; and the light ones, like fire, the region above; water and air occupy the intermediate region. Thus the sea spreads over the earth, which is flat, and its moisture evaporates through the action of the sun. As for the stars, in the beginning their motion resembled that of a dome, so that the celestial pole, which is always visible, was vertically overhead; but later it assumed an inclined position. He held that the Milky Way is a reflection of the light of those stars that are not illuminated by the sun; that comets are a conglomeration of planets that emit flames; and that shooting stars are thrown off by the air like sparks. Winds arise when the air is rarefied by the action of the sun. Thunder is a collision of clouds; lightning the violent friction of clouds; and an earthquake a subsiding of air into the earth.
Anaxagoras, by Jusepe de Ribera, 1636.
Animals were produced from moisture, heat, and earth, but later from one another, males from the right side, females from the left.
10,11 They say that he predicted the falling of the stone at Aegospotami,29 which he said would fall from the sun. Hence Euripides, who was his student, said in his Phaethon30 that the sun is a golden clod. Furthermore, when he went to Olympia, he sat down wrapped in a leather cloak as if it were going to rain; and rain it did. When someone asked him whether the mountains at Lampsacus would ever become a sea, he is said to have replied, “Yes, if time doesn’t come to an end.” When asked to what end he had been born, he said, “To study the sun, the moon, and the sky.” To someone who said, “You were deprived of the Athenians,” he replied, “On the contrary, they were deprived of me.” When he saw the tomb of Mausolus,31 he said, “A costly tomb is the image of wealth turned to stone.” To someone who complained that he was dying in a foreign land, he said, “From whatever point it starts, the descent to Hades is the same.”
Bronze goat, late fifth century BC, Greek.
12 According to Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History, Anaxagoras seems to have been the first to declare that the poetry of Homer is concerned with virtue and justice; and Metrodorus of Lampsacus, who was his disciple,32 lent even more support to this view; it was he who was the first to pay serious attention to Homer’s treatment of nature. Anaxagoras was also the first to publish a book of prose. Silenus, in the first book of his Histories, says that during the archonship of <…>33 a stone fell from the sky and that Anaxagoras declared that the entire vault of heaven is made of stones; that it coheres by the force of its rotation; and that if this were weakened it would fall.
13,14 Various accounts of his trial34 are given. Sotion in his Succession of the Philosophers, says that Anaxagoras was indicted for impiety by Cleon35 because he declared the sun to be a red-hot mass of iron; and that when Pericles, his student, pleaded for him, he was fined five talents and banished. Satyrus in his Lives says that it was Thucydides,36 Pericles’ political opponent, who initiated the action, and that the charge was not only for impiety but also for siding with the Medes, and that he was sentenced to death by default. Satyrus adds that when he received word of two things at the same time, his condemnation and the death of his sons, he said about the sentence, “As concerns my accusers and myself, long ago nature condemned us to die”; and about his sons, “I knew that my children were mortal.” (Some, however, attribute this remark to Solon, others to Xenophon.) Demetrius of Phalerum, in his work On Old Age, says that Anaxagoras buried his sons with his own hands. Hermippus in his Lives says that Anaxagoras was confined to prison while awaiting execution. Pericles came forward and asked the people whether they had anything to reproach him with in his own life. And when they replied that they had not, he said, “Well, I am this man’s student. Do not be carried away by slanders and put him to death, but listen to me and release him.” And Anaxagoras was released; but as he could not bear the insult he had suffered, he did away with himself. Hieronymus, in the second book of his Miscellaneous Notes, says that Pericles brought him into court so weak and wasted by disease that he owed his acquittal more to pity than to the merits of his case. So much for his trial.
Pericles and Anaxagoras, late eighteenth century, French.
15 He seemed to have harbored hostility toward Democritus,37 whom he failed to engage in a dialogue. At the end he returned to Lampsacus, and it was there that he died. And when the magistrates of the city asked what he wanted done for him, he said they should let the children make merry every year in whatever month he died; and the custom is kept up even now. When he died, the people of Lampsacus gave him a distinguished burial and had the following verses inscribed on his tomb:
Here, after approaching the farthest limit
Of the truth of the celestial world, lies Anaxagoras.
My own verses about him run as follows:
He once declared the sun to be a mass of red-hot iron,
And for this Anaxagoras was bound to die.
His friend Pericles saved him, though he himself,
His wisdom failing, ended his own life.
There have been three other men named Anaxagoras, of whom no other account contains a complete list: the first was an orator of the school of Isocrates; the second a sculptor mentioned by Antigonus; and the third a grammarian, a student of Zenodotus.
Archelaus
16 Archelaus, son of Apollodorus (or as some say of Midon), was a native of Athens or Miletus, a student of Anaxagoras, and a teacher of Socrates. It was he who first brought natural philosophy from Ionia to Athens.38 He was called the naturalist because with him natural philosophy came to an end, after Socrates had introduced ethics. Yet Archelaus seems also to have touched on ethics. For he has discussed laws and goodness and justice. But Socrates, who received the subject from him and advanced it to its
17 His theory is as follows. He says that water, melted by heat to the extent that,
There have been three other men named Archelaus: the man who described the countries traversed by Alexander; the writer who composed Natural Curiosities; and an orator who wrote a handbook on rhetoric.
Socrates
18 Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a stonemason, and Phaenarete, a midwife, as Plato says in the Theaetetus; he was an Athenian and belonged to the deme of Alopece. It was thought that he collaborated with Euripides; hence Mnesilochus40 says:
This new play of Euripides is the Phrygians,
For which Socrates supplied the firewood.41
And he refers to some of Euripides’ plays as “patched up by Socrates.” And Callias in the Captives:
A.42 Why, then, have you an air so solemn and high-minded?
B. I have the right; Socrates is responsible.
Aristophanes in the Clouds:
It’s he who writes for Euripides
Those witty, wordy tragedies.43
19 He studied with Anaxagoras, according to some, but also with Damon,44 as Alexander says in his Successions. After the condemnation of Anaxagoras, he became a student of Archelaus the natural philosopher; he also became his beloved, according to Aristoxenus. Duris says that he was a slave and a stoneworker; and some say that the statues of the Graces on the Acropolis are his work, given that they are clothed.45 Hence Timon, in his Lampoons, says:
From these the sculptor turned away, a prater about laws,
An enchanter of the Greeks, an expounder o
f subtle arguments,
A sneerer who mocked the orators, a quasi-Attic dissembler.
20 For he was formidable in rhetoric as well, according to Idomeneus; and Xenophon reports that the Thirty prevented him from teaching the art of speech.46 And Aristophanes portrays him in a comedy making the weaker argument the stronger.47 For he was the first, as Favorinus says in his Miscellaneous History, with his student Aeschines,48 to teach rhetoric; Idomeneus confirms this in his work On Socrates and His Associates. He was the first to discourse about the conduct of life, and the first of the philosophers to be condemned and executed. Aristoxenus, son of Spintharus, says that he made money: for example, he would invest a sum and collect the interest, and then, when it was spent, invest the sum again.
21 Demetrius of Byzantium says that Crito,49 captivated by the beauty of his soul, removed him from the workshop and educated him. Having grasped that the study of nature is of no concern to us, Socrates discoursed on ethics in the workshops and the agora; and he claimed to be investigating
what evil and what good has been done in your halls.50
Since he often spoke too vehemently in the course of his inquiries, men pummeled him with their fists or tore his hair out, and for the most part he was laughed at and despised. And he bore all these things so patiently that once when he had been kicked, and someone expressed surprise that he stood for it, Socrates replied, “If a donkey had kicked me, should I have taken it to court?” So much for Demetrius’ account.
22 He had no need to go abroad, like most people, except if he had to serve in a military expedition.51 For the rest of the time he remained where he was and pursued his inquiries all the more zealously with those who conversed with him, not so as to change their minds, but to try to learn the truth. They say that when Euripides had given him the treatise of Heraclitus52 and he was asked, “What do you think of it?” he replied, “The parts I have understood are excellent, as are the parts I have not understood, I suppose; except that a Delian diver53 is needed to plumb their depths.”
23 He took care to exercise and kept in good condition. At any rate he served in the campaign to Amphipolis;54 and when Xenophon had fallen from his horse in the Battle of Delium, Socrates bore him on his back and saved him.55 And when all the Athenians were fleeing, he himself retired at his own pace, looking around calmly and remaining ready to defend himself should anyone attack him. He also served in the expedition to Potidaea,56 which was made by sea; for one could not get there on foot, as the war made the land route impassable. It was there that he is said to have stayed in the same position for an entire night; and they say that when he had won the prize of valor after the battle he resigned it in favor of his beloved Alcibiades,57 according to Aristippus58 in the fourth book of his work On the Luxuriousness of the Ancients. Ion of Chios says that in his youth he went abroad to Samos with Archelaus; and Aristotle says he went to Delphi;59 he also went to the isthmus, according to Favorinus in the first book of his Reminiscences.
Two bronze helmets roughly concurrent with the time period in which Socrates fought for Athens. Left: A helmet of the Corinthian type from the early fifth century BC. Right: An Attic type helmet ornamented with a silver satyr’s head, more difficult to date precisely, that was excavated in Athens in the nineteenth century.
24 He was firm in his convictions and a supporter of the democracy, as is clear from his refusal to obey Critias and his associates when they ordered him to conduct the wealthy Leon of Salamis to them for execution.60 And he alone voted to acquit the ten generals.61 And when it was possible for him to escape from prison he declined to do so;62 he even rebuked his friends for weeping over him,63 and while imprisoned made his finest and most famous remarks.
Portrait head of Socrates, Roman, c. AD 170–195, likely based on a prototype attributed to Lysippus from the fourth century BC.
25 He was self-reliant and honorable. And once, according to Pamphila in the seventh book of her Commentaries, when Alcibiades offered him a large piece of land where he might build a house, he said, “And suppose I needed shoes and you offered me a hide, that I might make myself a pair. Would it not be ridiculous for me to accept it?” Often, when observing the multitude of things for sale, he would say to himself, “How many things I can do without!” And he was continually reciting these iambics:
Silver plate and purple garments
Are useful for actors in tragedy, not for life.64
Socrates XI, by Heleno Bernardi, 2006. Foam head and soap, 133 × 100 cm.
He showed how little he thought of Archelaus of Macedon, Scopa of Cranon, and Eurylochus of Larissa65 by not accepting their gifts of money or visiting their courts. And his way of life was so well regulated that on the many occasions when a plague broke out at Athens, he was the only man who did not fall ill.
26,27 Aristotle says that Socrates lived with two women: his first wife was Xanthippe, by whom he had Lamprocles; his second was Myrto, the daughter of Aristides the Just,66 whom he took without a dowry and by whom he had Sophroniscus and Menexenus. Others say that he married Myrto first; still others, including Satyrus and Hieronymus of Rhodes, say that he was married to both at the same time. For they say that when the Athenians, because of a shortage of men, wished to increase their population, they decreed that a man could marry one Athenian woman and have children by another; and that Socrates accordingly did so.67 He easily disregarded even those who mocked him. He prided himself on the simplicity of his life, and never took a fee. He used to say that he most enjoyed the food that least needed a condiment, and the drink that made him least in want of another. He said that the man whose needs are fewest is nearest to the gods. One may grasp this from the comic poets, who, in the course of ridiculing him, unwittingly sing his praises. Thus Aristophanes:68
O man who righteously desires great wisdom,
What a blessed life you will lead among the Athenians and the rest of the world!
For your memory, intelligence, and hardihood are excellent.
You never tire, whether standing or walking,
Never shiver from cold, never hunger for breakfast;
From wine you abstain, and from gluttony and all other nonsense.
28 Ameipsias,69 who portrays him in a threadbare cloak, says:
You have come to us, Socrates, the best of a small number of men, and the vainest by far. Well, at least you are hardy. Where could we get you a decent coat?
Your sorry state is a reproach to the cobblers….
Yet, however hungry he is, the man has never stooped to flatter.
This disdainful, high-minded spirit of his is also brought to light by Aristophanes, when he says:
Because you swagger along in the streets, gazing askance,
barefoot, enduring many ills, and look up at us with a grave
[and solemn countenance.70
Yet sometimes, adapting himself to circumstances, he would even don fine clothing, as in Plato’s Symposium,71 when he is on his way to Agathon’s house.
29 He was adept at both persuading and dissuading. Thus after conversing with Theaetetus72 about knowledge, he sent him away divinely inspired, as Plato says; but when Euthyphro had indicted his own father for the murder of a foreigner, Socrates, after conversing with him about piety, dissuaded him from his course.73 And by his exhortations he turned Lysis74 into a highly moral person. He was also adept at basing his arguments on facts. When his son Lamprocles was incensed with his mother, Socrates put the boy to shame, as Xenophon has somewhere mentioned.75 And when Glaucon, Plato’s brother, wished to enter politics, Socrates dissuaded him, as Xenophon says,76 on the grounds of his inexperience, whereas he encouraged Charmides,77 who had a natural bent for politics.
Socrates Tears Alcibiades from the Embrace of Sensual Pleasure, by Jean-Baptiste Regnault, 1791.
30 He aroused the proud spirit in Iphicrates the general78 by showing him how the gamecocks of Meidias the barber flapped their wings at those of Callias.79 And Glauconides
80 thought that the city should secure Socrates for itself as it would a pheasant or a peacock.
He used to say that it was strange that any man could easily tell you how many sheep he had, but could not name all the friends he had made, so little did they mean to him. Seeing Euclides81 devoting himself to eristic arguments,82 he said, “You’ll be able to deal with sophists, Euclides, but not with men.” For he considered such hair-splitting useless, as Plato says in the Euthydemus.83
31 When Charmides offered him some slaves, so that he might derive an income from them, he would not accept them. And he took no notice of the beauty of Alcibiades, according to some.84 He praised leisure as the finest of possessions, as Xenophon says in his Symposium.85 He declared that there was only one good, knowledge, and only one evil, ignorance; and that wealth and noble birth bring their possessor no honor; on the contrary, they bring every evil. For example, when someone told him that the mother of Antisthenes86 was a Thracian, he replied, “But did you imagine that so noble a man could have been born of two Athenian parents?” And when Phaedo,87 who had been taken captive in war, was sitting in prison, Socrates had him ransomed by Crito, and made a philosopher of him.
32 Late in life he learned to play the lyre, saying there was nothing strange in studying what one does not know. And he was constantly dancing, since he thought that kind of exercise kept the body in good condition, as Xenophon says in his Symposium. He used to say that his daimonion warned him of future events.88 He said that well-being was no little thing, but was attained little by little. And he said that he knew nothing except the fact that he knew nothing.89 He used to say that when people pay high prices for early fruit, they must give up hope of its ripening in season. When someone once asked him, “What is the virtue of a young man?” he replied, “Nothing in excess.” He said that a man should study geometry only to the point where he is able to measure the land he either acquires or cedes.
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers Page 10