The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
not the meat itself which disturbed him, but only the idea that he had
adopted. But in other respects he was a high minded man, with notions
such as became a gentleman.
IX. As to his habit of body, even when he was an old man he retained
all the firmness and vigour of an athlete, with firm flesh, and a ruddy
complexion, and very stout and fresh looking. In stature he was of
moderate size; as is plain from the statue of him which is at Eretria,
in the Old Stadium. For he is there represented seated almost naked,
undoubtedly for the purpose of displaying the greater part of his body.
X. He was very hospitable and fond of entertaining his friends; and
because Eretria was unhealthy, he used to have a great many parties,
particularly of poets and musicians. And he was very fond of Aratus and
Lycophon the tragic poet, and Antagoras of Rhodes. And above all he
applied himself to the study of Homer; and next to him to that of the
Lyric poets; then to Sophocles, and also to Achæus, to whom he assigned
the second place as a writer of satiric dramas, giving Æschylus the
first. And it is from Achæus that he quoted these verses against the
politicians of the opposite party:—
A speedy runner once was overtaken
By weaker men than he. An eagle too,
Was beaten by a tortoise in a race.
And these lines are out of the satiric play of Achæus, called Omphale;
so that they are mistaken who say that he had never read anything but
the Medea of Euripides, which is found, they add, in the collection of
Neophron, the Sicyonian.
XI. Of masters of philosophy, he used to despise Plato and Xenocrates,
and Paræbates of Cyrene; and admired no one but Stilpo. And once, being
questioned about him, he said nothing more of him than that he was a
gentleman.
XII. Menedemus was not easy to be understood, and in his conversation
he was hard to argue against; he spoke on every subject, and had a
great deal of invention and readiness. But he was very disputatious, as
Antisthenes says in his Successions; and he used to put questions of
this sort, “Is one thing different from another thing?” “Yes.” “And is
benefiting a person something different from the good?” “Yes.” “Then
the good is not benefiting a person.” And he, as it is said, discarded
all negative axioms, using none but affirmative ones; and of these he
only approved of the simple ones, and rejected all that were not simple;
saying that they were intricate and perplexing. But Heraclides says that
in his doctrines he was a thorough disciple of Plato, and that he scorned
dialectics; so that once when Alexinus asked him whether he had left off
beating his father, he said, “I have not beaten him, and I have not left
off;” and when he said further that he ought to put an end to the doubt
by answering explicitly yes or no, “It would be absurd,” he rejoined, “to
comply with your conditions, when I can stop you at the entrance.”
When Bion was attacking the soothsayers with great perseverance, he
said that he was killing the dead over again. And once, when he heard
some one assert that the greatest good was to succeed in everything
that one desires; he said, “It is a much greater good to desire what
is proper.” But Antigonus of Carystus, tells us that he never wrote or
composed any work, and never maintained any principle tenaciously. But
in cross-questioning he was so contentious as to get quite black in the
face before he went away. But though he was so violent in his discourse,
he was wonderfully gentle in his actions. Accordingly, though he used
to mock and ridicule Alexinus very severely, still he conferred great
benefits on him, conducting his wife from Delphi to Chalcis for him, as
she was alarmed about the danger of robbers and banditti in the road.
XIII. And he was a very warm friend, as is plain from his attachment
to Asclepiades; which was hardly inferior to the friendship of Pylades
and Orestes. But Asclepiades was the elder of the two, so that it was
said that he was the poet, and Menedemus the actor. And they say that on
one occasion, Archipolis bequeathed them three thousand pieces of money
between them, they had such a vigorous contest as to which should take
the smaller share, that neither of them would receive any of it.
XIV. It is said that they were both married; and that Asclepiades
was married to the mother, and Menedemus to the daughter; and when
Asclepiades’s wife died, he took the wife of Menedemus; and Menedemus,
when he became the chief man of the state, married another who was rich;
and as they still maintained one house in common, Menedemus entrusted
the whole management of it to his former wife. Asclepiades died first at
Eretria, being of a great age; having lived with Menedemus with great
economy, though they had ample means. So that, when on one occasion,
after the death of Asclepiades, a friend of his came to a banquet, and
when the slaves refused him admittance, Menedemus ordered them to admit
him, saying that Asclepiades opened the door for him, even now that
he was under the earth. And the men who chiefly supported them were
Hipponicus the Macedonian, and Agetor the Lamian. And Agetor gave each of
them thirty minæ, and Hipponicus gave Menedemus two thousand drachmas to
portion his daughters with; and he had three, as Heraclides tells us, the
children of his wife, who was a native of Oropus.
XV. And he used to give banquets in this fashion:—First of all, he would
sit at dinner, with two or three friends, till late in the day; and then
he would invite in any one who came to see him, even if they had already
dined; and if any one came too soon, they would walk up and down, and ask
those who came out of the house what there was on the table, and what
o’clock it was; and then, if there were only vegetables or salt fish,
they would depart; but if they heard it was meat, they would go in. And
during the summer, mats of rushes were laid upon the couches, and in
winter soft cushions; and each guest was expected to bring a pillow for
himself. And the cup that was carried round did not hold more than a
cotyla. And the second course consisted of lupins or beans, and sometimes
fruits, such as pears, pomegranates, pulse, and sometimes, by Jove, dried
figs. And all these circumstances are detailed by Lycophron, in his
satiric dramas, which he inscribed with the name of Menedemus, making
his play a panegyric on the philosopher. And the following are some of
the lines:—
After a temperate feast, a small-sized cup
Is handed round with moderation due;
And conversation wise makes the dessert.
XVI. At first, now, he was not thought much of, being called cynic and
trifler by the Eretrians; but subsequently, he was so much admired by
his countrymen, that they entrusted him with the chief government of the
state. And he was sent on embassies to Ptolemy and Lysimachus, and was
greatly honoured everywhere. He was sent as envoy to Demetrius; and, as
the city used to pay him two hundred talents a year, he persuaded him to
remit fifty. And having been falsely accused to him, as having betrayed
the city to Ptolemy, he defended himself from the charge, in a letter
which begins thus:—
“Menedemus to king Demetrius.—Health. I hear that information has been
laid before you concerning us.” … And the tradition is, that a man of the
name of Æschylus, who was one of the opposite party in the state, was in
the habit of making these false charges. It is well known too that he was
sent on a most important embassy to Demetrius, on the subject of Oropus,
as Euphantus relates in his History.
XVII. Antigonus was greatly attached to him, and professed himself his
pupil; and when he defeated the barbarians, near Lysimachia, Menedemus
drew up a decree for him, in simple terms, free from all flattery, which
begins thus:—
“The generals and councillors have determined, since king Antigonus has
defeated the barbarians in battle, and has returned to his own kingdom,
and since he has succeeded in all his measures according to his wishes,
it has seemed good to the council and to the people.” … And from these
circumstances, and because of his friendship for him, as shown in other
matters, he was suspected of betraying the city to him; and being
impeached by Aristodemus, he left the city, and returned to Oropus, and
there took up his abode in the temple of Amphiaraus; and as some golden
goblets which were there were lost, he was ordered to depart by a general
vote of the Bœotians. Leaving Oropus, and being in a state of great
despondency, he entered his country secretly; and taking with him his
wife and daughters, he went to the court of Antigonus, and there died of
a broken heart.
But Heraclides gives an entirely different account of him; saying, that
while he was the chief councillor of the Eretrians, he more than once
preserved the liberties of the city from those who would have brought
in Demetrius the tyrant; so that he never could have betrayed the city
to Antigonus, and the accusation must have been false; and that he went
to the court of Antigonus, and endeavoured to effect the deliverance
of his country; and as he could make no impression on him, he fell
into despondency, and starved himself for seven days, and so he died.
And Antigonus of Carystus gives a similar account: and Persæus was the
only man with whom he had an implacable quarrel; for he thought that
when Antigonus himself was willing to re-establish the democracy among
the Eretrians for his sake, Persæus prevented him. And on this account
Menedemus once attacked him at a banquet, saying many other things, and
among them, “He may, indeed, be a philosopher, but he is the worst man
that lives or that ever will live.”
XVIII. And he died, according to Heraclides, at the age of seventy-four.
And we have written the following epigram on him:—
I’ve heard your fate, O Menedemus, that of your own accord,
You starved yourself for seven days and died;
Acting like an Eretrian, but not much like a man,
For spiritless despair appears your guide.
These men then were the disciples of Socrates, and their successors;
but we must now proceed to Plato, who founded the Academy; and to his
successors, or at least to all those of them who enjoyed any reputation.
BOOK III.
LIFE OF PLATO.
I. Plato was the son of Ariston and Perictione or Potone, and a citizen
of Athens; and his mother traced her family back to Solon; for Solon
had a brother named Dropidas, who had a son named Critias, who was
the father of Callæschrus, who was the father of that Critias who was
one of the thirty tyrants, and also of Glaucon, who was the father of
Charmides and Perictione. And she became the mother of Plato by her
husband Ariston, Plato being the sixth in descent from Solon. And Solon
traced his pedigree up to Neleus and Neptune. They say too that on the
father’s side, he was descended from Codrus, the son of Melanthus, and
they too are said by Thrasylus to derive their origin from Neptune. And
Speusippus, in his book which is entitled the Funeral Banquet of Plato,
and Clearchus in his Panegyric on Plato, and Anaxilides in the second
book of his History of Philosophers, say that the report at Athens was
that Perictione was very beautiful, and that Ariston endeavoured to
violate her and did not succeed; and that he, after he had desisted from
his violence saw a vision of Apollo in a dream, in consequence of which
he abstained from approaching his wife till after her confinement.
II. And Plato was born, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles, in the
eighty-eighth Olympiad, on the seventh day of the month Thargelion, on
which day the people of Delos say that Apollo also was born. And he died,
as Hermippus says, at a marriage feast, in the first year of the hundred