The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
οἵῳ πέπνυσθαι,—sc: πόρε περσεφόνεια.
[105] The argument by progression is the sorites. “The arrest” is the
method of encountering the sorites, by taking some particular point at
which to stop the admissions required by the sorites.
[106] The remainder of the life of Chrysippus is lost.
[107] See Herod. iv. 93.
[108] This resembles the account which Ovid puts into the mouth of
Pythagoras, in the last book of his Metamorphoses, where he makes him
say:—
Morte carent animæ, semperque priore relicta
Sede, novis domibus habitant vivuntque receptæ;
Ipse ego, nam memini, Trojani tempora belli,
Panthorides Euphorbus eram, cui pectore quondam
Hæsit in adverso gravis hasta minoris Atridæ:
Agnovi Clypeum lævæ gestamina nostræ
Nuper Abanteïs templo Junonis in Argis.
Which may be translated:—
Death has no pow’r th’ immortal soul to slay;
That, when its present body turns to clay,
Seeks a fresh home, and with unminish’d might
Inspires another frame with life and light.
So I myself, (well I the past recall)
When the fierce Greeks begirt Troy’s holy wall,
Was brave Euphorbus; and in conflict drear,
Poured forth my blood beneath Atrides’ spear:
The shield this arm did bear I lately saw
In Juno’s shrine, a trophy of that war.
[109] This passage has been interpreted in more ways than one. Casaubon
thinks with great probability that there is a hiatus in the text. I have
endeavoured to extract a meaning out of what remains. Compare Samuel ii.
16, 23. “And the counsel of Ahitophel, which he counselled in those days,
was as if a man had enquired at the oracle of God; so was all the counsel
of Ahitophel both with David and with Absalom.”
[110] Zaleucus was the celebrated lawgiver of the Epizephyrian Locrians,
and is said to have been originally a slave employed by a shepherd, and
to have been set free and appointed lawgiver by the direction of an
oracle, in consequence of his announcing some excellent laws, which he
represented Minerva as having communicated to him in a dream. Diogenes,
is wrong however, in calling him a disciple of Pythagoras (see Bentley on
Phalaris), as he lived about a hundred years before his time; his true
date being 660 B.C. The code of Zaleucus is stated to have been the first
collection of written laws that the Greeks possessed. Their character
was that of great severity. They have not come down to us. His death is
said to have occurred thus. Among his laws was one forbidding any citizen
to enter the senate house in arms, under the penalty of death. But in
a sudden emergency, Zaleucus himself, in a moment of forgetfulness,
transgressed his own law: on which he slew himself, declaring that he
would vindicate his law. (Eustath. ad. Il. i. p. 60). Diodorus, however,
tells the same story of Charondas.
[111] Charondas was a lawgiver of Catana, who legislated for his own city
and the other towns of Chalcidian origin in Magna Grecia, such as Zancle,
Naxos, Leontini, Eubœa, Mylæ, Himera, Callipolis, and Rhegium. His laws
have not been preserved to us, with the exception of a few judgments.
They were probably in verse, for Athenæus says that they were sung in
Athens at banquets. Aristotle tells us that they were adapted to an
aristocracy. It is much doubted whether it is really true that he was a
disciple of Pythagoras, though we are not sure of his exact time, so that
we cannot pronounce it as impossible as in the preceding case. He must
have lived before the time of Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium, who reigned
from B.C. 494 to B.C. 476, because he abolished the laws of Charondas,
which had previously been in force in that city. Diodorus gives a code of
laws which he states that Charondas gave to the city of Thurii, which was
not founded till B.C. 443, when he must certainly have been dead a long
time. There is one law of his preserved by Stobæus, which is probably
authentic, since it is found in a fragment of Theophrastus; enacting that
all buying and selling shall be transacted by ready money only.
[112] This doctrine is alluded to doubtfully by Virgil, Georg. i. 247.
Illic, ut perhibent, aut intempesta silet nox
Semper, et obductâ densantur nocte tenebræ;
Aut redit a nobis Aurora, diemque reducit;
Nosque ubi primus equis oriens afflavit anhelis,
Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper.
Thus translated by Dryden, l. 338:—
There, as they say, perpetual night is found,
In silence brooding o’er th’ unhappy ground.
Or when Aurora leaves our northern sphere,
She lights the downward heav’n and rises there;
And when on us she breathes the living light
Red Vesper kindles there the tapers of the night.
[113] νοῦς appears, in a division like this, to be the deliberative part
of the mind; φρὴν, the rational part of the intellect: θυμὸς, that part
with which the passions are concerned.
[114] There is a great variety of suggestions as to the proper reading
here. There is evidently some corruption in the text.
[115] From παύω, to cause to cease, ἀνία, sorrow.
[116] It is impossible to give the force of this epigram in any other
language. It is a pun on Ἄκρων, Ἀκράγας and ἄκρος. The last word meaning
not only _high_, _lofty_, but also _eminent_, _very skilful_. The plain
English would be:—“The lofty height of a most eminent country conceals
Acron, a skilful physician of Acragas, the son of a skilful father.” The
variation would be:—“A high tomb on a very high summit, conceals,” &c.
[117] This story is mentioned by Horace:—
Siculique poetæ,
Narrabo interitum; deus immortalis haberi,
Dum cupit Empedocles ardentem frigidus Ætnam,
Insiluit. A. P. 466.
[118] This is slightly parodied from Homer. Od. xi. 278. Pope’s Version,
337.
[119] There were three festivals of Bacchus at Athens at which dramatic
contests took place, the Διονύσια κατ’ ἄγρους, or, “in the fields;” the
Ληναῖα or τὰ ἐν Λίμναις, or “the marshes,” a part of the city near the
Acropolis, in which was situated the Λήναιον, an enclosure dedicated to
Bacchus; and the τὰ ἐν ἄστει, “in the city,” or τὰ μέγαλα Διονύσια. The
comic contests usually took place at the second or Lenæan festivals.
Sometimes also at the Great Dionysia.
[120] ἔνδοξος, glorious.
[121] According to Strabo, the descendants of Androclus, the founder of
Ephesus (of which family Heraclitus came), bore the title of king, and
had certain prerogatives and privileges attached to the title.
[122] There is probably some corruption in the text here.
[123] There is great obscurity and uncertainty of the text here. The
reading translated is that of Huebner, πεφωρᾶσθαι. Some read πεπρᾶσθαι,
_he_ seems to have abandoned the Pythagoreans. Others propose πεπρᾶχθαι.
The French translator renders,—He had for enemies the Pythagoreans.
[124] See the account of Zeno the Cittiæan.
[125] See the life of Parmenides.
[126] There is evidently a considerable gap in the text here.
[127] As there is no such passage in Herodotus, Valckenær conjectures
that we ought here to read Metrodorus.
[128] The Thesmophoria was a festival in honour of Ceres, celebrated
in various parts of Greece; and only by married women; though girls
might perform some of the ceremonies. Herodotus says, that it was
introduced into Greece from Egypt, by the daughters of Danaus. The Attic
Thesmophoria lasted probably three days, and began on the eleventh day of
the month Pyanession; the first day was called ἄνοδος, or κάθοδος, from
the women going in procession to Eleusis; the second νηστεία, or fasting;
the third was called καλλιγένεια, as on that day Ceres was invoked under
that name, and it was the day of merriment of the festival.
[129] Namely, reasoning well, expressing one’s self well, and acting well.
[130] This is thus embodied by Lucretius:—
Nam nihil e nihilo, in nihilum nîl posse reverti.
[131] Hom. Il. v. 340. Pope’s version, 422.
[132] Il. vi. 146.
[133] Il. xxi. 106. Pope’s version, 115.
[134] Homer, Il. xx. 248. Pope’s version, 294.
[135] There is too remarkable a similarity in this to Campbell’s lines:—
’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountains in their azure hue:
to allow one to pass it over without pointing it out.
[136] “Diogenes here appears (though, he gives no intimation of his doing
so,) to be transcribing the reasonings of some one of the Sceptics.”
_French Transl._
[137] That is to say, the harmony between intellect and the senses will
not last long. Attagas and Numenius were two notorious brigands.
[138] That is, “trifler,” from κρίνω, to judge; and λῆρος, nonsensical
talk.
[139] That is, flattering for gifts; from σαίνω, to wag the tail as a
dog, to caress; and δῶρον, a gift.
[140] This sentence is a remark of Diogenes himself. There are several
more of his observations in parentheses as we proceed.
[141] This is the argument in its completed form: “We can only form an
idea of an atom by analogy, and analogy demonstrates to us that it is
not of infinite littleness. In fact, let us compare it to the smallest
particles recognisable by sense, and then let us endeavour to form an
idea of these last. To do this we must take a term of comparison in
complex objects, which are composed of various parts. Abstracting from
these all other characteristics but that of extent, we see that these
objects have dimensions, some greater and some less, measuring an extent
which is greater or less as the case may be. The smallest sensible
particle will then have its dimensions; it will measure the smallest
possible sensible extent, that is to say, it will not be infinitely
small. Applying this analogy to an atom, one comes to conceive it as
measuring the smallest extent possible, but not as having no extent at
all, which was what Epicurus wished to prove.”—_French Translator._
[142] This is a quotation from Theognis.
[143] From the Trachiniæ of Sophocles, 1784.
[144] There is some hopeless corruption in the text here. Nor has any one
succeeded in making it intelligible. The French translator divides it
into two maxims.
[145] There in some great corruption here again. The French translator
takes 19, 20, and 21 all as one.
INDEX.
⁂ The Roman numerals refer to the sections, the Arabic figures to the
pages.
ÆSCHINES, a rhetorician, vii. 80.
calumniated, iii. 79.
lectured at Athens, iv. 80.
son of a sausage seller, i. 79.
ALCMÆON, Crotona, his view of the soul, 371.
ANACHARSIS, inventions of, ii. 48.
letter to Crœsus, 49.
received by Solon, iii. 47.
return to Scythia, iv. 47.
sayings of, v. 47.
one of the wise, 46.
ANAXAGORAS, called MIND, i. 59.
epigrams on, x. 62.
first prose writer, viii. 61.
opinions of, iii. 59.
prosecuted for impiety, ix. 61.
ANAXARCHUS, called HAPPY, iii. 401.
intimate with Alexander, 400.
Nicocreon, his enemy, 401.
ANAXIMANDER, the astronomer, 57.
ANAXIMENES, letters to Pythagoras, 58.
Annicereans, their opinions, x. 92.
ANTISTHENES, doctrines of, v. 220.
founds a manly Stoic school, viii. 221.
love of life, x. 223.
pupil of Gorgias, ii. 217.
sayings of, iv. 218.
writings of, ix. 222.
ARCESILAUS, a favourite of Eumenes and Hierocles, xiv. 168.
an admirer of Plato, viii. 165.
a poet, iv. 164.
axiomatic and free-spoken, x. 165.
death from excess, x. 170.
disliked talkativeness, 166.
founder of the Middle Academy, ii. 163.
goes to Crantor, iii. 163.
letter to Thaumasias, xix. 170.
liberal with money, xiii. 167.
vices of, xvi. 168.
ARCHELAUS, 62.
a natural philosopher, ii. 62.
opinions on heat and cold, &c. iii. 63.