Diogenes Laërtius

“ 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!"
58. 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 ”

“ Antigonus of Carystus in his Biographies says that his father was foremost among the citizens and kept horses to compete in the chariot-race; that Polemo himself had been defendant in an action brought by his wife, who charged him with cruelty owing to the irregularities of his life; but that, from the time when he began to study philosophy, he acquired such strength of character as always to maintain the same unruffled calm of demeanour. Nay more, he never lost control of his voice. This in fact accounts for the fascination which he exercised over Crantor. ”

“ Passing stranger, say that in this tomb rest godlike Crates and Polemo, men magnanimous in concord, from whose inspired lips flowed sacred speech, and whose pure life of wisdom, in accordance with unswerving tenets, decked them for a bright immortality.
22. Hence Arcesilaus, who had quitted Theophrastus and gone over to their school, said of them that they were gods or a remnant of the Golden Age. ”

“ Misers, he said, took care of property as if it belonged to them, but derived no more benefit from it than if it belonged to others. "When we are young," said he, "we are courageous, but it is only in old age that prudence is at its height." ”

“ Being consulted by some one as to whether he should marry – for this story is also told of Bion – he made answer, "If the wife you marry be ugly, she will be your bane; if beautiful, you will not keep her to yourself." ”

“ When bantered by Bion, he said he would make no reply. For neither, said he, does tragedy deign to answer the banter of comedy. To some one who had never learnt either music or geometry or astronomy, but nevertheless wished to attend his lectures, Xenocrates said, "Go your ways, for you offer philosophy nothing to lay hold of." Others report him as saying, "It is not to me that you come for the carding of a fleece."
11. When Dionysius told Plato that he would lose his head, Xenocrates, who was present, pointed to his own and added, "No man shall touch it till he cut off mine." ”

“ There have been six other men named Xenocrates: (1) a tactician in very ancient times; (2) the kinsman and fellow-citizen of the philosopher: a speech by him is extant entitled the Arsinoëtic, treating of a certain deceased Arsinoë; [12] (4) a philosopher and not very successful writer of elegies; it is a remarkable fact that poets succeed when they undertake to write prose, but prose-writers who essay poetry come to grief; whereby it is clear that the one is a gift of nature and the other of art ”

“ Further, he would not, they say, even sit down to deal with the themes of his pupils, but would argue walking up and down. It was, then, for his love of what is noble that he was honoured in the state. Nevertheless would he withdraw from society [17] and confine himself to the Garden of the Academy, while close by his scholars made themselves little huts and lived not far from the shrine of the Muses and the lecture-hall. It would seem that in all respects Polemo emulated Xenocrates. ”

“ To be unable to bear an ill is itself a great ill. He used to condemn those who burnt men alive as if they could not feel, and yet cauterized them as if they could. 49. He used repeatedly to say that to grant favours to another was preferable to enjoying the favours of others. ”

“ However, when he recovered, he continued to attend Polemo's lectures, and for this he was universally praised. He is also said to have left Arcesilaus his property, to the value of twelve talents. And when asked by him where he wished to be buried, he answered: [21]
Sweet in some nook of native soil to rest.
It is also said that he wrote poems and deposited them under seal in the temple of Athena in his native place. And Theaetetus the poet writes thus of him: [22]
Pleasing to men, more pleasing to the Muses, lived Crantor, and never saw old age. Receive, O earth, the hallowed dead ”

“ Crantor admired Homer and Euripides above all other poets; it is hard, he said, at once to write tragedy and to stir the emotions in the language of everyday life. And he would quote the line from the story of Bellerophon: [23]
Alas! But why Alas? We have suffered the lot of mortals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Some one had inquired why it was that pupils from all the other schools went over to Epicurus, but converts were never made from the Epicureans: "Because men may become eunuchs, but a eunuch never becomes a man," was his answer.
At last, being near his end, he left all his property to his brother Pylades, because, unknown to Moereas, he had taken him to Chios and thence brought him to Athens. In all his life he never married nor had any children. ”

“ However, Xenocrates was in all besides dignified and grave of demeanour, which made Plato say to him continually, "Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces." ”

“ Had I not learnt that Speusippus would die thus, no one would have persuaded me to say that he was surely not of Plato's blood; for else he would never have died in despair for a trivial cause.
4. Plutarch in the Lives of Lysander and Sulla makes his malady to have been "morbus pedicularis." [5] That his body wasted away is affirmed by Timotheus in his book On Lives. Speusippus, he says, meeting a rich man who was in love with one who was no beauty, said to him, "Why, pray, are you in such sore need of him? For ten talents I will find you a more handsome bride." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Pindar too he declared matchless for imparting fullness of diction and for affording a copious store of words and phrases. And in his youth he made a special study of Ion.
32. He also attended the lectures of the geometer Hipponicus, at whom he pointed a jest as one who was in all besides a listless, yawning sluggard but yet proficient in his subject. "Geometry," he said, "must have flown into his mouth while it was agape." When this man's mind gave way, Arcesilaus took him to his house and nursed him until he was completely restored. ”

“ And why, insignificant thing that you are, do you puff yourself out like a simpleton? [45]
And yet for all that he was modest enough to recommend his pupils to hear other philosophers. And when a certain youth from Chios was not well pleased with his lectures and preferred those of the above-mentioned Hieronymus, Arcesilaus himself took him and introduced him to that philosopher, with an injunction to behave well. ”

“ And that once the notorious Phryne tried to make his acquaintance and, as if she were being chased by some people, took refuge under his roof; that he admitted her out of ordinary humanity and, there being but one small couch in the room, permitted her to share it with him, and at last, after many importunities, she retired without success, telling those who inquired that he whom she quitted was not a man but a statue. Another version of the story is that his pupils induced Laïs to invade his couch ”

“ His most highly esteemed work is the treatise On Grief. [25] He died before Polemo and Crates, his end being hastened by dropsy. I have composed upon him the following epigram: [26]
The worst of maladies overwhelmed you, Crantor, and thus did you descend the black abyss of Pluto. While you fare well even in the world below, the Academy and your country of Soli are bereft of your discourses.
Arcesilaus 28. Arcesilaus, the son of Seuthes, according to Apollodorus in the third book of his Chronology, came from Pitane in Aeolis. With him begins the Middle Academy ”

“ 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, 56. 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 ”

“ And even for want of nurses he was in a sad plight, until Antigonus sent him two servants. And it is stated by Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History that the king himself followed in a litter.
Even so he died, and in these lines [56] I have taken him to task:
55. 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." ”

“ 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." ”

“ Referring to a wealthy miser he said, "He has not acquired a fortune; ”

“ There is a story that, when he was sent, along with others also, on an embassy to Philip, his colleagues, being bribed, accepted Philip's invitations to feasts and talked with him. Xenocrates did neither the one nor the other. Indeed on this account Philip declined to see him. 9. Hence, when the envoys returned to Athens, they complained that Xenocrates had accompanied them without rendering any service. Thereupon the people were ready to fine him. ”

“ His words were entirely worthy of credit, so much so that, although it was illegal for witnesses to give evidence unsworn, the Athenians allowed Xenocrates alone to do so. 8. Furthermore, he was extremely independent; at all events, when Alexander sent him a large sum of money, he took three thousand Attic drachmas and sent back the rest to Alexander, whose needs, he said, were greater than his own, because he had a greater number of people to keep. ”

“ Aristippus the Cyrenaic. On Wealth, one book. On Pleasure, one book. On Justice, On Philosophy, On Friendship, On the Gods, The Philosopher, A Reply to Cephalus, Cephalus, Clinomachus or Lysias, The Citizen, Of the Soul, A Reply to Gryllus, 5. Aristippus, Criticism of the Arts, each in one book. Memoirs, in the form of dialogues. Treatise on System, in one book. Dialogues on the Resemblances in Science, in ten books. Divisions and Hypotheses relating to the Resemblances. On Typical Genera and Species. A Reply to the Anonymous Work. Eulogy of Plato. Epistles to Dion, Dionysius and Philip. ”