Vitae philosophorum
Diogenes Laertius
Diogenes Laertius. Hicks, R. D., editor. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1925.
Clitomachus was a Carthaginian, his real name being Hasdrubal, and he taught philosophy at Carthage in his native tongue. He had reached his fortieth year when he went to Athens and became a pupil of Carneades. And Carneades, recognizing his industry, caused him to be educated and took part in training him. And to such lengths did his diligence go that he composed more than four hundred treatises. He succeeded Carneades in the headship of the school, and by his writings did much to elucidate his opinions. He was eminently well acquainted with the three sects—the Academy, the Peripatetics, and the Stoics.
The Academics in general are assailed by Timon in the line:
The prolixity of the Academics unseasoned by salt.
Having thus reviewed the Academics who derived from Plato, we will now pass on to the Peripatetics, who also derived from Plato. They begin with Aristotle.
Aristotle, son of Nicomachus and Phaestis, was a native of Stagira. His father, Nicomachus, as Hermippus relates in his book On Aristotle, traced his descent from Nicomachus who was the son of Machaon and grandson of Asclepius; and he resided with Amyntas, the king of Macedon, in the capacity of physician and friend. Aristotle was Plato’s most genuine disciple; he spoke with a lisp, as we learn from Timotheus the Athenian in his book On Lives; further, his calves were slender (so they say), his eyes small, and he was conspicuous by his attire, his rings, and the cut of his hair. According to Timaeus, he had a son by Herpyllis, his concubine, who was also called Nicomachus.
He seceded from the Academy while Plato was still alive. Hence the remark attributed to the latter: Aristotle spurns me, as colts kick out at the mother who bore them.[*](Cf. Aelian, V.H. iv. 9.) Hermippus in his Lives mentions that he was absent as Athenian envoy at the court of Philip when Xenocrates became head of the Academy, and that on his return, when he saw the school under a new head, he made choice of a public walk in the Lyceum where he would walk
In time the circle about him grew larger; he then sat down to lecture, remarking[*](Eur. Philoct. Frag. 785 Dind., 796 Nauck2.):
It were base to keep silence and let Xenocrates[*](Most authorities put Isocrates here in place of Xenocrates.) speak.He also taught his pupils to discourse upon a set theme, besides practising them in oratory. Afterwards, however, he departed to Hermias the eunuch, who was tyrant of Atarneus, and there is one story that he was on very affectionate terms with Hermias; according to another, Hermias bound him by ties of kinship, giving him his daughter or his niece in marriage, and so Demetrius of Magnesia narrates in his work on Poets and Writers of the Same Name. The same author tells us that Hermias had been the slave of Eubulus, and that he was of Bithynian origin and had murdered his master. Aristippus in his first book On the Luxury of the Ancients says that Aristotle fell in love with a concubine of Hermias,
and married her with his consent, and in an excess of delight sacrificed to a weak woman as the Athenians did to Demeter of Eleusis[*](This story comes ultimately from Lyco the Pythagorean; cf. Aristocles. Cf. Euseb. Praep. Ev. xv. 2 § 5 φησὶ γὰρ θύειν Ἀριστοτέλην θυσίαν τετελευτηκυίᾳ τῇ γυναικὶ τοιαύτην ὁποίαν Ἀθηναῖοι τῇ Δήμητρι. This version is irreconcilable with ὑπερχαίρων in D. L.); and that he composed a paean in honour of Hermias, which is given below; next that he stayed in Macedonia at Philip’s court and received from him his son Alexander as his pupil; that he petitioned Alexander to restore his native city which had been destroyed by Philip and obtained his