Vitae philosophorum

Thales the Sage died as he was watching an athletic contest from heat, thirst, and the weakness incident to advanced age. And the inscription on his tomb is[*](Anth. Pal. vii. 84.):

Here in a narrow tomb great Thales lies;
1. Yet his renown for wisdom reached the skies.

I may also cite one of my own, from my first book, Epigrams in Various Metres[*](Anth. Pal. vii. 85.):

As Thales watched the games one festal day
1. The fierce sun smote him, and he passed away;
2. Zeus, thou didst well to raise him; his dim eyes
3. Could not from earth behold the starry skies.[*](In plain prose: As the wise Thales was one day watching the contest of the racers, thou, O Sun-god, O Zeus, didst snatch him from the stadium. I praise thee for removing him to be near thee; for verily the old man could no more discern the stars from earth.)

To him belongs the proverb Know thyself, which Antisthenes in his Successions of Philosophers attributes to Phemonoë, though admitting that it was appropriated by Chilon.

This seems the proper place for a general notice of the Seven Sages, of whom we have such accounts as the following. Damon of Cyrene in his History of the Philosophers carps at all sages, but especially the Seven. Anaximenes remarks that they all applied themselves to poetry; Dicaearchus that they were neither sages nor philosophers, but merely

shrewd men with a turn for legislation.[*](The opinion of Dicaearchus thus expressed is correct. With the exception of Thales, no one whose life is contained in Book I. has any claim to be styled a philosopher. The tradition of the Seven Wise Men and of their meeting at some court, whether of a native tyrant like Periander or of a foreign prince like Croesus, was used by Plato (Protag. 343 A) and, largely through his influence, grew into a romantic legend, the result being late biographies, collections of apophthegms, and letters attributed to various authors, e.g. the apophthegms of Demetrius of Phalerum. Diogenes Laertius swallows all this as true; modern criticism rejects it all as forgery.) Archetimus of Syracuse describes their meeting at the court of Cypselus, on which occasion he himself happened to be present; for which Ephorus substitutes a meeting without Thales at the court of Croesus. Some make them meet at the Pan-Ionian festival, at Corinth, and at Delphi.

Their utterances are variously reported, and are attributed now to one now to the other, for instance the following[*](Anth. Plan. iv. 22.):

Chilon of Lacedaemon’s words are true:
1. Nothing too much; good comes from measure due.

Nor is there any agreement how the number is made up; for Maeandrius, in place of Cleobulus and Myson, includes Leophantus, son of Gorgiadas, of Lebedus or Ephesus, and Epimenides the Cretan in the list; Plato in his Protagoras admits Myson and leaves out Periander; Ephorus substitutes Anacharsis for Myson; others add Pythagoras to the Seven. Dicaearchus hands down four names fully recognized: Thales, Bias, Pittacus and Solon; and appends the names of six others, from whom he selects three: Aristodemus, Pamphylus, Chilon the Lacedaemonian, Cleobulus, Anacharsis, Periander. Others add Acusilaus, son of Cabas or Scabras, of Argos.