95 Furthermore, there is disagreement with regard to the criterion; some hold that man is the criterion, for some it is the senses, for others reason, and for still others the comprehending impression.154 And a man disagrees both with himself and with others, as is evident from the diversity of laws and customs. The senses deceive, and reason is inconsistent. The comprehending impression is judged by the mind, and the mind changes in a variety of ways. Hence the criterion is unknowable, and therefore so is truth.
96,97 There is no such thing as a sign, according to them. For if a sign exists, they say, it is either sensible or intelligible. Well, it is not sensible, since what is sensible is common, whereas a sign is particular. And the sensible thing is in the class of things that exist by virtue of difference, whereas the sign belongs to the category of relatives. But a sign is not intelligible, since intelligible things are either apparent judgments on apparent things, nonapparent judgments on nonapparent things, nonapparent judgments on apparent things, or apparent judgments on nonapparent things; and a sign is none of these things; therefore there is no such thing as a sign. It is not an apparent judgment on an apparent, since that which is apparent requires no sign; and it is not a nonapparent judgment on a nonapparent, since what is disclosed by something must appear; it cannot be a nonapparent judgment on an apparent, since that which provides a means of comprehending something must itself be apparent; finally, it is not an apparent judgment on a nonapparent, since the sign, being relative, should be comprehended together with that of which it is the sign, which is not the case here. Thus nothing uncertain could be comprehended; for it is by signs that uncertain things are said to be comprehended.
98 They reject cause in the following way. A cause is something relative, since it is relative to what is caused. But what is relative is only an object of thought; it has no actual existence. Therefore a cause could only be an object of thought. What is more, if there truly is a cause, it ought to have with it that of which it is said to be the cause; otherwise it will not be a cause. Just as a father, in the absence of that in relation to which one is called a father, would not be a father, so too with a cause. But that in relation to which the cause is thought of is not present; for there is no coming into being or destruction or anything else; so there is no such thing as a cause.
99 Moreover, if there is a cause, either a body is the cause of a body, or an incorporeal thing of an incorporeal thing,
Furthermore, there is no motion; for that which moves either moves in the place where it is, or in a place where it is not. But it cannot move in the place where it is, nor can it move in a place where it is not. Therefore there is no such thing as motion.
100 They also rejected the possibility of learning. If anything is taught, they say, either the existent thing is taught by virtue of its existence, or the nonexistent thing by virtue of its nonexistence. But the existent thing is not taught by virtue of its existence, for the nature of existing things is obvious to and recognized by all; nor is the nonexistent thing taught by virtue of its nonexistence; for to the nonexistent thing nothing happens, and consequently it cannot be taught.
Nor is there any coming into being, they say. For that which exists does not come into being, since it is; and neither does that which does not exist, since it has no substance; and that which has no substance or existence cannot have succeeded in coming into being.
101 Nothing is good or bad by nature; for if anything is good or bad by nature, it must be good or bad for everyone, just as snow is cold to everyone; but there is nothing that is universally good or bad to everyone; therefore there is nothing good or bad by nature. For either all that is thought good by anyone must be called good, or not all. But all cannot be called good, because the same thing is thought good by one person and bad by another; for example, pleasure is thought good by Epicurus, while Antisthenes thought it bad. So it will follow that the same thing will be good and bad. But if we say that not all the things that someone thinks good are good, we will have to judge the various opinions; and this is not possible because of the equal force of opposing arguments. It is therefore impossible to know what is good by nature.
Two views of a bronze statuette of a veiled and masked dancer, Greek, third to second century BC.
102 It is possible to comprehend their whole mode of reasoning from their surviving treatises. For while Pyrrho himself left no written work, that is not the case with the line of his disciples: <…> Timon, Aenesidemus, Numenius, Nausiphanes, and others of the same stamp.
Seeking to refute them, the dogmatic philosophers say the Skeptics themselves comprehend and dogmatize regarding certain things; for when they seem to be limiting themselves to refuting, they are comprehending; for at that very moment they are affirming and dogmatizing. Thus even when they say that they affirm nothing, and that to every argument there is an opposing argument, they are actually affirming these things and dogmatizing.
103,104 To them the Skeptics reply, “We acknowledge our human feelings; for we recognize that it is day, that we are alive, and many other things that appear in life; but with regard to the things the dogmatic philosophers affirm so positively in argument, claiming to have comprehended them, we suspend judgment on the grounds that they are not certain, and we know only what we feel. For we admit that we see, and we recognize that we think this or that; but how we see or how we think we do not know. And in ordinary conversation we say that a certain thing appears white, but without affirming strongly that it actually is white. As for our ‘We determine nothing’ and the like, we use these expressions undogmatically; for they do not resemble an assertion like ‘The world is spherical.’ For the latter statement is not certain, while the others are mere admissions. Thus when we say ‘we determine nothing,’ we are not determining even that.”
105 Again, the dogmatic philosophers declare that the Skeptics reject life, since they reject everything of which life consists. The Skeptics reply that this is false; for they do not deny that we see; they maintain only that they do not know how we see. “Indeed, we admit a given object’s appearance, without admitting that the object really is as it appears. We perceive that fire burns; but as to whether it has a flammable nature, we suspend our judgment. We see that a man moves and that he perishes. How these things happen we do not know.” “We only take issue,” they say, “with the nonapparent things that underlie appearances. For when we say that a picture has depth, we are describing its appearance; but when we say that it has no depth, we are no longer speaking of its appearance, but of something else.”155 That is why Timon, in his Python, says that he has not transgressed the limits of ordinary usage. And in the Conceits he says:
But the apparent holds sway wherever it goes.
106 And in his treatise On Sensations he says, “That honey is sweet I do not affirm, though I concede that it appears so.” Aenesidemus too, in the first book of his Pyrrhonian Discourses, says that Pyrrho affirms nothing dogmatically when he makes use of contradiction, and that he follows appearances. He says the same in his works Against Wisdom and On Inquiry. Furthermore, Zeu
xis, Aenesidemus’ friend, in his work On Two-Sided Arguments, Antiochus of Laodicea, and Apellas156 in his Agrippa affirm appearances only. Therefore the apparent, according to the Skeptics, is the criterion, as Aenesidemus says; Epicurus holds the same position. Democritus, on the other hand, says that none of the apparent things is a criterion, and that they themselves do not exist.
107 Against this idea of appearances as the criterion the dogmatic philosophers say that when the same appearances produce different impressions, for example a round or square tower, the Skeptic, unless he prefers one view to the other, will do nothing; if, on the other hand, he adheres to either view, he is then no longer, they say, according equal validity to all appearances. To this the Skeptics reply: when different impressions are produced, we will say that each has appeared; for apparent things are so called because they appear.
108 The Skeptics say that their goal is suspension of judgment, which is attended by tranquillity as if by its shadow, as Timon and Aenesidemus declare. For when we are faced with matters that are for us to decide, we will neither choose this nor avoid that; and things that are not for us to decide, but depend on necessity, such as hunger, thirst, and pain, we cannot escape; for these are not to be removed by force of argument. And when the dogmatic philosophers say that the Skeptic would be able to live in this way but could not avoid butchering his father if ordered to do so, the Skeptics reply that he will be able to live in such a way as to suspend judgment in inquiries that concern dogmatic questions, but not in those that pertain to life and ordinary usages. Accordingly, they say, we may choose or avoid a thing by habit, and may adhere to laws and customs. According to some, the Skeptics made impassivity the goal; according to others, gentleness.
Timon
109,110 Our Apollonides of Nicea, in the first book of his Commentaries on the Lampoons, which he dedicated to Tiberius Caesar, says that Timon was the son of Timarchus and a native of Phlius.157 Orphaned at a young age, he became a dancer; later, having changed his mind, he went abroad to Megara to stay with Stilpo;158 and after spending some time with him, he returned home and married. Then he went with his wife to Pyrrho159 at Elis, and lived there until his children were born. He called his elder son Xanthus, taught him medicine, and made him his heir. The son was highly regarded, as Sotion says in his eleventh book. But Timon, having no means of support, sailed to the Hellespont and the Propontis.160 Living as a sophist in Chalcedon,161 he enhanced his reputation; after making a fortune, he sailed to Athens and lived there until his death, except for a brief stay at Thebes. He was known to King Antigonus162 and to Ptolemy Philadelphus,163 as he himself bears witness in his own iambics.
111,112 Antigonus164 says that he was also a friend of the poets, and that if he had time to spare from philosophy he used to write poems, including epics, tragedies, satiric dramas (thirty comedies and sixty tragedies), lampoons, and obscene verse.165 Also attributed to him are prose works, running to nearly twenty thousand lines, mentioned by Antigonus of Carystus, who also wrote his life. There are three books of Lampoons,166 in which, from his Skeptic’s point of view, he abuses everyone and lampoons the dogmatic philosophers by parodying them. The first book has a first-person narration; the second and third are in dialogue form. Timon represents himself, at any rate, as questioning Xenophanes of Colophon167 about each of the philosophers, and Xenophanes describes them to him; in the second he deals with the more ancient philosophers, and in the third, the later ones, which is why some have entitled it Epilogue. The first deals with the same subjects, except that the poem is a monologue. It begins as follows:
The Sophists, by Daniel Niklaus Chodowiecki, 1790.
Tell me now, all you busybody sophists …168
He died near the age of ninety, as we learn from Antigonus and from Sotion in his eleventh book. I have heard that he had only one eye, since he used to call himself Cyclops. There was another Timon, the misanthrope.169
The philosopher was very fond of gardens and of keeping to himself, as Antigonus says. There is a story, at any rate, that Hieronymus the Peripatetic said of him, “Just as among the Scythians, those who are in flight shoot as well as those in pursuit,170 so among the philosophers some catch their students by pursuing them, others by fleeing from them, like Timon.”
113,114 He was quick to perceive and to sneer. He was fond of books and good at sketching plots for poets and collaborating in dramas. He used to give Alexander and Homer171 material for their tragedies. When disturbed by maidservants and dogs he would do nothing, as his sole desire was to live in peace. They say that when Aratus172 asked him how he could obtain a sound text of Homer he said, “By reading the ancient copies, and not the corrected copies we have today.” His poems used to be left lying around, sometimes half-eaten.173 Hence, when he wanted to read something to Zopyrus the orator, he would unroll the book and recite whatever passage he found; it was only when he had got halfway through that he would come upon the piece he had not been able to find earlier. Such was his indifference. What is more, he was so easygoing that he could readily skip a meal. They say that one day, when he noticed Arcesilaus174 passing through the Cercopes’ Market,175 he said, “Why have you come here, where we are all free men?” To those who accepted the evidence of the senses if confirmed by the mind, he was constantly in the habit of quoting the line:
Attagas and Numenius have arrived together.176
115 He was in the habit of making jokes of that kind. To a man who marveled at everything, he said, “Why don’t you marvel that between the three of us we have four eyes?” For he had only one eye himself, as did his student Dioscurides, while the man he was addressing had a normal pair. When asked one day by Arcesilaus why he had come there from Thebes he said, “To have you all in plain view and enjoy a good laugh.” Yet though he attacked Arcesilaus in his Lampoons, he praised him in his work The Funeral Feast of Arcesilaus.
As Menodotus says, he left no successor, and his school lapsed until Ptolemy of Cyrene177 revived it. But Hippobotus and Sotion say that he had as pupils Dioscurides of Cyprus, Nicolochus of Rhodes, Euphranor of Seleucia, and Praylus of the Troad. The latter had such powers of endurance, as Phylarchus says in his history, that he suffered the punishment for treason that had been unjustly inflicted on him without deigning to say a word to his fellow citizens.
Gold laurel wreath, third to second century BC, Greek.
116 Euphranor had as a pupil Eubulus of Alexandria; the latter taught Ptolemy, who taught Sarpedon and Heraclides; Heraclides taught Aenesidemus of Cnossus, who compiled the Pyrrhonian Discourses in eight books. Aenesidemus taught Zeuxippus, his fellow citizen; Zeuxippus taught Zeuxis the Crook-Footed, and the latter taught Antiochus of Laodicea-on-the-Lycus. Antiochus taught Menodotus of Nicomedia, an empiric doctor,178 and Theodas of Laodicea. Menodotus taught Herodotus, son of Arieus, of Tarsus; the latter taught Sextus Empiricus,179 who left us Skeptical Writings180 in ten books and other excellent works. Sextus taught Saturninus, called Cythenas,” who was also an empiric.
1 Ephesus was an important Greek city on the coast of Asia Minor. The sixty-ninth Olympiad began in 504 BC.
2 The four names given here represent leading figures in different wisdom traditions. Hesiod (eighth or early seventh century BC) wrote didactic and cosmogonic poems; Pythagoras was a mystic and religious leader (see 8.1–50); Xenophanes, discussed next in this book (9.18–20), wrote verses skeptical about traditional mythology and religion; Hecataeus of Miletus was an early Greek prose writer (sixth to fifth century BC) who dealt with geography and mythical genealogy.
3 The text is uncertain here and has been variously restored.
4 Homer and Archilochus represent the earliest Greek epic and lyric poets, respectively; Heraclitus, who wrote in prose, presumably used their names to represent poetry generally.
5 The enormous temple of Artemis at Ephesus was renowned throughout the Greek world.
6 Astragaloi (“knucklebones”) denotes several different kinds of games, played either with actu
al sheep knucklebones or with clay pieces made to resemble them.
7 Dropsy or edema results in a swelling of the limbs due to accumulation of water under the skin.
8 Probably Antisthenes of Rhodes (fl. 200 BC), but in any case not the Cynic philosopher discussed in Book 6.
9 See 2.22.
10 An obscure person, not the Cynic philosopher discussed at 6.85–93.
11 The text of this quote is corrupt in the Greek and restoration is very uncertain.
12 Darius I (c. 550–486 BC) was ruler of the Persian Empire during a portion of the Greco-Persian Wars. After suppressing a revolt by the Greeks of western Asia (499–494 BC), Darius sent an expedition to punish Athens and Eretria for their part in the revolt. His forces were defeated at the Battle of Marathon (490 BC).
13 Heraclides, Cleanthes, and Sphaerus are discussed by Diogenes at 5.86–94, 7.168–76, and 7.177–78, respectively. There is uncertainty about which Antisthenes is meant here, but the one called “a follower of Heraclitus” at 6.19 is the most likely candidate.
14 Nothing is known of the last three figures. The Dionysius mentioned here bears no relation to the tyrants of Syracuse or to the various other bearers of this name mentioned in the text.
15 The underworld, where Persephone was queen.
16 Callimachus of Cyrene (fl. 279–245 BC), a Greek poet connected to the famous Library at Alexandria.
17 Colophon was a Greek city on the coast of Asia Minor, northwest of Ephesus.
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