father was a freedman, who used to wipe his mouth with his sleeve,” (by which he meant that he used to sell salt fish). “As to his race, he was a native of the district of the Borysthenes; having no countenance, but only a brand in his face, a token of the bitter cruelty of his master.
My mother was such a woman as a man of that condition might marry, taken out of a brothel. Then, my father being in arrears to the tax-gatherers, was sold with all his family, and with me among them; and as I was young and good looking, a certain orator purchased me, and when he died he left me everything. And I, having burnt all his books, and torn up all his papers, came to Athens and applied myself to the study of Philosophy:— Such was my father, and from him I came, The honoured author of my birth and name.[40] This is all that I can tell you of myself: so that Persæus and Philonides may give up telling these stories about me: and you may judge of me on my own merits.”
II. And Bion was truly a man of great versatility, and a very subtle philosopher, and a man who gave all who chose great opportunities of practising philosophy. In some respects he was of a gentle disposition, and very much inclined to indulge in vanity.
III. And he left behind him many memorials of himself in the way of writings, and also many apophthegms full of useful sentiments. As for instance, once when he was reproved for having failed to charm a young man, he replied, “You cannot possibly draw up cheese with a hook before it has got hard.” On another occasion he was asked who was the most miserable of men, and replied, “He who has set his heart on the greatest prosperity.” When he was asked whether it was advisable to marry (for this answer also is attributed to him), he replied, “If you marry an ugly woman you will have a punishment (ποινὴ), and if a handsome woman you will have one who is common” (κοινή). He called old age a port to shelter one from misfortune; and accordingly, he said that every one fled to it.
He said that glory was the mother of years; that beauty was a good which concerned others rather than one’s self; that riches were the sinews of business. To a man who had squandered his estate he said, “The earth swallowed up Amphiaraus, but you have swallowed up the earth.” Another saying of his was that it was a great evil not to be able to bear evil.
And he condemned those who burnt the dead as though they felt nothing, and then mocked them as though they did feel. And he was always saying that it was better to put one’s own beauty at the disposal of another, than to covet the beauty of others; for that one who did so was injuring both his body and his soul. And he used to blame Socrates saying, that if he derived no advantage from Alcibiades he was foolish, and if he never derived any advantage from him he then deserved no credit. He used to say that the way to the shades below was easy; and accordingly, that people went there with their eyes shut. He used to blame Alcibiades, saying that while he was a boy he seduced husbands from their wives, and when he had become a young man he seduced the wives from their husbands. While most of the Athenians at Rhodes practised rhetoric, he himself used to give lectures on philosophical subjects; and to one who blamed him for this he said, “I have bought wheat, and I sell barley.”
It was a saying of his that the inhabitants of the shades below would be more punished if they carried water in buckets that were whole, than in such as were bored. To a chattering fellow who was soliciting him for aid, he said, “I will do what is sufficient for you, if you will send deputies to me, and forbear to come yourself.” Once when he was at sea in the company of some wicked men, he fell into the hands of pirates; and when the rest said, “We are undone, if we are known.” “But I,” said he, “am undone if we are not known.” He used to say that self-conceit was the enemy of progress. Of a rich man who was mean and niggardly, he said, “That man does not possess his estate, but his estate possesses him.” He used to say that stingy men took care of their property as if it was their own, but derived no advantage from it as if it belonged to other people. Another of his sayings was, that young men ought to display courage, but that old men ought to be distinguished for prudence. And that prudence was as much superior to the other virtues as sight was to the other senses. And that it was not right to speak of old age, at which every one is desirous to arrive. To an envious man who was looking gloomy, he said, “I know not whether it is because some misfortune has happened to you, or some good fortune to someone else.” One thing that he used to say was, that a mean extraction was a bad companion to freedom of speech. For:— It does enslave a man, however bold His speech may be.[41] And another was that we ought to keep our friends, whatever sort of people they may be, so that we may not seem to have been intimate with wicked men, or to have abandoned good men.
IV. Very early in his career he abandoned the school of the Academy, and at the same time became a disciple of Crates. Then he passed over to the sect of the Cynics, taking their coarse cloak and wallet. For what else could ever have changed his nature into one of such apathy? After that he adopted the Theodorean principles, having become a disciple of Theodorus the Atheist, who was used to employ every kind of reasoning in support of his system of philosophy. After leaving him, he became a pupil of Theophrastus, the Peripatetic.
V. He was very fond of theatrical entertainments, and very skilful in distracting his hearers by exciting a laugh, giving things disparaging names. And because he used to avail himself of every species of reasoning, they relate that Eratosthenes said that Bion was the first person who had clothed philosophy in a flowery robe.
VI. He was also very ingenious in parodying passages, and adapting them to circumstances as they arose. As for instance, I may cite the following:— Tender Archytas, born of tuneful lyre, Whom thoughts of happy vanity inspire; Most skilled of mortals in appeasing ire.[42] And he jested on every part of music and geometry.
VII. He was a man of very expensive habits, and on this account he used to go from city to city, and at times he would contrive the most amazing devices.
VIII. Accordingly, in Rhodes, he persuaded the sailors to put on the habiliments of philosophical students and follow him about; and then he made himself conspicuous by entering the gymnasium with this train of followers.
IX. He was accustomed also to adopt young men as his sons, in order to derive assistance from them in his pleasures, and to be protected by their affection for him. But he was a very selfish man, and very fond of quoting the saying, “The property of friends is common;” owing to which it is that no one is spoken of as a disciple of his, though so many men attended his school. And he made some very shameless; accordingly, Betion, one of his intimate acquaintances, is reported to have said once to Menedemus, “So Menedemus constantly spends the evening with Bion, and I see no harm in it.” He used also to talk with great impiety to those who conversed with him, having derived his opinions on this subject from Theodorus.
X. And when at a later period he became afflicted with disease, as the people of Chalcis said, for he died there, he was persuaded to wear amulets and charms, and to show his repentance for the insults that he had offered to the Gods. But he suffered fearfully for want of proper people to attend him, until Antigonus sent him two servants. And he followed him in a litter, as Phavorinus relates in his Universal History.
And the circumstances of his death we have ourselves spoken of in the following lines:— We hear that Bion the Borysthenite, Whom the ferocious Scythian land brought forth, Used to deny that there were Gods at all.
Now, if he’d persevered in this opinion, One would have said he speaks just as he thinks; Though certainly his thoughts are quite mistaken.
But when a lengthened sickness overtook him, And he began to fear lest he should die; This man who heretofore denied the Gods, And would not even look upon a temple, And mocked all those who e’er approached the Gods With prayer or sacrifice; who ne’er, not even For his own hearth, and home, and household table, Regaled the Gods with savoury fat and incense, Who never once said, “I have sinned, but spare me.”
Then did this atheist shrink, and give his neck To an old woman to hang charms upon, And bound his arms with magic amulets, With laurel branches blocked his doors and windows, Ready to do and venture anything Rather than die. Fool that he was, who thought To win the Gods to come into existence, Whenever he might think he wanted them.
So wise too late, when now mere dust and ashes, He put his hand forth, Hail, great Pluto, Hail!
XI. There were ten people of the name of Bion. First of all, the one who flourished at the same time with Pherecydes of Syros, and who has left two books behind him, which are still extant; he was a native of Proconnesus. The second was a Syracusan, the author of a system of rhetoric. The third was the man of whom we have been speaking. The fourth was a pupil of Democritus, and a mathematician, a native of Abdera, who wrote in both the Attic and Ionic dialect. He was the person who first asserted that there were countries where there was night for six months, and day for six months. The fifth was a native of Soli; who wrote a history of Æthiopia. The sixth was a rhetorician, who has left behind him nine books, inscribed with the names of the Muses, which are still extant. The eighth was a Milesian statuary, who is mentioned by Polemo. The ninth was a tragic poet of the number of those who are called Tarsicans. The tenth was a statuary, a native of Clazomenæ or Chios, who is mentioned by Hipponax.
LIFE OF LACYDES.
I. Lacydes, the son of Alexander, was a native of Cyrene. He it is who was the founder of the New Academy, having succeeded Arcesilaus; and he was a man of great gravity of character and demeanour, and one who had many imitators.
II. He was industrious from his very childhood, and poor, but very pleasing and sociable in his manners.
III. They say that he had a pleasant way of managing his house-keeping affairs. For when he had taken anything out of his store-chest, he would seal it up again, and throw in his seal through the hole, so that it should be impossible for anything of what he had laid up there to be stolen from him, or carried off. But his servants learning this contrivance of his, broke the seal, and carried off as much as they pleased, and then they put the ring back through the hole in the same manner as before; and though they did this repeatedly, they were never detected.
IV. Lacydes now used to hold his school in the Academy in the garden which had been laid out by Attalus the king, and it was called the Lacydeum, after him. And he was the only man, who, while alive, resigned his school to a successor; but he resigned this to Telicles and Evander, of Phocis; and Hegesinus, of Pergamus, succeeded Evander; and he himself was in his turn succeeded by Carneades.
V. There is a witty saying, which is attributed to Lacydes. For they say that when Attalus sent for him, he answered that statues ought to be seen at a distance. On another occasion, as it is reported, he was studying geometry very late in life, and some said to him, “Is it then a time for you to be learning now?” “If it is not,” he replied, “when will it be?”
VI. And he died in the fourth year of the hundred and thirty-fourth Olympiad, when he had presided over his school twenty-six years. And his death was caused by paralysis, which was brought on by drinking. And we ourselves have jested upon him in the following language.
’Tis an odd story that I heard of you— Lacydes, that you went with hasty steps, Spurred on by Bacchus, to the shades below.
How then, if this be true, can it be said, That Bacchus e’er trips up his votaries’ feet LIFE OF CARNEADES.
I. Carneades was the son of Epicomus, or Philocomus, as Alexander states in his Successions; and a native of Cyrene.
II. He read all the books of the Stoics with great care, and especially those of Chrysippus; and then he wrote replies to them, but did it at the same time with such modesty that he used to say, “If Chrysippus had not lived, I should never have existed.”
III. He was a man of as great industry as ever existed; not, however, very much devoted to the investigation of subjects of natural philosophy, but more fond of the discussion of ethical topics, on which account he used to let his hair and his nails grow, from his entire devotion of all his time to philosophical discussion. And he was so eminent as a philosopher, that the orators would quit their own schools and come and listen to his lectures.
IV. He was also a man of a very powerful voice, so that the president of the Gymnasium sent to him once, to desire he would not shout so loudly.
And he replied, “Give me then, measure for my voice.” And the gymnasiarch again rejoined with great wit, for he said, “You have a measure in your pupils.”
V. He was a very vehement speaker, and one difficult to contend with in the investigation of a point. And he used to decline all invitations to entertainments, for the reasons I have already mentioned.
VI. On one occasion, when Mentor, the Bithynian, one of his pupils, came to him to attend his school, observing that he was trying to seduce his mistress (as Phavorinus relates in his Universal History), while he was in the middle of his lecture, he made the following parody in allusion to him:— A weak old man comes hither, like in voice, And gait, and figure, to the prudent Mentor I order him to be expelled this school.
And Mentor rising up, replied:— Thus did they speak, and straight the others rose.
VII. He appears to have been beset with fears of death; as he was continually saying, “Nature, who has put this frame together, will also dissolve it.” And learning that Antipater had died after having taken poison, he felt a desire to imitate the boldness of his departure, and said, “Give me some too.” And when they asked “What?” “Some mead,” said he. And it is said that an eclipse of the moon happened when he died, the most beautiful of all the stars, next to the sun, indicating (as any one might say) its sympathy with the philosopher. And Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says that he died in the fourth year of the hundred and sixty-second olympiad, being eighty-five years old.
VIII. There are some letters extant addressed by him to Ariarathes, the king of the Cappadocians. All the other writings which are attributed to him were written by his disciples, for he himself left nothing behind him. And I have written on him the following lines in logaœdical Archebulian metre.
Why now, O Muse, do you wish me Carneades to confute?
He was an ignoramus, as he did not understand Why he should stand in fear of death: so once, when he’d a cough, The worst of all diseases that affect the human frame, He cared not for a remedy; but when the news did reach him, That brave Antipater had ta’en some poison, and so died, “Give me, said he, some stuff to drink.” “Some what?”—“Some luscious mead.”
Moreover, he’d this saying at all times upon his lips: “Nature did make me, and she does together keep me still; But soon the time will come when she will pull me all to pieces.”
But still at last he yielded up the ghost: though long ago He might have died, and so escaped the evils that befell him.
IX. It is said that at night he was not aware when lights were brought in; and that once he ordered his servant to light the candles, and when he had brought them in and told him, “I have brought them;” “Well then,” said he, “read by the light of them.”
X. He had a great many other disciples; but the most eminent of them was Clitomachus, whom we must mention presently.
XI. There was also another man of the name of Carneades, a very indifferent elegiac poet.
LIFE OF CLITOMACHUS.
I. Clitomachus was a Carthaginian. He was called Asdrubal, and used to lecture on philosophy in his own country in his native language.
II. But when he came to Athens, at the age of forty years, he became a pupil of Carneades; and, as he was pleased with his industry, he caused him to be instructed in literature, and himself educated the man carefully. And he carried his diligence to such a degree, that he composed more than four hundred books.
III. And he succeeded Carneades in his schools; and he illustrated his principles a great deal by his writings; as he himself had studied the doctrines of their sects, the Academic, the Peripatetic, and the Stoic.
Timon attacks the whole school of Academics, as a body, in these lines:— Nor the unprofitable chattering Of all the Academics.
But now that we have gone through the philosophers of Plato’s school, let us go to the Peripatetics, who also derived their doctrines from Plato; and the founder of their sect was Aristotle.
BOOK V.
LIFE OF ARISTOTLE.
I. Aristotle was the son of Nicomachus and Phæstias, a citizen of Stagira; and Nicomachus was descended from Nicomachus, the son of Machaon, the son of Æsculapius, as Hermippus tells us in his treatise on Aristotle; and he lived with Amyntas, the king of the Macedonians, as both a physician and a friend.
II. He was the most eminent of all the pupils of Plato; he had a lisping voice, as is asserted by Timotheus the Athenian, in his work on Lives.
He had also very thin legs, they say, and small eyes; but he used to indulge in very conspicuous dress, and rings, and used to dress his hair carefully.
III. He had also a son named Nicomachus, by Herpyllis his concubine, as we are told by Timotheus.
IV. He seceded from Plato while he was still alive; so that they tell a story that he said, “Aristotle has kicked us off just as chickens do their mother after they have been hatched.” But Hermippus says in his Lives, that while he was absent on an embassy to Philip, on behalf of the Athenians, Xenocrates became the president of the school in the Academy; and that when he returned and saw the school under the presidency of some one else, he selected a promenade in the Lyceum, in which he used to walk up and down with his disciples, discussing subjects of philosophy till the time for anointing themselves came; on which account he was called a Peripatetic.[44] But others say that he got this name because once when Alexander was walking about after recovering from a sickness, he accompanied him and kept conversing with him. But when his pupils became numerous, he then gave them seats, saying:— It would be shame for me to hold my peace, And for Isocrates to keep on talking.
And he used to accustom his disciples to discuss any question which might be proposed, training them just as an orator might.
V. After that he went to Hermias the Eunuch, the tyrant of Atarneus, who, as it is said, allowed him all kinds of liberties; and some say that he formed a matrimonial connection with him, giving him either his daughter or his niece in marriage, as is recorded by Demetrius of Magnesia, in his essay on Poets and Prose-writers of the same name. And the same authority says that Hermias had been the slave of Eubulus, and a Bithynian by descent, and that he slew his master. But Aristippus, in the first book of his treatise on Ancient Luxury, says that Aristotle was enamoured of the concubine of Hermias, and that, as Hermias gave his consent, he married her; and was so overjoyed that he sacrificed to her, as the Athenians do to the Eleusinian Ceres. And he wrote a hymn to Hermias, which is given at length below.
VI. After that he lived in Macedonia, at the court of Philip, and was entrusted by him with his son Alexander as a pupil; and he entreated him to restore his native city which had been destroyed by Philip, and had his request granted; and he also made laws for the citizens. And also he used to make laws in his schools, doing this in imitation of Xenocrates, so that he appointed a president every ten days. And when he thought that he had spent time enough with Alexander, he departed for Athens, having recommended to him his relation Callisthenes, a native of Olynthus; but as he spoke too freely to the king, and would not take Aristotle’s advice, he reproached him and said:— Alas! my child, in life’s primeval bloom, Such hasty words will bring thee to thy doom.[45] And his prophecy was fulfilled, for as he was believed by Hermolaus to have been privy to the plot against Alexander, he was shut up in an iron cage, covered with lice, and untended; and at last he was given to a lion, and so died.
VII. Aristotle then having come to Athens, and having presided over his school there for thirteen years, retired secretly to Chalcis, as Eurymedon, the hierophant had impeached him on an indictment for impiety, though Phavorinus, in his Universal History, says that his prosecutor was Demophilus, on the ground of having written the hymn to the beforementioned Hermias, and also the following epigram which was engraven on his statue at Delphi:— The tyrant of the Persian archer race, Broke through the laws of God to slay this man Not by the manly spear in open fight, But by the treachery of a faithless friend.
And after that he died of taking a draught of aconite, as Eumelus says in the fifth book of his Histories, at the age of seventy years. And the same author says that he was thirty years old when he first became acquainted with Plato. But this is a mistake of his, for he did only live in reality sixty-three years, and he was seventeen years old when he first attached himself to Plato. And the hymn in honour of Hermias is as follows:— O Virtue, won by earnest strife, And holding out the noblest prize That ever gilded earthly life, Or drew it on to seek the skies; For thee what son of Greece would Deem it an enviable lot, To live the life, to die the death, That fears no weary hour, shrinks from no fiery breath?
Such fruit hast thou of heavenly bloom, A lure more rich than golden heap, More tempting than the joys of home, More bland than spell of soft-eyed sleep.
For thee Alcides, son of Jove, And the twin boys of Leda strove, With patient toil and sinewy might, Thy glorious prize to grasp, to reach thy lofty height.
Achilles, Ajax, for thy love Descended to the realms of night; Atarneus’ King thy vision drove, To quit for aye the glad sun-light, Therefore, to memory’s daughters dear, His deathless name, his pure career, Live shrined in song, and link’d with awe, The awe of Xenian Jove, and faithful friendship’s law.[46] There is also an epigram of ours upon him, which runs thus:— Eurymedon, the faithful minister Of the mysterious Eleusinian Queen, Was once about t’ impeach the Stagirite Of impious guilt. But he escaped his hands By mighty draught of friendly aconite, And thus defeated all his wicked arts.
Phavorinus, in his Universal History, says that Aristotle was the first person who ever composed a speech to be delivered in his own defence in a court of justice, and that he did so on the occasion of this prosecution, and said that at Athens:— Pears upon pear-trees grow; on fig-trees, figs.
Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says that he was born in the first year of the ninety-ninth olympiad, and that he attached himself to Plato, and remained with him for twenty years, having been seventeen years of age when he originally joined him. And he went to Mitylene in the archonship of Eubulus, in the fourth year of the hundred and eighth olympiad. But as Plato had died in the first year of this same olympiad, in the archonship of Theophilus, he departed for the court of Hermias, and remained there three years. And in the archonship of Pythodotus he went to the court of Philip, in the second year of the hundred and ninth olympiad, when Alexander was fifteen years old; and he came to Athens in the second year of the hundred and eleventh olympiad, and presided over his school in the Lyceum for thirteen years; after that he departed to Chalcis, in the third year of the hundred and fourteenth olympiad, and died, at about the age of sixty-three years, of disease, the same year that Demosthenes died in Calauria, in the archonship of Philocles.
VIII. It is said also that he was offended with the king, because of the result of the conspiracy of Callisthenes against Alexander; and that the king, for the sake of annoying him, promoted Anaximenes to honour, and sent presents to Xenocrates. And Theocritus, of Chios, wrote an epigram upon him to ridicule him, in the following terms, as it is quoted by Ambryon in his account of Theocritus:— The empty-headed Aristotle rais’d This empty tomb to Hermias the Eunuch, The ancient slave of the ill-us’d Eubulus.
[Who, for his monstrous appetite, preferred The Bosphorus to Academia’s groves.]
And Timon attacked him too, saying of him:— Nor the sad chattering of the empty Aristotle.
Such was the life of the philosopher.
IX. We have also met with his will, which is couched in the following terms:—“May things turn out well; but if any thing happens to him, in that case Aristotle has made the following disposition of his affairs.
That Antipater shall be the general and universal executor. And until Nicanor marries my daughter, I appoint Aristomedes, Timarchus, Hipparchus, Dioteles, and Theophrastus, if he will consent and accept the charge, to be the guardians of my children and of Herpyllis, and the trustees of all the property I leave behind me; and I desire them, when my daughter is old enough, to give her in marriage to Nicanor; but if any thing should happen to the girl, which may God forbid, either before or after she is married, but before she has any children, then I will that Nicanor shall have the absolute disposal of my son, and of all other things, in the full confidence that he will arrange them in a manner worthy of me and of himself. Let him also be the guardian of my daughter and son Nicomachus, to act as he pleases with respect to them, as if he were their father or brother. But if anything should happen to Nicanor, which may God forbid, either before he receives my daughter in marriage, or after he is married to her, or before he has any children by her, then any arrangements which he may make by will shall stand.
But, if Theophrastus, in this case, should choose to take my daughter in marriage, then he is to stand exactly in the same position as Nicanor.
And if not, then I will, that my trustees, consulting with Antipater concerning both the boy and girl, shall arrange everything respecting them as they shall think fit; and that my trustees and Nicanor, remembering both me and Herpyllis, and how well she has behaved to me, shall take care, if she be inclined to take a husband, that one be found for her who shall not be unworthy of us; and shall give her, in addition to all that has been already given her, a talent of silver, and three maidservants if she please to accept them, and the handmaid whom she has now, and the boy Pyrrhæus. And if she likes to dwell at Chalcis, she shall have the house which joins the garden; but if she likes to dwell in Stagira, then she shall have my father’s house. And whichever of these houses she elects to take, I will that my executors do furnish it with all necessary furniture, in such manner as shall seem to them and to Herpyllis to be sufficient. And let Nicanor be the guardian of the child Myrmex, so that he shall be conducted to his friends in a manner worthy of us, with all his property which I received. I also will that Ambracis shall have her liberty, and that there shall be given to her when her daughter is married, five hundred drachmas, and the handmaid whom she now has. And I will that there be given to Thales, besides the handmaiden whom she now has, who was bought for her, a thousand drachmas and another handmaid. And to Timon, in addition to the money that has been given to him before for another boy, an additional slave, or a sum of money which shall be equivalent. I also will that Tychon shall have his liberty when his daughter is married, and Philon, and Olympius, and his son. Moreover, of those boys who wait upon me, I will that none shall be sold, but my executors may use them, and when they are grown up then they shall emancipate them if they deserve it. I desire too, that my executors will take under their care the statues which it has been entrusted to Gryllion to make, that when they are made they may be erected in their proper places; and so too shall the statues of Nicanor, and of Proxenus, which I was intending to give him a commission for, and also that of the mother of Nicanor. I wish them also to erect in its proper place the statue of Arimnestus which is already made, that it may be a memorial of her, since she has died childless. I wish them also to dedicate a statue of my mother to Ceres at Nemea, or wherever else they think fit. And wherever they bury me, there I desire that they shall also place the bones of Pythias, having taken them up from the place where they now lie, as she herself enjoined. And I desire that Nicanor, as he has been preserved, will perform the vow which I made on his behalf, and dedicate some figures of animals in stone, four cubits high, to Jupiter the saviour, and Minerva the saviour, in Stagira.”
These are the provisions of his will.
X. And it is said that a great many dishes were found in his house; and that Lycon stated that he used to bathe in a bath of warm oil, and afterwards to sell the oil. But some say that he used to place a leather bag of warm oil on his stomach. And whenever he went to bed, he used to take a brazen ball in his hand, having arranged a brazen dish below it; so that, when the ball fell into the dish, he might be awakened by the noise.
XI. The following admirable apophthegms are attributed to him.
He was once asked, what those who tell lies gain by it; “They gain this,” said he, “that when they speak truth they are not believed.”
On one occasion he was blamed for giving alms to a worthless man, and he replied, “I did not pity the man, but his condition.”
He was accustomed continually to say to his friends and pupils wherever he happened to be, “That sight receives the light from the air which surrounds it, and in like manner the soul receives the light from the science.”
Very often, when he was inveighing against the Athenians, he would say that they had invented both wheat and laws, but that they used only the wheat and neglected the laws.
It was a saying of his that the roots of education were bitter, but the fruit sweet.
Once he was asked what grew old most speedily, and he replied, “Gratitude.”
On another occasion the question was put to him, what hope is? and his answer was, “The dream of a waking man.”
Diogenes once offered him a dry fig, and as he conjectured that if he did not take it the cynic had a witticism ready prepared, he accepted it, and then said that Diogenes had lost his joke and his fig too; and another time when he took one from him as he offered it, he held it up as a child does, and said, “O great Diogenes;” and then he gave it to him back again.
He used to say that there were three things necessary to education; natural qualifications, instruction, and practice.
Having heard that he was abused by some one, he said, “He may beat me too, if he likes, in my absence.”
He used to say that beauty is the best of all recommendations, but others say that it was Diogenes who gave this description of it; and that Aristotle called beauty, “The gift of a fair appearance,” that Socrates called it “A short-lived tyranny;” Plato, “The privilege of nature;” Theophrastus, “A silent deceit;” Theocritus, “An ivory mischief;” Carneades, “A sovereignty which stood in need of no guards.”
On one occasion he was asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated; “As much,” said he, “as the living are to the dead.”
It was a saying of his that education was an ornament in prosperity, and a refuge in adversity. And that those parents who gave their children a good education deserved more honour than those who merely beget them: for that the latter only enabled their children to live, but the former gave them the power of living well.
When a man boasted in his presence that he was a native of an illustrious city, he said, “That is not what one ought to look at, but whether one is worthy of a great city.”
He was once asked what a friend is; and his answer was, “One soul abiding in two bodies.”
It was a saying of his that some men were as stingy as if they expected to live for ever, and some as extravagant as if they expected to die immediately.
When he was asked why people like to spend a great deal of their time with handsome people, “That,” said he, “is a question fit for a blind man to ask.”
The question was once put to him, what he had gained by philosophy; and the answer he made was this, “That I do without being commanded, what others do from fear of the laws.”
He was once asked what his disciples ought to do to get on; and he replied, “Press on upon those who are in front of them, and not wait for those who are behind to catch them.”
A chattering fellow, who had been abusing him, said to him, “Have not I been jeering you properly?” “Not that I know of,” said he, “for I have not been listening to you.”
A man on one occasion reproached him for having given a contribution to one who was not a good man (for the story which I have mentioned before is also quoted in this way), and his answer was, “I gave not to the man, but to humanity.”
The question was once put to him, how we ought to behave to our friends; and the answer he gave was, “As we should wish our friends to behave to us.”
He used to define justice as “A virtue of the soul distributive of what each person deserved.”
Another of his sayings was, that education was the best viaticum for old age.
Phavorinus, in the second book of his Commentaries, says that he was constantly repeating, “The man who has friends has no friend.” And this sentiment is to be found also in the seventh book of the Ethics.
These apophthegms then are attributed to him.
XII. He also wrote a great number of works; and I have thought it worth while to give a list of them, on account of the eminence of their author in every branch of philosophy. Four books on Justice; three books on Poets; three books on Philosophy; two books of The Statesman; one on Rhetoric, called also the Gryllus; the Nerinthus, one; the Sophist, one;