The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
luxury, but the expense of it.” When his servant was once carrying some
money along the road, and was oppressed by the weight of it (as Bion
relates in his Dissertations), he said to him, “Drop what is beyond your
strength, and only carry what you can.” Once he was at sea, and seeing
a pirate vessel at a distance, he began to count his money; and then he
let it drop into the sea, as if unintentionally, and began to bewail his
loss; but others say that he said besides, that it was better for the
money to be lost for the sake of Aristippus, than Aristippus for the
sake of his money. On one occasion, when Dionysius asked him why he had
come, he said, to give others a share of what he had, and to receive a
share of what he had not; but some report that his answer was, “When I
wanted wisdom, I went to Socrates; but now that I want money, I have come
to you.” He found fault with men, because when they are at sales, they
examine the articles offered very carefully, but yet they approve of
men’s lives without any examination. Though some attribute this speech
to Diogenes. They say that once at a banquet, Dionysius desired all the
guests to dance in purple garments; but Plato refused, saying:—
“I could not wear a woman’s robe, when I
Was born a man, and of a manly race.”
But Aristippus took the garment, and when he was about to dance, he said
very wittily:—
“She who is chaste, will not corrupted be
By Bacchanalian revels.”
He was once asking a favour of Dionysius for a friend, and when he could
not prevail, he fell at his feet; and when some one reproached him for
such conduct, he said, “It is not I who am to blame, but Dionysius who
has his ears in his feet.” When he was staying in Asia, and was taken
prisoner by Artaphernes the Satrap, some one said to him, “Are you still
cheerful and sanguine?” “When, you silly fellow,” he replied, “can I have
more reason to be cheerful than now when I am on the point of conversing
with Artaphernes?” It used to be a saying of his, that those who had
enjoyed the encyclic course of education, but who had omitted philosophy,
were like the suitors of Penelope; for that they gained over Melantho
and Polydora and the other maid-servants, and found it easier to do that
than to marry the mistress. And Ariston said in like manner, that Ulysses
when he had gone to the shades below, saw and conversed with nearly all
the dead in those regions, but could not get a sight of the Queen herself.
On another occasion, Aristippus being asked what were the most necessary
things for well-born boys to learn, said, “Those things which they will
put in practice when they become men.” And when some one reproached him
for having come from Socrates to Dionysius, his reply was, “I went to
Socrates because I wanted instruction (παιδεῖας), and I have come to
Dionysius because I want diversion (παιδιᾶς).” As he had made money by
having pupils, Socrates once said to him, “Where did you get so much?”
and he answered, “Where you got a little.” When his mistress said to him,
“I am in the family way by you,” he said, “You can no more tell that,
than you could tell, after you had gone through a thicket, which thorn
had scratched you.” And when some one blamed him for repudiating his son,
as if he were not really his, he said, “I know that phlegm, and I know
that lice, proceed from us, but still we cast them away as useless.”
One day, when he had received some money from Dionysius, and Plato had
received a book, he said to a man who jeered him, “The fact is, money is
what I want, and books what Plato wants.” When he was asked what it was
for which he was reproached by Dionysius, “The same thing,” said he, “for
which others reproach me.” One day he asked Dionysius for some money, who
said, “But you told me that a wise man would never be in want;” “Give
me some,” Aristippus rejoined, “and then we will discuss that point;”
Dionysius gave him some, “Now then,” said he, “you see that I do not want
money.” When Dionysius said to him;—
“For he who does frequent a tyrant’s court,[25]
Becomes his slave, though free when first he came:”
He took him up, and replied:—
“That man is but a slave who comes as free.”
This story is told by Diocles, in his book on the Lives of the
Philosophers; but others attribute the rejoinder to Plato. He once
quarrelled with Æschines, and presently afterwards said to him, “Shall we
not make it up of our own accord, and cease this folly; but will you wait
till some blockhead reconciles us over our cups?” “With all my heart,”
said Æschines. “Recollect, then,” said Aristippus, “that I, who am older
than you, have made the first advances.” And Æschines answered, “You say
well, by Juno, since you are far better than I; for I began the quarrel,
but you begin the friendship.” And these are the anecdotes which are told
of him.
V. Now there were four people of the name of Aristippus; one, the man
of whom we are now speaking; the second, the man who wrote the history
of Arcadia; the third was one who, because he had been brought up by
his mother, had the name of μητροδίδαντος given to him; and he was the
grandson of the former, being his daughter’s son; the fourth was a
philosopher of the New Academy.
VI. There are three books extant, written by the Cyrenaic philosopher,
which are, a history of Africa, and which were sent by him to Dionysius;
and there is another book containing twenty-five dialogues, some written
in the Attic, and some in the Doric dialect. And these are the titles of
the Dialogues—Artabazus; to the Shipwrecked Sailors; to the Exiles; to
a Beggar; to Lais; to Porus; to Lais about her Looking-glass; Mercury;
the Dream; to the President of the Feast; Philomelus; to his Domestics;
to those who reproached him for possessing old wine and mistresses; to
those who reproached him for spending much money on his eating; a Letter
to Arete his daughter; a letter to a man who was training himself for
the Olympic games; a book of Questions; another book of Questions; a
Dissertation addressed to Dionysius; an Essay on a Statue; an Essay on
the daughter of Dionysius; a book addressed to one who thought himself
neglected; another to one who attempted to give him advice. Some say,
also, that he wrote six books of dissertations; but others, the chief
of whom is Sosicrates of Rhodes, affirm that he never wrote a single
thing. According to the assertions of Sotion in his second book; and
of Panætius, on the contrary, he composed the following books,—one
concerning Education; one concerning Virtue; one called An Exhortation;
Artabazus; the Shipwrecked Men; the Exiles; six books of Dissertations;
three books of Apophthegms; an essay addressed to Lais; one to Porus;
one to Socrates; one on Fortune. And he used to define the chief good as
a gentle motion tending to sensation.
VII. But since we have written his life, let us now speak of the
Cyrenaics who came after him; some of whom called themselves Hegesiaci,
some Annicerei, others Theodorei. And let us also enumerate the disciples
of Phædo, the chief of whom were the Eretrians. Now the pupils of
Aristippus were his own daughter Arete, and Æthiops of Ptolemais, and
Antipater of Cyrene. Arete had for her pupil the Aristippus who was
surnamed μητροδίδαντος, whose disciple was Theodorus the atheist, but
who was afterwards called θεὸς. Antipater had for a pupil Epitimedes of
Cyrene, who was the master of Paræbates, who was the master of Hegesias,
who was surnamed πεισιθάνατος (persuading to die), and of Anniceris who
ransomed Plato.
VIII. These men then who continued in the school of Aristippus, and
were called Cyrenaics, adopted the following opinions.—They said that
there were two emotions of the mind, pleasure and pain; that the one,
namely pleasure, was a moderate emotion; the other, namely pain, a rough
one. And that no one pleasure was different from or more pleasant than
another; and that pleasure was praised by all animals, but pain avoided.
They said also that pleasure belonged to the body, and constituted
its chief good, as Panætius also tells us in his book on Sects; but
the pleasure which they call the chief good, is not that pleasure as
a state, which consists in the absence of all pain, and is a sort of
undisturbedness, which is what Epicurus admits as such; for the Cyrenaics
think that there is a distinction between the chief good and a life of
happiness, for that the chief good is a particular pleasure, but that
happiness is a state consisting of a number of particular pleasures,
among which, both those which are past, and those which are future, are
both enumerated. And they consider that particular pleasure is desirable
for its own sake; but that happiness is desirable not for its own sake,
but for that of the particular pleasure. And that the proof that pleasure
is the chief good is that we are from our childhood attracted to it
without any deliberate choice of our own; and that when we have obtained
it, we do not seek anything further, and also that there is nothing which
we avoid so much as we do its opposite, which is pain. And they assert,
too, that pleasure is a good, even if it arises from the most unbecoming
causes, as Hippobotus tells us in his Treatise on Sects; for even if an
action be ever so absurd, still the pleasure which arises out of it is
desirable, and a good.
Moreover, the banishment of pain, as it is called by Epicurus, appears to
the Cyrenaics not to be pleasure; for neither is the absence of pleasure
pain, for both pleasure and pain consist in motion; and neither the
absence of pleasure nor the absence of pain are motion. In fact, absence
of pain is a condition like that of a person asleep. They say also that
it is possible that some persons may not desire pleasure, owing to some
perversity of mind; and that all the pleasures and pains of the mind, do
not all originate in pleasures and pains of the body, for that pleasure
often arises from the mere fact of the prosperity of one’s country, or
from one’s own; but they deny that pleasure is caused by either the
recollection or the anticipation of good fortune—though Epicurus asserted
that it was—for the motion of the mind is put an end to by time. They
say, too, that pleasure is not caused by simple seeing or hearing.
Accordingly we listen with pleasure to those who give a representation
of lamentations; but we are pained when we see men lamenting in reality.
And they called the absence of pleasure and of pain intermediate states;
and asserted that corporeal pleasures were superior to mental ones, and
corporeal sufferings worse than mental ones. And they argued that it was
on this principle that offenders were punished with bodily pain; for they
thought that to suffer pain was hard, but that to be pleased was more in
harmony with the nature of man, on which account also they took more care
of the body than of the mind.
And although pleasure is desirable for its own sake, still they admit
that some of the efficient causes of it are often troublesome, and as
such opposite to pleasure; so that they think that an assemblage of
all the pleasures which produce happiness, is the most difficult thing
conceivable. But they admit that every wise man does not live pleasantly,
and that every bad man does not live unpleasantly, but that it is only a
general rule admitting of some exceptions. And they think it sufficient
if a person enjoys a happy time in consequence of one pleasure which
befalls him. They say that prudence is a good, but is not desirable for
its own sake, but for the sake of those things which result from it. That
a friend is desirable for the sake of the use which we can make of him;
for that the parts of the body also are loved while they are united to