The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
he himself got the same name of Mind. And Timon speaks thus of him in his
Silli:—
They say too that wise Anaxagoras
Deserves immortal fame; they call him Mind,
Because, as he doth teach, Mind came in season,
Arranging all which was confus’d before.
II. He was eminent for his noble birth and for his riches, and still more
so for his magnanimity, inasmuch as he gave up all his patrimony to his
relations; and being blamed by them for his neglect of his estate, “Why,
then,” said he, “do not you take care of it?” And at last he abandoned it
entirely, and devoted himself to the contemplation of subjects of natural
philosophy, disregarding politics. So that once when some said to him,
“You have no affection for your country,” “Be silent,” said he, “for I
have the greatest affection for my country,” pointing up to heaven.
III. It is said, that at the time of the passage of the Hellespont
by Xerxes, he was twenty years old, and that he lived to the age of
seventy-two. But Apollodorus, in his Chronicles says that he flourished
in the seventieth Olympiad, and that he died in the first year of the
seventy-eighth. And he began to study philosophy at Athens, in the
archonship of Callias, being twenty years of age, as Demetrius Phalereus
tells us in his Catalogue of the Archons, and they say that he remained
at Athens thirty years.
IV. He asserted that the sun was a mass of burning iron, greater than
Peloponnesus; (that some attribute this doctrine to Tantalus), and that
the moon contained houses, and also, hills and ravines: and that the
primary elements of everything were similarities of parts; for as we say
that gold consists of a quantity of grains combined together, so too is
the universe formed of a number of small bodies of similar parts. He
further taught that Mind was the principle of motion: and that of bodies
the heavy ones, such as the earth, occupied the lower situations; and the
light ones, such as fire, occupied the higher places, and that the middle
spaces were assigned to water and air. And thus that the sea rested
upon the earth, which was broad, the moisture being all evaporated by
the sun. And he said that the stars originally moved about in irregular
confusion, so that at first the pole star, which is continually visible,
always appeared in the zenith, but that afterwards it acquired a certain
declination. And that the milky way was a reflection of the light of
the sun when the stars did not appear. The comets he considered to be a
concourse of planets emitting rays: and the shooting stars he thought
were sparks as it were leaping from the firmament. The winds he thought
were caused by the rarification of the atmosphere, which was produced by
the sun. Thunder, he said, was produced by the collision of the clouds;
and lightning by the rubbing together of the clouds. Earthquakes, he
said, were produced by the return of the air into the earth. All animals
he considered were originally generated out of moisture, and heat,
and earthy particles: and subsequently from one another. And males he
considered were derived from those on the right hand, and females from
those on the left.
V. They say, also, that he predicted a fall of the stones which fell near
Ægospotami, and which he said would fall from the sun: on which account
Euripides, who was a disciple of his, said in his Phaethon that the sun
was a golden clod of earth. He went once to Olympia wrapped in a leathern
cloak as if it were going to rain; and it did rain. And they say that he
once replied to a man who asked him whether the mountains at Lampsacus
would ever become sea, “Yes, if time lasts long enough.”
VI. Being once asked for what end he had been born, he said, “For the
contemplation of the sun, and moon, and heaven.” A man once said to him,
“You have lost the Athenians;” “No,” said he, “they have lost me.” When
he beheld the tomb of Mausolus, he said, “A costly tomb is an image of a
petrified estate.” And he comforted a man who was grieving because he was
dying in a foreign land, by telling him, “The descent to hell is the same
from every place.”
VII. He appears to have been the first person (according to the account
given by Phavorinus in his Universal History), who said that the Poem
of Homer was composed in praise of virtue and justice: and Metrodorus, of
Lampsacus, who was a friend of his, adopted this opinion, and advocated
it energetically, and Metrodorus was the first who seriously studied the
natural philosophy developed in the writings of the great poet.
VIII. Anaxagoras was also the first man who ever wrote a work in
prose; and Silenus, in the first book of his Histories, says, that in
the archonship of Lysanias a large stone fell from heaven; and that
in reference to this event Anaxagoras said, that the whole heaven was
composed of stones, and that by its rapid revolutions they were all held
together; and when those revolutions get slower, they fall down.
IX. Of his trial there are different accounts given. For Sotion, in
his Succession of the Philosophers, says, that he was persecuted for
impiety by Cleon, because he said that the sun was a fiery ball of iron.
And though Pericles, who had been his pupil, defended him, he was,
nevertheless, fined five talents and banished. But Satyrus, in his Lives,
says that it was Thucydides by whom he was impeached, as Thucydides was
of the opposite party to Pericles; and that he was prosecuted not only
for impiety, but also for Medism; and that he was condemned to death
in his absence. And when news was brought him of two misfortunes—his
condemnation, and the death of his children; concerning the condemnation
he said, “Nature has long since condemned both them and me.” But about
his children, he said, “I knew that I had become the father of mortals.”
Some, however, attribute this saying to Solon, and others to Xenophon.
And Demetrius Phalereus, in his treatise on Old Age, says that Anaxagoras
buried them with his own hands. But Hermippus, in his Lives, says that he
was thrown into prison for the purpose of being put to death: but that
Pericles came forward and inquired if any one brought any accusation
against him respecting his course of life. And as no one alleged anything
against him: “I then,” said he, “am his disciple: do not you then be led
away by calumnies to put this man to death; but be guided by me, and
release him.” And he was released. But, as he was indignant at the insult
which had been offered to him, he left the city.
But Hieronymus, in the second book of his Miscellaneous Commentaries,
says that Pericles produced him before the court, tottering and emaciated
by disease, so that he was released rather out of pity, than by any
deliberate decision on the merits of his case. And thus much may be said
about his trial. Some people have fancied that he was very hostile to
Democritus, because he did not succeed in getting admission to him for
the purposes of conversation.
X. And at last, having gone to Lampsacus, he died in that city. And it is
said, that when the governors of the city asked him what he would like
to have done for him, he replied, “That they would allow the children to
play every year during the month in which he died.” And this custom is
kept up even now. And when he was dead, the citizens of Lampsacus buried
him with great honours, and wrote this epitaph on him:—
Here Anaxagoras lies, who reached of truth
The farthest bounds in heavenly speculations.
We ourselves also have written an epigram on him:—
Wise Anaxagoras did call the sun
A mass of glowing iron; and for this
Death was to be his fate. But Pericles
Then saved his friend; but afterwards he died
A victim of a weak philosophy.
XI. There were also three other people of the name of Anaxagoras; none of
whom combined all kinds of knowledge; But one was an orator and a pupil
of Isocrates; another was a statuary, who is mentioned by Antigonus;
another is a grammarian, a pupil of Zenodotus.
LIFE OF ARCHELAUS.
I. Archelaus was a citizen of either Athens or Miletus, and his father’s
name was Apollodorus; but, as some say, Mydon. He was a pupil of
Anaxagoras, and the master of Socrates.
II. He was the first person who imported the study of natural philosophy
from Ionia to Athens, and he was called the Natural Philosopher, because
natural philosophy terminated with him, as Socrates introduced ethical
philosophy. And it seems probable that Archelaus too meddled in some
degree with moral philosophy; for in his philosophical speculations he
discussed laws and what was honourable and just. And Socrates borrowed
from him; and because he enlarged his principles, he was thought to be
the inventor of them.
III. He used to say that there were two primary causes of generation,
heat and cold; and that all animals were generated out of mud: and that
what are accounted just and disgraceful are not so by nature, but only by
law. And his reasoning proceeds in this way. He says, that water being
melted by heat, when it is submitted to the action of fire, by which it
is solidified, becomes earth; and when it is liquefied, becomes air.
And, therefore, the earth is surrounded by air and influenced by it, and
so is the air by the revolutions of fire. And he says that animals are
generated out of hot earth, which sends up a thick mud something like
milk for their food. So too he says that it produced men.
And he was the first person who said that sound is produced by the
percussion of the air; and that the sea is filtered in the hollows of
the earth in its passage, and so is condensed; and that the sun is the
greatest of the stars, and that the universe is boundless.
IV. But there were three other people of the name of Archelaus: one,
a geographer, who described the countries traversed by Alexander; the
second, a man who wrote a poem on objects which have two natures; and the
third, an orator, who wrote a book containing the precepts of his art.
LIFE OF SOCRATES.
I. Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a statuary, and of Phænarete, a
midwife; as Plato records in his Theætetus, he was a citizen of Athens, of
the borough of Alopece.
II. Some people believed that he assisted Euripides in his poems; in
reference to which idea, Mnesimachus speaks as follows:—
The Phrygians are a new play of Euripides,
But Socrates has laid the main foundation.[19]
And again he says:—
Euripides: patched up by Socrates.
And Callias, in his Captives, says:—
_A._ Are you so proud, giving yourself such airs?
_B._ And well I may, for Socrates is the cause.
And Aristophanes says, in his Clouds:—
This is Euripides, who doth compose
Those argumentative wise tragedies.
III. But, having been a pupil of Anaxagoras, as some people say, but of
Damon as the other story goes, related by Alexander in his Successions,
after the condemnation of Anaxagoras, he became a disciple of Archelaus,
the natural philosopher. And, indeed, Aristoxenus says that he was very
intimate with him.
IV. But Duris says that he was a slave, and employed in carving stones.
And some say that the Graces in the Acropolis are his work; and they are
clothed figures. And that it is in reference to this that Timon says, in
his Silli:—
From them proceeded the stone polisher,
The reasoning legislator, the enchanter
Of all the Greeks, making them subtle arguers,
A cunning pedant, a shrewd Attic quibbler.
V. For he was very clever in all rhetorical exercises, as Idomeneus also
assures us. But the thirty tyrants forbade him to give lessons in the art
of speaking and arguing, as Xenophon tells us. And Aristophanes turns
him into ridicule in his Comedies, as making the worse appear the better