Vitae philosophorum

Being once asked who suffers most from anxiety, he

He used repeatedly to say that to grant favours to another was preferable to enjoying the favours of others. For the latter means ruin to both body and soul. He even abused Socrates, declaring that, if he felt desire for Alcibiades and abstained, he was a fool; if he did not, his conduct was in no way remarkable. The road to Hades, he used to say, was easy to travel; at any rate men passed away with their eyes shut. He said in censure of Alcibiades that in his boyhood he drew away the husbands from their wives, and as a young man the wives from their husbands. When the Athenians were absorbed in the practice of rhetoric, he taught philosophy at Rhodes. To some one who found fault with him for this he replied, How can I sell barley when what I brought to market is wheat?

He used to say that those in Hades would be more severely punished if the vessels in which they drew water were whole instead of being pierced with

Prudence, he said, excels the other virtues as much as sight excels the other senses. He used to say that we ought not to heap reproaches on old age, seeing that, as he said, we all hope to reach it. To a slanderer who showed a grave face his words were, I don’t know whether you have met with ill luck, or your neighbour with good. He used to say that low birth made a bad partner for free speech, for—

It cows a man, however bold his heart.[*](Eur. Hipp. 424.)

Bion at the outset used to deprecate the Academic doctrines,[*](i.e. he had his doubts. Reiske, however, by his conjecture προῄρητο gives the statement a totally different turn, viz. that Bion had at the outset preferred the Academy.) even at the time when he was a pupil of Crates. Then he adopted the Cynic discipline, donning cloak and wallet.

For little else was needed to convert him to the doctrine of entire insensibility.

O gentle Archytas, musician-born, blessed in thine own conceit, most skilled of men to stir the bass of strife.[*](Cf. Hom. Il. iii. 182 ὦ μάκαρ Ἀτρεΐδη, μοιρηγενές, ὀλβιόδαιμον. The address πάντων ἐκπαγλότατʼ ἀνδρῶν occurs in Il. i. 146 and xviii. 170.)

And in general he made sport of music and geometry. He lived extravagantly, and for this reason he would move from one city to another, sometimes contriving to make a great show. Thus at Rhodes he persuaded the sailors to put on students’ garb and follow in his train. And when, attended by them, he made his way into the gymnasium, all eyes were fixed on him. It was his custom also to adopt certain young men for the gratification of his appetite and in order that he might be protected by their goodwill.[*](See, however, supra, 49.) He was extremely selfish and insisted strongly on the maxim that friends share in common. And hence it came about that he is not credited with a single disciple, out of all the crowds who attended his lectures. And yet there were some who followed his lead in shamelessness.

For instance, Betion, one of his intimates, is said once to have addressed Menedemus in these words: For my part, Menedemus, I pass the night with Bion, and I don’t think I am any the worse for it. In

Even so he died, and in these lines[*](Anth. Plan. v. 37.) I have taken him to task:

We hear that Bion, to whom the Scythian land of Borysthenes gave birth, denied that the gods really exist. Had he persisted in holding this opinion, it would have been right to say, He thinks as he pleases: wrongly, to be sure, but still he does think so. But in fact, when he fell ill of a lingering disease and feared death, he who denied the existence of the gods, and would not even look at a temple,

who often mocked at mortals for sacrificing to deities, not only over hearth and high altars and table, with sweet savour and fat and incense did he gladden the nostrils of the gods; nor was he content to say I have sinned, forgive the past,

but he cheerfully allowed an old woman to put a charm round his neck, and in full faith bound his arms with leather and placed the rhamnus and the laurel-branch over the door, being ready to submit to anything sooner than die. Fool for wishing that the divine favour might be purchased at a certain price, as if the gods existed just when Bion chose to recognize them! It was then with vain wisdom that, when the driveller was all ashes, he stretched out his hand and said Hail, Pluto, hail!

Ten men have borne the name of Bion: (1) the contemporary of Pherecydes of Syria, to whom are assigned two books in the Ionic dialect; he was of Proconnesus; (2) a Syracusan, who wrote rhetorical handbooks; (3) our philosopher; (4) a follower of Democritus and mathematician of Abdera, who wrote both in Attic and in Ionic: he was the first to affirm that there are places where the night lasts for six months and the day for six months[*](Possibly Pytheas of Massilia in his Northern Voyage had had experience of Arctic winters and summers.); (5) a native of Soli, who wrote a work on Aethiopia; (6) a rhetorician, the author of nine books called after the Muses; (7) a lyric poet; (8) a Milesian sculptor, mentioned by Polemo; (9) a tragic poet, one of the poets of Tarsus, as they are called; (10) a sculptor of Clazomenae or Chios, mentioned by Hipponax.

Lacydes, son of Alexander, was a native of Cyrene He was the founder of the New Academy and the successor of Arcesilaus: a man of very serious character who found numerous admirers; industrious from his youth up and, though poor, of pleasant manners and pleasant conversation. A most amusing story is told of his housekeeping. Whenever he brought anything out of the store-room, he would seal the door up again and throw his signet-ring inside through the opening, to ensure that nothing laid up there should be stolen or carried off. So soon, then, as his rogues of servants got to know this, they broke the seal and carried off what they pleased, afterwards throwing the ring in the same way through

Lacydes used to lecture in the Academy, in the garden which had been laid out by King Attalus, and from him it derived its name of Lacydeum. He did what none of his predecessors had ever done; in his lifetime he handed over the school to Telecles and Evander, both of Phocaea. Evander was succeeded by Hegesinus of Pergamum, and he again by Carneades. A good saying is attributed to Lacydes. When Attalus sent for him, he is said to have remarked that statues are best seen from a distance. He stadied geometry late, and some one said to him, Is this a proper time? To which he replied, Nay, is it not even yet the proper time?

He assumed the headship of the school in the fourth year of the 134th Olympiad,[*](July 241-June 240 b.c.) and at his death he had been head for twenty-six years. His end was a palsy brought on by drinking too freely. And here is a quip of my own upon the fact[*](Anth. Pal. vii. 105.):

Of thee too, O Lacydes, I have heard a tale, that Bacchus seized thee and dragged thee on tip-toe[*](Or with trailing toes. The vases show bodies carried in the arms or flung over the shoulders with the toes just touching the ground.) to the underworld. Nay, was it not clear that when the wine-god comes in force into the frame, he loosens our limbs? Perhaps this is why he gets his name of the Loosener.

Carneades, the son of Epicomus or (according to Alexander in his Successions of Philosophers) of Philocomus, was a native of Cyrene. He studied

Without Chrysippus where should I have been?

His voice was extremely powerful, so that the keeper of the gymnasium sent to him and requested him not to shout so loud. To which he replied, Then give me something by which to regulate my voice. Thereupon by a happy hit the man replied in the words, You have a regulator in your audience. His talent for criticizing opponents was remarkable, and he was a formidable controversialist. And for the reasons already given he further declined invitations to dine out. One of his pupils was Mentor the Bithynian, who tried to ingratiate himself with a concubine of Carneades; so on one occasion (according to Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History), when Mentor came to lecture, Carneades in the course of his remarks let fall these lines by way of parody at his expense:

Hither comes an old man of the sea, infallible, like to Mentor in person and in voice.[*](Carneades applies two lines from the Odyssey, namely iv. 384 and (with a change to the masculine participle) ii. 268 or 401.) Him I proclaim to have been banished from this school.

Those on their part made proclamation, and these speedily assembled.[*](Hom. Il. ii. 52.)

He seems to have shown some want of courage in the face of death, repeating often the words, Nature which framed this whole will also destroy it. When he learnt that Antipater committed suicide by drinking a potion, he was greatly moved by the constancy with which he met his end, and exclaimed, Give it then to me also. And when those about him asked What? A honeyed draught, said he. At the time he died the moon is said to have been eclipsed, and one might well say that the brightest luminary in heaven next to the sun thereby gave token of her sympathy.

According to Apollodorus in his Chronology, he departed this life in the fourth year of the 162nd Olympiad[*](129-128 b.c.) at the age of eighty-five years. Letters of his to Ariarathes, king of Cappadocia, are extant. Everything else was compiled by his pupils; he himself left nothing in writing. I have written upon him in logaoedic metre as follows[*](Anth. Plan. v. 39.):

Why, Muse, oh why wouldst thou have me censure Carneades? For he is ignorant who knoweth not how he feared death. When wasting away with the worst of diseases, he would not find release. But when he heard that Antipater’s life was quenched by drinking a potion,

Give me too, he cried, a draught to drink. What? pray what? Give me a draught of honeyed wine. He had often on his lips the words, Nature which holds this frame together will surely dissolve it. None the less he too went down to the grave, and he might have got there sooner by cutting short his tale of woes.

It is said that his eyes went blind at night without

He had many other disciples, but the most illustrious of them all was Clitomachus, of whom we have next to speak.

There was another Carneades, a frigid elegiac poet.

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.