The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
poor man. He had also property in Pitana, the revenues from which were
transmitted to him by his brother Pylades.
XIV. Moreover, Eumenes, the son of Philetærus, supplied him with many
things, on which account he was the only king to whom he addressed any of
his discourses. And when many philosophers paid court to Antigonus and
went out to meet him when he arrived, he himself kept quiet, not wishing
to make his acquaintance. But he was a great friend of Hierocles, the
governor of the harbours of Munychia and the Piræus; and at festivals he
always paid him a visit. And when he constantly endeavoured to persuade
him to pay his respects to Antigonus, he would not; but though he
accompanied him as far as his gates, he turned back himself. And after
the sea-fight of Antigonus, when many people went to him and wrote him
letters to comfort him for his defeat, he neither went nor wrote; but
still in the service of his country, he went to Demetrias as ambassador
to Antigonus, and succeeded in the object of his mission.
XV. And he spent all his time in the Academy, and avoided meddling with
public affairs, but at times he would spend some days in the Piræus of
Athens, discoursing on philosophical subjects, from his friendship for
Hierocles, which conduct of his gave rise to unfavourable reports being
raised against him by some people.
XVI. Being a man of very expensive habits, for he was in this respect a
sort of second Aristippus, he often went to dine with his friends. He
also lived openly with Theodote and Philæte, two courtesans of Elis;
and to those who reproached him for this conduct, he used to quote the
opinions of Aristippus. He was also very fond of the society of young
men, and of a very affectionate disposition, on which account Aristo, the
Chian, a Stoic philosopher, used to accuse him of being a corrupter of
the youth of the city, and a profligate man. He is said also to have been
greatly attached to Demetrius, who sailed to Cyrene, and to Cleochares of
Myrlea, of whom he said to his messmates, that he wished to open the door
to him, but that he prevented him.
XVII. Demochares the son of Laches, and Pythocles the son of Bugelus,
were also among his friends, and he said that he humoured them in all
their wishes because of his great patience. And, on this account, those
people to whom I have before alluded, used to attack him and ridicule him
as a popularity hunter and vain-glorious man. And they set upon him very
violently at an entertainment given by Hieronymus, the Peripatetic, when
he invited his friends on the birthday of Alcyoneus, the son of Antigonus,
on which occasion Antigonus sent him a large sum of money to promote the
conviviality. On this occasion, as he avoided all discussion during the
continuance of the banquet, when Aridelus proposed to him a question
which required some deliberation, and entreated him to discourse upon it,
it is said that he replied, “But this is more especially the business of
philosophy, to know the proper time for everything.” With reference to
the charge that was brought against him of being a popularity hunter,
Timon speaks, among other matters, mentioning it in the following manner:—
He spoke and glided quick among the crowd,
They gazed on him as finches who behold
An owl among them. You then please the people!
Alas, poor fool, ’tis no great matter that;
Why give yourself such airs for such a trifle?
XVIII. However, in all other respects he was so free from vanity, that
he used to advise his pupils to become the disciples of other men; and
once, when a young man from Chios was not satisfied with his school, but
preferred that of Hieronymus, whom I have mentioned before, he himself
took him and introduced him to that philosopher, recommending him to
preserve his regularity of conduct. And there is a very witty saying of
his recorded. For when some one asked him once, why people left other
schools to go to the Epicureans, but no one left the Epicureans to join
other sects, he replied, “People sometimes make eunuchs of men, but no
one can ever make a man out of an eunuch.”
XIX. At last, when he was near his end, he left all his property to his
brother Pylades, because he, without the knowledge of Mæreas, had taken
him to Chios and had brought him from thence to Athens. He never married
a wife, and never had any children. He made three copies of his will, and
deposited one in Eretria with Amphicritus, and one at Athens with some
of his friends, and the third he sent to his own home to Thaumasias, one
of his relations, entreating him to keep it. And he also wrote him the
following letter:—
ARCESILAUS TO THAUMASIAS.
“I have given Diogenes a copy of my will to convey to you. For, because
I am frequently unwell and have got very infirm, I have thought it
right to make a will, that, if anything should happen to me I might not
depart with the feelings of having done you any injury, who have been
so constantly affectionate to me. And as you have been at all times the
most faithful to me of all my friends, I entreat you to preserve this
for me out of regard for my old age and your regard for me. Take care
then to behave justly towards me, remembering how much I entrust to your
integrity, so that I may appear to have managed my affairs well, as far
as depends on you; and there is another copy of this will at Athens, in
the care of some of my friends, and another at Eretria, in the hands of
Amphicritus.”
XX. He died, as Hermippus relates, after having drunk an excessive
quantity of wine, and then became delirious, when he was seventy-five
years old; and he was more beloved by the Athenians than any one else had
ever been. And we have written the following epigram on him:—
O wise Arcesilaus, why didst thou drink
So vast a quantity of unmixed wine,
As to lose all your senses, and then die?
I pity you not so much for your death,
As for the insult that you thus did offer
The Muses, by your sad excess in wine.
XXI. There were also three other persons of the name of Arcesilaus; one a
poet of the old Comedy; another an elegiac poet; the third a sculptor, on
whom Simonides wrote the following epigram:—
This is a statue of chaste Dian’s self
The price two hundred Parian drachmas fine,
Stamp’d with the image of the wanton goat.
It is the work of wise Arcesilaus,
The son of Aristodicus: a man,
Whose hands Minerva guided in his art.
The philosopher of whom we have been speaking flourished, as Apollodorus
tells us in his Chronicles, about the hundred and twentieth olympiad.
LIFE OF BION.
I. Bion was a native of the country around the Borysthenes; but as to who
his parents were, and to what circumstances it was owing that he applied
himself to the study of philosophy, we know no more than what he himself
told Antigonus. For when Antigonus asked him:—
What art thou, say! from whence, from whom you came,
Who are your parents? tell thy race, thy name;[39]
He, knowing that he had been misrepresented to the king, said to him, “My
father was a freedman, who used to wipe his mouth with his sleeve,” (by
which he meant that he used to sell salt fish). “As to his race, he was
a native of the district of the Borysthenes; having no countenance, but
only a brand in his face, a token of the bitter cruelty of his master.
My mother was such a woman as a man of that condition might marry, taken
out of a brothel. Then, my father being in arrears to the tax-gatherers,
was sold with all his family, and with me among them; and as I was young
and good looking, a certain orator purchased me, and when he died he left
me everything. And I, having burnt all his books, and torn up all his
papers, came to Athens and applied myself to the study of Philosophy:—
Such was my father, and from him I came,
The honoured author of my birth and name.[40]
This is all that I can tell you of myself: so that Persæus and Philonides
may give up telling these stories about me: and you may judge of me on my
own merits.”
II. And Bion was truly a man of great versatility, and a very subtle
philosopher, and a man who gave all who chose great opportunities of
practising philosophy. In some respects he was of a gentle disposition,
and very much inclined to indulge in vanity.
III. And he left behind him many memorials of himself in the way of
writings, and also many apophthegms full of useful sentiments. As for
instance, once when he was reproved for having failed to charm a young
man, he replied, “You cannot possibly draw up cheese with a hook before
it has got hard.” On another occasion he was asked who was the most
miserable of men, and replied, “He who has set his heart on the greatest
prosperity.” When he was asked whether it was advisable to marry (for
this answer also is attributed to him), he replied, “If you marry an ugly
woman you will have a punishment (ποινὴ), and if a handsome woman you
will have one who is common” (κοινή). He called old age a port to shelter
one from misfortune; and accordingly, he said that every one fled to it.
He said that glory was the mother of years; that beauty was a good which
concerned others rather than one’s self; that riches were the sinews of
business. To a man who had squandered his estate he said, “The earth
swallowed up Amphiaraus, but you have swallowed up the earth.” Another
saying of his was that it was a great evil not to be able to bear evil.
And he condemned those who burnt the dead as though they felt nothing,
and then mocked them as though they did feel. And he was always saying
that it was better to put one’s own beauty at the disposal of another,
than to covet the beauty of others; for that one who did so was injuring
both his body and his soul. And he used to blame Socrates saying, that if
he derived no advantage from Alcibiades he was foolish, and if he never
derived any advantage from him he then deserved no credit. He used to say
that the way to the shades below was easy; and accordingly, that people
went there with their eyes shut. He used to blame Alcibiades, saying that
while he was a boy he seduced husbands from their wives, and when he had
become a young man he seduced the wives from their husbands. While most
of the Athenians at Rhodes practised rhetoric, he himself used to give
lectures on philosophical subjects; and to one who blamed him for this he
said, “I have bought wheat, and I sell barley.”
It was a saying of his that the inhabitants of the shades below would be
more punished if they carried water in buckets that were whole, than in
such as were bored. To a chattering fellow who was soliciting him for
aid, he said, “I will do what is sufficient for you, if you will send
deputies to me, and forbear to come yourself.” Once when he was at sea
in the company of some wicked men, he fell into the hands of pirates;
and when the rest said, “We are undone, if we are known.” “But I,” said
he, “am undone if we are not known.” He used to say that self-conceit
was the enemy of progress. Of a rich man who was mean and niggardly, he
said, “That man does not possess his estate, but his estate possesses
him.” He used to say that stingy men took care of their property as if
it was their own, but derived no advantage from it as if it belonged to
other people. Another of his sayings was, that young men ought to display
courage, but that old men ought to be distinguished for prudence. And
that prudence was as much superior to the other virtues as sight was
to the other senses. And that it was not right to speak of old age, at
which every one is desirous to arrive. To an envious man who was looking
gloomy, he said, “I know not whether it is because some misfortune has
happened to you, or some good fortune to someone else.” One thing that he