The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
you get that?”
VI. And Polycritus, of Menda, in the first book of his History of
Dionysius, says that he lived with the tyrant till he was deposed, and
till the return of Dion to Syracuse; and he says that Carcinus, the
tragedian, was also with him. And here is extant a letter of Æschines
addressed to Dionysius.
VII. But he was a man well versed in rhetorical art, as is plain from
the defence of his father Phæax, the general; and from the works which
he wrote in especial imitation of Gorgias of Leontini. And Lysias wrote
an oration against him entitling it, On Sycophancy; from all which
circumstances it is plain that he was a skilful orator. And one man is
spoken of as his especial friend, Aristotle, who was surnamed The Table.
VIII. Now Panætius thinks that the Dialogues of the following disciples
of the Socratic school are all genuine,—Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and
Æschines; but he doubts about those which go under the names of Phædon,
and Euclides; and he utterly repudiates all the others.
IX. And there were eight men of the name of Æschines. The first, this
philosopher of ours; the second was a man who wrote a treatise on
Oratorical Art; the third was the orator who spoke against Demosthenes;
the fourth was an Arcadian, a disciple of Isocrates; the fifth was a
citizen of Mitylene, whom they used to call the Scourge of the Orators;
the sixth was a Neapolitan, a philosopher of the Academy, a disciple
and favourite of Melanthius, of Rhode; the seventh was a Milesian, a
political writer; the eighth was a statuary.
LIFE OF ARISTIPPUS.
I. Aristippus was by birth a Cyrenean, but he came to Athens, as Æschines
says, having been attracted thither by the fame of Socrates.
II. He, having professed himself a Sophist, as Phanias, of Eresus, the
Peripatetic, informs us, was the first of the pupils of Socrates who
exacted money from his pupils, and who sent money to his master. And once
he sent him twenty drachmas, but had them sent back again, as Socrates
said that his dæmon would not allow him to accept them; for, in fact, he
was indignant at having them offered to him. And Xenophon used to hate
him; on which account he wrote his book against pleasure as an attack
upon Aristippus, and assigned the main argument to Socrates. Theodorus
also, in his Treatise on Sects, has attacked him severely, and so has
Plato in his book on the Soul, as we have mentioned in another place.
III. But he was a man very quick at adapting himself to every kind of
place, and time, and person,[24] and he easily supported every change of
fortune. For which reason he was in greater favour with Dionysius than
any of the others, as he always made the best of existing circumstances.
For he enjoyed what was before him pleasantly, and he did not toil to
procure himself the enjoyment of what was not present. On which account
Diogenes used to call him the king’s dog. And Timon used to snarl at him
as too luxurious, speaking somewhat in this fashion:
Like the effeminate mind of Aristippus,
Who, as he said, by touch could judge of falsehood.
They say that he once ordered a partridge to be bought for him at the
price of fifty drachmas; and when some one blamed him, “And would not
you,” said he, “have bought it if it had cost an obol?” And when he said
he would, “Well,” replied Aristippus, “fifty drachmas are no more to
me.” Dionysius once bade him select which he pleased of three beautiful
courtesans; and he carried off all three, saying that even Paris did not
get any good by preferring one beauty to the rest. However, they say,
that when he had carried them as far as the vestibule, he dismissed them;
so easily inclined was he to select or to disregard things. On which
account Strato, or, as others will have it, Plato, said to him, “You are
the only man to whom it is given to wear both a whole cloak and rags.”
Once when Dionysius spit at him, he put up with it; and when some one
found fault with him, he said, “Men endure being wetted by the sea in
order to catch a tench, and shall not I endure to be sprinkled with wine
to catch a sturgeon?”
IV. Once Diogenes, who was washing vegetables, ridiculed him as he passed
by, and said, “If you had learnt to eat these vegetables, you would not
have been a slave in the palace of a tyrant.” But Aristippus replied,
“And you, if you had known how to behave among men, would not have been
washing vegetables.” Being asked once what advantage he had derived from
philosophy, he said, “The power of associating confidently with every
body.” When he was reproached for living extravagantly, he replied, “If
extravagance had been a fault, it would not have had a place in the
festivals of the Gods.” At another time he was asked what advantage
philosophers had over other men; and he replied, “If all the laws should
be abrogated, we should still live in the same manner as we do now.” Once
when Dionysius asked him why the philosophers haunt the doors of the
rich, but the rich do not frequent those of the philosophers, he said,
“Because the first know what they want, but the second do not.”
On one occasion he was reproached by Plato for living in an expensive
way; and he replied, “Does not Dionysius seem to you to be a good man?”
And as he said that he did; “And yet,” said he, “he lives in a more
expensive manner than I do, so that there is no impossibility in a
person’s living both expensively and well at the same time.” He was asked
once in what educated men are superior to uneducated men; and answered,
“Just as broken horses are superior to those that are unbroken.” On
another occasion he was going into the house of a courtesan, and when one
of the young men who were with him blushed, he said, “It is not the going
into such a house that is bad, but the not being able to go out.” Once
a man proposed a riddle to him, and said, “Solve it.” “Why, you silly
fellow,” said Aristippus, “do you wish me to loose what gives us trouble,
even while it is in bonds?” A saying of his was, “that it was better to
be a beggar than an ignorant person; for that a beggar only wants money,
but an ignorant person wants humanity.” Once when he was abused, he was
going away, and as his adversary pursued him and said, “Why are you going
away?” “Because,” said he, “you have a license for speaking ill; but
I have another for declining to hear ill.” When some one said that he
always saw the philosophers at the doors of the rich men, he said, “And
the physicians also are always seen at the doors of their patients; but
still no one would choose for this reason to be an invalid rather than a
physician.”
Once it happened, that when he was sailing to Corinth, he was overtaken
by a violent storm; and when somebody said, “We common individuals are
not afraid, but you philosophers are behaving like cowards;” he said,
“Very likely, for we have not both of us the same kind of souls at
stake.” Seeing a man who prided himself on the variety of his learning
and accomplishments, he said, “Those who eat most, and who take the most
exercise, are not in better health than they who eat just as much as is
good for them; and in the same way it is not those who know a great many
things, but they who know what is useful who are valuable men.” An orator
had pleaded a cause for him and gained it, and asked him afterwards,
“Now, what good did you ever get from Socrates?” “This good,” said he,
“that all that you have said in my behalf is true.” He gave admirable
advice to his daughter Arete, teaching her to despise superfluity. And
being asked by some one in what respect his son would be better if he
received a careful education, he replied, “If he gets no other good, at
all events, when he is at the theatre, he will not be one stone sitting
upon another.” Once when some one brought his son to introduce to him, he
demanded five hundred drachmas; and when the father said, “Why, for such
a price as that I can buy a slave.” “Buy him then,” he replied, “and you
will have a pair.”
It was a saying of his that he took money from his acquaintances not in
order to use it himself, but to make them aware in what they ought to
spend their money. On one occasion, being reproached for having employed
a hired advocate in a cause that he had depending: “Why not,” said he;
“when I have a dinner, I hire a cook.” Once he was compelled by Dionysius
to repeat some philosophical sentiment; “It is an absurdity,” said he,
“for you to learn of me how to speak, and yet to teach me when I ought
to speak:” and as Dionysius was offended at this, he placed him at the
lowest end of the table; on which Aristippus said, “You wish to make
this place more respectable.” A man was one day boasting of his skill
as a diver; “Are you not ashamed,” said Aristippus, “to pride yourself
on your performance of the duty of a dolphin?” On one occasion he was
asked in what respect a wise man is superior to one who is not wise; and
his answer was, “Send them both naked among strangers, and you will find
out.” A man was boasting of being able to drink a great deal without
being drunk; and he said, “A mule can do the very same thing.” When a
man reproached him for living with a mistress, he said, “Does it make
any difference whether one takes a house in which many others have lived
before one, or one where no one has ever lived?” and his reprover said,
“No.” “Well does it make any difference whether one sails in a ship which
ten thousand people have sailed before one, or whether one sails in
one in which no one has ever embarked?” “By no means,” said the other.
“Just in the same way,” said he, “it makes no difference whether one
lives with a woman with whom numbers have lived, or with one with whom
no one has lived.” When a person once blamed him for taking money from
his pupils, after having been himself a pupil of Socrates: “To be sure
I do,” he replied, “for Socrates too, when some friends sent their corn
and wine, accepted a little, and sent the rest back; for he had the chief
men of the Athenians for his purveyors. But I have only Eutychides, whom
I have bought with money.” And he used to live with Lais the courtesan,
as Sotion tells us in the Second Book of his Successions. Accordingly,
when some one reproached him on her account, he made answer, “I possess
her, but I am not possessed by her; since the best thing is to possess
pleasures without being their slave, not to be devoid of pleasures.” When
some one blamed him for the expense he was at about his food, he said,
“Would you not have bought those things yourself if they had cost three
obols?” And when the other admitted that he would, “Then,” said he, “it
is not that I am fond of pleasure, but that you are fond of money.” On
one occasion, when Simus, the steward of Dionysius, was showing him a
magnificent house, paved with marble (but Simus was a Phrygian, and a
great toper), he hawked up a quantity of saliva and spit in his face;
and when Simus was indignant at this, he said, “I could not find a more
suitable place to spit in.”
Charondas, or as some say, Phædon, asked him once, “Who are the people
who use perfumes?” “I do,” said he, “wretched man that I am, and the
king of the Persians is still more wretched than I; but, recollect, that
as no animal is the worse for having a pleasant scent, so neither is a
man; but plague take those wretches who abuse our beautiful unguents.”
On another occasion, he was asked how Socrates died; and he made answer,
“As I should wish to die myself.” When Polyxenus, the Sophist, came to
his house and beheld his women, and the costly preparation that was made
for dinner, and then blamed him for all this luxury, Aristippus after a
while said, “Can you stay with me to day?” and when Polyxenus consented,
“Why then,” said he, “did you blame me? it seems that you blame not the