Vitae philosophorum

Diogenes Laertius

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

According to some his death occurred, when he was on a journey, at nearly ninety years of age, though Apollodorus makes his age seventy, assigns forty years for his career as a sophist, and puts his floruit in the 84th Olympiad.[*](444-441 b.c.)

There is an epigram of my own on him as follows[*](Anth. Pal. vii. 130.):

    Protagoras, I hear it told of thee
  1. Thou died’st in eld when Athens thou didst flee;
  2. Cecrops’ town chose to banish thee; but though
  3. Thou ’scap’dst Athene, not so Hell below.

The story is told that once, when he asked Euathlus his disciple for his fee, the latter replied, But I have not won a case yet. Nay, said Protagoras, if I win this case against you I must have the fee, for winning it; if you win, I must have it, because you win it.

There was another Protagoras, an astronomer, for whom Euphorion wrote a dirge; and a third who was a Stoic philosopher.