The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
At another time, he saw Crates shivering in the winter, and said to him,
“Crates, you seem to me to want a new dress,” meaning, both a new mind
and a new garment; and Crates, feeling ashamed, answered him in the
following parody:—
“There[30] Stilpo too, through the Megarian bounds,
Pours out deep groans, where Typhon’s voice resounds,
And there he oft doth argue, while a school
Of eager pupils owns his subtle rule,
And virtue’s name with eager chase pursues.”
And it is said that at Athens he attracted all the citizens to such a
degree, that they used to run from their workshops to look at him; and
when some one said to him, “Why, Stilpo, they wonder at you as if you
were a wild beast,” he replied, “Not so; but as a real genuine man.”
VII. And he was a very clever arguer; and rejected the theory of species.
And he used to say that a person who spoke of man in general, was
speaking of nobody; for that he was not speaking of this individual,
nor of that one; for speaking in general, how can he speak more of this
person than of that person? therefore he is not speaking of this person
at all. Another of his illustrations was, “That which is shown to me,
is not a vegetable; for a vegetable existed ten thousand years ago,
therefore this is not a vegetable.” And they say that once when he was
conversing with Crates, he interrupted the discourse to go off and buy
some fish; and as Crates tried to drag him back, and said, “You are
leaving the argument;” “Not at all,” he replied, “I keep the argument,
but I am leaving you; for the argument remains, but the fish will be sold
to some one else.”
VIII. There are nine dialogues of his extant, written in a frigid style:
The Moschus; the Aristippus or Callias; the Ptolemy; the Chœrecrates;
the Metrocles; the Anaximenes; the Epigenes; the one entitled To my
Daughter, and the Aristotle.
IX. Heraclides affirms that Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, had
been one of his pupils.
X. Hermippus says that he died at a great age, after drinking some wine,
in order to die more rapidly. And we have written this epigram upon him:—
Stranger, old age at first, and then disease,
A hateful pair, did lay wise Stilpo low.
The pride of Megara: he found good wine
The best of drivers for his mournful coach,
And drinking it, he drove on to the end.
And he was ridiculed by Sophilus the comic poet, in his play called
Marriages:—
The dregs of Stilpo make the whole discourse of this Charinus.
LIFE OF CRITO.
I. Crito was an Athenian. He looked upon Socrates with the greatest
affection; and paid such great attention to him, that he took care that
he should never be in want of anything.
II. His sons also were all constant pupils of Socrates, and their names
were Critobulus, Hermogenes, Epigenes, and Ctesippus.
III. Crito wrote seventeen dialogues, which were all published in one
volume; and I subjoin their titles:—That men are not made good by
Teaching; on Superfluity; what is Suitable, or the Statesman; on the
Honourable; on doing ill; on Good Government; on Law; on the Divine
Being; on Arts; on Society; Protagoras, or the Statesman; on Letters;
on Political Science; on the Honourable; on Learning; on Knowledge; on
Science; on what Knowledge is.
LIFE OF SIMON.
I. Simon was an Athenian, a leather-cutter. He, whenever Socrates came
into his workshop and conversed, used to make memorandums of all his
sayings that he recollected.
II. And from this circumstance, people have called his dialogues leathern
ones. But he has written thirty-three which, however, are all combined
in one volume:—On the Gods; on the Good; on the Honourable; what the
Honourable is; the first Dialogue on Justice; the second Dialogue on
Justice; on Virtue, showing that it is not to be taught; the first
Dialogue on Courage; the second; the third; on Laws; on the Art of
Guiding the People; on Honour; on Poetry; on Good Health; on Love; on
Philosophy; on Knowledge; on Music; on Poetry; on what the Honourable is;
on Teaching; on Conversation; on Judgment; on the Existent; on Number; on
Diligence; on Activity; on Covetousness; on Insolence; on the Honourable;
Some also add to these dialogues; on taking Counsel; on Reason or
Suitableness; on doing Harm.
III. He is, as some people say, the first writer who reduced the
conversations of Socrates into the form of dialogues. And when Pericles
offered to provide for him, and invited him to come to him, he said that
he would not sell his freedom of speech.
IV. There was also another Simon, who wrote a treatise on Oratorical Art.
And another, who was a physician in the time of Seleucus Nicanor. And
another, who was a statuary.
LIFE OF GLAUCO.
Glauco was an Athenian; and there are nine dialogues of his extant,
which are all contained in one volume. The Phidylus; the Euripides; the
Amyntichias; the Euthias; the Lysithides; the Aristophanes; the Cephalus;
the Anaxiphemus; the Menexenus. There are thirty-two others which go
under his name, but they are spurious.
LIFE OF SIMIAS.
Simias was a Theban; and there are twenty-three dialogues of his extant,
contained in one single volume. On Wisdom; on Ratiocination; on Music; on
Verses; on Fortitude; on Philosophy; on Truth; on Letters; on Teaching;
on Art; on Government; on what is Becoming; on what is Eligible, and what
Proper to be Avoided; on A Friend; on Knowledge; on the Soul; on Living
Well; on what is Possible; on Money; on Life; on what the Honourable is;
on Industry; and on Love.
LIFE OF CEBES.
Cebes was a Theban, and there are three dialogues of his extant. The
Tablet; the Seventh; and the Phrynichus.
LIFE OF MENEDEMUS.
I. This Menedemus was one of those who belonged to the school of Phædo;
and he was one of those who are called Theopropidæ, being the son of
Clisthenes, a man of noble family, but a poor man and a builder. And
some say that he was a tent-maker, and that Menedemus himself learned
both trades. On which account, when he on one occasion brought forward
a motion for some decree, a man of the name of Alexinius attacked him,
saying that a wise man had no need to draw a tent nor a decree.
II. But when Menedemus was sent by the Eretrians to Megara, as one of
the garrison, he deserted the rest, and went to the Academy to Plato;
and being charmed by him, he abandoned the army altogether. And when
Asclepiades, the Phliasian, drew him over to him, he went and lived
in Megara, near Stilpo, and they both became his disciples. And from
thence they sailed to Elis, where they joined Anchipylus and Moschus,
who belonged to Phædo’s school. And up to this time, as I have already
mentioned in my account of Phædo, they were called Eleans; and they were
also called Eretrians, from the native country of Menedemus, of whom I am
now speaking.
III. Now Menedemus appears to have been a very severe and rigid man, on
which account Crates, parodying a description, speaks of him thus:—
And Asclepiades the sage of Phlius,
And the Eretrian bull.
And Timon mentions him thus:—
Rise up, you frowning, bristling, frothy sage.
And he was a man of such excessive rigour of principle, that when
Eurylochus, of Cassandrea, had been invited by Antigonus, to come to him
in company with Cleippides, a youth of Cyzicus, he refused to go, for
he was afraid lest Menedemus should hear of it; for he was very severe
in his reproofs, and very free spoken. Accordingly, when a young man
behaved with boldness towards him, he did not say a word, but took a bit
of stick and drew on the floor an insulting picture; until the young
man, perceiving the insult that was meant in the presence of numbers
of people, went away. And when Hierocles, the governor of the Piræus,
attacked him in the temple of Amphiaraus, and said a great deal about
the taking of Eretria, he made no other reply beyond asking him what
Antigonus’s object was in treating him as he did.
On another occasion, he said to a profligate man who was giving himself
airs, “Do not you know that the cabbage is not the only plant that has
a pleasant juice, but that radishes have it also?” And once, hearing a
young man talk very loudly, he said, “See whom you have behind you.”
When Antigonus consulted him whether he should go to a certain revel,
he made no answer beyond desiring those who brought him the message, to
tell him that he was the son of a king. When a stupid fellow once said
something at random to him, he asked him whether he had a farm; and when
he said that he had, and a large stock of cattle, he said, “Go then and
look after them; lest, if you neglect them, you lose them, and that
elegant rusticity of yours with them.” He was once asked whether a good
man should marry, and his reply was, “Do I seem to you to be a good man,
or not?” and when the other said he did; “Well,” said he, “and I am
married.” On one occasion a person said that there were a great many good
things, so he asked him how many; and whether he thought that there were
more than a hundred. And as he could not bear the extravagance of one man
who used frequently to invite him to dinner, once when he was invited
he did not say a single word, but admonished him of his extravagance in
silence, by eating nothing but olives.
IV. On account then of the great freedom of speech in which he indulged,
he was very near while in Cyprus, at the court of Nicocreon, being
in great danger with his friend Asclepiades. For when the king was
celebrating a festival at the beginning of the month, and had invited
them as he did all the other philosophers; Menedemus said, “If the
assemblage of such men as are met here to-day is good, a festival like
this ought to be celebrated every day: but if it is not good, even once
is too often.” And as the tyrant made answer to this speech, “that he
kept this festival in order to have leisure in it to listen to the
philosophers,” he behaved with even more austerity than usual, arguing,
even while the feast was going on, that it was right on every occasion
to listen to philosophers; and he went on in this way till, if a
flute-player had not interrupted their discussion, they would have been
put to death. In reference to which, when they were overtaken by a storm
in a ship, they say that Asclepiades said, “that the fine playing of a
flute-player had saved them, but the freedom of speech of Menedemus had
ruined them.”
V. But he was, they say, inclined to depart a good deal from the usual
habits and discipline of a school, so that he never regarded any order,
nor were the seats arranged around properly, but every one listened
to him while lecturing, standing up or sitting down, just as he might
chance to be at the moment, Menedemus himself setting the example of this
irregular conduct.
VI. But in other respects, it is said that he was a nervous man, and very
fond of glory; so that, as previously he and Asclepiades had been fellow
journeymen of a builder, when Asclepiades was naked on the roof carrying
mortar, Menedemus would stand in front of him to screen him when he saw
any one coming.
VII. When he applied himself to politics he was so nervous that once,
when setting down the incense, he actually missed the incense burner. And
on one occasion, when Crates was standing by him, and reproaching him for
meddling with politics, he ordered some men to put him in prison. But he,
even then, continued not the less to watch him as he passed, and to stand
on tiptoe and call him Agamemnon and Hegesipolis.
VIII. He was also in some degree superstitious. Accordingly, once, when
he was at an inn with Asclepiades, and had unintentionally eaten some
meat that had been thrown away, when he was told of it he became sick,
and turned pale, until Asclepiades rebuked him, telling him that it was