he would take to task those who thought highly of themselves, proving them to be fools, as to be sure he treated Anytus, according to Plato's Meno. 95 a. For Anytus could not endure to be ridiculed by Socrates, and so in the first place stirred up against him Aristophanes and his friends; then afterwards he helped to persuade Meletus to indict him on a charge of impiety and corrupting the youth.
The indictment was brought by Meletus, and the speech was delivered by Polyeuctus, according to Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History. The speech was written by Polycrates the sophist, according to Hermippus; but some say that it was by Anytus.
Lycon the demagogue had made all the needful preparations. The confusion in the last sentence of 38 is due to the insertion in the wrong place of two extracts, one from Favorinus and the other from Hermippus. When these are removed, the parts assigned to the three accusers, Meletus, Anytus and Lycon, become clear: Antisthenes in his Successions of Philosophers, and Plato in his Apology, say that there were three accusers, Anytus, Lycon and Meletus; that Anytus was roused to anger on behalf of the craftsmen and politicians, Lycon on behalf of the rhetoricians, Meletus of the poets, all three of which classes had felt the lash of Socrates. Favorinus in the first book of his Memorabilia declares that the speech of Polycrates against Socrates is not authentic; for he mentions the rebuilding of the walls by Conon, which did not take place till six years after the death of Socrates. And this is the case.
The affidavit in the case, which is still preserved, says Favorinus, in the Metron, ran as follows: "This indictment and affidavit is sworn by Meletus, the son of Meletus of Pitthos, against Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus of Alopece: Socrates is guilty of refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state, and of introducing other new divinities. He is also guilty of corrupting the youth. The penalty demanded is death." The philosopher then, after Lysias had written a defence for him, read it through and said: "A fine speech, Lysias; it is not, however, suitable to me." For it was plainly more forensic than philosophical.
Lysias said, "If it is a fine speech, how can it fail to suit you?" "Well," he replied, "would not fine raiment and fine shoes be just as unsuitable to me?"
Justus of Tiberias in his book entitled The Wreath says that in the course of the trial Plato mounted the platform and began: "Though I am the youngest, men of Athens, of all who ever rose to address you"--whereupon the judges shouted out, "Get down! Get down!" When therefore he was condemned by 281 votes more than those given for acquittal, and when the judges were assessing what he should suffer or what fine he should pay, he proposed to pay 25 drachmae. Eubulides indeed says he offered 100.
When this caused an uproar among the judges, he said, "Considering my services, I assess the penalty at maintenance in the Prytaneum at the public expense."
Sentence of death was passed, with an accession of eighty fresh votes. He was put in prison, and a few days afterwards drank the hemlock, after much noble discourse which Plato records in the Phaedo.
Further, according to some, he composed a paean beginning: All hail, Apollo, Delos' lord!
Hail Artemis, ye noble pair!
Dionysodorus denies that he wrote the paean. He also composed a fable of Aesop, not very skilfully, beginning Anth. Plan. iv.
16.: "Judge not, ye men of Corinth," Aesop cried, "Of virtue as the jury-courts decide."
So he was taken from among men; and not long afterwards the Athenians felt such remorse that they shut up the training grounds and gymnasia. They banished the other accusers but put Meletus to death; they honoured Socrates with a bronze statue, the work of Lysippus, which they placed in the hall of processions. And no sooner did Anytus visit Heraclea than the people of that town expelled him on that very day. Not only in the case of Socrates but in very many others the Athenians repented in this way. For they fined Homer (so says Heraclides Most probably Heraclides of Pontus. This remarkable assertion may have occurred in one of his dialogues, and was perhaps not meant to be taken seriously. ） 50 drachmae for a madman, and said Tyrtaeus was beside himself, and they honoured Astydamas before Aeschylus and his brother poets with a bronze statue.
Euripides upbraids them thus in his Palamedes: "Ye have slain, have slain, the all-wise, the innocent, the Muses' nightingale." Nauck, T.G.F. 2, Eur. 588. This is one account; but Philochorus asserts that Euripides died before Socrates.
He was born, according to Apollodorus in his Chronology, in the archonship of Apsephion, in the fourth year of the 77th Olympiad, 469-468 b.c. on the 6th day of the month of Thargelion, when the Athenians purify their city, which according to the Delians is the birthday of Artemis. He died in the first year of the 95th Olympiad 400-399 b.c. at the age of seventy. With this Demetrius of Phalerum agrees; but some say he was sixty when he died.
Both were pupils of Anaxagoras, I mean Socrates and Euripides, who was born in the first year of the 75th Olympiad in the archonship of Calliades. 480-479 b.c.
In my opinion Socrates discoursed on physics as well as on ethics, since he holds some conversations about providence, even according to Xenophon, who, however, declares that he only discussed ethics. But Plato, after mentioning Anaxagoras and certain other physicists in the Apology, 26 d.
treats for his own part themes which Socrates disowned, although he puts everything into the mouth of Socrates.
Aristotle relates that a magician came from Syria to Athens and, among other evils with which he threatened Socrates, predicted that he would come to a violent end.
I have written verses about him too, as follows Anth. Pal. vii. 96.: Drink then, being in Zeus's palace, O Socrates; for truly did the god pronounce thee wise, being wisdom himself; for when thou didst frankly take the hemlock at the hands of the Athenians, they themselves drained it as it passed thy lips.
He was sharply criticized, according to Aristotle in his third book On Poetry, by a certain Antilochus of Lemnos, and by Antiphon the soothsayer, just as Pythagoras was by Cylon of Croton, or as Homer was assailed in his lifetime by Syagrus, and after his death by Xenophanes of Colophon. So too Hesiod was criticized in his lifetime by Cercops, and after his death by the aforesaid Xenophanes; Pindar by Amphimenes of Cos; thales by Pherecydes; Bias by Salarus of Priene; Pittacus by Antimenidas and Alcaeus; Anaxagoras by Sosibius; and Simonides by Timocreon.
Of those who succeeded him and were called Socratics The text would perhaps be clearer if we transposed thus: was mentioned above, i. 18. the chief were Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and of ten names on the traditional list the most distinguished are Aeschines, Phaedo, Euclides, Aristippus. I must first speak of Xenophon; Antisthenes will come afterwards among the Cynics; after Xenophon I shall take the Socratics proper, and so pass on to Plato. With Plato the ten schools begin: he was himself the founder of the First Academy. This then is the order which I shall follow.
Of those who bear the name of Socrates there is one, a historian, who wrote a geographical work upon Argos; another, a Peripatetic philosopher of Bithynia; a third, a poet who wrote epigrams; lastly, Socrates of Cos, who wrote on the names of the gods.
Xenophon, the son of Gryllus, was a citizen of Athens and belonged to the deme Erchia; he was a man of rare modesty and extremely handsome.
The story goes that Socrates met him in a narrow passage, and that he stretched out his stick to bar the way, while he inquired where every kind of food was sold. Upon receiving a reply, he put another question, "And where do men become good and honourable?" Xenophon was fairly puzzled; "Then follow me," said Socrates, "and learn." From that time onward he was a pupil of Socrates. He was the first to take notes of, and to give to the world, the conversation of Socrates, under the title of Memorabilia. Moreover, he was the first to write a history of philosophers.
Aristippus, in the fourth book of his work On the Luxury of the Ancients, declares that he was enamoured of Clinias, and said in reference to him, "It is sweeter for me to gaze on Clinias than on all the fair sights in the world. I would be content to be blind to everything else if I could but gaze on him alone.
I am vexed with the night and with sleep because I cannot see Clinias, and most grateful to the day and the sun for showing him to me."
He gained the friendship of Cyrus in the following way. He had an intimate friend named Proxenus, a Boeotian, a pupil of Gorgias of Leontini and a friend of Cyrus. Proxenus, while living in Sardis at the court of Cyrus, wrote a letter to Xenophon at Athens, inviting him to come and seek the friendship of Cyrus.
Xenophon showed this letter to Socrates and asked his advice, which was that he should go to Delphi and consult the oracle. Xenophon complied and came into the presence of the god. He inquired, not whether he should go and seek service with Cyrus, but in what way he should do so.
For this Socrates blamed him, yet at the same time he advised him to go. On his arrival at the court of Cyrus he became as warmly attached to him as Proxenus himself. We have his own sufficient narrative of all that happened on the expedition and on the return home. He was, however, at enmity with Meno of Pharsalus, the mercenary general, throughout the expedition, and, by way of abuse, charges him with having a favourite older than himself.
Again, he reproaches one Apollonides with having had his ears bored. Anab. iii. 1.
26-31.
After the expedition and the misfortunes which overtook it in Pontus and the treacheries of Seuthes, the king of the Odrysians, he returned to Asia, having enlisted the troops of Cyrus as mercenaries in the service of Agesilaus, the Spartan king, to whom he was devoted beyond measure. About this time he was banished by the Athenians for siding with Sparta. When he was in Ephesus and had a sum of money, he entrusted one half of it to Megabyzus, the priest of Artemis, to keep until his return, or if he should never return, to apply to the erection of a statue in honour of the goddess. But the other half he sent in votive offerings to Delphi.
Next he came to Greece with Agesilaus, who had been recalled to carry on the war against Thebes.
And the Lacedaemonians conferred on him a privileged position.
He then left Agesilaus and made his way to Scillus, a place in the territory of Elis not far from the city.
According to Demetrius of Magnesia he was accompanied by his wife Philesia, and, in a speech written for the freedman whom Xenophon prosecuted for neglect of duty, Dinarchus mentions that his two sons Gryllus and Diodorus, the Dioscuri as they were called, also went with him. Megabyzus having arrived to attend the festival, Xenophon received from him the deposit of money and bought and dedicated to the goddess an estate with a river running through, which bears the same name Selinus as the river at Ephesus. And from that time onward he hunted, entertained his friends, and worked at his histories without interruption.
Dinarchus, however, asserts that it was the Lacedaemonians who gave him a house and land.
At the same time we are told that Phylopidas the Spartan sent to him at Scillus a present of captive slaves from Dardanus, and that he disposed of them as he thought fit, and that the Elians marched against Scillus, and owing to the slowness of the Spartans captured the place, whereupon his sons retired to Lepreum with a few of the servants, while Xenophon himself, who had previously gone to Elis, went next to Lepreum to join his sons, and then made his escape with them from Lepreum to Corinth and took up his abode there. Meanwhile the Athenians passed a decree to assist Sparta, and Xenophon sent his sons to Athens to serve in the army in defence of Sparta.
According to Diocles in his Lives of the Philosophers, they had been trained in Sparta itself.
Diodorus came safe out of the battle without performing any distinguished service, and he had a son of the same name (Gryllus) as his brother.
Gryllus was posted with the cavalry and, in the battle which took place about Mantinea, fought stoutly and fell, as Ephorus relates in his twenty-fifth book, Cephisodorus being in command of the cavalry and Hegesilaus commander-in-chief. In this battle Epaminondas also fell. On this occasion Xenophon is said to have been sacrificing, with a chaplet on his head, which he removed when his son's death was announced. But afterwards, upon learning that he had fallen gloriously, he replaced the chaplet on his head.
Some say that he did not even shed tears, but exclaimed, "I knew my son was mortal." Aristotle mentions that there were innumerable authors of epitaphs and eulogies upon Gryllus, who wrote, in part at least, to gratify his father. Hermippus too, in his Life of Theophrastus, affirms that even Isocrates wrote an encomium on Gryllus. Timon, however, jeers at Xenophon in the lines Fr. 26 D.: A feeble pair or triad of works, or even a greater number, such as would come from Xenophon or the might of Aeschines, that not unpersuasive writer.
Such was his life. He flourished in the fourth year of the 94th Olympiad, 401-400 b.c. and he took part in the expedition of Cyrus in the archonship of Xenaenetus in the year before the death of Socrates.
He died, according to Ctesiclides Ctesiclides is known to us from Athenaeus, who cites his Chronology, vi. 272 c, x. 445 d. it may seem rash to intrude him here; but cf. iv. 5, where a similar error is certain. of Athens in his list of archons and Olympic victors, in the first year of the 105th Olympiad, in the archonship of Callidemides, 360-359 b.c. the year in which Philip, the son of Amyntas, came to the throne of Macedon. He died at Corinth, as is stated by Demetrius of Magnesia, obviously at an advanced age. He was a worthy man in general, particularly fond of horses and hunting, an able tactician as is clear from his writings, pious, fond of sacrificing, and an expert in augury from the victims; and he made Socrates his exact model.
He wrote some forty books in all, though the division into books is not always the same, namely: The Anabasis, with a preface to each separate book but not one to the whole work.
Cyropaedia.
Hellenica.
Memorabilia.
Symposium.
Oeconomicus.
On Horsemanship.
On Hunting.
On the Duty of a Cavalry General.
A Defence of Socrates.
On Revenues.
Hieron or Of Tyranny.
Agesilaus.
The Constitutions of Athens and Sparta.
Demetrius of Magnesia denies that the last of these works is by Xenophon. There is a tradition that he made Thucydides famous by publishing his history, which was unknown, and which he might have appropriated to his own use. By the sweetness of his narrative he earned the name of the Attic Muse. Hence he and Plato were jealous of each other, as will be stated in the chapter on Plato.
There is an epigram of mine on him also Anth. Pal. vii. 97.: Up the steep path to fame toiled Xenophon In that long march of glorious memories; In deeds of Greece, how bright his lesson shone!
How fair was wisdom seen in Socrates! Or in plain prose: "Not only for Cyrus's sake did Xenophon go up to Persia, but because he sought the path which leads to the abode of Zeus. For, having shown that the great deeds of Greece are the outcome of his training, he recalled what a beautiful thing was the wisdom of Socrates."
There is another on the circumstances of his death Anth. Pal. vii. 98.: Albeit the countrymen of Cranaus and Cecrops condemned thee, Xenophon, to exile on account of thy friendship for Cyrus, yet hospitable Corinth welcomed thee, so well content with the delights of that city wast thou, and there didst resolve to take up thy rest.
In other authorities I find the statement that he flourished, along with the other Socratics, in the 89th Olympiad, This would be 424-420 b.c., a date obviously absurd as the floruit for either Xenophon or Plato.
and Istrus affirms that he was banished by a decree of Eubulus and recalled by a decree of the same man.
There have been seven Xenophons: the first our subject himself; the second an Athenian, brother of Pythostratus, who wrote the Theseid, and himself the author, amongst other works, of a biography of Epaminondas and Pelopidas; the third a physician of Cos; the fourth the author of a history of Hannibal; the fifth an authority on legendary marvels; the sixth a sculptor, of Paros; the seventh a poet of the Old Comedy.
Aeschines was the son of Charinus the sausagemaker, but others make his father's name Lysanias.
He was a citizen of Athens, industrious from his birth up. For this reason he never quitted Socrates; hence Socrates' remark, "Only the sausage-maker's son knows how to honour me." Idomeneus declared that it was Aeschines, not Crito, who advised Socrates in the prison about making his escape, Idomeneus, it may be conjectured, relied on some Socratic dialogue in which the part assigned by Plato to Crito was given to Aeschines. but that Plato put the words into the mouth of Crito because Aeschines was more attached to Aristippus than to himself. It was said maliciously--by Menedemus of Eretria in particular--that most of the dialogues which Aeschines passed off as his own were really dialogues of Socrates obtained by him from Xanthippe. Those of them which are said to have no beginning ( a)ke/faloi ) are very slovenly and show none of the vigour of Socrates; Pisistratus of Ephesus even denied that they were written by Aeschines.
Persaeus indeed attributes the majority of the seven to Pasiphon of the school of Eretria, who inserted them among the dialogues of Aeschines. Moreover, Aeschines made use of the Little Cyrus, the Lesser Heracles and the Alcibiades of Antisthenes as well as dialogues by other authors. However that may be, of the writings of Aeschines those stamped with a Socratic character are seven, namely Miltiades, which for that reason is somewhat weak; then Callias, Axiochus, Aspasia, Alcibiades, Telauges, and Rhinon.
They say that want drove him to Sicily to the court of Dionysius, and that Plato took no notice of him, but he was introduced to Dionysius by Aristippus, and on presenting certain dialogues received gifts from him.
Afterwards on his return to Athens he did not venture to lecture owing to the popularity of Plato and Aristippus. But he took fees from pupils, and subsequently composed forensic speeches for aggrieved clients. This is the point of Timon's reference to him as "the might of Aeschines, that not unconvincing writer." They say that Socrates, seeing how he was pinched by poverty, advised him to borrow from himself by reducing his rations. Aristippus among others had suspicions of the genuineness of his dialogues. At all events, as he was reading one at Megara, Aristippus rallied him by asking, "Where did you get that, you thief?"
Polycritus of Mende, in the first book of his History of Dionysius, says that he lived with the tyrant until his expulsion from Syracuse, and survived until the return of Dion, and that with him was Carcinus the tragic poet. There is also extant an epistle of Aeschines to Dionysius. That he had received a good rhetorical training is clear from his defence of the father of Phaeax the general, and from his defence of Dion. He is a close imitator of Gorgias of Leontini. Moreover, Lysias attacked him in a speech which he entitled "On dishonesty." And from this too it is clear that he was a rhetorician.
A single disciple of his is mentioned, Aristotle, whose nickname was "Story."
Panaetius thinks that, of all the Socratic dialogues, those by Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes and Aeschines are genuine; he is in doubt about those ascribed to Phaedo and Euclides; but he rejects the others one and all.
There are eight men who have borne the name of Aeschines: (1) our subject himself; (2) the author of handbooks of rhetoric; (3) the orator who opposed Demosthenes; (4) an Arcadian, a pupil of Isocrates; (5) a Mitylenean whom they used to call the "scourge of rhetoricians"; (6) a Neapolitan, an Academic philosopher, a pupil and favourite of Melanthius of Rhodes; (7) a Milesian who wrote upon politics; (8) a sculptor.
Aristippus was by birth a citizen of Cyrene and, as Aeschines informs us, was drawn to Athens by the fame of Socrates. Having come forward as a lecturer or sophist, as Phanias of Eresus, the Peripatetic, informs us, he was the first of the followers of Socrates to charge fees and to send money to his master. And on one occasion the sum of twenty minae which he had sent was returned to him, Socrates declaring that the supernatural sign would not let him take it; the very offer, in fact, annoyed him. Xenophon was no friend to Aristippus; and for this reason he has made Socrates direct against Aristippus the discourse in which he denounces pleasure. Mem. ii. 1. Not but what Theodorus in his work On Sects abuses him, and so does Plato in the dialogue On the Soul, In the Introduction to the Phaedo, 59 c, Aristippus is said to have been in Aegina on the day when Socrates drank the hemlock. How little this justifies the use of the terms e)ka/kisen and diaba/llwn may be seen from the previous statement in the Phaedo that Plato himself is said to have been absent through illness on that occasion. Notice that Diogenes Laertius refers to the Life of Plato as already written; see iii. 36. as has been shown elsewhere.
He was capable of adapting himself to place, time and person, and of playing his part appropriately under whatever circumstances. Hence he found more favour than anybody else with Dionysius, because he could always turn the situation to good account. He derived pleasure from what was present, and did not toil to procure the enjoyment of something not present Hence Diogenes called him the king's poodle Or "royal cynic." It is impossible to preserve the double entendre here, for ku/wn, dog, also means "cynic"; in fact the very name of that sect proclaims that they gloried in their dog-like attributes, especially in snarling and biting.
Timon, too, sneered at him for luxury in these words Fr. 27 D.: Such was the delicate nature of Aristippus, who groped after error by touch. This alludes to his doctrine of sensation, sometimes called "internal touch." Compare infra §92, and more fully Sext. Emp.
Adv.
mathem. vii. 191. It has been paraphrased thus: "quae potuit tactu a falso discernere verum."
He is said to have ordered a partridge to be bought at a cost of fifty drachmae, and, when someone censured him, he inquired, "Would not you have given an obol for it?" and, being answered in the affirmative, rejoined, "Fifty drachmae are no more to me."
And when Dionysius gave him his choice of three courtesans, he carried off all three, saying, "Paris paid dearly for giving the preference to one out of three." And when he had brought them as far as the porch, he let them go. To such lengths did he go both in choosing and in disdaining. Hence the remark of Strato, or by some accounts of Plato, "You alone are endowed with the gift to flaunt in robes or go in rags." He bore with Dionysius when he spat on him, and to one who took him to task he replied, "If the fishermen let themselves be drenched with sea-water in order to catch a gudgeon, ought I not to endure to be wetted with negus in order to take a blenny?"
Diogenes, washing the dirt from his vegetables, saw him passing and jeered at him in these terms, "If you had learnt to make these your diet, you would not have paid court to kings," to which his rejoinder was, "And if you knew how to associate with men, you would not be washing vegetables."
Being asked what he had gained from philosophy, he replied, "The ability to feel at ease in any society." Being reproached for his extravagance, he said, "If it were wrong to be extravagant, it would not be in vogue at the festivals of the gods."
Being once asked what advantage philosophers have, he replied, "Should all laws be repealed, we shall go on living as we do now."
When Dionysius inquired what was the reason that philosophers go to rich men's houses, while rich men no longer visit philosophers, his reply was that "the one know what they need while the other do not." When he was reproached by Plato for his extravagance, he inquired, "Do you think Dionysius a good man?"
and the reply being in the affirmative, "And yet," said he, "he lives more extravagantly than I do.
So that there is nothing to hinder a man living extravagantly and well." To the question how the educated differ from the uneducated, he replied, "Exactly as horses that have been trained differ from untrained horses." One day, as he entered the house of a courtesan, one of the lads with him blushed, whereupon he remarked, "It is not going in that is dangerous, but being unable to go out."
Some one brought him a knotty problem with the request that he would untie the knot. "Why, you simpleton," said he, "do you want it untied, seeing that it causes trouble enough as it is?" "It is better," he said, "to be a beggar than to be uneducated; the one needs money, the others need to be humanized." One day that he was reviled, he tried to slip away; the other pursued him, asking, "Why do you run away?" "Because," said he, "as it is your privilege to use foul language, so it is my privilege not to listen." In answer to one who remarked that he always saw philosophers at rich men's doors, he said, "So, too, physicians are in attendance on those who are sick, but no one for that reason would prefer being sick to being a physician."
It happened once that he set sail for Corinth and, being overtaken by a storm, he was in great consternation. Some one said, "We plain men are not alarmed, and are you philosophers turned cowards?"
To this he replied, "The lives at stake in the two cases are not comparable." When some one gave himself airs for his wide learning, this is what he said: "As those who eat most and take the most exercise are not better in health than those who restrict themselves to what they require, so too it is not wide reading but useful reading that tends to excellence." An advocate, having pleaded for him and won the case, thereupon put the question, "What good did Socrates do you?" "Thus much," was the reply, "that what you said of me in your speech was true."
He gave his daughter Arete the very best advice, training her up to despise excess. He was asked by some one in what way his son would be the better for being educated. He replied, "If nothing more than this, at all events, when in the theatre he will not sit down like a stone upon stone." When some one brought his son as a pupil, he asked a fee of 500 drachmae. The father objected, "For that sum I can buy a slave." "Then do so," was the reply, "and you will have two." He said that he did not take money from his friends for his own use, but to teach them upon what objects their money should be spent. When he was reproached for employing a rhetorician to conduct his case, he made reply, "Well, if I give a dinner, I hire a cook."
Being once compelled by Dionysius to enunciate some doctrine of philosophy, "It would be ludicrous," he said, "that you should learn from me what to say, and yet instruct me when to say it." At this, they say, Dionysius was offended and made him recline at the end of the table. And Aristippus said, "You must have wished to confer distinction on the last place." To some one who boasted of his diving, "Are you not ashamed," said he, "to brag of that which a dolphin can do?" Being asked on one occasion what is the difference between the wise man and the unwise, "Strip them both," said he, "and send them among strangers and you will know."
To one who boasted that he could drink a great deal without getting drunk, his rejoinder was, "And so can a mule."
To one who accused him of living with a courtesan, he put the question, "Why, is there any difference between taking a house in which many people have lived before and taking one in which nobody has ever lived?" The answer being "No," he continued, "Or again, between sailing in a ship in which ten thousand persons have sailed before and in one in which nobody has ever sailed?" "There is no difference." "Then it makes no difference," said he, "whether the woman you live with has lived with many or with nobody." To the accusation that, although he was a pupil of Socrates, he took fees, his rejoinder was, "Most certainly I do, for Socrates, too, when certain people sent him corn and wine, used to take a little and return all the rest; and he had the foremost men in Athens for his stewards, whereas mine is my slave Eutychides."
He enjoyed the favours of Laïs, as Sotion states in the second book of his Successions of Philosophers.
To those who censured him his defence was, "I have Lais, not she me; and it is not abstinence from pleasures that is best, but mastery over them without ever being worsted." to one who reproached him with extravagance in catering, he replied, "Wouldn't you have bought this if you could have got it for three obols?" The answer being in the affirmative, "Very well, then," said Aristippus, "I am no longer a lover of pleasure, it is you who are a lover of money." One day Simus, the steward of Dionysius, a Phrygian by birth and a rascally fellow, was showing him costly houses with tesselated pavements, when Aristippus coughed up phlegm and spat in his face. And on his resenting this he replied, "I could not find any place more suitable."
When Charondas (or, as others say, Phaedo) inquired, "Who is this who reeks with unguents?"
he replied, "It is I, unlucky wight, and the still more unlucky Persian king. But, as none of the other animals are at any disadvantage on that account, consider whether it be not the same with man.
Confound the effeminates who spoil for us the use of good perfume." Being asked how Socrates died, he answered, "As I would wish to die myself." Polyxenus the sophist once paid him a visit and, after having seen ladies present and expensive entertainment, reproached him with it later. After an interval Aristippus asked him, "Can you join us today?"
On the other accepting the invitation, Aristippus inquired, "Why, then, did you find fault?
For you appear to blame the cost and not the entertainment." When his servant was carrying money and found the load too heavy--the story is told by Bion in his Lectures --Aristippus cried, "Pour away the greater part, and carry no more than you can manage." Being once on a voyage, as soon as he discovered the vessel to be manned by pirates, he took out his money and began to count it, and then, as if by inadvertence, he let the money fall into the sea, and naturally broke out into lamentation.
Another version of the story attributes to him the further remark that it was better for the money to perish on account of Aristippus than for Aristippus to perish on account of the money. Dionysius once asked him what he was come for, and he said it was to impart what he had and obtain what he had not.
But some make his answer to have been, "When I needed wisdom, I went to Socrates; now that I am in need of money, I come to you." He used to complain of mankind that in purchasing earthenware they made trial whether it rang true, but had no regular standard by which to judge life. Others attribute this remark to Diogenes. One day Dionysius over the wine commanded everybody to put on purple and dance. Plato declined, quoting the line Eur.
Bacch. 836.: I could not stoop to put on women's robes.
Aristippus, however, put on the dress and, as he was about to dance, was ready with the repartee: Even amid the Bacchic revelry True modesty will not be put to shame. ib. 317.
He made a request to Dionysius on behalf of a friend and, failing to obtain it, fell down at his feet.
And when some one jeered at him, he made reply, "It is not I who am to blame, but Dionysius who has his ears in his feet." He was once staying in Asia and was taken prisoner by Artaphernes, the satrap.
"Can you be cheerful under these circumstances?"
some one asked. "Yes, you simpleton," was the reply, "for when should I be more cheerful than now that I am about to converse with Artaphernes?"
Those who went through the ordinary curriculum, but in their studies stopped short at philosophy, he used to compare to the suitors of Penelope. For the suitors won Melantho, Polydora and the rest of the handmaidens, but were anything but successful in their wooing of the mistress.
A similar remark is ascribed to Ariston. For, he said, when Odysseus went down into the under-world, he saw nearly all the dead and made their acquaintance, but he never set eyes upon their queen herself.
Again, when Aristippus was asked what are the subjects which handsome boys ought to learn, his reply was, "Those which will be useful to them when they are grown up." To the critic who censured him for leaving Socrates to go to Dionysius, his rejoinder was, "Yes, but I came to Socrates for education and to Dionysius for recreation." When he had made some money by teaching, Socrates asked him, "Where did you get so much?" to which he replied, "Where you got so little."
A courtesan having told him that she was with child by him, he replied, "You are no more sure of this than if, after running through coarse rushes, you were to say you had been pricked by one in particular." Someone accused him of exposing his son as if it was not his offspring Whereupon he replied, "Phlegm, too, and vermin we know to be of our own begetting, but for all that, because they are useless, we cast them as far from us as possible."