Vitae philosophorum

Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes Laertius. Hicks, R. D., editor. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1925.

Chrysippus, the son of Apollonius, came either from Soli or from Tarsus, as Alexander relates in his Successions. He was a pupil of Cleanthes. Before this he used to practise as a long-distance runner;

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but afterwards he came to hear Zeno, or, as Diocles and most people say, Cleanthes; and then, while Cleanthes was still living, withdrew from his school and attained exceptional eminence as a philosopher. He had good natural parts and showed the greatest acuteness in every branch of the subject; so much so that he differed on most points from Zeno, and from Cleanthes as well, to whom he often used to say that all he wanted was to be told what the doctrines were; he would find out the proofs for himself. Nevertheless, whenever he had contended against Cleanthes, he would afterwards feel remorse, so that he constantly came out with the lines[*](Eur. Or. 540-1.):
    Blest in all else am I, save only where
  1. I touch Cleanthes: there I am ill-fortuned.

So renowned was he for dialectic that most people thought, if the gods took to dialectic, they would adopt no other system than that of Chrysippus. He had abundance of matter, but in style he was not successful. In industry he surpassed every one, as the list of his writings shows; for there are more than 705 of them. He increased their number by arguing repeatedly on the same subject, setting down anything that occurred to him, making many corrections and citing numerous authorities. So much so that in one of his treatises he copied out nearly the whole of Euripides’ Medea, and some one who had taken up the volume, being asked what he was reading, replied, The Medea of Chrysippus.