and useful, and serviceable, and beautiful, and advantageous, and eligible, and just. Expedient, inasmuch as it brings us things, which by their happening to us do us good; necessary, inasmuch as it assists us in what we have need to be assisted; profitable, inasmuch as it repays all the care that is expended on it, and makes a return with interest to our great advantage; useful, inasmuch as it supplies us with what is of utility; serviceable, because it does us service which is much praised; beautiful, because it is in accurate proportion to the need we have of it, and to the service it does. Advantageous, inasmuch as it is of such a character as to confer advantage on us; eligible, because it is such that we may rationally choose it; and just, because it is in accordance with law, and is an efficient cause of union.
And they call the honourable the perfect good, because it[296] has naturally all the numbers which are required by nature, and because it discloses a perfect harmony. Now, the species of this perfect good are four in number: justice, manly courage, temperance, and knowledge; for in these goods all beautiful actions have their accomplishment. And analogously, there are also four species of the disgraceful: injustice, and cowardice, and intemperance, and folly. And the honourable is predicated in one sense, as making those who are possessed of it worthy of all praise; and in a second sense, it is used of what is well adapted by nature for its proper work; and in another sense, when it expresses that which adorns a man, as when we say that the wise man alone is good and honourable.
The Stoics also say, that the beautiful is the only good, as Hecaton says, in the third book of his treatise on Goods, and Chrysippus asserts the same principle in his essays on the Beautiful. And they say that this is virtue, and that which partakes of virtue; and this assertion is equal to the other, that everything good is beautiful, and that the good is an equivalent term to the beautiful, inasmuch as the one thing is exactly equal to the other. For since it is good, it is beautiful; and it is beautiful, therefore, it is good.
LX. But it seems that all goods are equal, and that every good is to be desired in the highest degree, and that it admits of no relaxation, and of no extension. Moreover, they divide all existing things into good, bad, and indifferent. The good are the virtues, prudence, justice, manly courage, temperance, and the rest of the like qualities. The bad are the contraries, folly, injustice, and the like. Those are indifferent which are neither beneficial nor injurious, such as life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, riches, a good reputation, nobility of birth; and their contraries, death, disease, labour, disgrace, weakness, poverty, a bad reputation, baseness of birth, and the like; as Hecaton lays it down in the seventh book of his treatise on the Chief Good; and he is followed by Apollodorus, in his Ethics, and by Chrysippus. For they affirm that those things are not good but indifferent, though perhaps a little more near to one species than to the other.
For, as it is the property of the hot to warm and not to chill one, so it is the property of the good to benefit and not to injure one. Now, wealth and good health cannot be said to benefit any more than to injure any one: therefore, neither[297] wealth nor good health are goods. Again, they say that that thing is not good which it is possible to use both well and ill. But it is possible to make either a good or a bad use of wealth, or of health; therefore, wealth and good health are not goods. Posidonius, however, affirms that these things do come under the head of goods. But Hecaton, in the nineteenth book of his treatise on Goods, and Chrysippus, in his treatises on Pleasure, both deny that pleasure is a good. For they say that there are disgraceful pleasures, and that nothing disgraceful is good. And that to benefit a person is to move him or to keep him according to virtue, but to injure him is to move him or to keep him according to vice.
They also assert, that things indifferent are so spoken of in a twofold manner; firstly, those things are called so, which have no influence in producing either happiness or unhappiness; such for instance, as riches, glory, health, strength, and the like; for it is possible for a man to be happy without any of these things; and also, it is upon the character of the use that is made of them, that happiness or unhappiness depends. In another sense, those things are called indifferent, which do not excite any inclination or aversion, as for instance, the fact of a man’s having an odd or an even number of hairs on his head, or his putting out or drawing back his finger; for it is not in this sense that the things previously mentioned are called indifferent, for they do excite inclination or aversion. On which account some of them are chosen, though there is equal reason for preferring or shunning all the others.
LXI. Again, of things indifferent, they call some preferred (προηγμένα), and others rejected (ἀποπροηγμένα). Those are preferred, which have some proper value (ἀξίαν), and those are rejected, which have no value at all (ἀπαξίαν ἔχοντα). And by the term proper value, they mean that quality of things, which causes them to concur in producing a well-regulated life; and in this sense, every good has a proper value. Again, they say that a thing has value, when in some point of view, it has a sort of intermediate power of aiding us to live conformably to nature; and under this class, we may range riches or good health, if they give any assistance to natural life. Again, value is predicated of the price which one gives for the attainment of an object, which some one,[298] who has experience of the object sought, fixes as its fair price; as if we were to say, for instance, that as some wheat was to be exchanged for barley, with a mule thrown in to make up the difference. Those goods then are preferred, which have a value, as in the case of the mental goods, ability, skill, improvement, and the like; and in the case of the corporeal goods, life, health, strength, a good constitution, soundness, beauty; and in the case of external goods, riches, glory, nobility of birth, and the like.
Rejected things are, in the case of qualities of the mind, stupidity, unskilfulness, and the like; in the case of circumstances affecting the body, death, disease, weakness, a bad constitution, mutilation, disgrace, and the like; in the case of external circumstances, poverty, want of reputation, ignoble birth, and the like. But those qualities and circumstances which are indifferent, are neither preferred nor rejected. Again, of things preferred, some are preferred for their own sakes, some for the sake of other things, and some partly for their own sakes and partly for that of other things. Those which are preferred for their own sakes, are ability, improvement, and the like; those which are preferred for the sake of other things, are wealth, nobility of birth, and the like; those which are preferred partly for their own sake, and partly for that of something else, are strength, vigour of the senses, universal soundness, and the like; for they are preferred, for their own sakes, inasmuch as they are in accordance with nature; and for the sake of something else, inasmuch as they are productive of no small number of advantages; and the same is the case in the inverse ratio, with those things which are rejected.
LXII. Again, they say that that is duty, which is preferred, and which contains in itself reasonable arguments why we should prefer it; as for instance, its corresponding to the nature of life itself; and this argument extends to plants and animals, for even their nature is subject to the obligation of certain duties. And duty (τὸ καθῆκον) had this name given to it by Zeno, in the first instance, its appellation being derived from its coming to, or according to some people, ἀπὸ τοῦ κατά τινας ἥκειν; and its effect is something kindred to the preparations made by nature. Now of the things done according to inclination, some are duties, and some are contrary to duty; and some are neither duties nor contrary to duty.[299] Those are duties, which reason selects to do, as for instance, to honour one’s parents, one’s brothers, one’s country, to gratify one’s friends. Those actions are contrary to duty, which reason does not choose; as for instance, to neglect one’s parents, to be indifferent to one’s brothers, to shirk assisting one’s friends, to be careless about the welfare of one’s country, and so on. Those are neither duties, nor contrary to duty, which reason neither selects to do, nor, on the other hand, repudiates, such actions, for instance, as to pick up straw, to hold a pen, or a comb, or things of that sort.
Again, there are some duties which do not depend on circumstances, and some which do. These do not depend on circumstances, to take care of one’s health, and of the sound state of one’s senses, and the like. Those which do depend on circumstances, are the mutilation of one’s members, the sacrificing of one’s property, and so on. And the case of those actions which are contrary to duty, is similar. Again, of duties, some are always such, and some are not always. What is always a duty, is to live in accordance with virtue; but to ask questions, to give answers, to walk, and the like, are not always duties. And the same statement holds good with respect to acts contrary to duty.
There is also a class of intermediate duties, such as the duty of boys obeying their masters.
LXIII. The Stoics also say that the mind is divisible into eight parts; for that the five organs of sensation, and the vocal power, and the intellectual power, which is the mind itself, and the generative power, are all parts of the mind. But by error, there is produced a perversion which operates on the intellect, from which many perturbations arise, and many causes of inconstancy. And all perturbation is itself, according to Zeno, a movement of the mind, or superfluous inclination, which is irrational, and contrary to nature. Moreover, of the superior class of perturbations, as Hecaton says, in the second book of his treatise on the Passions, and as Zeno also says in his work on the Passions, there are four kinds, grief, fear, desire, and pleasure. And they consider that these perturbations are judgments, as Chrysippus contends in his work on the Passions; for covetousness is an opinion that money is a beautiful object, and in like manner drunkenness and intemperance, and other things of the sort, are judgments.[300] And grief they define to be an irrational contraction of the mind, and it is divided into the following species, pity, envy, emulation, jealousy, pain, perturbation, sorrow, anguish, confusion. Pity is a grief over some one, on the ground of his being in undeserved distress. Envy is a grief, at the good fortune of another. Emulation is a grief at that belonging to some one else, which one desires one’s self. Jealousy is a grief at another also having what one has one’s self. Pain is a grief which weighs one down. Perturbation is grief which narrows one, and causes one to feel in a strait. Sorrow is a grief arising from deliberate thought, which endures for some time, and gradually increases. Anguish is a grief with acute pain. Confusion is an irrational grief, which frets one, and prevents one from clearly discerning present circumstances. But fear is the expectation of evil; and the following feelings are all classed under the head of fear: apprehension, hesitation, shame, perplexity, trepidation, and anxiety. Apprehension is a fear which produces alarm. Shame is a fear of discredit. Hesitation is a fear of coming activity. Perplexity is a fear, from the imagination of some unusual thing. Trepidation is a fear accompanied with an oppression of the voice. Anxiety is a fear of some uncertain event.
Again, desire is an irrational appetite; to which head, the following feelings are referrible: want, hatred, contentiousness, anger, love, enmity, rage. Want is a desire arising from our not having something or other, and is, as it were, separated from the thing, but is still stretching, and attracted towards it in vain. And hatred is a desire that it should be ill with some one, accompanied with a certain continual increase and extension. Contentiousness is a certain desire accompanied with deliberate choice. Anger is a desire of revenge, on a person who appears to have injured one in an unbecoming way. Love is a desire not conversant about a virtuous object, for it is an attempt to conciliate affection, because of some beauty which is seen. Enmity is a certain anger of long duration, and full of hatred, and it is a watchful passion, as is shown in the following lines:—
For though we deem the short-liv’d fury past,
’Tis sure the mighty will revenge at last.[90]
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But rage is anger at its commencement.
Again, pleasure is an irrational elation of the mind over something which appears to be desirable; and its different species are enjoyment, rejoicing at evil, delight, and extravagant joy. Enjoyment now, is a pleasure which charms the mind through the ears. Rejoicing at evil (ἐπιχαιρεκακία), is a pleasure which arises at the misfortunes of others. Delight (τέρψις), that is to say turning (τρέψις), is a certain turning of the soul (προτροπή τις ψυχῆς), to softness. Extravagant joy is the dissolution of virtue. And as there are said to be some sicknesses (ἀῤῥωστήματα), in the body, as, for instance, gout and arthritic disorders; so too are those diseases of the soul, such as a fondness for glory, or for pleasure, and other feelings of that sort. For an ἀῤῥώστημα is a disease accompanied with weakness; and a disease is an opinion of something which appears exceedingly desirable. And, as in the case of the body, there are illnesses to which people are especially liable, such as colds or diarrhœa; so also are there propensities which the mind is under the influence of, such as enviousness, pitifulness, quarrelsomeness, and so on.
There are also three good dispositions of the mind; joy, caution, and will. And joy they say is the opposite of pleasure, since it is a rational elation of the mind; so caution is the opposite of fear, being a rational avoidance of anything, for the wise man will never be afraid, but he will act with caution; and will, they define as the opposite of desire, since it is a rational wish. As therefore some things fall under the class of the first perturbations, in the same manner do some things fall under the class of the first good dispositions. And accordingly, under the head of will, are classed goodwill, placidity, salutation, affection; and under the head of caution are ranged reverence and modesty; under the head of joy, we speak of delight, mirth, and good spirits.
LXIV. They say also, that the wise man is free from perturbations, because he has no strong propensities. But that this freedom from propensities also exists in the bad man, being, however, then quite another thing, inasmuch as it proceeds in him only from the hardness and unimpressibility of his nature. They also pronounce the wise man free from vanity, since he regards with equal eye what is glorious and what is inglorious. At the same time, they admit that there[302] is another character devoid of vanity, who, however, is only reckoned one of the rash men, being in fact the bad man. They also say that all the virtuous men are austere, because they do never speak with reference to pleasure, nor do they listen to what is said by others with reference to pleasure. At the same time, they call another man austere too, using the term in nearly the same sense as they do when they speak of austere wine, which is used in compounding medicines, but not for drinking.
They also pronounce the wise to be honest-hearted men, anxiously attending to those matters which may make them better, by means of some principle which conceals what is bad, and brings to light what is good. Nor is there any hypocrisy about them; for they cut off all pretence in their voice and appearance. They also keep aloof from business; for they guard carefully against doing any thing contrary to their duty. They drink wine, but they do not get drunk; and they never yield to frenzy. Occasionally, extraordinary imaginations may obtain a momentary power over them, owing to some melancholy or trifling, arising not according to the principle of what is desirable, but contrary to nature. Nor, again, will the wise man feel grief; because grief is an irrational contraction of the soul, as Apollodorus defines it in his Ethics.
They are also, as they say, godlike; for they have something in them which is as it were a God. But the bad man is an atheist. Now there are two kinds of atheists; one who speaks in a spirit of hostility to, and the other, who utterly disregards, the divine nature; but they admit that all bad men are not atheists in this last sense. The good, on the contrary, are pious; for they have a thorough acquaintance with the laws respecting the Gods. And piety is a knowledge of the proper reverence and worship due to the Gods. Moreover they sacrifice to the Gods, and keep themselves pure; for they avoid all offences having reference to the Gods, and the Gods admire them; for they are holy and just in all that concerns the Deity; and the wise men are the only priests; for they consider the matters relating to sacrifices, and the erection of temples, and purifications, and all other things which peculiarly concern the Gods. They also pronounce that men are bound to honour their parents, and their brethren, in the second place after the Gods.[303] They also say that parental affection for one’s children is natural to them, and is a feeling which does not exist in bad men. And they lay down the position that all offences are equal, as Chrysippus argues in the fourth book of his Ethic Questions, and so say Persæus and Zeno. For if one thing that is true is not more true than another thing that is true, neither is one thing that is false more false than another thing that is false; so too, one deceit is not greater than another, nor one sin than another. For the man who is a hundred furlongs from Canopus, and the man who is only one, are both equally not in Canopus; and so too, he who commits a greater sin, and he who commits a less, are both equally not in the right path.
Heraclides of Tarsus, indeed, the friend of Antipater, of Tarsus, and Athenodorus, both assert that offences are not equal.
Again, the Stoics, as for instance, Chrysippus, in the first book of his work on Lives, say, that the wise man will take a part in the affairs of the state, if nothing hinders him. For that he will restrain vice, and excite men to virtue. Also, they say that he will marry, as Zeno says, in his Republic, and beget children. Moreover, that the wise man will never form mere opinions, that is to say, he will never agree to anything that is false; and that he will become a Cynic; for that Cynicism is a short path to virtue, as Apollodorus calls it in his Ethics; that he will even eat human flesh, if there should be occasion; that he is the only free man, and that the bad are slaves; for that freedom is a power of independent action, but slavery a deprivation of the same. That there is besides, another slavery, which consists in subjection, and a third which consists in possession and subjection; the contrary of which is masterhood, which is likewise bad.
And they say, that not only are the wise free, but that they are also kings, since kingly power is an irresponsible dominion, which can only exist in the case of the wise man, as Chrysippus says in his treatise on the Proper Application of his Terms made by Zeno; for he says that a ruler ought to give decisions on good and evil, and that none of the wicked understand these things. In the same way, they assert that they are the only people who are fit to be magistrates or judges, or orators, and that none of the bad are qualified for these tasks. Moreover, that they are free from all error, in[304] consequence of their not being prone to any wrong actions. Also, that they are unconnected with injury, for that they never injure any one else, nor themselves. Also, that they are not pitiful, and that they never make allowance for any one; for that they do not relax the punishments appointed by law, since yielding, and pity, and mercifulness itself, never exist in any of their souls, so as to induce an affectation of kindness in respect of punishment; nor do they ever think any punishment too severe. Again, they say that the wise man never wonders at any of the things which appear extraordinary; as for instance, at the stories about Charon, or the ebbing of the tide, or the springs of hot water, or the bursting forth of flames. But, say they further, the wise man will not live in solitude; for he is by nature sociable and practical. Accordingly, he will take exercise for the sake of hardening and invigorating his body. And the wise man will pray, asking good things from the Gods, as Posidonius says in the first book of his treatise on Duties, and Hecaton says the same thing in the thirteenth book of his treatise on Extraordinary Things.
They also say, that friendship exists in the virtuous alone, on account of their resemblance to one another. And they describe friendship itself as a certain communion of the things which concern life, since we use our friends as ourselves. And they assert that a friend is desirable for his own sake, and that a number of friends is a good; and that among the wicked there is no such thing as friendship, and that no wicked man can have a friend.
Again, they say that all the foolish are mad; for that they are not prudent, and that madness is equivalent to folly in every one of its actions; but that the wise man does everything properly, just as we say that Ismenias can play every piece of flute-music well. Also, they say that everything belongs to the wise man, for that the law has given them perfect and universal power; but some things also are said to belong to the wicked, just in the same manner as some things are said to belong to the unjust, or as a house is said to belong to a city in a different sense from that in which a thing belongs to the person who uses it.
LXV. And they say that virtues reciprocally follow one another, and that he who has one has all; for that the precepts[305] of them all are common, as Chrysippus affirms in the first book of his treatise on Laws; and Apollodorus, in his Natural Philosophy, according to the ancient system; and Hecaton, in the third book of his treatise on Virtues. For they say that the man who is endued with virtue, is able to consider and also to do what must be done. But what must be done must be chosen, and encountered, and distributed, and awaited; so that if the man does some things by deliberate choice, and some in a spirit of endurance, and some distributively, and some patiently; he is prudent, and courageous, and just, and temperate. And each of the virtues has a particular subject of its own, about which it is conversant; as, for instance, courage is conversant about the things which must be endured: prudence is conversant about what must be done and what must not, and what is of a neutral or indifferent character. And in like manner, the other virtues are conversant about their own peculiar subjects; and wisdom in counsel and shrewdness follow prudence; and good order and decorum follow temperance; and equality and goodness of judgment follow justice; and constancy and energy follow courage.
Another doctrine of the Stoics is, that there is nothing intermediate between virtue and vice; while the Peripatetics assert that there is a stage between virtue and vice, being an improvement on vice which has not yet arrived at virtue. For the Stoics say, that as a stick must be either straight or crooked, so a man must be either just or unjust, and cannot be more just than just, or more unjust than unjust; and that the same rule applies to all cases. Moreover, Chrysippus is of opinion that virtue can be lost, but Cleanthes affirms that it cannot; the one saying that it can be lost by drunkenness or melancholy, the other maintaining that it cannot be lost on account of the firm perceptions which it implants in men. They also pronounce it a proper object of choice; accordingly, we are ashamed of actions which we do improperly, while we are aware that what is honourable is the only good. Again, they affirm that it is of itself sufficient for happiness, as Zeno says, and he is followed in this assertion by Chrysippus in the first book of his treatise on Virtues, and by Hecaton in the second book of his treatise on Goods.
“For if,” says he, “magnanimity be sufficient of itself to enable us to act in a manner superior to all other men; and[306] if that is a part of virtue, then virtue is of itself sufficient for happiness, despising all things which seem troublesome to it.” However, Panætius and Posidonius do not admit that virtue has this sufficiency of itself, but say that there is also need of good health, and competency, and strength. And their opinion is that a man exercises virtue in everything, as Cleanthes asserts, for it cannot be lost; and the virtuous man on every occasion exercises his soul, which is in a state of perfection.
LXVI. Again, they say that justice exists by nature, and not because of any definition or principle; just as law does, or right reason, as Chrysippus tells us in his treatise on the Beautiful; and they think that one ought not to abandon philosophy on account of the different opinions prevailing among philosophers, since on this principle one would wholly quit life, as Posidonius argues in his Exhortatory Essays. Another doctrine of Chrysippus is, that general learning is very useful.
And the School in general maintain that there are no obligations of justice binding on us with reference to other animals, on account of their dissimilarity to us, as Chrysippus asserts in the first book of his treatise on Justice, and the same opinion is maintained by Posidonius in the first book of his treatise on Duty. They say too, that the wise man will love those young men, who by their outward appearance, show a natural aptitude for virtue; and this opinion is advanced by Zeno, in his Republic, and by Chrysippus in the first book of his work on Lives, and by Apollodorus in his Ethics. And they describe love as an endeavour to benefit a friend on account of his visible beauty; and that it is an attribute not of acquaintanceship, but of friendship. Accordingly, that Thrasonides, although he had his mistress in his power, abstained from her, because he was hated by her. Love, therefore, according to them is a part of friendship, as Chrysippus asserts in his essay on Love; and it is not blameable. Moreover, beauty is the flower of virtue.
And as there are three kinds of lives; the theoretical, the practical, and the logical; they say that the last is the one which ought to be chosen. For that a logical, that is a rational, animal was made by nature on purpose for speculation and action. And they say that a wise man will very rationally take himself out of life, either for the sake of his country or of[307] his friends, or if he be in bitter pain, or under the affliction of mutilation, or incurable disease. And they also teach that women ought to be in common among the wise, so that whoever meets with any one may enjoy her, and this doctrine is maintained by Zeno in his Republic, and by Chrysippus in his treatise on Polity, and by Diogenes the Cynic, and by Plato; and then, say they, we shall love all boys equally after the manner of fathers, and all suspicion on the ground of undue familiarity will be removed.
They affirm too, that the best of political constitutions is a mixed one, combined of democracy, and kingly power, and aristocracy. And they say many things of this sort, and more too, in their Ethical Dogmas, and they maintain them by suitable explanations and arguments. But this may be enough for us to say of their doctrines on this head by way of summary, and taking them in an elementary manner.
LXVII. They divide natural philosophy into the topics of bodies, and of principles, and of elements, and of Gods, and of boundaries, and of place, and of the vacuum. And they make these divisions according to species; but according to genera they divide them into three topics, that of the world, that of the elements, and the third is that which reasons on causes. The topic about the world, they say, is subdivided into two parts. For that in one point of view, the mathematicians also have a share in it; and according to it it is that they prosecute their investigations into the nature of the fixed stars and the planets; as, for instance, whether the sun is of such a size as he appears to be, and similarly, whether the moon is; and in the same way they investigate the question of spherical motion, and others of the same character. The other point of view is that which is reserved exclusively for natural philosophers, according to which it is that the existence and substance of things are examined, [for instance, whether the sun and the stars consist of matter and form,] and whether the sun is born or not born, whether it is living or lifeless, corruptible or incorruptible, whether it is regulated by Providence, and other questions of this kind.
The topic which examines into causes they say is also divisible into two parts; and with reference to one of its considerations, the investigations of physicians partake of it; according to which it is that they investigate the dominant[308] principle of the soul, and the things which exist in the soul, and seeds, and things of this kind. And its other division is claimed as belonging to them also by the mathematicians, as, for instance, how we see, what is the cause of our appearance being reflected in a mirror, how clouds are collected, how thunder is produced, and the rainbow, and the halo, and comets, and things of that kind.
LXVIII. They think that there are two general principles in the universe, the active and the passive. That the passive is matter, an existence without any distinctive quality. That the active is the reason which exists in the passive, that is to say, God. For that he, being eternal, and existing throughout all matter, makes everything. And Zeno, the Cittiæan, lays down this doctrine in his treatise on Essence, and so does Cleanthes in his essay on Atoms, Chrysippus in the first book of his Investigations in Natural Philosophy, towards the end, Archedemus in his work on Elements, and Posidonius in the second book of his treatise on Natural Philosophy. But they say that principles and elements differ from one another. For that the one had no generation or beginning, and will have no end; but that the elements may be destroyed by the operation of fire. Also, that the elements are bodies, but principles have no bodies and no forms, and elements too have forms.
Now a body, says Apollodorus in his Natural Philosophy, is extended in a threefold manner; in length, in breadth, in depth; and then it is called a solid body; and the superficies is the limit of the body having length and breadth alone, but not depth. But Posidonius, in the third book of his Heavenly Phænomena, will not allow a superficies either any substantial reality, or any intelligible existence. A line is the limit of a superficies, or length without breadth, or something which has nothing but length. A point is the boundary of a line, and is the smallest of all symbols.
They also teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind, and Fate, and Jupiter, and by many other names besides. And that, as he was in the beginning by himself, he turned into water the whole substance which pervaded the air; and as the seed is contained in the produce, so too, he being the seminal principle of the world, remained behind in moisture, making matter fit to be employed by himself in the production of those things which were to come after; and[309] then, first of all, he made the four elements, fire, water, air, and earth. And Zeno speaks of these in his treatise on the Universe, and so does Chrysippus in the first book of his Physics, and so does Archedemus in some treatise on the Elements.
LXIX. Now an element is that out of which at first all things which are are produced, and into which all things are resolved at last. And the four elements are all equally an essence without any distinctive quality, namely, matter; but fire is the hot, water the moist, air the cold, and earth the dry—though this last quality is also common to the air. The fire is the highest, and that is called æther, in which first of all the sphere was generated in which the fixed stars are set, then that in which the planets revolve; after that the air, then the water; and the sediment as it were of all is the earth, which is placed in the centre of the rest.
LXX. They also speak of the world in a threefold sense; at one time meaning God himself, whom they call a being of a certain quality, having for his peculiar manifestation universal substance, a being imperishable, and who never had any generation, being the maker of the arrangement and order that we see; and who, after certain periods of time, absorbs all substance in himself, and then re-produces it from himself. And this arrangement of the stars they call the world, and so the third sense is one composed of both the preceding ones. And the world is a thing which is peculiarly of such and such a quality consisting of universal substance, as Posidonius affirms in his Meteorological Elements, being a system compounded of heaven and earth, and all the creatures which exist in them; or it may be called a system compounded of Gods and men, and of the things created on their account. And the heaven is the most remote circumference of the world, in which all the Divine Nature is situated.
Again, the world is inhabited and regulated according to intellect and providence, as Chrysippus says, in his works on Providence, and Posidonius in the thirteenth book of his treatise on Gods, since mind penetrates into every part of the world, just as the soul pervades us; but it is in a greater degree in some parts, and in a less degree in others. For instance, it penetrates as a habit, as, for instance, into the bones and sinews; and into some it penetrates as the mind[310] does, for instance, into the dominant principle. And thus the whole world, being a living thing, endowed with a soul and with reason, has the æther as its dominant principle, as Antipater, of Tyre, says in the eighth book of his treatise on the World. But Chrysippus, in the first book of his essay on Providence, and Posidonius in his treatise on Gods, say that the heaven is the dominant principle of the world; and Cleanthes attributes this to the sun. Chrysippus, however, on this point contradicts himself; for he says in another place, that the most subtle portion of the æther, which is also called by the Stoics the first God, is what is infused in a sensible manner into all the beings which are in the air, and through every animal and every plant, and through the earth itself according to a certain habit; and that it is this which communicates to them the faculty of feeling.
They say too, that the world is one and also finite, having a spherical form. For that such a shape is the most convenient for motion, as Posidonius says, in the fifteenth book of his Discussions on Natural Philosophy, and so says Antipater also in his essay on the World. And on the outside there is diffused around it a boundless vacuum, which is incorporeal. And it is incorporeal inasmuch, as it is capable of being contained by bodies, but is not so. And that there is no such thing as a vacuum in the world, but that it is all closely united and compact; for that this condition is necessarily brought about by the concord and harmony which exist between the heavenly bodies and those of the earth. And Chrysippus mentions a vacuum in his essay on a Vacuum, and also in the first book of his treatise on the Physical Arts, and so does Apollophanes in his Natural Philosophy, and so does Apollodorus, and so does Posidonius in the second book of his discourses on Natural Philosophy. And they say that these things are all incorporeal, and all alike. Moreover, that time is incorporeal, since it is an interval of the motion of the world. And that of time, the past and the future are both illimitable, but the present is limited. And they assert that the world is perishable, inasmuch as it was produced by reason, and is one of the things which are perceptible by the senses; and whatever has its parts perishable, must also be perishable in the whole. And the parts of the world are perishable, for they change into one another. Therefore, the whole world is[311] perishable. And again, if anything admits of a change for the worse it is perishable; therefore, the world is perishable, for it can be dried up, and it can be covered with water.
Now the world was created when its substance was changed from fire to moisture, by the action of the air; and then its denser parts coagulated, and so the earth was made, and the thinner portions were evaporated and became air; and this being rarefied more and more, produced fire. And then, by the combination of all these elements, were produced plants and animals, and other kinds of things. Now Zeno speaks of the creation, and of the destruction of the world, in his treatise on the Universe, and so does Cleanthes, and so does Antipater, in the tenth book of his treatise on the World. But Panætius asserts that the world is imperishable.
Again, that the world is an animal, and that it is endued with reason, and life, and intellect, is affirmed by Chrysippus, in the first volume of his treatise on Providence, and by Apollodorus in his Natural Philosophy, and by Posidonius; and that it is an animal in this sense, as being an essence endued with life, and with sensation. For that which is an animal, is better than that which is not an animal. But nothing is better than the world; therefore the world is an animal. And it is endued with life, as is plain from the fact of our own soul being as it were a fragment broken off from it. But Boethus denies that the world is an animal.
Again, that the world is one, is affirmed by Zeno, in his treatise on the Universe, and by Chrysippus, and by Apollodorus, in his Natural Philosophy, and by Posidonius, in the first book of his Discourses on Natural Philosophy. And by the term, the universe, according to Apollodorus, is understood both the world itself, and also the whole of the world itself, and of the exterior vacuum taken together. The world, then, is finite, and the vacuum infinite.
LXXI. Of the stars, those which are fixed are only moved in connection with the movements of the entire heaven; but the planets move according to their own peculiar and separate motions. And the sun takes an oblique path through the circle of the zodiac, and in the same manner also does the moon, which is of a winding form. And the sun is pure fire, as Posidonius asserts in the seventh book of his treatise on the Heavenly Bodies, and it is larger than the earth, as the[312] same author informs us, in the sixteenth book of his Disclosures on Natural Philosophy. Also it is spherical, as he says in another place, being made on the same principle as the world is. Therefore it is fire, because it performs all the functions of fire. And it is larger than the earth, as is proved by the fact of the whole earth being illuminated by it, and also the whole heaven. Also the fact of the earth throwing a conical shadow, proves that the sun is greater than it, and the sun is seen in every part, because of its magnitude. But the moon is of a more earthy nature than the sun, inasmuch as it is nearer the earth.
Moreover, they say that all these fiery bodies, and all the other stars, receive nutriment; the sun from the vast sea, being a sort of intellectual appendage; and the moon from the fresh waters, being mingled with the air, and also near the earth, as Posidonius explains it in the sixth book of his Discourses on Natural Philosophy. And all the other stars derive their nourishment from the earth. They also consider that the stars are of a spherical figure, and that the earth is immovable. And that the moon has not a light of her own, but that she borrows it from the sun. And that the sun is eclipsed, when the moon runs in front of it on the side towards us, as Zeno describes in his work on the Universe; for when it comes across it in its passage, it conceals it, and again it reveals it; and this is a phenomenon easily seen in a basin of water. And the moon is eclipsed when it comes below the shadow of the earth, on which account this never happens, except at the time of the full moon; and although it is diametrically opposite to the sun every month, still it is not eclipsed every month, because when its motions are obliquely towards the sun, it does not find itself in the same place as the sun, being either a little more to the north, or a little more to the south. When therefore it is found in the same place with the sun, and with the other intermediate objects, then it takes as it were the diameter of the sun, and is eclipsed. And its place is along the line which runs between the crab and the scorpion, and the ram and the bull, as Posidonius tells us.
LXXII. They also say that God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of the world[313] and of all that is in the world; however, that he has not the figure of a man; and that he is the creator of the universe, and as it were, the Father of all things in common, and that a portion of him pervades everything, which is called by different names, according to its powers; for they call him Δία as being the person (δι’ ὃν) everything is, and Ζῆνα, inasmuch as he is the cause of life, (τοῦ Ζῆν), or because he pervades life. And Ἀθηνᾶ, with reference to the extension of his dominant power over the æther (εἰς αἰθέρα). And Ἥρα, on account of his extension through the air (εἰς ἀέρα). And Ἥφαιστος, on account of his pervading fire, which is the chief instrument of art; and Ποσειδῶν, as pervading moisture, and Δημήτηρ, as pervading the earth (Γῆ). And in the same way, regarding some other of his peculiar attributes, they have given him other names.[91]
The substance of God is asserted by Zeno to be the universal world, and the heaven; and Chrysippus agrees with this doctrine, in his eleventh book on the Gods, and so also does Posidonius, in the first book of his treatise on the same subject. Antipater, in the seventh book of his treatise on the World, says that his substance is aërial. And Boethus, in his treatise on Nature, calls the substance of God the sphere of the fixed stars.
LXXIII. And his nature they define to be, that which keeps the world together, and sometimes that which produces the things upon the earth. And nature is a habit which derives its movements from itself, perfecting and holding together all that arises out of it, according to the principles of production, in certain definite periods, and doing the same as the things from which it is separated. And it has for its object, suitableness and pleasure, as is plain from its having created man.
LXXIV. But Chrysippus, in his treatise on Fate, and Posidonius, in the second book of his work on Fate, and Zeno, and Boethus, in the eleventh book of his treatise on Fate, say, that all things are produced by fate. And fate,[314] (εἱμαρμένη), is a connected (εἰρομένη) cause of existing things, or the reason according to which the world is regulated.
LXXV. They also say that divination has a universal existence, since Providence has; and they define it as an act on account of certain results, as Zeno and Chrysippus, in the second book of his treatise on Divination, and Athenodorus and Posidonius, in the twelfth book of his discourses on Natural Philosophy, and in the fifth book of his treatise on Divination, all agree in saying; for Panætius denies that it has any certain foundation.
LXXVI. And they say that the substance of all existing things is Primary Matter, as Chrysippus asserts in the first book of his Physics; and Zeno says the same. Now matter is that from which anything whatever is produced. And it is called by a twofold appellation, essence and matter; the one as relating to all things taken together, and the other to things in particular and separate. The one which relates to all things taken together, never becomes either greater or less; but the one relating to things in particular, does become greater or less, as the case may be.
LXXVII. Body is, according to them, a substance and finite; as Antipater says, in the second book of his treatise on Substance; and Apollodorus, in his Natural Philosophy, agrees with him. It is also subject to change, as we learn from the same author; for if it were immutable, then the things which have been produced out of it would not have been produced; on which account he also says that it is infinitely divisible: but Chrysippus denies that it is infinite; for that nothing is infinite, which is divisible at all.
LXXVIII. He admits, however, that it is infinitely divisible, and that its concretions take place over the whole of it, as he explains in the third book of his Physics, and not according to any circumference or juxtaposition; for a little wine when thrown into the sea, will keep its distinctness for a brief period, but after that, will be lost.
LXXIX. They also say that there are some Dæmones, who have a sympathy with mankind, being surveyors of all human affairs; and that there are heroes, which are the souls of virtuous men, which have left their bodies.
LXXX. Of the things which take place in the air, they say that winter is the effect of the air above the earth being[315] cooled, on account of the retirement of the sun to a greater distance than before; that spring is a good temperature of the air, according to the sun’s approach towards us; that summer is the effect of the air above the earth being warmed by the approach of the sun towards the north; that autumn is caused by the retreat of the sun from us … to those places from which they flow.[92]
LXXXI. And the cause of the production of the winds is the sun, which evaporates the clouds. Moreover, the rainbow is the reflexion of the sun’s rays from the moist clouds, or, as Posidonius explains it in his Meteorology, a manifestation of a section of the sun or moon, in a cloud suffused with dew; being hollow and continuous to the sight; so that it is reflected as in a mirror, under the appearance of a circle. And that comets, and bearded stars, and meteors, are fires which have an existence when the density of the air is borne upwards to the regions of the æther.
That a ray of light is a kindling of sudden fire, borne through the air with great rapidity, and displaying an appearance of length; that rain proceeds from the clouds, being a transformation of them into water, whenever the moisture which is caught up from the earth or from the sea, by the sun, is not able to be otherwise disposed of; for when it is solidified, it is then called hoar frost. And hail is a cloud congealed, and subsequently dispersed by the wind. Snow is moisture from a congealed cloud, as Posidonius tells us in the eighth book of his discourse on Natural Philosophy. Lightning is a kindling of the clouds from their being rubbed together, or else broken asunder by the wind, as Zeno tells us in his treatise on the Universe; and thunder is the noise made by them on the occasion of their being rubbed together or broken asunder; and the thunderbolt is a sudden kindling which falls with great violence on the earth, from the clouds being rubbed together or broken asunder, or, as others say, it is a conversion of fiery air violently brought down to the earth. A typhon is a vast thunderbolt, violent and full of wind, or a smoky breath of a cloud broken asunder. A πρηστὴς is a cloud[316] rent by fire, with wind,[93] … into the hollows of the earth, or when the wind is pent up in the earth, as Posidonius says in his eighth book; and that some of them are shakings, others rendings, others emissions of fire, and others, instances of violent fermentation.
LXXXII. They also think that the general arrangement of the world is in this fashion; that the earth is in the middle, occupying the place of the centre; next to which comes the water, of a spherical form; and having the same centre as the earth; so that the earth is in the water; and next to the water comes the air, which has also a spherical form.
LXXXIII. And that there are five circles in the heaven; of which the first is the arctic circle, which is always visible; the second is the tropical summer circle; the third is the equinoctial circle; the fourth, the winter tropical circle; and the fifth the antarctic, which is not visible. And they are called parallel, because they do not incline to one another; they are drawn however around the same centre. But the zodiac is oblique, cutting the parallel circles. There are also five zones on the earth; the first is the northern one, placed under the arctic circle, uninhabitable by reason of the cold; the second is temperate; the third is uninhabitable because of the heat, and is called the torrid zone; the fourth is a temperate zone, on the other side of the torrid zone; the fifth is the southern zone, being also uninhabitable by reason of the cold.[94]
LXXXIV. Another of their doctrines is that nature is an artificial fire tending by a regular road to production, which is a fiery kind of breath proceeding according to art. Also, that the soul is sensible, and that it is a spirit which is born with us; consequently it is a body and continues to exist after death; that nevertheless it is perishable. But that the soul of the universe is imperishable, and that the souls which exist in animals are only parts of that of the universe. But Zeno, the Cittiæan, and Antipater, in their treatise concerning the[317] Soul, and Posidonius also, all say that the soul is a warm spirit; for that by it we have our breath, and by it we are moved. Cleanthes, accordingly, asserts that all souls continue to exist till they are burnt up; but Chrysippus says that it is only the souls of the wise that endure. And they further teach that there are eight parts of the soul; the five senses, and the generative faculties, and voice, and reason. And we see because of a body of luminous air which extends from the organ of sight to the object in a conical form, as it is asserted by Chrysippus, in the second book of his Natural Philosophy, and also by Apollodorus. And the apex of this cone is close to the eye, and its base is formed by the object which is seen; so that that which is seen is as it were reported to the eye by this continuous cone of air extended towards it like a staff. In the same way, we hear because the air between the speaker and the hearer is struck in a spherical manner; and is then agitated in waves, resembling the circular eddies which one sees in a cistern when a stone is dropped into it.
Sleep, they say, is produced by a relaxation of the æsthetic energies with reference to the dominant part of the soul. And the causes of the passions they explain to be the motions and conversions which take place in connection with this spirit or soul.
LXXXV. Seed, they define as a thing of a nature capable of producing other things of the same nature as the thing from which it has been separated. And the seed of man, which man emits, is, together with moisture, mixed up with the parts of the soul by that kind of mixture which corresponds[318] to the capacity of the parents. And Chrysippus says, in the second book of his Natural Philosophy, that it is a spirit according to substance; as is manifest from the seeds which are planted in the earth; and which, if they are old, do not germinate, because all their virtue has evaporated. And Sphærus says, that seed proceeds from the entire body, and that that is how it is that it produces all the parts of the body.
They also say that the seed of the female is unproductive; for, as Sphærus says, it is devoid of tone, and small in quantity, and watery.
LXXXVI. They also say that that is the dominant part of the soul which is its most excellent part; in which the imaginations and the desires are formed, and whence reason proceeds. And this place is in the heart.
These then are the doctrines on the subject of natural philosophy entertained by them, which it seems sufficient for us to detail, having regard to the due proportions of this book. And the following are the points in which some of them disagreed with the rest.
LIFE OF ARISTON.
I. Ariston the Bald, a native of Chios, surnamed the Siren, said, that the chief good was to live in perfect indifference to all those things which are of an intermediate character between virtue and vice; making not the slightest difference between them, but regarding them all on a footing of equality. For that the wise man resembles a good actor; who, whether he is filling the part of Agamemnon or Thersites, will perform them both equally well.
II. And he discarded altogether the topic of physics, and of logic, saying that the one was above us, and that the other had nothing to do with us; and that the only branch of philosophy with which we had any real concern was ethics.
III. He also said that dialectic reasonings were like[319] cobwebs; which, although they seem to be put together on principles of art, are utterly useless.
IV. And he did not introduce many virtues into his scheme, as Zeno did; nor one virtue under a great many names, as the Megaric philosophers did; but defined virtue as consisting in behaving in a certain manner with reference to a certain thing.
V. And as he philosophized in this manner, and carried on his discussions in the Cynosarges, he got so much influence as to be called a founder of a sect. Accordingly, Miltiades, and Diphilus were called Aristoneans.
VI. He was a man of very persuasive eloquence, and one who could adapt himself well to the humours of a multitude. On which account Timon says of him:—
And one who, from Ariston’s wily race,
Traced his descent.
Diocles, the Magnesian, tells us that Ariston having fallen in with Polemo, passed over to his school, at a time when Zeno was lying ill with a long sickness. The Stoic doctrine to which he was most attached, was the one that the wise man is never guided by opinions. But Persæus argued against this, and caused one of two twin brothers to place a deposit in his hands, and then caused the other to reclaim it; and thus he convicted him, as he was in doubt on this point, and therefore forced to act on opinion. He was a great enemy of Arcesilaus. And once, seeing a bull of a monstrous conformation, having a womb, he said, “Alas! here is an argument for Arcesilaus against the evidence of his senses.” On another occasion, when a philosopher of the Academy said that he did not comprehend anything, he said to him, “Do not you even see the man who is sitting next to you?” And as he said that he did not, he said:—
Who then has blinded you, who’s been so harsh,
As thus to rob you of your beaming eyes?
VII. The following works are attributed to him. Two books of Exhortatory Discourses; Dialogues on the Doctrines of Zeno; six books of Conversations; seven books of Discussions on Wisdom; Conversations on Love; Commentaries on Vain Glory; twenty-five books of Reminiscences; three books of[320] Memorabilia; eleven books of Apophthegms; a volume against the Orators; a volume against the Rescripts of Alexinus; three treatises against the Dialecticians; four books of Letters to Cleanthes. But Panætius and Sosicrates say, that his only genuine writings are his letters; and that all the rest are the works of Ariston the Peripatetic.
VIII. It is said that he, being bald, got a stroke of the sun, and so died. And we have written a jesting epigram on him in Scazon iambics, in the following terms:—
Why, O Ariston, being old and bald,
Did you allow the sun to roast your crown?
Thus, in an unbecoming search for warmth,
Against your will, you’ve found out chilly Hell.
IX. There was also another man of the name of Ariston; a native of Julii, one of the Peripatetic school. And another who was an Athenian musician. A fourth who was a tragic poet. A fifth, a native of Alæa, who wrote a treatise on the Oratorical Art. A sixth was a peripatetic Philosopher of Alexandria.
LIFE OF HERILLUS
I. Herillus, a native of Carthage, said that the chief good was knowledge; that is to say, the always conducting one’s self in such a way as to refer everything to the principle of living according to knowledge, and not been misled by ignorance. He also said that knowledge was a habit not departing from reason in the reception of perceptions.
On one occasion, he said that there was no such thing as a chief good, but that circumstances and events changed it, just as the same piece of brass might become a statue either of Alexander or of Socrates. And that besides the chief good or end (τέλος[95]), there was a subordinate end (ὑποτελίς) different from it. And that those who were not wise aimed at the[321] latter; but that only the wise man directed his views to the former. And all the things between virtue and vice he pronounced indifferent.
II. His books contain but few lines, but they are full of power, and contain arguments in opposition to Zeno.
III. It is said, that when he was a boy, many people were attached to him; and as Zeno wished to drive them away, he persuaded him to have his head shaved, which disgusted them all.
IV. His books are these. One on Exercise; one on the Passions; one on Opinion; the Lawgiver; the Skilful Midwife; the Contradictory Teacher; the Preparer; the Director; the Mercury; the Medea; a book of Dialogues; a book of Ethical Propositions.
LIFE OF DIONYSIUS
I. Dionysius, the Deserter, as he was called, asserted that pleasure was the chief good, from the circumstance of his being afflicted with a complaint in his eyes. For, as he suffered severely, he could not pronounce pain a thing indifferent.
II. He was the son of Theophantus, and a native of Heraclea.
III. He was a pupil, as we are told by Diocles, first of all of Heraclides, his fellow citizen; after that of Alexinus, and Menedemus; and last of all of Zeno. And at first, as he was very devoted to learning, he tried his hand at all kinds of poetry. Afterwards, he attached himself to Aratus, whom he took for his model. Having left Zeno, he turned to the Cyrenaics, and became a frequenter of brothels, and in other respects indulged in luxury without disguise.
IV. When he had lived near eighty years, he died of starvation.
V. The following books are attributed to him. Two books on Apathy; two on Exercise; four on Pleasure; one on[322] Riches, and Favours, and Revenge; one on the Use of Men; one on Good Fortune; one on Ancient Kings; one on Things which are Praised; one on Barbarian Customs.
These now are the chief men who differed from the Stoics. But the man who succeeded Zeno in his school was Cleanthes, whom we must now speak of.
LIFE OF CLEANTHES
I. Cleanthes was a native of Assos, and the son of Phanias. He was originally a boxer, as we learn from Antisthenes, in his Successions. And he came to Athens, having but four drachmas, as some people say, and attaching himself to Zeno, he devoted himself to Philosophy in a most noble manner; and he adhered to the same doctrines as his master.
II. He was especially eminent for his industry, so that as he was a very poor man, he was forced to undertake mercenary employments, and he used to draw water in the gardens by night, and by day he used to exercise himself in philosophical discussions; on which account he was called Phreantles.[96] They also say that he was on one occasion brought before a court of justice, to be compelled to give an account what his sources of income were from which he maintained himself in such good condition; and that then he was acquitted, having produced as his witness the gardener in whose garden he drew the water; and a woman who was a mealseller, in whose establishment he used to prepare the meal. And the judges of the Areopagus admired him, and voted that ten minæ should be given to him; but Zeno forbade him to accept them.
They also say that Antigonus presented him three thousand drachmas. And once, when he was conducting some young men to some spectacle, it happened that the wind blew away his cloak, and it was then seen that he had nothing on under it; on which he was greatly applauded by the Athenians,[323] according to the account given by Demetrius, the Magnesian, in his essay on People of the same Name. And he was greatly admired by them on account of this circumstance.
They also say that Antigonus, who was a pupil of his, once asked him why he drew water; and that he made answer, “Do I do nothing beyond drawing water? Do I not also dig, and do I not water the land, and do all sorts of things for the sake of philosophy?” For Zeno used to accustom him to this, and used to require him to bring him an obol by way of tribute.[97] And once he brought one of the pieces of money which he had collected in this way, into the middle of a company of his acquaintances, and said, “Cleanthes could maintain even another Cleanthes if he were to choose; but others who have plenty of means to support themselves, seek for necessaries from others; although they only study philosophy in a very lazy manner.” And, in reference to these habits of his, Cleanthes was called a second Heracles.
III. He was then very industrious; but he was not well endowed by nature, and was very slow in his intellect. On which account Timon says of him:—
What stately ram thus measures o’er the ground,
And master of the flock surveys them round?
What citizen of Assos, dull and cold,
Fond of long words, a mouth-piece, but not bold.[98]
And when he was ridiculed by his fellow pupils, he used to bear it patiently.
IV. He did not even object to the name when he was called an ass; but only said that he was the only animal able to bear the burdens which Zeno put upon him. And once, when he was reproached as a coward, he said, “That is the reason why I make but few mistakes.” He used to say, in justification of his preference of his own way of life to that of the rich, “That while they were playing at ball, he was earning money by digging hard and barren ground.” And he very often used to blame himself. And once, Ariston heard him doing so, and said, “Who is it that you are reproaching?”[324] and he replied, “An old man who has grey hair, but no brains.”
When some one once said to him, that Arcesilaus did not do what he ought, “Desist,” he replied, “and do not blame him; for, if he destroys duty as far as his words go, at all events he establishes it by his actions.” Arcesilaus once said to him, “I never listen to flatterers.” “Yes,” rejoined Cleanthes, “I flatter you, when I say that though you say one thing, you do another.” When some one once asked him what lesson he ought to inculcate on his son, he replied, “The warning of Electra:”—
Silence, silence, gently step.[99]
When a Lacedæmonian once said in his hearing, that labour was a good thing, he was delighted, and addressed him:—
Oh, early worth, a soul so wise and young
Proclaims you from the sage Lycurgus sprung.[100]
Hecaton tells us in his Apophthegms, that once when a young man said, “If a man who beats his stomach γαστρίζει then a man who slaps his thigh μηρίζει,” he replied, “Do you stick to your διαμηρίζει.” But analogous words do not always indicate analogous facts. Once when he was conversing with a youth, he asked him if he felt; and as he said that he did, “Why is it then,” said Cleanthes, “that I do not feel that you feel?”
When Sositheus, the poet, said in the theatre where he was present:—
Men whom the folly of Cleanthes urges;
He continued in the same attitude; at which the hearers were surprised, and applauded him, but drove Sositheus away. And when he expressed his sorrow for having abused him in this manner, he answered him gently, saying, “That it would be a preposterous thing for Bacchus and Hercules to bear being ridiculed by the poets without any expression of anger, and for him to be indignant at any chance attack.” He used also to say, “That the Peripatetics were in the same condition as lyres, which though they utter sweet notes, do not[325] hear themselves.” And it is said, that when he asserted that, on the principles of Zeno, one could judge of a man’s character by his looks, some witty young men brought him a profligate fellow, having a hardy look from continual exercise in the fields, and requested him to tell them his moral character; and he, having hesitated a little, bade the man depart; and, as he departed, he sneezed, “I have the fellow now,” said Cleanthes, “he is a debauchee.”
He said once to a man who was conversing with him by himself, “You are not talking to a bad man.” And when some one reproached him with his old age, he rejoined, “I too wish to depart, but when I perceive myself to be in good health in every respect, and to be able to recite and read, I am content to remain.” They say too, that he used to write down all that he heard from Zeno on oyster shells, and on the shoulder-blades of oxen, from want of money to buy paper with.
V. And though he was of this character, and in such circumstances, he became so eminent, that, though Zeno had many other disciples of high reputation, he succeeded him as the president of his School.
VI. And he left behind him some excellent books, which are these. One on Time; two on Zeno’s System of Natural Philosophy; four books of the Explanations of Heraclitus; one on Sensation; one on Art; one addressed to Democritus; one to Aristarchus; one to Herillus; two on Desire; one entitled Archæology; one on the Gods; one on the Giants; one on Marriage; one on Poets; three on Duty; one on Good Counsel; one on Favour; one called Exhortatory; one on Virtues; one on Natural Ability; one on Gorgippus; one on Enviousness; one on Love; one on Freedom; one called the Art of Love; one on Honour; one on Glory; The Statesman; one on Counsel; one on Laws; one on Deciding as a Judge; one on the Way of Life; three on Reason; one on the Chief Good; one on the Beautiful; one on Actions; one on Knowledge; one on Kingly Power; one on Friendship; one on Banquets; one on the Principle that Virtue is the same in Man and Woman; one on the Wise Man Employing Sophisms; one on Apophthegms; two books of Conversations; one on Pleasure; one[326] on Properties; one on Doubtful Things; one on Dialectics; one on Modes; one on Categorems.
VII. These are his writings.
And he died in the following manner. His gums swelled very much; and, at the command of his physicians, he abstained from food for two days. And he got so well that his physicians allowed him to return to all his former habits; but he refused, and saying that he had now already gone part of the way, he abstained from food for the future, and so died; being, as some report, eighty years old, and having been a pupil of Zeno nineteen years. And we have written a playful epigram on him also, which runs thus:—
I praise Cleanthes, but praise Pluto more;
Who could not bear to see him grown so old,
So gave him rest at last among the dead,
Who’d drawn such loads of water while alive.
LIFE OF SPHÆRUS.
I. Sphærus, a native of the Bosphorus, was, as we have said before, a pupil of Cleanthes after the death of Zeno.
II. And when he made a considerable advance in philosophy he went to Alexandria, to the court of Ptolemy Philopater. And once, when there was a discussion concerning the question whether a wise man would allow himself to be guided by opinion, and when Sphærus affirmed that he would not, the king, wishing to refute him, ordered some pomegranates of wax to be set before him; and when Sphærus was deceived by them, the king shouted that he had given his assent to a false perception. But Sphærus answered very neatly, that he had not given his assent to the fact that they were pomegranates, but to the fact that it was probable that they might be pomegranates. And that a perception which could be comprehended differed from one that was only probable.
Once, when Mnesistratus accused him of denying that[327] Ptolemy was a king, he said to him, “That Ptolemy was a man with such and such qualities, and a king.”[101]
III. He wrote the following books. Two on the World; one on the Elements of Seed; one on Fortune; one on the Smallest Things; one on Atoms and Phantoms; one on the Senses; five Conversations about Heraclitus; one on Ethical Arrangement; one on Duty; one on Appetite; two on the Passions; one on Kingly Power; on the Lacedæmonian Constitution; three on Lycurgus and Socrates; one on Law; one on Divination; one volume of Dialogues on Love; one on the Eretrian Philosophers; one on Things Similar; one on Terms; one on Habits; three on Contradictions; one on Reason; one on Riches; one on Glory; one on Death; two on the Art of Dialectics; one on Categorems; one on Ambiguity; and a volume of Letters.
LIFE OF CHRYSIPPUS.
I. Chrysippus was the son of Apollonius, and a native of either Soli or Tarsus, as Alexander tells us in his Successions; and he was a pupil of Cleanthes. Previously he used to practise running as a public runner; then he became a pupil of Zeno or of Cleanthes, as Diocles and the generality of authors say, and while he was still living he abandoned him, and became a very eminent philosopher.
II. He was a man of great natural ability, and of great acuteness in every way, so that in many points he dissented[328] from Zeno, and also from Cleanthes, to whom he often used to say that he only wanted to be instructed in the dogmas of the school, and that he would discover the demonstrations for himself. But whenever he opposed him with any vehemence, he always repented, so that he used frequently to say:—
In most respects I am a happy man,
Excepting where Cleanthes is concerned;
For in that matter I am far from fortunate.
And he had such a high reputation as a dialectician, that most people thought that if there were such a science as dialectics among the Gods; it would be in no respect different from that of Chrysippus. But though he was so eminently able in matter, he was not perfect in style.
III. He was industrious beyond all other men; as is plain from his writings; for he wrote more than seven hundred and five books. And he often wrote several books on the same subject, wishing to put down everything that occurred to him; and constantly correcting his previous assertions, and using a great abundance of testimonies. So that, as in one of his writings he had quoted very nearly the whole of the Medea of Euripides, and some one had his book in his hands; this latter, when he was asked what he had got there, made answer, “The Medea of Chrysippus.” And Apollodorus, the Athenian, in his Collection of Dogmas, wishing to assert that what Epicurus had written out of his own head, and without any quotations to support his arguments, was a great deal more than all the books of Chrysippus, speaks thus (I give his exact words), “For if any one were to take away from the books of Chrysippus all the passages which he quotes from other authors, his paper would be left empty.”
These are the words of Apollodorus; but the old woman who lived with him, as Diocles reports, used to say that he wrote five hundred lines every day. And Hecaton says, that he first applied himself to philosophy, when his patrimony had been confiscated, and seized for the royal treasury.
IV. He was slight in person, as is plain from his statue which is in the Ceramicus, which is nearly hidden by the equestrian statue near it; in reference to which circumstance, Carneades called him Crypsippus.[102] He was once reproached[329] by some one for not attending the lectures of Ariston, who was drawing a great crowd after him at the time; and he replied, “If I had attended to the multitude I should not have been a philosopher.” And once, when he saw a dialectician pressing hard on Cleanthes, and proposing sophistical fallacies to him, he said, “Cease to drag that old man from more important business, and propose these questions to us who are young.” At another time, when some one wishing to ask him something privately, was addressing him quietly, but when he saw a multitude approaching began to speak more energetically he said to him:—
Alas, my brother! now your eye is troubled;
You were quite sane just now; and yet how quickly
Have you succumbed to frenzy.[103]
And at drinking parties he used to behave quietly, moving his legs about however, so that a female slave once said, “It is only the legs of Chrysippus that are drunk.” And he had so high an opinion of himself, that once, when a man asked him, “To whom shall I entrust my son?” he said, “To me, for if I thought that there was any one better than myself, I would have gone to him to teach me philosophy.” In reference to which anecdote they report that people used to say of him:—
He has indeed a clear and subtle head,
The rest are forms of empty æther made.[104]
And also:—
For if Chrysippus had not lived and taught,
The Stoic school would surely have been nought.
VI. But at last, when Arcesilaus and Lacydes, as Sotion records in his eighth book, came to the Academy, he joined them in the study of philosophy; from which circumstance he got the habit of arguing for and against a custom, and discussed magnitudes and quantities, following the system of the Academics.
VII. Hermippus relates, that one day, when he was teaching in the Odeum, he was invited to a sacrifice by his pupils;[330] and, that drinking some sweet unmixed wine, he was seized with giddiness, and departed this life five days afterwards, when he had lived seventy-three years; dying in the hundred and forty-third olympiad, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles. And we have written an epigram on him:—
Chrysippus drank with open mouth some wine
Then became giddy, and so quickly died.
Too little reck’d he of the Porch’s weal,
Or of his country’s, or of his own dear life;
And so descended to the realms of Hell.
But some people say that he died of a fit of immoderate laughter. For that seeing his ass eating figs, he told his old woman to give the ass some unmixed wine to drink afterwards, and then laughed so violently that he died.
VIII. He appears to have been a man of exceeding arrogance. Accordingly, though he wrote such numbers of books, he never dedicated one of them to any sovereign. And he was contented with one single old woman, as Demetrius tells us, in his People of the same Name. And when Ptolemy wrote to Cleanthes, begging him either to come to him himself or to send him some one, Sphærus went to him, but Chrysippus slighted the invitation.
IX. However, he sent for the sons of his sister, Aristocreon and Philocrates, and educated them; and he was the first person who ventured to hold a school in the open air in the Lyceum, as the before mentioned Demetrius relates.
X. There was also another Chrysippus, a native of Cnidos, a physician, from whom Erasistratus testifies that he received great benefit. And another also who was a son of his, and the physician of Ptolemy; who, having had a false accusation brought against him, was apprehended and punished by being scourged. There was also a fourth who was a pupil of Erasistratus; and a fifth was an author of a work called Georgics.
XI. Now this philosopher used to delight in proposing questions of this sort. The person who reveals the mysteries to the uninitiated commits a sin; the hierophant reveals them to the uninitiated; therefore the hierophant commits sin? Another was, that which is not in the city, is also not in the house; but a well is not in the city, therefore, there is not a well in the house. Another was, there is a certain head; that head you have not got; there is then a[331] head that you have not got; therefore, you have not got a head. Again, if a man is in Megara, he is not in Athens; but there is a man in Megara, therefore, there is not a man in Athens. Again, if you say anything, what you say comes out of your mouth; but you say “a waggon,” therefore a waggon comes out of your mouth. Another was, if you have not lost a thing, you have it; but you have not lost horns; therefore, you have horns. Though some attribute this sophism to Eubulides.
XII. There are people who run Chrysippus down as having written a great deal that is very shameful and indecent. For in his treatise on the Ancient Natural Historians, he relates the story of Jupiter and Juno very indecently, devoting six hundred lines to what no one could repeat without polluting his mouth. For, as it is said, he composes this story, though he praises it as consisting of natural details, in a way more suitable to street walkers than to Goddesses; and not at all resembling the ideas which have been adopted or cited by writers in paintings. For they were found neither in Polemo, nor in Hypsicrates, nor in Antigonus, but were inserted by himself. And in his treatise on Polity, he allows people to marry their mothers, or their daughters, or their sons. And he repeats this doctrine in his treatise on those things which are not desirable for their own sake, in the very opening of it. And in the third book of his treatise on Justice, he devotes a thousand lines to bidding people devour even the dead.
In the second book of his treatise on Life and Means of Support, where he is warning us to consider beforehand, how the wise man ought to provide himself with means, he says, “And yet why need he provide himself with means? for if it is for the sake of living, living at all is a matter of indifference; if it is for the sake of pleasure, that is a matter of indifference too; if it is for the sake of virtue, that is of itself sufficient for happiness. But the methods of providing one’s self with means are ridiculous; for instance, some derive them from a king; and then it will be necessary to humour him. Some from friendship; and then friendship will become a thing to be bought with a price. Some from wisdom; and then wisdom will become mercenary; and these are the accusations which he brings.”
But since he has written many books of high reputation, it[332] has seemed good to me to give a catalogue of them, classifying them according to their subjects. They are the following:—
Books on Logic; Propositions; Logical Questions; a book of the Contemplations of the Philosopher; six books of Dialectic Terms addressed to Metrodorus; one on the Technical Terms used in Dialectics, addressed to Zeno; one called the Art of Dialectics, addressed to Aristagoras; four books of Probable Conjunctive Reasons, addressed to Dioscorides.
The first set of treatises on the Logical Topics, which concern things, contains: one essay on Propositions; one on those Propositions which are not simple; two on the Copulative Propositions, addressed to Athenades; three on Positive Propositions, addressed to Aristagoras; one on Definite Propositions, addressed to Athenodorus; one on Privative Propositions, addressed to Thearus; three on the Best Propositions, addressed to Dion; four on the Differences between Indefinite Propositions; two on those Propositions which are enunciated with a reference to time; two on Perfect Propositions.
The second set contains, one essay on a Disjunctive True Propositions, addressed to Gorgippides; four on a Conjunctive True Proposition, also addressed to Gorgippides; one called, the Sect, addressed to Gorgippides; one on the argument of Consequents; one on questions touched upon in the three preceding treatises, and now re-examined, this also is addressed to Gorgippides; one on what is Possible, addressed to Clitus; one on the treatise of Philo, on Signification; one on what it is that Falsehood consists in.
The third set contains, two treatises on Imperative Propositions; two on Interrogation; four on Examination; an epitome of the subject of Interrogation and Examination; four treatises on Answer; an abridgment on Answer; two essays on Investigation.
The fourth set contains ten books on Categorems, addressed to Metrodorus; one treatise on what is Direct and Indirect, addressed to Philarchus; one on Conjunctions, addressed to Apollonides; four on Categorems, addressed to Pasylus.
The fifth set contains, one treatise on the Five Cases; one on Things defined according to the Subject; two on Enunciation, addressed to Stesagoras; two on Appellative Nouns.
The next class of his writings refers to rules of Logic[333], with reference to words, and speech which consists of words.
The first set of these contains, six treatises on Singular and Plural Enunciations; five on Words, addressed to Sosigenes and Alexander; four on the Inequality of Words, addressed to Dion; three on the Sorites which refer to Words; one on Solecisms in the Use of Words, addressed to Dionysius; one entitled Discourses, contrary to Customs; one entitled Diction, and addressed to Dionysius.
The second set contains, five treatises on the Elements of Speech and of Phrases; four on the Arrangement of Phrases; three on the Arrangement, and on the Elements of Phrases, addressed to Philip; one on the Elements of Discourse, addressed to Nicias; one on Correlatives.
The third set contains, two treatises against those who do not admit Division; four on Ambiguous Expressions, addressed to Apollos; one, Ambiguity in Modes; two on the Ambiguous Use of Figures, in Conjunctive Propositions; two on the essay on Ambiguous Expressions, by Panthoides; five on the Introduction to the Ambiguous Expressions; one, being an abridgment of the Ambiguous Expressions, addressed to Epicrates; and a collection of instances to serve as an Introduction to the Ambiguous Expressions, in two books.
The next class is on the subject of that part of logic which is conversant about reasonings and modes.
The first set of works in this class, contains, the Art of Reasoning and of Modes, in five books, addressed to Dioscorides; a treatise on Reasoning, in three books; one on the Structure of Modes, addressed to Stesagoras, in five books; a comparison of the Elements of Modes; a treatise on Reciprocal and Conjunctive Reasonings; an essay to Agathon, called also an essay on Problems, which follow one another; a treatise, proving that Syllogistic Propositions suppose one or more other terms; one on Conclusions, addressed to Aristagoras; one essay, proving that the same reasoning can affect several figures; one against those who deny that the same reasoning can be expressed by syllogism, and without syllogism, in two books; three treatises against those who attack the resolution of Syllogisms; one on the treatise on Modes, by Philo, addressed to Timostratus; two treatises on[334] Logic, in one volume, addressed to Timocrates and Philomathes; one volume of questions on Reasonings and Modes.
The second set contains, one book of Conclusive Reasonings, addressed to Zeno; one on Primary Syllogisms, which are not demonstrative; one on the resolution of Syllogisms; one, in two books, on Captious Reasonings, addressed to Pasylus; one book of Considerations on Syllogisms; one book of Introductory Syllogisms, addressed to Zeno; three of Introductory Modes, addressed also to Zeno; five of False Figures of Syllogism; one of a Syllogistic Method, for the resolution of arguments, which are not demonstrative; one of Researches into the Modes, addressed to Zeno and Philomathes (but this appears to be an erroneous title).
The third set contains, one essay on Incidental Reasonings, addressed to Athenades (this again is an incorrect title); three books of Incidental Discourses on the Medium (another incorrect title); one essay on the Disjunctive Reasons of Aminias.
The fourth set contains, a treatise on Hypothesis, in three books, addressed to Meleager; a book of hypothetical reasonings on the Laws, addressed also to Meleager; two books of hypothetical reasoning to serve as an Introduction; two books of hypothetical reasonings on Theorems; a treatise in two books, being a resolution of the Hypothetical Reasonings of Hedylus; an essay, in three books, being a resolution of the Hypothetical Reasonings of Alexander (this is an incorrect title); two books of Expositions, addressed to Leodamas.
The fifth set contains, an introduction to Fallacy, addressed to Aristocreon; an introduction to False Reasonings; a treatise in six books, on Fallacy, addressed to Aristocreon.
The sixth set contains, a treatise against those who believe Truth and Falsehood to be the same thing. One, in two books, against those who have recourse to division to resolve the Fallacy, addressed to Aristocreon; a demonstrative essay, to prove that it is not proper to divide indefinite terms; an essay, in three books, in answer to the objections against the non-division of Indefinite Terms, addressed to Pasylus; a solution, according to the principles of the ancients, addressed to Dioscorides; an essay on the Resolution of the Fallacy, addressed to Aristocreon, this is in three books; a resolution[335] of the Hypothetical Arguments of Hedylus, in one book, addressed to Aristocreon and Apollos.
The seventh set contains, a treatise against those who contend that the premisses on the Fallacy, are false; a treatise on Negative Reasoning, addressed to Aristocreon, in two books; one book of Negative Reasonings, addressed to Gymnasias; two books of a treatise on Reasoning by Progression, addressed to Stesagoras; two books of Reasonings by Interrogation, and on the Arrest,[105] addressed to Onetor; an essay, in two books, on the Corrected Argument, addressed to Aristobulus; another on the Non-apparent Argument, addressed to Athenades.
The eighth set contains, an essay on the Argument Outis, in eight books, addressed to Menecrates; a treatise, in two books, on Arguments composed of a finite term, and an indefinite term, addressed to Pasylus; another essay on the Argument Outis, addressed to Epicrates.
The ninth set contains, two volumes of Sophisms, addressed to Heraclides, and Pollis; five volumes of Dialectic Arguments, which admit of no solution, addressed to Dioscorides; an essay, in one book, against the Method of Arcesilaus, addressed to Sphærus.
The tenth set contains, a treatise in six books, against Custom, addressed to Metrodorus; and another, in seven books, on Custom, addressed to Gorgippides.
There are, therefore, works on Logic, in the four grand classes which we have here enumerated, embracing various questions, without any connection with one another, to the number of thirty nine sets, amounting in the whole to three hundred and eleven treatises on Logic.
The next division comprises those works which have for their object, the explanation of Moral Ideas.
The first class of this division, contains an essay, giving a description of Reason, addressed to Theosphorus; a book of Ethical questions; three books of Principles, to serve as the foundation of Dogmas, addressed to Philomathes; two books of definitions of Good-breeding, addressed to Metrodorus; two books of definitions of the Bad, addressed to Metrodorus;[336] two books of definitions of Neutral Things, addressed also to Metrodorus; seven books of definitions of Things, according to their genera, addressed to Metrodorus; and two books of Definitions, according to other systems, addressed to Metrodorus.
The second set contains, a treatise on Things Similar, in three books, addressed to Aristocles; an essay on Definitions, in seven books, addressed to Metrodorus.
The third set contains, a treatise, in seven books, on the Incorrect Objections made to Definitions, addressed to Laodamas; two books of Probable Arguments bearing on Definitions, addressed to Dioscorides; two books on Species and Genus, addressed to Gorgippides; one book on Divisions; two books on Contraries, addressed to Dionysius; a book of Probable Arguments relating to Divisions, and Genera, and Species; a book on Contraries.
The fourth set contains, a treatise, in seven books, on Etymologies, addressed to Diocles; another, in four books, on the same subject, addressed to the same person.
The fifth set contains, a treatise in two books, on Proverbs, addressed to Zenodotus; an essay on Poems, addressed to Philomathes; an essay, on How one Ought to Listen to Poems, in two books; an essay, in reply to Critics, addressed to Diodorus.
The next division refers to Ethics, looked at in a general point of view, and to the different systems arising out of them, and to the Virtues.
The first set contains, an essay against Pictures, addressed to Timonax; an essay on the Manner in which we express ourselves about, and form our Conceptions of, each separate thing; two books of Thoughts, addressed to Laodamas; an essay, in three books, on Conception, addressed to Pythonax; an essay, that the Wise Man is not Guided by Opinion; an essay, in five books, on Comprehension, and Knowledge, and Ignorance; a treatise on Reason, in two books; a treatise on the Employment of Reason, addressed to Leptines.
The second set contains, a treatise, that the Ancient Philosophers approved of Logic, with Proofs to support the Arguments, in two books, addressed to Zeno; a treatise on Dialectics, in four books, addressed to Aristocreon; an answer to the Objections urged against Dialectics, in three[337] books; an essay on Rhetoric, in four books, addressed to Dioscorides.
The third set contains, a treatise on Habit, in three books, addressed to Cleon; a treatise on Art and Want of Art, in four books, addressed to Aristocreon; a treatise, in four books, on the Difference between the Virtues, addressed to Diodorus; a treatise, to show that all the Virtues are Equal; a treatise on the Virtues, in two books, addressed to Pollis.
The next division refers to Ethics, as relating to Good and Evil.
The first set contains, a treatise in ten books, on the Honourable, and on Pleasure, addressed to Aristocreon; a demonstration, that Pleasure is not the Chief Good of Man, in four books; a demonstration that Pleasure is not a Good at all, in four books; a treatise on what is said by …[106]
[338]
BOOK VIII.LIFE OF PYTHAGORAS.
I. Since we have now gone through the Ionian philosophy, which was derived from Thales, and the lives of the several illustrious men who were the chief ornaments of that school; we will now proceed to treat of the Italian School, which was founded by Pythagoras, the son of Mnesarchus, a seal engraver, as he is recorded to have been by Hermippus; a native of Samos, or as Aristoxenus asserts, a Tyrrhenian, and a native of one of the islands which the Athenians occupied after they had driven out the Tyrrhenians. But some authors say that he was the son of Marmacus, the son of Hippasus, the son of Euthyphron, the son of Cleonymus, who was an exile from Phlias; and that Marmacus settled in Samos, and that from this circumstance Pythagoras was called a Samian. After that he migrated to Lesbos, having come to Pherecydes with letters of recommendation from Zoilus, his uncle. And having made three silver goblets, he carried them to Egypt as a present for each of the three priests. He had brothers, the eldest of whom was named Eunomus, the middle one Tyrrhenus, and a slave named Zamolxis, to whom the Getæ sacrifice, believing him to be the same as Saturn, according to the account of Herodotus.[107]
II. He was a pupil, as I have already mentioned, of Pherecydes, the Syrian; and after his death he came to Samos, and became a pupil of Hermodamas, the descendant of Creophylus, who was by this time an old man.
III. And as he was a young man, and devoted to learning, he quitted his country, and got initiated into all the Grecian and barbarian sacred mysteries. Accordingly, he went to[339] Egypt, on which occasion Polycrates gave him a letter of introduction to Amasis; and he learnt the Egyptian language, as Antipho tells us, in his treatise on those men who have been conspicuous for virtue, and he associated with the Chaldæans and with the Magi.
Afterwards he went to Crete, and in company with Epimenides, he descended into the Idæan cave, (and in Egypt too, he entered into the holiest parts of their temples,) and learned all the most secret mysteries that relate to their Gods. Then he returned back again to Samos, and finding his country reduced under the absolute dominion of Polycrates, he set sail, and fled to Crotona in Italy. And there, having given laws to the Italians, he gained a very high reputation, together with his scholars, who were about three hundred in number, and governed the republic in a most excellent manner; so that the constitution was very nearly an aristocracy.
IV. Heraclides Ponticus says, that he was accustomed to speak of himself in this manner; that he had formerly been Æthalides, and had been accounted the son of Mercury; and that Mercury had desired him to select any gift he pleased except immortality. And that he accordingly had requested that, whether living or dead, he might preserve the memory of what had happened to him. While, therefore, he was alive, he recollected everything; and when he was dead, he retained the same memory. And at a subsequent period he passed into Euphorbus, and was wounded by Menelaus. And while he was Euphorbus, he used to say that he had formerly been Æthalides; and that he had received as a gift from Mercury the perpetual transmigration of his soul, so that it was constantly transmigrating and passing into whatever plants or animals it pleased; and he had also received the gift of knowing and recollecting all that his soul had suffered in hell, and what sufferings too are endured by the rest of the souls.
But after Euphorbus died, he said that his soul had passed into Hermotimus; and when he wished to convince people of this, he went into the territory of the Branchidæ, and going into the temple of Apollo, he showed his shield which Menelaus had dedicated there as an offering. For he said[340] that he, when he sailed from Troy, had offered up his shield[108] which was already getting worn out, to Apollo, and that nothing remained but the ivory face which was on it. And when Hermotimus died, then he said that he had become Pyrrhus, a fisherman of Delos; and that he still recollected everything, how he had been formerly Æthalides, then Euphorbus, then Hermotimus, and then Pyrrhus. And when Pyrrhus died, he became Pythagoras, and still recollected all the circumstances that I have been mentioning.
V. Now, some people say that Pythagoras did not leave behind him a single book; but they talk foolishly; for Heraclitus, the natural philosopher, speaks plainly enough of him, saying, “Pythagoras, the son of Mnesarchus, was the most learned of all men in history; and having selected from these writings, he thus formed his own wisdom and extensive learning, and mischievous art.” And he speaks thus, because Pythagoras, in the beginning of his treatise on Natural Philosophy, writes in the following manner: “By the air which I breathe, and by the water which I drink, I will not endure to be blamed on account of this discourse.”
And there are three volumes extant written by Pythagoras.[341] One on Education; one on Politics; and one on Natural Philosophy. But the treatise which is now extant under the name of Pythagoras is the work of Lysis, of Tarentum, a philosopher of the Pythagorean School, who fled to Thebes, and became the master of Epaminondas. And Heraclides, the son of Sarapion, in his Abridgment of Sotion, says that he wrote a poem in epic verse on the Universe; and besides that a sacred poem, which begins thus;—
Dear youths, I warn you cherish peace divine,
And in your hearts lay deep these words of mine.
A third about the Soul; a fourth on Piety; a fifth entitled Helothales, which was the name of the father of Epicharmus, of Cos; a sixth called Crotona, and other poems too. But the mystic discourse which is extant under his name, they say is really the work of Hippasus, having been composed with a view to bring Pythagoras into disrepute. There were also many other books composed by Aston, of Crotona, and attributed to Pythagoras.
Aristoxenus asserts that Pythagoras derived the greater part of his ethical doctrines from Themistoclea, the priestess at Delphi. And Ion, of Chios, in his Victories, says that he wrote some poems and attributed them to Orpheus. They also say that the poem called the Scopiadæ is by him, which begins thus:—
Behave not shamelessly to any one.
VI. And Sosicrates, in his Successions, relates that he, having being asked by Leon, the tyrant of the Phliasians, who he was, replied, “A philosopher.” And adds, that he used to compare life to a festival. “And as some people came to a festival to contend for the prizes, and others for the purposes of traffic, and the best as spectators; so also in life, the men of slavish dispositions,” said he, “are born hunters after glory and covetousness, but philosophers are seekers after truth.” And thus he spoke on this subject. But in the three treatises above mentioned, the following principles are laid down by Pythagoras generally.
He forbids men to pray for anything in particular for themselves, because they do not know what is good for them. He calls drunkenness an expression identical with ruin, and[342] rejects all superfluity, saying, “That no one ought to exceed the proper quantity of meat and drink.” And on the subject of venereal pleasures, he speaks thus:—“One ought to sacrifice to Venus in the winter, not in the summer; and in autumn and spring in a lesser degree. But the practice is pernicious at every season, and is never good for the health.” And once, when he was asked when a man might indulge in the pleasures of love, he replied, “Whenever you wish to be weaker than yourself.”
VII. And he divides the life of man thus. A boy for twenty years; a young man (νεάνισκος) for twenty years; a middle-aged man (νεανίας) for twenty years; an old man for twenty years. And these different ages correspond proportionably to the seasons: boyhood answers to spring; youth to summer; middle age to autumn; and old age to winter. And he uses νεάνισκος here as equivalent to μειράκιον, and νεανίας as equivalent to ἀνὴρ.
VIII. He was the first person, as Timæus says, who asserted that the property of friends is common, and that friendship is equality. And his disciples used to put all their possessions together into one store, and use them in common; and for five years they kept silence, doing nothing but listen to discourses, and never once seeing Pythagoras, until they were approved; after that time they were admitted into his house, and allowed to see him. They also abstained from the use of cypress coffins, because the sceptre of Jupiter was made of that wood, as Hermippus tells us in the second book of his account of Pythagoras.
IX. He is said to have been a man of the most dignified appearance, and his disciples adopted an opinion respecting him, that he was Apollo who had come from the Hyperboreans; and it is said, that once when he was stripped naked, he was seen to have a golden thigh. And there were many people who affirmed, that when he was crossing the river Nessus it addressed him by his name.
X. Timæus, in the tenth book of his Histories, tells us, that he used to say that women who were married to men had the names of the Gods, being successively called virgins, then nymphs, and subsequently mothers.
XI. It was Pythagoras also who carried geometry to perfection, after Mœris had first found out the principles of the[343] elements of that science, as Aristiclides tells us in the second book of his History of Alexander; and the part of the science to which Pythagoras applied himself above all others was arithmetic. He also discovered the numerical relation of sounds on a single string: he also studied medicine. And Apollodorus, the logician, records of him, that he sacrificed a hecatomb, when he had discovered that the square of the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the squares of the sides containing the right angle. And there is an epigram which is couched in the following terms:—
When the great Samian sage his noble problem found,
A hundred oxen dyed with their life-blood the ground.
XII. He is also said to have been the first man who trained athletes on meat; and Eurymenes was the first man, according to the statement of Phavorinus, in the third book of his Commentaries, who ever did submit to this diet, as before that time men used to train themselves on dry figs and moist cheese, and wheaten bread; as the same Phavorinus informs us in the eighth book of his Universal History. But some authors state, that a trainer of the name of Pythagoras certainly did train his athletes on this system, but that it was not our philosopher; for that he even forbade men to kill animals at all, much less would have allowed his disciples to eat them, as having a right to live in common with mankind. And this was his pretext; but in reality he prohibited the eating of animals, because he wished to train and accustom men to simplicity of life, so that all their food should be easily procurable, as it would be, if they ate only such things as required no fire to dress them, and if they drank plain water; for from this diet they would derive health of body and acuteness of intellect.
The only altar at which he worshipped was that of Apollo the Father, at Delos, which is at the back of the altar of Ceratinus, because wheat, and barley, and cheese-cakes are the only offerings laid upon it, being not dressed by fire; and no victim is ever slain there, as Aristotle tells us in his Constitution of the Delians. They say, too, that he was the first person who asserted that the soul went a necessary circle[344] being changed about and confined at different times in different bodies.
XIII. He was also the first person who introduced measures and weights among the Greeks; as Aristoxenus the musician informs us.
XIV. Parmenides, too, assures us, that he was the first person who asserted the identity of Hesperus and Lucifer.
XV. And he was so greatly admired, that they used to say that his friends looked on all his sayings as the oracles of God.[109] And he himself says in his writings, that he had come among men after having spent two hundred and seven years in the shades below. Therefore the Lucanians and the Peucetians, and the Messapians, and the Romans, flocked around him, coming with eagerness to hear his discourses; but until the time of Philolaus there were no doctrines of Pythagoras ever divulged; and he was the first person who published the three celebrated books which Plato wrote to have purchased for him for a hundred minæ. Nor were the number of his scholars who used to come to him by night fewer than six hundred. And if any of them had ever been permitted to see him, they wrote of it to their friends, as if they had gained some great advantage.
The people of Metapontum used to call his house the temple of Ceres; and the street leading to it they called the street of the Muses, as we are told by Phavorinus in his Universal History.
And the rest of the Pythagoreans used to say, according to the account given by Aristoxenus, in the tenth book of his Laws on Education, that his precepts ought not to be divulged to all the world; and Xenophilus, the Pythagorean, when he was asked what was the best way for a man to educate his son, said, “That he must first of all take care that he was born in a city which enjoyed good laws.”
Pythagoras, too, formed many excellent men in Italy, by[345] his precepts, and among them Zaleucus,[110] and Charondas,[111] the lawgivers.
XVI. For he was very eminent for his power of attracting friendships; and among other things, if ever he heard that any one had any community of symbols with him, he at once made him a companion and a friend.
XVII. Now, what he called his symbols were such as these. “Do not stir the fire with a sword.” “Do not sit down on a bushel.” “Do not devour your heart.” “Do not aid men in discarding a burden, but in increasing one.” “Always have your bed packed up.” “Do not bear the image of a God on a ring.” “Efface the traces of a pot in the ashes.” “Do not wipe a seat with a lamp.” “Do not make water in the sunshine.”[346] “Do not walk in the main street.” “Do not offer your right hand lightly.” “Do not cherish swallows under your roof.” “Do not cherish birds with crooked talons.” “Do not defile; and do not stand upon the parings of your nails, or the cuttings of your hair.” “Avoid a sharp sword.” “When you are travelling abroad, look not back at your own borders.” Now the precept not to stir fire with a sword meant, not to provoke the anger or swelling pride of powerful men; not to violate the beam of the balance meant, not to transgress fairness and justice; not to sit on a bushel is to have an equal care for the present and for the future, for by the bushel is meant one’s daily food. By not devouring one’s heart, he intended to show that we ought not to waste away our souls with grief and sorrow. In the precept that a man when travelling abroad should not turn his eyes back, he recommended those who were departing from life not to be desirous to live, and not to be too much attracted by the pleasures here on earth. And the other symbols may be explained in a similar manner, that we may not be too prolix here.
XVIII. And above all things, he used to prohibit the eating of the erythinus, and the melanurus; and also, he enjoined his disciples to abstain from the hearts of animals, and from beans. And Aristotle informs us, that he sometimes used also to add to these prohibitions paunches and mullet. And some authors assert that he himself used to be contented with honey and honeycomb, and bread, and that he never drank wine in the day time. And his desert was usually vegetables, either boiled or raw; and he very rarely ate fish. His dress was white, very clean, and his bed-clothes were also white, and woollen, for linen had not yet been introduced into that country. He was never known to have eaten too much, or to have drunk too much, or to indulge in the pleasures of love. He abstained wholly from laughter, and from all such indulgences as jests and idle stories. And when he was angry, he never chastised any one, whether slave or freeman. He used to call admonishing, feeding storks.
He used to practise divination, as far as auguries and auspices go, but not by means of burnt offerings, except only the burning of frankincense. And all the sacrifices which he offered consisted of inanimate things. But some, however, assert that he did sacrifice animals, limiting himself to cocks,[347] and sucking kids, which are called ἁπάλιοι, but that he very rarely offered lambs. Aristoxenus, however, affirms that he permitted the eating of all other animals, and only abstained from oxen used in agriculture, and from rams.
XIX. The same author tells us, as I have already mentioned, that he received his doctrines from Themistoclea, at Delphi. And Hieronymus says, that when he descended to the shades below, he saw the soul of Hesiod bound to a brazen pillar, and gnashing its teeth; and that of Homer suspended from a tree, and snakes around it, as a punishment for the things that they had said of the Gods. And that those people also were punished who refrained from commerce with their wives; and that on account of this he was greatly honoured by the people of Crotona.
But Aristippus, of Cyrene, in his Account of Natural Philosophers, says that Pythagoras derived his name from the fact of his speaking (ἀγορεύειν) truth no less than the God at Delphi (τοῦ πυθίου).
It is said that he used to admonish his disciples to repeat these lines to themselves whenever they returned home to their houses:—
In what have I transgress’d? What have I done?
What that I should have done have I omitted?
And that he used to forbid them to offer victims to the Gods, ordering them to worship only at those altars which were unstained with blood. He forbade them also to swear by the Gods; saying, “That every man ought so to exercise himself, as to be worthy of belief without an oath.” He also taught men that it behoved them to honour their elders, thinking that which was precedent in point of time more honourable; just as in the world, the rising of the sun was more so than the setting; in life, the beginning more so than the end; and in animals, production more so than destruction.
Another of his rules was that men should honour the Gods above the dæmones, heroes above men; and of all men parents were entitled to the highest degree of reverence. Another, that people should associate with one another in such a way as not to make their friends enemies, but to render their enemies friends. Another was that they should think nothing exclusively their own. Another was to assist the law, and to make[348] war upon lawlessness. Not to destroy or injure a cultivated tree, nor any animal either which does not injure men. That modesty and decorum consisted in never yielding to laughter, and yet not looking stern. He taught that men should avoid too much flesh, that they should in travelling let rest and exertion alternate; that they should exercise memory; that they should never say or do anything in anger; that they should not pay respect to every kind of divination; that they should use songs set to the lyre; and by hymns to the Gods and to eminent men, display a reasonable gratitude to them.
He also forbade his disciples to eat beans, because, as they were flatulent, they greatly partook of animal properties [he also said that men kept their stomachs in better order by avoiding them]; and that such abstinence made the visions which appear in one’s sleep gentle and free from agitation. Alexander also says, in his Successions of Philosophers, that he found the following dogmas also set down in the Commentaries of Pythagoras:—
That the monad was the beginning of everything. From the monad proceeds an indefinite duad, which is subordinate to the monad as to its cause. That from the monad and the indefinite duad proceed numbers. And from numbers signs. And from these last, lines of which plane figures consist. And from plane figures are derived solid bodies. And from solid bodies sensible bodies, of which last there are four elements; fire, water, earth, and air. And that the world, which is endued with life, and intellect, and which is of a spherical figure, having the earth, which is also spherical, and inhabited all over in its centre, results from a combination of these elements, and derives its motion from them; and also that there are antipodes,[112] and that what is below, as respects us, is above in respect of them.
[349]
He also taught that light and darkness and cold and heat, and dryness and moisture, were equally divided in the world; and that, while heat was predominant it was summer; while cold had the mastery it was winter; when dryness prevailed it was spring; and when moisture preponderated, winter. And while all these qualities were on a level, then was the loveliest season of the year; of which the flourishing spring was the wholesome period, and the season of autumn the most pernicious one. Of the day, he said that the flourishing period was the morning, and the fading one the evening; on which account that also was the least healthy time.
Another of his theories was, that the air around the earth was immoveable, and pregnant with disease, and that everything in it was mortal; but that the upper air was in perpetual motion, and pure and salubrious; and that everything in that was immortal, and on that account divine. And that the sun, and the moon, and the stars, were all Gods; for in them the warm principle predominates which is the cause of life. And that the moon derives its light from the sun. And that there is a relationship between men and the Gods, because men partake of the divine principle; on which account also, God exercises his providence for our advantage. Also, that fate is the cause of the arrangement of the world both generally and particularly. Moreover, that a ray from the sun penetrated both the cold æther and the dense æther; and they call the air (ἀὴρ), the cold æther (ψυχρὸν αἰθέρα), and the sea and moisture they call the dense æther (παχὺν αἰθέρα). And this ray descends into the depths, and in this way vivifies everything. And everything which partakes of the principle of heat lives, on which account also plants are animated beings; but that all living things have not necessarily souls. And that the soul is a something torn off from the æther, both warm and cold, from its partaking of the cold æther. And that the soul is something different from life. Also, that it is immortal, because that from which it has been detached is immortal.
Also, that animals are born from one another by seeds, and[350] that it is impossible for there to be any spontaneous production by the earth. And that seed is a drop from the brain which contains in itself a warm vapour; and that when this is applied to the womb, it transmits virtue, and moisture, and blood from the brain, from which flesh, and sinews, and bones, and hair, and the whole body are produced. And from the vapour is produced the soul, and also sensation. And that the infant first becomes a solid body at the end of forty days; but, according to the principles of harmony, it is not perfect till seven, or perhaps nine, or at most ten months, and then it is brought forth. And that it contains in itself all the principles of life, which are all connected together, and by their union and combination form a harmonious whole, each of them developing itself at the appointed time.
The senses in general, and especially the sight, are a vapour of excessive warmth, and on this account a man is said to see through air, and through water. For the hot principle is opposed by the cold one; since, if the vapour in the eyes were cold, it would have the same temperature as the air, and so would be dissipated. As it is, in some passages he calls the eyes the gates of the sun. And he speaks in a similar manner of hearing, and of the other senses.
He also says that the soul of man is divided into three parts; into intuition (νοῦς), and reason (φρὴν), and mind (θυμὸς), and that the first and last divisions are found also in other animals, but that the middle one, reason, is only found in man. And that the chief abode of the soul is in those parts of the body which are between the heart and the brain. And that that portion of it which is in the heart is the mind (θυμὸς); but that deliberation (νοὺς), and reason (φρὴν), reside in the brain.[113]
Moreover, that the senses are drops from them; and that the reasoning sense is immortal, but the others are mortal. And that the soul is nourished by the blood; and that reasons are the winds of the soul. That it is invisible, and so are its reasons, since the æther itself is invisible. That the links of the soul are the veins, and the arteries, and the nerves. But that when it is vigorous, and is by itself in a quiescent state,[351] then its links are words and actions. That when it is cast forth upon the earth it wanders about, resembling the body. Moreover, that Mercury is the steward of the souls, and that on this account he has the name of Conductor, and Commercial, and Infernal, since it is he who conducts the souls from their bodies, and from earth, and sea; and that he conducts the pure souls to the highest region, and that he does not allow the impure ones to approach them, nor to come near one another; but commits them to be bound in indissoluble fetters by the Furies. The Pythagoreans also assert, that the whole air is full of souls, and that these are those which are accounted dæmones, and heroes. Also, that it is by them that dreams are sent among men, and also the tokens of disease and health; these last too, being sent not only to men, but to sheep also, and other cattle. Also, that it is they who are concerned with purifications, and expiations, and all kinds of divination, and oracular predictions, and things of that kind.
They also say, that the most important privilege in man is, the being able to persuade his soul to either good or bad. And that men are happy when they have a good soul; yet, that they are never quiet, and that they never retain the same mind long. Also, that an oath is justice; and that on that account, Jupiter is called Jupiter of Oaths (Ὅρκιος). Also, that virtue is harmony, and health, and universal good, and God; on which account everything owes its existence and consistency to harmony. Also, that friendship is a harmonious equality.
Again, they teach that one ought not to pay equal honours to Gods and to heroes; but that one ought to honour the Gods at all times, extolling them with praises, clothed in white garments, and keeping one’s body chaste; but that one ought not to pay such honour to the heroes till after midday. Also, that a state of purity is brought about by purifications, and washings, and sprinklings, and by a man’s purifying himself from all funerals, or concubinage, or pollution of every kind, and by abstaining from all flesh that has either been killed or died of itself, and from mullets, and from melanuri, and from eggs, and from such animals as lay eggs, and from beans, and from other things which are prohibited by those who have the charge of the mysteries in the temples.
And Aristotle says, in his treatise on Beans, that Pythagoras enjoined his disciples to abstain from beans, either because[352] they resemble some part of the human body, or because they are like the gates of hell (for they are the only plants without parts); or because they dry up other plants, or because they are representatives of universal nature, or because they are used in elections in oligarchical governments. He also forbade his disciples to pick up what fell from the table, for the sake of accustoming them not to eat immoderately, or else because such things belong to the dead.
But Aristophanes says, that what falls belongs to the heroes; saying, in his Heroes:—
Never taste the things which fall
From the table on the floor.
He also forbade his disciples to eat white poultry, because a cock of that colour was sacred to Month, and was also a suppliant. He was also accounted a good animal;[114] and he was sacred to the God Month, for he indicates the time.
The Pythagoreans were also forbidden to eat of all fish that were sacred; on the ground that the same animals ought not to be served up before both Gods and men, just as the same things do not belong to freemen and to slaves. Now, white is an indication of a good nature, and black of a bad one. Another of the precepts of Pythagoras was, that men ought not to break bread; because in ancient times friends used to assemble around one loaf, as they even now do among the barbarians. Nor would he allow men to divide bread which unites them. Some think that he laid down this rule in reference to the judgment which takes place in hell; some because this practice engenders timidity in war. According to others, what is alluded to is the Union, which presides over the government of the universe.
Another of his doctrines was, that of all solid figures the sphere was the most beautiful; and of all plane figures, the circle. That old age and all diminution were similar, and also increase and youth were identical. That health was the permanence of form, and disease the destruction of it. Of salt his opinion was, that it ought to be set before people as a reminder of justice; for salt preserves everything which it[353] touches, and it is composed of the purest particles of water and sea.
These are the doctrines which Alexander asserts that he discovered in the Pythagorean treatises; and Aristotle gives a similar account of them.
XV. Timon, in his Silli, has not left unnoticed the dignified appearance of Pythagoras, when he attacks him on other points. And his words are these:—
Pythagoras, who often teaches
Precepts of magic, and with speeches
Of long high-sounding diction draws,
From gaping crowds, a vain applause.
And respecting his having been different people at different times, Xenophanes adds his evidence in an elegiac poem which commences thus:—
Now I will on another subject touch,
And lead the way.
And the passage in which he mentions Pythagoras is as follows:—
They say that once, as passing by he saw
A dog severely beaten, he did pity him,
And spoke as follows to the man who beat him:—
“Stop now, and beat him not; since in his body,
Abides the soul of a dear friend of mine,
Whose voice I recognized as he was crying.”
These are the words of Xenophanes.
Cratinus also ridiculed him in his Pythagorean Woman; but in his Tarentines, he speaks thus:—
They are accustomed, if by chance they see
A private individual abroad,
To try what powers of argument he has,
How he can speak and reason: and they bother him
With strange antithesis and forced conclusions,
Errors, comparisons, and magnitudes,
Till they have filled and quite perplex’d his mind.
And Mnesimachus says in his Alcmæon:—
As we do sacrifice to the Phœbus whom
Pythagoras worships, never eating aught
Which has the breath of life.
Aristophon says in his Pythagorean:—
[354]
A. He said that when he did descend below
Among the shades in Hell, he there beheld
All men who e’er had died; and there he saw,
That the Pythagoreans differ’d much
From all the rest; for that with them alone
Did Pluto deign to eat, much honouring
Their pious habits.
B. He’s a civil God,
If he likes eating with such dirty fellows.
And again, in the same play he says:—
They eat
Nothing but herbs and vegetables, and drink
Pure water only. But their lice are such,
Their cloaks so dirty, and their unwash’d scent
So rank, that no one of our younger men
Will for a moment bear them.
XXI. Pythagoras died in this manner. When he was sitting with some of his companions in Milo’s house, some one of those whom he did not think worthy of admission into it, was excited by envy to set fire to it. But some say that the people of Crotona themselves did this, being afraid lest he might aspire to the tyranny. And that Pythagoras was caught as he was trying to escape; and coming to a place full of beans, he stopped there, saying that it was better to be caught than to trample on the beans, and better to be slain than to speak; and so he was murdered by those who were pursuing him. And in this way, also, most of his companions were slain; being in number about forty; but that a very few did escape, among whom were Archippus, of Tarentum, and Lysis, whom I have mentioned before.
But Dicæarchus relates that Pythagoras died afterwards, having escaped as far as the temple of the Muses, at Metapontum, and that he died there of starvation, having abstained from food for forty days. And Heraclides says, in his abridgment of the life of Satyrus, that after he had buried Pherecydes in Delos, he returned to Italy, and finding there a superb banquet prepared at the house of Milo, of Crotona, he left Crotona, and went to Metapontum, and there put an end to his life by starvation, not wishing to live any longer. But Hermippus says, that when there was war between the people of Agrigentum and the Syracusans, Pythagoras went out with his usual companions, and took the part of the Agrigentines;[355] and as they were put to flight, he ran all round a field of beans, instead of crossing it, and so was slain by the Syracusans; and that the rest, being about five-and-thirty in number, were burnt at Tarentum, when they were trying to excite a sedition in the state against the principal magistrates.
Hermippus also relates another story about Pythagoras. For he says that when he was in Italy, he made a subterraneous apartment, and charged his mother to write an account of everything that took place, marking the time of each on a tablet, and then to send them down to him, until he came up again; and that his mother did so; and that Pythagoras came up again after a certain time, lean, and reduced to a skeleton; and that he came into the public assembly, and said that he had arrived from the shades below, and then he recited to them all that had happened during his absence. And they, being charmed by what he told them, wept and lamented, and believed that Pythagoras was a divine being; so that they even entrusted their wives to him, as likely to learn some good from him; and that they too were called Pythagoreans. And this is the story of Hermippus.
XXII. And Pythagoras had a wife, whose name was Theano; the daughter of Brontinus, of Crotona. But some say that she was the wife of Brontinus, and only a pupil of Pythagoras. And he had a daughter named Damo, as Lysis mentions in his letter to Hipparchus; where he speaks thus of Pythagoras: “And many say that you philosophize in public, as Pythagoras also used to do; who, when he had entrusted his Commentaries to Damo, his daughter, charged her to divulge them to no person out of the house. And she, though she might have sold his discourses for much money, would not abandon them, for she thought poverty and obedience to her father’s injunctions more valuable than gold; and that too, though she was a woman.”
He had also a son, named Telauges, who was the successor of his father in his school, and who, according to some authors, was the teacher of Empedocles. At least Hippobotus relates that Empedocles said:—
“Telauges, noble youth, whom in due time,
Theano bore to wise Pythagoras.”
But there is no book extant, which is the work of Telauges,[356] though there are some extant, which are attributed to his mother Theano. And they tell a story of her, that once, when she was asked how long a woman ought to be absent from her husband to be pure, she said, the moment she leaves her own husband, she is pure; but she is never pure at all, after she leaves any one else. And she recommended a woman, who was going to her husband, to put off her modesty with her clothes, and when she left him, to resume it again with her clothes; and when she was asked, “What clothes?” she said, “Those which cause you to be called a woman.”
XXIII. Now Pythagoras, as Heraclides, the son of Sarapion, relates, died when he was eighty years of age; according to his own account of his age, but according to the common account, he was more than ninety. And we have written a sportive epigram on him, which is couched in the following terms:—
You’re not the only man who has abstained
From living food, for so likewise have we;
And who, I’d like to know did ever taste
Food while alive, most sage Pythagoras?
When meat is boil’d, or roasted well and salted,
I don’t think it can well be called living.
Which, therefore, without scruple then we eat it,
And call it no more living flesh, but meat.
And another, which runs thus:—
Pythagoras was so wise a man, that he
Never eat meat himself, and called it sin.
And yet he gave good joints of beef to others.
So that I marvel at his principles;
Who others wronged, by teaching them to do
What he believed unholy for himself.
And another, as follows:—
Should you Pythagoras’ doctrine wish to know,
Look on the centre of Euphorbus’ shield.
For he asserts there lived a man of old,
And when he had no longer an existence,
He still could say that he had been alive,
Or else he would not still be living now.
And this one too:
Alas! alas! why did Pythagoras hold
Beans in such wondrous honour? Why, besides,
Did he thus die among his choice companions?
[357]
There was a field of beans; and so the sage,
Died in the common road of Agrigentum,
Rather than trample down his favourite beans.
XXIV. And he flourished about the sixtieth olympiad; and his system lasted for nine or ten generations. And the last of the Pythagoreans, whom Aristoxenus knew, were Xenophilus, the Chalcidean, from Thrace; and Phanton, the Phliasian, and Echecrates, and Diodes, and Polymnestus, who were also Phliasians, and they were disciples of Philolaus and Eurytus, of Tarentum.
XXV. And there were four men of the name of Pythagoras, about the same time, at no great distance from one another. One was a native of Crotona, a man who attained tyrannical power; the second was a Phliasian, a trainer of wrestlers, as some say; the third was a native of Zacynthus; the fourth was this our philosopher, to whom they say the mysteries of philosophy belong, in whose time that proverbial phrase, “Ipse dixit,” was introduced into ordinary life. Some also affirm, that there was another man of the name of Pythagoras, a statuary of Rhodes; who is believed to have been the first discoverer of rhythm and proportion; and another was a Samian statuary; and another an orator, of no reputation; and another was a physician, who wrote a treatise on Squills; and also some essays on Homer; and another was a man, who wrote a history of the affairs of the Dorians, as we are told by Dionysius.
But Eratosthenes says, as Phavorinus quotes him, in the eighth book of his Universal History, that this philosopher, of whom we are speaking, was the first man who ever practised boxing in a scientific manner, in the forty-eighth olympiad, having his hair long, and being clothed in a purple robe; and that he was rejected from the competition among boys, and being ridiculed for his application, he immediately entered among the men, and came off victorious. And this statement is confirmed among other things, by the epigram which Theætetus composed:—
Stranger, if e’er you knew Pythagoras,
Pythagoras, the man with flowing hair,
The celebrated boxer, erst of Samos;
I am Pythagoras. And if you ask
A citizen of Elis of my deeds,
You’ll surely think he is relating fables.
[358]
Phavorinus says, that he employed definitions, on account of the mathematical subjects to which he applied himself. And that Socrates and those who were his pupils, did so still more; and that they were subsequently followed in this by Aristotle and the Stoics.
He too, was the first person, who ever gave the name of κόσμος to the universe, and the first who called the earth round; though Theophrastus attributes this to Parmenides, and Zeno to Hesiod. They say too, that Cylon used to be a constant adversary of his, as Antidicus was of Socrates. And this epigram also used to be repeated, concerning Pythagoras the athlete:—
Pythagoras of Samos, son of Crates,
Came while a child to the Olympic games,
Eager to battle for the prize in boxing.
XXVI. There is a letter of this philosopher extant, which is couched in the following terms:—
PYTHAGORAS TO ANAXIMENES.
“You too, my most excellent friend, if you were not superior to Pythagoras, in birth and reputation, would have migrated from Miletus and gone elsewhere. But now the reputation of your father keeps you back, which perhaps would have restrained me too, if I had been like Anaximenes. But if you, who are the most eminent man, abandon the cities, all their ornaments will be taken from them, and the Median power will be more dangerous to them. Nor is it always seasonable to be studying astronomy, but it is more honourable to exhibit a regard for one’s country. And I myself am not always occupied about speculations of my own fancy, but I am busied also with the wars which the Italians are waging against one another.”
But since we have now finished our account of Pythagoras, we must also speak of the most eminent of the Pythagoreans. After whom, we must mention those who are spoken of more promiscuously in connection with no particular school; and then we will connect the whole series of philosophers worth speaking of, till we arrive at Epicurus, as we have already promised.
[359]
Now Telauges and Theano we have mentioned; and we must now speak of Empedocles, in the first place, for, according to some accounts, he was a pupil of Pythagoras.
LIFE OF EMPEDOCLES.
I. Empedocles, as Hippobotus relates, was the son of Meton, the son of Empedocles, and a citizen of Agrigentum. And Timæus, in the fifteenth book of his Histories, gives the same account, adding that Empedocles, the grandfather of the poet, was also a most eminent man. And Hermippus tells the same story as Timæus; and in the same spirit Heraclides, in his treatise on Diseases, relates that he was of an illustrious family, since his father bred a fine stud of horses. Erastothenes, in his List of the Conquerors at the Olympic Games, says, that the father of Meton gained the victory in the seventy-first olympiad, quoting Aristotle as his authority for the assertion.
But Apollodorus, the grammarian, in his Chronicles, says that he was the son of Meton; and Glaucus says that he came to Thurii when the city was only just completed. And then proceeding a little further, he adds:—
And some relate that he did flee from thence,
And came to Syracuse, and on their side
Did fight in horrid war against th’ Athenians;
But those men seem to me completely wrong—
For by this time he must have been deceased,
Or very old, which is not much believed;
For Aristotle, and Heraclides too,
Say that he died at sixty years of age.
But certainly the person who got the victory with a single horse in the seventy-first olympiad was a namesake of this man, and that it is which deceived Apollodorus as to the age of this philosopher.
But Satyrus, in his Lives, asserts, that Empedocles was the son of Exænetus, and that he also left a son who was named[360] Exænetus. And that in the same Olympiad, he himself gained the victory with the single horse; and his son, in wrestling, or, as Heraclides says in his Abridgment, in running. But I have found in the Commentaries of Phavorinus, that Empedocles sacrificed, and gave as a feast to the spectators of the games, an ox made of honey and flour, and that he had a brother named Callicratidas.
But Telauges, the son of Pythagoras, in his letters to Philolaus, says that Empedocles was the son of Archinomus; and that he was a citizen of Agrigentum, he himself asserts at the beginning of his Purifications.
Friends, who the mighty citadel inhabit,
Which crowns the golden waves of Acragas.
And this is enough to say about his family.
II. Timæus, in his ninth book, relates that he was a pupil of Pythagoras, saying that he was afterwards convicted of having divulged his doctrines, in the same way as Plato was, and therefore that he was forbidden from thenceforth to attend his school. And they say that Pythagoras himself mentions him when he says:—
And in that band there was a learned man
Of wondrous wisdom; one, who of all men
Had the profoundest wealth of intellect.
But some say that when the philosopher says this, he is referring to Parmenides.
Neanthes relates, that till the time of Philolaus and Empedocles, the Pythagoreans used to admit all persons indiscriminately into their school; but when Empedocles made their doctrines public by means of his poems, then they made a law to admit no Epic poet. And they say that the same thing happened to Plato; for that he too was excluded from the school. But who was the teacher of the Pythagorean school that Empedocles was a pupil of, they do not say; for, as for the letter of Telauges, in which he is stated to have been a pupil of Hippasus and Brontinus, that is not worthy of belief. But Theophrastus says that he was an imitator and a rival of Parmenides, in his poems, for that he too had delivered his opinions on natural philosophy in epic verse.
Hermippus, however, says that he was an imitator, not of Parmenides, but of Xenophanes with whom he lived; and[361] that he imitated his epic style, and that it was at a later period that he fell in with the Pythagoreans. But Alcidamas, in his Natural Philosophy, says, that Zeno and Empedocles were pupils of Parmenides, about the same time; and that they subsequently seceded from him; and that Zeno adopted a philosophical system peculiar to himself; but that Empedocles became a pupil of Anaxagoras and Pythagoras, and that he imitated the pompous demeanour, and way of life, and gestures of the one, and the system of Natural Philosophy of the other.
III. And Aristotle, in his Sophist, says that Empedocles was the first person who invented rhetoric, and Zeno the first person who invented dialectics. And in his book on Poetry, he says, that Empedocles was a man of Homeric genius, and endowed with great power of language, and a great master of metaphor, and a man who employed all the successful artifices of poetry, and also that when he had written several poems, and among them one on the passage of the Hellespont, by Xerxes, and also the proœmium of a hymn to Apollo, his daughter subsequently burnt them, or, as Hieronymus says, his sister, burning the proœmium unintentionally, but the Persian poem on purpose, because it was incomplete. And speaking generally, he says that he wrote tragedies and political treatises.
But Heraclides, the son of Sarapion, says that the tragedies were the work of some other Empedocles; and Hieronymus says that he had met with forty-three. Neanthes, too, affirms that when he was a young man, he wrote tragedies, and that he himself had subsequently met with them; and Satyrus, in his Lives, states that he was a physician, and also a most excellent orator. And accordingly, that Gorgias, of Leontini, was his pupil, a man of the greatest eminence as a rhetorician, and one who left behind him a treatise containing a complete system of the art; and who, as we are told by Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, lived to the age of a hundred and nine years.
IV. Satyrus tells us that he used to say that he had been present when Empedocles was practising magic; and that he professes this science, and many others too in his poems when he says:—
[362]
And all the drugs which can relieve disease,
Or soften the approach of age, shall be
Revealed to your inquiries; I do know them,
And I to you alone will them disclose.
You shall restrain the fierce unbridled winds,
Which, rushing o’er the earth, bow down the corn,
And crush the farmer’s hopes. And when you will,
You shall recall them back to sweep the land:
Then you shall learn to dry the rainy clouds,
And bid warm summer cheer the heart of men.
Again, at your behest, the drought shall yield
To wholesome show’rs: when you give the word
Hell shall restore its dead.
V. And Timæus, in his eighteenth book, says, that this man was held in great esteem on many accounts; for that once, when the etesian gales were blowing violently, so as to injure the crops, he ordered some asses to be flayed, and some bladders to be made of their hides, and these he placed on the hills and high places to catch the wind. And so, when the wind ceased, he was called wind-forbidder (κωλυσανέμας). And Heraclides, in his treatise on Diseases, says that he dictated to Pausanias the statement which he made about the dead woman. Now Pausanias, as both Aristippus and Satyrus agree, was much attached to him; and he dedicated to him the works which he wrote on Natural Philosophy, in the following terms:—
Hear, O Pausanias, son of wise Anchites.
He also wrote an epigram upon him:—
Gela, his native land, does boast the birth
Of wise Anchites’ son, that great physician,
So fitly named Pausanias,[115] from his skill;
A genuine son of Æsculapius,
Who has stopped many men whom fell disease
Marked for its own, from treading those dark paths
Which lead to Proserpine’s infernal realms.
VI. The case of the dead woman above mentioned, Heraclides says, was something of this sort; that he kept her corpse for thirty days dead, and yet free from corruption; on which account he has called himself a physician and a prophet, taking it also from these verses:—
[363]
Friends who the mighty citadel inhabit,
Which crowns the golden waves of Acragas
Votaries of noble actions, Hail to ye;
I, an immortal God, no longer mortal,
Now live among you well revered by all,
As is my due, crowned with holy fillets
And rosy garlands. And whene’er I come
To wealthy cities, then from men and women
Due honours meets me; and crowds follow me,
Seeking the way which leads to gainful glory.
Some ask for oracles, and some entreat,
For remedies against all kinds of sickness.
VII. And he says that Agrigentum was a very large city, since it had eight hundred thousand inhabitants; on which account Empedocles, seeing the people immersed in luxury, said, “The men of Agrigentum devote themselves wholly to luxury as if they were to die to-morrow, but they furnish their houses as if they were to live for ever.”
VIII. It is said that Cleomenes, the rhapsodist, sung this very poem, called the Purifications, at Olympia; at least this is the account given by Phavorinus, in his Commentaries.
IX. And Aristotle says, that he was a most liberal man, and far removed from anything like a domineering spirit; since he constantly refused the sovereign power when it was offered to him, as Xanthus assures us in his account of him, showing plainly that he preferred a simple style of living. And Timæus tells the same story, giving at the same time the reason why he was so very popular. For he says that when on one occasion, he was invited to a banquet by one of the magistrates, the wine was carried about, but the supper was not served up. And as every one else kept silence, he, disapproving of what he saw, bade the servants bring in the supper; but the person who had invited him said that he was waiting for the secretary of the council. And when he came he was appointed master of the feast, at the instigation of the giver of it, and then he gave a plain intimation of his tyrannical inclinations, for he ordered all the guests to drink, and those who did not drink were to have the wine poured over their heads. Empedocles said nothing at the moment, but the next day he summoned them before the court, and procured the execution of both the entertainer and the master of the feast.
And this was the beginning of his political career. And at another time, when Acron, the physician, asked of the council[364] a place where he might erect a monument to his father, on account of his eminence as a physician, Empedocles came forward and opposed any such grant, adducing many arguments on the ground of equality, and also putting the following question:—“And what elegy shall we inscribe upon it? Shall we say:—
“Ἄκρον ἰητρὸν Ἄκρων’ Ἀκραγαντῖνον πατρὸς ἄκρου
κρύπτει κρημνὸς ἄκρος πατρίδος ἀκροτάτης.”[116]
But some give the second line thus:—
Ἀκροτάτης κορυφῆς τύμβος ἄκρος κατέχει.
And others assert that it is the composition of Simonides.
But afterwards Empedocles abolished the assembly of a thousand, and established a council in which the magistrates were to hold office for three years, on such a footing that it should consist not only of rich men, but of those who were favourers of the interests of the people. Timæus, however, in his first and second book (for he often mentions him), says that he appeared to entertain opinions adverse to a republic. And, as far as his poetry goes, any one may see that he was arrogant and self-satisfied. Accordingly, he says:—
Hail to ye,
I, an immortal God, no longer mortal,
Now live among you:
And so on.
But when he went to the olympic games he was considered a worthy object of general attention; so that there was no mention made of any one else in comparison of Empedocles.
X. Afterwards, indeed, when Agrigentum was settled, the descendants of his enemies opposed his return; on which account he retired to Peloponnesus, where he died. And Timon has not let even Empedocles escape, but satirises him in this style, saying:—
And then Empedocles, the honeyed speaker
Of soft forensic speeches; he did take
As many offices as he was able,
Creating magistrates who wanted helpers.
[365]
But there are two accounts of the manner of his death.
XI. For Heraclides, relating the story about the dead woman, how Empedocles got great glory from sending away a dead woman restored to life, says that he celebrated a sacrifice in the field of Pisianax, and that some of his friends were invited, among whom was Pausanias. And then, after the banquet, they lay down, some going a little way off, and some lying under the trees close by in the field, and some wherever they happened to choose. But Empedocles himself remained in the place where he had been sitting. But when day broke, and they arose, he alone was not found. And when he was sought for, and the servants were examined and said that they did not know, one of them said, that at midnight he had heard a loud voice calling Empedocles; and that then he himself rose up and saw a great light from heaven, but nothing else. And as they were all amazed at what had taken place, Pausanias descended and sent some people to look for him; but afterwards he was commanded not to busy himself about the matter, as he was informed that what had happened was deserving of thankfulness, and that they behoved to sacrifice to Empedocles as to one who had become a God.
Hermippus says also, that a woman of the name of Panthea, a native of Agrigentum, who had been given over by the physicians, was cured by him, and that it was on this account that he celebrated a sacrifice; and that the guests invited were about eighty in number. But Hippobotus says that he rose up and went away as if he were going to mount Ætna; and that when he arrived at the crater of fire he leaped in, and disappeared, wishing to establish a belief that he had become a God. But afterwards the truth was detected by one of his slippers having been dropped. For he used to wear slippers with brazen soles. Pausanias, however, contradicts this statement.[117]
[366]
But Diodorus, of Ephesus, writing about Anaximander, says that Empedocles imitated him; indulging in a tragic sort of pride, and wearing magnificent apparel. And when a pestilence attacked the people of Selinus, by reason of the bad smells arising from the adjacent river, so that the men died and the women bore dead children, Empedocles contrived a plan, and brought into the same channel two other rivers at his own expense; and so, by mixing their waters with that of the other river, he sweetened the stream. And as the pestilence was removed in this way, when the people of Selinus were on one occasion holding a festival on the bank of the river, Empedocles appeared among them; and they rising up, offered him adoration, and prayed to him as to a God. And he, wishing to confirm this idea which they had adopted of him, leaped into the fire.
But Timæus contradicts all these stories; saying expressly, that he departed into Peloponnesus, and never returned at all, on which account the manner of his death is uncertain. And he especially denies the tale of Heraclides in his fourth book; for he says that Pisianax was a Syracusan, and had no field in the district of Agrigentum; but that Pausanias erected a monument in honour of his friend, since such a report had got about concerning him; and, as he was a rich man, made it a statue and little chapel, as one might erect to a God. “How then,” adds Timæus, “could he have leaped into a crater, of which, though they were in the neighbourhood, he had never made any mention? He died then in Peloponnesus; and there is nothing extraordinary in there being no tomb of his to be seen; for there are many other men who have no tomb visible.” These are the words of Timæus; and he adds further, “But Heraclides is altogether a man fond of strange stories, and one who would assert that a man had fallen from the moon.”
Hippobotus says, that there was a clothed statue of Empedocles which lay formerly in Agrigentum, but which was afterwards placed in front of the Senate House of the Romans divested of its clothing, as the Romans had carried it off and erected it there. And there are traces of some inscriptions or reliefs still discernible on it.
Neanthes of Cyzicus, who also wrote about the Pythagoreans, says, that when Meton was dead, the seeds of tyrannical[367] power began to appear; and that then Empedocles persuaded the Agrigentines to desist from their factious disputes, and to establish political equality. And besides, as there were many of the female citizens destitute of dowry, he portioned them out of his own private fortune. And relying on these actions of his, he assumed a purple robe and wore a golden circlet on his hand, as Phavorinus relates in the first book of his Commentaries. He also wore slippers with brazen soles, and a Delphian garland. His hair was let grow very long, and he had boys to follow him; and he himself always preserved a solemn countenance, and a uniformly grave deportment. And he marched about in such style, that he seemed to all the citizens, who met him and who admired his deportment, to exhibit a sort of likeness to kingly power. And afterwards, it happened that as on the occasion of some festival he was going in a chariot to Messene, he was upset and broke his thigh; and he was taken ill in consequence, and so died, at the age of seventy-seven. And his tomb is in Megara.
But as to his age, Aristotle differs from this account of Neanthes; for he asserts that he died at sixty years of age; others again say, that he was a hundred and nine when he died. He flourished about the eighty-fourth olympiad. Demetrius, of Trœzen, in his book against the Sophists, reports that, as the lines of Homer say:—
He now, self-murdered, from a beam depends,
And his mad soul to blackest hell descends.[118]
But in the letter of Telauges, which has been mentioned before, it is said that he slipped down through old age, and fell into the sea, and so died.
And this is enough to say about his death.
There is also a jesting epigram of ours upon him, in our collection of Poems in all Metres, which runs thus:—
You too, Empedocles, essayed to purge
Your body in the rapid flames, and drank
The liquid fire from the restless crater;
I say not that you threw yourself at once
Into the stream of Ætna’s fiery flood.
But seeking to conceal yourself you fell,
And so you met with unintended death.
[368]
And another:—
’Tis said the wise Empedocles did fall
Out of his chariot, and so broke his thigh:
But if he leapt into the flames of Ætna,
How could his tomb be shown in Megara?
XII. The following were some of his doctrines. He used to assert that there were four elements, fire, water, earth, and air. And that that is friendship by which they are united, and discord by which they are separated. And he speaks thus on this subject:—
Bright Jove, life-giving Juno, Pluto dark,
And Nestis, who fills mortal eyes with tears.
Meaning by Jove fire, by Juno the earth, by Pluto the air, and by Nestis water. And these things, says he, never cease alternating with one another; inasmuch as this arrangement is perpetual. Accordingly, he says subsequently:—
Sometimes in friendship bound they coalesce,
Sometimes they’re parted by fell discord’s hate.
And he asserts that the sun is a vast assemblage of fire, and that it is larger than the moon. And the moon is disk-shaped; and that the heaven itself is like crystal; and that the soul inhabits every kind of form of animals and plants. Accordingly, he thus expresses himself.
For once I was a boy, and once a girl.
A bush, a bird, a fish who swims the sea,
XIII. His writings on Natural Philosophy and his Purifications extend to five thousand verses; and his Medical Poem to six hundred; and his Tragedies we have spoken of previously.
LIFE OF EPICHARMUS.
I. Epicharmus was a native of Cos, the son of Helothales; he also was a pupil of Pythagoras. When he was three months old he was brought to Megara, in Sicily, and from thence he came to Syracuse, as he himself tells us in his writings. And on his statue there is the following inscription.
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As the bright sun excels the other stars,
As the sea far exceeds the river streams:
So does sage Epicharmus men surpass,
Whom hospitable Syracuse has crowned.
II. He has left behind him Commentaries in which he treats of natural philosophy, and delivers apophthegms, and discusses medicine. He has also added brief notes to many of his commentaries, in which he declares plainly that he is the author of the works.
III. He died at the age of ninety years.
LIFE OF ARCHYTAS.
I. Archytas was a native of Tarentum, and the son of Mnesagoras; or, as Aristoxenus relates, of Histiæus.
II. He also was a Pythagorean; and he it was who saved Plato’s life by means of a letter, when he was in danger of being put to death by Dionysius.
III. He was a man held in very general esteem on account of his universal virtue; and he was seven times appointed general of his countrymen, when no one else had ever held the office for more than one year, as the law forbade it to be held for a longer period.
IV. Plato wrote his letters to him; as he had begun the correspondence by writing himself to Plato, which he did in the following manner:—
ARCHYTAS TO PLATO, GREETING.
“I am very glad that you have recovered from your delicate state of health; for you yourself have sent me word of your recovery, and Lamiscus gives the same account. I have been much occupied with some commentaries, and have been among the Lucanians, and have met with the descendants of Ocellus. I have now in my possession, and I send to you the treatises on Law, and Kingly Power, and Piety, and the Creation of the Universe. As for the rest, I have not been able to find them, but whenever I do find any, I will send them to you.”
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Thus wrote Archytas. And Plato sent him an answer in the following terms:—
PLATO TO ARCHYTAS, GREETING.
“I was exceedingly glad to receive the Commentaries which came from you, and I have admired their author in the greatest possible degree; and he seems to us to be a man worthy of his ancient ancestors. For they are said to have been originally natives of Myra; and to have been among the Trojans, whom Laomedon took with him, gallant men, as the story handed down by tradition attests. As for my Commentaries which you ask me for, they are not yet completed, but such as they are I send them to you. And on the propriety of taking care of such things we are both agreed, so that I have no need to impress anything on you on that head. Farewell.”
These then are the letters which these philosophers wrote to one another.
V. There were four people of the name of Archytas. The first, this man of whom we are speaking. The second was a Mytilenean, a musician. The third wrote a treatise on Agriculture. The fourth was an epigrammatic poet. Some writers also make mention of a fifth, who was an architect; and there is a book on mechanics extant which is attributed to him; which begins in this way:—
“This is what I heard from Teucer, the Carthaginian.”
And concerning the musician, the following story is told: That once he was reproached for not making himself heard, and he replied, “My organ contends on my behalf, and speaks.”
VI. Aristoxenus says, that this Pythagorean was never once defeated while acting as general. But that as he was attacked by envy, he once gave up his command, and his army was immediately taken prisoner.
VII. He was the first person who applied mathematical principles to mechanics, and reduced them to a system; and the first also who gave a methodical impulse to descriptive geometry in seeking, in the sections of a demicylinder for a proportional mean, which should enable him to find the double of a given cube. He was also the first person who ever gave the geometrical measure of a cube, as Plato mentions in his Republic.
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LIFE OF ALCMÆON.
I. Alcmæon was a citizen of Crotona; he also was a pupil of Pythagoras. And the chief part of his writings are on medical subjects; but he also at times discusses points of natural philosophy, and asserts that the greater part of human affairs have two sides. He appears to have been the first person who wrote a treatise on Natural Philosophy, as Phavorinus affirms, in his Universal History; and he used to argue that the moon had the same nature for ever which she had at that moment.
II. He was the son of Pirithus, as he himself states at the beginning of his treatise, where he says, “Alcmæon, of Crotona, the son of Pirithus, says this to Brontinus, and Leon, and Bathyllus. About things invisible, and things mortal, the Gods alone have a certain knowledge; but men may form conjectures.…” And so on.
He used also to say that the soul was immortal, and that it was in a state of perpetual motion in the same way as the sun.
LIFE OF HIPPASUS.
I. Hippasus was a citizen of Metapontum, and a pupil of Pythagoras.
II. He used to say that the time of the changes of the world was definite, and that the universe also was finite, and in a state of perpetual motion.
III. Demetrius, in his treatise on People of the same Name, says that he left no writings behind him.
IV. There were two people of the name of Hippasus; this man, and another who wrote an account of the Constitution of the Lacedæmonians, in five books. And he was himself a Lacedæmonian.
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LIFE OF PHILOLAUS.
I. Philolaus was a native of Crotona, and a pupil of Pythagoras, it was from him that Plato wrote to Dion to take care and purchase the books of Pythagoras.
II. And he died under suspicion of having designed to seize on the tyranny; and we have written an epigram on him:—
I say that all men ought above all things
To guard against suspicion. For, though innocent,
Still if you are suspected, you’re unfortunate.
And thus his native city of Crotona
Slew Philolaus; for the jealous citizens
Thought that his house betrayed a tyrant’s purpose.
III. His theory was, that everything was produced by harmony and necessity. And he was the first person who affirmed that the earth moved in a circle; though some attribute the assertion of this principle to Icetas of Syracuse.
IV. He wrote one book, which Hermippus reports, on the authority of some unknown writer, that Plato the philosopher purchased when he was in Sicily (having come thither to the court of Dionysius), of the relations of Philolaus, for forty Alexandrian minæ of silver; and that from this book he copied his Timæus. But others say that Plato received it as a present, after having obtained his liberty for a young man, one of the disciples of Philolaus, who had been arrested by Dionysius. Demetrius, in his treatise on people of the same name, says that he was the first of the Pythagoreans who wrote a treatise on Natural Philosophy; and it begins thus:—
“But nature in the world has been composed of bodies infinite and finite, and so is the whole world and all that is in it.”
LIFE OF EUDOXUS.
I. Eudoxus was the son of Æschines, and a native of Cnidus. He was an astronomer, a geometrician, a physician,[373] and a lawgiver. In geometry he was a pupil of Archytas, and in medicine of Philistion, the Sicilian, as Callimachus relates in his Tablets; and Sotion, in his Successions, asserts that he was likewise a pupil of Plato; for that, when he was twenty-three years of age, and in very narrow circumstances, he came to Athens with Theomedon the physician, by whom he was chiefly supported, being attracted by the reputation of the Socratic school. Some say that his attachment to Theomedon was cemented by nearer ties. And when he had arrived at Piræus, he went up to the city every day, and when he had heard the Sophists lecture he returned. And having spent two months there, he returned home again; and being again aided by the contributions of his friends, he set sail for Egypt, with Chrysippus the physician, bearing letters of introduction from Agesilaus to Nectanabis, and that he recommended him to the priests.
II. And having remained there a year and four months, he shaved his eyebrows after the manner of the Egyptian priests, and composed, as it is said, the treatise called the Octaeteris. From thence he went to Cyzicus, and to the Propontis, in both of which places he lived as a Sophist; he also went to the court of Mausolus. And then, in this manner, he returned again to Athens, having a great many disciples with him, for the sake, as some say, of annoying Plato, because he had originally discarded him from his school. Some say, that when Plato gave an entertainment on one occasion, Eudoxus, as the guests were very numerous, introduced the fashion of sitting in a semicircle.
Nicomachus, the son of Aristotle, affirms that he used to say, that pleasure was the good.
III. He was received in his own country with great honours, as the decree that was passed respecting him shows. He was also accounted very illustrious among the Greeks, having given laws to his own fellow citizens, as Hermippus tells us in the fourth book of his account of the Seven Wise Men; and having also written treatises on Astronomy and Geometry, and several other considerable works.
He had three daughters, Actis, Philtis, and Delphis. And Eratosthenes asserts, in his books addressed to Baton, that he also composed dialogues entitled Dialogues of Dogs; others say that these were written by some Egyptians, in their own[374] language, and that Eudoxus translated them, and published them in Greece. One of his pupils was Chrysippus, of Cnidos, son of Erineus, who learnt of him all that he knew about the Gods, and the world, and the heavenly bodies; and who learnt medicine from Philistion the Sicilian. He also left some very admirable Reminiscences.
IV. He had a son of the name of Aristagoras, who was the teacher of Chrysippus, the son of Aëthlius; he was the author of a work on Remedies for the Eyes, as speculations on natural philosophy had come very much under his notice.
V. There were three people of the name of Eudoxus. The first, this man of whom we are speaking; the second, a Rhodian, who wrote histories; the third, a Siciliot, a son of Agathocles, a comic poet, who gained three victories at the Dionysia in the city, and five at the Lenæa,[119] as Apollodorus tells us in his Chronicles. We also find another, who was a physician of Cnidos, who is mentioned by this Eudoxus, in his Circuit of the World, where he says that he used to warn people to keep constantly exercising their limbs in every kind of exercise, and their senses too.
VI. The same author says, that the Cnidean Eudoxus flourished about the hundred and third olympiad; and that he was the inventor of the theory of crooked lines. And he died in his fifty-third year. But when he was in Egypt with Conuphis, of Heliopolis, Apis licked his garment; and so the priests said that he would be short-lived, but very illustrious, as it is reported by Phavorinus in his Commentaries. And we have written an epigram on him, that runs thus:—
’Tis said, that while at Memphis wise Eudoxus
Learnt his own fate from th’ holy fair-horned bull;
He said indeed no word, bulls do not speak
Nor had kind nature e’er calf Apis gifted
With an articulately speaking mouth.
But standing on one side he lick’d his cloak,
Showing by this most plainly—in brief time
You shall put off your life. So death came soon,
When he had just seen three and fifty times
The Pleiads rise to warn the mariners.
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And instead of Eudoxus, they used to call him Endoxus,[120] on account of the brilliancy of his reputation. And since we have gone through the illustrious Pythagoreans, we must now speak of the Promiscuous philosophers, as they call them. And we will first of all speak of Heraclitus.
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BOOK IX.LIFE OF HERACLITUS.
I. Heraclitus was the son of Blyson, or, as some say, of Heracion, and a citizen of Ephesus. He flourished about the sixty-ninth olympiad.
II. He was above all men of a lofty and arrogant spirit, as is plain from his writings, in which he says, “Abundant learning does not form the mind; for if it did, it would have instructed Hesiod, and Pythagoras, and likewise Xenophanes, and Hecatæus. For the only piece of real wisdom is to know that idea, which by itself will govern everything on every occasion.” He used to say, too, that Homer deserved to be expelled from the games and beaten, and Archilochus likewise. He used also to say, “It is more necessary to extinguish insolence, than to put out a fire.” Another of his sayings was, “The people ought to fight for the law, as for their city.” He also attacks the Ephesians for having banished his companion Hermodorus, when he says, “The Ephesians deserve to have all their youth put to death, and all those who are younger still banished from their city, inasmuch as they have banished Hermodorus, the best man among them, saying, ‘Let no one of us be pre-eminently good; and if there be any such person, let him go to another city and another people.’”
And when he was requested to make laws for them, he refused, because the city was already immersed in a thoroughly bad constitution. And having retired to the temple of Diana with his children, he began to play at dice; and when all the Ephesians flocked round him, he said, “You wretches, what are you wondering at? is it not better to do this, than to meddle with public affairs in your company?”
III. And at last, becoming a complete misanthrope, he used to live, spending his time in walking about the mountains; feeding on grasses and plants, and in consequence of these[377] habits, he was attacked by the dropsy, and so then he returned to the city, and asked the physicians, in a riddle, whether they were able to produce a drought after wet weather. And as they did not understand him, he shut himself up in a stable for oxen, and covered himself with cow-dung, hoping to cause the wet to evaporate from him, by the warmth that this produced. And as he did himself no go good in this way, he died, having lived seventy years; and we have written an epigram upon him which runs thus:—
I’ve often wondered much at Heraclitus,
That he should chose to live so miserably,
And die by such a miserable fate.
For fell disease did master all his body,
With water quenching all the light of his eyes,
And bringing darkness o’er his mind and body.
But Hermippus states, that what he asked the physicians was this, whether any one could draw off the water by depressing his intestines? and when they answered that they could not, he placed himself in the sun, and ordered his servants to plaster him over with cow-dung; and being stretched out in that way, on the second day he died, and was buried in the market-place. But Neanthes, of Cyzicus says, that as he could not tear off the cow-dung, he remained there, and on account of the alteration in his appearance, he was not discovered, and so was devoured by the dogs.
IV. And he was a wonderful person, from his boyhood, since, while he was young, he used to say that he knew nothing but when he had grown up, he then used to affirm that he knew everything. And he was no one’s pupil, but he used to say, that he himself had investigated every thing, and had learned everything of himself. But Sotion relates, that some people affirmed that he had been a pupil of Xenophanes. And that Ariston, stated in his account of Heraclitus, that he was cured of the dropsy, and died of some other disease. And Hippobotus gives the same account.
V. There is a book of his extant, which is about nature generally, and it is divided into three discourses; one on the Universe; one on Politics; and one on Theology. And he deposited this book in the temple of Diana, as some authors report, having written it intentionally in an obscure style, in order that only those who were able men might comprehend[378] it, and that it might not be exposed to ridicule at the hands of the common people. Timon attacks this man also, saying:—
Among them came that cuckoo Heraclitus
The enigmatical obscure reviler
Of all the common people.
Theophrastus asserts, that it was out of melancholy that he left some of his works half finished, and wrote several, in completely different styles; and Antisthenes, in his Successions, adduces as a proof of his lofty spirit, the fact, that he yielded to his brother the title and privileges of royalty.[121] And his book had so high a reputation, that a sect arose in consequence of it, who were called after his own name, Heracliteans.
VI. The following may be set down in a general manner as his main principles: that everything is created from fire, and is dissolved into fire; that everything happens according to destiny, and that all existing things are harmonized, and made to agree together by opposite tendencies; and that all things are full of souls and dæmones. He also discussed all the passions which exist in the world, and used also to contend that the sun was of that precise magnitude of which he appears to be. One of his sayings too was, that no one, by whatever road he might travel, could ever possibly find out the boundaries of the soul, so deeply hidden are the principles which regulate it. He used also to call opinion the sacred disease; and to say that eye-sight was often deceived. Sometimes, in his writings, he expresses himself with great brilliancy and clearness; so that even the most stupid man may easily understand him, and receive an elevation of soul from him. And his conciseness, and the dignity of his style, are incomparable.
In particulars, his doctrines are of this kind. That fire is an element, and that it is by the changes of fire that all things exist; being engendered sometimes by rarity, some times by density. But he explains nothing clearly. He also says, that everything is produced by contrariety, and that everything flows on like a river; that the universe is finite,[379] and that there is one world, and that that is produced from fire, and that the whole world is in its turn again consumed by fire at certain periods, and that all this happens according to fate. That of the contraries, that which leads to production is called war and contest, and that which leads to the conflagration is called harmony and peace; that change is the road leading upward, and the road leading downward; and that the whole world exists according to it.
For that fire, when densified becomes liquid, and becoming concrete, becomes also water; again, that the water when concrete is turned to earth, and that this is the road down; again, that the earth itself becomes fused, from which water is produced, and from that everything else is produced; and then he refers almost everything to the evaporation which takes place from the sea; and this is the road which leads upwards. Also, that there are evaporations, both from earth and sea, some of which are bright and clear, and some are dark; and that the fire is increased by the dark ones, and the moisture by the others. But what the space which surrounds us is, he does not explain. He states, however, that there are vessels in it, turned with their hollow part towards us; in which all the bright evaporations are collected, and form flames, which are the stars; and that the brightest of these flames, and the hottest, is the light of the sun; for that all the other stars are farther off from the earth; and that on this account, they give less light and warmth; and that the moon is nearer the earth, but does not move through a pure space; the sun, on the other hand, is situated in a transparent space, and one free from all admixture, preserving a well proportioned distance from us, on which account it gives us more light and more heat. And that the sun and moon are eclipsed, when the before-mentioned vessels are turned upwards. And that the different phases of the moon take place every month, as its vessel keeps gradually turning round. Moreover, that day and night, and months and years, and rains and winds, and things of that kind, all exist according to, and are caused by, the different evaporations.
For that the bright evaporation catching fire in the circle of the sun causes day, and the predominance of the opposite one causes night; and again, from the bright one the heat is increased so as to produce summer, and from the dark one[380] the cold gains strength and produces winter; and he also explains the causes of the other phenomena in a corresponding manner.
But with respect to the earth, he does not explain at all of what character it is, nor does he do so in the case of the vessels; and these were his main doctrines.
VII. Now, what his opinion about Socrates was, and what expressions he used when he met with a treatise of his which Euripides brought him, according to the story told by Ariston, we have detailed in our account of Socrates. Seleucus, the grammarian, however, says that a man of the name of Croton, in his Diver, relates that it was a person of the name of Crates who first brought this book into Greece; and that he said that he wanted some Delian diver who would not be drowned in it. And the book is described under several titles; some calling it the Muses, some a treatise on Nature; but Diodotus calls it—
A well compacted helm to lead a man
Straight through the path of life.
Some call it a science of morals, the arrangement of the changes[122] of unity and of everything.
VIII. They say that when he was asked why he preserved silence, he said, “That you may talk.”
IX. Darius was very desirous to enjoy his conversation; and wrote thus to him:—
KING DARIUS, THE SON OF HYSTASPES, ADDRESSES HERACLITUS OF EPHESUS, THE WISE MAN, GREETING HIM.
“You have written a book on Natural Philosophy, difficult to understand and difficult to explain. Accordingly, if in some parts it is explained literally, it seems to disclose a very important theory concerning the universal world, and all that is contained in it, as they are placed in a state of most divine motion. But commonly, the mind is kept in suspense, so that those who have studied your work the most, are not able precisely to disentangle the exact meaning of your expressions. Therefore, king Darius, the son of Hystaspes wishes to enjoy the benefit of hearing you discourse, and of receiving some[381] Grecian instruction. Come, therefore, quickly to my sight, and to my royal palace; for the Greeks, in general, do not accord to wise men the distinction which they deserve, and disregard the admirable expositions delivered by them, which are, however, worthy of being seriously listened to and studied; but with me you shall have every kind of distinction and honour, and you shall enjoy every day honourable and worthy conversation, and your pupils’ life shall become virtuous, in accordance with your precepts.”
HERACLITUS, OF EPHESUS, TO KING DARIUS, THE SON OF HYSTASPES, GREETING.
“All the men that exist in the world, are far removed from truth and just dealings; but they are full of evil foolishness, which leads them to insatiable covetousness and vain-glorious ambition. I, however, forgetting all their worthlessness, and shunning satiety, and who wish to avoid all envy on the part of my countrymen, and all appearance of arrogance, will never come to Persia, since I am quite contented with a little, and live as best suits my own inclination.”
X. This was the way in which the man behaved even to the king. And Demetrius, in his treatise on People of the same Name, says that he also despised the Athenians, among whom he had a very high reputation. And that though he was himself despised by the Ephesians, he nevertheless preferred his own home. Demetrius Phalereus also mentions him in his Defence of Socrates.
XI. There were many people who undertook to interpret his book. For Antisthenes and Heraclides, Ponticus, and Cleanthes, and Sphærus the Stoic; and besides them Pausanias, who was surnamed Heraclitistes, and Nicomedes, and Dionysius, all did so. And of the grammarians, Diodotus undertook the same task; and he says that the subject of the book is not natural philosophy, but politics; and that all that is said in it about natural philosophy, is only by way of illustration. And Hieronymus tells us, that a man of the name of Scythinus, an iambic poet, attempted to render the book into verse.
XII. There are many epigrams extant which were written upon him, and this is one of them:—
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I who lie here am Heraclitus, spare me
Ye rude unlettered men: ’Twas not for you
That I did labour, but for wiser people.
One man may be to me a countless host,
And an unnumbered multitude be no one;
And this I still say in the shades below.
And there is another expressed thus:—
Be not too hasty, skimming o’er the book
Of Heraclitus; ’tis a difficult road,
For mist is there, and darkness hard to pierce.
But if you have a guide who knows his system,
Then everything is clearer than the sun.
XIII. There were five people of the name of Heraclitus. The first was this philosopher of ours. The second a lyric poet, who wrote a panegyrical hymn on the Twelve Gods. The third was an Elegiac poet, of Halicarnassus; on whom Callimachus wrote the following epigram:—
I heard, O Heraclitus, of your death,
And the news filled my eyes with mournful tears,
When I remembered all the happy hours
When we with talk beguiled the setting sun.
You now are dust; but still the honeyed voice
Of your sweet converse doth and will survive;
Nor can fell death, which all things else destroys,
Lay upon that his ruthless conquering grasp.
The fourth was a Lesbian, who wrote a history of Macedonia. The fifth was a man who blended jest with earnest; and who, having been a harp-player, abandoned that profession for a serio-comic style of writing.
LIFE OF XENOPHANES.
I. Xenophanes was the son of Dexius, or, as Apollodorus says, of Orthomenes. He was a citizen of Colophon; and is praised by Timon. Accordingly, he says:—
Xenophanes, not much a slave to vanity,
The wise reprover of the tricks of Homer.
He, having been banished from his own country, lived at Zancle, in Sicily, and at Catana.
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II. And, according to the statements made by some people, he was a pupil of no one; but, as others say, he was a pupil of Boton the Athenian; or, as another account again affirms, of Archelaus. He was, if we may believe Sotion, a contemporary of Anaximander.
III. He wrote poems in hexameter and in elegiac verse; and also he wrote iambics against Hesiod and Homer, attacking the things said in their poems about the Gods. He also used to recite his own poems. It is said likewise, that he argued against the opinions of Thales and Pythagoras, and that he also attacked Epimenides. He lived to an extreme old age; as he says somewhere himself:—
Threescore and seven long years are fully passed,
Since first my doctrines spread abroad through Greece:
And ’twixt that time and my first view of light
Six lustres more must added be to them:
If I am right at all about my age,
Lacking but eight years of a century.
His doctrine was, that there were four elements of existing things; and an infinite number of worlds, which were all unchangeable. He thought that the clouds were produced by the vapour which was borne upwards from the sun, and which lifted them up into the circumambient space. That the essence of God was of a spherical form, in no respect resembling man; that the universe could see, and that the universe could hear, but could not breathe; and that it was in all its parts intellect, and wisdom, and eternity. He was the first person who asserted that everything which is produced is perishable, and that the soul is a spirit. He used also to say that the many was inferior to unity. Also, that we ought to associate with tyrants either as little as possible, or else as pleasantly as possible.
When Empedocles said to him that the wise man was undiscoverable, he replied, “Very likely; for it takes a wise man to discover a wise man.” And Sotion says, that he was the first person who asserted that everything is incomprehensible. But he is mistaken in this.
Xenophanes wrote a poem on the Founding of Colophon; and also, on the Colonisation of Elea, in Italy, consisting of two thousand verses. And he flourished about the sixtieth olympiad.
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IV. Demetrius Phalereus, in his treatise on Old Age, and Phenætius the Stoic, in his essay on Cheerfulness, relate that he buried his sons with his own hands, as Anaxagoras had also done. And he seems to have been detested[123] by the Pythagoreans, Parmeniscus, and Orestades, as Phavorinus relates in the first book of his Commentaries.
V. There was also another Xenophanes, a native of Lesbos, and an iambic poet.
These are the Promiscuous or unattached philosophers.
LIFE OF PARMENIDES.
I. Parmenides, the son of Pyres, and a citizen of Velia, was a pupil of Xenophanes. And Theophrastus, in his Abridgment, says that he was also a pupil of Anaximander. However, though he was a pupil of Xenophanes, he was not afterwards a follower of his; but he attached himself to Aminias, and Diochaetes the Pythagorean, as Sotion relates, which last was a poor but honourable and virtuous man. And he it was whose follower he became, and after he was dead he erected a shrine, or ἡρῷον, in his honour. And so Parmenides, who was of a noble family and possessed of considerable wealth, was induced, not by Xenophanes but by Aminias, to embrace the tranquil life of a philosopher.
II. He was the first person who asserted that the earth was of a spherical form; and that it was situated in the centre of the universe. He also taught that there were two elements, fire and earth; and that one of them occupies the place of the maker, the other that of the matter. He also used to teach that man was originally made out of clay; and that they were composed of two parts, the hot and the cold; of which, in fact, everything consists. Another of his doctrines was, that the mind and the soul were the same thing, as we are informed[385] by Theophrastus, in his Natural Philosophy, when he enumerates the theories of nearly all the different philosophers.
He also used to say that philosophy was of a twofold character; one kind resting on certain truth, the other on opinion. On which account he says some where:
And ’twill be needful for you well to know,
The fearless heart of all-convincing truth:
Also the opinions, though less sure, of men,
Which rest upon no certain evidence.
III. Parmenides too philosophizes in his poems; as Hesiod and Xenophanes, and Empedocles used to. And he used to say that argument was the test of truth; and that the sensations were not trustworthy witnesses. Accordingly, he says:—
Let not the common usages of men
Persuade your better taught experience,
To trust to men’s unsafe deceitful sight,
Or treacherous ears, or random speaking tongue:
Reason alone will prove the truth of facts.
On which account Timon says of him:—
The vigorous mind of wise Parmenides,
Who classes all the errors of the thoughts
Under vain phantasies.
Plato inscribed one of his dialogues with his name—Parmenides, or an essay on Ideas. He flourished about the sixty-ninth Olympiad. He appears to have been the first person who discovered that Hesperus and Lucifer were the same star, as Phavorinus records, in the fifth book of his Commentaries. Some, however, attribute this discovery to Pythagoras. And Callimachus asserts that the poem in which this doctrine is promulgated is not his work.
IV. He is said also to have given laws to his fellow-citizens, as Speusippus records, in his account of the Philosophers. He was also the first employer of the question called the Achilles,[124] as Phavorinus assures us in his Universal History.
V. There was also another Parmenides, an orator, who wrote a treatise on the art of Oratory.
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LIFE OF MELISSUS.
I. Melissus was a Samian, and the son of Ithagenes. He was a pupil of Parmenides; but he also had conversed with Heraclitus, when he recommended him to the Ephesians, who were unacquainted with him, as Hippocrates recommended Democritus to the people of Abdera.
II. He was a man greatly occupied in political affairs, and held in great esteem among his fellow citizens; on which account he was elected admiral. And he was admired still more on account of his private virtues.
III. His doctrine was, that the Universe was infinite, unsusceptible of change, immoveable, and one, being always like to itself, and complete; and that there was no such thing as real motion, but that there only appeared to be such. As respecting the Gods, too, he denied that there was any occasion to give a definition of them, for that there was no certain knowledge of them.
IV. Apollodorus states that he flourished about the eighty-fourth olympiad.
LIFE OF ZENO, THE ELEATIC.
I. Zeno was a native of Velia. Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says that he was by nature the son of Teleutagoras, but by adoption the son of Parmenides.
II. Timon speaks thus of him and Melissus:—
Great is the strength, invincible the might
Of Zeno, skilled to argue on both sides
Of any question, th’ universal critic;
And of Melissus too. They rose superior
To prejudice in general; only yielding
To very few.
And Zeno had been a pupil of Parmenides, and had been on other accounts greatly attached to him.
III. He was a tall man, as Plato tells us in his Parmenides,[387] and the same writer, in his Phædrus, calls him also the Eleatic Palamedes.
IV. Aristotle, in his Sophist, says that he was the inventor of dialectics, as Empedocles was of rhetoric. And he was a man of the greatest nobleness of spirit, both in philosophy and in politics. There are also many books extant, which are attributed to him, full of great learning and wisdom.
V. He, wishing to put an end to the power of Nearches, the tyrant (some, however, call the tyrant Diomedon), was arrested, as we are informed by Heraclides, in his abridgment of Satyrus. And when he was examined, as to his accomplices, and as to the arms which he was taking to Lipara, he named all the friends of the tyrant as his accomplices, wishing to make him feel himself alone. And then, after he had mentioned some names, he said that he wished to whisper something privately to the tyrant; and when he came near him he bit him, and would not leave his hold till he was stabbed. And the same thing happened to Aristogiton, the tyrant slayer. But Demetrius, in his treatise on People of the same Name, says that it was his nose that he bit off.
Moreover, Antisthenes, in his Successions, says that after he had given him information against his friends, he was asked by the tyrant if there was any one else. And he replied, “Yes, you, the destruction of the city.” And that he also said to the bystanders, “I marvel at your cowardice, if you submit to be slaves to the tyrant out of fear of such pains as I am now enduring.” And at last he bit off his tongue and spit it at him; and the citizens immediately rushed forward, and slew the tyrant with stones. And this is the account that is given by almost every one.
But Hermippus says, that he was put into a mortar, and pounded to death. And we ourselves have written the following epigram on him:—
Your noble wish, O Zeno, was to slay
A cruel tyrant, freeing Elea
From the harsh bonds of shameful slavery,
But you were disappointed; for the tyrant
Pounded you in a mortar. I say wrong,
He only crushed your body, and not you.
VI. And Zeno was an excellent man in other respects, and he was also a despiser of great men in an equal degree[388] with Heraclitus; for he, too, preferred the town which was formerly called Hyele, and afterwards Elea, being a colony of the Phocæans, and his own native place, a poor city possessed of no other importance than the knowledge of how to raise virtuous citizens, to the pride of the Athenians; so that he did not often visit them, but spent his life at home.
VII. He, too, was the first man who asked the question called Achilles,[125] though Phavorinus attributes its first use to Parmenides, and several others.
VIII. His chief doctrines were, that there were several worlds, and that there was no vacuum; that the nature of all things consisted of hot and cold, and dry and moist, these elements interchanging their substances with one another; that man was made out of the earth, and that his soul was a mixture of the before-named elements in such a way that no one of them predominated.
IX. They say that when he was reproached, he was indignant; and that when some one blamed him, he replied, “If when I am reproached, I am not angered, then I shall not be pleased when I am praised.”
X. We have already said in our account of the Cittiæan, that there were eight Zenos; but this one flourished about the seventy-ninth olympiad.
LIFE OF LEUCIPPUS.
I. Leucippus was a native of Velia, but, as some say, of Abdera; and, as others report, of Melos.
II. He was a pupil of Zeno. And his principal doctrines were, that all things were infinite, and were interchanged with one another; and that the universe was a vacuum, and full of bodies; also that the worlds were produced by bodies falling into the vacuum, and becoming entangled with one another; and that the nature of the stars originated in motion, according to their increase; also, that the sun is borne round in a[389] greater circle around the moon; that the earth is carried on revolving round the centre; and that its figure resembles a drum; he was the first philosopher who spoke of atoms as principles.
III. These are his doctrines in general; in particular detail, they are as follow: he says that the universe is infinite, as I have already mentioned; that of it, one part is a plenum, and the other a vacuum. He also says that the elements, and the worlds which are derived from them, are infinite, and are dissolved again into them; and that the worlds are produced in this manner: That many bodies, of various kinds and shapes, are borne by amputation from the infinite, into a vast vacuum; and then, they being collected together, produce one vortex; according to which they, dashing against one another, and whirling about in every direction, are separated in such a way that like attaches itself to like.
But as they are all of equal weight, when by reason of their number they are no longer able to whirl about, the thin ones depart into the outer vacuum, as if they bounded through, and the others remain behind, and becoming entangled with one another, run together, and produce a sort of spherical shaped figure.
This subsists as a kind of membrane; containing within itself bodies of every kind; and as these are whirled about so as to revolve according to the resistance of the centre, the circumambient membrane becomes thin, since bodies are without ceasing, uniting according to the impulse given by the vortex; and in this way the earth is produced, since these bodies which have once been brought to the centre remain there.
On the other side, there is produced another enveloping membrane, which increases incessantly by the accretion of exterior bodies; and which, as it is itself animated by a circular movement, drags with it, and adds to itself, everything it meets with; some of these bodies thus enveloped re-unite again and form compounds, which are at first moist and clayey, but soon becoming dry, and being drawn on in the universal movement of the circular vortex, they catch fire, and constitute the substance of the stars. The orbit of the sun is the most distant one; that of the moon is the nearest to the earth; and between the two are the orbits of the other stars.
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All the stars are set on fire by the rapidity of their own motion; and the sun is set on fire by the stars; the moon has only a slight quantity of fire; the sun and the moon are eclipsed in …[126] in consequence of the inclination of the earth towards the south. In the north it always snows, and those districts are cold, and are often frozen.
The sun is eclipsed but seldom; but the moon frequently, because her orbits are unequal.
Leucippus admits also, that the production of worlds, their increase, their diminution, and their destruction, depend on a certain necessity, the character of which he does not precisely explain.
LIFE OF DEMOCRITUS.
I. Democritus was the son of Hegesistratus, but as some say, of Athenocrites, and, according to other accounts, of Damasippus. He was a native of Abdera, or, as it is stated by some authors, a citizen of Miletus.
II. He was a pupil of some of the Magi and Chaldæans, whom Xerxes had left with his father as teachers, when he had been hospitably received by him, as Herodotus informs us;[127] and from these men he, while still a boy, learned the principles of astronomy and theology. Afterwards, his father entrusted him to Leucippus, and to Anaxagoras, as some authors assert, who was forty years older than he. And Phavorinus, in his Universal History, says that Democritus said of Anaxagoras, that his opinions about the sun and moon were not his own, but were old theories, and that he had stolen them. And that he used also to pull to pieces his assertions about the composition of the world, and about mind, as he was hostile to him, because he had declined to admit him as a pupil. How then can he have been a pupil of his, as some assert? And[391] Demetrius in his treatise on People of the same Name, and Antisthenes in his Successions, both affirm that he travelled to Egypt to see the priests there, and to learn mathematics of them; and that he proceeded further to the Chaldæans, and penetrated into Persia, and went as far as the Persian Gulf. Some also say that he made acquaintance with the Gymnosophists in India, and that he went to Æthiopia.
III. He was one of three brothers who divided their patrimony among them; and the most common story is, that he took the smaller portion, as it was in money, because he required money for the purpose of travelling; though his brothers suspected him of entertaining some treacherous design. And Demetrius says, that his share amounted to more than a hundred talents, and that he spent the whole of it.
IV. He also says, that he was so industrious a man, that he cut off for himself a small portion of the garden which surrounded his house, in which there was a small cottage, and shut himself up in it. And on one occasion, when his father brought him an ox to sacrifice, and fastened it there, he for a long time did not discover it, until his father having roused him, on the pretext of the sacrifice, told him what he had done with the ox.
V. He further asserts, that it is well known that he went to Athens, and as he despised glory, he did not desire to be known; and that he became acquainted with Socrates, without Socrates knowing who he was. “For I came,” says he, “to Athens, and no one knew me.” “If,” says Thrasylus, “the Rivals is really the work of Plato, then Democritus must be the anonymous interlocutor, who is introduced in that dialogue, besides Œnopides and Anaxagoras, the one I mean who, in the conversation with Socrates, is arguing about philosophy, and whom the philosopher tells, that a philosopher resembles a conqueror in the Pentathlum.” And he was veritably a master of five branches of philosophy. For he was thoroughly acquainted with physics, and ethics, and mathematics, and the whole encyclic system, and indeed he was thoroughly experienced and skilful in every kind of art. He it was who was the author of the saying, “Speech is the shadow of action.” But Demetrius Phalereus, in his Defence of Socrates, affirms that he never came to Athens at all. And[392] that is a still stranger circumstance than any, if he despised so important a city, not wishing to derive glory from the place in which he was, but preferring rather himself to invest the place with glory.
VI. And it is evident from his writings, what sort of man he was. “He seems,” says Thrasylus, “to have been also an admirer of the Pythagoreans.” And he mentions Pythagoras himself, speaking of him with admiration, in the treatise which is inscribed with his name. And he appears to have derived all his doctrines from him to such a degree, that one would have thought that he had been his pupil, if the difference of time did not prevent it. At all events, Glaucus, of Rhegium, who was a contemporary of his, affirms that he was a pupil of some of the Pythagorean school.
And Apollodorus, of Cyzicus, says that he was intimate with Philolaus; “He used to practise himself,” says Antisthenes, “in testing perceptions in various manners; sometimes retiring into solitary places, and spending his time even among tombs.”
VII. And he further adds, that when he returned from his travels, he lived in a most humble manner; like a man who had spent all his property, and that on account of his poverty, he was supported by his brother Damasus. But when he had foretold some future event, which happened as he had predicted, and had in consequence become famous, he was for all the rest of his life thought worthy of almost divine honours by the generality of people. And as there was a law, that a man who had squandered the whole of his patrimony, should not be allowed funeral rites in his country, Antisthenes says, that he, being aware of this law, and not wishing to be exposed to the calumnies of those who envied him, and would be glad to accuse him, recited to the people his work called the Great World, which is far superior to all his other writings, and that as a reward for it he was presented with five hundred talents; and not only that, but he also had some brazen statues erected in his honour. And when he died, he was buried at the public expense; after having attained the age of more than a hundred years. But Demetrius says, that it was his relations who read the Great World, and that they were presented with a hundred talents only; and Hippobotus coincides in this statement.
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VIII. And Aristoxenus, in his Historic Commentaries, says that Plato wished to burn all the writings of Democritus that he was able to collect; but that Amyclas and Cleinias, the Pythagoreans, prevented him, as it would do no good; for that copies of his books were already in many hands. And it is plain that that was the case; for Plato, who mentions nearly all the ancient philosophers, nowhere speaks of Democritus; not even in those passages where he has occasion to contradict his theories, evidently, because he said that if he did, he would be showing his disagreement with the best of all philosophers; a man whom even Timon praises in the following terms:—
Like that Democritus, wisest of men,
Sage ruler of his speech; profound converser,
Whose works I love to read among the first.
IX. But he was, according to the statement made by himself in the Little World, a youth when Anaxagoras was an old man, being forty years younger than he was. And he says, that he composed the Little World seven hundred and thirty years after the capture of Troy. And he must have been born, according to the account given by Apollodorus in his Chronicles, in the eightieth olympiad; but, as Thrasylus says, in his work entitled the Events, which took place before the reading of the books of Democritus, in the third year of the seventy-seventh olympiad, being, as it is there stated, one year older than Socrates. He must therefore have been a contemporary of Archelaus, the pupil of Anaxagoras, and of Œnopides, for he makes mention of this letter. He also speaks of the theories of Parmenides and Zeno, on the subject of the One, as they were the men of the highest reputation in histories, and he also speaks of Protagoras of Abdera, who confessedly lived at the same time as Socrates.
X. Athenodorus tells us, in the eighth book of his Conversations, that once, when Hippocrates came to see him, he ordered some milk to be brought; and that, when he saw the milk, he said that it was the milk of a black goat, with her first kid; on which Hippocrates marvelled at his accurate knowledge. Also, as a young girl came with Hippocrates, on the first day, he saluted her thus, “Good morning, my maid;”[394] but on the next day, “Good morning, woman;” for, indeed, she had ceased to be a maid during the night.
XI. And Hermippus relates, that Democritus died in the following manner: he was exceedingly old, and appeared at the point of death; and his sister was lamenting that he would die during the festival of the Thesmophoria,[128] and so prevent her from discharging her duties to the Goddess; and so he bade her be of good cheer, and desired her to bring him hot loaves every day. And, by applying these to his nostrils, he kept himself alive even over the festival. But when the days of the festival were passed (and it lasted three days), then he expired, without any pain, as Hipparchus assures us, having lived a hundred and nine years. And we have written an epigram upon him in our collection of poems in every metre, which runs thus:—
What man was e’er so wise, who ever did
So great a deed as this Democritus?
Who kept off death, though present for three days,
And entertained him with hot steam of bread.
Such was the life of this man.
XII. Now his principal doctrines were these. That atoms and the vacuum were the beginning of the universe; and that everything else existed only in opinion. That the worlds were infinite, created, and perishable. But that nothing was created out of nothing, and that nothing was destroyed so as to become nothing. That the atoms were infinite both in magnitude and number, and were borne about through the universe in endless revolutions. And that thus they produced all the combinations that exist; fire, water, air, and earth; for that all these things are only combinations of certain atoms; which combinations are incapable of being affected by external circumstances,[395] and are unchangeable by reason of their solidity. Also, that the sun and the moon are formed by such revolutions and round bodies; and in like manner the soul is produced; and that the soul and the mind are identical: that we see by the falling of visions across our sight; and that everything that happens, happens of necessity. Motion, being the cause of the production of everything, which he calls necessity. The chief good he asserts to be cheerfulness; which, however, he does not consider the same as pleasure; as some people, who have misunderstood him, have fancied that he meant; but he understands by cheerfulness, a condition according to which the soul lives calmly and steadily, being disturbed by no fear, or superstition, or other passion. He calls this state εὐθυμία, and εὐεστὼ, and several other names. Everything which is made he looks upon as depending for its existence on opinion; but atoms and the vacuum he believes exist by nature. These were his principal opinions.
XIII. Of his books, Thrasylus has given a regular catalogue, in the same way that he has arranged the works of Plato, dividing them into four classes.
Now these are his ethical works. The Pythagoras; a treatise on the Disposition of the Wise Man; an essay on those in the Shades Below; the Tritogeneia (this is so called because from Minerva three things are derived which hold together all human affairs); a treatise on Manly Courage or Valour; the Horn of Amalthea; an essay on Cheerfulness; a volume of Ethical Commentaries. A treatise entitled, For Cheerfulness, (εὐεστὼ) is not found.
These are his writings on natural philosophy. The Great World (which Theophrastus asserts to be the work of Leucippus); the Little World; the Cosmography; a treatise on the Planets; the first book on Nature; two books on the Nature of Man, or on Flesh; an essay on the Mind; one on the Senses (some people join these two together in one volume, which they entitle, on the Soul); a treatise on Juices; one on Colours; one on the Different Figures; one on the Changes of Figures; the Cratynteria (that is to say, an essay, approving of what has been said in preceding ones); a treatise on Phænomenon, or on Providence; three books on Pestilences, or Pestilential Evils; a book of Difficulties. These are his books on natural philosophy.
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His miscellaneous works are these. Heavenly Causes; Aërial Causes; Causes affecting Plane Surfaces; Causes referring to Fire, and to what is in Fire; Causes affecting Voices; Causes affecting Seeds, and Plants, and Fruits; three books of Causes affecting Animals; Miscellaneous Causes; a treatise on the Magnet. These are his miscellaneous works.
His mathematical writings are the following. A treatise on the Difference of Opinion, or on the Contact of the Circle and the Sphere; one on Geometry; one on Numbers; one on Incommensurable Lines, and Solids, in two books; a volume called Explanations; the Great Year, or the Astronomical Calendar; a discussion on the Clepsydra; the Map of the Heavens; Geography; Polography; Actinography, or a discussion on Rays of Light. These are his mathematical works.
His works on music are the following. A treatise on Rhythm and Harmony; one on Poetry; one on the beauty of Epic Poems; one on Euphonious and Discordant Letters; one on Homer, or on Propriety of Diction[129] and Dialects; one on Song, one on Words; the Onomasticon. These are his musical works.
The following are his works on art. Prognostics; a treatise on the Way of Living, called also Diætetics, or the Opinions of a Physician; Causes relating to Unfavourable and Favourable Opportunities; a treatise on Agriculture, called also the Georgic; one on Painting; Tactics, and Fighting in heavy Armour. These are his works on such subjects.
Some authors also give a list of some separate treatises which they collect from his Commentaries. A treatise on the Sacred Letters seen at Babylon; another on the Sacred Letters seen at Meroe; the Voyage round the Ocean; a treatise on History; a Chaldaic Discourse; a Phrygian Discourse; a treatise on Fever; an essay on those who are attacked with Cough after illness; the Principles of Laws; Things made by Hand, or Problems.
As to the other books which some writers ascribed to him, some are merely extracts from his other writings, and some are confessedly the work of others. And this is a sufficient account of his writings.
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XIV. There were six people of the name of Democritus. The first was this man of whom we are speaking; the second was a musician of Chios, who lived about the same time; the third was a sculptor who is mentioned by Antigonus; the fourth is a man who wrote a treatise on the Temple at Ephesus, and on the city of Samothrace; the fifth was an epigrammatic poet, of great perspicuity and elegance; the sixth was a citizen of Pergamus, who wrote a treatise on Oratory.
LIFE OF PROTAGORAS.
I. Protagoras was the son of Artemon, or, as Apollodorus says (which account is corroborated by Deinon, in his History of Persia), of Mæander. He was a native of Abdera, as Heraclides Ponticus tell us, in his treatise on Laws; and the same authority informs us that he made laws for the Thurians. But, according to the statement of Eupolis, in his Flatterers, he was a native of Teos; for he says:—
Within you’ll find Protagoras, of Teos.
He, and Prodicus of Ceos, used to levy contributions for giving their lectures; and Plato, in his Protagoras, says that Prodicus had a very powerful voice.
II. Protagoras was a pupil of Democritus. And he was surnamed Wisdom, as Phavorinus informs us in his Universal History.
III. He was the first person who asserted that in every question there were two sides to the argument exactly opposite to one another. And he used to employ them in his arguments, being the first person who did so. But he began something in this manner: “Man is the measure of all things: of those things which exist as he is; and of those things which do not exist as he is not.” And he used to say that nothing else was soul except the senses, as Plato says, in the Theætetus; and that everything was true. And another of his treatises he begins in this way: “Concerning the Gods, I am not able to know[398] to a certainty whether they exist or whether they do not. For there are many things which prevent one from knowing, especially the obscurity of the subject, and the shortness of the life of man.” And on account of this beginning of his treatise, he was banished by the Athenians. And they burnt his books in the market-place, calling them in by the public crier, and compelling all who possessed them to surrender them.
He was the first person who demanded payment of his pupils; fixing his charge at a hundred minæ. He was also the first person who gave a precise definition of the parts of time; and who explained the value of opportunity, and who instituted contests of argument, and who armed the disputants with the weapon of sophism. He it was too who first left facts out of consideration, and fastened his arguments on words; and who was the parent of the present superficial and futile kinds of discussion. On which account Timon says of him:—
Protagoras, that slippery arguer,
In disputatious contests fully skilled.
He too, it was, who first invented that sort of argument which is called the Socratic, and who first employed the reasonings of Antisthenes, which attempt to establish the point that they cannot be contradicted; as Plato tells us in his Euthydemus. He was also the first person who practised regular discussions on set subjects, as Artemidorus, the dialectician, tells us in his treatise against Chrysippus. He was also the original inventor of the porter’s pad for men to carry their burdens on, as we are assured by Aristotle, in his book on Education; for he himself was a porter, as Epicurus says somewhere or other. And it was in this way that he became highly thought of by Democritus, who saw him as he was tying up some sticks.
He was also the first person who divided discourse into four parts; entreaty, interrogation, answer, and injunction: though some writers make the parts seven; narration, interrogation, answer, injunction, promise, entreaty, and invocation; and these he called the foundations of discourse: but Alcidamas says that there are four divisions of discourse; affirmation, denial, interrogation, and invocation.
V. The first of his works that he ever read in public was[399] the treatise on the Gods, the beginning of which we have quoted above, and he read this at Athens in the house of Euripides, or, as some say, in that of Megaclides; others say that he read it in the Lyceum; his pupil, Archagoras, the son of Theodotus, giving him the aid of his voice. His accuser was Pythodorus, the son of Polyzelus, one of the four hundred; but Aristotle calls him Evathlus.
VI. The writings of his which are still extant are these: a treatise on the Art of Contention; one on Wrestling; one on Mathematics; one on a Republic; one on Ambition; one on Virtues; one on the Original Condition of Man; one on those in the Shades Below; one on the Things which are not done properly by Men; one volume of Precepts; one essay entitled Justice in Pleading for Hire; two books of Contradictions.
These are his books.
Plato also addressed a dialogue to him.
VII. Philochorus relates that, as he was sailing to Sicily his ship was wrecked, and that this circumstance is alluded to by Euripides in his Ixion; and some say that he died on his journey, being about ninety years old. But Apollodorus states his age at seventy years, and says that he was a sophist forty years, and that he flourished about the eighty-fourth Olympiad. There is an epigram upon him written by myself, in the following terms:—
I hear accounts of you, Protagoras,
That, travelling far from Athens, on the road,
You, an old man, and quite infirm, did die.
For Cecrops’ city drove you forth to exile;
But you, though ’scaping dread Minerva’s might,
Could not escape the outspread arms of Pluto.
VIII. It is said that once, when he demanded of Evathlus his pupil payment for his lessons, Evathlus said to him, “But I have never been victorious in an argument;” and he rejoined, “But if I gain my cause, then I should naturally receive the fruits of my victory, and so would you obtain the fruits of yours.”
IX. There was also another Protagoras, an astronomer, on whom Euphorion wrote an elegy; and a third also, who was a philosopher of the Stoic sect.
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LIFE OF DIOGENES, OF APOLLONIA.
I. Diogenes was a native of Apollonia, and the son of Apollothemis, a natural philosopher of high reputation; and he was, as Antisthenes reports, a pupil of Anaximenes. He was also a contemporary of Anaxagoras, and Demetrius Phalereus says, in his Defence of Socrates, that he was very unpopular at Athens, and even in some danger of his life.
II. The following were his principal doctrines; that the air was an element; that the worlds were infinite, and that the vacuum also was infinite; that the air, as it was condensed, and as it was rarified, was the productive cause of the worlds; that nothing can be produced out of nothing;[130] and that nothing can be destroyed so as to become nothing; that the earth is round, firmly planted in the middle of the universe, having acquired its situation from the circumvolutions of the hot principle around it, and its consistency from the cold.
The first words of his treatise are:—
“It appears to me that he who begins any treatise ought to lay down principles about which there can be no dispute, and that his exposition of them ought to be simple and dignified.”
LIFE OF ANAXARCHUS.
I. Anaxarchus was a native of Abdera. He was a pupil of Diogenes, of Smyrna; but, as some say, of Metrodorus, of Chios; who said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing; and Metrodorus was a pupil of Nessus, of Chios; though others assert that he was a disciple of Democritus.
II. Anaxarchus too enjoyed the intimacy of Alexander, and flourished about the hundred and tenth olympiad. He had for an enemy Nicocreon, the tyrant of Cyprus. And on one occasion, when Alexander, at a banquet, asked him what he[401] thought of the entertainment, he is said to have replied, “O king, everything is provided very sumptuously; and the only thing wanting is to have the head of some satrap served up;” hinting at Nicocreon. And Nicocreon did not forget his grudge against him for this; but after the death of the king, when Anaxarchus, who was making a voyage, was driven against his will into Cyprus, he took him and put him in a mortar, and commanded him to be pounded to death with iron pestles. And then they say that he, disregarding this punishment, uttered that celebrated saying, “Beat the bag of Anaxarchus, but you will not beat Anaxarchus himself.” And then, when Nicocreon commanded that his tongue should be cut out, it is said that he bit it off, and spit it at him. And we have written an epigram upon him in the following terms:—
Beat more and more; you’re beating but a bag;
Beat, Anaxarchus is in heav’n with Jove.
Hereafter Proserpine will rack your bones,
And say, Thus perish, you accursed beater.
III. Anaxarchus, on account of the evenness of his temper and the tranquillity of his life, was called the Happy. And he was a man to whom it was very easy to reprove men and bring them to temperance. Accordingly, he produced an alteration in Alexander who thought himself a God, for when he saw the blood flowing from some wound that he had received, he pointed to him with his finger, and said, “This is blood, and not:—
“Such stream as issues from a wounded God;
Pure emanation, uncorrupted flood,
Unlike our gross, diseas’d, terrestrial blood.”[131]
But Plutarch says that it was Alexander himself who quoted these lines to his friends.
They also tell a story that Anaxarchus once drank to him, and then showed the goblet, and said:—
Shall any mortal hand dare wound a God?
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LIFE OF PYRRHO.
I. Pyrrho was a citizen of Elis, and the son of Pleistarchus, as Diocles informs us, and, as Apollodorus in his Chronicles asserts, he was originally a painter.
II. And he was a pupil of Bryson, the son of Stilpon, as we are told by Alexander in his Chronicles. After that he attached himself to Anaxarchus, and attended him everywhere; so that he even went as far as the Gymnosophists, in India, and the Magi.
III. Owing to which circumstance, he seems to have taken a noble line in philosophy, introducing the doctrine of incomprehensibility, and of the necessity of suspending one’s judgment, as we learn from Ascanius, of Abdera. For he used to say that nothing was honourable, or disgraceful, or just, or unjust. And on the same principle he asserted that there was no such thing as downright truth; but that men did everything in consequence of custom and law. For that nothing was any more this than that. And his life corresponded to his principles; for he never shunned anything, and never guarded against anything; encountering everything, even waggons for instance, and precipices, and dogs, and everything of that sort; committing nothing whatever to his senses. So that he used to be saved, as Antigonus the Carystian tells us, by his friends who accompanied him. And Ænesidemus says that he studied philosophy on the principle of suspending his judgment on all points, without however, on any occasion acting in an imprudent manner, or doing anything without due consideration. And he lived to nearly ninety years of age.
IV. And Antigonus, of Carystus, in his account of Pyrrho, mentions the following circumstances respecting him; that he was originally a person of no reputation, but a poor man, and a painter; and that a picture of some camp-bearers, of very moderate execution, was preserved in the Gymnasium at Elis, which was his work; and that he used to walk out into the fields and seek solitary places, very rarely appearing to his family at home; and that he did this in consequence of having heard some Indian reproaching Anaxarchus for never[403] teaching any one else any good, but for devoting all his time to paying court to princes in palaces. He relates of him too, that he always maintained the same demeanour, so that if any one left him in the middle of his delivery of a discourse, he remained and continued what he was saying; although, when a young man, he was of a very excitable temperament. Often too, says Antigonus, he would go away for a time, without telling any one beforehand, and taking any chance persons whom he chose for his companions. And once, when Anaxarchus had fallen into a pond, he passed by without assisting him; and when some one blamed him for this, Anaxarchus himself praised his indifference and absence of all emotion.
On one occasion he was detected talking to himself, and when he was asked the reason, he said that he was studying how to be good. In his investigations he was never despised by any one, because he always spoke explicitly and straight to the question that had been put to him. On which account Nausiphanes was charmed by him even when he was quite young. And he used to say that he should like to be endowed with the disposition of Pyrrho, without losing his own power of eloquence. And he said too, that Epicurus, who admired the conversation and manners of Pyrrho, was frequently asking him about him.
V. He was so greatly honoured by his country, that he was appointed a priest; and on his account all the philosophers were exempted from taxation. He had a great many imitators of his impassiveness; in reference to which Timon speaks thus of him in his Python, and in his Silli:—
Now, you old man, you Pyrrho, how could you
Find an escape from all the slavish doctrines
And vain imaginations of the Sophists?
How did you free yourself from all the bonds
Of sly chicane, and artful deep persuasion?
How came you to neglect what sort of breeze
Blows round your Greece, and what’s the origin
And end of everything?
And again, in his Images, he says:—
These things, my heart, O Pyrrho, longs to hear,
How you enjoy such ease of life and quiet,
The only man as happy as a God.
And the Athenians presented him with the freedom of their[404] city, as Diocles tells us, because he had slain Cotys, the Thracian.
VI. He also lived in a most blameless manner with his sister, who was a midwife, as Eratosthenes relates, in his treatise on Riches and Poverty; so that he himself used to carry poultry, and pigs too if he could get any, into the market-place and sell them. And he used to clean all the furniture of the house without expressing any annoyance. And it is said that he carried his indifference so far that he even washed a pig. And once, when he was very angry about something connected with his sister (and her name was Philista), and some one took him up, he said, “The display of my indifference does not depend on a woman.” On another occasion, when he was driven back by a dog which was attacking him, he said to some one who blamed him for being discomposed, “That it was a difficult thing entirely to put off humanity; but that a man ought to strive with all his power to counteract circumstances with his actions if possible, and at all events with his reason.” They also tell a story that once, when some medicines of a consuming tendency, and some cutting and cautery was applied to him for some wound, that he never even contracted his brow. And Timon intimates his disposition plainly enough in the letters which he wrote to Python. Moreover, Philo, the Athenian, who was a friend of his, said that he was especially fond of Democritus; and next to him of Homer; whom he admired greatly, and was continually saying:—
But as the race of falling leaves decay,
Such is the fate of man.[132]
He used also, as it is said, to compare men to wasps, and flies, and birds, and to quote the following lines:—
Die then, my friend, what boots it to deplore?
The great, the good Patroclus is no more.
He, far thy better, was foredoom’d to die;
And thou, doest thou bewail mortality?[133]
And so he would quote anything that bore on the uncertainty and emptiness and fickleness of the affairs of man. Posidonius tells the following anecdote about him: that when some people who were sailing with him were looking gloomy because[405] of a storm, he kept a calm countenance, and comforted their minds, exhibiting himself on deck eating a pig, and saying that it became a wise man to preserve an untroubled spirit in that manner. Numenius is the only writer who asserts that he used to deliver positive dogmas.
VII. He had many eminent disciples, and among them Eurylochus, of whom the following defective characteristic is related; for, they say, that he was once worked up to such a pitch of rage that he took up a spit with the meat on it, and chased the cook as far as the market-place. And once in Elis he was so harassed by some people who put questions to him in the middle of his discourses, that he threw down his cloak and swam across the Alpheus. He was the greatest possible enemy to the Sophists, as Timon tells us. But Philo, on the contrary, was very fond of arguing; on which account Timon speaks of him thus:—
Avoiding men to study all devoted,
He ponders with himself, and never heeds
The glory or disputes which harass Philo.
Besides these disciples, Pyrrho also had Hecateus of Abdera, and Timon the Phliasian, who wrote the Silli, and whom we shall speak of hereafter; and also Nausiphanes, of Teos, who, as some say, was the master of Epicurus.
VIII. All these men were called Pyrrhoneans from their master; and also doubters, and sceptics, and ephectics, or suspenders of their judgment, and investigators, from their principles. And their philosophy was called investigatory, from their investigating or seeking the truth on all sides; and sceptical from their being always doubting (σκέπτομαι), and never finding; and ephectic, from the disposition which they encouraged after investigation, I mean the suspending of their judgment (ἐποχὴ); and doubting, because they asserted that the dogmatic philosophers only doubted, and that they did the same. [And they were called Pyrrhoneans from Pyrrho himself.]
But Theodosius, in his Chapters on Scepticism, contends, that we ought not to call the Pyrrhonean school sceptical; for since, says he, the motion and agitation of the mind in each individual is incomprehensible to others, we are unable to know what was the disposition of Pyrrho; and if we do not[406] know it we ought not to be called Pyrrhoneans. He also adds that Pyrrho was not the original inventor of Scepticism, and that he had no particular dogma of any kind; and that, consequently, it can only be called Pyrrhonism from some similarity. Some say that Homer was the original founder of this school; since he at different times gives different accounts of the same circumstance, as much as any one else ever did; and since he never dogmatizes definitively respecting affirmation; they also say that the maxims of the seven wise men were sceptical; such as that, “Seek nothing in excess,” and that, “Suretyship is near calamity;” which shows that calamity follows a man who has given positive and certain surety; they also argue that Archilochus and Euripides were Sceptics; and Archilochus speaks thus:—
And now, O Glaucus, son of Leptines,
Such is the mind of mortal man, which changes
With every day that Jupiter doth send.
And Euripides says:—
Why then do men assert that wretched mortals
Are with true wisdom gifted; for on you
We all depend; and we do everything
Which pleases you.
Moreover, Xenophanes, and Zeno the Eleatic, and Democritus were also Sceptics; of whom Xenophanes speaks thus:—
And no man knows distinctly anything,
And no man ever will.
And Zeno endeavours to put an end to the doctrine of motion by saying: “The object moved does not move either in the place in which it is, or in that in which it is not.” Democritus, too, discards the qualities, where he says: what is cold is cold in opinion, and what is hot is hot in opinion; but atoms and the vacuum exist in reality. And again he says: “But we know nothing really; for truth lies in the bottom.” Plato, too, following them, attributes the knowledge of the truth to the Gods and to the sons of the Gods, and leaves men only the investigation of probability. And Euripides says:—
Who now can tell whether to live may not
Be properly to die. And whether that
Which men do call to die, may not in truth
Be but the entrance into real life?
[407]
And Empedocles speaks thus:—
These things are not perceptible to sight,
Nor to the ears, nor comprehensible
To human intellect.
And in a preceding passage he says:—
Believing nothing, but such circumstances
As have befallen each.
Heraclitus, too, says, “Let us not form conjectures at random, about things of the greatest importance.” And Hippocrates delivers his opinion in a very doubtful manner, such as becomes a man; and before them all Homer has said:—
Long in the field of words we may contend,
Reproach is infinite and knows no end.
And immediately after:—
Armed, or with truth or falsehood, right or wrong.
(So voluble a weapon is the tongue),
Wounded we wound, and neither side can fail,
For every man has equal strength to rail:[134]
Intimating the equal vigour and antithetical force of words. And the Sceptics persevered in overthrowing all the dogmas of every sect, while they themselves asserted nothing dogmatically; and contented themselves with expressing the opinions of others, without affirming anything themselves, not even that they did affirm nothing; so that even discarded all positive denial; for to say, “We affirm nothing,” was to affirm something. “But we,” said they, “enunciate the doctrines of others, to prove our own perfect indifference; it is just as if we were to express the same thing by a simple sign.” So these words, “We affirm nothing,” indicate the absence of all affirmation, just as other propositions, such as, “Not more one thing than another,” or, “Every reason has a corresponding reason opposed to it,” and all such maxims indicate a similar idea. But the phrase, “Not more one thing,” &c., has sometimes an affirmative sense, indicating the equality of certain things, as for instance, in this sentence, “A pirate is not worse than a liar.” But by the sceptics this is said not positively, but negatively, as for instance, where the speaker contests a point[408] and says, “It was not Scylla, any more than it was Chimæra.” And the word “more,” itself, is sometimes used to indicate a comparison, as when we say, “That honey is more sweet than grapes.” And at other times it is used positively, and at the same time negatively, as when we say, “Virtue profits us more than hurts us;” for in this phrase we intimate that virtue does profit, and does not hurt us. But the Sceptics abolish the whole expression, “Not more than it;” saying, that “Prudence has not existence, any more than it has no existence.” Accordingly, then, expression, as Timon says in his Python, indicates nothing more than an absence of all affirmation, or of all assent of the judgment.
Also the expression, “Every reason has a corresponding reason,” &c., does in the same manner indicate the suspension of the judgment; for if, while the facts are different, the expressions are equipollent, it follows that a man must be quite ignorant of the real truth.
Besides this, to this assertion there is a contrary assertion opposed, which, after having destroyed all others, turns itself against itself, and destroys itself, resembling, as it were, those cathartic medicines which, after they have cleansed the stomach, then discharge themselves, and are got rid of. And so the dogmatic philosophers say, that all these reasonings are so far from overturning the authority of reason that they confirm it. To this the Sceptics reply, that they only employ reason as an instrument, because it is impossible to overturn the authority of reason, without employing reason; just as if we assert that there is no such thing as space, we must employ the word “space,” but that not dogmatically, but demonstratively; and if we assert that nothing exists according to necessity, it is unavoidable that we must use the word “necessity.” The same principle of interpretation did they adopt; for they affirmed that facts are not by nature such as they appear to be, but that they only seem such; and they said, that what they doubt is not what they think, for their thoughts are evident to themselves, but the reality of the things which are only made known to them by their sensations.
The Pyrrhonean system, then, is a simple explanation of appearances, or of notions of every kind, by means of which, comparing one thing with another one arrives at the conclusion,[409] that there is nothing in all these notions, but contradiction and confusion; as Ænesidemus says in his Introduction to Pyrrhonism. As to the contradictions which are found in those speculations, when they have pointed out in what way each fact is convincing, they then, by the same means, take away all belief from it; for they say that we regard as certain, those things which always produce similar impressions on the senses, those which are the offspring of habit, or which are established by the laws, and those too which give pleasure or excite wonder. And they prove that the reasons opposite to those on which our assent is founded are entitled to equal belief.
IX. The difficulties which they suggest, relating to the agreement subsisting between what appears to the senses, and what is comprehended by the intellect, divide themselves into ten modes of argument, according to which the subject and object of our knowledge is incessantly changing. And these ten modes Pyrrho lays down in the following manner.
The first relates to the difference which one remarks between the sentiments of animals in respect of pleasure, and pain, and what is injurious, and what is advantageous; and from this we conclude, that the same objects do not always produce the same impressions; and that the fact of this difference ought to be a reason with us for suspending our judgment. For there are some animals which are produced without any sexual connexion, as those which live in the fire, and the Arabian Phœnix, and worms. Others again are engendered by copulation, as men and others of that kind; and some are composed in one way, and others in another; on which account they also differ in their senses, as for instance, hawks are very keen-sighted; dogs have a most acute scent. It is plain, therefore, that the things seen produce different impressions on those animals which differ in their power of sight. So, too, young branches are eagerly eaten by the goat, but are bitter to mankind; and hemlock is nutritious for the quail, but deadly to man; and pigs eat their own dung, but a horse does not.
The second mode refers to the nature and idiosyncracies of men. According to Demophon, the steward of Alexander used to feel warm in the shade, and to shiver in the sun. And Andron, the Argive, as Aristotle tells us, travelled[410] through the dry parts of Libya, without once drinking. Again, one man is fond of medicine, another of farming, another of commerce; and the same pursuits are good for one man, and injurious to another; on which account, we ought to suspend our opinions.
The third mode, is that which has for its object the difference of the organs of sense. Accordingly, an apple presents itself to the sight as yellow, to the taste as sweet, to the smell as fragrant; and the same form is seen, in very different lights, according to the differences of mirrors. It follows, therefore, that what is seen is just as likely to be something else as the reality.
The fourth refers to the dispositions of the subject, and the changes in general to which it is liable. Such as health, sickness, sleep, waking, joy, grief, youth, old age, courage, fear, want, abundance, hatred, friendship, warmth, cold, easiness of breathing, oppression of the respiratory organs, and so on. The objects, therefore, appear different to us according to the disposition of the moment; for, even madmen are not in a state contrary to nature. For, why are we to say that of them more than of ourselves? For we too look at the sun as if it stood still. Theon, of Tithora, the Stoic, used to walk about in his sleep; and a slave of Pericles’ used, when in the same state, to walk on the top of the house.
The fifth mode is conversant with laws, and established customs, and belief in mythical traditions, and the conventions of art, and dogmatical opinions. This mode embraces all that relates to vice, and to honesty; to the true, and to the false; to the good, and to the bad; to the Gods, and to the production, and destruction of all visible objects. Accordingly, the same action is just in the case of some people, and unjust in that of others. And good in the case of some, and bad in that of others. On this principle we see that the Persians do not think it unnatural for a man to marry his daughter; but among the Greeks it is unlawful. Again, the Massagetæ, as Eudoxus tells us in the first book of his Travels over the World, have their women in common; but the Greeks do not. And the Cilicians delight in piracy, but the Greeks avoid it. So again, different nations worship different Gods; and some believe in the providence of God, and others do not. The Egyptians embalm their dead, and then bury them; the Romans burn[411] them; the Pæonians throw them into the lakes. All these considerations show that we ought to suspend our judgment.
The sixth mode has reference to the promiscuousness and confusion of objects; according to which nothing is seen by us simply and by itself; but in combination either with air, or with light, or with moisture, or with solidity, or heat, or cold, or motion, or evaporation or some other power. Accordingly, purple exhibits a different hue in the sun, and in the moon, and in a lamp. And our own complexions appear different when seen at noonday and at sunset. And a stone which one cannot lift in the air, is easily displaced in the water, either because it is heavy itself and is made light by the water, or because it is light in itself and is made heavy by the air. So that we cannot positively know the peculiar qualities of anything, just as we cannot discover oil in ointment.
The seventh mode has reference to distances, and position, and space, and to the objects which are in space. In this mode one establishes the fact that objects which we believe to be large, sometimes appear small; that those which we believe to be square, sometimes appear round; that those which we fancy even, appear full of projections; those which we think straight, seem bent; and those which we believe to be colourless, appear of quite a different complexion. Accordingly, the sun, on account of its distance from us, appears small. The mountains too, at a distance,[135] appear airy masses and smooth, but when beheld close, they are rough. Again, the sun has one appearance at his rise, and quite a different one at midday. And the same body looks very different in a wood from what it does on plain ground. So too, the appearance of an object changes according to its position as regards us; for instance, the neck of a dove varies as it turns. Since then, it is impossible to view these things irrespectively of place and position, it is clear that their real nature is not known.
The eighth mode has respect to the magnitudes or quantities of things; or to the heat or coldness, or to the speed or slowness,[412] or to the paleness or variety of colour of the subject. For instance, a moderate quantity of wine when taken invigorates, but an excessive quantity weakens. And the same is the case with food, and other similar things.
The ninth depends upon the frequency, or rarity, or strangeness of the thing under consideration. For instance, earthquakes excite no wonder among those nations with whom they are of frequent occurrence; nor does the sun, because he is seen every day.
The ninth mode is called by Phavorinus, the eighth, and by Sextus and Ænesidemus, the tenth; and Sextus calls the tenth the eighth, which Phavorinus reckons the tenth as the ninth in order.
The tenth mode refers to the comparison between one thing and another; as, for instance, between what is light and what is heavy; between what is strong and what is weak; between what is greater and what is less; what is above and what is below. For instance, that which is on the right, is not on the right intrinsically and by nature, but it is looked upon as such in consequence of its relation to something else; and if that other thing be transposed, then it will no longer be on the right. In the same way, a man is spoken of as a father, or brother, or relation to some one else; and day is called so in relation to the sun: and everything has its distinctive name in relation to human thought: therefore, those things which are known in relation to others, are unknown of themselves.
And these are the ten modes.
X. But Agrippa adds five other modes to them. One derived from the disagreement of opinions; another from the necessity of proceeding ad infinitum from one reasoning to another; a third from relation; a fourth from hypothesis; and the last from the reciprocal nature of proofs.
That which refers to the disagreement of opinions, shows that all the questions which philosophers propose to themselves, or which people in general discuss, are full of uncertainty and contradiction.
That which is derived from the necessity of proceeding incessantly from one reasoning to another, demonstrates that it is impossible for a man ever, in his researches, to arrive at undeniable truth; since one truth is only to be established by another truth; and so on, ad infinitum.
[413]
The mode which is derived from relation rests on the doctrine that no object is ever perceived independently and entirely by itself, but always in its relation to something else; so that it is impossible to know its nature correctly.
That which depends on hypothesis is directed against those arguers who pretend that it is necessary to accept the principles of things taken absolutely, and that one must place one’s faith in them without any examination, which is an absurdity, for one may just as well lay down the opposite principles.
The fifth mode, that one namely which arises from the reciprocal nature of proofs, is capable of application whenever the proof of the truth which we are looking for supposes, as a necessary preliminary, our belief in that truth; for instance, if, after we have proved the porosity of bodies by their evaporations, we return and prove the evaporations by the porosity.
XI. These Sceptics then deny the existence of any demonstration, of any test of truth, of any signs, or causes, or motion, or learning, and of anything as intrinsically or naturally good or bad. For every demonstration, say they, depends either on things which demonstrate themselves, or on principles which are indemonstrable. If on things which demonstrate themselves, then these things themselves require demonstration; and so on ad infinitum. If on principles which are indemonstrable, then, the very moment that either the sum total of these principles, or even one single one of them, is incorrectly urged, the whole demonstration falls instantly to pieces. But if any one supposes, they add, that there are principles which require no demonstration, that man deceives himself strangely, not seeing that it is necessary for him in the first place to establish this point, that they contain their proof in themselves. For a man cannot prove that there are four elements, because there are four elements.
Besides, if particular proofs are denied in a complex demonstration, it must follow that the whole demonstration is also incorrect. Again, if we are to know that an argument is really a demonstrative proof, we must have a test of truth; and in order to establish a test, we require a demonstrative proof; and these two things must be devoid of every kind of certainty, since they bear reciprocally the one on the other.
How then is any one to arrive at certainty about obscure matters, if one is ignorant even how one ought to attempt to[414] prove them? For what one is desirous to understand is not what the appearance of things is, but what their nature and essence is.
They show, too, that the dogmatic philosophers act with great simplicity; for that the conclusions which they draw from their hypothetical principles, are not scientific truths but mere suppositions; and that, in the same manner, one might establish the most improbable propositions. They also say that those who pretend that one ought not to judge of things by the circumstances which surround them, or by their accessories, but that one ought to take their nature itself as one’s guide, do not perceive that, while they pretend to give the precise measure and definition of everything, if the objects present such and such an appearance, that depends solely on their position and relative arrangement. They conclude from thence, that it is necessary to say that everything is true, or that everything is false. For if certain things only are true, how is one to recognize them. Evidently it will not be the senses which judge in that case of the objects of sensation, for all appearances are equal to the senses; nor will it be the intellect, for the same reason. But besides these two faculties, there does not appear to be any other test or criterion at all. So, say they, if we desire to arrive at any certainty with respect to any object which comes under either sense or intellect, we must first establish those opinions which are laid down previously as bearing on those objects. For some people have denied this doctrine, and others have overturned that; it is therefore indispensable that they should be judged of either by the senses or by the intellect. And the authority of each of these faculties is contested; it is therefore impossible to form a positive judgment of the operations of the senses and of the intellect; and if the contest between the different opinions, compels us to a neutrality, then the measure which appeared proper to apply to the appreciation of all those objects is at the same time put an end to, and one must fix a similar valuation on everything.
Perhaps our opponent will say, “Are then appearances trustworthy or deceitful?”[136] We answer that, if they are[415] trustworthy, the other side has nothing to object to those to whom the contrary appearance presents itself. For, as he who says that such and such a thing appears to him is trustworthy, so also is he who says that the contrary appears to him. And if appearances are deceitful, then they do not deserve any confidence when they assert what appears to them to be true. We are not bound then to believe that a thing is true, merely because it obtains assent. For all men do not yield to the same reasons; and even the same individual does not always see things in the same light. Persuasion often depends on external circumstances, on the authority of the speaker, on his ability, on the elegance of his language, on habit, or even on pleasure.
They also, by this train of reasoning, suppress the criterion of truth. Either the criterion has been decided on, or it has not. And if it has not, it does not deserve any confidence, and it cannot be of any use at all in aiding us to discern truth from falsehood. If, on the other hand, it has been decided on, it then enters into the class of particular things which require a criterion, and in that case to judge and to be judged amount to the same thing; the criterion which judges is itself judged of by something else, that again by a third criterion, and so on ad infinitum. Add to this, say they, the fact that people are not even agreed as to the nature of the criterion of truth; some say that man is the criterion, others that it is the senses which are so: one set places reason in the van, another class rely upon cataleptic perception.
As to man himself, he disagrees both with himself and with others, as the diversity of laws and customs proves. The senses are deceivers, and reason disagrees with itself. Cataleptic perception is judged of by the intellect, and the intellect changes in various manners; accordingly, we can never find any positive criterion, and in consequence, truth itself wholly eludes our search.
They also affirm that there are no such things as signs; for if there are signs, they argue they must be such as are apprehended either by the senses or by the intellect. Now, there are none which are apprehended by the senses, for everything which is apprehended by the senses is general, while a sign is something particular. Moreover, any object which is apprehended by the senses has an existence of its own, while signs are only relative. Again, signs are not apprehended by the[416] intellect, for in that case they would be either the visible manifestation of a visible thing, or the invisible manifestation of an invisible thing, or the invisible sign of a visible thing; or the visible sign of an invisible thing. But none of all these cases are possible; there are therefore no such things as signs at all.
There is therefore no such thing as a visible sign of a visible thing; for that which is visible has no need of a sign. Nor, again, is there any invisible sign of an invisible thing; for when anything is manifested by means of another thing, it must become visible. On the same principle there is no invisible sign of a visible object; for that which aids in the perception of something else must be visible. Lastly, there is no visible manifestation of an invisible thing; for as a sign is something wholly relative, it must be perceived in that of which it is the sign; and that is not the case. It follows, therefore, that none of those things which are not visible in themselves admit of being perceived; for one considers signs as things which aid in the perception of that which is not evident by itself.
They also wholly discard, and, as far as depends on them, overturn the idea of any cause, by means of this same train of reasoning. Cause is something relative. It is relative to that of which it is the cause. But that which is relative is only conceived, and has no real existence. The idea of a cause then is a pure conception; for, inasmuch as it is a cause, it must be a cause of something; otherwise it would be no cause at all. In the same way as a father cannot be a father, unless there exists some being in respect of whom one gives him the title of father; so too a cause stands on the same ground. For, supposing that nothing exists relatively to which a cause can be spoken of; then, as there is no production, or destruction, or anything of that sort, there can likewise be no cause. However, let us admit that there are such things as causes. In that case then, either a body must be the cause of a body, or that which is incorporeal must be the cause of that which is incorporeal. Now, neither of these cases is possible, therefore, there is no such thing as cause. In fact, one body cannot be the cause of another body, since both bodies must have the same nature; and if it be said that one is the cause, inasmuch as it is a body, then the other must[417] be a cause for the same reason. And in that case one would have two reciprocal causes; two agents without any passive subject.
Again, one incorporeal thing cannot be the cause of another incorporeal thing for the same reason. Also, an incorporeal thing cannot be the cause of a body, because nothing that is incorporeal can produce a body. Nor, on the other hand, can a body be the cause of anything incorporeal, because in every production there must be some passive subject matter; but, as what is incorporeal is by its own nature protected from being a passive subject, it cannot be the object of any productive power. There is, therefore, no such thing as any cause at all. From all which it follows, that the first principles of all things have no reality; for such a principle, if it did exist, must be both the agent and the efficient cause.
Again, there is no such thing as motion. For whatever is moved, is moved either in the place in which it is, or in that in which it is not. It certainly is not moved in the place in which it is, and it is impossible that it should be moved in the place in which it is not; therefore, there is no such thing as motion at all.
They also denied the existence of all learning. If, said they, anything is taught, then either that which does exist is taught in its existence or that which does not exist is taught in its non-existence; but that which does exist is not taught in its existence (for the nature of all existent things is visible to all men, and is known by all men); nor is that which does not exist taught in its non-existence, for nothing can happen to that which does not exist, so that to be taught cannot happen to it.
Nor again, say they, is there any such thing as production. For that which is, is not produced, for it exists already; nor that which is not, for that does not exist at all. And that which has no being nor existence at all, cannot be produced.
Another of their doctrines is, that there is no such thing as any natural good, or natural evil. For if there be any natural good, or natural evil, then it must be good to everyone, or evil to everyone; just as snow is cold to everyone. But there is no such thing as one general good or evil which is common to all beings; therefore, there is no such thing as any natural good, or natural evil. For either one must pronounce everything[418] good which is thought so by anyone whatever, or one must say that it does not follow that everything which is thought good is good. Now, we cannot say that everything which is thought good is good, since the same thing is thought good by one person (as, for instance, pleasure is thought good by Epicurus) and evil by another (as it is thought evil by Antisthenes); and on this principle the same thing will be both good and evil. If, again, we assert that it does not follow that everything which is thought good is good, then we must distinguish between the different opinions; which it is not possible to do by reason of the equality of the reasons adduced in support of them. It follows that we cannot recognize anything as good by nature.
And we may also take a view of the whole of their system by the writings which some of them have left behind them. Pyrrho himself has left nothing; but his friends Timon, and Ænesidemus, and Numenius, and Nausiphanes, and others of that class have left books. And the dogmatical philosophers arguing against them, say that they also adopt spurious and pronounce positive dogmas. For where they think that they are refuting others they are convicted, for in the very act of refutation, they assert positively and dogmatize. For when they say that they define nothing, and that every argument has an opposite argument; they do here give a positive definition, and assert a positive dogma. But they reply to these objectors; as to the things which happen to us as men, we admit the truth of what you say; for we certainly do know that it is day, and that we are alive; and we admit that we know many other of the phænomena of life. But with respect to those things as to which the dogmatic philosophers make positive assertions, saying that they are comprehended, we suspend our judgment on the ground of their being uncertain; and we know nothing but the passions; for we confess that we see, and we are aware that we comprehend that such a thing is the fact; but we do not know how we see, or how we comprehend. Also, we state in the way of narrative, that this appears white, without asserting positively that it really is so. And with respect to the assertion, “We define nothing,” and other sentences of that sort, we do not pronounce them as dogmas. For to say that is a different kind of statement from[419] saying that the world is spherical; for the one fact is not evident, while the other statements are mere admissions.
While, therefore, we say that we define nothing, we do not even say that as a definition.
Again, the dogmatic philosophers say that the Sceptics overthrow all life, when they deny everything of which life consists. But the Sceptics say that they are mistaken; for they do not deny that they see, but that they do not know how it is that they see. For, say they, we assert what is actually the fact, but we do not describe its character. Again, we feel that fire burns, but we suspend our judgment as to whether it has a burning nature. Also, we see whether a person moves, and that a man dies; but how these things happen we know not. Therefore, say they, we only resist the uncertain deductions which are put by the side of evident facts. For when we say that an image has projections, we only state plainly what is evident; but when we say that it has not projections, we no longer say what appears evident, but something else. On which account Timon, in his Python, says that Pyrrho does not destroy the authority of custom. And in his Images he speaks thus:—
But what is evidently seen prevails,
Wherever it may be.
And in his treatise on the Senses, he says, “The reason why a thing is sweet I do not declare, but I confess that the fact of sweetness is evident.” So too, Ænesidemus, in the first book of his Pyrrhonean Discourses, says that Pyrrho defines nothing dogmatically, on account of the possibility of contradiction, but that he is guided by what is evident. And he says the same thing in his book against Wisdom, and in his treatise on Investigation.
In like manner, Zeuxis, a friend of Ænesidemus, in his treatise on Twofold Arguments, and Antiochus, of Laodicea, and Apellas, in his Agrippa, all declare nothing beyond what is evident. The criterion therefore, among the Sceptics, is that which is evident; as Ænesidemus also says; and Epicurus says the same thing.
But Democritus says, that there is no test whatever of appearances, and also that they are not criteria of truth. Moreover, the dogmatic philosophers attack the criterion derived[420] from appearances, and say that the same objects present at times different appearances; so that a town presents at one time a square, and at another a round appearance; and that consequently, if the Sceptic does not discriminate between different appearances, he does nothing at all. If, on the contrary, he determines in favour of either, then, say they, he no longer attaches equal value to all appearances. The Sceptics reply to this, that in the presence of different appearances, they content themselves with saying that there are many appearances, and that it is precisely because things present themselves under different characters, that they affirm the existence of appearances.
Lastly, the Sceptics say, that the chief good is the suspension of the judgment which tranquillity of mind follows, like its shadow, as Timon and Ænesidemus say; for that we need not choose these things, or avoid those, which all depend on ourselves: but as to those things which do not depend upon us, but upon necessity, such as hunger, thirst, and pain, those we cannot avoid; for it is not possible to put an end to them by reason.
But when the dogmatic philosophers object that the Sceptic, on his principles, will not refuse to kill his own father, if he is ordered to do so; so that they answer, that they can live very well without disquieting themselves about the speculations of the dogmatic philosophers; but, suspending their judgment in all matters which do not refer to living and the preservation of life. Accordingly, say they, we avoid some things, and we seek others, following custom in that; and we obey the laws.
Some authors have asserted, that the chief good of the Stoics is impassibility; others say that it is mildness and tranquillity.
LIFE OF TIMON.
I. Apollonides, of Nicæa, a philosopher of our school, in the first book of his Commentaries on the Silli, which he dedicated to Tiberius Cæsar, says that Timon was the son of[421] Timarchus, and a Phliasian by birth. And then, when he was young, he studied dancing, and afterwards he renounced that study, and went to Megara to Stilpo. And having spent some time there, he returned home again and married. Then he came with his wife to Elis, to see Pyrrho, and there he remained while his children were born; the elder of whom, he called Xanthus, and taught him medicine, and left him his successor in his sect of philosophy. And he was a man of considerable eminence, as Sotion tells us in his eleventh book. Afterwards, being in difficulty as to his means, he departed to the Hellespont and the Propontis; and living at Chalcedon as a Sophist, he earned a very high reputation and great popularity; from thence he departed, after having made a considerable fortune, and went to Athens, and remained there till his death, going across once for a short time to Thebes. He was also acquainted with king Antigonus, and with Ptolemy Philadelphus, as he himself testifies in his Iambics.
II. He was, says Antigonus, fond of drinking, and he at times occupied himself with works quite inconsistent with philosophy; for he wrote lyric and epic poems, and tragedies and satiric dramas, and thirty comedies, and sixty tragedies and Silli, and amatory poems.
There are works of his also enumerated in a regular catalogue, extending to twenty thousand verses, which are mentioned by Antigonus, of Carystos, who also wrote his life. Of the Silli, there are three volumes; in which he attacks every one as if he were a Sceptic, and especially he lampoons the dogmatic philosophers under the form of parodies. The first volume of these Silli contains a long uninterrupted narration; but the second and third are in the form of dialogues. He is represented in them, as interrogating Xenophanes, the Colophonian, about every thing, and he utters a long continued discourse; in his second book he speaks of the more ancient philosophers; and in his third of the more modern ones; on which account some people have given the last book the name of the epilogue.
But the first book contains the same subjects, with this difference, that in that it is all confined to one single person and its first line begins thus:—
Come hither, all you over-busy Sophists
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III. He died when he was nearly ninety years old, as Antigonus tells us; and Sotion, in his eleventh book, makes the same statement. I have heard it said that he had only one eye, and, indeed, he used to call himself Cyclops.
IV. There was also another Timon, the misanthrope.
V. Now this philosopher was very fond of a garden, and also of solitude, as we are told by Antigonus. Accordingly it is reported, that Hieronymus, the Peripatetic, said of him, as among the Scythians, both they who fly, and they who pursue shoot with the bow, so in the case of the philosophers, those who pursue and those who fly both hunt for pupils, as Timon for instance.
VI. He was a man of very acute perceptions, and very quick at seeing the ridiculous side of any question: he was also very fond of learning, and a very clever man at devising plots for poets, and at composing dramas. And he used to associate with himself, in the composition of his tragedies, two other poets, named Alexander and Homer; and whenever he was disturbed by his maid-servants or by the dogs, he paid no attention to them, studying above all things to live in tranquillity. They tell a story, that Aratus asked him how he could procure an entire and correct copy of Homer’s poetry, and he answered, “If he could fall in with an old manuscript which had never been corrected.” And all his works used to lie about at random, and at times half eaten by mice; so that once when he was reading them to Zopyrus, the orator, and unrolling a volume, he read whatever passages came first, and when he got to the middle of the book he found a great gap, which he had not previously perceived, so very indifferent was he about such matters.
His constitution was so vigorous, that he could easily go without his dinner. And they say, that once when he saw Arcesilaus passing through the forum of the Cercopes, he said, “What are you doing here, where we freemen are?” And he used constantly to quote to those who invoked the testimony of their intellects to judge of the senses:—
Attagas and Numenius are met.[137]
And this jesting manner was habitual with him. Accordingly[423] he once said to a man, who was surprised at everything, “Why do you not wonder that we three men have only four eyes between us?” for he himself had only one eye, no more had Dioscorides, his pupil; but the man to whom he was speaking had his sight unimpaired. On another occasion, he was asked by Arcesilaus, why he had come from Thebes, and he said, “To laugh at you all when I see you face to face.” But though he attacked Arcesilaus in his Silli, he has praised him in the book entitled the Funeral Banquet of Arcesilaus.
VII. He had no successor, as Menodotus tells us; but his school ceased, till Ptolemy the Cyrenean re-established it. According to the account given to us by Hippobotus and Sotion, he had as pupils, Dioscorides of Cyprus, and Nicolochus of Rhodes, and Euphranor of Seleucia, and Praylus of the Troas, who was a man of such constancy of mind that, as Phylarchus relates in his History, he allowed himself to be punished as a traitor wholly undeservedly, not uttering one word of complaint against his fellow citizens; and Euphranor had for his pupil, Eubulus, of Alexandria, who was the master of Ptolemy, who was the master of Sarpedon and Heraclides. And Heraclides was the master of Ænesidemus, of Cnossus, who wrote eight books of Pyrrhonean discourses; he was also the master of Zeuxippus Polites, who was the master of Zeuxis Goniopus, who was the master of Antiochus, of Laodicea, in Lycia. Antiochus again, was the master of Menodotus, of Nicomedia, a skilful physician, and of Theodas, of Laodicea; and Menodotus was the master of Herodotus, of Tarsus, the son of Arieus; Herodotus was the master of Sextus Empiricus, who left ten books of Sceptic Maxims, and other excellent works; and Sextus was the master of Saturninus Cythenas, who was also an empiric.
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BOOK X.LIFE OF EPICURUS.
I. Epicurus was an Athenian, and the son of Neocles and Chærestrate, of the burgh of Gargettus, and of the family of the Philaidæ, as Metrodorus tells us in his treatise on Nobility of Birth. Some writers, and among them Heraclides, in his Abridgment of Sotion, say, that as the Athenians had colonised Samos, he was brought up there, and came to Athens in his eighteenth year, while Xenocrates was president of the Academy, and Aristotle at Chalcis. But after the death of Alexander, the Macedonian, when the Athenians were driven out of Samos by Perdiccas, Epicurus went to Colophon to his father.
II. And when he had spent some time there, and collected some disciples, he again returned to Athens, in the time of Anaxicrates, and for some time studied philosophy, mingling with the rest of the philosophers; but subsequently, he some how or other established the school which was called after his name; and he used to say, that he began to study philosophy, when he was fourteen years of age; but Apollodorus, the Epicurean, in the first book of his account of the life of Epicurus, says, that he came to the study of philosophy, having conceived a great contempt for the grammarians, because they could not explain to him the statements in Hesiod respecting Chaos.
But Hermippus tells us, that he himself was a teacher of grammar, and that afterwards, having met with the books of Democritus, he applied himself with zeal to philosophy, on which account Timon says of him:—
The last of all the natural philosophers,
And the most shameless too, did come from Samos,
A grammar teacher, and the most ill-bred
And most unmanageable of mankind.
And he had for his companions in his philosophical studies,[425] his three brothers, Neocles, Chæredemus, and Aristobulus, who were excited by his exhortations, as Philodemus, the Epicurean, relates in the tenth book of the Classification of Philosophers. He had also a slave, whose name was Mus, as Myronianus tells us in his Similar Historical Chapters.
III. But Diotimus, the Stoic, was very hostile to him, and calumniated him in a most bitter manner, publishing fifty obscene letters, and attributing them to Epicurus, and also giving him the credit of the letters, which generally go under the name of Chrysippus. And Posidonius, the Stoic, and Nicolaus, and Sotion, in the twelfth of these books, which are entitled the Refutations of Diocles, of which there are altogether twenty-four volumes, and Dionysius, of Halicarnassus, have also attacked him with great severity; for they say that he used to accompany his mother when she went about the small cottages, performing purifications, and that he used to read the formula, and that he used also to keep a school with his father at very low terms. Also, that he, as well as one of his brothers, was a most profligate man in his morals, and that he used to live with Leontium, the courtesan. Moreover, that he claimed the books of Democritus on Atoms, and that of Aristippus on Pleasure, as his own; and that he was not a legitimate citizen; and this last fact is asserted also by Timocrates, and by Herodotus, in his treatise on the Youth of Epicurus.
They also say that he used to flatter Mithras, the steward of Lysimachus, in a disgraceful manner, calling him in his letters Pæan, and King; and also that he flattered Idomeneus, and Herodotus, and Timocrates who had revealed all his secret practices, and that he flattered them on this very account. And in his letters to Leontium, he says, “O king Apollo, my dear Leontium, what transports of joy did I feel when I read your charming letter.” And to Themista, the wife of Leonteus, he writes, “I am ready and prepared, if you do not come to me, to roll myself to wherever you and Themista invite me.” And he addresses Pythocles, a beautiful youth, thus, “I will sit quiet,” says he, “awaiting your longed for and god-like approach.” And at another time, writing to Themista, he says, “That he had determined to make his way with her,” as Theodorus tells us in the fourth book of his treatises against Epicurus.
[426]
He also wrote to many other courtesans, and especially to Leontium, with whom Metrodorus also was in love. And in his treatise on the Chief Good, he writes thus, “For I do not know what I can consider good, if I put out of sight the pleasures which arise from favours, and those which are derived from amatory pleasures, and from music, and from the contemplation of beauty.” And in his letter to Pythocles, he writes, “And, my dear boy, avoid all sorts of education.”
Epictetus also attacks him as a most debauched man, and reproaches him most vehemently, and so does Timocrates, the brother of Metrodorus, in his treatise entitled the Merry Guests, and this Timocrates had been a disciple in his school, though he afterwards abandoned it; and he says that he used to vomit twice a day, in consequence of his intemperance; and that he himself had great difficulty in escaping from this nocturnal philosophy, and that mystic kind of re-union. He also accuses Epicurus of shameful ignorance in his reasoning, and still more especially in all matters relating to the conduct of life. And says that he was in a pitiable state of health, so that he could not for many years rise up from his sofa; and that he used to spend a minæ a day on his eating, as he himself states in his letter to Leontium, and in that to the philosophers at Mitylene. He also says that many courtesans used to live with him and Metrodorus; and among them Marmarium, and Hedea, and Erotium, and Nicidium.
IV. And in the thirty-seven books which he wrote about natural philosophy, they say that he says a great many things of the same kind over and over again, and that in them he writes in contradiction of other philosophers, and especially of Nausiphanes, and speaks as follows, word for word: “But if any one else ever was afflicted in such a manner, then certainly this man had a continual labour, striving to bring forth the sophistical boastfulness of his mouth, like many other slaves.” And Epicurus also speaks of Nausiphanes in his letters, in the following terms: “These things led him on to such arrogance of mind, that he abused me and called me a schoolmaster.” He used also to call him Lungs, and Blockhead, and Humbug, and Fornicator. And he used to call Plato’s followers Flatterers of Dionysius, but Plato himself he called Golden. Aristotle he called a debauchee and a glutton, saying that he joined the army after he had squandered his patrimony, and[427] sold drugs. He used also to call Protagoras a porter, and the secretary of Democritus, and to say that he taught boys their letters in the streets. Heraclitus, he called a disturber; Democritus, he nicknamed Lerocritus;[138] and Antidorus, Sænidorus;[139] the Cynics he called enemies of Greece; and the Dialecticians he charged with being eaten up with envy. Pyrrho, he said, was ignorant and unlearned.
V. But these men who say this are all wrong, for there are plenty of witnesses of the unsurpassable kindness of the man to every body; both his own country which honoured him with brazen statues, and his friends who were so numerous that they could not be contained in whole cities; and all his acquaintances who were bound to him by nothing but the charms of his doctrine, none of whom ever deserted him, except Metrodorus, the son of Stratoniceus, who went over to Carneades, probably because he was not able to bear with equanimity the unapproachable excellence of Epicurus. Also, the perpetual succession of his school, which, when every other school decayed, continued without any falling off, and produced a countless number of philosophers, succeeding one another without any interruption. We may also speak here of his gratitude towards his parents, and his beneficence to his brothers, and his gentleness to his servants (as is plain from his will, and from the fact too, that they united with him in his philosophical studies, and the most eminent of them was the one whom I have mentioned already, named Mus); and his universal philanthropy towards all men.
His piety towards the Gods, and his affection for his country was quite unspeakable; though, from an excess of modesty, he avoided affairs of state. And though he lived when very difficult times oppressed Greece, he still remained in his own country, only going two or three times across to Ionia to see his friends, who used to throng to him from all quarters, and to live with him in his garden, as we are told by Apollodorus. (This garden he bought for eighty minæ.)
VI. And Diocles, in the third book of his Excursion, says[428] that they all lived in the most simple and economical manner; “They were content,” says he, “with a small cup of light wine, and all the rest of their drink was water.” He also tells us that Epicurus would not allow his followers to throw their property into a common stock, as Pythagoras did, who said that the possessions of friends were held in common. For he said that such a doctrine as that was suited rather for those who distrusted one another; and that those who distrusted one another were not friends. But he himself in his letters, says that he is content with water and plain bread, and adds, “Send me some Cytherean cheese, that if I wish to have a feast, I may have the means.” This was the real character of the man who laid down the doctrine that pleasure was the chief good; whom Athenæus thus mentions in an epigram:—
O men, you labour for pernicious ends;
And out of eager avarice, begin
Quarrels and wars. And yet the wealth of nature
Fixes a narrow limit for desires,
Though empty judgment is insatiable.
This lesson the wise child of Neocles
Had learnt by heart, instructed by the Muses,
Or at the sacred shrine of Delphi’s God.
And as we advance further, we shall learn this fact from his dogmas, and his apophthegms.
VII. Of all the ancient philosophers he was, as we are told by Diocles, most attached to Anaxagoras (although in some points he argued against him); and to Archelaus, the master of Socrates. And he used, Diocles adds, to accustom his pupils to preserve his writings in their memory. Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, asserts that he was a pupil of Nausiphanes, and Praxiphanes; but he himself does not mention this; but says in his letter to Euridicus, that he had been his own instructor. He also agreed with Hermarchus in not admitting that Leucippus deserved to be called a philosopher; though some authors, among whom is Apollodorus, speak of him as the master of Democritus. Demetrius, the Magnesian, says that he was a pupil of Xenocrates also.
VIII. He uses in his works plain language with respect to anything he is speaking of, for which Aristophanes, the grammarian, blames him, on the ground of that style being vulgar.[429] But he was such an admirer of perspicuity, that even in his treatise on Rhetoric, he aims at and recommends nothing but clearness of expression. And in his letters, instead of the usual civil expressions, “Greeting,” “Farewell,” and so on, he substitutes, “May you act well,” “May you live virtuously,” and expressions of that sort. Some of his biographers assert that it was he who composed the treatise entitled the Canon, in imitation of the Tripod of Nausiphanes, whose pupil they say that he was, and add that he was also a pupil of Pamphilus, the Platonist, at Samos.
IX. They further tell us that he began to study philosophy at twelve years of age, and that he presided over his school thirty-two years. And he was born as we are told by Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, in the third year of the hundred and ninth olympiad, in the archonship of Sosigenes, on the seventh day of the month Gamelion, seven years after the death of Plato. And when he was thirty-two years of age, he first set up his school at Mitylene, and after that at Lampsacus; and when he had spent five years in these two cities, he came to Athens; and he died there in the second year of the hundred and twenty-seventh olympiad, in the archonship of Pytharatus, when he had lived seventy-two years. And Hermarchus, the son of Agemarchus, and a citizen of Mitylene, succeeded him in his school.
He died of the stone, as Hermarchus mentions in his letters, after having been ill a fortnight; and at the end of the fortnight, Hermippus says that he went into a brazen bath, properly tempered with warm water, and asked for a cup of pure wine and drank it; and having recommended his friends to remember his doctrines, he expired. And there is an epigram of ours on him, couched in the following language:—
Now, fare-ye-well, remember all my words;
This was the dying charge of Epicurus:
Then to the bath he went, and drank some wine,
And sank beneath the cold embrace of Pluto.
Such was the life of the man, and such was his death.
X. And he made his will in the following terms:—
“According to this my will, I give all my possessions to Amynomachus, of Bate, the son of Philocrates, and to Timocrates, of Potamos, the son of Demetrius; according to the[430] deed of gift to each, which is deposited in the temple of Cybele; on condition that they make over my garden and all that is attached to it to Hermarchus, of Mitylene, the son of Agemarchus; and to those who study philosophy with him, and to whomsoever Hermarchus leaves as his successors in his school, that they may abide and dwell in it, in the study and practice of philosophy; and I give it also to all those who philosophize according to my doctrines, that they may, to the best of their ability, maintain my school which exists in my garden, in concert with Amynomachus and Timocrates; and I enjoin their heirs to do the same in the most perfect and secure manner that they can; so that they also may maintain my garden, as those also shall to whom my immediate successors hand it down. As for the house in Melita, that Amynomachus and Timocrates shall allow Hermarchus that he may live in it during his life, together with all his companions in philosophy.
“Out of the income which is derived from that property, which is here bequeathed by me to Amynomachus and Timocrates, I will that they, consulting with Hermarchus, shall arrange in the best manner possible the offerings to the manes in honour of the memory of my father, and mother, and brothers, and myself, and that my birth-day may be kept as it has been in the habit of being kept, on the tenth day of the month Gamelion; and that the re-union of all the philosophers of our school, established in honour of Metrodorus and myself, may take place on the twentieth day of every month. They shall also celebrate, as I have been in the habit of doing myself, the day consecrated to my brothers, in the month Poseideon; and the day consecrated to the memory of Polyænus, in the month Metageitnion.
“Amynomachus and Timocrates, shall be the guardians of Epicurus, the son of Metrodorus, and of the son of Polyænus, as long as they study philosophy under, and live with, Hermarchus. In the same way also, they shall be the guardians of the daughter of Metrodorus, and when she is of marriageable age, they shall give her to whomsoever Hermarchus shall select of his companions in philosophy, provided she is well behaved and obedient to Hermarchus. And Amynomachus and Timocrates shall, out of my income, give them such a sum for their support as shall appear sufficient year by year, after due[431] consultation with Hermarchus. And they shall associate Hermarchus with themselves in the management of my revenues, in order that everything may be done with the approval of that man who has grown old with me in the study of philosophy, and who is now left as the president of all those who have studied philosophy with us. And as for the dowry for the girl when she is come to marriageable age, let Amynomachus and Timocrates arrange that, taking for the purpose such a sum from my property as shall seem to them, in conjunction with Hermarchus, to be reasonable. And let them also take care of Nicanor, as we ourselves have done; in order that all those who have studied philosophy with us, and who have assisted us with their means, and who have shown great friendship for us, and who have chosen to grow old with us in the study of philosophy, may never be in want of anything as far as our power to prevent it may extend.
“I further enjoin them to give all my books to Hermarchus; and, if anything should happen to Hermarchus before the children of Metrodorus are grown up, then I desire that Amynomachus and Timocrates, shall take care that, provided they are well behaved, they shall have everything that is necessary for them, as far as the estate which I leave behind me shall allow such things to be furnished to them. And the same men shall also take care of everything else that I have enjoined; so that it may all be fulfilled, as far as the case may permit.
“Of my slaves, I hereby emancipate Mus, and Nicias, and Lycon: I also give Phædrium her freedom.”
And when he was at the point of death, he wrote the following letter to Idomeneus:—
“We have written this letter to you on a happy day to us, which is also the last day of our life. For strangury has attacked me, and also a dysentery, so violent that nothing can be added to the violence of my sufferings. But the cheerfulness of my mind, which arises from the recollection of all my philosophical contemplations, counterbalances all these afflictions. And I beg you to take care of the children of Metrodorus, in a manner worthy of the devotion shown by the youth to me, and to philosophy.”
Such then as I have given it, was his will.
XI. He had a great number of pupils, of whom the most[432] eminent were Metrodorus, the Athenian, and Timocrates, and Sandes, of Lampsacus; who, from the time that he first became acquainted with him, never left him, except once when he went home for six months; after which he returned to him. And he was a virtuous man in every respect, as Epicurus tells us in his Fundamental Principles. And he also bears witness to his virtue in the third book of his Timocrates. And being a man of this character, he gave his sister Batis in marriage to Idomeneus; and he himself had Leontium, the Attic courtesan, for his concubine. He was very unmoved at all disturbances, and even at death; as Epicurus tells us, in the first book of his Metrodorus. He is said to have died seven years before Epicurus himself, in the fifty-third year of his age. And Epicurus himself, in the will which I have given above, gives many charges about the guardianship of his children, showing by this that he had been dead some time. He also had a brother whom I have mentioned before, of the name of Timocrates, a trifling, silly man.
The writings of Metrodorus are these. Three books addressed to the Physicians; one essay on the Sensations; one addressed to Timocrates; one on Magnanimity; one on the Illness of Epicurus; one addressed to the Dialecticians; one against the Nine Sophists; one on the Road to Wisdom; one on Change; one on Riches; one against Democritus; one on Nobility of Birth.
XII. Likewise Polyænus, of Lampsacus, the son of Athenodorus, was a man of mild and friendly manners, as Philodemus particularly assures us.
XIII. And his successor was Hermarchus, of Mitylene, the son of Agemarchus, a poor man; and his favourite pursuit was rhetoric. And the following excellent works of his are extant. Twenty-two books of letters about Empedocles; an essay on Mathematics; A treatise against Plato; another against Aristotle. And he died of paralysis, being a most eminent man.
XIV. There was also Leonteus, of Lampsacus, and his wife Themista, to whom Epicurus wrote.
XV. There were also Colotes and Idomeneus; and these also were natives of Lampsacus. And among the most eminent philosophers of the school of Epicurus, were Polystratus, who succeeded Hermarchus, and Dionysius who succeeded him, and[433] Basilides who succeeded him. Likewise Apollodorus, who was nicknamed the tyrant of the gardens (κηποτύραννος), was a very eminent man, and wrote more than four hundred books. And there were the two Ptolemies of Alexandria, Ptolemy the Black, and Ptolemy the Fair. And Zeno, of Sidon, a pupil of Apollodorus, a very voluminous author; and Demetrius, who was surnamed the Lacedæmonian; and Diogenes, of Tarsus, who wrote the Select Dialogues; and Orion, and others whom the genuine Epicureans call Sophists.
XVI. There were also three other persons of the name of Epicurus; first, the son of Leonteus and Themista; secondly, a native of Magnesia; and lastly, a Gladiator.
XVII. And Epicurus was a most voluminous author, exceeding all men in the number of his books; for there are more than three hundred volumes of them; and in the whole of them there is not one citation from other sources, but they are filled wholly with the sentiments of Epicurus himself. In the quantity of his writings he was rivalled by Chrysippus, as Carneades asserts, who calls him a parasite of the books of Epicurus; for if ever this latter wrote anything, Chrysippus immediately set his heart on writing a book of equal size; and in this way he often wrote the same thing over again; putting down whatever came into his head; and he published it all without any corrections, by reason of his haste. And he quotes such numbers of testimonies from other authors, that his books are entirely filled with them alone; as one may find also in the works of Aristotle and Zeno.
Such then, and so numerous are the works of Epicurus; the chief of which are the following. Thirty-seven treatises on Natural Philosophy; one on Atoms, and the Vacuum; one on Love; an abridgment of the Arguments employed against the Natural Philosophers; Doubts in Contradiction of the Doctrines of the Megarians; Fundamental Propositions; a treatise on Choice and Avoidance; another on the Chief Good; another on the Criterion, called also the Canon; the Chæredemus, a treatise on the Gods; one on Piety; the Hegesianax; four essays on Lives; one on Just Dealing; the Neocles; one essay addressed to Themista; the Banquet; the Eurylochus; one essay addressed to Metrodorus; one on Seeing; one on the Angle in an Atom; one on Touch;[434] one on Fate; Opinions on the Passions; one treatise addressed to Timocrates; Prognostics; Exhortations; a treatise on Spectres; one on Perceptions; the Aristobulus; an essay on Music; one on Justice and the other Virtues; one on Gifts and Gratitude; the Polymedes; the Timocrates, a treatise in three books; the Metrodorus, in five books; the Antidorus, in two books; Opinions about the South Winds; a treatise addressed to Mithras; the Callistolas; an essay on Kingly Power; the Anaximenes; Letters.
XVIII. And I will endeavour to give an abridgment of the doctrines contained in these works, as it may be agreeable, quoting three letters of his, in which he has made a sort of epitome of all his philosophy. I will also give his fundamental and peculiar opinions, and any apophthegms which he uttered which appear worthy of being selected. So that you may be thoroughly acquainted with the man, and may also judge that I understand him.
Now the first letter is one that he wrote to Herodotus, on the subject of Natural Philosophy; the second is one that he wrote to Pythocles, which is about the Heavenly Bodies; the third is addressed to Menœceus, and in that there are contained the discussions about lives.
We must now begin with the first, after having said a little by way of preface concerning the divisions of philosophy which he adopted.
XIX. Now he divides philosophy into three parts. The canonical, the physical, and the ethical. The canonical, which serves as an introduction to science, is contained in the single treatise which is called the Canon. The physical embraces the whole range of speculation on subjects of natural philosophy, and is contained in the thirty-seven books on nature, and in the letters again it is discussed in an elementary manner. The ethical contains the discussions on Choice and Avoidance; and is comprised in the books about lives, and in some of the Letters, and in the treatise on the Chief Good. Accordingly, most people are in the habit of combining the canonical division with the physical; and then they designate the whole under the names of the criterion of the truth, and a discussion on principles, and elements. And they say that the physical division is conversant about production, and destruction, and[435] nature; and that the ethical division has reference to the objects of choice and avoidance, and lives, and the chief good of mankind.
XX. Dialectics they wholly reject as superfluous. For they say that the correspondence of words with things is sufficient for the natural philosopher, so as to enable him to advance with certainty in the study of nature.
Now, in the Canon, Epicurus says that the criteria of truth are the senses, and the preconceptions, and the passions. But the Epicureans, in general, add also the perceptive impressions of the intellect. And he says the same thing in his Abridgment, which he addresses to Herodotus, and also in his Fundamental Principles. For, says he, the senses are devoid of reason, nor are they capable of receiving any impressions of memory. For they are not by themselves the cause of any motion, and when they have received any impression from any external cause, then they can add nothing to it, nor can they subtract anything from it. Moreover, they are out of the reach of any control; for one sensation cannot judge of another which resembles itself; for they have all an equal value. Nor can one judge of another which is different from itself; since their objects are not identical. In a word, one sensation cannot control another, since the effects of all of them influence us equally. Again, the reason cannot pronounce on the senses; for we have already said that all reasoning has the senses for its foundation. Reality and the evidence of sensation establish the certainty of the senses; for the impressions of sight and hearing are just as real, just as evident, as pain.
It follows from these considerations that we ought to judge of things which are obscure by their analogy to those which we perceive directly. In fact, every notion proceeds from the senses, either directly, or in consequence of some analogy, or proportion, or combination. Reasoning having always a share in these last operations. The visions of insanity and of sleep have a real object, for they act upon us; and that which has no reality can produce no action.
XXI. By preconception, the Epicureans mean a sort of comprehension as it were, or right opinion, or notion, or general idea which exists in us; or, in other words, the recollection of an external object often perceived anteriorly. Such for instance, is this idea: “Man is a being of such and such a[436] nature.” At the same moment that we utter the word man, we conceive the figure of a man, in virtue of a preconception which we owe to the preceding operations of the senses. Therefore, the first notion which each word awakens in us is a correct one; in fact, we could not seek for anything if we had not previously some notion of it. To enable us to affirm that what we see at a distance is a horse or an ox, we must have some preconception in our minds which makes us acquainted with the form of a horse and an ox. We could not give names to things, if we had not a preliminary notion of what the things were.
XXII. These preconceptions then furnish us with certainty. And with respect to judgments, their certainty depends on our referring them to some previous notion, of itself certain, in virtue of which we affirm such and such a judgment; for instance, “How do we know whether this thing is a man?”
The Epicureans call opinion (δόξα) also supposition (ὑπόληψις). And say that it is at times true, and at times false; for that, if it is supported by testimony, and not contradicted by testimony, then it is true; but if it is not supported by testimony, and is contradicted by testimony, then it is false. On which account they have introduced the expression of “waiting,” as if, before pronouncing that a thing seen is a tower, we must wait till we come near, and learn what it looks like when we are near it.
XXIII. They say that there are two passions, pleasure and pain, which affect everything alive. And that the one is natural, and the other foreign to our nature; with reference to which all objects of choice and avoidance are judged of. They say also, that there are two kinds of investigation; the one about facts, the other about mere words. And this is as far as an elementary sketch can go—their doctrine about division, and about the criterion.
XXIV. Let us now go to the letter:—
EPICURUS TO HERODOTUS, WISHING HE MAY DO WELL.
“For those, O Herodotus, who are not able accurately to comprehend all the things which I have written about nature, nor to investigate those larger books which I have composed on the subject, I have made an abridgment of the whole discussion[437] on this question, as far as I thought sufficient to enable them to recollect accurately the most fundamental points; that so, on all grave occasions, they might be able to assist themselves on the most important and undeniable principles; in proportion as they devoted themselves to speculations on natural philosophy. And here it is necessary for those who have made sufficient progress in their view of the general question, to recollect the principles laid down as elements of the whole discussion; for we have still greater need of a correct notion of the whole, than we have even of an accurate understanding of the details. We must, therefore, give preference to the former knowledge, and lay up in our memory those principles on which we may rest, in order to arrive at an exact perception of things, and at a certain knowledge of particular objects.
“Now one has arrived at that point when one has thoroughly embraced the conceptions, and, if I may so express myself, the most essential forms, and when one has impressed them adequately on one’s senses. For this clear and precise knowledge of the whole, taken together, necessarily facilitates one’s particular perceptions, when one has brought one’s ideas back to the elements and simple terms. In short, a veritable synthesis, comprising the entire circle of the phænomena of the universe, ought to be able to resume in itself, and in a few words, all the particular facts which have been previously studied. This method being useful even to those who are already familiarised with the laws of the universe, I recommend them, while still pursuing without intermission the study of nature, which contributes more than anything else to the tranquillity and happiness of life, to make a concise statement or summary of their opinions.
“First of all, then, Herodotus, one must determine with exactness the notion comprehended under each separate word, in order to be able to refer to it, as to a certain criterion, the conceptions which emanate from ourselves, the ulterior researches and the difficulties; otherwise the judgment has no foundation. One goes on from demonstration to demonstration ad infinitum; or else one gains nothing beyond mere words. In fact, it is absolutely necessary that in every word we should perceive directly, and without the assistance of any demonstration, the fundamental notion which it expresses, if we wish to[438] have any foundation to which we may refer our researches, our difficulties, and our personal judgments, whatever in other respects may be the criterion which we adopt, whether we take as our standard the impressions produced on our senses, or the actual impression in general; or whether we cling to the idea by itself, or to any other criterion.
“We must also note carefully the impressions which we receive in the presence of objects, in order to bring ourselves back to that point in the circumstances in which it is necessary to suspend the judgment, or even when the question is about things, the evidence of which is not immediately perceived.
“When these foundations are once laid we may pass to the study of those things, the evidence of which is not immediate. And, first of all, we must admit that nothing can come of that which does not exist; for, were the fact otherwise, then every thing would be produced from everything, and there would be no need of any seed. And if that which disappeared were so absolutely destroyed as to become non-existent, then every thing would soon perish, as the things with which they would be dissolved would have no existence. But, in truth, the universal whole always was such as it now is, and always will be such. For there is nothing into which it can change; for there is nothing beyond this universal whole which can penetrate into it, and produce any change in it.”
(And Epicurus establishes the same principles at the beginning of the great Abridgment; and in the first book of his treatise on Nature.)[140] “Now the universal whole is a body; for our senses bear us witness in every case that bodies have a real existence; and the evidence of the senses, as I have said before, ought to be the rule of our reasonings about everything which is not directly perceived. Otherwise, if that which we call the vacuum, or space, or intangible nature, had not a real existence, there would be nothing on which the bodies could be contained, or across which they could move, as we see that they really do move. Let us add to this reflection that one cannot conceive, either in virtue of perception, or of any analogy founded on perception, any general quality peculiar[439] to all beings which is not either an attribute, or an accident of the body, or of the vacuum.”
(The same principles are laid down in the first, and fourteenth, and fifteenth book of the treatise on Nature; and also in the Great Abridgment.)
“Now, of bodies, some are combinations, and some the elements out of which these combinations are formed. These last are indivisible, and protected from every kind of transformation; otherwise everything would be resolved into non-existence. They exist by their own force, in the midst of the dissolution of the combined bodies, being absolutely full, and as such offering no handle for destruction to take hold of. It follows, therefore, as a matter of absolute necessity, that the principles of things must be corporeal, indivisible elements.
“The universe is infinite. For that which is finite has an extreme, and that which has an extreme is looked at in relation to something else. Consequently, that which has not an extreme, has no boundary; and if it has no boundary, it must be infinite, and not terminated by any limit. The universe then is infinite, both with reference to the quantity of bodies of which it is made up, and to the magnitude of the vacuum; for if the vacuum were infinite, the bodies being finite, then, the bodies would not be able to rest in any place; they would be transported about, scattered across the infinite vacuum for want of any power to steady themselves, or to keep one another in their places by mutual repulsion. If, on the other hand, the vacuum were finite, the bodies being infinite, then the bodies clearly could never be contained in the vacuum.
“Again: the atoms which form the bodies, these full elements from which the combined bodies come, and into which they resolve themselves, assume an incalculable variety of forms, for the numerous differences which the bodies present cannot possibly result from an aggregate of the same forms. Each variety of forms contains an infinity of atoms, but there is not for that reason an infinity of atoms; it is only the number of them which is beyond all calculation.”
(Epicurus adds, a little lower down, that divisibility, ad infinitum, is impossible; for, says he, the only things which change are the qualities; unless, indeed, one wishes to proceed from division to division, till one arrives absolutely at infinite littleness.)
[440]
“The atoms are in a continual state of motion.”
(He says, farther on, that they move with an equal rapidity from all eternity, since the vacuum offers no more resistance to the lightest than it does to the heaviest.)
“Among the atoms, some are separated by great distances, others come very near to one another in the formation of combined bodies, or at times are enveloped by others which are combining; but in this latter case they, nevertheless, preserve their own peculiar motion, thanks to the nature of the vacuum, which separates the one from the other, and yet offers them no resistance. The solidity which they possess causes them, while knocking against one another, to re-act the one upon the other; till at last the repeated shocks bring on the dissolution of the combined body; and for all this there is no external cause, the atoms and the vacuum being the only causes.”
(He says, further on, that the atoms have no peculiar quality of their own, except from magnitude and weight. As to colour, he says in the twelfth book of his Principia, that it varies according to the position of the atoms. Moreover, he does not attribute to the atoms any kind of dimensions; and, accordingly, no atom has ever been perceived by the senses; but this expression, if people only recollect what is here said, will by itself offer to the thoughts a sufficient image of the nature of things.)
“But, again, the worlds also are infinite, whether they resemble this one of ours or whether they are different from it. For, as the atoms are, as to their number, infinite, as I have proved above, they necessarily move about at immense distances; for besides, this infinite multitude of atoms, of which the world is formed, or by which it is produced, could not be entirely absorbed by one single world, nor even by any worlds, the number of which was limited, whether we suppose them like this world of ours, or different from it. There is, therefore, no fact inconsistent with an infinity of worlds.
“Moreover, there are images resembling, as far as their form goes, the solid bodies which we see, but which differ materially from them in the thinness of their substance. In fact it is not impossible but that there may be in space some secretions of this kind, and an aptitude to form surfaces without depth, and of an extreme thinness; or else that from the solids there[441] may emanate some particles which preserve the connection, the disposition, and the motion which they had in the body. I give the name of images to these representations; and, indeed, their movement through the vacuum taking place, without meeting any obstacle or hindrance, perfects all imaginable extent in an inconceivable moment of time; for it is the meeting of obstacles, or the absence of obstacles, which produces the rapidity or the slowness of their motion. At all events, a body in motion does not find itself, at any moment imaginable, in two places at the same time; that is quite inconceivable. From whatever point of infinity it arrives at some appreciable moment, and whatever may be the spot in its course in which we perceive its motion, it has evidently quitted that spot at the moment of our thought; for this motion which, as we have admitted up to this point, encounters no obstacle to its rapidity, is wholly in the same condition as that the rapidity of which is diminished by the shock of some resistance.
“It is useful, also, to retain this principle, and to know that the images have an incomparable thinness; which fact indeed is in no respect contradicted by sensible appearances. From which it follows that their rapidity also is incomparable; for they find everywhere an easy passage, and besides, their infinite smallness causes them to experience no shock, or at all events to experience but a very slight one, while an infinite multitude of elements very soon encounter some resistance.
“One must not forget that the production of images is simultaneous with the thought; for from the surface of the bodies images of this kind are continually flowing off in an insensible manner indeed, because they are immediately replaced. They preserve for a long time the same disposition, and the same arrangement that the atoms do in the solid body, although, notwithstanding, their form may be sometimes altered. The direct production of images in space is equally instantaneous, because these images are only light substances destitute of depth.
“But there are other manners in which natures of this kind are produced; for there is nothing in all this which at all contradicts the senses, if one only considers in what way the senses are exercised, and if one is inclined to explain the relation which is established between external objects and[442] ourselves. Also, one must admit that something passes from external objects into us in order to produce in us sight and the knowledge of forms; for it is difficult to conceive that external objects can affect us through the medium of the air which is between us and them, or by means of rays, whatever emissions proceed from us to them, so as to give us an impression of their form and colour. This phenomenon, on the contrary, is perfectly explained, if we admit that certain images of the same colour, of the same shape, and of a proportionate magnitude pass from these objects to us, and so arrive at being seen and comprehended. These images are animated by an exceeding rapidity, and, as on the other side, the solid object forming a compact mass, and comprising a vast quantity of atoms, emits always the same quantity of particles, the vision is continued, and only produces in us one single perception which preserves always the same relation to the object. Every conception, every sensible perception which bears upon the form or the other attributes of these images, is only the same form of the solid perceived directly, either in virtue of a sort of actual and continued condensation of the image, or in consequence of the traces which it has left in us.
“Error and false judgments always depend upon the supposition that a preconceived idea will be confirmed, or at all events will not be overturned, by evidence. Then, when it is not confirmed, we form our judgment in virtue of a sort of initiation of the thoughts connected, it is true with the perception, and with a direct representation; but still connected also with a conception peculiar to ourselves, which is the parent of error. In fact the representations which intelligence reflects like a mirror, whether one perceives them in a dream, or by any other conceptions of the intellect, or of any other of the criteria, can never resemble the objects that one calls real and true, unless there were objects of this kind perceived directly. And, on the other side, error could not be possible if we did not receive some other motion also, a sort of initiative of intelligence connected; it is true with direct representation, but going beyond that representative. These conceptions being connected with the direct perception which produces the representation, but going beyond it, in consequence of a motion peculiar to the individual thought, produces error when it is not confirmed by evidence, or when it is contradicted[443] by evidence; but when it is confirmed, or when it is not contradicted by evidence, then it produces truth.
“We must carefully preserve these principles in order not to reject the authority of the faculties which perceive truth directly; and not, on the other hand, to allow what is false to be established with equal firmness, so as to throw everything into confusion.
“Moreover, hearing is produced by some sort of current proceeding from something that speaks, or sounds, or roars, or in any manner causes any sort of audible circumstance. And this current is diffused into small bodies resembling one another in their parts; which, preserving not only some kind of relation between one another, but even a sort of particular identity with the object from which they emanate, puts us, very frequently, into a communication of sentiments with this object, or at least causes us to become aware of the existence of some external circumstance. If these currents did not carry with them some sort of sympathy, then there would be no such perception. We must not therefore think that it is the air which receives a certain form, under the action of the voice or of some other sound. For it is utterly impossible that the voice should act in this manner on the air. But the percussion produced in us when we, by the utterance of a voice, cause a disengagement of certain particles, constitutes a current resembling a light whisper, and prepares an acoustic feeling for us.
“We must admit that the case of smelling is the same as that of hearing. There would be no sense of smell if there did not emanate from most objects certain particles capable of producing an impression on the smell. One class being ill-suited to the organ, and consequently producing a disordered state of it, the other being suited to it, and causing it no distress.
“One must also allow, that the atoms possess no one of the qualities of sensible objects, except form, weight, magnitude and anything else is unavoidably inherent in form; in fact, every quality is changeable, but the atoms are necessarily unchangeable; for it is impossible but that in the dissolution of combined bodies, there must be something which continues solid and indestructible, of such a kind, that it will not change either into what does not exist, or out of what does[444] not exist; but that it results either from a simple displacement of parts, which is the most usual case, or from the addition or subtraction of certain particles. It follows from that, that that which does not admit of any change in itself, is imperishable, participates in no respect in the nature of changeable things, and in a word, has its dimensions and forms immutably determined. And this is proved plainly enough, because even in the transformations which take place under our eyes, in consequence of the retrenchment of certain parts, we can still recognise the form of these constituent parts; while those qualities, which are not constituent parts, do not remain like the form, but perish in the dissolution of the combination. The attributes which we have indicated, suffice to explain all the differences of combined bodies; for we must inevitably leave something indestructible, lest everything should resolve itself into non-existence.
“However, one must not believe that every kind of magnitude exists in atoms, lest we find ourselves contradicted by phænomena. But we must admit that there are atoms of different magnitude, because, as that is the case, it is then more easy to explain the impressions and sensations; at all events, I repeat, it is not necessary for the purpose of explaining the differences of the qualities, to attribute to atoms every kind of magnitude.
“We must not suppose either, that an atom can become visible to us; for, first of all, one does not see that that is the case, and besides, one cannot even conceive, how an atom is to become visible; besides, we must not believe, that in a finite body there are particles of every sort, infinite in number; consequently, one must not only reject the doctrine of infinite divisibility in parcels smaller and smaller, lest we should be reducing everything to nothing, and find ourselves forced to admit, that in a mass composed of a crowd of elements, existence can reduce itself to non-existence. But one cannot even suppose that a finite object can be susceptible of transformations ad infinitum, or even of transformation into smaller objects than itself; for when once one has said that there are in an object particles of every kind, infinite in number, there is absolutely no means whatever of imagining that this object can have only a finite magnitude; in fact, it is evident that these particles, infinite in number, have some kind of dimension[445] or other, and whatever this dimension may be in other respects, the objects which are composed of it will have an infinite magnitude; in presenting forms which are determined, and limits which are perceived by the senses, one conceives, easily, without its being necessary to study this last question directly, that this would be the consequence of the contrary supposition, and that consequently, one must come to look at every object as infinite.
“One must also admit, that the most minute particle perceptible to the sense, is neither absolutely like the objects which are susceptible of transformation, nor absolutely different from them. It has some characteristics in common with the object which admit of transformation, but it also differs from them, inasmuch as it does not allow any distinct parts to be discerned in it. When then, in virtue of these common characteristics, and of this resemblance, we wish to form an idea of the smallest particle perceptible by the senses, in taking the objects which change for our terms of comparison, it is necessary that we should seize on some characteristic common to these different objects. In this way, we examine them successively, from the first to the last, not by themselves, nor as composed of parts in juxtaposition, but only in their extent; in other words, we consider the magnitudes by themselves, and in an abstract manner, inasmuch as they measure, the greater a greater extent, and the smaller a smaller extent. This analogy applies to the atom, as far as we consider it as having the smallest dimensions possible. Evidently by its minuteness, it differs from all sensible objects, still this analogy is applicable to it; in a word, we establish by this comparison, that the atom really has some extent, but we exclude all considerable dimensions, for the sake of only investing it with the smallest proportions.[141]
[446]
“We must also admit, in taking for our guide, the reasoning which discourses to us things which are invisible to the senses, that the most minute magnitudes, those which are not compound magnitudes, and which from the limit of sensible extent, are the first measure of the other magnitudes which are only called greater or less in their relation to the others. For these relations which they maintain with these particles, which are not subject to transformation, suffice to give them this characteristic of first measure. But they cannot, like atoms, combine themselves, and form compound bodies in virtue of any motion belonging to themselves.
“Moreover, we must not say (while speaking of the infinite), that such or such a point is the highest point of it, or the lowest. For height and lowness must not be predicated of the infinite. We know, in reality, that if, wishing to determine the infinite, we conceive a point above our head, this point, whatever it may be, will never appear to us to have the character in question: otherwise, that which would be situated above the point so conceived as the limit of the infinite, would be at the same moment, and by virtue of its relation to the same point, both high and low; and this is impossible to imagine.
“It follows that thought can only conceive that one single movement of transference, from low to high, ad infinitum; and one single movement from high to low. From low to high, when even the object in motion, going from us to the places situated above our heads, meets ten thousand times with the feet of those who are above us; and from high to low, when in the same way it advances towards the heads of those who are below us. For these two movements, looked at by themselves and in their whole, are conceived as really opposed the one to the other, in their progress towards the infinite.
“Moreover, all the atoms are necessarily animated by the same rapidity, when they move across the vacuum, or when no obstacle thwarts them. For why should heavy atoms have a more rapid movement than those which are small and light, since in no quarter do they encounter any obstacle? Why, on[447] the other hand, should the small atoms have a rapidity superior to that of the large ones, since both the one and the other find everywhere an easy passage, from the very moment that no obstacle intervenes to thwart their movements? Movement from low to high, horizontal movement to and fro, in virtue of the reciprocal percussion of the atoms, movement downwards, in virtue of their weight, will be all equal, for in whatever sense the atom moves, it must have a movement as rapid as the thought, till the moment when it is repelled, in virtue of some external cause, or of its own proper weight, by the shock of some object which resists it.
“Again, even in the compound bodies, one atom does not move more rapidly than another. In fact, if one only looks at the continued movement of an atom which takes place in an indivisible moment of time, the briefest possible, they all have a movement equally rapid. At the same time, an atom has not, in any moment perceptible to the intelligence, a continued movement in the same direction; but rather a series of oscillating movements from which there results, in the last analysis, a continued movement perceptible to the senses. If then, one were to suppose, in virtue of a reasoning on things invisible, that, in the intervals of time accessible to thought, the atoms have a continued movement one would deceive one’s self, for that which is conceived by the thought is true as well as that which is directly perceived.
“Let us now return to the study of the affections, and of the sensations; for this will be the best method of proving that the soul is a bodily substance composed of slight particles, diffused over all the members of the body, and presenting a great analogy to a sort of spirit, having an admixture of heat, resembling at one time one, and at another time the other of those two principles. There exists in it a special part, endowed with an extreme mobility, in consequence of the exceeding slightness of the elements which compose it, and also in reference to its more immediate sympathy with the rest of the body. That it is which the faculties of the soul sufficiently prove, and the passions, and the mobility of its nature, and the thoughts, and, in a word, everything, the privation of which is death. We must admit that it is in the soul most especially that the principle of sensation resides. At the same time, it would not possess this power if it were not enveloped by the[448] rest of the body which communicates it to it, and in its turn receives it from it, but only in a certain measure; for there are certain affections of the soul of which it is not capable.
“It is on that account that, when the soul departs, the body is no longer possessed of sensation; for it has not this power, (that of sensation namely) in itself; but, on the other hand, this power can only manifest itself in the soul through the medium of the body. The soul, reflecting the manifestations which are accomplished in the substance which environs it, realises in itself, in a virtue or power which belongs to it, the sensible affections, and immediately communicates them to the body in virtue of the reciprocal bonds of sympathy which unite it to the body; that is the reason why the destruction of a part of the body does not draw after it a cessation of all feeling in the soul while it resides in the body, provided that the senses still preserve some energy; although, nevertheless, the dissolution of the corporeal covering, or even of any one of its portions, may sometimes bring on with it the destruction of the soul.
“The rest of the body, on the other hand, even when it remains, either as a whole, or in any part, loses all feeling by the dispersion of that aggregate of atoms, whatever it may be, that forms the soul. When the entire combination of the body is dissolved, then the soul too is dissolved, and ceases to retain those faculties which were previously inherent in it, and especially the power of motion; so that sensation perishes equally as far as the soul is concerned; for it is impossible to imagine that it still feels, from the moment when it is no longer in the same conditions of existence, and no longer possesses the same movements of existence in reference to the same organic system; from the moment, in short, when the things which cover and surround it are no longer such, that it retains in them the same movements as before.
(Epicurus expresses the same ideas in other works, and adds that the soul is composed of atoms of the most perfect lightness and roundness; atoms wholly different from those of fire. He distinguishes in it the irrational part which is diffused over the whole body, from the rational part which has its seat in the chest, as is proved by the emotions of fear and joy. He adds that sleep is produced when the parts of the soul diffused over the whole of the body concentre themselves, or when they[449] disperse and escape by the pores of the body; for particles emanate from all bodies.)
“It must also be observed, that I use the word incorporeal (ἀσώματος) in the usual acceptation of the word, to express that which is in itself conceived as such. Now, nothing can be conceived in itself as incorporeal except the vacuum; but the vacuum cannot be either passive or active; it is only the condition and the place of movement. Accordingly, they who pretend that the soul is incorporeal, utter words destitute of sense; for, if it had this character, it would not be able either to do or to suffer anything; but, as it is, we see plainly enough that it is liable to both these circumstances.
“Let us then apply all these reasonings to the affections and sensations, recollecting the ideas which we laid down at the beginning, and then we shall see clearly that these general principles contain an exact solution of all the particular cases.
“As to forms, and hues, and magnitudes, and weight, and the other qualities which one looks upon as attributes, whether it be of every body, or of those bodies only which are visible and perceived by the senses, this is the point of view under which they ought to be considered: they are not particular substances, having a peculiar existence of their own, for that cannot be conceived; nor can one say any more that they have no reality at all. They are not incorporeal substances inherent in the body, nor are they parts of the body. But they constitute by their union the eternal substance and the essence of the entire body. We must not fancy, however, that the body is composed of them, as an aggregate is formed of particles of the smallest dimensions of atoms or magnitudes, whatever they may be, smaller than the compound body itself; they only constitute by their union, I repeat, the eternal substance of the body. Each of these attributes has ideas and particular perceptions which correspond to it; but they cannot be perceived independently of the whole subject taken entirely; the union of all these perceptions forms the idea of the body. Bodies often possess other attributes which are not eternally inherent in them, but which, nevertheless, cannot be ranged among the incorporeal and invisible things. Accordingly, it is sufficient to express the general idea of the movement of transference to enable us to conceive in a moment certain distinct qualities, and those combined beings, which, being[450] taken in their totality, receive the name of bodies; and the necessary and eternal attributes without which the body cannot be conceived.
“There are certain conceptions corresponding to these attributes; but, nevertheless, they cannot be known abstractedly, and independently of some subjects; and further, inasmuch as they are not attributes necessarily inherent in the idea of a body, one can only conceive them in the moment in which they are visible; they are realities nevertheless; and one must not refuse them being an existence merely because they have neither the characteristic of the compound beings to which we give the name of bodies, nor that of the eternal attributes. We should be equally deceived if we were to suppose that they have a separate and independent existence; for that is true neither of them nor of the eternal attributes. They are, as one sees plainly, accidents of the body; accidents which do not of necessity make any part of its nature; which cannot be considered as independent substances, but still to each of which sensation gives the peculiar character under which it appears to us.
“Another important question is that of time. Here we cannot apply any more the method of examination to which we submit other objects, which we study with reference to a given subject; and which we refer to the preconceptions which exist in ourselves. We must seize, by analogy, and going round the whole circle of things comprised under this general denomination of time—we must seize, I say—that essential character which causes us to say that a time is long or short. It is not necessary for that purpose to seek for any new forms of expression as preferable to those which are in common use; we may content ourselves with those by which time is usually indicated. Nor need we, as certain philosophers do, affirm any particular attribute of time, for that would be to suppose that its essence is the same as that of this attribute. It is sufficient too seek for the ingredients of which this particular nature which we call time is composed, and for the means by which it is measured. For this we have no need of demonstration; a simple exposition is sufficient. It is, in fact, evident, that we speak of time as composed of days and nights, and parts of days and nights; passiveness and impassibility, movement and repose, are equally comprised in time. In[451] short, it is evident that in connection with these different states, we conceive a particular property to which we give the name of time.
(Epicurus lays down the same principles in the second book of his treatise on Nature, and in his great Abridgment.)
“It is from the infinite that the worlds are derived, and all the finite aggregates which present numerous analogies with the things which we observe under our own eyes. Each of these objects, great and small, has been separated from the infinite by a movement peculiar to itself. On the other hand, all these bodies will be successively destroyed, some more, and others less rapidly; some under the influence of one cause, and others because of the agency of some other.
(It is evident, after this, that Epicurus regards the worlds as perishable, since he admits that their parts are capable of transformation. He also says in other places, that the earth rests suspended in the air.)
“We must not believe that the worlds have of necessity all one identical form.
(He says, in fact, in the twelfth book of his treatise on the World, that the worlds differ from one another; some being spherical, other elliptical, and others of other shapes.)
“Nevertheless, there are not worlds of every possible form and shape.
“Let us also beware of thinking that animals are derived from the infinite; for there is no one who can prove that the germs from which animals are born, and plants, and all the other objects which we contemplate, have been brought from the exterior in such a world, and that this same world would not have been able to produce them of itself. This remark applies particularly to the earth.
“Again, we must admit that in many and various respects, nature is both instructed and constrained by circumstances themselves; and that reason subsequently makes perfect and enriches with additional discoveries the things which it has borrowed from nature; in some cases rapidly, and in others more slowly. And in some cases according to periods and times greater than those which proceed from the infinite; in other cases according to those which are smaller. So, originally it was only in virtue of express agreements that one gave names to things. But men whose ideas and passions varied[452] according to their respective nations, formed these names of their own accord, uttering divers sounds produced by each passion, or by each idea, following the differences of the situations and of the peoples. At a later period one established in each nation, in a uniform manner, particular terms intended to render the relations more easy, and language more concise. Educated men introduced the notion of things not discoverable by the senses, and appropriated words to them when they found themselves under the necessity of uttering their thoughts; after this, other men, guided in every point by reason, interpreted these words in the same sense.
“As to the heavenly phænomena, such as the motion and course of the stars, the eclipses, their rising and setting, and all other appearances of the same kind, we must beware of thinking that they are produced by any particular being which has regulated, or whose business it is to regulate, for the future, the order of the world, a being immortal and perfectly happy; for the cares and anxieties, the benevolence and the anger, far from being compatible with felicity, are, on the contrary, the consequence of weakness, of fear, and of the want which a thing has of something else. We must not fancy either that these globes of fire, which roll on in space, enjoy a perfect happiness, and give themselves, with reflection and wisdom, the motions which they possess. But we must respect the established notions on this subject, provided, nevertheless, that they do not all contradict the respect due to truth; for nothing is more calculated to trouble the soul than this strife of contradictory notions and principles. We must therefore admit that from the first movement impressed on the heavenly bodies since the organization of the world there is derived a sort of necessity which regulates their course to this day.
“Let us be well assured that it is to physiology that it belongs to determine the causes of the most elevated phænomena, and that happiness consists, above all things, in the science of the heavenly things and their nature, and in the knowledge of analogous phænomena which may aid us in the comprehension of the ethics. These heavenly phænomena admit of several explanations; they have no reason of a necessary character, and one may explain them in different manners. In a word, they have no relation—a moment’s consideration will prove[453] this by itself—with those imperishable and happy natures which admit of no division and of no confusion. As for the theoretical knowledge of the rising and setting of the stars, of the movement of the sun between the tropics, of the eclipses, and all other similar phænomena, that is utterly useless, as far as any influence upon happiness that it can have. Moreover, those who, though possessed of this knowledge, are ignorant of nature, and of the most probable causes of the phænomena, are no more protected from fear than if they were in the most complete ignorance; they even experience the most lively fears, for the trouble, with which the knowledge of which they are possessed inspires them, can find no issue, and is not dissipated by a clear perception of the reasons of these phænomena.
“As to us, we find many explanations of the motions of the sun, of the rising and setting of the stars, of the eclipses and similar phænomena, just as well as of the more particular phænomena. And one must not think that this method of explanation is not sufficient to procure happiness and tranquillity. Let us content ourselves with examining how it is that similar phænomena are brought about under our own eyes, and let us apply these observations to the heavenly objects and to everything which is not known but indirectly. Let us despise those people who are unable to distinguish facts susceptible of different explanations from others which can only exist and be explained in one single way. Let us disdain those men who do not know, by means of the different images which result from distance, how to give an account of the different appearances of things; who, in a word, are ignorant what are the objects which can excite any trouble in us. If, then, we know that such a phænomenon can be brought about in the same manner as another given phænomenon of the same character which does not inspire us with any apprehension; and if, on the other hand, we know that it can take place in many different manners, we shall not be more troubled at the sight of it than if we knew the real cause of it.
“We must also recollect that that which principally contributes to trouble the spirit of men is the persuasion which they cherish that the stars are beings imperishable and perfectly happy, and that then one’s thoughts and actions are in contradiction to the will of these superior beings; they also,[454] being deluded by these fables, apprehend an eternity of evils, they fear the insensibility of death, as that could affect them. What do I say? It is not even belief, but inconsiderateness and blindness which govern them in every thing, to such a degree that, not calculating these fears, they are just as much troubled as if they had really faith in these vain phantoms. And the real freedom from this kind of trouble consists in being emancipated from all these things, and in preserving the recollection of all the principles which we have established, especially of the most essential of them. Accordingly, it is well to pay a scrupulous attention to existing phænomena and to the sensations, to the general sensations for general things, and to the particular sensations for particular things. In a word, we must take note of this, the immediate evidence with which each of these judicial faculties furnishes us; for, if we attend to these points, namely, whence confusion and fear arise, we shall divine the causes correctly, and we shall deliver ourselves from those feelings, tracing back the heavenly phænomena to their causes, and also all the others which present themselves at every step, and inspire the common people with extreme terror.
“This, Herodotus, is a kind of summary and abridgment of the whole question of natural philosophy. So that, if this reasoning be allowed to be valid, and be preserved carefully in the memory, the man who allows himself to be influenced by it, even though he may not descend to a profound study of its details, will have a great superiority of character over other men. He will personally discover a great number of truths which I have myself set forth in my entire work; and these truths being stored in his memory, will be a constant assistance to him. By means of these principles, those who have descended into the details, and have studied the question sufficiently, will be able, in bringing in all their particular knowledge to bear on the general subject, to run over without difficulty almost the entire circle of the natural philosophy; those, on the other hand, who are not yet arrived at perfection, and who have not been able to hear me lecture on these subjects, will be able in their minds to run over the main of the essential notions, and to derive assistance from them for the tranquillity and happiness of life.”
This then is his letter on physics.
[455]
XXV. About the heavenly bodies he writes thus:—
EPICURUS TO PYTHOCLES, WISHING HE MAY DO WELL.
“Cleon has brought me your letter, in which you continue to evince towards me an affection worthy of the friendship which I have for you. You devote all your care, you tell me, to engraving in your memory those ideas which contribute to the happiness of life; and you entreat me at the same time to send you a simple abridgment and abstract of my ideas on the heavenly phænomena, in order that you may without difficulty preserve the recollection of them. For, say you, what I have written on this subject in my other works is difficult to recollect, even with continual study.
“I willingly yield to your desire, and I have good hope, that in fulfilling what you ask, I shall be useful too to many others, especially to those who are as yet novices in the real knowledge of nature, and to those to whom the perplexities and the ordinary affairs of life leave but little leisure. Be careful then to seize on those precepts thoroughly, engrave them deeply in your memory, and meditate on them with the abridgment addressed to Herodotus, which I also send you.
“Know then, that it is with the knowledge of the heavenly phænomena, both with those which are spoken of in contact with one another, and of those which have a spontaneous existence, as with every other science; it has no other aim but that freedom from anxiety, and that calmness which is derived from a firm belief.
“It is not good to desire what is impossible, and to endeavour to enunciate a uniform theory about everything; accordingly, we ought not here to adopt the method, which we have followed in our researches into Ethics, or in the solution of problems of natural philosophy. We there said, for instance, that there are no other things, except bodies and the vacuum, that the atoms are the principles of things, and so of the rest. In a word, we gave a precise and simple explanation of every fact, conformable to appearances.
“We cannot act in the same way with respect to the heavenly phænomena: these productions may depend upon several different causes, and we may give many different explanations on this subject, equally agreeing with the impressions of the senses. Besides, it is not here a question about reasoning on new principles,[456] and of laying down, à priori, rules for the interpretation of nature; the only guides for us to follow are the appearances themselves; for that which we have in view is not a set of systems and vain opinions, but much rather a life exempt from every kind of disquietude.
“The heavenly phænomena do not inspire those who give different explanations of them, conformable with appearances, instead of explaining them by hypothesis, with any alarm. But if, abandoning hypothesis, one at the same time renounces the attempt to explain them by means of analogies founded on appearances, then one is placing one’s self altogether at a distance from the science of nature, in order to fall into fables.
“It is possible that the heavenly phænomena may present some apparent characters which appear to assimilate them to those phænomena which we see taking place around ourselves, without there being any real analogy at the bottom. For the heavenly phænomena may depend for their production on many different causes; nevertheless, we must observe the appearances presented by each, and we must distinguish the different circumstances which attach to them, and which can be explained in different manners by means of analogous phænomena which arise under our eyes.
“The world is a collection of things embraced by the heaven, containing the stars, the earth, and all visible objects. This collection, separated from the infinite, is terminated by an extremity, which is either rare, or dense, or revolving, or in a state of repose, or of a round, or triangular, or of some shape or other in fact, for it may be of any shape, the dissolution of which must bring the destruction of everything which they embrace. In fact, it can take place in every sort of way, since there is not one of those things which are seen which testifies against this world in which we cannot detect any extremity; and that such worlds are infinite in number is easily seen, and also that such a world can exist both in the world and in the μετακόσμιον, as we call the space between the worlds, being a huge space made up of plenum and vacuum, but not, as some philosophers pretend, an immensity of space absolutely empty. This production of a world may be explained thus: seeds suitably appropriated to such an end may emanate either from one or from several worlds, or from the space that separates[457] them; they flow towards a particular point where they become collected together and organized; after that, other germs come to unite them together in such a way as to form a durable whole, a basis, a nucleus to which all successive additions unite themselves.
“One must not content one’s self in this question with saying, as one of the natural philosophers has done, that there is a re-union of the elements, or a violent motion in the vacuum under the influence of necessity, and that the body which is thus produced increases until it comes to crash against some other; for this doctrine is contrary to appearances.
“The sun, the moon, and the other stars, were originally formed separately, and were afterwards comprehended in the entire total of the world. All the other objects which our world comprises, for instance, the earth and the sea, were also formed spontaneously, and subsequently gained size by the addition and violent movement of light substances, composed of elements of fire and air, or even of these two principles at once. This explanation, moreover, is in accordance with the impressions of the senses.
“As to the magnitude of the sun and of the other stars, it is as far as we are concerned, such as it appears to us to be.”
(This same doctrine is reproduced, and occurs again in the eleventh book of his treatise on Nature; where he says, “If the distance has made it lose its size, à fortiori, it would take away its brilliancy; for colour has not, any more than size, the property of traversing distance without alteration.”)
“But, considered by itself, the sun may be a little greater or a little smaller than it appears; or it may be just such as it looks; for that is exactly the case with the fires of common occurrence among men, which are perceived by the senses at a distance. Besides, all the difficulties on this subject will be easily explained if one attends to the clear evidence of the perceptions, as I have shown in my books about Nature.
“The rising and setting of the sun, of the moon, and of the stars, may depend on the fact of their becoming lighted up, and extinguished alternately, and in the order which we behold. One may also give other reasons for this phænomenon, which are not contradicted by any sensible appearances; accordingly, one might explain them by the passage of the stars above and[458] below the earth, for the impressions of the senses agree also with this supposition.
“As to their motion, one may make that depend on the circular movement of the entire heaven. One may also suppose that the stars move, while the heaven itself is immoveable; for there is nothing to prevent the idea that originally, before the formation of the world, they may have received, by the appointment of fate, an impulse from east to west, and that now their movement continues in consequence of their heat, as the fire naturally proceeds onwards in order to seek the aliment which suits it.
“The intertropical movements of the sun and moon may depend, either on the obliquity impressed by fate on the heaven at certain determined epochs, or on the resistance of the air, or on the fact that these ignited bodies stand in need of being nourished by a matter suitable to their nature, and that this matter fails them; or finally, they may depend on the fact of their having originally received an impulse which compels them to move as they do describing a sort of spiral figure. The sensible evidence does not in the least contradict these different suppositions, and all those of the same kind which one can form, having always a due regard to what is possible, and bringing back each phænomenon to its analogous appearances in sensible facts, without disquieting one’s self about the miserable speculations of the astronomers.
“The evacuations and subsequent replenishings of the moon may depend either on a conversion of this body, or on the different forms which the air when in a fiery state can adopt, or perhaps to the interposition of another body, or lastly, to some one of the causes by which one gives account of the analogous phænomena which pass under our eyes. Provided, however, that one does not obstinately adopt an exclusive mode of explanation; and that, for want of knowing what is possible for a man to explain, and what is inaccessible to his intelligence; one does not throw one’s self into interminable speculations.
“It may also be possibly the case that the moon has a light of her own, or that she reflects that of the sun. For we see around us many objects which are luminous of themselves, and many others which have only a borrowed light. In a word,[459] one will not be arrested by any of the celestial phænomena, provided that one always recollects that there are many explanations possible; that one examines the principles and reasons which agree with this mode of explanation, and that one does not proceed in accounting for the facts which do not agree with this method, to suffer one’s self to be foolishly carried away, and to propose a separate explanation for each phænomenon, sometimes in one way, and sometimes in another.
“The appearance of a face in the orb of the moon, may depend either on a displacement of its parts, or on the interposition of some obstacle, or on any other cause capable of accounting for such an appearance. For one must not neglect to apply this same method to all the heavenly phænomena; for, from the moment when one comes to any point of contradiction to the evidence of the senses, it will be impossible to possess perfect tranquillity and happiness.
“The eclipses of the sun and moon may depend either on the fact that these stars extinguish themselves, a phænomenon which we often see produced under our eyes, or on the fact of other bodies, the earth, the heaven, or something else of the same kind interposing, between them and us. Besides, we must compare the different modes of explanation appropriate to phænomena, and recollect that it is not impossible that many causes may at one and the same time concur in their production.
(He says the same thing in the twelfth book of his treatise on Nature; and adds that the eclipses of the sun arise from the fact that it penetrates into the shade of the moon, to quit it again presently; and the eclipses of the moon from the fact of its entering into the shade of the earth. We also find the same doctrine asserted by Diogenes, the Epicurean, in the first book of his Select Opinions.)
“The regular and periodical march of these phænomena has nothing in it that ought to surprise us, if we only attend to the analogous facts which take place under our eyes. Above all things let us beware of making the Deity interpose here, for that being we ought to suppose exempt from all occupation and perfectly happy; otherwise we shall be only giving vain explanations of the heavenly phænomena, as has happened already to a crowd of authors. Not being able to recognize what is really possible, they have fallen into vain theories, in[460] supposing that for all phænomena there was but one single mode of production, and in rejecting all other explanations which are founded on probability; they have adopted the most unreasonable opinions, for want of placing in the front the study of the heavenly phænomena, and of sensible facts, which ought to serve to explain the first.
“The differences in the length of nights and days may arise from the fact that the passage of the sun above the earth is more or less rapid; and more or less slow, according to the length of the regions which it has to pass through. Or, again, to the fact that certain regions are passed through more rapidly than others, as is seen to be the case by our own eyes, in those things to which we can compare the heavenly phænomena. As to those who on this point admit only one explanation as possible, they put themselves in opposition to facts, and lose sight of the bounds set to human knowledge.
“The prognostics which are derived from the stars may, like those which we borrow from animals, arise from a simple coincidence. They may also have other causes, for example, some change in the air; for these two suppositions both harmonize equally with facts; but it is impossible to distinguish in what case one is to attribute them to the one cause or to the other.
“The clouds may be formed either by the air condensed under the pressure of the winds, or by the agency of atoms set apart for that end, or by emanations from the earth and waters, or by other causes. For there are a great number which are all equally able to produce this effect. When the clouds clash with one another, or undergo any transformation, they produce showers; and the long rains are caused by the motion of the clouds when moved from places suitable to them through the air, when a more violent inundation than usual takes place, from collections of some masses calculated to produce these effects.
“Thunder possibly arises from the movement of the winds revolving in the cavities of the clouds; of which we may see an image in vessels in our own daily use. It may also arise from the noise of fire acted upon by the wind in them, and from the tearings and ruptures of the clouds when they have received a sort of crystaline consistency. In a word, experience drawn from our senses, teaches us that all these phænomena,[461] and that one in particular, may be produced in many different manners.
“One may also assign different causes to the lightning; either the shock and collision of the clouds produce a fiery appearance, which is followed by lightning; or the lighting up of the clouds by the winds, produces this luminous appearance; or the mutual pressure of the clouds, or that of the wind against them, disengages the lightning. Or, one might say, that the interception of the light diffused from the stars, arrested for a time in the bosom of the clouds, is driven from them subsequently by their own movements, and by those of the winds, and so escapes from their sides; that the lightning is an extremely subtile light that evaporates from the clouds; that the clouds which carry the thunder are collected masses of fire; that the lightning arises from the motion of the fire, or from the conflagration of the wind, in consequence of the rapidity and continuousness of its motion. One may also attribute the luminous appearance of lightning to the rupture of the clouds under the action of the winds, or to the fall of inflammable atoms. Lastly, one may easily find a number of other explanations, if one applies to sensible facts, in order to search out the analogies which they present to the heavenly phænomena.
“Lightning precedes thunder, either because it is produced at the same moment that the wind falls on the cloud, while the noise is only heard at the instant when the wind has penetrated into the bosom of the cloud; or, perhaps, the two phænomena being simultaneous, the lightning arrives among us more rapidly than the noise of the thunder-bolt, as is in fact remarked in other cases when we see at a distance the clash of two objects.
“The thunderbolt may be produced either by a violent condensation of the winds, or by their rapid motion and conflagration. It may arise from the fact of the winds meeting in places which are too dense, in consequence of the accumulation of clouds, and then a portion of the current detaches itself and proceeds towards the lower situations; or else it may be caused by the fire which is contained in the bosom of the clouds precipitating itself downwards. As one may suppose that an immense quantity of fire being accumulated in the clouds dilates, violently bursting the substance which envelops it,[462] because the resistance of the centre hinders it from proceeding further. This effect is especially produced in the neighbourhood of high mountains; and, accordingly, they are very frequently struck with the thunderbolts. In short, one may give a number of explanations of the thunderbolt; but we ought, above all things, to be on our guard against fables, and this one will easily be, if one follows faithfully the sensible phænomena in the explanation of these things, which are not perceived, except indirectly.
“Hurricanes (πρηστῆρες) may be caused either by the presence of a cloud, which a violent wind sets in motion and precipitates with a spiral movement towards the lower regions, or by a violent gust which bears a cloud into the neighbourhood of some other current, or else by the mere agitation of the wind by itself, when air is brought together from the higher regions and compressed without being able to escape on either side, in consequence of the resistance of the air which surrounds it; when the hurricane descends towards the earth, then there result whirlwinds in proportion to the rapidity of the wind that has produced them; and this phænomenon extends over the sea also.
“Earthquakes may arise from the wind penetrating into the interior of the earth, or from the earth itself receiving incessantly the addition of exterior particles, and being in incessant motion as to its constituent atoms, being in consequence disposed to a general vibration. That which permits the wind to penetrate is the fact that falls take place in the interior, or that the air being impressed by the winds insinuates itself into the subterraneous caverns. The movement which numberless falls and the re-action of the earth communicate to the earth, when this motion meets bodies of greater resistance and solidity, is sufficient to explain the earthquakes. One might, however, give an account of them in several other ways.
“Winds are caused, either by the successive and regular addition of some foreign matter, or else by the re-union of a great quantity of water; and the differences of the winds may arise from the fact that some portions of this same matter fall into the numerous cavities of the earth, and are divided there.
“Hail is produced by an energetic condensation acting on[463] the ethereal particles which the cold embraces in every direction; or, in consequence of a less violent condensation acting however on aqueous particles, and accompanied by division, in such a manner as to produce, at the same time, the re-union of certain elements and of the collective masses; or by the rupture of some dense and compact mass which would explain at the same time, the numerousness of the particles and their individual hardness. As to the spherical form of the hail, one may easily account for that by admitting that the shocks which it receives in every direction make all the angles disappear, or else that at the moment when the different fragments are formed, each of them is equally embraced on all sides by aqueous or ethereal particles.
“Snow may be produced by a light vapour full of moisture which the clouds allow to escape by passages intended for that end, when they are pressed, in a corresponding manner, by other clouds, and set in motion by the wind. Subsequently, these vapours become condensed in their progress under the action of the cold which surrounds the clouds in the lower regions. It may also be the case that this phænomenon is produced by clouds of a slight density as they become condensed. In this case the snow which escapes from the clouds would be the result of the contact, or approximation of the aqueous particles, which in a still more condensed state produce hail. This effect is most especially produced in the air. Snow, again, may result from the collection of clouds previously condensed and solidified; or from a whole army of other causes.
“Dew proceeds from a re-union of particles contained in the air calculated to produce this moist substance. These particles may be also brought from places which are moist or covered with water (for in those places, above all others, it is that dew is abundant). These then re-unite, again resume their aqueous form, and fall down. The same phænomenon takes place in other cases before our own eyes under many analogies.
“Hoar-frost is dew congealed by the influence of the cold air that surrounds it.
“Ice is formed either by the detrition of round atoms contained in the water, and the re-union at scalene and acute angles of the atoms which exist in the water, or by an addition from without of these latter particles, which penetrating into[464] the water, solidify it by driving away an equal amount of round atoms.
“The rainbow may be produced by the reflection of the solar rays on the moist air; or it may arise from a particular property of light and air, in virtue of which these particular appearances of colour are formed, either because the shades which we perceive result directly from this property, or because, on the contrary, it only produces one single shade, which, reflecting itself on the nearest portions of the air, communicates to them the tints which we observe. As to the circular form of the rainbow, that depends either on the fact of the sight perceiving an equal distance in every direction, or the fact of the atoms taking this form when re-uniting in the air; or it may be caused by its detaching from the air which moves towards the moon, certain atoms which, being re-united in the clouds, give rise to this circular appearance.
“The lunar halo arises from the fact of the air, which moves towards the moon from all quarters, uniformly intercepting the rays emitted by this star, in such a way as to form around it a sort of circular cloud which partially veils it. It may also arise from the fact of the moon uniformly rejecting from all quarters, the air which surrounds it, in such a manner as to produce this circular and opaque covering. And perhaps this opaqueness may be caused by some particles which some current brings from without; perhaps also, the heat communicates to the moon the property of emitting by the pores in its surface, the particles by which this effect is produced.
“Comets arise either from the fact, that in the circumstances already stated, there are partial conflagrations in certain points of the heaven; or, that at certain periods, the heaven has above our heads a particular movement which causes them to appear. It may also be the case, that being themselves endowed with a peculiar movement, they advance at the end of certain periods of time, and in consequence of particular circumstances, towards the places which we inhabit. The opposite reasons explain their disappearance.
“Certain stars return to the same point in accomplishing their revolutions; and this arises, not only as has been sometimes believed, from the fact of the pole of the world, around which they move, being immoveable, but also from the fact that the gyrations of the air which surrounds them, hinder[465] them from deviations like the wandering stars. Perhaps also, this may be caused by the fact, that except in the route in which they move, and in which we perceive them, they do not find any material suitable to their nature. One may also explain this phænomenon in many other manners, reasoning according to sensible facts; thus, it is possible that certain stars may be wandering because that is the nature of their movements, and, for the same reason, others may be immoveable. It is also possible, that the same necessity which has originally given them their circular movement, may have compelled some to follow their orbit regularly, and have subjected others to an irregular progress; we may also suppose that the uniform character of the centre which certain stars traverse favour their regular march, and their return to a certain; and that in the case of others, on the contrary, the differences of the centre produce the changes which we observe. Besides, to assign one single cause to all these phænomena, when the experience of our senses suggests us several, is folly. It is the conduct of ignorant astronomers covetous of a vain knowledge, who, assigning imaginary causes to facts, wish to leave wholly to the Deity the care of the government of the universe.
“Some stars appear to be left behind by others in their progress; this arises either from the fact of their having a slower motion, though traversing the same circle; or, because, though they are drawn on by the same propelling power, they have, nevertheless, a movement proper to themselves in a contrary direction; or it may be caused by the fact that, though all are placed in the same sphere of movement, still some have more space to traverse, and others less. To give one uniform and positive explanation of all these facts, is not consistent with the conduct of any people but those who love to flash prodigies in the eyes of the multitude.
“Falling stars may be particles detached from the stars, or fragments resulting from their collision; they may also be produced by the fall of substances which are set on fire by the action of the wind; by the re-union of inflammable atoms which are made to come together so as to produce this effect by a sort of reciprocal attraction; or else by the movement which is produced in consequence of the re-union of atoms in the very place where they meet. It may also happen that the light vapours re-unite and become condensed under the[466] form of clouds, that they then take fire in consequence of their rotatory motion, and that, bursting the obstacles which surround them, they proceed towards the places whither the force by which they are animated drags them. In short, this phænomenon also may admit of a great number of explanations.
“The presages which are drawn from certain animals arise from a fortuitous concourse of circumstances; for there is no necessary connection between certain animals and winter. They do not produce it; nor is there any divine nature sitting aloft watching the exits of these animals, and then accomplishing signs of this kind. Nor can such folly as this occur to any being who is even moderately comfortable, much less to one which is possessed of perfect happiness.
“Imprint all these precepts in your memory, O Pythocles, and so you will easily escape fables, and it will be easy for you to discover other truths analogous to these. Above all, apply yourself to the study of general principles, of the infinite, and of questions of this kind, and to the investigation of the different criteria and of the passions, and to the study of the chief good, with a view to which we prosecute all our researches. When these questions are once resolved, all particular difficulties will be made plain to you. As to those who will not apply themselves to these principles, they will neither be able to give a good explanation of these same questions, nor to reach that end to which all our researches tend.”
XXVI. Such are his sentiments on the heavenly phænomena. But concerning the rules of life, and how we ought to choose some things, and avoid others, he writes thus. But first of all, let us go through the opinions which he held, and his disciples held about the wise man.
He said that injuries existed among men, either in consequence of hatred, or of envy, or of contempt, all which the wise man overcomes by reason. Also, that a man who has once been wise can never receive the contrary disposition, nor can he of his own accord invent such a state of things as that he should be subjected to the dominion of the passions; nor can he hinder himself in his progress towards wisdom. That the wise man, however, cannot exist in every state of body, nor in every nation. That even if the wise man were to be put to the torture, he would still be happy. That the wise man will only feel gratitude to his friends, but to them equally[467] whether they are present or absent. Nor will he groan and howl when he is put to the torture. Nor will he marry a wife whom the laws forbid, as Diogenes says, in his epitome of the Ethical Maxims of Epicurus. He will punish his servants, but also pity them, and show indulgence to any that are virtuous. They do not think that the wise man will ever be in love, nor that he will be anxious about his burial, nor that love is a passion inspired by the Gods, as Diogenes says in his twelfth book. They also assert that he will be indifferent to the study of oratory. Marriage, say they, is never any good to a man, and we must be quite content if it does no harm; and the wise man will never marry or beget children, as Epicurus himself lays it down, in his Doubts and in his treatises on Nature. Still, under certain circumstances of life, he will forsake these rules and marry. Nor will he ever indulge in drunkenness, says Epicurus, in his Banquet, nor will he entangle himself in affairs of state (as he says in his first book on Lives). Nor will he become a tyrant. Nor will he become a Cynic (as he says in his second book about Lives). Nor a beggar. And even, though he should lose his eyes, he will still partake of life (as he says in the same book).
The wise man will be subject to grief, as Diogenes says, in the fifth book of his Select Opinions; he will also not object to go to law. He will leave books and memorials of himself behind him, but he will not be fond of frequenting assemblies. He will take care of his property, and provide for the future. He will like being in the country, he will resist fortune, and will grieve none of his friends. He will show a regard for a fair reputation to such an extent as to avoid being despised; and he will find more pleasure than other men in speculations.
All faults are not equal. Health is good for some people, but a matter of indifference to others. Courage is a quality which does not exist by nature, but which is engendered by a consideration of what is suitable. Friendship is caused by one’s wants; but it must be begun on our side. For we sow the earth; and friendship arises from a community of, and participation in, pleasures. Happiness must be understood in two senses; the highest happiness, such as is that of God, which admits of no increase; and another kind, which admits of the addition or abstraction of pleasures. The wise man may raise statues if it suits his inclination, if it does not it does[468] not signify. The wise man is the only person who can converse correctly about music and poetry; and he can realise poems, but not become a poet.
It is possible for one wise man to be wiser than another. The wise man will also, if he is in need, earn money, but only by his wisdom; he will propitiate an absolute ruler when occasion requires, and will humour him for the sake of correcting his habits; he will have a school, but not on such a system as to draw a crowd about him; he will also recite in a multitude, but that will be against his inclination; he will pronounce dogmas, and will express no doubts; he will be the same man asleep and awake; and he will be willing even to die for a friend.
These are the Epicurean doctrines.
XXVII. We must now proceed to his letter:—
EPICURUS TO MENŒCEUS, GREETING
“Let no one delay to study philosophy while he is young, and when he is old let him not become weary of the study; for no man can ever find the time unsuitable or too late to study the health of his soul. And he who asserts either that it is not yet time to philosophize, or that the hour is passed, is like a man who should say that the time is not yet come to be happy, or that it is too late. So that both young and old should study philosophy, the one in order that, when he is old, he may be young in good things through the pleasing recollection of the past, and the other in order that he may be at the same time both young and old, in consequence of his absence of fear for the future.
“It is right then for a man to consider the things which produce happiness, since, if happiness is present, we have everything, and when it is absent, we do everything with a view to possess it. Now, what I have constantly recommended to you, these things I would have you do and practise, considering them to be the elements of living well. First of all, believe that God is a being incorruptible and happy, as the common opinion of the world about God dictates; and attach to your idea of him nothing which is inconsistent with incorruptibility or with happiness; and think that he is invested with everything which is able to preserve to him this happiness, in conjunction with incorruptibility. For there are Gods; for[469] our knowledge of them is indistinct. But they are not of the character which people in general attribute to them; for they do not pay a respect to them which accords with the ideas that they entertain of them. And that man is not impious who discards the Gods believed in by the many, but he who applies to the Gods the opinions entertained of them by the many. For the assertions of the many about the Gods are not anticipations (προλήψεις), but false opinions (ὑπολήψεις). And in consequence of these, the greatest evils which befall wicked men, and the benefits which are conferred on the good, are all attributed to the Gods; for they connect all their ideas of them with a comparison of human virtues, and everything which is different from human qualities, they regard as incompatible with the divine nature.
“Accustom yourself also to think death a matter with which we are not at all concerned, since all good and all evil is in sensation, and since death is only the privation of sensation. On which account, the correct knowledge of the fact that death is no concern of ours, makes the mortality of life pleasant to us, inasmuch as it sets forth no illimitable time, but relieves us for the longing for immortality. For there is nothing terrible in living to a man who rightly comprehends that there is nothing terrible in ceasing to live; so that he was a silly man who said that he feared death, not because it would grieve him when it was present, but because it did grieve him while it was future. For it is very absurd that that which does not distress a man when it is present, should afflict him when only expected. Therefore, the most formidable of all evils, death, is nothing to us, since, when we exist, death is not present to us; and when death is present, then we have no existence. It is no concern then either of the living or of the dead; since to the one it has no existence, and the other class has no existence itself. But people in general, at times flee from death as the greatest of evils, and at times wish for it as a rest from the evils in life. Nor is the not living a thing feared, since living is not connected with it: nor does the wise man think not living an evil; but, just as he chooses food, not preferring that which is most abundant, but that which is nicest; so too, he enjoys time, not measuring it as to whether it is of the greatest length, but as to whether it is most agreeable. And he who enjoins a young man to live well, and an[470] old man to die well, is a simpleton, not only because of the constantly delightful nature of life, but also because the care to live well is identical with the care to die well. And he was still more wrong who said:—
“’Tis well to taste of life, and then when born
To pass with quickness to the shades below.[142]
“For if this really was his opinion why did he not quit life? for it was easily in his power to do so, if it really was his belief. But if he was joking, then he was talking foolishly in a case where it ought not to be allowed; and, we must recollect, that the future is not our own, nor, on the other hand, is it wholly not our own, I mean so that we can never altogether await it with a feeling of certainty that it will be, nor altogether despair of it as what will never be. And we must consider that some of the passions are natural, and some empty; and of the natural ones some are necessary, and some merely natural. And of the necessary ones some are necessary to happiness, and others, with regard to the exemption of the body, from trouble; and others with respect to living itself; for a correct theory, with regard to these things, can refer all choice and avoidance to the health of the body and the freedom from disquietude of the soul. Since this is the end of living happily; for it is for the sake of this that we do everything, wishing to avoid grief and fear; and when once this is the case, with respect to us, then the storm of the soul is, as I may say, put an end to; since the animal is unable to go as if to something deficient, and to seek something different from that by which the good of the soul and body will be perfected.
“For then we have need of pleasure when we grieve, because pleasure is not present; but when we do not grieve, then we have no need of pleasure; and on this account, we affirm, that pleasure is the beginning and end of living happily; for we have recognized this as the first good, being connate with us; and with reference to it, it is that we begin every choice and avoidance; and to this we come as if we judged of all good by passion as the standard; and, since this is the first good and connate with us, on this account we do not choose every pleasure, but at times we pass over many pleasures when any difficulty is likely to ensue from them; and we think many[471] pains better than pleasures, when a greater pleasure follows them, if we endure the pain for a time.
“Every pleasure is therefore a good on account of its own nature, but it does not follow that every pleasure is worthy of being chosen; just as every pain is an evil, and yet every pain must not be avoided. But it is right to estimate all these things by the measurement and view of what is suitable and unsuitable; for at times we may feel the good as an evil, and at times, on the contrary, we may feel the evil as good. And, we think, contentment a great good, not in order that we may never have but a little, but in order that, if we have not much, we may make use of a little, being genuinely persuaded that those men enjoy luxury most completely who are the best able to do without it; and that everything which is natural is easily provided, and what is useless is not easily procured. And simple flavours give as much pleasure as costly fare, when everything that can give pain, and every feeling of want, is removed; and corn and water give the most extreme pleasure when any one in need eats them. To accustom one’s self, therefore, to simple and inexpensive habits is a great ingredient in the perfecting of health, and makes a man free from hesitation with respect to the necessary uses of life. And when we, on certain occasions, fall in with more sumptuous fare, it makes us in a better disposition towards it, and renders us fearless with respect to fortune. When, therefore, we say that pleasure is a chief good, we are not speaking of the pleasures of the debauched man, or those which lie in sensual enjoyment, as some think who are ignorant, and who do not entertain our opinions, or else interpret them perversely; but we mean the freedom of the body from pain, and of the soul from confusion. For it is not continued drinkings and revels, or the enjoyment of female society, or feasts of fish and other such things, as a costly table supplies, that make life pleasant, but sober contemplation, which examines into the reasons for all choice and avoidance, and which puts to flight the vain opinions from which the greater part of the confusion arises which troubles the soul.
“Now, the beginning and the greatest good of all these things is prudence, on which account prudence is something more valuable than even philosophy, inasmuch as all the other virtues spring from it, teaching us that it is not possible to[472] live pleasantly unless one also lives prudently, and honourably, and justly; and that one cannot live prudently, and honestly, and justly, without living pleasantly; for the virtues are connate with living agreeably, and living agreeably is inseparable from the virtues. Since, who can you think better than that man who has holy opinions respecting the Gods, and who is utterly fearless with respect to death, and who has properly contemplated the end of nature, and who comprehends that the chief good is easily perfected and easily provided; and the greatest evil lasts but a short period, and causes but brief pain. And who has no belief in necessity, which is set up by some as the mistress of all things, but he refers some things to fortune, some to ourselves, because necessity is an irresponsible power, and because he sees that fortune is unstable, while our own will is free; and this freedom constitutes, in our case, a responsibility which makes us encounter blame and praise. Since it would be better to follow the fables about the Gods than to be a slave to the fate of the natural philosopher; for the fables which are told give us a sketch, as if we could avert the wrath of God by paying him honour; but the other presents us with necessity who is inexorable.
“And he, not thinking fortune a goddess, as the generality esteem her (for nothing is done at random by a God), nor a cause which no man can rely on, for he thinks that good or evil is not given by her to men so as to make them live happily, but that the principles of great goods or great evils are supplied by her; thinking it better to be unfortunate in accordance with reason, than to be fortunate irrationally; for that those actions which are judged to be the best, are rightly done in consequence of reason.
“Do you then study these precepts, and those which are akin to them, by all means day and night, pondering on them by yourself, and discussing them with any one like yourself, and then you will never be disturbed by either sleeping or waking fancies, but you will live like a God among men; for a man living amid immortal Gods, is in no respect like a mortal being.”
In other works, he discards divination; and also in his Little Epitome. And he says divination has no existence;[473] but, if it has any, still we should think that what happens according to it is nothing to us.
These are his sentiments about the things which concern the life of man, and he has discussed them at greater length elsewhere.
XXVIII. Now, he differs with the Cyrenaics about pleasure. For they do not admit that to be pleasure which exists as a condition, but place it wholly in motion. He, however, admits both kinds to be pleasure, namely, that of the soul, and that of the body, as he says in his treatise on Choice and Avoidance; and also in his work on the Chief Good; and in the first book of his treatise on Lives, and in his Letter against the Mitylenian Philosophers. And in the same spirit, Diogenes, in the seventeenth book of his Select Discourses, and Metrodorus, in his Timocrates, speak thus. “But when pleasure is understood, I mean both that which exists in motion, and that which is a state.…” And Epicurus, in his treatise on Choice, speaks thus: “Now, freedom from disquietude, and freedom from pain, are states of pleasure; but joy and cheerfulness are beheld in motion and energy.”
XXIX. For they make out the pains of the body to be worse than those of the mind; accordingly, those who do wrong, are punished in the body. But he considers the pains of the soul the worst; for that the flesh is only sensible to present affliction, but the soul feels the past, the present, and the future. Therefore, in the same manner, he contends that the pleasures of the soul are greater than those of the body; and he uses as a proof that pleasure is the chief good, the fact that all animals from the moment of their birth are delighted with pleasure, and are offended with pain by their natural instinct, and without the employment of reason. Therefore, too, we, of our own inclination, flee from pain; so that Hercules, when devoured by his poisoned tunic, cries out:—
Shouting and groaning, and the rocks around
Re-echoed his sad wails, the mountain heights
Of Locrian lands, and sad Eubœa’s hills.[143]
XXX. And we choose the virtues for the sake of pleasure, and not on their own account; just as we seek the skill of the physician for the sake of health, as Diogenes says, in the[474] twentieth book of his Select Discourses, where he also calls virtue a way of passing one’s life (διαγωγή). But Epicurus says, that virtue alone is inseparable from pleasure, but that every thing else may be separated from it as mortal.
XXXI. Let us, however, now add the finishing stroke, as one may say, to this whole treatise, and to the life of the philosopher; giving some of his fundamental maxims, and closing the whole work with them, taking that for our end which is the beginning of happiness.
1. “That which is happy and imperishable, neither has trouble itself, nor does it cause it to anything; so that it is not subject to the feelings of either anger or gratitude; for these feelings only exist in what is weak.
(In other passages he says that the Gods are speculated on by reason, some existing according to number, and others according to some similarity of form, arising from the continual flowing on of similar images, perfected for this very purpose in human form.)
2. “Death is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved is devoid of sensation, and that which is devoid of sensation is nothing to us.
3. “The limit of the greatness of the pleasures is the removal of everything which can give pain. And where pleasure is, as long as it lasts, that which gives pain, or that which feels pain, or both of them, are absent.
4. “Pain does not abide continuously in the flesh, but in its extremity it is present only a very short time. That pain which only just exceeds the pleasure in the flesh, does not last many days. But long diseases have in them more that is pleasant than painful to the flesh.
5. “It is not possible to live pleasantly without living prudently, and honourably, and justly; nor to live prudently, and honourably, and justly, without living pleasantly. But he to whom it does not happen to live prudently, honourably, and justly, cannot possibly live pleasantly.
6. “For the sake of feeling confidence and security with regard to men, and not with reference to the nature of government and kingly power being a good, some men have wished to be eminent and powerful, in order that others might attain this feeling by their means; thinking that so they would secure safety as far as men are concerned. So that, if the life of[475] such men is safe, they have attained to the nature of good; but if it is not safe, then they have failed in obtaining that for the sake of which they originally desired power according to the order of nature.[144]
7. “No pleasure is intrinsically bad: but the efficient causes of some pleasures bring with them a great many perturbations of pleasure.
8. “If every pleasure were condensed, if one may so say, and if each lasted long, and affected the whole body, or the essential parts of it, then there would be no difference between one pleasure and another.
9. “If those things which make the pleasures of debauched men, put an end to the fears of the mind, and to those which arise about the heavenly bodies, and death, and pain; and if they taught us what ought to be the limit of our desires, we should have no pretence for blaming those who wholly devote themselves to pleasure, and who never feel any pain or grief (which is the chief evil) from any quarter.
10. “If apprehensions relating to the heavenly bodies did not disturb us, and if the terrors of death have no concern with us, and if we had the courage to contemplate the boundaries of pain and of the desires, we should have no need of physiological studies.
11. “It would not be possible for a person to banish all fear about those things which are called most essential, unless he knew what is the nature of the universe, or if he had any idea that the fables told about it could be true; and therefore, it is, that a person cannot enjoy unmixed pleasure without physiological knowledge.
12. “It would be no good for a man to secure himself safety as far as men are concerned, while in a state of apprehension as to all the heavenly bodies, and those under the earth, and in short, all those in the infinite.
13. “Irresistible power and great wealth may, up to a certain point, give us security as far as men are concerned; but the security of men in general depends upon the tranquillity of their souls, and their freedom from ambition.
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14. “The riches of nature are defined and easily procurable; but vain desires are insatiable.
15. “The wise man is but little favoured by fortune; but his reason procures him the greatest and most valuable goods, and these he does enjoy, and will enjoy the whole of his life.
16. “The just man is the freest of all men from disquietude; but the unjust man is a perpetual prey to it.
17. “Pleasure in the flesh is not increased, when once the pain arising from want is removed; it is only diversified.
18. “The most perfect happiness of the soul depends on these reflections, and on opinions of a similar character on all those questions which cause the greatest alarm to the mind.
19. “Infinite and finite time both have equal pleasure, if any one measures its limits by reason.
20. “If the flesh could experience boundless pleasure, it would want to dispose of eternity.[145]
21. “But reason, enabling us to conceive the end and dissolution of the body, and liberating us from the fears relative to eternity, procures for us all the happiness of which life is capable, so completely that we have no further occasion to include eternity in our desires. In this disposition of mind, man is happy even when his troubles engage him to quit life; and to die thus, is for him only to interrupt a life of happiness.
22. “He who is acquainted with the limits of life knows, that that which removes the pain which arises from want, and which makes the whole of life perfect, is easily procurable; so that he has no need of those things which can only be attained with trouble.
23. “But as to the subsisting end, we ought to consider it with all the clearness and evidence which we refer to whatever we think and believe; otherwise, all things will be full of confusion and uncertainty of judgment.
24. “If you resist all the senses, you will not even have anything left to which you can refer, or by which you may be able to judge of the falsehood of the senses which you condemn.
25. “If you simply discard one sense, and do not distinguish between the different elements of the judgment, so as to know[477] on the one hand, the induction which goes beyond the actual sensation, or, on the other, the actual and immediate notion; the affections, and all the conceptions of the mind which lean directly on the sensible representation, you will be imputing trouble into the other sense, and destroying in that quarter every species of criterion.
26. “If you allow equal authority to the ideas, which, being only inductive, require to be verified, and to those which bear about them an immediate certainty, you will not escape error; for you will be confounding doubtful opinions with those which are not doubtful, and true judgments with those of a different character.
27. “If, on every occasion, we do not refer every one of our actions to the chief end of nature, if we turn aside from that to seek or avoid some other object, there will be a want of agreement between our words and our actions.
28. “Of all the things which wisdom provides for the happiness of the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friendship.
29. “The same opinion encourages man to trust that no evil will be everlasting, or even of long duration; as it sees that, in the space of life allotted to us, the protection of friendship is most sure and trustworthy.
30. “Of the desires, some are natural and necessary, some natural, but not necessary, and some are neither natural nor necessary, but owe their existence to vain opinions.”
(Epicurus thinks that those are natural and necessary which put an end to pains, as drink when one is thirsty; and that those are natural but not necessary which only diversify pleasure, but do not remove pain, such as expensive food; and that these are neither natural nor necessary, which are such as crowns, or the erection of statues.)
31. “Those desires which do not lead to pain, if they are not satisfied, are not necessary. It is easy to impose silence on them when they appear difficult to gratify, or likely to produce injury.
32. “When the natural desires, the failing to satisfy which is, nevertheless, not painful, are violent and obstinate, it is a proof that there is an admixture of vain opinion in them; for then energy does not arise from their own nature, but from the vain opinions of men.
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33. “Natural justice is a covenant of what is suitable, leading men to avoid injuring one another, and being injured.
34. “Those animals which are unable to enter into an argument of this nature, or to guard against doing or sustaining mutual injury, have no such thing as justice or injustice. And the case is the same with those nations, the members of which are either unwilling or unable to enter into a covenant to respect their mutual interests.
35. “Justice has no independent existence; it results from mutual contracts, and establishes itself wherever there is a mutual engagement to guard against doing or sustaining mutual injury.
36. “Injustice is not intrinsically bad; it has this character only because there is joined with it a fear of not escaping those who are appointed to punish actions marked with that character.
37. “It is not possible for a man who secretly does anything in contravention of the agreement which men have made with one another, to guard against doing, or sustaining mutual injury, to believe that he shall always escape notice, even if he have escaped notice already ten thousand times; for, till his death, it is uncertain whether he will not be detected.
38. “In a general point of view, justice is the same thing to every one; for there is something advantageous in mutual society. Nevertheless, the difference of place, and divers other circumstances, make justice vary.
39. “From the moment that a thing declared just by the law is generally recognized as useful for the mutual relations of men, it becomes really just, whether it is universally regarded as such or not.
40. “But if, on the contrary, a thing established by law is not really useful for the social relations, then it is not just; and if that which was just, inasmuch as it was useful, loses this character, after having been for some time considered so, it is not less true that, during that time, it was really just, at least for those who do not perplex themselves about vain words, but who prefer, in every case, examining and judging for themselves.
41. “When, without any fresh circumstances arising, a thing which has been declared just in practice does not agree with the impressions of reason, that is a proof that the thing[479] was not really just. In the same way, when in consequence of new circumstances, a thing which has been pronounced just does not any longer appear to agree with utility, the thing which was just, inasmuch as it was useful to the social relations and intercourse of mankind, ceases to be just the moment when it ceases to be useful.
42. “He who desires to live tranquilly without having any thing to fear from other men, ought to make himself friends; those whom he cannot make friends of, he should, at least, avoid rendering enemies; and if that is not in his power, he should, as far as possible, avoid all intercourse with them, and keep them aloof, as far as it is for his interest to do so.
43. “The happiest men are they who have arrived at the point of having nothing to fear from those who surround them. Such men live with one another most agreeably, having the firmest grounds of confidence in one another, enjoying the advantages of friendship in all their fulness, and not lamenting, as a pitiable circumstance, the premature death of their friends.”
[480]
[1]“The religion of the ancient Persians was the worship of fire or of the elements, in which fire was symbolical of the Deity. At a later period, in the time of the Greeks, the ancient worship was changed into the adoration of the stars (Sabæism), especially of the sun and of the morning star. This religion was distinguished by a simple and majestic character. Its priests were called Magi.”—Tenneman’s Manual of the History of Philosophy, Introd. § 70.
[2]“The Chaldæans were devoted to the worship of the stars and to astrology; the nature of their climate and country disposing them to it. The worship of the stars was revived by them and widely disseminated even subsequently to the Christian era.”—Ibid. § 71.
[3]“Cicero speaks of those who in India are accounted philosophers, living naked and enduring the greatest severity of winter without betraying any feeling of pain, and displaying the same insensibility when exposed to the flames.”—Tusc. Quæst. v. 27.
[4]“The religion of the Britons was one of the most considerable parts of their government, and the Druids who were their priests, possessed great authority among them. Besides ministering at the altar, and directing all religious duties, they presided over the education of youth; they possessed both the civil and criminal jurisdiction, they decided all controversies among states as well as among private persons, and whoever refused to submit to their decree was exposed to the most severe penalties. The sentence of excommunication was pronounced against him; he was forbidden access to the sacrifices of public worship; he was debarred all intercourse with his fellow citizens even in the common affairs of life: his company was universally shunned as profane and dangerous, he was refused the protection of law, and death itself became an acceptable relief from the misery and infamy to which he was exposed. Thus the bonds of government, which were naturally loose among that rude and turbulent people, were happily corroborated by the terrors of their superstition.
“No species of superstition was ever more terrible than that of the Druids; besides the several penalties which it was in the power of the ecclesiastics to inflict in this world, they inculcated the eternal transmigration of souls, and thereby extended their authority as far as the fears of their timorous votaries. They practised their rites in dark groves or other secret recesses, and in order to throw a greater mystery over their religion, they communicated their doctrines only to the initiated, and strictly forbade the committing of them to writing, lest they should at any time be exposed to the examination of the profane and vulgar. Human sacrifices were practised among them; the spoils of war were often devoted to their divinities, and they punished with the severest tortures whoever dared to secrete any part of the consecrated offering. These treasures they kept secreted in woods and forests, secured by no other guard than the terrors of their religion; and their steady conquest over human avidity may be regarded as more signal than their prompting men to the most extraordinary and most violent efforts. No idolatrous worship ever attained such an ascendant over mankind as that of the ancient Gauls and Britons. And the Romans after their conquest, finding it impossible to reconcile those nations to the laws and institutions of their masters while it maintained its authority, were at last obliged to abolish it by penal statutes, a violence which had never in any other instance been resorted to by those tolerating conquerors.”—Hume’s History of England, chap. 1. § 1.
[5]“Zamolxis, or Zalmoxis, so called from the bear-skin (ζάλμος) in which he was wrapped as soon as he was born, was a Getan, and a slave of Pythagoras at Samos; having been emancipated by his master, he travelled into Egypt; and on his return to his own country he introduced the ideas which he had acquired in his travels on the subject of civilisation, religion, and the immortality of the soul. He was made priest of the chief deity among the Getæ, and was afterwards himself worshipped as a divine person. He was said to have lived in a subterraneous cavern for three years, and after that to have re-appeared among his countrymen.” Herodotus, however, who records these stories (iv. 95), expresses his disbelief of them, placing him before the time of Pythagoras by many years, and seems to incline to the belief that he was an indigenous Getan deity.
[6]The real time of Zoroaster is, as may be supposed, very uncertain, but he is said by some eminent writers to have lived in the time of Darius Hystaspes; though others, apparently on better grounds, place him at a very far earlier date. He is not mentioned by Herodotus at all. His native country too is very uncertain. Some writers, among whom are Ctesias and Ammian, call him a Bactrian, while Porphyry speaks of him as a Chaldæan, and Pliny as a native of Proconnesus;—Niebuhr considers him a purely mythical personage. The great and fundamental article of the system (of the Persian theology) was the celebrated doctrine of the two principles; a bold and injudicious attempt of Eastern philosophy to reconcile the existence of moral and physical evil with the attributes of a beneficent Creator and governor of the world. The first and original being, in whom, or by whom the universe exists, is denominated, in the writings of Zoroaster, Time without bounds.… From either the blind or the intelligent operation of this infinite Time, which bears but too near an affinity to the Chaos of the Greeks, the two secondary but active principles of the universe were from all eternity produced; Ormusd and Ahriman, each of them possessed of the powers of creation, but each disposed by his invariable nature to exercise them with different designs; the principle of good is eternally absorbed in light, the principle of evil is eternally buried in darkness. The wise benevolence of Ormusd formed man capable of virtue, and abundantly provided his fair habitation with the materials of happiness. By his vigilant providence the motion of the planets, the order of the seasons, and the temperate mixture of the elements are preserved. But the maker of Ahriman has long since pierced Ormusd’s Egg, or in other words, has violated the harmony of his works. Since that fatal irruption, the most minute articles of good and evil are intimately intermingled and agitated together; the rankest poisons spring up among the most salutary plants; deluges, earthquakes, and conflagrations attest the conflict of nature, and the little world of man is perpetually shaken by vice and misfortune. While the rest of mankind are led away captives in the chains of their infernal enemy, the faithful Persian alone reserves his religious adoration for his friend and protector Ormusd, and fights under his banner of light, in the full confidence that he shall, in the last day, share the glory of his triumph. At that decisive period, the enlightened wisdom of goodness will render the power of Ormusd superior to the furious malice of his rival; Ahriman and his followers, disarmed and subdued, will sink into their native darkness, and virtue will maintain the eternal peace and harmony of the universe.… As a legislator, Zoroaster “discovered a liberal concern for the public and private happiness seldom to be found among the visionary schemes of superstition. Fasting and celibacy, the common means of purchasing the divine favour, he condemns with abhorrence, as a criminal rejection of the best gifts of Providence.”—Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, c. viii.
[7]This is the account given by Virgil—
Spretæ Ciconum quo munere matres
Inter sacra Deûm nocturnique orgia Bacchi,
Discerptum latos juvenem sparsere per agros.—Georg. iv. 520.
Which Dryden translates—
The Thracian matrons who the youth accus’d,
Of love disdain’d and marriage rites refus’d;
With furies and nocturnal orgies fir’d,
At length against his sacred life conspir’d;
Whom ev’n the savage beasts had spar’d they kill’d,
And strew’d his mangled limbs about the field.
[8]This was the temple of the national deity of the Ionians, Neptune Heliconius, on Mount Mycale.—Vide Smith, Dict. Gr. and Rom. Antiq.
[9]Vide Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, ii. p. 34.
[10]One of the Sporades.
[11]An island near Crete.
[12]Hom. Il. 2. 671. Dryden’s Version.
[13]Vide Herod. lib. 1. c. 30-33.
[14]A drachma was something less than ten pence.
[15]“Ἔνη καὶ νέα the last day of the month: elsewhere τριανιὰς. So called for this reason. The old Greek year was lunar; now the moon’s monthly orbit is twenty-nine and a half days. So that if the first month began with the sun and moon together at sunrise, at the month’s end it would be sunset; and the second month would begin at sunset. To prevent this irregularity, Solon made the latter half day belong to the first month; so that this thirtieth day consisted of two halves, one belonging to the old, the other to the new moon. And when the lunar month fell into disuse, the last day of the calendar month was still called Ἔνη καὶ νέα.”—L. & S. Greek Lexicon, in v. ἔνος.
[16]Herodotus mentions the case of Periander’s children, iii. 50, and the death of his wife, and his burning the clothes of all the Corinthian women, v. 92.
[17]Some propose to read καρπὸν, fruit, instead of καπνὸν, smoke, here; others explain this saying as meaning that the Greeks avoided houses on the hills in order not to be annoyed with the smoke from the low cottage, and yet did not use coal, but wood, which would make more smoke.
[18]This refers to the result of the war which Antipater, who became regent of Macedonia on the death of Alexander the Great, carried on against the confederacy of Greek states, of which Athens was the head; and in which, after having defeated them at Cranon, he compelled the Athenians to abolish the democracy, and to admit a garrison into Munychia.
[19]Φρύγανα, sticks or faggots.
[20]After the battle of Arginusæ.
[21]“This is not quite correct. Socrates believed that the dæmon which attended him, limited his warnings to his own conduct; preventing him from doing what was wrong, but not prompting him to do right.”—See Grote’s admirable chapter on Socrates. Hist. of Greece, vol. v.
[22]Grote gives good reasons for disbelieving this.
[23]The Greek is, ἐν τῷ πρὸς Ξενοφῶντα ἀποστασίου—“ἀποστασίου δίκη, an action against a freedman for having forsaken or slighted his προστάτης.”—L. & S.
[24]This is exactly the character that Horace gives of him:—
Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res;
Tentantem majora, fere præsentibus æequum.—
Ep. i. 23, 24.
[25]Plutarch, in his life of Pompey, attributes these lines to Sophocles, but does not mention the play in which they occurred.
[26]The French translator gives the following examples, to show what is meant by these several kinds of quibbling arguments:—
The lying one is this:—Is the man a liar who says that he tells lies. If he is, then he does not tell lies; and if he does not tell lies, is he a liar?
The concealed one:—Do you know this man who is concealed? If you do not, you do not know your own father; for he it is who is concealed.
The veiled one is much the same as the preceding.
The electra is a quibble of the same kind as the two preceding ones: Electra sees Orestes: she knows that Orestes is her brother, but does not know that the man she sees is Orestes; therefore she does know, and does not know, her brother at the same time.
The Sorites is universally known.
The bald one is a kind of Sorites; pulling one hair out of a man’s head will not make him bald, nor two, nor three, and so on till every hair in his head is pulled out.
The horned one:—You have what you have not lost. You have not lost horns, therefore you have horns.
[27]From ἐλέγχω, to confute.
[28]Κρόνος, take away Κ. ρ., leaves ὄνος, an ass.
[29]The quibble here is that θεὸς is properly only masculine, though it is sometimes used as feminine.
[30]The Greek is a parody on the descriptions of Tantalus and Sisyphus. Hom. Od. ii. 581, 592. See also, Dryden’s Version, B. ii. 719.
[31]The Greek is τοῦ μιμογράφου. “A mime was a kind of prose drama, intended as a familiar representation of life and character, without any distinct plot. It was divided into μῖμιοι ἀνδρεῖοι and γυναικεῖοι, also into μῖμοι σπουδαίων and γελοίων.”—L. &. S. in voc. μῖμος.
[32]The Greek is, ὡς ἀνέπλαττε Πλάτων πεπλασμένα θαύματα εἰδώς.
[33]This figure was like a barbed arrow, according to Zevort.
[34]Herophilus was one of the most celebrated physicians of antiquity, who founded the Medical School at Alexandria, in the time of the first Ptolemy.
[35]Hom. Od. x. 387. Pope’s Version, 450.
[36]Perhaps there is a pun here; ἀστράγαλος means not only a knout composed of small bones strung together, but also a die.
[37]This is a quotation from some lost play of Euripides, slightly altered, the line, as printed in the Variorum Edition, vol. vii., Mc. Trag. cxxx. is—
ἀκόλαστα πάντα γίνεται, δούλων τέκνα.
[38]There is a pun here which is untranslateable. The Greek is πλὴν ὅταν τόκος παρῇ, meaning usury, and also offspring or delivery.
[39]Hom. Od. x. 335. Pope’s Version, 387.
[40]Hom. Il. vi. 211. Pope’s Version, 254.
[41]This is a quotation from the Hippolytus of Euripides, v. 424.
[42]I doubt if the wit of these parodies will be appreciated by the modern reader. The lines of Homer, which they are intended to parody, are:—
Ὦ μάκαρ Ατρεΐδη, μοιρηγενὲς, ὀλβιοδαίμων.—Il. 3, 182.
ἠέ συ Πηλεΐδη, πάντων ἐκπαγλότατ’ ἀνδρῶν.—Il. v. 146.
The first of which is translated by Pope:—
Oh, blest Atrides, born of prosperous fate,
Successful monarch of a mighty state!
The Greek parody in the text is:—
Ὦ πέπον Ἀρχύτα, ψαλληγενὲς, ὀλβιότυφε
Τῆς ὑπάτης ἔριδος πάντων ἐμπειρότατ’ ἀνδρῶν.
[43]From λύω, solvo, to relax or weaken the limbs.
[44]From περιπατέω, “to walk about.”
[45]Il. 18, 95.
[46]This very spirited version I owe to the kindness of my brother, the Rev. J. E. Yonge, of Eton College.
[47]“ἐντελέχεια, the actuality of a thing, as opposed to simple capability or potentiality (δύναμις); a philosophic word invented by Aristotle.— … quite distinct from ἐνδελέχεια, though Cicero (Tusc. i. 10,) confounded them.”—L. & S. in voc.
[48]From θεῖος divine, and φράσις diction.
[49]This was a temple of the Muses which he had built for a school.
[50]So as to make it appear connected with γλυκὺς, sweet.
[51]στάμνος, means an earthenware jar for wine.
[52]The foregoing account hardly does justice to Demetrius, who was a man of real ability, and of a very different class to the generality of those whom the ancients dignified with the title of philosophers. He was called Phalereus, to distinguish him from his contemporary Demetrius Poliorcetes. His administration of the affairs of Athens was so successful, that Cicero gives him the praise of having re-established the sinking and almost prostrate power of the republic. (Cic. de Rep. ii. 1.) As an orator, he is spoken of by the same great authority with the highest admiration. Cicero calls him “a subtle disputer, not vehement, but very sweet, as a pupil of Theophrastus might be expected to be.” (de Off. i. 3.) In another place he praises him as possessed of great learning, and as one who “rather delighted than inflamed the Athenians.” (de Clav. Orat. § 37.) And says, “that he was the first person who endeavoured to soften eloquence, and who made it tender and gentle; preferring to appear sweet, as indeed he was, rather than vehement.” (Ibid. § 38.) In another place he says, “Demetrius Phalereus the most polished of all those orators” (he has been mentioning Demosthenes, Hyperides, Lycurgus, Æschines, and Dinarchus) “in my opinion.” (de Orat. ii. 23.) And he praises him for not confining his learning to the schools, but for bringing it into daily use, and employing it as one of his ordinary weapons. (de Leg. iii. 14.) And asks who can be found besides him who excelled in both ways, so as to be pre-eminent at the same time as a scholar, and a governor of a state. (Ibid.) He mentions his death in the oration for Rabirius Postumus, § 9. He appears to have died about B.C. 282.
[53]From πομπὴ, a procession.
[54]There is a play on the similarity of the two sounds, κοινὴ, common, and ποίνη, punishment.
[55]The Greek is, ἐς κόρακας, which was a proverb for utter destruction.
[56]The passage is not free from difficulty; but the thing which misled Diogenes appears to have been that νόμισμα, the word here used, meant both “a coin, or coinage,” and “a custom.”
[57]This line is from Euripides, Medea, 411.
[58]The saperda was the coracinus (a kind of fish) when salted.
[59]This is probably an allusion to a prosecution instituted by Demosthenes against Midias, which was afterwards compromised by Midias paying Demosthenes thirty minæ, or three thousand drachmæ. See Dem. Or. cont. Midias.
[60]This is a pun upon the similarity of Athlias’s name to the Greek adjective ἄθλιος, which signifies miserable.
[61]The ἱερομνήμονες were the sacred secretaries or recorders sent by each Amphictyonic state to the council along with their πυλαγόρας, (the actual deputy or minister). L. & S. Gr. & Eng. Lex., in voc.
[62]There is a pun here. Χείρων is the word used for worse. Chiron was also the most celebrated of the Centaurs, the tutor of Achilles.
[63]There is a pun intended here; as Diogenes proposed Didymus a fate somewhat similar to that of the beaver.
Cupiens evadere damno
Testiculorum.
[64]This is taken from Homer, Il. κ. 387. Pope’s Version, 455.
[65]This is also from Homer, Il. θ. 95. Pope’s Version, 120.
[66]This is a parody on Homer, Il. ξ. 95, where the line ends οἷ’ ἀγορεύεις—“if such is your language,” which Diogenes here changes to οἷ’ ἀγοράζεις, if you buy such things.
[67]This is a line of the Phœnissæ of Euripides, v. 40.
[68]The pun here is on the similarity of the noun ἐλάαν, an olive, to the verb ἐλαᾶν, to drive; the words μάστιξεν δ’ ἐλαᾶν are of frequent occurrence in Homer.
[69]This line occurs, Hom. Il. ε. 83.
[70]The Samothracian Gods were Gods of the sea, and it was customary for those who had been saved from shipwreck to make them an offering of some part of what they had saved; and of their hair, if they had saved nothing but their lives.
[71]Eurytion was another of the Centaurs, who was killed by Hercules.
[72]This is a pun on the similarity of the sound, Tegea, to τέγος, a brothel.
[73]The Greek is ἔρανον αἰτούμενος πρὸς τὸν ἐρανάρχην ἔφη,—ἔρανος was not only a subscription or contribution for the support of the poor, but also a club or society of subscribers to a common fund for any purpose, social, commercial, or charitable, or especially political.… On the various ἔρανοι, v. Böckh, P. E. i. 328. Att. Process. p. 540, s. 99. L. & S. in voc. ἔρανος.
[74]Hom. Il. Γ. 65.
[75]There is a pun here; κόρη means both “a girl” and “the pupil of the eye.” And φθείρω, “to destroy,” is also especially used for “to seduce.”
[76]This is a parody on Homer. Il. 591. Pope’s Version, 760.
[77]Hom. Il. Σ. 395. Pope’s version, 460.
[78]This line is from the Bacchæ of Euripides, v. 1228.
[79]From this last paragraph it is inferred by some critics, that originally the preceding memoirs of Crates, Metrocles, and Hipparchia formed only one chapter or book.
[80]This a parody on two lines in the Antiope of Euripides:
Γνώμῃ γὰρ ἀνδρὸς εὖ μὲν οἰκοῦνται πόλεις,
Εὖ δ’ οἶκος εἴς τ’ αὖ πόλεμον ἰσχύει μέγα.
Which may be translated:—
Wisdom it is which regulates both cities,
And private citizens, and makes their lot
Secure and happy; nor is her influence
Of less account in war.
[81]A sort of guitar or violin.
[82]The Greek is, ἐν τῷ θερίζοντι λόγῳ, a species of argument so called, because he who used it mowed or knocked down his adversaries.—Aldob.
[83]The Greek in the text is:—
Κεῖνος μὲν πανάριστος ὃς εὖ εἰπόντι πίθηται,
Ἐσθλὸς δ’ αὖ κἀκεῖνος ὃς αὐτὸς πάντα νοήσῃ.
The lines in Hesiod are:—
Κεῖνος μὲν πανάριστος ὃς αὐτὸς πάντα νοήσῃ
Ἐσθλὸς δ’ αὖ κἀκεῖνος ὃς εὖ εἰπόντι πίθηται.—Op. E. Di. 293.
That man is best, whose unassisted wit
Perceives at once what in each case is fit.
And next to him, he surely is most wise,
Who willingly submits to good advice.
[84]Huerner thinks (as indeed is evident) that something is lost here; and proposes to read the sentence thus:—Τῶν δὲ κατηγορημάτων τὰ μέν ἐστι συμβάματα ὡς τὸ πλεῖν, οἷον Σωκράτης πλεῖ, τὰ δὲ παρασυμβάματα ὡς τὸ διὰ πέτρας πλεῖν. With reference to which passage, Liddell and Scott, Gr. Eng. Lex. voc. σύμβαμα, thus speak: “σύμβαμα … as a philosophical term of the Stoics = κατηγόρημα, a complete predicament such as is an intransitive verb: e.g. Σωκράτης περιπατεῖ; while an imperfect verb was regarded as an incomplete predicament; e.g. Σωκράτει μέλει, and called παρασύμβαμα, or παρακατηγόρημα.”
[85]This line is from the Inachus of Sophocles (one of his lost plays).
[86]Homer, Iliad II. 484.
[87]This line is from the Citharista of Menander.
[88]It would appear that there is a considerable hiatus here; for the instance following is a sorites, and not a specimen of the veiled argument. And there is no instance given of the concealed, or of the horned one. Still, the mere fact of the text being unintelligible, is far from proving that we have not got it as Diogenes wrote it; as though in the language of the writer in Smith’s Biographical Dictionary, vol. i. pp. 1022, 1023, “the work contains a rich store of living features, which serve to illustrate the private life of the Greeks,” it is equally clear that the author “was unequal to writing a history of Greek philosophy. His work in reality is nothing but a compilation of the most heterogeneous and often contradictory accounts.… The traces of carelessness and mistakes are very numerous; much in the work is confused, and there is also much that is quite absurd. And as far as philosophy itself is concerned, Diogenes very frequently did not know what he was talking about when he abridged the theories of the philosophers.”
[89]The third point of view is wanting; and those that are given appear to be ill selected. The French translator, following the hint of Huebner, gives the following passage from Sextus Empiricus (a physician of the Sceptic school, about b.c. 250), in his work against the Philosophers, which he says may serve to rectify and complete the statement of Diogenes Laërtius. “Good is said in one sense of that which produces the useful, or from which the useful results; that is, the good par excellence, virtue. For virtue is as it were the source from which all utility naturally flows. In another sense it is said of that which is accidentally the cause of utility; under this point of view we call good not only virtue, but also those actions which are conformable to virtue, for they are accidentally useful. In the third and last place, we call good everything that possibly can be useful, comprehending under this definition virtue, virtuous actions, friends, good men, the Gods, &c., &c.”
[90]Hom. Il. I. 81. Pope’s Version, l. 105.
[91]It is hardly necessary to remark that Ἀθηνᾶ is the name of Minerva, not of Jupiter; Ἥρα, of Juno; Ἥφαιστος, of Vulcan; Ποσειδῶν, of Neptune, and Δημήτηρ, of Ceres. Ἥφαιστος is properly derived from φαίνω, to shine; Ποσειδῶν has some affinity with πόω, to drink. Δημήτηρ is only a dialectic variation of Τῆ μητὴρ.
[92]There is a hiatus in the text here. Casaubon supplies the meaning by a reference to Plutarch’s Treatise on the opinions of the Philosophers, iii. 7, “that the winds are a flowing of the air, and that they have various names with reference to the countries from which they flow.”
[93]Something is evidently wanting here; probably some mention of an earthquake.
[94]This is similar to Virgil’s description.
Quinque tenent cœlum zonæ, quarum una corusco
Semper Sole rubens, et torrida semper ab igni:
Quam circum extremæ dextrà lævàque trahuntur.
Cœruleâ glacie concretæ atque imbribus atris.
Has inter mediamque duæ mortalibus ægris
Munere concessæ Divûm, et via secta per ambas,
Obliquus qua se signorum verteret ordo.—Georg. I. 233.
There is no part of Dryden’s translation superior to that of this passage.
Five girdles bind the skies; the torrid zone
Glows with the passing and repassing sun;
Far on the right and left, th’ extremes of heaven,
To frosts, and snows, and bitter blasts are given;
Betwixt the midst. And there the Gods assigned
Four habitable seats for human kind,
And, cross their limits cut a sloping way,
Which the twelve signs in beauteous order sway. l. 322.
[95]“Ὑποτελὶς, a name given by Herillus in Diogenes Laërtius to a man’s natural talents, &c., which ought all to be subordinate to the attainment of the chief good.”—L. & S. in voc.
[96]From φρέαρ, a well, and ἀντλέω to draw water.
[97]The Greek used is ἀποφορὰ; which was a term especially applied to the money which slaves let out to hire paid to their master.
[98]This is a parody on Hom. Il. iii. 196. Pope’s version, i. 260. The word ὅλμος means the mouth piece of a flute.
[99]Taken from the Orestes of Euripides, i. 140.
[100]This is parodied from Hom. Od. iv. 611. Pope’s version, l. 831.
[101]This is referring to the Stoic doctrine ridiculed by Horace:
Si dives qui sapiens est,
Et sutor bonus, et solus formosus, et est Rex
Cur optas quod habes?—Hor. Sat. i. 130.
Which may be translated:—
If every man is rich who’s wise,
A cobbler too beyond all price;
A handsome man, and eke a king;
Why thus your vows at random fling?
[102]From κρύπτω, to hide, and ἵππος, a horse.
[103]These lines are from the Erestes of Euripides, v. 247.
[104]This is a quotation from Homer, Od. x. 495. Pope’s Version, 586. The Greek here is, οἷος πέπνυται. The line in Homer stands:
οἵῳ πέπνυσθαι,—sc: πόρε περσεφόνεια.
[105]The argument by progression is the sorites. “The arrest” is the method of encountering the sorites, by taking some particular point at which to stop the admissions required by the sorites.
[106]The remainder of the life of Chrysippus is lost.
[107]See Herod. iv. 93.
[108]This resembles the account which Ovid puts into the mouth of Pythagoras, in the last book of his Metamorphoses, where he makes him say:—
Morte carent animæ, semperque priore relicta
Sede, novis domibus habitant vivuntque receptæ;
Ipse ego, nam memini, Trojani tempora belli,
Panthorides Euphorbus eram, cui pectore quondam
Hæsit in adverso gravis hasta minoris Atridæ:
Agnovi Clypeum lævæ gestamina nostræ
Nuper Abanteïs templo Junonis in Argis.
Which may be translated:—
Death has no pow’r th’ immortal soul to slay;
That, when its present body turns to clay,
Seeks a fresh home, and with unminish’d might
Inspires another frame with life and light.
So I myself, (well I the past recall)
When the fierce Greeks begirt Troy’s holy wall,
Was brave Euphorbus; and in conflict drear,
Poured forth my blood beneath Atrides’ spear:
The shield this arm did bear I lately saw
In Juno’s shrine, a trophy of that war.
[109]This passage has been interpreted in more ways than one. Casaubon thinks with great probability that there is a hiatus in the text. I have endeavoured to extract a meaning out of what remains. Compare Samuel ii. 16, 23. “And the counsel of Ahitophel, which he counselled in those days, was as if a man had enquired at the oracle of God; so was all the counsel of Ahitophel both with David and with Absalom.”
[110]Zaleucus was the celebrated lawgiver of the Epizephyrian Locrians, and is said to have been originally a slave employed by a shepherd, and to have been set free and appointed lawgiver by the direction of an oracle, in consequence of his announcing some excellent laws, which he represented Minerva as having communicated to him in a dream. Diogenes, is wrong however, in calling him a disciple of Pythagoras (see Bentley on Phalaris), as he lived about a hundred years before his time; his true date being 660 b.c. The code of Zaleucus is stated to have been the first collection of written laws that the Greeks possessed. Their character was that of great severity. They have not come down to us. His death is said to have occurred thus. Among his laws was one forbidding any citizen to enter the senate house in arms, under the penalty of death. But in a sudden emergency, Zaleucus himself, in a moment of forgetfulness, transgressed his own law: on which he slew himself, declaring that he would vindicate his law. (Eustath. ad. Il. i. p. 60). Diodorus, however, tells the same story of Charondas.
[111]Charondas was a lawgiver of Catana, who legislated for his own city and the other towns of Chalcidian origin in Magna Grecia, such as Zancle, Naxos, Leontini, Eubœa, Mylæ, Himera, Callipolis, and Rhegium. His laws have not been preserved to us, with the exception of a few judgments. They were probably in verse, for Athenæus says that they were sung in Athens at banquets. Aristotle tells us that they were adapted to an aristocracy. It is much doubted whether it is really true that he was a disciple of Pythagoras, though we are not sure of his exact time, so that we cannot pronounce it as impossible as in the preceding case. He must have lived before the time of Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium, who reigned from b.c. 494 to b.c. 476, because he abolished the laws of Charondas, which had previously been in force in that city. Diodorus gives a code of laws which he states that Charondas gave to the city of Thurii, which was not founded till b.c. 443, when he must certainly have been dead a long time. There is one law of his preserved by Stobæus, which is probably authentic, since it is found in a fragment of Theophrastus; enacting that all buying and selling shall be transacted by ready money only.
[112]This doctrine is alluded to doubtfully by Virgil, Georg. i. 247.
Illic, ut perhibent, aut intempesta silet nox
Semper, et obductâ densantur nocte tenebræ;
Aut redit a nobis Aurora, diemque reducit;
Nosque ubi primus equis oriens afflavit anhelis,
Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper.
Thus translated by Dryden, l. 338:—
There, as they say, perpetual night is found,
In silence brooding o’er th’ unhappy ground.
Or when Aurora leaves our northern sphere,
She lights the downward heav’n and rises there;
And when on us she breathes the living light
Red Vesper kindles there the tapers of the night.
[113]νοῦς appears, in a division like this, to be the deliberative part of the mind; φρὴν, the rational part of the intellect: θυμὸς, that part with which the passions are concerned.
[114]There is a great variety of suggestions as to the proper reading here. There is evidently some corruption in the text.
[115]From παύω, to cause to cease, ἀνία, sorrow.
[116]It is impossible to give the force of this epigram in any other language. It is a pun on Ἄκρων, Ἀκράγας and ἄκρος. The last word meaning not only high, lofty, but also eminent, very skilful. The plain English would be:—“The lofty height of a most eminent country conceals Acron, a skilful physician of Acragas, the son of a skilful father.” The variation would be:—“A high tomb on a very high summit, conceals,” &c.
[117]This story is mentioned by Horace:—
Siculique poetæ,
Narrabo interitum; deus immortalis haberi,
Dum cupit Empedocles ardentem frigidus Ætnam,
Insiluit. A. P. 466.
[118]This is slightly parodied from Homer. Od. xi. 278. Pope’s Version, 337.
[119]There were three festivals of Bacchus at Athens at which dramatic contests took place, the Διονύσια κατ’ ἄγρους, or, “in the fields;” the Ληναῖα or τὰ ἐν Λίμναις, or “the marshes,” a part of the city near the Acropolis, in which was situated the Λήναιον, an enclosure dedicated to Bacchus; and the τὰ ἐν ἄστει, “in the city,” or τὰ μέγαλα Διονύσια. The comic contests usually took place at the second or Lenæan festivals. Sometimes also at the Great Dionysia.
[120]ἔνδοξος, glorious.
[121]According to Strabo, the descendants of Androclus, the founder of Ephesus (of which family Heraclitus came), bore the title of king, and had certain prerogatives and privileges attached to the title.
[122]There is probably some corruption in the text here.
[123]There is great obscurity and uncertainty of the text here. The reading translated is that of Huebner, πεφωρᾶσθαι. Some read πεπρᾶσθαι, he seems to have abandoned the Pythagoreans. Others propose πεπρᾶχθαι. The French translator renders,—He had for enemies the Pythagoreans.
[124]See the account of Zeno the Cittiæan.
[125]See the life of Parmenides.
[126]There is evidently a considerable gap in the text here.
[127]As there is no such passage in Herodotus, Valckenær conjectures that we ought here to read Metrodorus.
[128]The Thesmophoria was a festival in honour of Ceres, celebrated in various parts of Greece; and only by married women; though girls might perform some of the ceremonies. Herodotus says, that it was introduced into Greece from Egypt, by the daughters of Danaus. The Attic Thesmophoria lasted probably three days, and began on the eleventh day of the month Pyanession; the first day was called ἄνοδος, or κάθοδος, from the women going in procession to Eleusis; the second νηστεία, or fasting; the third was called καλλιγένεια, as on that day Ceres was invoked under that name, and it was the day of merriment of the festival.
[129]Namely, reasoning well, expressing one’s self well, and acting well.
[130]This is thus embodied by Lucretius:—
Nam nihil e nihilo, in nihilum nîl posse reverti.
[131]Hom. Il. v. 340. Pope’s version, 422.
[132]Il. vi. 146.
[133]Il. xxi. 106. Pope’s version, 115.
[134]Homer, Il. xx. 248. Pope’s version, 294.
[135]There is too remarkable a similarity in this to Campbell’s lines:—
’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountains in their azure hue:
to allow one to pass it over without pointing it out.
[136]“Diogenes here appears (though, he gives no intimation of his doing so,) to be transcribing the reasonings of some one of the Sceptics.” French Transl.
[137]That is to say, the harmony between intellect and the senses will not last long. Attagas and Numenius were two notorious brigands.
[138]That is, “trifler,” from κρίνω, to judge; and λῆρος, nonsensical talk.
[139]That is, flattering for gifts; from σαίνω, to wag the tail as a dog, to caress; and δῶρον, a gift.
[140]This sentence is a remark of Diogenes himself. There are several more of his observations in parentheses as we proceed.
[141]This is the argument in its completed form: “We can only form an idea of an atom by analogy, and analogy demonstrates to us that it is not of infinite littleness. In fact, let us compare it to the smallest particles recognisable by sense, and then let us endeavour to form an idea of these last. To do this we must take a term of comparison in complex objects, which are composed of various parts. Abstracting from these all other characteristics but that of extent, we see that these objects have dimensions, some greater and some less, measuring an extent which is greater or less as the case may be. The smallest sensible particle will then have its dimensions; it will measure the smallest possible sensible extent, that is to say, it will not be infinitely small. Applying this analogy to an atom, one comes to conceive it as measuring the smallest extent possible, but not as having no extent at all, which was what Epicurus wished to prove.”—French Translator.
[142]This is a quotation from Theognis.
[143]From the Trachiniæ of Sophocles, 1784.
[144]There is some hopeless corruption in the text here. Nor has any one succeeded in making it intelligible. The French translator divides it into two maxims.
[145]There in some great corruption here again. The French translator takes 19, 20, and 21 all as one.
[481]
INDEX.
⁂ The Roman numerals refer to the sections, the Arabic figures to the pages.
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
DUKE STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E., AND GREAT WINDMILL STREET, W.
Transcriber’s Note
The original of this text was not edited as carefully as it could have been. As a result, for this e-text quite a number of changes have been made. These are based on comparison with other editions of the same work and with the original Greek text.
List of changes made:
Table of Contents, swapped positions of “Preface” and “Introduction”
Table of Contents, “Zenophon” changed to “Xenophon”
Page 7, “apophthegmns” changed to “apophthegms” (apophthegms in enigmatical language)
Page 12, “Pyhrronean” changed to “Pyrrhonean” (the Pyrrhonean is repudiated by many writers)
Page 14, “Focus” changed to “Phocus” (Phocus the Samian)
Page 16, “Bathydes” changed to “Bathycles” twice (of the name of Bathycles / the son of Bathycles)
Page 31, “ursurping” changed to “usurping” (from usurping the tyranny)
Page 35, “his” changed to “her” (Pamphila says, in the second book of her Commentaries)
Page 37, “Favorinus” changed to “Phavorinus” (as Phavorinus tells us)
Page 46, “Anacharis” changed to “Anacharsis” (Anacharsis the Scythian was the son of Gnurus)
Page 51, “Ctesilius” changed to “Ctesibius” (Cratinus and Ctesibius)
Page 51, “Rhodamanthus” changed to “Rhadamanthus” (on Minos and Rhadamanthus)
Page 53, “Sosilius” changed to “Sosibius” (as Sosibius the Lacedæmonian says)
Page 55, “wiih” changed to “with” (Adorned with valour while alive)
Page 57, plus in 22 other places throughout the book, “Pharorinus” changed to “Phavorinus”
Page 57, missing words “Ionic dialect.” added (and wrote in the Ionic dialect.)
Page 60, “Phalerius” changed to “Phalereus” (as Demetrius Phalereus tells us)
Page 61, “Metro” changed to “Metrodorus” (and Metrodorus, of Lampsacus)
Page 61, “Medison” changed to “Medism” (but also for Medism)
Page 63, “becaused” changed to “because” (because he enlarged his principles)
Page 63, “Meætetus” changed to “Theætetus” (as Plato records in his Theætetus)
Page 63, “Moresimachus” changed to “Mnesimachus” (to which idea, Mnesimachus speaks)
Page 65, “Delian” changed to “Delium” (saved Xenophon in the battle of Delium)
Page 66, “Crononian” changed to “Cranonian” (Scopas the Cranonian)
Page 67, repeated word “and” removed (and all such kind of follies)
Page 68, “Glauson” changed to “Glaucon” (he wrought upon Glaucon)
Page 68, “Glauernides” changed to “Glauconides” (and Glauconides said, that)
Page 69, repeated word “it” removed (that it was not absurd to learn)
Page 69, “Augur” changed to “Auge” (Euripides, in his Auge)
Page 71 and following pages, “Melitus” changed to “Meletus” 7 times
Page 72, “Pittea” changed to “Pithus” (the son of Meletus, of Pithus)
Page 73, “Iystæus” changed to “Tyrtæus” (they said that Tyrtæus was out of his wits)
Page 74, “Cereops” changed to “Cercops” (in his lifetime with Cercops)
Page 74, “Aphimenes” changed to “Amphimenes” (Amphimenes of Cos)
Page 74, “Salamis” changed to “Salarus” (Salarus of Priene)
Page 74, “Cellæus” changed to “Alcæus” (Alcæus and Anaxagoras)
Page 74, “Sosibrius” changed to “Sosibius” (Anaxagoras with Sosibius)
Page 74, “Timocrea” changed to “Timocreon” (Simonides with Timocreon)
Page 80, “Jelanges” changed to “Telauges” (the Telauges, and the Rhino)
Page 80, “Caramis” changed to “Carcinus” (Carcinus, the tragedian)
Page 82, “prefering” changed to “preferring” (by preferring one beauty to the rest)
Page 84, “Aretes” changed to “Arete” (his daughter Arete)
Page 84, repeated word “a” removed (whether one takes a house)
Page 85, “reproched” changed to “reproached” (when some one reproached him)
Page 89, “Annicerci” changed to “Annicerei” (some Annicerei, others Theodorei)
Page 89, “Pyræbates” changed to “Paræbates” (the master of Paræbates)
Page 89, “Parætius” changed to “Panætius” (as Panætius also tells us)
Page 93, “Theodereans” changed to “Theodoreans” (The Theodoreans, as they are called)
Page 95, “so” changed to “to” (Metrocles the Cynic, who was washing leeks, said to him)
Page 95, “Rhœus” changed to “Rhœcus” (a Samian, the son of Rhœcus)
Page 95, “Musicial” changed to “Musical” (a treatise on Musical Composers)
Page 96, “Athenæas” changed to “Athenæus” (a physician, a pupil of Athenæus)
Page 96, “Phistamus” changed to “Plistanus” (his successor was Plistanus of Elis)
Page 96, “Philias” changed to “Phlius” (Asclepiades of Phlius)
Page 97, “may” changed to “many” (a great many arguments)
Page 98, “preplexing” changed to “perplexing” (Asking his horned quibbles, and perplexing)
Page 98, “C” changed to “R” (unable to pronounce the R)
Page 100, “Therium” changed to “Thurii” (Clinomachus of Thurii)
Page 100, “Dippilus” changed to “Diphilus” (Diphilus of the Bosphorus)
Page 100, “Venites” changed to “Venetes” (Myrmex of the Venetes)
Page 102, “Syphon” changed to “Typhon” (where Typhon’s voice resounds)
Page 102, “Cnistippus” changed to “Aristippus” (the Aristippus or Callias)
Page 103, “Sophibus” changed to “Sophilus” (Sophilus the comic poet)
Page 103, “dicourse” changed to “discourse” (the whole discourse of this Charinus)
Page 103, “Polititical” changed to “Political” (on Political Science)
Page 104, “Minexenus” changed to “Menexenus” (the Cephalus; the Anaxiphemus; the Menexenus)
Page 105, “Simeas” changed to “Simias” (Simias was a Theban)
Page 105, “Theoprobidæ” changed to “Theopropidæ” (one of those who are called Theopropidæ)
Page 106, “Cassandra” changed to “Cassandrea” (Eurylochus, of Cassandrea)
Page 107, “Nicorreon” changed to “Nicocreon” (at the court of Nicocreon)
Page 110, “Hyporicus” changed to “Hipponicus” (Hipponicus the Macedonian)
Page 110, “Hipporicus” changed to “Hipponicus” (Hipponicus gave Menedemus two thousand drachmas)
Page 113, “Petone” changed to “Potone” (the son of Ariston and Perictione or Potone)
Page 113, “Diopidas” changed to “Dropidas” (had a brother named Dropidas)
Page 114, “Conservations” changed to “Conversations” (the eighth book of his Philosophical Conversations)
Page 114, “Petone” changed to “Potone” (a sister called Potone)
Page 116, “Alcinus” changed to “Alcimus” (as Alcimus says in his essays)
Page 117, “Alcinus” changed to “Alcimus” (And Alcimus speaks as follows)
Page 119, “Alcinus” changed to “Alcimus” (compared by Alcimus through four books)
Page 120, “Deni” changed to “Dion” twice (being appeased by Dion / it was Dion who sent the money)
Page 120, “Aristimenes” changed to “Aristomenes” (being appeased by Dion and Aristomenes)
Page 120, “Helia” changed to “Helice” (drowned in Helice)
Page 121, “Thetas” changed to “Theotas” (suspected of exciting Dion and Theotas)
Page 123, “Mesopis” changed to “Meropis” (Alexis says in his Meropis)
Page 123, “Analion” changed to “Ancylion” (And in his Ancylion, he says)
Page 123, “Pseudripobolimæus” changed to “Pseudypobolimæus” (Cratinas in his Pseudypobolimæus, says)
Page 126, “Sothon” changed to “Sathon” (which he entitled Sathon)
Page 127, “Mysonianus” changed to “Myronianus” (But Myronianus, in his Resemblances)
Page 128, “Cephiciades” changed to “Cephisiades” (the temple of the Cephisiades)
Page 128, “Phreanian” changed to “Phrearrian” (Archestratus the Phrearrian)
Page 128, “Challidian” changed to “Chollidian” (Philip the Chollidian)
Page 128, “Ademantus” changed to “Adimantus” (shall belong to my son Adimantus)
Page 128, “Sychon” changed to “Tychon” (My slaves Tychon, Bictas)
Page 128, “Tozthenes” changed to “Sosthenes” (My executors shall be Sosthenes)
Page 130, “Alexander” changed to “Alexamenus” (Alexamenus, a native of Styra)
Page 130, “at” changed to “as” (the other is as it were tentative)
Page 131, “Clitiphon” changed to “Clitophon” (the Menexenus, the Clitophon, the Epistles)
Page 131, “Hippiastro” changed to “Hippias too” (and Protagoras, Hippias too)
Page 134, “Meætetus” changed to “Theætetus” (The Theætetus, or Knowledge)
Page 135, “Aristodemns” changed to “Aristodemus” (one letter to Aristodemus)
Page 135, “Chilidon” changed to “Chelidon” (the Demodorus; the Chelidon; the Seventh;)
Page 139, “lives” changed to “live” (those which live in the water)
Page 142, “Lacædemon” changed to “Lacedæmon” (in Lacedæmon and Macedonia)
Page 152, “aud” changed to “and” (paralysis, and sent to)
Page 153, “Amartynus” changed to “Amartyrus” (an Essay addressed to Amartyrus)
Page 155, “Myornianus” changed to “Myronianus” (as Myronianus tells us in his Similitudes)
Page 156, “Archidemus” changed to “Archedemus” (the Archedemus, or an essay on Justice)
Page 157, “Spuesippus” changed to “Speusippus” (He succeeded Speusippus)
Page 162, “Meætetus” changed to “Theætetus the poet wrote thus about him” (Theætetus the poet wrote thus about him)
Page 167, “Aleximes” changed to “Alexinus” (a certain dialectician, a pupil of Alexinus)
Page 167, “Callecrates” changed to “Callicrates” (that of Archecrates and Callicrates)
Page 168, “Aristi” changed to “Aristo” (Aristo, the Chian)
Page 168, “Mydea” changed to “Myrlea” (Cleochares of Myrlea)
Page 169, “Alcymeus” changed to “Alcyoneus” (the birthday of Alcyoneus)
Page 174, “Eretosthenes” changed to “Eratosthenes” (they relate that Eratosthenes said)
Page 176, “Proconnesas” changed to “Proconnesus” (he was a native of Proconnesus)
Page 179, “logoædical” changed to “logaœdical” (lines in logaœdical Archebulian metre)
Page 183, “Demophelus” changed to “Demophilus” (his prosecutor was Demophilus)
Page 184, “Calumia” changed to “Calauria” (Demosthenes died in Calauria)
Page 184, “Calisthenes” changed to “Callisthenes” (the conspiracy of Callisthenes against Alexander)
Page 186, “Aubracis” changed to “Ambracis” (Ambracis shall have her liberty)
Page 186, “where-ever” changed to “wherever” (wherever else they think fit)
Page 188, “is” changed to “his” (and his answer was)
Page 193, “incoporeal” changed to “incorporeal” (something which has an incorporeal species)
Page 194, “his” changed to “her” (as Pamphila asserts in the thirty-second book of her Commentaries)
Page 194, “Menandar” changed to “Menander” (he was the tutor of Menander)
Page 195, “Tyrtanius” changed to “Tyrtamus” (His name had originally been Tyrtamus)
Page 196, “Phalerius” changed to “Phalereus” (by the assistance of Demetrius Phalereus)
Page 199, repeated word “Natural” removed (Problems in Natural History)
Page 199, “Astyceron” changed to “Astycreon” (Letters to Astycreon, Phanias, and Nicanor)
Page 200, “Callenus” changed to “Callinus” (Neleus, Strato, Callinus, Demotimus)
Page 201, “Donar” changed to “Donax” (and Donax to Neleus)
Page 201, “Eulius” changed to “Eubius” (I order Eubius to be sold)
Page 202, “Thrasos” changed to “Thasos” (Lysistratus of Thasos)
Page 202, “dilligence” changed to “diligence” (in the diligence with which he applied himself)
Page 204, “Innesigenes” changed to “Mnesigenes” (Aristides, Mnesigenes, Hippocrates)
Page 204, “Olympicus” changed to “Olympichus” (let Iræus calculate with Olympichus)
Page 204, “Ausinias” changed to “Aminias” (with Olympichus and Aminias)
Page 204, “Philoreatos” changed to “Philocrates” (Philocrates, the son of Tisamenus)
Page 205, “saying” changed to “sayings” (Another of his sayings was)
Page 206, repeated word “in” removed (all that I have in the city)
Page 207, “Amplicon” changed to “Amphion” (and Ariston, and Amphion, and Lycon)
Page 208, “Micras” changed to “Micrus” twice (Micrus I hereby present with his freedom / I also hereby emancipate the mother of Micrus)
Page 208, “Menedora” changed to “Menodora” (four minæ, and Menodora)
Page 208, “to” changed to “too” (in this respect too he deserves)
Page 211, “Antiphones” changed to “Antiphanes” (on Antiphanes, one;)
Page 212, “Colatia” changed to “Calatia” (the sixth was a native of Calatia)
Page 212, “Euthyræ” changed to “Erythræ” (the twelfth was a grammarian of Erythræ)
Page 212, “Bythinian” changed to “Bithynian” (the thirteenth was a Bithynian)
Page 212, “Pamotus” changed to “Panætius” (Panætius of Rhodes)
Page 212, “unsubtantial” changed to “unsubstantial” (Fought o’er a tomb and unsubstantial shade)
Page 215, “Aretodorus” changed to “Autodorus” (Autodorus the Epicurean reproaches him)
Page 215, “Spentharus” changed to “Spintharus” (as some say Spintharus)
Page 216, “Panculus” changed to “Pancalus” (they formed the name of Pancalus)
Page 216, “Nisius” changed to “Hicesius” (a physician, a pupil of Hicesius)
Page 219, “Philosphers” changed to “Philosophers” (his treatise on the Philosophers)
Page 223, missing word “an” added (an essay on Telemachus)
Page 224, “Tresius” changed to “Hicesius” (the son of Hicesius, a money-changer)
Page 224, “Perdalus” changed to “Pordalus” (he himself, in his Pordalus)
Page 225, “Polymeter” changed to “Polyeuctus” (Polyeuctus, the orator)
Page 225, “Æschorion” changed to “Æschrion” (Lysanias, the son of Æschrion)
Page 231, “Ægesilaus” changed to “Agesilaus” (if Agesilaus and Epaminondas are)
Page 233, “Calisthenes” changed to “Callisthenes” (the happiness of Callisthenes)
Page 239, “Thelian” changed to “Melian” (Diagoras the Melian)
Page 244, “belong” changed to “belongs” (everything belongs to the wise)
Page 245, “Philistus” changed to “Philiscus” (not rather the work of Philiscus)
Page 245, “Circe” changed to “crier” (when the crier asked him)
Page 247, missing word “art” added (Since you alone did teach to men the art)
Page 247, “Œdippus” changed to “Œdipus” (the Chrysippus, and the Œdipus)
Page 247, “Solmæus” changed to “Tolmæus” (the Beggar; the Tolmæus; the Leopard)
Page 248, “Sicymian” changed to “Sicyonian” (The second was a Sicyonian)
Page 249, “Osnesicritus” changed to “Onesicritus” (Onesicritus is called by some authors)
Page 249, “Clocus” changed to “Clœus” (Hegesæus of Sinope, who was nicknamed Clœus)
Page 254, “Theomentus” changed to “Theombrotus” (His pupils were Theombrotus and Cleomenes)
Page 257, “Celotes” changed to “Colotes” (a disciple of Colotes of Lampsacus)
Page 259, “Innaseas” changed to “Mnaseas” (Zeno was the son of Mnaseas)
Page 260, “Priscanactium” changed to “Peisianactium” (colonnade which is called the Peisianactium)
Page 262, “Innaseas” changed to “Mnaseas” (Since Zeno the son of Mnaseas)
Page 263, “Innaseas” changed to “Mnaseas” (Zeno, the son of Mnaseas, the Cittiæan)
Page 263, “Acharnæs” changed to “Acharnæ” (Medon of Acharnæ)
Page 263, “Mecythus of Sypalyttas” changed to “Micythus of Sypalettus” (Micythus of Sypalettus, and Dion)
Page 264, “simdapsus” changed to “skindapsus” (Likewise her mind was less than a skindapsus.)
Page 265, “coni” changed to “coin” (well-formed like the coin)
Page 265, “tessedrachmas” changed to “tetradrachmas” (he likened to the Attic tetradrachmas)
Page 268, “perssn” changed to “person” (why he was the only person)
Page 269, “entertaiments” changed to “entertainments” (in entertainments of that kind)
Page 270, “sumits” changed to “summits” (The summits of Olympus)
Page 271, “Innaseas” changed to “Mnaseas” (his father Mnaseas often came to Athens)
Page 272, “Hesophila” changed to “Herophila” (the sixth was a physician of Herophila), although it is possible “a Herophilean physician”, i.e. a follower of Herophilus, is intended here.
Page 273, “Halcymeus” changed to “Halcyoneus” (to whose son, Halcyoneus, he also acted)
Page 273, “Theles” changed to “Thebes” (Philonides, of Thebes)
Page 274, “Posidorus” changed to “Posidonius” (Diogenes, the Babylonian; and Posidonius)
Page 274, “Archidemus” changed to “Archedemus” (Chrysippus, and Archedemus, and Eudromus)
Page 275, “coversant” changed to “conversant” (which is conversant with rules and tests)
Page 279, “Boethius” changed to “Boethus” (For Boethus leaves a great many criteria)
Page 279, “Archidemus” changed to “Archedemus” (so it is laid down by Archedemus)
Page 282, “deificiences” changed to “deficiencies” (of attributes and deficiencies)
Page 291, “Archidemus” changed to “Archedemus” (And Archedemus defines it)
Page 297, “exite” changed to “excite” (do not excite any inclination)
Page 306, “Chrysyppus” changed to “Chrysippus” (Another doctrine of Chrysippus)
Page 306, “Thrasmides” changed to “Thrasonides” (Accordingly, that Thrasonides)
Page 316, “sone” changed to “some” (some of them are shakings)
Page 318, “Scion” changed to “Siren” (surnamed the Siren)
Page 320, “Scayon” changed to “Scazon” (a jesting epigram on him in Scazon iambics)
Page 326, “Innesistratus” changed to “Mnesistratus” (Once, when Mnesistratus accused him)
Page 328, “Dioles” changed to “Diocles” (as Diocles reports)
Page 328, “Cryxippus” changed to “Crypsippus” (Carneades called him Crypsippus)
Page 330, “Aristocrea” changed to “Aristocreon” (the sons of his sister, Aristocreon and Philocrates)
Page 330, “heirophant” changed to “hierophant” (the hierophant reveals them)
Page 331, repeated word “a” removed (there is then a head that you have not got)
Page 333, “Sosigines” changed to “Sosigenes” (addressed to Sosigenes and Alexander)
Page 333, “Panthorides” changed to “Panthoides” (Ambiguous Expressions, by Panthoides)
Page 333, “Agatha” changed to “Agathon” (an essay to Agathon)
Page 334, “Meliager” changed to “Meleager” twice (addressed to Meleager / addressed also to Meleager)
Page 334, “hyopthethical” changed to “hypothetical” (of hypothetical reasoning to serve as an Introduction)
Page 334, missing word “to” added (an introduction to Fallacy, addressed to Aristocreon)
Page 335, “Oretis” changed to “Outis” (an essay on the Argument Outis)
Page 340, “maner” changed to “manner” (writes in the following manner)
Page 341, “Scopeadæ” changed to “Scopiadæ” (the poem called the Scopiadæ)
Page 343, “then” changed to “them” (allowed his disciples to eat them)
Page 353, “Innesimachus” changed to “Mnesimachus” (And Mnesimachus says in his Alcmæon)
Page 353, “Austophon” changed to “Aristophon” (Aristophon says in his Pythagorean)
Page 354, “Cortona” changed to “Crotona” (at the house of Milo, of Crotona)
Page 356, “Sarapian” changed to “Sarapion” (Heraclides, the son of Sarapion)
Page 356, “Phythagoras” changed to “Pythagoras” (Should you Pythagoras’ doctrine wish to know)
Page 357, “Echurates” changed to “Echecrates” (and Echecrates, and Diodes)
Page 359, “Jelanges” changed to “Telauges” (Now Telauges and Theano we have mentioned)
Page 360, “Jelanges” changed to “Telauges” twice (But Telauges, the son of Pythagoras / the letter of Telauges)
Page 362, missing section number “VI.” added in what seemed to be the appropriate place for it (VI. The case of the dead woman)
Page 364, “κοουφῆς” changed to “κορυφῆς” (Ἀκροτάτης κορυφῆς τύμβος ἄκρος κατέχει.)
Page 369, “Innesagoras” changed to “Mnesagoras” (the son of Mnesagoras)
Page 369, “Orellus” changed to “Ocellus” (the descendants of Ocellus)
Page 373, “Octacteris” changed to “Octaeteris” (the treatise called the Octaeteris)
Page 373, “Mansolus” changed to “Mausolus” (he also went to the court of Mausolus)
Page 373, “Nichomachus” changed to “Nicomachus” (Nicomachus, the son of Aristotle)
Page 374, “Sicilist” changed to “Siciliot” (the third, a Siciliot, a son of Agathocles)
Page 376, “Heraceon” changed to “Heracion” (the son of Blyson, or, as some say, of Heracion)
Page 381, “Phaleruus” changed to “Phalereus” (Demetrius Phalereus also mentions him)
Page 381, “Scythenus” changed to “Scythinus” (Scythinus, an iambic poet)
Page 382, “Zande” changed to “Zancle” (lived at Zancle, in Sicily)
Page 383, “Anaxemander” changed to “Anaximander” (a contemporary of Anaximander)
Page 384, “Diochartes” changed to “Diochaetes” (and Diochaetes the Pythagorean)
Page 386, “Ithageses” changed to “Ithagenes” (a Samian, and the son of Ithagenes)
Page 386, “Telentagoras” changed to “Teleutagoras” (he was by nature the son of Teleutagoras)
Page 396, “Artmography” changed to “Actinography” (Actinography, or a discussion on Rays of Light)
Page 389, “resistence” changed to “resistance” (according to the resistance of the centre)
Page 396, “Rythm” changed to “Rhythm” (A treatise on Rhythm and Harmony)
Page 397, “Prodicas” changed to “Prodicus” twice (He, and Prodicus of Ceos / Prodicus had a very powerful voice)
Page 398, “Allidomas” changed to “Alcidamas” (but Alcidamas says that)
Page 405, “Memenius” changed to “Numenius” (Numenius is the only writer who asserts)
Page 405, “Epianus” changed to “Epicurus” (was the master of Epicurus)
Page 407, “antethetical” changed to “antithetical” (antithetical force of words)
Page 409, “Phyrrho” changed to “Pyrrho” (Pyrrho lays down in the following manner)
Page 414, “iotellect” changed to “intellect” (either sense or intellect)
Page 414, “dawn” changed to “down” (those opinions which are laid down previously)
Page 422, “Cercipes” changed to “Cercopes” (through the forum of the Cercopes)
Page 423, “Nilolochus” changed to “Nicolochus” (Nicolochus of Rhodes)
Page 423, “Pracylus” changed to “Praylus” (Praylus of the Troas)
Page 423, “Xeuxippus” changed to “Zeuxippus” (Zeuxippus Polites)
Page 423, “Gonicpus” changed to “Goniopus” (Zeuxis Goniopus)
Page 423, “Theodos” changed to “Theodas” (Theodas, of Laodicea)
Page 424, “had Colonis and” changed to “had colonised” (as the Athenians had colonised Samos)
Page 425, “Inus” changed to “Mus” (a slave, whose name was Mus)
Page 425, repeated word “as” removed (well as one of his brothers)
Page 425, “Leontius” changed to “Leonteus” (Themista, the wife of Leonteus)
Page 426, “Marmaricem” changed to “Marmarium” (and among them Marmarium)
Page 427, “nicnamed Lerocrates” changed to “nicknamed Lerocritus” (Democritus, he nicknamed Lerocritus)
Page 427, “friend” changed to “friends” (his friends who were so numerous)
Page 427, “Inus” changed to “Mus” (the one whom I have mentioned already, named Mus)
Page 428, “his” changed to “is” (among whom is Apollodorus)
Page 430, “sucessors” changed to “successors” (my immediate successors hand it down)
Page 431, “Inus” changed to “Mus” (Of my slaves, I hereby emancipate Mus)
Page 432, “Bates” changed to “Batis” (he gave his sister Batis in marriage)
Page 432, “Leontius” changed to “Leonteus” (There was also Leonteus, of Lampsacus)
Page 433, “Chæridemus” changed to “Chæredemus” (the Chæredemus, a treatise on the Gods)
Page 433, “Hegesiana” changed to “Hegesianax” (the Hegesianax; four essays on Lives)
Footnote 8, “diety” changed to “deity” (the national deity of the Ionians)
Footnote 31, “μιμογράφον” changed to “μιμογράφου” (The Greek is τοῦ μιμογράφου.)
Footnote 31, “μῖμιοι” changed to “μῖμοι” (μῖμοι σπουδαίων)
Footnote 80, “Euripid” changed to “Euripides” (the Antiope of Euripides)
Footnote 82, “adversariese” changed to “adversaries” (knocked down his adversaries)
Footnote 108, missing word “of” added (which Ovid puts into the mouth of Pythagoras); “Jononis” changed to “Junonis” (templo Junonis in Argis)
Footnote 111, “Challidian” changed to “Chalcidian” (towns of Chalcidian origin)
Footnote 119, “Linæan” changed to “Lenæan” (the second or Lenæan festivals)
Footnote 127, “Valchenær” changed to “Valckenær” (Valckenær conjectures)
Footnote 143, “Trachinæ” changed to “Trachiniæ” (the Trachiniæ of Sophocles)
Index entry, “Alemæon” changed to “Alcmæon”
Index entry under Ariston, “Scion” changed to “Siren”
Index entry, “Arnicereans” changed to “Annicereans” and moved to the correct alphabetical position
Index entry under Bias, “Priam” changed to “Priene”
Index entry, “Clido” changed to “Chilo”
Index entry, “Endoxus” changed to “Eudoxus”
Index entry, “Gynosophistæ” changed to “Gymnosophistæ”
Index entry under Plato, “Alcinus” changed to “Alcimus”
Index entry, “Thesmopheria” changed to “Thesmophoria”
Index entry, “Zaleneus” changed to “Zaleucus”
Greek ς, when not at the end of a word, has been normalised to σ. Punctuation and accents have been amended without note as have æ/œ ligature substitutions. Where there was any doubt the text is left as printed; any remaining errors are as they appeared in the original.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS ***
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