The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
of Parmenides; but he also had conversed with Heraclitus, when he
recommended him to the Ephesians, who were unacquainted with him, as
Hippocrates recommended Democritus to the people of Abdera.
II. He was a man greatly occupied in political affairs, and held in
great esteem among his fellow citizens; on which account he was elected
admiral. And he was admired still more on account of his private virtues.
III. His doctrine was, that the Universe was infinite, unsusceptible of
change, immoveable, and one, being always like to itself, and complete;
and that there was no such thing as real motion, but that there only
appeared to be such. As respecting the Gods, too, he denied that there
was any occasion to give a definition of them, for that there was no
certain knowledge of them.
IV. Apollodorus states that he flourished about the eighty-fourth
olympiad.
LIFE OF ZENO, THE ELEATIC.
I. Zeno was a native of Velia. Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says that
he was by nature the son of Teleutagoras, but by adoption the son of
Parmenides.
II. Timon speaks thus of him and Melissus:—
Great is the strength, invincible the might
Of Zeno, skilled to argue on both sides
Of any question, th’ universal critic;
And of Melissus too. They rose superior
To prejudice in general; only yielding
To very few.
And Zeno had been a pupil of Parmenides, and had been on other accounts
greatly attached to him.
III. He was a tall man, as Plato tells us in his Parmenides, and the
same writer, in his Phædrus, calls him also the Eleatic Palamedes.
IV. Aristotle, in his Sophist, says that he was the inventor of
dialectics, as Empedocles was of rhetoric. And he was a man of the
greatest nobleness of spirit, both in philosophy and in politics. There
are also many books extant, which are attributed to him, full of great
learning and wisdom.
V. He, wishing to put an end to the power of Nearches, the tyrant (some,
however, call the tyrant Diomedon), was arrested, as we are informed by
Heraclides, in his abridgment of Satyrus. And when he was examined, as
to his accomplices, and as to the arms which he was taking to Lipara, he
named all the friends of the tyrant as his accomplices, wishing to make
him feel himself alone. And then, after he had mentioned some names,
he said that he wished to whisper something privately to the tyrant;
and when he came near him he bit him, and would not leave his hold till
he was stabbed. And the same thing happened to Aristogiton, the tyrant
slayer. But Demetrius, in his treatise on People of the same Name, says
that it was his nose that he bit off.
Moreover, Antisthenes, in his Successions, says that after he had given
him information against his friends, he was asked by the tyrant if
there was any one else. And he replied, “Yes, you, the destruction of
the city.” And that he also said to the bystanders, “I marvel at your
cowardice, if you submit to be slaves to the tyrant out of fear of such
pains as I am now enduring.” And at last he bit off his tongue and spit
it at him; and the citizens immediately rushed forward, and slew the
tyrant with stones. And this is the account that is given by almost every
one.
But Hermippus says, that he was put into a mortar, and pounded to death.
And we ourselves have written the following epigram on him:—
Your noble wish, O Zeno, was to slay
A cruel tyrant, freeing Elea
From the harsh bonds of shameful slavery,
But you were disappointed; for the tyrant
Pounded you in a mortar. I say wrong,
He only crushed your body, and not you.
VI. And Zeno was an excellent man in other respects, and he was also
a despiser of great men in an equal degree with Heraclitus; for he,
too, preferred the town which was formerly called Hyele, and afterwards
Elea, being a colony of the Phocæans, and his own native place, a poor
city possessed of no other importance than the knowledge of how to raise
virtuous citizens, to the pride of the Athenians; so that he did not
often visit them, but spent his life at home.
VII. He, too, was the first man who asked the question called
Achilles,[125] though Phavorinus attributes its first use to Parmenides,
and several others.
VIII. His chief doctrines were, that there were several worlds, and that
there was no vacuum; that the nature of all things consisted of hot and
cold, and dry and moist, these elements interchanging their substances
with one another; that man was made out of the earth, and that his soul
was a mixture of the before-named elements in such a way that no one of
them predominated.
IX. They say that when he was reproached, he was indignant; and that
when some one blamed him, he replied, “If when I am reproached, I am not
angered, then I shall not be pleased when I am praised.”
X. We have already said in our account of the Cittiæan, that there were
eight Zenos; but this one flourished about the seventy-ninth olympiad.
LIFE OF LEUCIPPUS.
I. Leucippus was a native of Velia, but, as some say, of Abdera; and, as
others report, of Melos.
II. He was a pupil of Zeno. And his principal doctrines were, that all
things were infinite, and were interchanged with one another; and that
the universe was a vacuum, and full of bodies; also that the worlds were
produced by bodies falling into the vacuum, and becoming entangled with
one another; and that the nature of the stars originated in motion,
according to their increase; also, that the sun is borne round in a
greater circle around the moon; that the earth is carried on revolving
round the centre; and that its figure resembles a drum; he was the first
philosopher who spoke of atoms as principles.
III. These are his doctrines in general; in particular detail, they are
as follow: he says that the universe is infinite, as I have already
mentioned; that of it, one part is a plenum, and the other a vacuum. He
also says that the elements, and the worlds which are derived from them,
are infinite, and are dissolved again into them; and that the worlds are
produced in this manner: That many bodies, of various kinds and shapes,
are borne by amputation from the infinite, into a vast vacuum; and then,
they being collected together, produce one vortex; according to which
they, dashing against one another, and whirling about in every direction,
are separated in such a way that like attaches itself to like.
But as they are all of equal weight, when by reason of their number they
are no longer able to whirl about, the thin ones depart into the outer
vacuum, as if they bounded through, and the others remain behind, and
becoming entangled with one another, run together, and produce a sort of
spherical shaped figure.
This subsists as a kind of membrane; containing within itself bodies of
every kind; and as these are whirled about so as to revolve according to
the resistance of the centre, the circumambient membrane becomes thin,
since bodies are without ceasing, uniting according to the impulse given
by the vortex; and in this way the earth is produced, since these bodies
which have once been brought to the centre remain there.
On the other side, there is produced another enveloping membrane, which
increases incessantly by the accretion of exterior bodies; and which, as
it is itself animated by a circular movement, drags with it, and adds to
itself, everything it meets with; some of these bodies thus enveloped
re-unite again and form compounds, which are at first moist and clayey,
but soon becoming dry, and being drawn on in the universal movement of
the circular vortex, they catch fire, and constitute the substance of the
stars. The orbit of the sun is the most distant one; that of the moon is
the nearest to the earth; and between the two are the orbits of the other
stars.
All the stars are set on fire by the rapidity of their own motion; and
the sun is set on fire by the stars; the moon has only a slight quantity
of fire; the sun and the moon are eclipsed in …[126] in consequence of
the inclination of the earth towards the south. In the north it always
snows, and those districts are cold, and are often frozen.
The sun is eclipsed but seldom; but the moon frequently, because her
orbits are unequal.
Leucippus admits also, that the production of worlds, their increase,
their diminution, and their destruction, depend on a certain necessity,
the character of which he does not precisely explain.
LIFE OF DEMOCRITUS.
I. Democritus was the son of Hegesistratus, but as some say, of
Athenocrites, and, according to other accounts, of Damasippus. He was
a native of Abdera, or, as it is stated by some authors, a citizen of
Miletus.
II. He was a pupil of some of the Magi and Chaldæans, whom Xerxes had
left with his father as teachers, when he had been hospitably received
by him, as Herodotus informs us;[127] and from these men he, while still
a boy, learned the principles of astronomy and theology. Afterwards, his
father entrusted him to Leucippus, and to Anaxagoras, as some authors
assert, who was forty years older than he. And Phavorinus, in his
Universal History, says that Democritus said of Anaxagoras, that his
opinions about the sun and moon were not his own, but were old theories,
and that he had stolen them. And that he used also to pull to pieces his
assertions about the composition of the world, and about mind, as he was
hostile to him, because he had declined to admit him as a pupil. How then
can he have been a pupil of his, as some assert? And Demetrius in his
treatise on People of the same Name, and Antisthenes in his Successions,
both affirm that he travelled to Egypt to see the priests there, and
to learn mathematics of them; and that he proceeded further to the
Chaldæans, and penetrated into Persia, and went as far as the Persian
Gulf. Some also say that he made acquaintance with the Gymnosophists in
India, and that he went to Æthiopia.
III. He was one of three brothers who divided their patrimony among them;
and the most common story is, that he took the smaller portion, as it was
in money, because he required money for the purpose of travelling; though
his brothers suspected him of entertaining some treacherous design. And
Demetrius says, that his share amounted to more than a hundred talents,
and that he spent the whole of it.
IV. He also says, that he was so industrious a man, that he cut off for
himself a small portion of the garden which surrounded his house, in
which there was a small cottage, and shut himself up in it. And on one
occasion, when his father brought him an ox to sacrifice, and fastened it
there, he for a long time did not discover it, until his father having
roused him, on the pretext of the sacrifice, told him what he had done
with the ox.
V. He further asserts, that it is well known that he went to Athens, and
as he despised glory, he did not desire to be known; and that he became
acquainted with Socrates, without Socrates knowing who he was. “For I
came,” says he, “to Athens, and no one knew me.” “If,” says Thrasylus,
“the Rivals is really the work of Plato, then Democritus must be the
anonymous interlocutor, who is introduced in that dialogue, besides
Œnopides and Anaxagoras, the one I mean who, in the conversation with
Socrates, is arguing about philosophy, and whom the philosopher tells,
that a philosopher resembles a conqueror in the Pentathlum.” And he was
veritably a master of five branches of philosophy. For he was thoroughly
acquainted with physics, and ethics, and mathematics, and the whole
encyclic system, and indeed he was thoroughly experienced and skilful in
every kind of art. He it was who was the author of the saying, “Speech
is the shadow of action.” But Demetrius Phalereus, in his Defence of