Euclides
106 Euclides was a native of Megara on the Isthmus of Corinth, or according to some, of Gela, as Alexander says in his Successions. He devoted himself to the study of Parmenides’ works,215 and his successors were called Megarians, then Eristics, and later Dialecticians, a name they were first given by Dionysius of Chalcedon because they framed their discourses in the form of question and answer. Hermodorus says that Plato and the other philosophers came to Euclides after the death of Socrates because they feared the cruelty of tyrants. He declared that the good is one, though it is called by many names: sometimes wisdom, sometimes god, sometimes mind, and so forth. He rejected what is opposed to the good, claiming that it does not exist.
107 When he faulted logical demonstrations, it was not their premises that he attacked, but the conclusion. And he rejected argument by analogy, saying that the argument must be based either on similar or dissimilar terms. If it is based on similar terms, then it would be better to argue from the things themselves, not from things that are similar to them; and if it is based on dissimilar terms, then the juxtaposition is superfluous. Hence Timon, in the course of sniping at the other Socratics, speaks of him as follows:
But I care not for these babblers,
nor for anyone else, nor for Phaedo, whoever he is, nor
[the wrangler Euclides,
who has infected the Megarians with a rage for disputation.
108 He wrote six dialogues: Lamprias, Aeschines, Phoenix, Crito, Alcibiades, and On Love. One of Euclides’ successors was Eubulides of Miletus, who wrote many dialectical arguments in the interrogatory form, including the liar, the concealed, Electra, the veiled man, the sorites, the horns, and the bald head.216 One of the comic writers says of him:
The Eristic Eubulides, who conducted interrogations about horns,
And confounded the orators with lying, boastful arguments,
Has departed with the empty bragging of Demosthenes.
109 It seems that Demosthenes217 had also been his student and with his help had overcome an inability to pronounce the letter R. Eubulides was at variance with Aristotle and often sought to discredit his doctrines.218
Among Eubulides’ other successors was Alexinus of Elis, an exceedingly contentious man, which is why he was nicknamed Elenxinus.219 He was particularly at variance with Zeno.220 Hermippus says of him that after he had departed Elis221 for Olympia, it was there that he pursued philosophy. When his students asked him why he settled there, he replied that he wanted to found a school that would be called the Olympian school.222 But since their provisions ran low and they judged the place unhealthy, they returned, and Alexinus spent the rest of his life in solitude with only one servant. Later on, while swimming in the river Alpheus, he was pierced by the point of a reed and died of his wound.
110 My own verses about him run as follows:
It was no idle tale
That an unlucky man,
While diving pierced his foot with a nail.
Since that august man, Alexinus,
Before he could cross the Alpheus,
Was pricked by a reed and died.
He wrote not only a reply to Zeno, but many other books as well, including one against Ephorus the historian.
One of Eubulides’ students was Euphantus of Olynthus, who wrote a history of his own times. He was also the author of several tragedies, for which he was highly esteemed at the competitions. He was also the teacher of King Antigonus,223 to whom he dedicated a treatise, On Kingship, that was very popular. He died of old age.
111 Eubulides had other students, including Apollonius Cronus, of whom Diodorus, son of Ameinias of Iasus, who was also nicknamed Cronus,224 was a student. It was of him that Callimachus in his epigrams says,
Momus himself
Wrote on the walls, “Cronus is wise.”225
112 Diodorus was also a dialectician and was thought by some to have invented the Veiled Man and Horns arguments. When residing at the court of Ptolemy Soter,226 he had certain dialectical questions posed to him by Stilpo. Unable to solve them on the spot, he was reproached by the king; among other things, by way of a joke, he was nicknamed Cronus. After leaving the drinking party and writing an account of the problem, he killed himself in despair. My own verses about him run as follows:
Diodorus Cronus, which of the gods
Plunged you into such wretched despair
That you threw yourself into Tartarus
When you failed to solve Stilpo’s riddle?
You have indeed shown yourself a “Cronus,”
Without the R and without the C.227
Euclides’ successors include Ichthyas, son of Mettalus, a man of noble character, to whom Diogenes the Cynic228 addressed a dialogue; Clinomachus of Thurii, who was the first to write about propositions, predicates, and the like; and Stilpo of Megara, a highly distinguished philosopher, of whom we must speak.
Stilpo
113,114 Stilpo, a citizen of Megara in Greece, studied with some of Euclides’ successors; others say that he studied with Euclides himself, but also, according to Heraclides, with Thrasymachus of Corinth, who was a student of Ichthyas. He so far surpassed the rest in ingenuity and subtlety that nearly all of Greece looked to him and started to “Megarize.”229 About him Philip the Megarian says, and I quote, “For from Theophrastus230 he drew away Metrodorus the theorist, and Timagoras of Gela; from Aristotle of Cyrene, Clitarchus and Simmias; and from the dialecticians he drew Paeonius from Aristides. And he made Diphilus of the Bosporus, son of Euphantus, and Myrmex, son of Exaenetus, who had both come to refute him, his zealous admirers.” Besides these, he won over Phrasidemus the Peripatetic, an expert in natural philosophy, and the rhetorician Alcinus, the foremost among the Greek orators; he also captivated Crates and a great many others; along with these, he even carried off Zeno the Phoenician.231 He was also exceedingly well versed in politics.
He had a wife, and he lived with a courtesan, Nicarete, as Onetor has somewhere said. He had a dissolute daughter, who was married to one of his friends, Simmias of Syracuse. And when she did not live according to custom, someone told Stilpo that she had ruined his reputation. But he replied, “No more than I have burnished hers.”
115 He was received, they say, by Ptolemy Soter.232 And when Ptolemy took possession of Megara, he gave Stilpo a gift of money and invited him to sail back to Egypt with him. Stilpo accepted a moderate sum, but declined the journey and removed to Aegina until Ptolemy sailed. Furthermore, when Demetrius, son of Antigonus, seized Megara, he saw to it that Stilpo’s house was preserved and all his plundered property returned. It was then that Demetrius requested a list of his lost property, and Stilpo said that nothing that truly belonged to him had been lost; for no one had taken away his education, and he retained his reason and his knowledge.
116 When Stilpo spoke to Demetrius about benevolence to one’s fellow men, he argued so effectively that Demetrius paid heed to him. They say that Stilpo once proposed some such argument about the Athena of Phidias:233 “Isn’t Athena, daughter of Zeus, a god?” When the other said, “Yes,” Stilpo said, “Yet this is not by Zeus, but by Phidias.” When the other agreed, Stilpo said, “Then this is not a god.” For this he was summoned to the Areopagus,234 where he did not deny what he had said, but claimed that his reasoning was correct; for Athena was not a god, but a goddess; it was the males who were gods. The Areopagites nevertheless ordered him to leave the city at once. It was then that Theodorus, who was nicknamed God,235 made the mocking remark, “How does Stilpo know this? Did he pull up her dress and see her bush?”236 Theodorus was indeed quite brazen, but Stilpo quite ingenious.
117 When Crates asked him whether the gods enjoy obeisance and prayers, they say that Stilpo replied, “Don’t inquire about these things, foolish fellow, on the street, but when we are alone.” This is the same answer Bion237 made when he was asked whether gods exist:
Won’t you scatter the crowd from me, you long-sufferi
ng elder?238
118 Stilpo was plain and unaffected and at ease with the ordinary man. At any rate, when Crates the Cynic did not answer the question put to him, but merely broke wind, Stilpo said, “I knew you would utter anything but what you should.” One day when Crates offered him a fig while posing a question, Stilpo took the fig and ate it; and when Crates said, “O Heracles, I have lost the fig,” Stilpo said, “Not only the fig, but also the question of which the fig was the security deposit.”239 Another time, catching sight of Crates suffering in the winter cold, he said, “Crates, you seem to me to need a new coat” (that is, to need sense as well as a coat).240 Offended, Crates parodied him as follows:
The “Varvakeion” Athena, a miniature from AD 200–250 from the original by Phidias. Found in 1880 in Athens, near the Varvakeion school, this statuette is the most faithful and best preserved copy of the original, which was erected in the Parthenon in 438 BC. The face and arms are plated with ivory, and the rest of the statue is faced with leaves of gold.
And I saw Stilpo enduring grievous ills
In Megara, where they say the bed of Typhoeus241 is.
And there he would wrangle, surrounded by many companions;
They would pass their time chasing virtue by transposing letters.
119 It is said that at Athens he attracted so much attention that men would run together from their workshops to see him. And when someone remarked, “They marvel at you, Stilpo, as if you were a strange beast,” he replied, “Not at all, but as if I were a genuine man.” Exceptionally clever at disputation, he rejected even the Ideas,242 to the point where he would say that when someone says “man” he does not mean any man in particular; for he means neither this man nor that. For why should he mean this one more than that? Hence he does not mean this particular man. Again: “vegetable” is not this vegetable that someone shows me; for vegetable existed ten thousand years ago. Hence it is not this vegetable. They say that right in the middle of a conversation with Crates he rushed off to buy some fish; and when Crates tried to detain him and said, “Are you leaving the argument?” he replied, “Not at all. The argument I’m keeping; it’s you I’m leaving. For the argument abides, but the fish is going to be sold.”
120 Nine dialogues, lifeless in style, are attributed to him: Moschus, Aristippus or Callias, Ptolemy, Chaerecrates, Metrocles, Anaximenes, Epigenes, To His Daughter, and Aristotle. Heraclides says that Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, was his student. Hermippus says that he died at an advanced age, after taking wine in order to hasten his end.
My own verses about him run as follows:
Surely you know Stilpo the Megarian,
Whom old age overtook, and then disease, an unconquerable pair.
But he found in wine a charioteer more powerful
Than that evil team, since after drinking he outstripped them.
He was also mocked by Sophilus the comic poet in his drama The Wedding:
The reasoning of Charinus is simply stoppers for Stilpo.243
Crito
121 Crito was a native Athenian. He was exceedingly fond of Socrates, and took such care of him that he never left any of his needs unmet.244 And his sons also studied with Socrates: Critobulus, Hermogenes, Epigenes, and Ctesippus. Crito wrote a single book containing seventeen dialogues under the following titles:
That Men Are Not Made Good as the Result of Instruction
On Greed
What Is Appropriate or The Statesman
On the Beautiful
On Wickedness
On Good Management
On Law
On the Divine
On the Arts
On Associating with a Teacher
On Wisdom
Protagoras or The Statesman
On Letters
On the Art of Poetry
On the Beautiful245
On Learning
On Knowing or On Knowledge
What Is Knowledge
Simon
122,123 Simon was an Athenian and a cobbler. When Socrates visited his workshop and conversed on any subject, Simon made notes of all he could remember, which is why they call his works the cobbler’s dialogues. There are thirty-three246 in a single volume:
On the Gods
On the Good
On the Beautiful
What Is the Beautiful
On Justice, two dialogues
On Virtue, That It Cannot Be Taught
On Courage, three dialogues
On Law
On Leadership
On Honor
On Poetry
On Comfort
On Love
On Philosophy
On Knowledge
On Music
On Poetry
What Is the Beautiful
On Teaching
On Conversing
On Judging
On Reality
On Number
On Diligence
On Work
On Greed
On Pretentiousness
On the Beautiful
Others are:
On Deliberation
On Reason or On What Is Appropriate
On Wickedness
He was the first, they say, to use Socratic arguments in conversation. When Pericles promised to support him and urged him to come to him, Simon said that his freedom of speech was not for sale.
There was another Simon, a writer of handbooks on rhetoric; another who was a doctor at the time of Seleucus Nicator;247 and another who was a sculptor.
Glaucon
124 Glaucon248 was an Athenian. Nine of his dialogues are contained in a single volume:
Phidylus
Euripides
Amyntichus
Euthias
Lysithides
Aristophanes
Cephalus
Anaxiphemus
Menexenus
There are thirty-two others, but they are considered spurious.
Simmias
Simmias249 was a Theban. Twenty-three of his dialogues are contained in a single volume:
On Wisdom
On Reasoning
On Music
On Epic Poetry
On Courage
On Philosophy
On Truth
On Letters
On Teaching
On Art
On Governing
On Propriety
On What to Choose and What to Avoid
On Friendship
On Knowing
On the Soul
On Living a Good Life
On What Is Possible
On Wealth
On Life
What Is the Beautiful
On Diligence
On Love
Cebes
125 Cebes250 was a Theban. Three of his dialogues survive:
The Tablet
The Seventh Day
Phrynichus
Menedemus
126 Menedemus, belonged to Phaedo’s school. He was the son of Clisthenes, a member of the family called the Theopropidae, of noble birth, but a builder and a poor man. Some say that he was also a scenery painter and that Menedemus learned both trades. Hence when Menedemus had proposed a certain decree, a disciple of Alexinus251 attacked him, saying that a sage should design neither a scene nor a decree. When Menedemus had been sent as a garrison commander to Megara, he visited Plato at the Academy and was so captivated that he relinquished his command.252 Asclepiades of Phlius drew him away, and both men lived in Megara with Stilpo253 and attended his lectures. From there they sailed to Elis, where they joined Anchipylus and Moschus,254 who belonged to the school of Phaedo. Before their time, as was mentioned in the chapter on Phaedo,255 the philosophers of this school were called Elians; they were later called the Eretrian school, after the native city of our present subject.
Menedemus appears to have been quite pompous; hence Crates256 pokes fun at him, saying,
Asclepiades of Phliu
s and the Eretrian bull;
as does Timon in this verse:
After flushing out […],257 a supercilious, puffing fellow.
127 Menedemus was so high-minded that when Eurylochus of Casandrea was invited to the court of Antigonus258 with Cleippides of Cyzicus, he declined, as he was afraid that Menedemus would hear of it; for the latter was sarcastic and outspoken. At any rate, one day when a young man was speaking too boldly, Menedemus said nothing; but he picked up a twig and traced on the ground the figure of a young man being penetrated, and continued until everyone saw it, at which point the young man understood the insult and departed. Hierocles, who was in command of the Piraeus,259 was walking up and down with Menedemus in the sanctuary of Amphiaraus and talking about the capture of Eretria. Without saying anything else, Menedemus asked him what Antigonus hoped to gain by screwing him.260
128,129 To the adulterer who prided himself on his exploits he said, “Don’t you know that it’s not only the cabbage that has good juice, but the radish as well?”261 To a young man who was being noisy he said, “Take care not to let everyone know you’ve got something up your ass.” When Antigonus was consulting him as to whether he should attend a drinking party, Menedemus replied that Antigonus should say nothing else except that he was the son of a king.262 When an inconsiderate fellow was telling him a pointless story, Menedemus asked him whether he had a farm; and when the man replied that he also had a great many flocks and herds, Menedemus said, “Go, then, and attend to them, so they’re not ruined along with an ordinary fellow who’s amusing himself with subtleties.” To a man who asked whether the serious man should marry, he replied, “Do I seem serious to you or not?” When the man declared that he thought him serious, he said, “Well, I am married.” When someone said there were many good things, Menedemus asked how many, and whether there were more than a hundred. Unable to curb the extravagance of one of the men who used to invite him to dinner, he spoke not a word when invited, but reproached his host silently by eating nothing but olives.263
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers Page 14