Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

by Pamela Mensch

  130 But because of his outspokenness he found himself in danger in Cyprus, when he and his friend Asclepiades were staying at the court of Nicocreon.264 For when the king held a monthly festival and invited these two, along with the other philosophers, Menedemus is reported to have said that if the meeting of such men were a good thing, then the festival should be held every day; if not, it was superfluous even on the present occasion. When the tyrant replied that on this day he had the leisure to listen to philosophers, Menedemus persisted even more stubbornly, declaring, right in the middle of the feast, that one should listen to philosophers on every occasion. And consequently, if a certain flute player had not intervened, the two men265 would have perished. Hence when they were overtaken by a storm on their vessel, Asclepiades is reported to have said that though the art of the flute player had saved them, the frankness of Menedemus had destroyed them.266

  Menedemus, Roman fresco from Boscoreale, first century BC.

  131 Menedemus shirked his duties, they say, and was indifferent to the affairs of his school; at any rate, there was no visible order at his lectures, nor were benches arrayed in a circle, but each of his students would listen from wherever he happened to be walking about or sitting,267 and Menedemus himself behaved in the same way. But he was a nervous person, they say, and so eager for glory that early on, when he and Asclepiades were building a house with a carpenter, and Asclepiades appeared nude on the roof,268 carrying the mortar, Menedemus would hide himself if he saw anyone coming. And when he entered public life, he was so nervous that when offering frankincense he would miss the censer.269 And one day when Crates cornered him and attacked him for engaging in politics, he ordered certain men to throw Crates into prison; but Crates remained on the lookout for him whenever he passed by and, standing on tiptoe, would call him “little Agamemnon” and “Hegesipolis.”270

  132 He was also rather superstitious. At any rate, one day when he was at an inn with Asclepiades and had unknowingly eaten meat that had been thrown away, he grew nauseated and pale, until Asclepiades reproached him, saying that it was not the meat that bothered him, but his suspicion about it. In all other respects he was magnanimous and liberal. As for his physical condition, even when elderly he was as firm and suntanned in appearance as an athlete, and remained robust and fit. In stature he was well proportioned, as is clear from the small statue in the old racetrack at Eretria. The figure, by design, is half naked, allowing one to see most of his body.

  133 He was also fond of entertaining, and because Eretria was unhealthy he organized numerous drinking parties.271 Among these there would be gatherings of poets and musicians. He welcomed Aratus, Lycophron, the writer of tragedies, and Antagoras of Rhodes;272 but he devoted himself principally to Homer, then to the lyric poets, then to Sophocles and also to Achaeus, to whom he awarded second place among the writers of satyr plays, giving first place to Aeschylus.273 And that is why, against his political opponents, he would quote these verses:

  Thus the swift is overtaken by the weak,

  And the eagle by the tortoise in a twinkling.

  134 These verses are from Omphalos, Achaeus’ satyr play. Thus those writers err who say that Menedemus had read nothing except the Medea of Euripides, which some say is the work of Neophron of Sicyon.274

  Among the teachers of philosophy, he despised those of the school of Plato and Xenocrates,275 as well as Paraebates of Cyrene;276 but he admired Stilpo. Once when he was asked about him, Menedemus contented himself with saying that he was a man of great liberality. Menedemus was hard to understand, and when elaborating an argument he proved a formidable adversary. He would twist and turn in all directions and was ingenious at inventing loopholes. He was exceptionally contentious, as Antisthenes says in his Successions. And he made a habit of posing the following argument: “Of two things, is one different from the other?” “Yes.” “And is conferring benefits different from the good?” “Yes.” “Then to confer benefits is not good.”

  135 He rejected, they say, the negative propositions, admitting only the affirmative ones, and of these he accepted the simple but rejected the nonsimple, by which I mean the hypothetical and compound propositions. Heraclides says that in his doctrines he was a Platonist but that he made fun of dialectic. Thus, one day when Alexinus asked him whether he had stopped beating his father, Menedemus replied, “In fact, I have never beaten him, nor have I stopped beating him.” When Alexinus retorted that he should have cleared up the ambiguity by answering “yes” or “no,” Menedemus said, “It would be absurd for me to obey your rules when I can stop you at the doorstep.” And when Bion applied himself to discrediting the soothsayers, Menedemus would say that he was merely slaughtering corpses.277

  Head of a man, c. 320 BC, Greek. This marble belongs to a type of Athenian grave monument in which life-size images of family members were presented within a stagelike setting.

  136 One day when he heard someone say that the greatest good was to obtain everything one desired, Menedemus said, “It’s much better to desire what you need.” Antigonus of Carystus says that Menedemus never wrote or composed anything, and therefore did not support any doctrine. In his debates, he says, Menedemus was so pugnacious that he would leave with his eyes blackened. Yet, though violent in debate, in his conduct he was exceedingly gentle. At any rate, though he often mocked Alexinus and ridiculed him mercilessly, he nevertheless assisted him; for when Alexinus’ wife was afraid she might be attacked and robbed in the course of her journey, he provided her with an escort from Delphi to Chalcis.278

  137,138 He was a devoted friend, as is clear from his dedication to Asclepiades, which was no different from the tender affection shown by Pylades.279 But as Asclepiades was the elder, it was said that he was the playwright, Menedemus the actor. There is a story that once, when Archipolis sent them a promissory note for three thousand drachmas, they wrangled so about who had the lesser claim that neither of them took the money. It is said that they took as wives a mother and daughter, Asclepiades marrying the daughter, Menedemus the mother; and that when Asclepiades’ wife died, he took Menedemus’ wife;280 and that Menedemus, when he entered politics, married a wealthy woman. Nevertheless, since the two men shared a single abode, Menedemus entrusted its management to his first wife. It was Asclepiades who died first at an advanced age at Eretria, having lived frugally with Menedemus, though they were well off. Some time later, when a beloved of Asclepiades came to a drinking party and the servants would not let him in, Menedemus told them to admit him, saying that Asclepiades, though under the ground, was opening the door to him.281 The two men were subsidized by Hipponicus the Macedonian and Agetor of Lamia, the latter giving each of them thirty minas,282 the former giving Menedemus two thousand drachmas to provide dowries for his daughters. He had three, according to Heraclides, by a wife who came from Oropus.

  139,140 He used to conduct his drinking parties in the following manner. He would take a meal beforehand with two or three friends until it was late in the day; then someone would summon the guests who had also already dined. So if anyone came too early, he would walk up and down and inquire of those who came out what was being served and what time it was. If there were only vegetables or salt fish, they would depart; but if there was meat, they would go in. In summer a rush mat would be placed on the couches, in winter a sheepskin; each guest had to bring his own cushion. The cup that was passed around was no larger than a half-pint; dessert consisted of lupine seeds or beans, sometimes also of seasonal fruit such as pears, pomegranates, peas, or even, by Zeus, dried figs. All these details are mentioned in the satyr play written in his honor by Lycophron, which he entitled Menedemus and composed as a tribute to the philosopher. To it belong the following verses:

  And after a brief meal, the small drinking-cup

  Was passed around with moderation, and the dessert

  Was a temperate discourse for those who cared to listen.

  141,142 At first he was despised by the Eretrians and called a dog283 and a ba
bbler; but later he was so admired that he was entrusted with the city’s affairs. Sent as an ambassador to Ptolemy and Lysimachus,284 he was honored wherever he went; he was even sent to Demetrius,285 and succeeded in reducing by fifty talents the tribute of two hundred talents that the city was paying that year to the king. When accused to Demetrius of intending to hand over the city to Ptolemy,286 he defended himself in a letter that begins as follows: “Menedemus to King Demetrius, greetings. I hear that you have received a report about us.” There is a story that it was Aeschylus,287 one of his political opponents, who had slandered him. He appears to have served with great dignity in the embassy to Demetrius on behalf of Oropus,288 as Euphantus mentions in his Histories. Antigonus too was fond of him and proclaimed himself his student. And when the king defeated the barbarians near Lysimachia,289 Menedemus wrote a decree in his honor, simple and free of flattery, that begins: “The generals and delegates have declared: ‘Whereas King Antigonus, after defeating the barbarians in battle, is returning to his own country, and whereas in all his undertakings his judgment is sound, the senate and the people have decided….’”

  It was because of this, and also because of his friendship with Antigonus in other matters, that Menedemus was suspected of betraying the city to him, and he emigrated when falsely denounced by Aristodemus.290 He resided in Oropus in the sanctuary of Amphiaraus; and when some golden drinking-cups went missing, as Hermippus says, Menedemus was ordered to depart by a common decree of the Boeotians. At that point, in despair, he secretly slipped into his native city, took with him his wife and daughters, and proceeded to the court of Antigonus, where he died of sorrow.

  143,144 But Heraclides gives a wholly different account, namely that Menedemus, when made a delegate of the Eretrians, often liberated his city from tyrants by calling in Demetrius291 (in which case he would not have betrayed the city to Antigonus, but must have been falsely accused); that he went to Antigonus and wished to free his native land; and that when Antigonus would not yield, Menedemus, in despair, abstained from food for seven days and died. The same account is given by Antigonus of Carystus. It was only with Persaeus292 that Menedemus was openly at war; for it was thought that when Antigonus was willing to restore the Eretrians’ democracy for Menedemus’ sake, Persaeus prevented him. This is why one day at a drinking party Menedemus refuted Persaeus in argument and said, among other things, “He’s certainly a philosopher; but as a man he’s the worst of all who exist or are yet to be born.”

  According to Heraclides, Menedemus died at the age of eighty-four. My own verses about him run as follows:

  I heard of your fate, Menedemus, how of your own free will

   You died by eating nothing for seven days.

  An act worthy of an Eretrian,293 but unworthy of a man;

   For the guide who led you on was your own faintheartedness.

  Terra-cotta head of a woman with a veil, fourth century BC.

  These then were the followers of Socrates and their students. We must turn to Plato, the founder of the Academy, and to those of his successors who won renown.

  1 Miletus, an Ionian city on the southwest coast of Asia Minor, seems to have been the intellectual center of the Greek world in the sixth century BC, as Athens was in the subsequent century.

  2 In Greek, to apeiron, which can mean “the unbounded,” “the infinite,” or “the undifferentiated.”

  3 The theory that the earth was the center of the solar system was standard, though not universally accepted, in the ancient Greek world.

  4 A simple vertical rod mounted on a calibrated stand, such that the length of the rod’s shadow could be precisely measured. These measurements made possible various calculations based on the sun’s position relative to the earth.

  5 Meaning, presumably, clepsydrae, water clocks that measured time by the passage of water through a narrow aperture.

  6 The Greek word sphaira can denote a terrestrial globe but here probably refers to an armillary sphere or model of the celestial dome.

  7 This Olympiad began in 548 BC.

  8 Polycrates seized power in Samos around 535 BC.

  9 The ancient Greek language had widely varying dialects; Ionic Greek was spoken mostly by the Greeks of Asia Minor.

  10 Parmenides of Elea was a fifth-century philosopher who founded the Eleatic school. Diogenes discusses his life and views at 9.21–23.

  11 If the text is correct, Anaximenes accepted the theory of his teacher Anaximander that to apeiron (the unlimited) gave rise to the physical world, and added air as a second generative element; but some editors emend the text to say that he assigned this role to air alone.

  12 That is, stars disappear from view at certain times of year only because they are blocked by earth’s higher elevations, not because they have moved below the horizon.

  13 Sardis, the capital of Lydia, fell to the Persians around 547 BC.

  14 This Olympiad began in 528 BC.

  15 Confusingly, Diogenes attributes a work of history to the uncle of Anaximenes (c. 380–320 BC), while designating the nephew (also named Anaximenes) a historian. A surviving Greek handbook of oratory, the Rhetoric to Alexander, is thought to be the work of the older man.

  16 For Pythagoras’s life and work, see 8.1–50. At 8.49 Diogenes includes one of Pythagoras’s letters to Anaximenes.

  17 A similar story is told of Thales at 1.34. Contrary to what Anaximenes writes here, Thales apparently survived his fall, since Diogenes reports that Thales died of old age while watching an athletic contest (1.39).

  18 A Greek city in southern Italy.

  19 Aeaces was a tyrant of Samos; his two sons were Syloson and Polycrates. The dates here are difficult to reconcile, as the Ionian Revolt (mentioned below) lasted from 499 to 494 BC—after the supposed rule of Aeaces had ended. The letter may refer not to the original Aeaces but to a grandson of the same name.

  20 The Persians were often referred to as “Medes” by the Greeks, though in fact the Medes were a distinct people ruled by the Persians. The king Anaximenes refers to is Darius I, who ruled the Persians from 522 to 486 BC.

  21 The Ionian Revolt, which began in 499 BC, was a failed attempt by the Greek city-states of Asia Minor, led by Miletus, to break away from Persian rule and cease paying tribute.

  22 An Ionian city near Smyrna, in present-day Turkey.

  23 The Greek word used here implies that something impious or sacrilegious has been uttered.

  24 Xerxes I of Persia invaded Greece in 480 BC. He crossed from Asia into Europe by building a pontoon bridge across the Hellespont (Dardanelles).

  25 The seventieth Olympiad began in 500 BC; the first year of the eighty-eighth was 428 BC.

  26 Like other ancient writers, Diogenes used the one-year terms of the chief archons at Athens, in addition to Olympiads, in place of numerical dates (which had not yet been devised). Sequential lists of these chief archons were available to him and, presumably, his readers, for use as a cross-reference. Here, the year referred to is 456 BC.

  27 Tantalus was the patriarch of the mythic house of Atreus. He is not elsewhere known as an astronomical theorist, but in one myth, he was allowed to ascend to the heavens, from where, presumably, he was able to observe the sun at close range.

  28 This difficult sentence cannot mean that all substances in the universe are pure (in fact Anaxagoras believed that most were mixtures), but rather that all matter can be resolved into pure elements.

  29 The “falling stone” refers to a meteorite that, according to other sources, fell near the town of Aegospotami, on the Hellespont, around 468 BC. Such an event would not, of course, be predictable.

  30 The lost Phaethon told the story of a son of the god Helios who attempts to drive his father’s chariot of the sun—with disastrous consequences. The playwright Euripides was known for his interest in philosophic speculation about nature and the gods.

  31 The widow of Mausolus, Artemisia II, did not in fact begin constructing the famous Mausoleum at Halicarnas
sus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, until the fourth century BC, long after Anaxagoras had died.

  32 The word here translated “disciple” would normally imply a personal connection, but Metrodorus of Lampsacus (mentioned in the life of Epicurus, at 10.10 ff.) lived over a century later than Anaxagoras. Diogenes may have used the word very loosely, or he may simply be mistaken about chronology.

  33 The manuscripts give a name, Demylus, that doesn’t appear in the archon lists, so the text here is apparently corrupt.

  34 Anaxagoras was indicted by the Athenians, perhaps around 450 BC, and forced into exile. The official charge was impiety, but Anaxagoras’s close association with Pericles, at that time a rising leader of the dēmos with many aristocratic enemies (discussed below), added fuel to the feelings against him.

  35 Cleon in fact came to prominence in Athens only in the late 430s, after Anaxagoras was almost certainly in exile.

  36 Not the famous historian, but an Athenian politician and orator.

  37 Democritus of Abdera (b. c. 460/57 BC) is traditionally considered the originator, along with his teacher Leucippus, of the theory that all matter is composed of atoms. Diogenes discusses his life and views at 9.34–49.

  38 In the sixth century BC, Miletus, a city that had close contact with Mesopotamian cosmology and science, had been the center of Greek speculation about nature and physical phenomena; later, Athens took over the central role Miletus had played.