8,9 They are unacquainted with magic, as Aristotle says in his Magicus and Dinon in the fifth book of his History. Dinon says that the name Zoroaster, translated literally, means “Star-Worshipper”;27 and Hermodorus agrees with him. Aristotle, in the first book of his work On Philosophy, says that the Magi are more ancient than the Chaldaeans and that they have two principles, a good spirit and an evil spirit; the former is called Zeus and Oromasdes,28 the latter Hades and Arimanius.29 Hermippus confirms this in the first book of his work On the Magi, Eudoxus in his Voyage Around the World, and Theopompus in the eighth book of his Philippica. Theopompus says that according to the Magi human beings will come back to life and be immortal, and will indeed endure by means of their invocations. This is also confirmed by Eudemus of Rhodes. But Hecataeus says that according to the Magi the gods are subject to birth. Clearchus of Soli, in his work On Education, says that the Naked Sages are the descendants of the Magi; and some say that the Jews are also descended from them. Furthermore, those who have written about the Magi criticize Herodotus. They maintain that Xerxes would not have hurled javelins at the sun or lowered fetters into the sea,30 since the Magi believe that the sun and the sea are gods; but he is likely to have destroyed statues of the gods.
10,11 The philosophy of the Egyptians, with respect to the gods and to justice, is as follows. They hold that the first principle was matter; then the four elements were derived from matter, and living creatures of all kinds were produced. The sun and the moon are gods; the former is called Osiris, the latter Isis.31 These gods are represented, in a riddling manner, by the beetle, the serpent, the hawk, and certain other animals, as Manetho says in his Epitome of Natural Philosophy and Hecataeus in the first book of his work On the Philosophy of the Egyptians. They set up statues and temples to these creatures because they do not know the actual form of the god. They hold that the world comes into being and is destroyed, and that it is spherical in shape; that the stars consist of fire, and that the degree of their purity affects what happens on earth; that the moon is eclipsed when it falls into the earth’s shadow; that the soul survives death and migrates into other bodies; and that rain is produced by a change in the atmosphere. They provide physical explanations of all other phenomena, as Hecataeus and Aristagoras report. They created laws to secure justice, and ascribed these to Hermes; and they regarded the serviceable animals as gods. They also claimed to have invented geometry, astronomy, and arithmetic. So much concerning the invention of philosophy.
12 But the first to use the term “philosophy” and to call himself a philosopher was Pythagoras,32 when he was conversing in Sicyon with Leon, the tyrant of Sicyon (or Phlius, as Heraclides Ponticus says in his work On the Inanimate); for he said that no one is wise but god. Before very long, the study was called wisdom, and the man who made a profession of it a sage—he who had attained the highest perfection of mind; while the man who cherished wisdom was called a philosopher. The wise men were also called sophists,33 and the term was applied not only to them but to poets as well; for Cratinus, when praising Homer and Hesiod in his Archilochoi, refers to them as sophists.
13 The following men were considered sages:34 Thales, Solon, Periander, Cleobulus, Chilon, Bias, and Pittacus. To these they add Anacharsis the Scythian, Myson of Chen, Pherecydes of Syros, and Epimenides of Crete. Some also include Pisistratus the tyrant. So much for the sages.
14 But philosophy has two origins, one that dates back to Anaximander,35 the other to Pythagoras. Anaximander was a student of Thales; Pythagoras studied with Pherecydes. The school originated by Anaximander was called Ionian because Thales, who as a native of Miletus was an Ionian, was Anaximander’s teacher. The other school was called Italian, after Pythagoras, who practiced philosophy for the most part in Italy. The one school, the Ionian, ends with Clitomachus, Chrysippus, and Theophrastus; the Italian with Epicurus.36 The succession passes from Thales through Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, to Socrates, who introduced moral philosophy; from Socrates to the various Socratics, especially Plato, who founded the Old Academy; from Plato through Speusippus and Xenocrates, to Polemon, Crantor, Crates, and Arcesilaus, who founded the Middle Academy, to Lacydes, who founded the New Academy, Carneades, and Clitomachus. And thus it ends with Clitomachus.37
Mosaic from the Villa of Titus Siminius Stephanus, Pompeii, first century BC–first century AD. This may represent Plato’s Academy.
15 It ends with Chrysippus in the following way: from Socrates it passes to Antisthenes, then to Diogenes the Cynic, Crates of Thebes, Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus. It ends with Theophrastus as follows: from Plato it passes to Aristotle, and from Aristotle to Theophrastus. And in this way the school of Ionia comes to an end.38
The succession of the Italian school is as follows: from Pherecydes it passes to Pythagoras, then to his son Telauges, then to Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, Leucippus, and Democritus, who had many students, among whom one should mention Nausiphanes {and Naucydes}, who taught Epicurus.39
16 Among the philosophers, some have been dogmatists, others Skeptics.40 The dogmatists are those who make assertions about things on the assumption that they can be grasped; the Skeptics are those who suspend judgment about them on the grounds that they cannot be grasped. Some philosophers have left written works, while others wrote nothing, as was the case, according to some, with Socrates, Philippus, Menedemus, Pyrrho, Theodorus, Carneades, and Bryson; some authorities include Pythagoras and Ariston of Chios, except that they wrote a few letters. Some philosophers wrote only one treatise each, namely Melissus, Parmenides, and Anaxagoras. Many works were written by Zeno, more by Xenophanes, more by Democritus, more by Aristotle, more by Epicurus, and more by Chrysippus.
17 Among the philosophers, some took their name from cities, like the Elians, the Megarians, the Eretrians, and the Cyrenaics; others from localities, like the Academics and the Stoics; others from incidental matters, like the Peripatetics, or from mocking epithets, like the Cynics;41 others from their temperaments, like the Eudaemonists;42 others from their notions, like the Philalethists,43 the Elenctics,44 and the Analogists; others from their teachers, like the Socratics and Epicureans, and so forth. And some are called natural philosophers because they investigate nature; others are called moralists because they discuss morals; those who occupy themselves in verbal hairsplitting are called dialecticians.
Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1653.
18 There are three parts of philosophy: physics, ethics, and dialectic. Physics is the part concerned with the world and its contents; ethics is concerned with life and the matters that affect us; dialectic is the part that cultivates the processes of reasoning employed by both. Until Archelaus, physics was a branch of philosophy; ethics, as has been mentioned, was introduced by Socrates; and dialectic by Zeno of Elea. In ethics there have been ten schools: the Academic, the Cyrenaic, the Elian, the Megarian, the Cynic, the Eretrian, the Dialectic, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean.
19 Of the Old Academy, Plato was the founder; of the Middle Academy, Arcesilaus; of the New Academy, Lacydes; of the Cyrenaic school, Aristippus of Cyrene; of the Elian, Phaedon of Elis; of the Megarian, Euclides of Megara; of the Cynic, Antisthenes of Athens; of the Eretrian, Menedemus of Eretria; of the Dialectical, Clitomachus of Carthage; of the Peripatetic, Aristotle of Stagira; of the Stoic, Zeno of Citium; as for the Epicurean school, it took its name from Epicurus himself.
20 Hippobotus, in his work On Philosophical Schools, says that there are nine sects or schools:45 (1) the Megarian, (2) the Eretrian, (3) the Cyrenaic, (4) the Epicurean, (5) the Annicerean, (6) the Theodorean, (7) the Zenonian or Stoic, (8) the Old Academic, (9) the Peripatetic. He omits the Cynic, Elian, and Dialectical schools. As for the Pyrrhonians, most authorities do not consider them a sect by reason of their uncertainty; some regard them as a sect in some respects, but not in others. Yet they seem to be a sect. For we apply that term to those who follow or are thought to follow some
principle with regard to appearances; on this basis we would be justified in calling the Skeptics a sect. But if we think of a sect as having a bias in favor of a series of doctrines, they could no longer be called a sect; for they have no doctrines. So much for the beginning of philosophy, its successions, its parts, and its schools.
21 But recently an Eclectic school was introduced by Potamon of Alexandria,46 who made a selection from the tenets of each of the schools. In his opinion, according to what he says in his Elementary Teaching, the criteria of truth are (1) that by which the judgment is formed, that is, the authoritative principle, and (2) the means by which it is formed, for example, the most precise representation. His principles of the universe are matter, the efficient cause, quality, and place; for the character of every entity depends on that out of which, and that by which, it is made, and the manner and place in which it is made. The end to which he refers all things is a life made perfect in all virtue, which cannot be attained without external advantages and a body free of natural defects.
We must speak of the philosophers themselves, and in the first place of Thales.
Thales
22 Thales, according to Herodotus, Duris, and Democritus,47 was the son of Examyas and Cleobulina, and belonged to the Thelidae, the noblest Phoenician descendants of Cadmus and Agenor.48
23 After a career in politics he applied himself to natural philosophy. According to some, he left no written work. For the Nautical Astronomy attributed to him is said to be the work of Phocus of Samos.52 Callimachus knows him as the discoverer of the Little Bear,53 for he writes as follows in his Iambics:
He is also said to have measured the small stars
That form the Wagon, by which the Phoenicians navigate.
According to some, he wrote only two books, On the Solstice and On the Equinox, since he considered all other matters incomprehensible. He is thought by some to have been the first to study astronomy and to predict solar eclipses and solstices,54 as Eudemus says in his History of Astronomy. This is why Xenophanes55 and Herodotus admired him. He was also acknowledged by Heraclitus56 and Democritus.
24 And some, including the poet Choerilus, say he was the first to declare that souls are immortal. He was the first to discover the course of the sun from solstice to solstice, and the first, according to some, to say that the size of the sun is one seven hundred and twentieth part of the solar circle,
25 Aristotle and Hippias say that he attributed souls even to inanimate objects, arguing from the magnet and from amber. Pamphila says that when he had learned geometry from the Egyptians,57 he was the first to inscribe a right triangle in a circle, after which he sacrificed an ox.58 But others, including Apollodorus the Arithmetician, tell this story of Pythagoras.59 (It was Pythagoras who advanced to their furthest extent the discoveries that Callimachus in his Iambics attributes to Euphorbus the Phrygian,60 for example “scalene polygons and triangles” and all that concerns geometrical theory.)
26 He is also thought to have given excellent counsel in political affairs. At any rate, when Croesus61 sent an envoy to Miletus proposing a military alliance, Thales thwarted the overture, a measure that saved the city when Cyrus won a victory.62 He himself says, as Heraclides reports, that he was always solitary and reclusive. Some say that he married and had a son named Cybisthus; others that he remained unmarried and adopted his sister’s son. And when asked why he had no children, he replied, “Out of love for children.” They say that when his mother sought to force him to marry he said it was “too soon.” And later, when he was past his prime and she pressed him again, he said it was “too late.” Hieronymus of Rhodes, in the second book of his Miscellaneous Notes, says that when Thales wished to prove that it was easy to be wealthy, he rented the oil presses when he foresaw that there would be a large olive crop and thus amassed a fortune.
27 He held that the original substance of all things is water, and that the world is animate and full of deities. They say he discovered the seasons of the year, and divided the year into 365 days.
No one instructed him, except that he went to Egypt and spent time with the priests. Hieronymus says that he measured the pyramids by their shadow, making his observations at the moment when our shadow is the same height as ourselves. He lived with Thrasybulus,63 the tyrant of Miletus, as Minyas reports.
28 The famous story about the tripod64 found by the fishermen and sent to the Sages by the people of Miletus runs as follows. They say that certain Ionian youths purchased a catch of fish from some Milesian fishermen. And when the tripod was dragged out with the fish, it became the subject of a dispute until the Milesians sent a delegation to Delphi.65 And the god gave the following oracle:
Scion of Miletus, you ask Phoebus66 about a tripod?
It belongs, I declare, to him who is the wisest of all.
29 Accordingly, they give67 it to Thales. And he gives it to another, who gives it to another until it comes round to Solon, who, declaring that the god is the wisest, sent it to Delphi. But Callimachus, in his Iambics, gives a different version of the story, which he received from Laeandrius of Miletus. In this version, Bathycles, an Arcadian, bequeathed a bowl with the solemn instruction that it be “given to the most useful of the sages.”68 It was then given to Thales, and, after going round to all the sages, came back to Thales. He sent it to Apollo at Didyma with this dedication, according to Callimachus:
Thales offers me, twice received as a prize,
To the guardian of the people of Neileus.
Bronze rod tripod, early sixth century BC, Greek.
But the prose inscription runs as follows: “Thales of Miletus, son of Examyas, to Delphinian Apollo, after twice receiving it from the Greeks.” The bowl was carried from place to place by the son of Bathycles, whose name was Thyrion, as Eleusis says in his work On Achilles and Alexo of Myndus in the ninth book of his Mythical Tales.
30 But Eudoxus of Cnidus and Euanthes of Miletus say that a friend of Croesus received from the king a golden drinking-cup, in order to bestow it on the wisest of the Greeks; and this man gave it to Thales. And when it came round to Chilon,69 he asked Pythian Apollo who was wiser than he. And the god replied, “Myson.” We will speak of Myson in due course.70 (In the list of Sages, Eudoxus includes Myson instead of Cleobulus, while Plato includes him in place of Periander.) About Myson, Pythian Apollo replied with the following verses:
I declare that one Myson of Chen, in Oeta,
Surpasses you in wise-heartedness.
The question was posed by Anacharsis.71 But Daimachus the Platonist and Clearchus hold that a bowl was sent by Croesus to Pittacus and began its round from him.
31 Andron in his Tripod says that the Argives offered a tripod as a prize of virtue to the wisest of the Greeks; Aristodemus of Sparta72 was judged worthy of the honor, but he withdrew in favor of Chilon. Alcaeus recalled Aristodemus in these verses:
No inept word spoke Aristodemus in Sparta:
“Money is the man; no pauper attains honor.”
Some say that a vessel with its cargo was sent by Periander73 to Thrasybulus, the tyrant of Miletus. It was shipwrecked in Coan waters, and the tripod was later found by certain fishermen. But Phanodicus says it was found in Athenian waters and brought to the city. And when an assembly was held it was sent to Bias, for reasons I will discuss in the life of Bias.74
32,33 Others say that it was fashioned by Hephaestus and sent by that god to Pelops75 on the occasion
of his marriage. Afterward it came to Menelaus,76 and then, seized by Paris with Helen, it was cast into the Coan sea by the Spartan woman,77 who said that it would be a cause of conflict. In time, when certain Lebedians78 had bought the contents of a fishing basket at the same place, the tripod was hauled up, and when the Lebedians quarreled with the fishermen about it they put ashore at Cos. When they could not resolve the dispute, they reported the fact to Miletus, their mother-city. The Milesians, when their ambassadors were slighted, made war on the Coans. Many fell on both sides, and an oracle declared that the tripod should be given to the wisest. Both parties agreed on Thales. And after it had made its round, he dedicated it to Apollo of Didyma.79 The oracle the Coans received runs as follows:
The quarrel between the sons of Merops80 and the Ionians will not cease
Until the golden tripod, which Hephaestus cast into the sea,
Is sent from the city and reaches the seer,
A man who is wise about the present, the future, and the past.
The Milesians’ oracle began,
Scion of Miletus, you ask Phoebus about a tripod?
as has been mentioned. So much for this version of the story.
34 Hermippus in his Lives attributes to Thales the remark that some attribute to Socrates, namely that there were three blessings for which he was grateful to Fortune: “First, that I was born a man and not a beast, secondly a man and not a woman, and thirdly a Greek and not a barbarian.” It is said that once, when brought outdoors by an old woman to observe the stars, he fell into a ditch, and the old woman, hearing his wail, said, “Since you can’t see what’s underfoot, Thales, do you think you’ll know what’s in the sky?” Timon also knows him as an astronomer, and praises him in his Lampoons, saying,
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers Page 3