Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
Page 44
140 The cosmos, they say, is one and limited, with a spherical shape. For such a shape is best suited for motion, as Posidonius says in the fifth book of his Discourse on Nature and Antipater in his work On the Cosmos. Outside of it is spread the unlimited void, which is incorporeal. By incorporeal they mean that which could be occupied by bodies but is not. The cosmos contains no void, but forms a united whole. For this is necessitated by the cohesive breath and tension that bind together things in heaven and on earth. Chrysippus speaks of the void in his work On Void and in the first book of his Physical Sciences, as do Apollophanes in his work On Natural Philosophy and Apollodorus and Posidonius in the second book of his Discourse on Nature.
Fragment of the Parian Chronicle, c. 264 BC. The oldest surviving example of a Greek chronological table, it records the history of Greece from c. 1581 to 264 BC. It was fashioned while the Stoic philosophers were developing their theory of time as incoporeal and completed the year after Zeno died.
141 And these are likewise incorporeal. Time, too, is incorporeal, being a dimension of the world’s motion. Past and future time are unlimited, whereas the present is limited.
They hold that the cosmos is perishable, given that it was generated, by analogy with things conceived by the senses. And that of which the parts are perishable, is perishable as a whole. Now the parts of the cosmos are perishable, for they change into one another; therefore, the cosmos itself is perishable. Furthermore, if something is capable of changing for the worse, it is perishable, and that is the case with the cosmos; for it is subject to drought and inundation.
142 They say that the cosmos is created when the substance is transformed from fire through air into moisture, and then the dense part of the moisture congeals and becomes earth, while the fine part becomes air, which, when further rarefied, generates fire. Then, from a mixture of these elements are produced plants and animals and the other natural kinds. The genesis and destruction of the cosmos are discussed by Zeno in his work On the Cosmos, Chrysippus in the first book of his Physics, Posidonius in the first book of his work On the Cosmos, Cleanthes, and Antipater in the tenth book of his work On the Cosmos. Panaetius, however, declared that the cosmos is indestructible.
143 That the cosmos is a living being, rational, endowed with a soul, and intelligent is asserted by Chrysippus in the first book of his work On Providence, by Apollodorus in his Physics, and by Posidonius. It is a living being in that it is a substance endowed with a soul and sensation. For the living being is better than the nonliving; and there is nothing better than the cosmos; therefore the cosmos is a living being. And it is endowed with a soul, as is clear from the fact that each of our souls is a fragment of it.
Boethus, however, says that the cosmos is not a living being. That it is a unity is asserted by Zeno in his work On the Universe, Chrysippus, Apollodorus in his Physics, and Posidonius in the first book of his Discourse on Nature. They mean by “the All” the cosmos, according to Apollodorus, and, in another sense, the system consisting of the cosmos and the void outside it. The cosmos is limited but the void unlimited.
144 The fixed stars are carried around with the whole heaven, whereas the planets move according to their own particular motions. The sun travels along an elliptical path through the circle of the zodiac; similarly the moon travels along a spiral path. The sun is pure fire, as Posidonius says in the seventh book of his work On Celestial Phenomena. And it is larger than the earth, as the same philosopher says in the sixteenth book of his Discourse on Nature; it is also spherical, just like the universe, as he maintains. That it is fire is proved by the fact that it does all the things fire does. That it is larger than the earth is proved by the fact that the entire earth is illuminated by it, and so is the heaven. And the fact that the earth casts a conical shadow also indicates that the sun is larger. And because of its great size it is seen from everywhere on earth.
145 The moon is more like the earth in composition because it is closer to the earth. These fiery bodies and the other stars each receive some form of nourishment: the sun, which is an ignited mass endowed with reason, from the great ocean; and the moon from fresh waters, since it is mixed with air and is close to the earth, as Posidonius says in the sixth book of his Discourse on Nature. The other celestial bodies get their nutriment from the earth. They hold that the stars and the earth are spherical, and that the earth does not move. The moon does not have its own light, but gets its illumination from the sun.
146 An eclipse of the sun occurs when the moon passes in front of it on the side toward us, as Zeno writes in his work On the Universe. For the moon is seen stealing over the sun at their conjunctions, occluding it, and then receding from it. (One can observe this phenomenon by means of a basin containing water.) The moon is eclipsed when it falls into the earth’s shadow; hence it is only during full moons that eclipses occur. Although the moon is diametrically opposite the sun every month, because, in traveling along an oblique path (relative to the sun’s), it passes out of the sun’s latitude, it goes too far north or too far south for an eclipse to occur every month. But when it is on the sun’s latitude and the ecliptic, it is diametrically opposite the sun, and then an eclipse occurs. The moon is on the sun’s latitude and the ecliptic in the constellations of Cancer, Scorpio, Aries, and Taurus, according to Posidonius.
147 God is a living being, immortal, rational, perfect in happiness, immune to anything bad, exercising forethought for the cosmos and all it contains. But he is not of human shape. He is the craftsman of the universe and, as it were, the father of all things, both generally and in that particular part of him that pervades everything and which is called by many names in accordance with his various powers. For they call him Dia108 because he is the cause (di’hon) of all things; Zeus, insofar as he is the cause of life (zēn) or passes through the living; Athena because his ruling part extends into the upper air (aithēr); Hera because it extends into the air (aēr); Hephaestus because it extends into the designing fire; Poseidon because it extends into the watery domain; and Demeter because it extends into the earth. Likewise, they give him other titles by fastening onto particular aspects of his nature.
148 Zeno says that the whole cosmos and the heaven are the substance of god, as do Chrysippus in the first book of his work On Gods and Posidonius in the first book of his work On Gods. Antipater, in the seventh book of his work On the Cosmos, says that god’s substance is aeriform. Boethus, in his work On Nature, says that the sphere of the fixed stars is the substance of god.
149 By the term “nature,” they sometimes mean that which sustains the cosmos, sometimes that which makes things on earth grow. Nature is a self-moving force that generates and sustains its products in accordance with generative principles at definite periods, producing beings similar to those from which they sprang. They say that nature aims both at utility and at pleasure, as is evident from human craftsmanship.
That all things happen by fate is asserted by Chrysippus in his treatise On Fate, by Posidonius in the second book of his work On Fate, by Zeno, and by Boethus in the first book of his work On Fate. Fate is the causal chain of the universe or a rational principle according to which the cosmos is administered.
They also maintain that divination in all forms is real, if it is true that providence also exists. And they prove it to be a skill on the basis of certain outcomes, as Zeno says, and Chrysippus in the second book of his work On Divination, Athenodorus, and Posidonius in the second book of his Discourse on Nature and in the fifth book of his work On Divination. Panaetius, on the other hand, claims that it does not exist.
150,151 They say that the primary matter is the substance of all things that exist; thus Chrysippus in the first book of his Physics and Zeno. Matter is that from which anything whatever is produced. The terms “substance” and “matter” are used in two senses, either pertaining to everything or to particular things. The matter of the universe does not increase or diminish, but the matter of particular things both increases and diminishe
s. Substance, according to them, is body, and it is limited, as Antipater says in the second book of his work On Substance and Apollodorus in his work Physics. And it is also subject to change, as the same author says; for if it were immutable, then the things generated from it would not have come into being. Hence he also rejects the infinite divisibility that Chrysippus asserts. “For there is nothing infinite into which the division can be made. But the division cannot be brought to an end. Substances can be blended through and through, as Chrysippus says in the third book of his Physics, and not merely at their surfaces and by juxtaposition. For a little wine thrown into the sea will co-extend with it for a while, and will then be blended with it.
They say that there are daimones109 who have a rapport with human beings and oversee human affairs, and also heroes,110 who are the surviving souls of virtuous men.
152,153 Of atmospheric phenomena, they call winter the cooling of the air above the earth as a result of the sun’s departure to a distance, and spring the good temperature of the air that results from the sun’s approach to us. Summer is the heating of the air above the earth by the sun’s journey to the north; autumn is caused by the return journey of the sun away from us.
Rain is a transformation of cloud into water, when moisture, carried up from the earth or the sea by the sun, has not been entirely evaporated. When it is frozen, it is called hoarfrost. Hail is frozen cloud crumbled by wind. Snow is moisture from a frozen cloud, as Posidonius says in the eighth book of his Discourse on Nature.
154 Lightning is a kindling of clouds that have been rubbed together or broken up by wind, as Zeno says in his work On the Universe. Thunder is the sound produced by the rubbing together or breaking up of these clouds. A thunderbolt is a powerful kindling that falls to the earth with great force when clouds are rubbed together or broken up by the wind. Others say that it is a dense mass of fiery air that descends violently. A typhoon is a great thunderbolt, violent and windy, or a smoky wind formed when a cloud breaks up. A hurricane is a cloud split by fire and wind.
Earthquakes occur when wind flows into the hollow places of the earth or is trapped there, as Posidonius says in his eighth book. They include jolts, fissures, tilts, and vertical shocks.
155,156 They hold that the world’s orderly arrangement is as follows. The earth lies in the middle, functioning as the center; next comes the watery sphere, concentric with the earth, so that the earth is in water; after the water comes a spherical layer of air. There are five celestial circles: first, the arctic circle, which is always visible; second, the summer tropic; third, the equinoctial circle; fourth, the winter tropic; and fifth, the antarctic, which is invisible. They are called parallel because they do not incline toward one another. Yet they are described around the same center. The zodiac is an oblique circle, since it crosses the parallel circles. The earth has five zones. The first is the northern zone, beyond the arctic circle, uninhabitable because of the cold; the second is the temperate zone; the third is uninhabitable because of the heat and is called the torrid zone; the fourth is the countertemperate zone; and the fifth is the southern zone, which is uninhabitable because of the cold.
Terra-cotta lekythos (oil flask), attributed to the Sabouroff Painter, c. 450 BC. Hermes beckons a young man, the deceased, toward Charon’s boat.
157 They think that nature is a designing fire, proceeding methodically on its course—that is to say breath that is fiery and endowed with designing power. The soul is a nature capable of sense perception. It is our inborn breath. They therefore consider that it is a body and that it survives death. But it is perishable, though the soul of the universe, of which the souls of living beings are parts, is imperishable. Zeno of Citium and Antipater, in their works On the Soul, and Posidonius hold that the soul is a warm breath; through it we live, and by it we move. Cleanthes says that all souls last until the conflagration, but Chrysippus says that only the souls of the wise do.
They say that the soul has eight parts: the five senses, the generative principles in us, the power of speech, and the power of reasoning.
They say that we see when the light between our vision and the external object extends in the form of a cone, according to Chrysippus, in the second book of his Physics, and Apollodorus. The tip of the cone in the air is at the eye, the base at the object seen. Thus the observed object is communicated to us by the tensed air, as if by a stick.
158 We hear when the air between the speaker and the hearer is struck in a spherical manner and then rises in waves and strikes the ears, just as the water in a cistern forms circular waves when a stone is thrown into it.
Sleep occurs when the sensory tension is relaxed in the ruling part of the soul. They say that the passions are caused by variations of the breath.
159 Semen, they say, is that which is able to engender beings similar to the beings from which it sprang. Human semen, which the human being emits with a moist envelope, is mingled with the parts of the soul in a mixture identical, proportionally, to that of the parents. Chrysippus, in the second book of his Physics, says that in substance it is breath, as is clear from seeds that are sown in the earth, which, when they are old, no longer germinate because their potency has dissipated. Sphaerus113 says that semen is derived from the entire body; at any rate, it generates all the parts of the body. The seed of the female they declare to be sterile, for it is without tension, scanty, and watery, as Sphaerus says.
The ruling part is the most authoritative part of the soul; in it the impressions and impulses arise, and from it rational speech issues. It resides in the heart.
160 This seems to me an adequate summary of their physical doctrines, my aim being to preserve a due proportion in my work. But the points on which certain Stoics differed from the rest are the following.
Ariston
161 Ariston the Bald, of Chios, who was nicknamed the Siren,114 said that the goal was to live in a state of indifference to everything that is intermediate between virtue and vice, without making any distinction whatsoever among such things, but treating them all alike. For he likened the wise man to the good actor, who, whether he dons the mask of Thersites or that of Agamemnon,115 will portray both characters appropriately. He dispensed with the topics of physics and logic, saying that the one is beyond our grasp, that the other does not concern us, and that the only one that does concern us is ethics. He said that dialectical arguments are like spiderwebs: though they seem to display some workmanship, they are utterly useless. He did not accept the idea of numerous virtues, as Zeno did, nor the doctrine of the Megarians, who call a single virtue by many names; instead he regarded virtue as belonging to the category of relative modes.
Espousing this sort of philosophy and discoursing in Cynosarges,116 he became influential enough to be called the founder of a philosophical school. At any rate Miltiades and Diphilus117 were called Aristonians. He was a persuasive man and well thought of by the public. Hence Timon alludes to him in this verse:
One who traces his descent from wily Ariston.
162,163 After meeting Polemon,118 says Diocles of Magnesia, Ariston went over to his school; Zeno was at that time afflicted with a lingering ailment. Ariston was especially attached to the Stoic doctrine that the wise man
Ariston was thus refuted. He also inveighed against Arcesilaus.121 Setting eyes on a monstrous bull that had a uterus, he said, “Alas, Arcesilaus has been given an argument against the evidence of our senses!” To an Academic who claimed that he knew nothing for certain, Ariston said, “Don’t you even see the person sitting next to you?” And when the man said, “No,” Ariston replied,
Who blinded you? Who robbed you of the rays of the lamp?122
The books attributed to him include:
Exhortations, two books
On Zeno’s Doctrines
Dialogues
Lectures, six books
Dissertations on Wisdom, seven books
Dissertations on Love
Notes on Conceit
Notebooks, twenty-five books
Memoirs, three books
Anecdotes, eleven books
Against the Orators
Against the Refutations of Alexinus
Against the Dialecticians, three books
Against Cleanthes
Letters, four books
Panaetius and Sosicrates say that only the letters are his; they attribute all the other works to Ariston the Peripatetic.123
164 The story goes that, being bald, he suffered a sunstroke and so died. I have made fun of him in choliambs:
Why, Ariston, though old and bald,
Did you let the sun roast your brow?
Seeking warmth more than was wise,
You unwillingly found chill Hades.
There was another Ariston, a Peripatetic from Iulis; a third, a musician of Athens; a fourth, a tragic poet; a fifth, from Halae, an author of handbooks on rhetoric; and a sixth, a Peripatetic from Alexandria.