For some time he stayed there and gathered disciples, but returned to Athens in the archonship of Anaxicrates.307-306 b.c. And for a while, it is said, he prosecuted his studies in common with the other philosophers, but afterwards put forward independent views by the foundation of the school called after him. He says himself that he first came into contact with philosophy at the age of fourteen. Apollodorus the Epicurean, in the first book of his
Life of Epicurus, says
that he turned to philosophy in disgust at the schoolmasters who could not tell him the meaning of
chaos
in Hesiod.
Cf. Sext. Emp. Adv. math. x. 18, where the story is well told. According to Hermippus, however, he started as a schoolmaster, but on coming across the works of Democritus turned eagerly to philosophy.