The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
occasion, Eudoxus, as the guests were very numerous, introduced the
fashion of sitting in a semicircle.
Nicomachus, the son of Aristotle, affirms that he used to say, that
pleasure was the good.
III. He was received in his own country with great honours, as the
decree that was passed respecting him shows. He was also accounted
very illustrious among the Greeks, having given laws to his own fellow
citizens, as Hermippus tells us in the fourth book of his account of
the Seven Wise Men; and having also written treatises on Astronomy and
Geometry, and several other considerable works.
He had three daughters, Actis, Philtis, and Delphis. And Eratosthenes
asserts, in his books addressed to Baton, that he also composed dialogues
entitled Dialogues of Dogs; others say that these were written by some
Egyptians, in their own language, and that Eudoxus translated them, and
published them in Greece. One of his pupils was Chrysippus, of Cnidos,
son of Erineus, who learnt of him all that he knew about the Gods,
and the world, and the heavenly bodies; and who learnt medicine from
Philistion the Sicilian. He also left some very admirable Reminiscences.
IV. He had a son of the name of Aristagoras, who was the teacher of
Chrysippus, the son of Aëthlius; he was the author of a work on Remedies
for the Eyes, as speculations on natural philosophy had come very much
under his notice.
V. There were three people of the name of Eudoxus. The first, this man
of whom we are speaking; the second, a Rhodian, who wrote histories; the
third, a Siciliot, a son of Agathocles, a comic poet, who gained three
victories at the Dionysia in the city, and five at the Lenæa,[119] as
Apollodorus tells us in his Chronicles. We also find another, who was a
physician of Cnidos, who is mentioned by this Eudoxus, in his Circuit of
the World, where he says that he used to warn people to keep constantly
exercising their limbs in every kind of exercise, and their senses too.
VI. The same author says, that the Cnidean Eudoxus flourished about the
hundred and third olympiad; and that he was the inventor of the theory
of crooked lines. And he died in his fifty-third year. But when he was
in Egypt with Conuphis, of Heliopolis, Apis licked his garment; and so
the priests said that he would be short-lived, but very illustrious, as
it is reported by Phavorinus in his Commentaries. And we have written an
epigram on him, that runs thus:—
’Tis said, that while at Memphis wise Eudoxus
Learnt his own fate from th’ holy fair-horned bull;
He said indeed no word, bulls do not speak
Nor had kind nature e’er calf Apis gifted
With an articulately speaking mouth.
But standing on one side he lick’d his cloak,
Showing by this most plainly—in brief time
You shall put off your life. So death came soon,
When he had just seen three and fifty times
The Pleiads rise to warn the mariners.
And instead of Eudoxus, they used to call him Endoxus,[120] on account
of the brilliancy of his reputation. And since we have gone through
the illustrious Pythagoreans, we must now speak of the Promiscuous
philosophers, as they call them. And we will first of all speak of
Heraclitus.
BOOK IX.
LIFE OF HERACLITUS.
I. Heraclitus was the son of Blyson, or, as some say, of Heracion, and a
citizen of Ephesus. He flourished about the sixty-ninth olympiad.
II. He was above all men of a lofty and arrogant spirit, as is plain from
his writings, in which he says, “Abundant learning does not form the
mind; for if it did, it would have instructed Hesiod, and Pythagoras,
and likewise Xenophanes, and Hecatæus. For the only piece of real wisdom
is to know that idea, which by itself will govern everything on every
occasion.” He used to say, too, that Homer deserved to be expelled from
the games and beaten, and Archilochus likewise. He used also to say,
“It is more necessary to extinguish insolence, than to put out a fire.”
Another of his sayings was, “The people ought to fight for the law, as
for their city.” He also attacks the Ephesians for having banished his
companion Hermodorus, when he says, “The Ephesians deserve to have all
their youth put to death, and all those who are younger still banished
from their city, inasmuch as they have banished Hermodorus, the best man
among them, saying, ‘Let no one of us be pre-eminently good; and if there
be any such person, let him go to another city and another people.’”
And when he was requested to make laws for them, he refused, because the
city was already immersed in a thoroughly bad constitution. And having
retired to the temple of Diana with his children, he began to play
at dice; and when all the Ephesians flocked round him, he said, “You
wretches, what are you wondering at? is it not better to do this, than to
meddle with public affairs in your company?”
III. And at last, becoming a complete misanthrope, he used to live,
spending his time in walking about the mountains; feeding on grasses
and plants, and in consequence of these habits, he was attacked by the
dropsy, and so then he returned to the city, and asked the physicians, in
a riddle, whether they were able to produce a drought after wet weather.
And as they did not understand him, he shut himself up in a stable for
oxen, and covered himself with cow-dung, hoping to cause the wet to
evaporate from him, by the warmth that this produced. And as he did
himself no good in this way, he died, having lived seventy years; and
we have written an epigram upon him which runs thus:—
I’ve often wondered much at Heraclitus,
That he should chose to live so miserably,
And die by such a miserable fate.
For fell disease did master all his body,
With water quenching all the light of his eyes,
And bringing darkness o’er his mind and body.
But Hermippus states, that what he asked the physicians was this, whether
any one could draw off the water by depressing his intestines? and
when they answered that they could not, he placed himself in the sun,
and ordered his servants to plaster him over with cow-dung; and being
stretched out in that way, on the second day he died, and was buried
in the market-place. But Neanthes, of Cyzicus says, that as he could
not tear off the cow-dung, he remained there, and on account of the
alteration in his appearance, he was not discovered, and so was devoured
by the dogs.
IV. And he was a wonderful person, from his boyhood, since, while he was
young, he used to say that he knew nothing but when he had grown up, he
then used to affirm that he knew everything. And he was no one’s pupil,
but he used to say, that he himself had investigated every thing, and
had learned everything of himself. But Sotion relates, that some people
affirmed that he had been a pupil of Xenophanes. And that Ariston, stated
in his account of Heraclitus, that he was cured of the dropsy, and died
of some other disease. And Hippobotus gives the same account.
V. There is a book of his extant, which is about nature generally, and it
is divided into three discourses; one on the Universe; one on Politics;
and one on Theology. And he deposited this book in the temple of Diana,
as some authors report, having written it intentionally in an obscure
style, in order that only those who were able men might comprehend it,
and that it might not be exposed to ridicule at the hands of the common
people. Timon attacks this man also, saying:—
Among them came that cuckoo Heraclitus
The enigmatical obscure reviler
Of all the common people.
Theophrastus asserts, that it was out of melancholy that he left some
of his works half finished, and wrote several, in completely different
styles; and Antisthenes, in his Successions, adduces as a proof of his
lofty spirit, the fact, that he yielded to his brother the title and
privileges of royalty.[121] And his book had so high a reputation, that
a sect arose in consequence of it, who were called after his own name,
Heracliteans.
VI. The following may be set down in a general manner as his main
principles: that everything is created from fire, and is dissolved into
fire; that everything happens according to destiny, and that all existing
things are harmonized, and made to agree together by opposite tendencies;
and that all things are full of souls and dæmones. He also discussed all
the passions which exist in the world, and used also to contend that the
sun was of that precise magnitude of which he appears to be. One of his
sayings too was, that no one, by whatever road he might travel, could
ever possibly find out the boundaries of the soul, so deeply hidden are
the principles which regulate it. He used also to call opinion the sacred
disease; and to say that eye-sight was often deceived. Sometimes, in his
writings, he expresses himself with great brilliancy and clearness; so
that even the most stupid man may easily understand him, and receive an
elevation of soul from him. And his conciseness, and the dignity of his
style, are incomparable.
In particulars, his doctrines are of this kind. That fire is an
element, and that it is by the changes of fire that all things exist;
being engendered sometimes by rarity, some times by density. But he
explains nothing clearly. He also says, that everything is produced by
contrariety, and that everything flows on like a river; that the universe
is finite, and that there is one world, and that that is produced from
fire, and that the whole world is in its turn again consumed by fire at
certain periods, and that all this happens according to fate. That of the
contraries, that which leads to production is called war and contest, and
that which leads to the conflagration is called harmony and peace; that
change is the road leading upward, and the road leading downward; and
that the whole world exists according to it.
For that fire, when densified becomes liquid, and becoming concrete,
becomes also water; again, that the water when concrete is turned to
earth, and that this is the road down; again, that the earth itself
becomes fused, from which water is produced, and from that everything
else is produced; and then he refers almost everything to the evaporation
which takes place from the sea; and this is the road which leads upwards.
Also, that there are evaporations, both from earth and sea, some of which
are bright and clear, and some are dark; and that the fire is increased
by the dark ones, and the moisture by the others. But what the space
which surrounds us is, he does not explain. He states, however, that
there are vessels in it, turned with their hollow part towards us; in
which all the bright evaporations are collected, and form flames, which
are the stars; and that the brightest of these flames, and the hottest,
is the light of the sun; for that all the other stars are farther off
from the earth; and that on this account, they give less light and
warmth; and that the moon is nearer the earth, but does not move through
a pure space; the sun, on the other hand, is situated in a transparent
space, and one free from all admixture, preserving a well proportioned
distance from us, on which account it gives us more light and more heat.
And that the sun and moon are eclipsed, when the before-mentioned vessels
are turned upwards. And that the different phases of the moon take place
every month, as its vessel keeps gradually turning round. Moreover, that
day and night, and months and years, and rains and winds, and things
of that kind, all exist according to, and are caused by, the different
evaporations.
For that the bright evaporation catching fire in the circle of the sun
causes day, and the predominance of the opposite one causes night; and
again, from the bright one the heat is increased so as to produce summer,