The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
quietly the discourse which he was delivering.
VIII. Being exceedingly devoid of every kind of pride, he often used to
meditate with himself several times a day; and always allotted one hour
of each day, it is said, to silence.
IX. And he left behind him a great number of writings, and books of
recommendation, and verses, which are these,—six books on Natural
Philosophy; six on Wisdom; one on Riches, the Arcadian; one volume on
the Indefinite; one on a Child; one on Temperance; one on the Useful;
one on the Free; one on Death; one on the Voluntary; two on Friendship;
one on Courtesy; two on Contraries; two on Happiness; one on Writing;
one on Memory; one on Falsehood; the Callicles one; two on Prudence; one
on Œconomy; one on Temperance; one on the Power of Law; one on Political
Constitutions; one on Piety; one to show that Virtue may be transmitted;
one about the Existent; one on Fate; one on the Passions; one on Lives;
one on Unanimity; two on Pupils; one on Justice; two on Virtue; one on
Species; two on Pleasure; one on Life; one on Manly Courage; one on The
One; one on Ideas; one on Art; two on the Gods; two on the Soul; one on
Knowledge; one on the Statesman; one on Science; one on Philosophy; one
on the School of Parmenides; one the Archedemus, or an essay on Justice;
one on the Good; eight of those things which concern the Intellect;
ten essays in solution of the difficulties which occur respecting
Orations; six books on the study of Natural Philosophy; the Principal,
one; one treatise on Genus and Species; one on the doctrines of the
Pythagoreans; two books of Solutions; seven of Divisions; several volumes
of Propositions; several also about the method of conducting Discussions.
Besides all this, there are one set of fifteen volumes, and another of
sixteen, on the subject of those studies which relate to Speaking; nine
more which treat of Ratiocination; six books on Mathematics; two more
books on subjects connected with the Intellect; five books on Geometry;
one book of Reminiscences; one of Contraries; one on Arithmetic; one on
the Contemplation of Numbers; one on Intervals; six on Astronomy; four of
elementary suggestions to Alexander, on the subject of Royal Power; one
addressed to Arybas; one addressed to Hephæstion; two on Geometry; seven
books of Verses.
X. But the Athenians, though he was such a great man, once sold him,
because he was unable to pay the tax to which the metics were liable.
And Demetrius Phalereus purchased him, and so assisted both parties,
Xenocrates by giving him his freedom, and the Athenians in respect of the
tax upon metics. This circumstance is mentioned by Myronianus of Amastra,
in the first book of his chapters of Historical Coincidences.
XI. He succeeded Speusippus, and presided over the school for twenty-five
years, beginning at the archonship of Lysimachides, in the second year of
the hundred and tenth olympiad.
XII. And he died in consequence of stumbling by night against a dish,
being more than eighty-two years of age. And in one of our epigrams we
speak thus of him:—
He struck against a brazen pot,
And cut his forehead deep,
And crying cruel is my lot,
In death he fell asleep.
So thus Xenocrates did fall,
The universal friend of all.
XIII. And there were five other people of the name of Xenocrates. One was
an ancient tactician, a fellow citizen, and very near relation of the
philosopher of whom we have been speaking; and there is extant an oration
of his which is scribed, On Arsinoe, and which was written on the death
of Arsinoe. A third was a philosopher who wrote some very indifferent
elegiac poetry; and that is not strange, for when poets take to writing
in prose, they succeed pretty well; but when prose writers try their hand
at poetry, they fail; from which it is plain, that the one is a gift of
nature, and the other a work of art. The fourth was a statuary; the fifth
a writer of songs, as we are told by Aristoxenus.
LIFE OF POLEMO.
I. Polemo was the son of Philostratus, an Athenian, of the burgh of Œa.
And when he was young, he was so very intemperate and profligate, that
he used always to carry money about with him, to procure the instant
gratification of his passions; and he used also to hide money in the
narrow alleys, for this purpose. And once there was found in the Academy
a piece of three obols, hidden against one of the columns, which he had
put there for some purpose like that which I have indicated; and on one
occasion he arranged beforehand with some young men, and rushed, adorned
with a garland, and drunk, into the school of Xenocrates. But he took no
notice of him, and continued his discourse as he had begun it, and it was
in praise of temperance; and the young man, hearing it, was gradually
charmed, and became so industrious, that he surpassed all the rest of the
disciples, and himself became the successor of Xenocrates, in his school
beginning in the hundred and sixteenth olympiad.
II. And Antigonus, of Carystus, says in his Lives, that his father had
been the chief man of the city, and had kept chariots for the Olympic
games.
III. He also asserts that Polemo was prosecuted by his wife, on the
charge of ill-treatment, because he indulged in illicit pleasures, and
despised her.
IV. But that when he began to devote himself to philosophy, he adopted
such a rigorous system of morals, that he for the future always continued
the same in appearance, and never even changed his voice, on which
account Crantor was charmed by him. Accordingly, on one occasion, when a
dog was mad and had bitten his leg, he was the only person who did not
turn pale; and once, when there was a great confusion in the city, he,
having heard the cause, remained where he was without fleeing. In the
theatres too he was quite immoveable; accordingly, when Nicostratus the
poet, who was surnamed Clytæmnestra, was once reading something to him
and Crates, the latter was excited to sympathy, he behaved as though he
heard nothing. And altogether, he was such as Melanthius, the painter,
describes in his treatise on Painting; for he says that some kind of
obstinacy and harshness ought to exist in works of art as in morals.
And Polemo used to say that a man ought to exercise himself in action,
and not in dialectic speculations, as if one had drunk in and dwelt
upon a harmonious kind of system of art, so as to be admired for one’s
shrewdness, in putting questions; but to be inconsistent with one’s self
in character. He was, then, a well-bred and high-spirited man, avoiding
what Aristophanes says of Euripides, speeches of vinegar and assafœtida,
such as he says himself:—
Are base delights compared with better things?
V. And he did not use to lecture on the propositions before him while
sitting down; but he would walk about, it is said, and so discuss them.
And he was much honoured in the city because of his noble sentiments;
and after he had been walking about, he would rest in his garden; and
his pupils erected little cabins near it, and dwelt near his school and
corridor.
VI. And as it seems, Polemo imitated Xenocrates in everything; and
Aristippus, in the fourth book of his treatise on Ancient Luxury, says
that Xenocrates loved him; at all events, Polemo used to be always
speaking of him, and praising his guileless nature, and his rigorous
virtues, and his chaste severity, like that of a Doric building.
VII. He was also very fond of Sophocles, and especially of those passages
where, according to one of the comic poets, he seemed to have had a
Molossian hound for his colleague in composing his poems; and when there
was, to use the expression of Phrynichus:—
No sweet or washy liquor, but purest Pramnian wine.
And he used to say that Homer was an epic Sophocles, and Sophocles a
tragic Homer.
VIII. And he died when he was very old, of decline, having left behind
him a great number of writings. And there is this epigram of ours upon
him:—
Do you not hear, we’ve buried Polemo,
Whom sickness, worst affliction of mankind
Attacked, and bore off to the shades below;
Yet Polemo lies not here, but Polemo’s body
And that he did himself place here on earth,
Prepared in soul to mount up to the skies.
LIFE OF CRATES.
I. Crates was the son of Antigenes, and of the Thriasian burgh, and
a pupil and attached friend of Polemo. He was also his successor as
president of his school.
II. And they benefited one another so much, that not only did they
delight while alive in the same pursuits, but almost to their latest
breath did they resemble one another, and even after they were both dead
they shared the same tomb. In reference to which circumstance Antagoras
has written an epigram on the pair, in which he expresses himself thus:—
Stranger, who passest by, relate that here
The God-like Crates lies, and Polemo;
Two men of kindred nobleness of mind;
Out of whose holy mouths pure wisdom flowed,
And they with upright lives did well display,
The strength of all their principles and teaching.
And they say too that it was in reference to this that Arcesilaus, when
he came over to them from Theophrastus, said that they were some gods,
or else a remnant of the golden race; for they were not very fond of
courting the people, but had a disposition in accordance with the saying
of Dionysodorus the flute player, who is reported to have said, with
great exultation and pride, that no one had ever heard his music in a
trireme or at a fountain as they had heard Ismenius.
III. Antigonus relates that he used to be a messmate of Crantor, and that
these philosophers and Arcesilaus lived together; and that Arcesilaus
lived in Crantor’s house, but that Polemo and Crates lived in the house
of one of the citizens, named Lysicles; and he says that Crates was,
as I have already mentioned, greatly attached to Polemo, and so was
Arcesilaus to Crantor.
IV. But when Crates died, as Apollodorus relates in the third book of
his Chronicles, he left behind him compositions, some on philosophical
subjects and some on comedy, and some which were speeches addressed to
assemblies of the people, or delivered on the occasion of embassies.
V. He also left behind him some eminent disciples, among whom were
Arcesilaus, about whom we shall speak presently, for he too was a
pupil of his, and Bion of the Borysthenes, who was afterwards called a
Theodorean, from the sect which he espoused, and we shall speak of him
immediately after Arcesilaus.
VI. But there were ten people of the name of Crates. The first was a
poet of the old comedy; the second was an orator of Tralles, a pupil of
Isocrates; the third was an engineer who served under Alexander; the
fourth a Cynic, whom we shall mention hereafter; the fifth a Peripatetic
philosopher; the sixth the Academic philosopher, of whom we are speaking;
the seventh a grammarian of Malos; the eighth a writer in geometry; the
ninth an epigrammatic poet; the tenth was an Academic philosopher, a
native of Tarsus.
LIFE OF CRANTOR.
I. Crantor, a native of Soli, being admired very greatly in his own
country, came to Athens and became a pupil of Xenocrates at the same time
with Polemo.
II. And he left behind him memorials, in the shape of writings, to the
number of 30,000 lines, some of which, however, are by some writers
attributed to Arcesilaus.
III. They say of him that when he was asked what it was that he was so
charmed with in Polemo, he replied, “That he had never heard him speak in
too high or too low a key.”
IV. When he was ill he retired to the temple of Æsculapius, and there
walked about, and people came to him from all quarters, thinking that he
had gone thither, not on account of any disease, but because he wished