(Occonomicus), and by his
description was filled with so ardent a desire to see Socrates, that he went to Athens for the
purpose (Plut. de Curios. 2), and remained with him almost up to the time
of his execution, ad Aristoph. Plut. 179), that Lais, the courtezan with whom he was intimate,
was born
Though a disciple of Socrates, he wandered both in principle and practice very far from the
teaching and example of his great master. He was luxurious in his mode of living; he indulged
in sensual gratifications, and the society of the notorious Lais; he took money for his
teaching (being the first of the disciples of Socrates who did so, Mlem. 2.1.) He passed part of his life at the court of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse,
and is also said to have been taken prisoner by Artaphernes, the satrap who drove the Spartans
from Rhodes Hist. Crit. Phil. 2.2, 3.) He appears, however, at last to
have returned to Cyrene, and there he spent his old age. The anecdotes which are told of him,
and of which we find a most tedious number in Diogenes Laertius (2.65, &c.), by no means
give us the notion of a person who was the mere slave of his passions, but rather of one who
took a pride in extracting enjoyment from all circumstances of every kind, and in controlling
adversity and prosperity alike. They illustrate and confirm the two statements of Horace
(mihi res, non me rebus subjungere," and (1.17. 23) that, "
omnis Aristippum deceit color et status et res." Thus when reproached
for his love of bodily indulgences, he answered, that there was no shame in enjoying them, but
that it would be disgraceful if he could not at any time give them up. When Dionysius,
provoked at some of his remarks, ordered him to take the lowest place at table, he said, " You
wish to dignify the seat." Whether he was prisoner to a satrap, or grossly insulted and even
spit upon by a tyrant, or enjoying the pleasures of a banquet, or reviled for faithlessness to
Socrates by his fellow-pupils, he maintained the same calm temper. To Xenophon and Plato he
was very obnoxious, as we see from the Memorabilia (l.c.), where he
maintains an odious discussion against Socrates in defence of voluptuous enjoyment, and from
the Phaedo (p. 59c), where his absence at the death of Socrates, though he was only at Aegina,
200 stadia from Athens, is doubtless mentioned as a reproach. (See Stallbaum's note.)
Aristotle, too, calls him a sophist (Metaphys. 2.2), and notices a story
of Plato speaking to him with rather undue vehemence, and of his replying with calmness. (Rhet. 2.23.) He imparted his doctrine to his daughter Arete, by whom it was
communicated to her son, the younger Aristippus (hence called Dissertation on Phalaris, &c. p. 104.) One of these is to
Arete, and its spuriousness is proved, among other arguments, by the occurrence in it of the
name of a city near Cyrene, the victorious.
We shall now give a short view of the leading doctrines of the earlier Cyrenaic school in
general, though it is not to be understood that the system was wholly or even chiefly drawn up
by the elder Aristippus; but, as it is impossible from the loss of contemporary documents to
separate the parts which belong to each of the Cyrenaic philosophers, it is better here to
combine them all. From the fact pointed out by Ritter (Geschichte der
Philosophie, 7.3), that Aristotle chooses Eudoxus rather than Aristippus as the
representative of the doctrine that Pleasure is the summum bonum (Eth.
Nic. 10.2), it seems probable that but little of the Cyrenaic system is due to the
founder of the school. Eth. Nic. 10.6), where Aristotle refutes the opinion, that happiness
consists in amusement, and speaks of persons holding such a dogma in order to recommend
themselves to the favour of tyrants.
The Cyrenaics despised Physics, and limited their inquiries to Ethics, though they included
under that term a much wider range of science than can fairly be reckoned as belonging to it.
So, too, Aristotle accuses Aristippus of neglecting mathematics, as a study not concerned with
good and evil, which, he said, are the objects even of the carpenter and tanner. (Metaphys. 2.2.) They divided Philosophy into five parts, viz. the study of
(1) Objects of Desire and Aversion, (2) Feelings and Affections, (3) Actions, (4) Causes, (5)
Proofs. Of these (4) is clearly connected with physics, and (5) with logic.