The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
took him to a brothel kept by a female slave, and told him that that was
all the marriage that his father designed for him; but that marriages
which resulted in adultery were themes for tragedians, and had exile and
bloodshed for their prizes; and the marriages of those who lived with
courtesans were subjects for the comic poets, and often produced madness
as the result of debauchery and drunkenness.
VI. He had also a brother named Pasicles, a pupil of Euclides.
VII. Phavorinus, in the second book of his Commentaries, relates a witty
saying of his; for he says, that once, when he was begging a favour of
the master of a gymnasium, on the behalf of some acquaintance, he touched
his thighs; and as he expressed his indignation at this, he said, “Why,
do they not belong to you as well as your knees?” He used to say that it
was impossible to find a man who had never done wrong, in the same way as
there was always some worthless seed in a pomegranate. On one occasion
he provoked Nicodromus, the harp-player, and received a black eye from
him; so he put a plaster on his forehead and wrote upon it, “Nicodromus
did this.” He used to abuse prostitutes designedly, for the purpose of
practising himself in enduring reproaches. When Demetrius Phalereus sent
him some loaves and wine, he attacked him for his present, saying, “I
wish that the fountains bore loaves;” and it is notorious that he was a
water drinker.
He was once reproved by the ædiles of the Athenians, for wearing fine
linen, and so he replied, “I will show you Theophrastus also clad in
fine linen.” And as they did not believe him, he took them to a barber’s
shop, and showed him to them as he was being shaved. At Thebes he was
once scourged by the master of the Gymnasium, (though some say it was by
Euthycrates, at Corinth), and dragged out by the feet; but he did not
care, and quoted the line:—
I feel, O mighty chief, your matchless might,
Dragged, foot first, downward from th’ ethereal height.[76]
But Diocles says that it was by Menedemus, of Eretria, that he was
dragged in this manner, for that as he was a handsome man, and supposed
to be very obsequious to Asclepiades, the Phliasian, Crates touched his
thighs and said, “Is Asclepiades within?” And Menedemus was very much
offended, and dragged him out, as has been already said; and then Crates
quoted the above-cited line.
VIII. Zeno, the Cittiæan, in his Apophthegms, says, that he once sewed
up a sheep’s fleece in his cloak, without thinking of it; and he was a
very ugly man, and one who excited laughter when he was taking exercise.
And he used to say, when he put up his hands, “Courage, Crates, as far as
your eyes and the rest of your body is concerned:—
IX. “For you shall see those who now ridicule you, convulsed with
disease, and envying your happiness, and accusing themselves of
slothfulness.” One of his sayings was, “That a man ought to study
philosophy, up to the point of looking on generals and donkey-drivers in
the same light.” Another was, that those who live with flatterers, are
as desolate as calves when in the company of wolves; for that neither
the one nor the other are with those whom they ought to be, or their own
kindred, but only with those who are plotting against them.
X. When he felt that he was dying, he made verses on himself, saying:—
You’re going, noble hunchback, you are going
To Pluto’s realms, bent double by old age.
For he was humpbacked from age.
XI. When Alexander asked him whether he wished to see the restoration
of his country, he said, “What would be the use of it? for perhaps some
other Alexander would come at some future time and destroy it again.
“But poverty and dear obscurity,
Are what a prudent man should think his country
For these e’en fortune can’t deprive him of.”
He also said that he was:—
A fellow countryman of wise Diogenes,
Whom even envy never had attacked.
Menander, in his Twin-sister, mentions him thus:—
For you will walk with me wrapped in your cloak,
As his wife used to with the Cynic Crates.
XII. He gave his daughter to his pupils, as he himself used to say:—
To have and keep on trial for a month.
LIFE OF METROCLES.
I. Metrocles was the brother of Hipparchia; and though he had formerly
been a pupil of Theophrastus, he had profited so little by his
instructions, that once, thinking that, while listening to a lecture
on philosophy, he had disgraced himself by his inattention, he fell
into despondency, and shut himself up in his house, intending to starve
himself to death. Accordingly, when Crates heard of it, he came to him,
having been sent for; and eating a number of lupins, on purpose, he
persuaded him by numbers of arguments, that he had done no harm; for
that it was not to be expected that a man should not indulge his natural
inclinations and habits; and he comforted him by showing him that he, in
a similar case, would certainly have behaved in a similar manner. And
after that, he became a pupil of Crates, and a man of great eminence as a
philosopher.
II. He burnt all his writings, as Hecaton tells us in the first book of
his Apophthegms, and said:—
These are the phantoms of infernal dreams;
As if he meant that they were all nonsense. But some say that it was the
notes which he had taken of the lectures of Theophrastus which he burnt,
quoting the following verse:—
Vulcan, draw near, ’tis Thetis asks your aid.[77]
III. He used to say that some things could be bought with money, as for
instance a house; and some with time and industry, as education; that
wealth was mischievous, if a man did not use it properly.
IV. He died at a great age, having suffocated himself.
V. His pupils were Theombrotus and Cleomenes, Demetrius of Alexandria,
the son of Theombrotus, Timarchus of Alexandria, the son of Cleomenes,
and Echecles, of Ephesus. Not but what Echecles was also a pupil of
Theombrotus; and Menedemus, of whom we shall speak hereafter, was his
pupil. Menippus, of Sinope, too, was a very eminent person in his school.
LIFE OF HIPPARCHIA.
I. Hipparchia, the sister of Metrocles, was charmed among others, by the
doctrines of this school.
II. Both she and Metrocles were natives of Maronea. She fell in love with
both the doctrines and manners of Crates, and could not be diverted from
her regard for him, by either the wealth, or high birth, or personal
beauty, of any of her suitors, but Crates was everything to her; and she
threatened her parents to make away with herself, if she were not given
in marriage to him. Crates accordingly, being entreated by her parents to
dissuade her from this resolution, did all he could; and at last, as he
could not persuade her, he rose up, and placing all his furniture before
her, he said, “This is the bridegroom whom you are choosing, and this
is the whole of his property; consider these facts, for it will not be
possible for you to become his partner, if you do not also apply yourself
to the same studies, and conform to the same habits that he does.” But
the girl chose him; and assuming the same dress that he wore, went about
with him as her husband, and appeared with him in public everywhere, and
went to all entertainments in his company.
III. And once when she went to sup with Lysimachus, she attacked
Theodorus, who was surnamed the Atheist; proposing to him the following
sophism; “What Theodorus could not be called wrong for doing, that same
thing Hipparchia ought not to be called wrong for doing. But Theodorus
does no wrong when he beats himself; therefore Hipparchia does no wrong
when she beats Theodorus.” He made no reply to what she said, but only
pulled her clothes about; but Hipparchia was neither offended nor
ashamed, as many a woman would have been; but when he said to her:—
“Who is the woman who has left the shuttle
So near the warp?”[78]
“I, Theodorus, am that person,” she replied; “but do I appear to you to
have come to a wrong decision, if I devote that time to philosophy, which
I otherwise should have spent at the loom?” And these and many other
sayings are reported of this female philosopher.
IV. There is also a volume of letters of Crates[79] extant, in which he
philosophizes most excellently; and in style is very little inferior to
Plato. He also wrote some tragedies, which are imbued with a very sublime
spirit of philosophy, of which the following lines are a specimen:—
’Tis not one town, nor one poor single house,
That is my country; but in every land
Each city and each dwelling seems to me,
A place for my reception ready made.
And he died at a great age, and was buried in Bœotia.
LIFE OF MENIPPUS.
I. Menippus was also a Cynic, and a Phœnician by descent, a slave by
birth, as Achaicus tells us in his Ethics; and Diocles informs us that
his master was a native of Pontus, of the name of Baton; but that
subsequently, in consequence of his importunities and miserly habits, he
became rich, and obtained the rights of citizenship at Corinth.
II. He never wrote anything serious; but his writings are full of
ridiculous matter; and in some respects similar to those of Meleager, who
was his contemporary. And Hermippus tells us that he was a man who lent
money at daily interest, and that he was called a usurer; for he used
to lend on nautical usury, and take security, so that he amassed a very
great amount of riches.
III. But at last he fell into a snare, and lost all his money, and in a
fit of despair he hung himself, and so he died. And we have written a
playful epigram on him:—
This man was a Syrian by birth,
And a Cretan usurious hound,
As the name he was known by sets forth,
You’ve heard of him oft I’ll be bound;
His name was Menippus—men entered his house,
And stole all his goods without leaving a louse,
When (from this the dog’s nature you plainly may tell)
He hung himself up, and so went off to hell.
IV. But some say that the books attributed to him are not really his
work, but are the composition of Dionysius and Zopyrus the Colophonians,
who wrote them out of joke, and then gave them to him as a man well able
to dispose of them.
V. There were six persons of the name of Menippus; the first was the man
who wrote a history of the Lydians, and made an abridgment of Xanthus;
the second was this man of whom we have been speaking; the third was a
sophist of Stratonice, a Carian by descent; the fourth was a statuary;
the fifth and the sixth were painters, and they are both mentioned by
Apollodorus.
VI. The writings left by the Cynic amount to thirteen volumes; a
Description of the Dead; a volume called Wills; a volume of Letters
in which the Gods are introduced; treatises addressed to the Natural
Philosophers, and Mathematicians, and Grammarians; one on the Generations
of Epicurus, and on the Observance of the Twentieth Day by the
philosophers of his school; and one or two other essays.
THE LIFE OF MENEDEMUS.
I. Menedemus was a disciple of Colotes of Lampsacus.
II. He proceeded, as Hippobotus tells, to such a great degree of
superstition, that he assumed the garb of a fury, and went about saying
that he had come from hell to take notice of all who did wrong, in order
that he might descend thither again and make his report to the deities
who abode in that country. And this was his dress: a tunic of a dark
colour reaching to his feet, and a purple girdle round his waist, an
Arcadian hat on his head with the twelve signs of the zodiac embroidered
on it, tragic buskins, a preposterously long beard, and an ashen staff in
his hand.
III. These then are the lives of each of the Cynics; and we shall also
subjoin some of the doctrines which they all held in common, if indeed