Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
Page 26
Not only feasted the nostrils of the gods with savory aromas and fat,
And incense over sacrificial hearths and altars and tables;
Nor did he merely say, “I have sinned, forgive the past”;
But he readily allowed an old woman to put a charm around his neck,
And he faithfully bound his arms with leather,
57 Placed buckthorn and laurel branches over the door,
And prepared to render any service sooner than die.
He was a fool to wish that divine aid might be obtained at a certain price,
As if the gods exist whenever Bion chooses to acknowledge them.
It was then, regaining his wits in vain, when he was all ashes,
That he stretched forth his hand and said, “Hail, Pluto, hail!”109
58 There have been ten men named Bion: the first a contemporary of Pherecydes of Syros, to whom two books in the Ionic dialect have been attributed (he was from Proconnesus); the second a Syracusan, who wrote handbooks on rhetoric; the third our present subject; the fourth a Democritean, a mathematician from Abdera who wrote in both the Attic and Ionic dialects; he was the first to say that there are certain places where the night lasts for six months and the day for six months; the fifth a native of Soli, who wrote a work on Ethiopia; the sixth an orator, to whom nine books named after the Muses are attributed; the seventh a lyric poet; the eighth a Milesian sculptor mentioned by Polemon; the ninth a tragic poet, one of the poets of Tarsus, as they are called; and the tenth a sculptor from Clazomenae or Chios, mentioned by Hipponax.
Lacydes
59 Lacydes, son of Alexander, was a native of Cyrene. It was he who succeeded Arcesilaus and inaugurated the New Academy.110 A man of great nobility who had numerous emulators, he was diligent from his youth up and, despite his poverty, gracious and sociable. They say that in the management of his household he was extremely stingy. For whenever he brought anything out of his storeroom, he would apply a layer of wax to the door and throw his seal ring inside through a hole, so that nothing stored there would ever be removed and carried off.111 Eventually his servants, getting to know of this, used to remove as much as they liked, afterward throwing the ring back into the storeroom through the same hole. Nor were they ever caught at it.
60 Lacydes used to lecture in the Academy in the garden that had been laid out by King Attalus;112 named in his honor, the garden was called the Lacydeum. He was the only head of the school ever to hand it on to his successors, Telecles and Evander (both from Phocaea), during his lifetime. Evander was succeeded by Hegesias of Pergamon, who was succeeded by Carneades.113 A delightful anecdote is told of Lacydes. When Attalus sent for him, Lacydes is said to have remarked that statues should be seen from a distance.114 As he devoted himself late in life to the study of geometry, someone said to him, “But why now?”
61 He became head of the school in the fourth year of the 134th Olympiad115 and died after heading it for twenty-six years. His death was due to paralysis brought on by heavy drinking. My own satiric verses about him run as follows:
Of you, Lacydes, I have heard this tale:
Bacchus seized and dragged you, with trailing toes, to Hades.
It’s clear that when Dionysus enters the body in force
He loosens our limbs. Isn’t this why he is called Lyaeus?116
Carneades
62 Carneades, son of Epicomus (or of Philocomus, according to Alexander in his Successions), was a native of Cyrene. After carefully studying the writings of the Stoics,
Had Chrysippus not existed, I would not have existed.118
His industry was unsurpassed (though he devoted himself less to natural philosophy than to ethics), so that he would let his hair and nails grow long from devotion to his studies. He was so prominent in philosophy that even the orators would dismiss their classes and go to hear him lecture.
63 He had an exceptionally loud voice, and consequently the head of the gymnasium sent to him to ask him not to shout so loudly. Carneades answered, “Then give me a gauge to measure my voice,” whereupon the man, taking him up, wittily replied, “You have a gauge: your audience.” Carneades was a formidable critic and an invincible debater. And for the reasons already mentioned119 he declined dinner invitations. A student of his, Mentor of Bithynia, aimed to seduce his concubine; so one day (according to Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History), when Mentor came to his lecture, Carneades in the course of his remarks parodied some Homeric verses at Mentor’s expense:
64 Here comes an infallible old man of the sea,
Resembling Mentor in form and in voice;
Him I proclaim to have been banished from this school.120
At this Mentor rose and said,
They made their proclamation, and the others quickly assembled.121
Carneades seems to have conducted himself faintheartedly as his end approached, repeatedly remarking, “Nature which assembled will disassemble.” When he learned that Antipater had died after drinking poison, he was moved by the courage with which he faced his end, and said, “Give me some too.” And when they asked, “What?” he replied, “Some honeyed wine.” They say that his death coincided with an eclipse of the moon, as if, so to speak, the brightest orb after the sun were conveying her sympathy.
65,66 Apollodorus, in his Chronology, says that Carneades departed the world of men in the third year of the 162nd Olympiad122 at the age of eighty-five. Letters of his to Ariarathes,123 the king of the Cappadocians, are extant. Everything else was assembled by his students. He himself left nothing in writing. My own epigram about him, written in logaoedic and Archebulian verses,124 run as follows:
Why, oh why, Muse, would you have me censure Carneades?
When wasting away from the direst of diseases,
He would not obtain release. But having heard that
Antipater died after drinking poison, he said,
“Then let me drink some, too.” “What?”
“What? Give me some honeyed wine.”
He was always ready to remark,
“Nature which holds me together will dissolve me.”
He descended nonetheless to the grave; but he might have
Reached Hades with the help of more numerous woes.
It is said that he went blind at night without being aware of it, and he ordered his slave to light a lamp. When the man brought it in and said, “Here it is,” Carneades replied, “Then read.”
He had many other students, but the most distinguished was Clitomachus, of whom we must speak.
There was another Carneades, an insipid elegiac poet.
Clitomachus
67 Clitomachus was from Carthage. He was originally called Hasdrubal,125 and he taught philosophy in Carthage in his native language. Coming to Athens at the age of forty, he became a student of Carneades. Appreciating Clitomachus’ diligence, Carneades had him educated and took part in training him. Clitomachus was so industrious that he wrote more than forty treatises. He succeeded Carneades, and by his own writings shed considerable light on his predecessor’s doctrines. The man became eminent in three schools of thought: the Academic, the Peripatetic, and the Stoic.
Two herm busts, each purportedly to be of a Greek philosopher. Both are Roman and from the late first century AD.
The Academics in general are ridiculed by Timon in the line:
Not even the unsalted126 long-windedness of the Academics.
Now that we have reviewed the Academics who descended from Plato, let us pass on to the Peripatetics, who also descended from Plato. They begin with Aristotle.
1 It’s unclear how or why Speusippus was chosen to succeed Plato as head, or scholarch, of the Academy, over Xenocrates and Aristotle, who were also deemed to have great promise. Plato may have made the choi
ce himself (Diogenes specifies at 5.2 that Aristotle left Athens while Plato was still living, and it’s likely that he did so after being passed over for the scholarchate).
2 This Olympiad began in 348 BC; Plato died the following year.
3 Cassander, the son of Macedonian nobleman Antipater, married Thessalonica, daughter of King Philip II, in 316 BC—long after Speusippus had died. Diogenes may be mistaken, or Cassander may have had an otherwise unknown first marriage.
4 These women were mentioned by Diogenes as students of Plato, at 3.46. Lestheneia is the “Arcadian woman” referred to below.
5 Dionysius II of Syracuse. Speusippus had accompanied Plato on his last visit to this man’s court, in 361 BC.
6 An ambitious project, but no evidence survives of its contents.
7 Isocrates, an influential Athenian orator and teacher of rhetoric (436–338 BC), is not otherwise known to have had “secret doctrines.” An extant letter to Philip of Macedon, attributed to Speusippus (probably correctly) and dating to the early 340s BC, makes clear that Speusippus’ Academy was engaged in a fierce rivalry with Isocrates for Philip’s favor. The source Diogenes cites here, Caineus, is not otherwise known, and some editors think the text may be corrupt.
8 Diogenes discusses Xenocrates’ life and views at 4.6–15.
9 Diogenes Laertius discusses Diogenes the Cynic’s life and views at 6.20–81.
10 Plutarch’s life of the Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla (paired with that of Greek Lysander) does not mention Speusippus, though at 36.5–6 it does list other men said to have died from lice infestations. Diogenes seems to have read the Parallel Lives, a work composed around AD 100, but to have remembered it imperfectly.
11 This odd anecdote, connected to the previous one only by their common source, seems intended to illustrate Speusippus’ greed, a quality already remarked on in 4.2.
12 Dion was the brother-in-law of Dionysius I of Syracuse and top adviser to both that tyrant and his son, Dionysius II. Timonides fought in Dion’s campaign against the younger Dionysius, after Dion had been exiled from Syracuse in the 360s BC but then led a military invasion of Syracuse; Timonides’ letters to Speusippus about that campaign are cited numerous times in Plutarch’s life of Dion. (The second name given in the manuscripts after Dion’s, “Bion,” is deleted by many editors as a doublet of “Dion.”)
13 It is unclear whether the “books of Speusippus” refers to the man’s own writings or his library. Three talents would be a huge sum to pay for the list of books given above.
14 Chalcedon was a Megarian colony in Asia Minor, across the Bosporus from Byzantium.
15 A well-worn comparison; see 5.39 and 5.65.
16 A famously beautiful hetaira (courtesan), like Lais in the next anecdote.
17 Cutting and burning were standard medical treatments for various inflammations and discharges; it’s unlikely Xenocrates used these procedures as aids to self-restraint, as Diogenes assumes.
18 The reason Alexander the Great would thus patronize Xenocrates, who was no supporter of Macedonian power, is perhaps explained at 5.10: Alexander apparently wished to antagonize Aristotle, the former tutor from whom he had become estranged, by supporting his rival for leadership of the Academy.
19 Antipater was a Macedonian nobleman who served both Philip II and Alexander the Great. After Alexander’s death he controlled most of the Greek world, including Athens.
20 Xenocrates accompanied Plato to Dionysius II’s court in Syracuse in 367 or (less likely) 361 BC (see 4.11).
21 At the Feast of the Choes, celebrants competed in draining a chous, or nine-pint pitcher, of wine.
22 This story is not found elsewhere, but its context is clearly Philip of Macedon’s growing ascendancy over Athens in 346–338 BC (Xenocrates had returned to Athens from Asia Minor in 340 or 339). Philip was notorious for suborning Athenian ambassadors.
23 Fines were commonly levied by the Athenians on unsuccessful public servants.
24 This story conflicts with one related by Plutarch (Phocion 27), in which Xenocrates, on the occasion of this embassy, could not even get Antipater to listen to him. The Lamian War was an Athenian-led rebellion against Antipater, guardian of Alexander’s European empire; it ended in defeat for Athens under harsh Macedonian terms. The verses here quoted are from an episode of the Odyssey (10.383–85) in which Odysseus insists that the witch Circe release his men from the animal forms she has given them.
25 Evidently Bion of Borysthenes, a later head of the Academy (see 4.46–58) and a famously satirical man, is meant, though he would have been only a young boy in the last part of Xenocrates’ life.
26 Wool carding is the process of cleaning dirt and dung out of wool before spinning it into thread.
27 The work may have been polemical, since Xenocrates, unlike his fellow student Aristotle, was no supporter of Alexander.
28 Other sources, including Plutarch (Phocion 29), recount that Xenocrates got in trouble for not paying the tax levied on resident aliens (known as metics), but there is no other evidence he was—or could be—sold into slavery.
29 Demetrius of Phalerum led Athens briefly in the late fourth century BC. Diogenes discusses his life and views at 5.75–85.
30 That is, beginning in 339 BC and running for twenty-five years, until 314.
31 Arsinoe was the sister and wife of Ptolemy II, ruler of Egypt in the early third century BC.
32 A peculiar anecdote, since three obols—half a day’s wage for an unskilled worker—could not purchase very much gratification.
33 An evocation of Plato’s Symposium, 212c–e, in which a similarly drunk Alcibiades bursts in upon a sober Socrates.
34 In 314 BC, after the death of Xenocrates. The position of scholarch, or head of the school, was a lifetime appointment, though a lesser executive office was rotated every ten days (see 5.4).
35 Sexual relations with meirakia, boys in early adolescence, were apparently common practice among members of the Academy, to judge by Plato’s writings; but this passage gives a rare glimpse into their impact on marriages.
36 Crantor of Soli (335–275 BC), a future scholarch; see 4.24–27.
37 Nicostratus is not otherwise known, but his nickname, Clytemnestra, suggests he was a tragic actor or tragic poet (since Clytemnestra, the wife of Agememnon, was a character in many plays). Crates was Polemon’s successor as the head of the school (see 4.21–23). “The poet” here probably refers to Homer.
38 The surviving comedies of Aristophanes (c. 446–386 BC) do not include either of the quotes in this sentence. The second one contrasts a coarse or vulgar style, here linked to sexual lewdness, with “gourmet” use of language.
39 Evidently there were no living quarters in the Academy, a space that mainly consisted of a garden and public exercise area. As Diogenes here indicates, the Academy also contained a shrine of the Muses (dedicated by Plato and augmented by Speusippus; see 4.1), and an arcade (exedra), an outdoor seating area where students could listen to lectures.
40 Not the philosopher Aristippus of Cyrene but a later author, often termed Pseudo-Aristippus today.
41 The first quotation comes from Aristophanes; Molossian hounds were especially keen-scented. The second quote comes from another contemporary of Sophocles, the comic playwright Phrynichus; Pramnian wine was much admired in the ancient world.
42 Head of the Academy in the mid-third century BC. Diogenes discusses his life and views at 4.28–45.
43 Theophrastus (c. 372/70–c. 288/86 BC) was a Peripatetic philosopher and Aristotle’s successor as the head of the Lyceum. His life and views are discussed at 5.36–57.
44 This Olympiad began in 268 BC. The text between the brackets is inserted by editors on the assumption it had dropped out of the manuscripts.
45 See 4.28–45.
46 Theodorus, founder of a branch of the Cyrenaic school, is discussed at 2.98–104.
47 See 4.46–58.
48 Crates of Thebes (c. 368/65–288/85 BC), als
o known as Crates the Cynic. Diogenes discusses his life and views at 6.85–93.
49 Soli lay on the coast of Cilicia, in southern Asia Minor.
50 Xenocrates and Polemon are discussed at 4.6–15 and 4.16–20, respectively.
51 Twelve talents was a sizable fortune. A talent consisted of six thousand drachmas, each about a day’s wage for an unskilled worker.
52 A line from an unknown tragedy.
53 Bellerophon was a mythical hero who fell to earth from Pegasus, the winged horse, and wandered blind and broken for the rest of his days. The line quoted here comes from Euripides’ lost tragedy on this theme.
54 Cypris (“the Cyprian”) is Aphrodite, goddess of sexual love.
55 The meanings of all three critiques of style are obscure due to the use of rare words and expressions, and the translations are tentative.
56 Pluto was another name for Hades, the eldest brother of Zeus and ruler of the underworld.
57 The Academy, Plato’s school, was divided by the later Greeks into stages, Old, Middle, and New, based on shifts in doctrine. The Middle Academy was defined by its skepticism, as Diogenes goes on to say.
58 The Greek word eris means “strife” or “disputation.” In calling Arcesilaus’ approach “eristic,” Diogenes suggests that he emphasized the debater’s skill of being able to argue effectively for or against any position.
59 For more on Theophrastus (c. 372/70–288/86 BC), Aristotle’s successor as the head of the Lyceum, see 5.36–57.
60 The now lost play depicted the rescue of Andromeda from a sea-monster by the hero Perseus. The lines that Diogenes quotes were evidently part of an exchange between Andromeda and Perseus at the play’s climax.
61 Attalus I (269–197 BC) was king of Pergamon, a powerful state near the eastern coast of Asia Minor. He waged wars against Seleucus II and III, eventually seizing a large portion of their territories.