XXIII. So he died; but the Athenians immediately repented[22] of their action, so that they closed all the palæstræ and gymnasia; and they banished his accusers, and condemned Meletus to death; but they honoured Socrates with a brazen statue, which they erected in the place where the sacred vessels are kept; and it was the work of Lysippus. But Anytus had already left Athens; and the people of Heraclea banished him from that city the day of his arrival. But Socrates was not the only person who met with this treatment at the hands of the Athenians, but many other men received the same: for, as Heraclides says, they fined Homer fifty drachmas as a madman, and they said that Tyrtæus was out of his wits.
But they honoured Astydamas, before Æschylus, with a brazen statue. And Euripides reproaches them for their conduct in his Palamedes, saying— Ye have slain, ye have slain, O Greeks, the all-wise nightingale, The favourite of the Muses, guiltless all.
And enough has been said on this head.
But Philochorus says that Euripides died before Socrates; and he was born, as Apollodorus in his Chronicles asserts, in the archonship of Apsephion, in the fourth year of the seventy-seventh Olympiad, on the sixth day of the month Thargelion, when the Athenians purify their city, and when the citizens of Delos say that Diana was born. And he died in the first year of the ninety-fifth Olympiad, being seventy years of age.
And this is the calculation of Demetrius Phalereus, for some say that he was but sixty years old when he died.
XXIV. Both he and Euripides were pupils of Anaxagoras; and Euripides was born in the first year of the seventy-fifth Olympiad, in the archonship of Calliades. But Socrates appears to me to have also discussed occasionally subjects of natural philosophy, since he very often disputes about prudence and foresight, as Xenophon tells us; although he at the same time asserts that all his conversations were about moral philosophy.
And Plato, in his Apology, mentions the principles of Anaxagoras and other natural philosophers, which Socrates denies; and he is in reality expressing his own sentiments about them, though he attributes them all to Socrates. And Aristotle tells us that a certain one of the Magi came from Syria to Athens, and blamed Socrates for many parts of his conduct, and also foretold that he would come to a violent death. And we ourselves have written this epigram on him— Drink now, O Socrates, in the realms of Jove, For truly did the God pronounce you wise, And he who said so is himself all wisdom: You drank the poison which your country gave, But they drank wisdom from your godlike voice.
XXV. He had, as Aristotle tells us in the third book of his Poetics, a contest with a man of the name of Antiolochus of Lemnos, and with Antipho, an interpreter of prodigies, as Pythagoras had with Cylon of Crotona; and Homer while alive with Sagaris, and after his death with Xenophanes the Colophonian; and Hesiod, too, in his lifetime with Cercops, and after his death with the same Xenophanes; and Pindar with Amphimenes of Cos; and Thales with Pherecydes; and Bias with Salarus of Priene; and Pittacus with Antimenides; and Alcæus and Anaxagoras with Sosibius; and Simonides with Timocreon.
XXVI. Of those who succeeded him, and who are called the Socratic school, the chiefs were Plato, Xenophon, and Antisthenes: and of the ten, as they are often called, the four most eminent were Æschines, Phædo, Euclides, and Aristippus. But we must first speak of Xenophon, and after him of Antisthenes among the Cynics. Then of the Socratic school, and so about Plato, since he is the chief of the ten sects, and the founder of the first Academy. And the regular series of them shall proceed in this manner.
XXVII. There was also another Socrates, a historian, who wrote a description of Argos; and another, a peripatetic philosopher, a native of Bithynia; and another a writer of epigrams; and another a native of Cos, who wrote invocations to the Gods.
LIFE OF XENOPHON.
I. Xenophon, the son of Gryllus, a citizen of Athens, was of the borough of Erchia; and he was a man of great modesty, and as handsome as can be imagined.
II. They say that Socrates met him in a narrow lane, and put his stick across it, and prevented him from passing by, asking him where all kinds of necessary things were sold. And when he had answered him, he asked him again where men were made good and virtuous. And as he did not know, he said, “Follow me, then, and learn.” And from this time forth, Xenophon became a follower of Socrates.
III. And he was the first person who took down conversations as they occurred, and published them among men, calling them memorabilia. He was also the first man who wrote a history of philosophers.
IV. And Aristippus, in the fourth book of his treatise on Ancient Luxury, says that he loved Clinias; and that he said to him, “Now I look upon Clinias with more pleasure than upon all the other beautiful things which are to be seen among men; and I would rather be blind as to all the rest of the world, than as to Clinias. And I am annoyed even with night and with sleep, because then I do not see him; but I am very grateful to the sun and to daylight, because they show Clinias to me.”
V. He became a friend of Cyrus in this manner. He had an acquaintance, by name Proxenus, a Bœotian by birth, a pupil of Gorgias of Leontini, and a friend of Cyrus. He being in Sardis, staying at the court of Cyrus, wrote a letter to Athens to Xenophon, inviting him to come and be a friend of Cyrus. And Xenophon showed the letter to Socrates, and asked his advice.
And Socrates bade him go to Delphi, and ask counsel of the God. And Xenophon did so, and went to the God; but the question he put was, not whether it was good for him to go to Cyrus or not, but how he should go; for which Socrates blamed him, but still advised him to go. Accordingly he went to Cyrus, and became no less dear to him than Proxenus. And all the circumstances of the expedition and the retreat, he himself has sufficiently related to us.
VI. But he was at enmity with Menon the Pharsalian, who was the commander of the foreign troops at the time of the expedition; and amongst other reproaches, he says that he was much addicted to the worst kind of debauchery. And he reproaches a man of the name of Apollonides with having his ears bored.
VII. But after the expedition, and the disasters which took place in Pontus, and the violations of the truce by Seuthes, the king of the Odrysæ, he came into Asia to Agesilaus, the king of Lacedæmon, bringing with him the soldiers of Cyrus, to serve for pay; and he became a very great friend of Agesilaus. And about the same time he was condemned to banishment by the Athenians, on the charge of being a favourer of the Lacedæmonians. And being in Ephesus, and having a sum of money in gold, he gave half of it to Megabyzus, the priest of Diana, to keep for him till his return; and if he never returned, then he was to expend it upon a statue, and dedicate that to the Goddess; and with the other half he sent offerings to Delphi. From thence he went with Agesilaus into Greece, as Agesilaus was summoned to take part in the war against the Thebans.
And the Lacedæmonians made him a friend of their city.
VIII. After this he left Agesilaus and went to Scillus, which is a strong place in the district of Elis, at no great distance from the city. And a woman followed him, whose name was Philesia, as Demetrius the Magnesian relates; and his sons, Gryllus and Diodorus, as Dinarchus states in the action against Xenophon;[23] and they were also called Dioscuri. And when Megabyzus came into the country, on the occasion of some public assembly, he took back the money and bought a piece of ground, and consecrated it to the Goddess; and a river named Selinus, which is the same name as that of the river at Ephesus, flows through the land. And there he continued hunting, and entertaining his friends, and writing histories. But Dinarchus says that the Lacedæmonians gave him a house and land. They say also that Philopides, the Spartan, sent him there, as a present some slaves, who had been taken prisoners of war, natives of Dardanus, and that he located them as he pleased. And that the Eleans, having made an expedition against Scillus, took the place, as the Lacedæmonians dawdled in coming to his assistance.
IX. But then his sons escaped privily to Lepreum, with a few servants; and Xenophon himself fled to Elis before the place fell; and from thence he went to Lepreum to his children, and from thence he escaped in safety to Corinth, and settled in that city.
X. In the meantime, as the Athenians had passed a vote to go to the assistance of the Lacedæmonians, he sent his sons to Athens, to join in the expedition in aid of the Lacedæmonians; for they had been educated in Sparta, as Diocles relates in his Lives of the Philosophers. Diodorus returned safe back again, without having at all distinguished himself in the battle. And he had a son who bore the same name as his brother Gryllus. But Gryllus, serving in the cavalry, (and the battle took place at Mantinea,) fought very gallantly, and was slain, as Ephorus tells us, in his twenty-fifth book; Cephisodorus being the Captain of the cavalry, and Hegesides the commander-in-chief. Epaminondas also fell in this battle. And after the battle, they say that Xenophon offered sacrifice, wearing a crown on his head; but when the news of the death of his son arrived, he took off the crown; but after that, hearing that he had fallen gloriously, he put the crown on again. And some say that he did not even shed a tear, but said, “I knew that I was the father of a mortal man.” And Aristotle says, that innumerable writers wrote panegyrics and epitaphs upon Gryllus, partly out of a wish to gratify his father. And Hermippus, in his Treatise on Theophrastus, says that Isocrates also composed a panegyric on Gryllus. But Timon ridicules him in these words:— A silly couplet, or e’en triplet of speeches, Or longer series still, just such as Xenophon Might write, or Meagre Æschines.
Such, then, was the life of Xenophon.
XI. And he flourished about the fourth year of the ninety-fourth Olympiad; and he took part in the expedition of Cyrus, in the archonship of Xenænetus, the year before the death of Socrates. And he died, as Stesiclides the Athenian states in his List of Archons and Conquerors at Olympia, in the first year of the hundred and fifth Olympiad, in the archonship of Callidemides; in which year, Philip the son of Amyntas began to reign over the Macedonians. And he died at Corinth, as Demetrius the Magnesian says, being of a very advanced age.
XII. And he was a man of great distinction in all points, and very fond of horses and of dogs, and a great tactician, as is manifest from his writings. And he was a pious man, fond of sacrificing to the Gods, and a great authority as to what was due to them, and a very ardent admirer and imitator of Socrates.
XIII. He also wrote near forty books; though different critics divide them differently. He wrote an account of the expedition of Cyrus, to each book of which work he prefixed a summary, though he gave none of the whole history. He also wrote the Cyropædia, and a history of Greece, and Memorabilia of Socrates, and a treatise called the Banquet, and an essay on Œconomy, and one on Horsemanship, and one on Breaking Dogs, and one on Managing Horses, and a Defence of Socrates, and a Treatise on Revenues, and one called Hiero, or the Tyrant, and one called Agesilaus; one on the Constitution of the Athenians and Lacedæmonians, which, however, Demetrius the Magnesian says is not the work of Xenophon. It is said, also, that he secretly got possession of the books of Thucydides, which were previously unknown, and himself published them.
XIV. He was also called the Attic Muse, because of the sweetness of his diction, in respect of which he and Plato felt a spirit of rivalry towards one another, as we shall relate further in our life of Plato. And we ourselves have composed an epigram on him, which runs thus:— Not only up to Babylon for Cyrus Did Xenophon go, but now he’s mounted up The path which leads to Jove’s eternal realms— For he, recounting the great deeds of Greece, Displays his noble genius, and he shows The depth of wisdom of his master Socrates.
And another which ends thus:— O Xenophon, if th’ ungrateful countrymen Of Cranon and Cecrops, banished you, Jealous of Cyrus’ favour which he show’d you, Still hospitable Corinth, with glad heart, Received you, and you lived there happily, And so resolved to stay in that fair city.
XV. But I have found it stated in some places that he flourished about the eighty-ninth Olympiad, at the same time as the rest of the disciples of Socrates. And Ister says, that he was banished by a decree of Eubulus, and that he was recalled by another decree proposed by the same person.
XVI. But there were seven people of the name of Xenophon. First of all, this philosopher of ours; secondly, an Athenian, a brother of Pythostratus, who wrote the poem called the Theseid, and who wrote other works too, especially the lives of Epaminondas and Pelopidas; the third was a physician of Cos; the fourth, a man who wrote a history of Alcibiades; the fifth, was a writer who composed a book full of fabulous prodigies; the sixth, a citizen of Paros, a sculptor; the seventh, a poet of the Old Comedy.
LIFE OF ÆSCHINES.
I. Æschines was the son of Charinus, the sausage-maker, but, as some writers say, of Lysanias; he was a citizen of Athens, of an industrious disposition from his boyhood upwards, on which account he never quitted Socrates.
II. And this induced Socrates to say, the only one who knows how to pay us proper respect is the son of the sausage-seller. Idomeneus asserts, that it was he who, in the prison, tried to persuade Socrates to make his escape, and not Crito. But that Plato, as he was rather inclined to favour Aristippus, attributed his advice to Crito.
III. And Æschines was calumniated on more than one occasion; and especially by Menedemus of Eretria, who states that he appropriated many dialogues of Socrates as his own, having procured them from Xanthippe.
And those of them which are called “headless,” are exceedingly slovenly performances, showing nothing of the energy of Socrates. And Pisistratus, of Ephesus, used to say, that they were not the work of Æschines. There are seven of them, and most of them are stated by Persæus to be the work of Pasiphon, of Eretria, and to have been inserted by him among the works of Æschines. And he plagiarised from the Little Cyrus, and the Lesser Hercules, of Antisthenes, and from the Alcibiades, and from the Dialogues of the other philosophers. The Dialogues then of Æschines, which profess to give an idea of the system of Socrates are, as I have said, seven in number. First of all, the Miltiades, which is rather weak; the Callias, the Axiochus, the Aspasia, the Alcibiades, the Telauges, and the Rhino.
And they say that he, being in want, went to Sicily, to Dionysius, and was looked down upon by Plato, but supported by Aristippus, and that he gave Dionysius some of his dialogues, and received presents for them.
IV. After that he came to Athens, and there he did not venture to practise the trade of a sophist, as Plato and Aristippus were in high reputation there. But he gave lectures for money, and wrote speeches to be delivered in the courts of law for persons under prosecution. On which account, Timon said of him, “The speeches of Æschines which do not convince any one.” And they say that when he was in great straights through poverty, Socrates advised him to borrow of himself, by deducting some part of his expenditure in his food.
V. And even Aristippus suspected the genuineness of some of his Dialogues; accordingly, they say that when he was reciting some of them at Megara, he ridiculed him, and said to him, “Oh! you thief; where did you get that?”
VI. And Polycritus, of Menda, in the first book of his History of Dionysius, says that he lived with the tyrant till he was deposed, and till the return of Dion to Syracuse; and he says that Carcinus, the tragedian, was also with him. And here is extant a letter of Æschines addressed to Dionysius.
VII. But he was a man well versed in rhetorical art, as is plain from the defence of his father Phæax, the general; and from the works which he wrote in especial imitation of Gorgias of Leontini. And Lysias wrote an oration against him entitling it, On Sycophancy; from all which circumstances it is plain that he was a skilful orator. And one man is spoken of as his especial friend, Aristotle, who was surnamed The Table.
VIII. Now Panætius thinks that the Dialogues of the following disciples of the Socratic school are all genuine,—Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and Æschines; but he doubts about those which go under the names of Phædon, and Euclides; and he utterly repudiates all the others.
IX. And there were eight men of the name of Æschines. The first, this philosopher of ours; the second was a man who wrote a treatise on Oratorical Art; the third was the orator who spoke against Demosthenes; the fourth was an Arcadian, a disciple of Isocrates; the fifth was a citizen of Mitylene, whom they used to call the Scourge of the Orators; the sixth was a Neapolitan, a philosopher of the Academy, a disciple and favourite of Melanthius, of Rhode; the seventh was a Milesian, a political writer; the eighth was a statuary.
LIFE OF ARISTIPPUS.
I. Aristippus was by birth a Cyrenean, but he came to Athens, as Æschines says, having been attracted thither by the fame of Socrates.
II. He, having professed himself a Sophist, as Phanias, of Eresus, the Peripatetic, informs us, was the first of the pupils of Socrates who exacted money from his pupils, and who sent money to his master. And once he sent him twenty drachmas, but had them sent back again, as Socrates said that his dæmon would not allow him to accept them; for, in fact, he was indignant at having them offered to him. And Xenophon used to hate him; on which account he wrote his book against pleasure as an attack upon Aristippus, and assigned the main argument to Socrates. Theodorus also, in his Treatise on Sects, has attacked him severely, and so has Plato in his book on the Soul, as we have mentioned in another place.
III. But he was a man very quick at adapting himself to every kind of place, and time, and person,[24] and he easily supported every change of fortune. For which reason he was in greater favour with Dionysius than any of the others, as he always made the best of existing circumstances.
For he enjoyed what was before him pleasantly, and he did not toil to procure himself the enjoyment of what was not present. On which account Diogenes used to call him the king’s dog. And Timon used to snarl at him as too luxurious, speaking somewhat in this fashion: Like the effeminate mind of Aristippus, Who, as he said, by touch could judge of falsehood.
They say that he once ordered a partridge to be bought for him at the price of fifty drachmas; and when some one blamed him, “And would not you,” said he, “have bought it if it had cost an obol?” And when he said he would, “Well,” replied Aristippus, “fifty drachmas are no more to me.” Dionysius once bade him select which he pleased of three beautiful courtesans; and he carried off all three, saying that even Paris did not get any good by preferring one beauty to the rest. However, they say, that when he had carried them as far as the vestibule, he dismissed them; so easily inclined was he to select or to disregard things. On which account Strato, or, as others will have it, Plato, said to him, “You are the only man to whom it is given to wear both a whole cloak and rags.”
Once when Dionysius spit at him, he put up with it; and when some one found fault with him, he said, “Men endure being wetted by the sea in order to catch a tench, and shall not I endure to be sprinkled with wine to catch a sturgeon?”
IV. Once Diogenes, who was washing vegetables, ridiculed him as he passed by, and said, “If you had learnt to eat these vegetables, you would not have been a slave in the palace of a tyrant.” But Aristippus replied, “And you, if you had known how to behave among men, would not have been washing vegetables.” Being asked once what advantage he had derived from philosophy, he said, “The power of associating confidently with every body.” When he was reproached for living extravagantly, he replied, “If extravagance had been a fault, it would not have had a place in the festivals of the Gods.” At another time he was asked what advantage philosophers had over other men; and he replied, “If all the laws should be abrogated, we should still live in the same manner as we do now.” Once when Dionysius asked him why the philosophers haunt the doors of the rich, but the rich do not frequent those of the philosophers, he said, “Because the first know what they want, but the second do not.”
On one occasion he was reproached by Plato for living in an expensive way; and he replied, “Does not Dionysius seem to you to be a good man?”
And as he said that he did; “And yet,” said he, “he lives in a more expensive manner than I do, so that there is no impossibility in a person’s living both expensively and well at the same time.” He was asked once in what educated men are superior to uneducated men; and answered, “Just as broken horses are superior to those that are unbroken.” On another occasion he was going into the house of a courtesan, and when one of the young men who were with him blushed, he said, “It is not the going into such a house that is bad, but the not being able to go out.” Once a man proposed a riddle to him, and said, “Solve it.” “Why, you silly fellow,” said Aristippus, “do you wish me to loose what gives us trouble, even while it is in bonds?” A saying of his was, “that it was better to be a beggar than an ignorant person; for that a beggar only wants money, but an ignorant person wants humanity.” Once when he was abused, he was going away, and as his adversary pursued him and said, “Why are you going away?” “Because,” said he, “you have a license for speaking ill; but I have another for declining to hear ill.” When some one said that he always saw the philosophers at the doors of the rich men, he said, “And the physicians also are always seen at the doors of their patients; but still no one would choose for this reason to be an invalid rather than a physician.”
Once it happened, that when he was sailing to Corinth, he was overtaken by a violent storm; and when somebody said, “We common individuals are not afraid, but you philosophers are behaving like cowards;” he said, “Very likely, for we have not both of us the same kind of souls at stake.” Seeing a man who prided himself on the variety of his learning and accomplishments, he said, “Those who eat most, and who take the most exercise, are not in better health than they who eat just as much as is good for them; and in the same way it is not those who know a great many things, but they who know what is useful who are valuable men.” An orator had pleaded a cause for him and gained it, and asked him afterwards, “Now, what good did you ever get from Socrates?” “This good,” said he, “that all that you have said in my behalf is true.” He gave admirable advice to his daughter Arete, teaching her to despise superfluity. And being asked by some one in what respect his son would be better if he received a careful education, he replied, “If he gets no other good, at all events, when he is at the theatre, he will not be one stone sitting upon another.” Once when some one brought his son to introduce to him, he demanded five hundred drachmas; and when the father said, “Why, for such a price as that I can buy a slave.” “Buy him then,” he replied, “and you will have a pair.”
It was a saying of his that he took money from his acquaintances not in order to use it himself, but to make them aware in what they ought to spend their money. On one occasion, being reproached for having employed a hired advocate in a cause that he had depending: “Why not,” said he; “when I have a dinner, I hire a cook.” Once he was compelled by Dionysius to repeat some philosophical sentiment; “It is an absurdity,” said he, “for you to learn of me how to speak, and yet to teach me when I ought to speak:” and as Dionysius was offended at this, he placed him at the lowest end of the table; on which Aristippus said, “You wish to make this place more respectable.” A man was one day boasting of his skill as a diver; “Are you not ashamed,” said Aristippus, “to pride yourself on your performance of the duty of a dolphin?” On one occasion he was asked in what respect a wise man is superior to one who is not wise; and his answer was, “Send them both naked among strangers, and you will find out.” A man was boasting of being able to drink a great deal without being drunk; and he said, “A mule can do the very same thing.” When a man reproached him for living with a mistress, he said, “Does it make any difference whether one takes a house in which many others have lived before one, or one where no one has ever lived?” and his reprover said, “No.” “Well does it make any difference whether one sails in a ship which ten thousand people have sailed before one, or whether one sails in one in which no one has ever embarked?” “By no means,” said the other.
“Just in the same way,” said he, “it makes no difference whether one lives with a woman with whom numbers have lived, or with one with whom no one has lived.” When a person once blamed him for taking money from his pupils, after having been himself a pupil of Socrates: “To be sure I do,” he replied, “for Socrates too, when some friends sent their corn and wine, accepted a little, and sent the rest back; for he had the chief men of the Athenians for his purveyors. But I have only Eutychides, whom I have bought with money.” And he used to live with Lais the courtesan, as Sotion tells us in the Second Book of his Successions. Accordingly, when some one reproached him on her account, he made answer, “I possess her, but I am not possessed by her; since the best thing is to possess pleasures without being their slave, not to be devoid of pleasures.” When some one blamed him for the expense he was at about his food, he said, “Would you not have bought those things yourself if they had cost three obols?” And when the other admitted that he would, “Then,” said he, “it is not that I am fond of pleasure, but that you are fond of money.” On one occasion, when Simus, the steward of Dionysius, was showing him a magnificent house, paved with marble (but Simus was a Phrygian, and a great toper), he hawked up a quantity of saliva and spit in his face; and when Simus was indignant at this, he said, “I could not find a more suitable place to spit in.”
Charondas, or as some say, Phædon, asked him once, “Who are the people who use perfumes?” “I do,” said he, “wretched man that I am, and the king of the Persians is still more wretched than I; but, recollect, that as no animal is the worse for having a pleasant scent, so neither is a man; but plague take those wretches who abuse our beautiful unguents.”
On another occasion, he was asked how Socrates died; and he made answer, “As I should wish to die myself.” When Polyxenus, the Sophist, came to his house and beheld his women, and the costly preparation that was made for dinner, and then blamed him for all this luxury, Aristippus after a while said, “Can you stay with me to day?” and when Polyxenus consented, “Why then,” said he, “did you blame me? it seems that you blame not the luxury, but the expense of it.” When his servant was once carrying some money along the road, and was oppressed by the weight of it (as Bion relates in his Dissertations), he said to him, “Drop what is beyond your strength, and only carry what you can.” Once he was at sea, and seeing a pirate vessel at a distance, he began to count his money; and then he let it drop into the sea, as if unintentionally, and began to bewail his loss; but others say that he said besides, that it was better for the money to be lost for the sake of Aristippus, than Aristippus for the sake of his money. On one occasion, when Dionysius asked him why he had come, he said, to give others a share of what he had, and to receive a share of what he had not; but some report that his answer was, “When I wanted wisdom, I went to Socrates; but now that I want money, I have come to you.” He found fault with men, because when they are at sales, they examine the articles offered very carefully, but yet they approve of men’s lives without any examination. Though some attribute this speech to Diogenes. They say that once at a banquet, Dionysius desired all the guests to dance in purple garments; but Plato refused, saying:— “I could not wear a woman’s robe, when I Was born a man, and of a manly race.”
But Aristippus took the garment, and when he was about to dance, he said very wittily:— “She who is chaste, will not corrupted be By Bacchanalian revels.”
He was once asking a favour of Dionysius for a friend, and when he could not prevail, he fell at his feet; and when some one reproached him for such conduct, he said, “It is not I who am to blame, but Dionysius who has his ears in his feet.” When he was staying in Asia, and was taken prisoner by Artaphernes the Satrap, some one said to him, “Are you still cheerful and sanguine?” “When, you silly fellow,” he replied, “can I have more reason to be cheerful than now when I am on the point of conversing with Artaphernes?” It used to be a saying of his, that those who had enjoyed the encyclic course of education, but who had omitted philosophy, were like the suitors of Penelope; for that they gained over Melantho and Polydora and the other maid-servants, and found it easier to do that than to marry the mistress. And Ariston said in like manner, that Ulysses when he had gone to the shades below, saw and conversed with nearly all the dead in those regions, but could not get a sight of the Queen herself.
On another occasion, Aristippus being asked what were the most necessary things for well-born boys to learn, said, “Those things which they will put in practice when they become men.” And when some one reproached him for having come from Socrates to Dionysius, his reply was, “I went to Socrates because I wanted instruction (παιδεῖας), and I have come to Dionysius because I want diversion (παιδιᾶς).” As he had made money by having pupils, Socrates once said to him, “Where did you get so much?”
and he answered, “Where you got a little.” When his mistress said to him, “I am in the family way by you,” he said, “You can no more tell that, than you could tell, after you had gone through a thicket, which thorn had scratched you.” And when some one blamed him for repudiating his son, as if he were not really his, he said, “I know that phlegm, and I know that lice, proceed from us, but still we cast them away as useless.”
One day, when he had received some money from Dionysius, and Plato had received a book, he said to a man who jeered him, “The fact is, money is what I want, and books what Plato wants.” When he was asked what it was for which he was reproached by Dionysius, “The same thing,” said he, “for which others reproach me.” One day he asked Dionysius for some money, who said, “But you told me that a wise man would never be in want;” “Give me some,” Aristippus rejoined, “and then we will discuss that point;” Dionysius gave him some, “Now then,” said he, “you see that I do not want money.” When Dionysius said to him;— “For he who does frequent a tyrant’s court,[25] Becomes his slave, though free when first he came:” He took him up, and replied:— “That man is but a slave who comes as free.”
This story is told by Diocles, in his book on the Lives of the Philosophers; but others attribute the rejoinder to Plato. He once quarrelled with Æschines, and presently afterwards said to him, “Shall we not make it up of our own accord, and cease this folly; but will you wait till some blockhead reconciles us over our cups?” “With all my heart,” said Æschines. “Recollect, then,” said Aristippus, “that I, who am older than you, have made the first advances.” And Æschines answered, “You say well, by Juno, since you are far better than I; for I began the quarrel, but you begin the friendship.” And these are the anecdotes which are told of him.
V. Now there were four people of the name of Aristippus; one, the man of whom we are now speaking; the second, the man who wrote the history of Arcadia; the third was one who, because he had been brought up by his mother, had the name of μητροδίδαντος given to him; and he was the grandson of the former, being his daughter’s son; the fourth was a philosopher of the New Academy.
VI. There are three books extant, written by the Cyrenaic philosopher, which are, a history of Africa, and which were sent by him to Dionysius; and there is another book containing twenty-five dialogues, some written in the Attic, and some in the Doric dialect. And these are the titles of the Dialogues—Artabazus; to the Shipwrecked Sailors; to the Exiles; to a Beggar; to Lais; to Porus; to Lais about her Looking-glass; Mercury; the Dream; to the President of the Feast; Philomelus; to his Domestics; to those who reproached him for possessing old wine and mistresses; to those who reproached him for spending much money on his eating; a Letter to Arete his daughter; a letter to a man who was training himself for the Olympic games; a book of Questions; another book of Questions; a Dissertation addressed to Dionysius; an Essay on a Statue; an Essay on the daughter of Dionysius; a book addressed to one who thought himself neglected; another to one who attempted to give him advice. Some say, also, that he wrote six books of dissertations; but others, the chief of whom is Sosicrates of Rhodes, affirm that he never wrote a single thing. According to the assertions of Sotion in his second book; and of Panætius, on the contrary, he composed the following books,—one concerning Education; one concerning Virtue; one called An Exhortation; Artabazus; the Shipwrecked Men; the Exiles; six books of Dissertations; three books of Apophthegms; an essay addressed to Lais; one to Porus; one to Socrates; one on Fortune. And he used to define the chief good as a gentle motion tending to sensation.
VII. But since we have written his life, let us now speak of the Cyrenaics who came after him; some of whom called themselves Hegesiaci,