The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
to establish a school there.
V. And among those who came to him was Arcesilaus, wishing to be
recommended by him to Polemo, although he was much attached to him, as we
shall mention in the life of Arcesilaus. But when he got well he became a
pupil of Polemo, and was excessively admired on that account. It is said,
also, that he left his property to Arcesilaus, to the amount of twelve
talents; and that, being asked by him where he would like to be buried,
he said:—
It is a happy fate to lie entombed
In the recesses of a well-lov’d land.
VI. It is said also that he wrote poems, and that he sealed them up in
the temple of Minerva, in his own country; and Theætetus the poet wrote
thus about him:—
Crantor pleased men; but greater pleasure still
He to the Muses gave, ere he aged grew.
Earth, tenderly embrace the holy man,
And let him lie in quiet undisturb’d.
And of all writers, Crantor admired Homer and Euripides most; saying that
the hardest thing possible was to write tragically and in a manner to
excite sympathy, without departing from nature; and he used to quote this
line out of the Bellerophon:—
Alas! why should I say alas! for we
Have only borne the usual fate of man.
The following verses of Antagoras the poet are also attributed to
Crantor; the subject is love, and they run thus:—
My mind is much perplexed; for what, O Love,
Dare I pronounce your origin? May I
Call you chiefest of the immortal Gods,
Of all the children whom dark Erebus
And Royal Night bore on the billowy waves
Of widest Ocean? Or shall I bid you hail,
As son of proudest Venus? or of Earth?
Or of the untamed winds? so fierce you rove,
Bringing mankind sad cares, yet not unmixed
With happy good, so two-fold is your nature.
And he was very ingenious at devising new words and expressions;
accordingly, he said that one tragedian had an unhewn (ἀπελέκητος) voice,
all over bark; and he said that the verses of a certain poet were full
of moths; and that the propositions of Theophrastus had been written on
an oyster shell. But the work of his which is most admired is his book on
Mourning.
VII. And he died before Polemo and Crates, having been attacked by the
dropsy; and we have written this epigram on him:—
The worst of sicknesses has overwhelmed you,
O Crantor, and you thus did quit the earth,
Descending to the dark abyss of Hell.
Now you are happy there; but all the while
The sad Academy, and your native land
Of Soli mourn, bereaved of your eloquence.
LIFE OF ARCESILAUS.
I. Arcesilaus was the son of Seuthes or Scythes, as Apollodorus states in
the third book of his Chronicles, and a native of Pitane in Æolia.
II. He was the original founder of the Middle Academy, and the first man
who professed to suspend the declaration of his judgment, because of the
contrarieties of the reasons alleged on either side. He was likewise the
first who attempted to argue on both sides of a question, and who also
made the method of discussion, which had been handed down by Plato, by
means of question and answer, more contentious than before.
III. He met with Crantor in the following manner. He was one of four
brothers, two by the same father and two by the same mother. Of those
who were by the same mother the eldest was Pylades, and of those by the
same father the eldest was Mœreas, who was his guardian; and at first he
was a pupil of Autolycus the mathematician, who happened to be a fellow
citizen of his before he went to Athens; and with Autolycus he travelled
as far as Sardis. After that he became a pupil of Xanthus the musician,
and after that attended the lectures of Theophrastus, and subsequently
came over to the Academy to Crantor. For Mœreas his brother, whom I have
mentioned before, urged him to apply himself to rhetoric; but he himself
had a preference for philosophy, and when he became much attached to him
Crantor asked him, quoting a line out of the Andromeda of Euripides:—
O virgin, if I save you, will you thank me?
And he replied by quoting the next line to it:—
O take me to you, stranger, as your slave,
Or wife, or what you please.
And ever after that they became very intimate, so that they say
Theophrastus was much annoyed, and said, “That a most ingenious and
well-disposed young man had deserted his school.”
IV. For he was not only very impressive in his discourse, and displayed
a great deal of learning in it, but he also tried his hand at poetry,
and there is extant an epigram which is attributed to him, addressed to
Attalus, which is as follows:—
Pergamus is not famed for arms alone,
But often hears its praise resound
For its fine horses, at the holy Pisa.
Yet, if a mortal may declare,
Its fate as hidden in the breast of Jove,
It will be famous for its woes.
There is another addressed to Menodorus the son of Eudamus, who was
attached to one of his fellow pupils:—
Phrygia is a distant land, and so
Is sacred Thyatira, and Cadanade,
Your country Menodorus. But from all,
As the unvaried song of bards relates,
An equal road does lie to Acheron,
That dark unmentioned river; so you lie
Here far from home; and here Eudamus raises
This tomb above your bones, for he did love you,
Though you were poor, with an undying love.
But he admired Homer above all poets, and always used to read a portion
of his works before going to sleep; and in the morning he would say that
he was going to the object of his love, when he was going to read him.
He said, too, that Pindar was a wonderful man for filling the voice, and
pouring forth an abundant variety of words and expressions. He also,
when he was a young man, wrote a criticism on Ion.
V. And he was a pupil likewise of Hipponicus, the geometrican whom
he used to ridicule on other points as being lazy and gaping; but he
admitted that in his own profession he was clear sighted enough, and said
that geometry had flown into his mouth while he was yawning. And when he
went out of his mind, he took him to his own house, and took care of him
till he recovered his senses.
VI. And when Crates died, he succeeded him in the presidency of his
schools, a man of the name of Socrates willingly yielding to him.
VII. And as he suspended his judgment on every point, he never, as it is
said, wrote one single book. But others say that he was once detected
correcting some passages in a work of his; and some assert that he
published it, while others deny it, and affirm that he threw it into the
fire.
VIII. He seems to have been a great admirer of Plato, and he possessed
all his writings. He also, according to some authorities, had a very high
opinion of Pyrrho.
IX. He also studied dialectics, and the discussions of the Eretrian
school; on which account Ariston said of him:—
First Plato comes, and Pyrrho last,
And in the middle Diodorus.
And Timon speaks thus of him:—
For having on this side the heavy load
Of Menedemus plac’d beneath his breast,
He’ll to stout Pyrrho run, or Diodorus.
And presently afterwards he represents him as saying:—
I’ll swim to Pyrrho, or that crooked sophist
Called Diodorus.
X. He was exceedingly fond of employing axioms, very concise in his
diction, and when speaking he laid an emphasis on each separate word.
XI. He was also very fond of attacking others, and very free spoken, on
which account Timon in another passage speaks of him thus:—
You’ll not escape all notice while you thus
Attack the young man with your biting sarcasm.
Once, when a young man was arguing against him with more boldness than
usual, he said, “Will no one stop his mouth with the knout?”[36] And to
a man who lay under the general imputation of low debauchery, and who
argued with him that one thing was not greater than another, he asked
him whether a cup holding two pints was not larger than one which held
only one. There was a certain Chian named Hemon, exceedingly ugly, but
who fancied himself good looking, and always went about in fine clothes;
this man asked him one day, “If he thought that a wise man could feel
attachment to him;” “Why should he not,” said he, “when they love even
those who are less handsome than you, and not so well-dressed either?”
and when the man, though one of the vilest characters possible, said to
Arcesilaus as if he were addressing a very rigid man:—
O, noble man, may I a question put,
Or must I hold my tongue?
Arcesilaus replied:—
O wretched woman, why do you thus roughen
Your voice, not speaking in your usual manner?
And once, when he was plagued by a chattering fellow of low extraction,
he said:—
The sons of slaves are always talking vilely.[37]
Another time, when a talkative man was giving utterance to a great
deal of nonsense, he said, that “He had not had a nurse who was severe
enough.” And to some people he never gave any answer at all. On one
occasion a usurer, who made pretence to some learning, said in his
hearing that he did not know something or other, on which he rejoined:—
For often times the passing winds do fill
The female bird, except when big with young.[38]
And the lines come out of the Œnomaus of Sophocles. He once reminded a
certain dialectician, a pupil of Alexinus, who was unable to explain
correctly some saying of his master, of what had been done by Philoxenus
to some brick-makers. For when they were singing some of his songs very
badly he came upon them, and trampled their bricks under foot, saying,
“As you spoil my works so will I spoil yours.”
XII. And he used to be very indignant with those who neglected proper
opportunities of applying themselves to learning; and he had a peculiar
habit, while conversing, of using the expression, “I think,” and “So and
so,” naming the person, “will not agree to this.” And this was imitated
by several of his pupils, who copied also his style of expression and
everything about him. He was a man very ready at inventing new words, and
very quick at meeting objections, and at bringing round the conversation
to the subject before him, and at adapting it to every occasion, and he
was the most convincing speaker that could be found, on which account
numbers of people flocked to his school, in spite of being somewhat
alarmed at his severity, which however they bore with complacency, for
he was a very kind man, and one who inspired his hearers with abundant
hope, and in his manner of life he was very affable and liberal, always
ready to do any one a service without any parade, and shrinking from
any expression of gratitude on the part of those whom he had obliged.
Accordingly once, when he had gone to visit Ctesibius who was ill, seeing
him in great distress from want, he secretly slipped his purse under his
pillow; and when Ctesibius found it, “This,” said he, “is the amusement
of Arcesilaus.” And at another time he sent him a thousand drachmas.
He it was also who introduced Archias the Arcadian to Eumenes, and who
procured him many favours from him.
XIII. And being a very liberal man and utterly regardless of money, he
made the most splendid display of silver plate, and in his exhibition
of gold plate he vied with that of Archecrates and Callicrates; and he
was constantly assisting and contributing to the wants of others with
money; and once, when some one had borrowed from him some articles of
silver plate to help him entertain his friends, and did not offer to
return them, he never asked for them back or reclaimed them; but some say
that he lent them with the purpose that they should be kept, and that
when the man returned them, he made him a present of them as he was a