The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
seen eating. And Timæus mentions him in his second book.
XI. Some authors say also that the Cretans sacrifice to him as a god, for
they say that he was the wisest of men: and accordingly, that when he
saw the port of Munychia,[18] at Athens, he said that the Athenians did
not know how many evils that place would bring upon them: since, if they
did, they would tear it to pieces with their teeth; and he said this a
long time before the event to which he alluded. It is said also, that he
at first called himself Æacus; and that he foretold to the Lacedæmonians
the defeat which they should suffer from the Arcadians; and that he
pretended that he had lived several times. But Theopompus, in his Strange
Stories, says that when he was building the temple of the Nymphs, a voice
burst forth from heaven;—“Oh! Epimenides, build this temple, not for the
Nymphs but for Jupiter.” He also foretold to the Cretans the defeat of
the Lacedæmonians by the Arcadians, as has been said before. And, indeed,
they were beaten at Orchomenos.
XII. He pretended also, that he grew old rapidly, in the same number
of days as he had been years asleep; at least, so Theopompus says. But
Mysonianus, in his Coincidences, says, that the Cretans call him one
of the Curetes. And the Lacedæmonians preserve his body among them, in
obedience to some oracle, as Sosibius the Lacedæmonian says.
XIII. There were also two other Epimenides, one the genealogist; the
other, the man who wrote a history of Rhodes in the Doric dialect.
LIFE OF PHERECYDES.
I. Pherecydes was a Syrian, the son of Babys, and, as Alexander says, in
his Successions, he had been a pupil of Pittacus.
II. Theopompus says that he was the first person who ever wrote among
the Greeks on the subject of Natural Philosophy and the Gods. And there
are many marvellous stories told of him. For it is said that he was
walking along the sea-shore at Samos, and that seeing a ship sailing
by with a fair wind, he said that it would soon sink; and presently it
sank before their eyes. At another time he was drinking some water which
had been drawn up out of a well, and he foretold that within three days
there would be an earthquake; and there was one. And as he was going
up to Olympia, and had arrived at Messene, he advised his entertainer,
Perilaus, to migrate from the city with all his family, but that Perilaus
would not be guided by him; and afterwards Messene was taken.
III. And he is said to have told the Lacedæmonians to honour neither gold
nor silver, as Theopompus says in his Marvels; and it is reported that
Hercules laid this injunction on him in a dream, and that the same night
he appeared also to the kings of Sparta, and enjoined them to be guided
by Pherecydes; but some attribute these stories to Pythagoras.
IV. And Hermippus relates that when there was a war between the Ephesians
and Magnesians, he, wishing the Ephesians to conquer, asked some one, who
was passing by, from whence he came? and when he said, “From Ephesus,”
“Drag me now,” said he, “by the legs, and place me in the territory
of the Magnesians, and tell your fellow countrymen to bury me there
after they have got the victory;” and that he went and reported that
Pherecydes had given him this order. And so they went forth the next day
and defeated the Magnesians; and as Pherecydes was dead, they buried him
there, and paid him very splendid honours.
V. But some writers say that he went to Delphi, and threw himself down
from the Corycian hill; Aristoxenus, in his History of Pythagoras and
his Friends, says that Pherecydes fell sick and died, and was buried by
Pythagoras in Delos; But others say that he died of the lousy disease;
and when Pythagoras came to see him, and asked him how he was, he put
his finger through the door, and said, “You may see by my skin.” And
from this circumstance that expression passed into a proverb among the
philosophers, when affairs are going on badly; and those who apply it to
affairs that are going on well, make a blunder. He used to say, also,
that the Gods call their table θυωρὸς.
VI. But Andron, the Ephesian, says that there were two men of the name of
Pherecydes, both Syrians: one an astronomer and the other a writer on God
and the Divine Nature; and that this last was the son of Babys, who was
also the master of Pythagoras. But Eratosthenes asserts that there was
but one, who was a Syrian; and that the other Pherecydes was an Athenian,
a genealogist; and the work of the Syrian Pherecydes is preserved, and it
begins thus:—“Jupiter, and Time, and Chthon existed externally.” And the
name of Cthonia became Tellus, after Jupiter gave it to her as a reward.
A sun-dial is also preserved, in the island of Syra, of his making.
VII. But Duris, in the second book of his Boundaries, says that this
epigram was written upon him:—
The limit of all wisdom is in me;
And would be, were it larger. But report
To my Pythagoras that he’s the first
Of all the men that tread the Grecian soil;
I shall not speak a falsehood, saying this.
And Ion, the Chian, says of him:—
Adorned with valour while alive, and modesty,
Now that he’s dead he still exists in peace;
For, like the wise Pythagoras, he studied
The manners and the minds of many nations.
And I myself have composed an epigram on him in the Pherecratean metre:—
The story is reported,
That noble Pherecydes
Whom Syros calls her own,
Was eaten up by lice;
And so he bade his friends,
Convey his corpse away
To the Magnesian land,
That he might victory give
To holy Ephesus.
For well the God had said,
(Though he alone did know
Th’ oracular prediction),
That this was fate’s decree.
So in that land he lies.
This then is surely true,
That those who’re really wise
Are useful while alive,
And e’en when breath has left them.
VIII. And he flourished about the fifty-ninth Olympiad. There is a letter
of his extant in the following terms:—
PHERECYDES TO THALES.
May you die happily when fate overtakes you. Disease has seized upon
me at the same time that I received your letter. I am all over lice,
and suffering likewise under a low fever. Accordingly, I have charged
my servants to convey this book of mine to you, after they have buried
me. And do you, if you think fit, after consulting with the other wise
men, publish it; but if you do not approve of doing so, then keep it
unpublished, for I am not entirely pleased with it myself. The subject is
not one about which there is any certain knowledge, nor do I undertake
to say that I have arrived at the truth; but I have advanced arguments,
from which any one who occupies himself with speculations on the divine
nature, may make a selection; and as to other points, he must exercise
his intellect, for I speak obscurely throughout. I, myself, as I am
afflicted more severely by this disease every day, no longer admit any
physicians, or any of my friends. But when they stand at the door, and
ask me how I am, I put out my finger to them through the opening of the
door, and show them how I am eaten up with the evil; and I desired them
to come to-morrow to the funeral of Pherecydes.
These, then, are they who were called wise men; to which list some
writers add the name of Pisistratus. But we must also speak of the
philosophers. And we will begin first with the Ionic philosophy, the
founder of which school was Thales, who was the master of Anaximander.
BOOK II.
LIFE OF ANAXIMANDER.
I. Anaximander, the son of Praxiadas, was a citizen of Miletus.
II. He used to assert that the principle and primary element of all
things was the Infinity, giving no exact definition as to whether he
meant air or water, or anything else. And he said that the parts were
susceptible of change, but that the whole was unchangeable; and that the
earth lay in the middle, being placed there as a sort of centre, of a
spherical shape. The moon, he said, had a borrowed light, and borrowed it
from the sun; and the sun he affirmed to be not less than the earth, and
the purest possible fire.
III. He also was the first discoverer of the gnomon; and he placed some
in Lacedæmon on the sun-dials there, as Phavorinus says in his Universal
History, and they showed the solstices and the equinoxes; he also made
clocks. He was the first person, too, who drew a map of the earth and
sea, and he also made a globe; and he published a concise statement of
whatever opinions he embraced or entertained; and this treatise was met
with by Apollodorus, the Athenian.
IV. And Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, states, that in the second year
of the fifty-eighth Olympiad, he was sixty-four years old. And soon after
he died, having flourished much about the same time as Polycrates, the
tyrant, of Samos. They say that when he sang, the children laughed; and
that he, hearing of this, said, “We must then sing better for the sake of
the children.”
V. There was also another Anaximander, a historian; and he too was a
Milesian, and wrote in the Ionic dialect.
LIFE OF ANAXIMENES.
I. Anaximenes, the son of Eurystratus, a Milesian, was a pupil of
Anaximander; but some say that he was also a pupil of Parmenides. He
said that the principles of everything were the air, and the Infinite;
and that the stars moved not under the earth, but around the earth. He
wrote in the pure unmixed Ionian dialect. And he lived, according to the
statements of Apollodorus, in the sixty-third Olympiad, and died about
the time of the taking of Sardis.
II. There were also two other persons of the name of Anaximenes, both
citizens of Lampsacus; one an orator and the other a historian, who was
the son of the sister of the orator, and who wrote an account of the
exploits of Alexander.
III. And this philosopher wrote the following letters:—
ANAXIMENES TO PYTHAGORAS.
Thales, the son of Euxamias, has died in his old age, by an unfortunate
accident. In the evening, as he was accustomed to do, he went forth out
of the vestibule of his house with his maid-servant, to observe the
stars: and (for he had forgotten the existence of the place) while he
was looking up towards the skies, he fell down a precipitous place. So
now, the astronomer of Miletus has met with this end. But we who were his
pupils cherish the recollection of the man, and so do our children and
our own pupils: and we will lecture on his principles. At all events, the
beginning of all wisdom ought to be attributed to Thales.
IV. And again he writes:—
ANAXIMENES TO PYTHAGORAS.
You are more prudent than we, in that you have migrated from Samos to
Crotona, and live there in peace. For the descendants of Æacus commit
unheard-of crimes, and tyrants never cease to oppress the Milesians. The
king of the Medes too is formidable to us: unless, indeed, we choose to
become tributary to him. But the Ionians are on the point of engaging
in war with the Medes in the cause of universal freedom. For if we
remain quiet there is no longer any hope of safety for us. How then can
Anaximenes apply his mind to the contemplation of the skies, while he is
in perpetual fear of death or slavery? But you are beloved by the people
of Crotona, and by all the rest of the Italians; and pupils flock to you,
even from Sicily.
LIFE OF ANAXAGORAS.
I. Anaxagoras, the son of Hegesibulus, or Eubulus, was a citizen of
Clazomenæ. He was a pupil of Anaximenes, and was the first philosopher
who attributed mind to matter, beginning his treatise on the subject
in the following manner (and the whole treatise is written in a most
beautiful and magnificent style): “All things were mixed up together;
then Mind came and arranged them all in distinct order.” On which account