1. Homer, Iliad, 1.8-1.10, 1.247-1.248, 2.783, 3.223, 8.537 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 83 | 1.8. / from the time when first they parted in strife Atreus' son, king of men, and brilliant Achilles.Who then of the gods was it that brought these two together to contend? The son of Leto and Zeus; for he in anger against the king roused throughout the host an evil pestilence, and the people began to perish, 1.9. / from the time when first they parted in strife Atreus' son, king of men, and brilliant Achilles.Who then of the gods was it that brought these two together to contend? The son of Leto and Zeus; for he in anger against the king roused throughout the host an evil pestilence, and the people began to perish, 1.10. / because upon the priest Chryses the son of Atreus had wrought dishonour. For he had come to the swift ships of the Achaeans to free his daughter, bearing ransom past counting; and in his hands he held the wreaths of Apollo who strikes from afar, on a staff of gold; and he implored all the Achaeans, 1.247. / the staff studded with golden nails, and himself sat down, while over against him the son of Atreus continued to vent his wrath. Then among them arose Nestor, sweet of speech, the clear-voiced orator of the Pylians, from whose tongue flowed speech sweeter than honey. Two generations of mortal men had passed away in his lifetime, 1.248. / the staff studded with golden nails, and himself sat down, while over against him the son of Atreus continued to vent his wrath. Then among them arose Nestor, sweet of speech, the clear-voiced orator of the Pylians, from whose tongue flowed speech sweeter than honey. Two generations of mortal men had passed away in his lifetime, 2.783. / So marched they then as though all the land were swept with fire; and the earth groaned beneath them, as beneath Zeus that hurleth the thunderbolt in his wrath, when he scourgeth the land about Typhoeus in the country of the Arimi, where men say is the couch of Typhoeus. Even so the earth groaned greatly beneath their tread as they went; 3.223. / thou wouldest have deemed him a churlish man and naught but a fool. But whenso he uttered his great voice from his chest, and words like snowflakes on a winter's day, then could no mortal man beside vie with Odysseus; then did we not so marvel to behold Odysseus' aspect. 8.537. / Tomorrow shall he come to know his valour, whether he can abide the on-coming of my spear. Nay, amid the foremost, methinks, shall he lie smitten with a spear-thrust, and full many of his comrades round about him at the rising of to-morrow's sun. I would that mine own self I might be immortal and ageless all my days, |
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| 2. Homer, Odyssey, 11.582 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 82 |
| 3. Alcaeus, Fragments, 338 (7th cent. BCE - 6th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 65, 66 |
| 4. Alcaeus, Fragments, 338 (7th cent. BCE - 6th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 65, 66 |
5. Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1195 (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 79| 1195. ἢ ψευδόμαντίς εἰμι θυροκόπος φλέδων; | 1195. False prophet am I, — knock at doors, a babbler? |
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| 6. Antisthenes, Fragments, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 81 |
| 7. Crates Comicus, Fragments, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 63, 64, 65 |
| 8. Crates Comicus, Fragments, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 63, 64, 65 |
| 9. Alcaeus Comicus, Fragments, 338 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 65, 66 |
| 10. Plato, Protagoras, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Long (2006) 82 |
| 11. Septuagint, Prayer of Azariah, 1.1, 1.3, 1.29, 1.62, 1.193, 1.237 (5th cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 79, 81 |
| 12. Antisthenes, Fragments, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 81 |
| 13. Callimachus, Aetia, None (4th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 65 |
| 14. Timon of Phlius, Fragments, None (4th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Long (2006) 81 |
| 15. Menander, Fragments, 215 (4th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 81 |
| 16. Crates, Fragments, None (4th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 63, 64, 65 |
| 17. Menander, Fragments, 215 (4th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 81 |
| 18. Menander, Fragments, 215 (4th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 81 |
| 19. Menander, Fragments, 215 (4th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 81 |
| 20. Menander, Fragments, 215 (4th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 81 |
| 21. Antisthenes of Rhodes, Fragments, None (3rd cent. BCE - 2nd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 81 |
| 22. Chrysippus, Fragments, None (3rd cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 65, 66 |
| 23. Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library, 10.12.11, 37.2.31, 37.3.61 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 11 |
| 24. Plutarch, Moralia, None (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 63 |
| 25. Plutarch, Advice About Keeping Well, 125 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 81 |
| 26. Lucian, Dialogues of The Dead, 2.1, 20.6 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 64 |
| 27. Sextus, Against The Mathematicians, 1.55, 7.87-7.88, 8.5 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 81, 85 |
| 28. Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 5.1.11 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 83 |
| 29. Athenaeus, The Learned Banquet, None (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Rohland (2022) 70 |
30. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of The Philosophers, 4.52, 6.5, 6.7, 6.11, 6.26-6.28, 6.34, 6.51, 6.83, 6.85-6.87, 6.92, 6.101, 6.103-6.104, 7.3, 7.26-7.27, 7.29, 9.61, 9.108, 10.6-10.8 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 11, 79, 81, 82, 84, 85; Rohland (2022) 66 | 4.52. For little else was needed to convert him to the doctrine of entire insensibility.Next he went over to Theodorean views, after he had heard the lectures of Theodorus the Atheist, who used every kind of sophistical argument. And after Theodorus he attended the lectures of Theophrastus the Peripatetic. He was fond of display and great at cutting up anything with a jest, using vulgar names for things. Because he employed every style of speech in combination, Eratosthenes, we hear, said of him that he was the first to deck philosophy with bright-flowered robes. He was clever also at parody. Here is a specimen of his style:O gentle Archytas, musician-born, blessed in thine own conceit, most skilled of men to stir the bass of strife. 6.5. Being asked what was the height of human bliss, he replied, To die happy. When a friend complained to him that he had lost his notes, You should have inscribed them, said he, on your mind instead of on paper. As iron is eaten away by rust, so, said he, the envious are consumed by their own passion. Those who would fain be immortal must, he declared, live piously and justly. States, said he, are doomed when they are unable to distinguish good men from bad. Once, when he was applauded by rascals, he remarked, I am horribly afraid I have done something wrong.When brothers agree, no fortress is so strong as their common life, he said. The right outfit for a voyage, he said, is such as, even if you are shipwrecked, will go through the water with you. 6.7. Being asked what learning is the most necessary, he replied, How to get rid of having anything to unlearn. And he advised that when men are slandered, they should endure it more courageously than if they were pelted with stones.And he used to taunt Plato with being conceited. At all events when in a procession he spied a spirited charger he said, turning to Plato, It seems to me that you would have made just such a proud, showy steed. This because Plato was constantly praising horseflesh. And one day he visited Plato, who was ill, and seeing the basin into which Plato had vomited, remarked, The bile I see, but not the pride. 6.11. And he held virtue to be sufficient in itself to ensure happiness, since it needed nothing else except the strength of a Socrates. And he maintained that virtue is an affair of deeds and does not need a store of words or learning; that the wise man is self-sufficing, for all the goods of others are his; that ill repute is a good thing and much the same as pain; that the wise man will be guided in his public acts not by the established laws but by the law of virtue; that he will also marry in order to have children from union with the handsomest women; furthermore that he will not disdain to love, for only the wise man knows who are worthy to be loved. 6.26. And one day when Plato had invited to his house friends coming from Dionysius, Diogenes trampled upon his carpets and said, I trample upon Plato's vainglory. Plato's reply was, How much pride you expose to view, Diogenes, by seeming not to be proud. Others tell us that what Diogenes said was, I trample upon the pride of Plato, who retorted, Yes, Diogenes, with pride of another sort. Sotion, however, in his fourth book makes the Cynic address this remark to Plato himself. Diogenes once asked him for wine, and after that also for some dried figs; and Plato sent him a whole jar full. Then the other said, If some one asks you how many two and two are, will you answer, Twenty? So, it seems, you neither give as you are asked nor answer as you are questioned. Thus he scoffed at him as one who talked without end. 6.27. Being asked where in Greece he saw good men, he replied, Good men nowhere, but good boys at Lacedaemon. When one day he was gravely discoursing and nobody attended to him, he began whistling, and as people clustered about him, he reproached them with coming in all seriousness to hear nonsense, but slowly and contemptuously when the theme was serious. He would say that men strive in digging and kicking to outdo one another, but no one strives to become a good man and true. 6.28. And he would wonder that the grammarians should investigate the ills of Odysseus, while they were ignorant of their own. Or that the musicians should tune the strings of the lyre, while leaving the dispositions of their own souls discordant; that the mathematicians should gaze at the sun and the moon, but overlook matters close at hand; that the orators should make a fuss about justice in their speeches, but never practise it; or that the avaricious should cry out against money, while inordinately fond of it. He used also to condemn those who praised honest men for being superior to money, while themselves envying the very rich. He was moved to anger that men should sacrifice to the gods to ensure health and in the midst of the sacrifice should feast to the detriment of health. He was astonished that when slaves saw their masters were gluttons, they did not steal some of the viands. 6.34. To those who said to him, You are an old man; take a rest, What? he replied, if I were running in the stadium, ought I to slacken my pace when approaching the goal? ought I not rather to put on speed? Having been invited to a dinner, he declared that he wouldn't go; for, the last time he went, his host had not expressed a proper gratitude. He would walk upon snow barefoot and do the other things mentioned above. Not only so; he even attempted to eat meat raw, but could not manage to digest it. He once found Demosthenes the orator lunching at an inn, and, when he retired within, Diogenes said, All the more you will be inside the tavern. When some strangers expressed a wish to see Demosthenes, he stretched out his middle finger and said, There goes the demagogue of Athens. 6.51. Good men he called images of the gods, and love the business of the idle. To the question what is wretched in life he replied, An old man destitute. Being asked what creature's bite is the worst, he said, of those that are wild a sycophant's; of those that are tame a flatterer's. Upon seeing two centaurs very badly painted, he asked, Which of these is Chiron? (worse man). Ingratiating speech he compared to honey used to choke you. The stomach he called livelihood's Charybdis. Hearing a report that Didymon the flute-player had been caught in adultery, his comment was, His name alone is sufficient to hang him. To the question why gold is pale, his reply was, Because it has so many thieves plotting against it. On seeing a woman carried in a litter, he remarked that the cage was not in keeping with the quarry. 6.83. He came to be a distinguished man; so much so that he is even mentioned by the comic poet Meder. At any rate in one of his plays, The Groom, his words are:One Monimus there was, a wise man, Philo,But not so very famous.a. He, you mean,Who carried the scrip?b. Nay, not one scrip, but three.Yet never a word, so help me Zeus, spake heTo match the saying, Know thyself, nor suchFamed watchwords. Far beyond all these he went,Your dusty mendicant, pronouncing wholly vainAll man's supposings.Monimus indeed showed himself a very grave moralist, so that he ever despised mere opinion and sought only truth.He has left us, besides some trifles blended with covert earnestness, two books, On Impulses and an Exhortation to Philosophy. 6.85. 5. CRATESCrates, son of Ascondas, was a Theban. He too was amongst the Cynic's famous pupils. Hippobotus, however, alleges that he was a pupil not of Diogenes, but of Bryson the Achaean. The following playful lines are attributed to him:There is a city Pera in the midst of wine-dark vapour,Fair, fruitful, passing squalid, owning nought,Into which sails nor fool nor parasiteNor glutton, slave of sensual appetite,But thyme it bears, garlic, and figs and loaves,For which things' sake men fight not each with other,Nor stand to arms for money or for fame. 6.86. There is also his widely circulated day-book, which runs as follows:Set down for the chef ten minas, for the doctorOne drachma, for a flatterer talents five,For counsel smoke, for mercenary beautyA talent, for a philosopher three obols.He was known as the Door-opener – the caller to whom all doors fly open – from his habit of entering every house and admonishing those within. Here is another specimen of his composition:That much I have which I have learnt and thought,The noble lessons taught me by the Muses:But wealth amassed is prey to vanity.And again he says that what he has gained from philosophy isA quart of lupins and to care for no one.This too is quoted as his:Hunger stops love, or, if not hunger, Time,Or, failing both these means of help, – a halter. 6.87. He flourished in the 113th Olympiad.According to Antisthenes in his Successions, the first impulse to the Cynic philosophy was given to him when he saw Telephus in a certain tragedy carrying a little basket and altogether in a wretched plight. So he turned his property into money, – for he belonged to a distinguished family, – and having thus collected about 200 talents, distributed that sum among his fellow-citizens. And (it is added) so sturdy a philosopher did he become that he is mentioned by the comic poet Philemon. At all events the latter says:In summer-time a thick cloak he would wearTo be like Crates, and in winter rags.Diocles relates how Diogenes persuaded Crates to give up his fields to sheep pasture, and throw into the sea any money he had. 6.92. You will see these men, who are laughing at you, tortured before long by disease, counting you happy, and reproaching themselves for their sluggishness. He used to say that we should study philosophy to the point of seeing in generals nothing but donkey-drivers. Those who live with flatterers he declared to be as defenceless as calves in the midst of wolves; for neither these nor those have any to protect them, but only such as plot against them. Perceiving that he was dying, he would chant over himself this charm, You are going, dear hunchback, you are off to the house of Hades, – bent crooked by old age. For his years had bowed him down. 6.101. There have been six men named Menippus: the first the man who wrote a History of the Lydians and abridged Xanthus; the second my present subject; the third a sophist of Stratonicea, a Carian by descent; the fourth a sculptor; the fifth and sixth painters, both mentioned by Apollodorus.However, the writings of Menippus the Cynic are thirteen in number:Necromancy.Wills.Epistles artificially composed as if by the gods.Replies to the physicists and mathematicians and grammarians; andA book about the birth of Epicurus; andThe School's reverence for the twentieth day.Besides other works. 6.103. Such are the lives of the several Cynics. But we will go on to append the doctrines which they held in common – if, that is, we decide that Cynicism is really a philosophy, and not, as some maintain, just a way of life. They are content then, like Ariston of Chios, to do away with the subjects of Logic and Physics and to devote their whole attention to Ethics. And what some assert of Socrates, Diocles records of Diogenes, representing him as saying: We must inquire intoWhate'er of good or ill within our halls is wrought.They also dispense with the ordinary subjects of instruction. At least Antisthenes used to say that those who had attained discretion had better not study literature, lest they should be perverted by alien influences. 6.104. So they get rid of geometry and music and all such studies. Anyhow, when somebody showed Diogenes a clock, he pronounced it a serviceable instrument to save one from being late for dinner. Again, to a man who gave a musical recital before him he said:By men's minds states are ordered well, and households,Not by the lyre's twanged strings or flute's trilled notes.They hold further that Life according to Virtue is the End to be sought, as Antisthenes says in his Heracles: exactly like the Stoics. For indeed there is a certain close relationship between the two schools. Hence it has been said that Cynicism is a short cut to virtue; and after the same pattern did Zeno of Citium live his life. 7.3. As he went on reading the second book of Xenophon's Memorabilia, he was so pleased that he inquired where men like Socrates were to be found. Crates passed by in the nick of time, so the bookseller pointed to him and said, Follow yonder man. From that day he became Crates's pupil, showing in other respects a strong bent for philosophy, though with too much native modesty to assimilate Cynic shamelessness. Hence Crates, desirous of curing this defect in him, gave him a potful of lentil-soup to carry through the Ceramicus; and when he saw that he was ashamed and tried to keep it out of sight, with a blow of his staff he broke the pot. As Zeno took to flight with the lentil-soup flowing down his legs, Why run away, my little Phoenician? quoth Crates, nothing terrible has befallen you. 7.26. The reason he gave for this was that the man capable of giving a proper hearing to what is said and profiting by it was superior to him who discovers everything himself. For the one had merely a right apprehension, the other in obeying good counsel superadded conduct.When he was asked why he, though so austere, relaxed at a drinking-party, he said, Lupins too are bitter, but when they are soaked become sweet. Hecato too in the second book of his Anecdotes says that he indulged freely at such gatherings. And he would say, Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue. Well-being is attained by little and little, and nevertheless it is no little thing itself. [Others attribute this to Socrates.] 7.27. He showed the utmost endurance, and the greatest frugality; the food he used required no fire to dress, and the cloak he wore was thin. Hence it was said of him:The cold of winter and the ceaseless rainCome powerless against him: weak the dartof the fierce summer sun or racking painTo bend that iron frame. He stands apartUnspoiled by public feast and jollity:Patient, unwearied night and day doth heCling to his studies of philosophy.Nay more: the comic poets by their very jests at his expense praised him without intending it. Thus Philemon says in a play, Philosophers:This man adopts a new philosophy.He teaches to go hungry: yet he getsDisciples. One sole loaf of bread his food;His best dessert dried figs; water his drink.Others attribute these lines to Poseidippus.By this time he had almost become a proverb. At all events, More temperate than Zeno the philosopher was a current saying about him. Poseidippus also writes in his Men Transported:So that for ten whole daysMore temperate than Zeno's self he seemed. 7.29. The Athenians buried him in the Ceramicus and honoured him in the decrees already cited above, adding their testimony of his goodness. Here is the epitaph composed for him by Antipater of Sidon:Here lies great Zeno, dear to Citium, who scaled high Olympus, though he piled not Pelion on Ossa, nor toiled at the labours of Heracles, but this was the path he found out to the stars – the way of temperance alone. 9.61. 11. PYRRHOPyrrho of Elis was the son of Pleistarchus, as Diocles relates. According to Apollodorus in his Chronology, he was first a painter; then he studied under Stilpo's son Bryson: thus Alexander in his Successions of Philosophers. Afterwards he joined Anaxarchus, whom he accompanied on his travels everywhere so that he even forgathered with the Indian Gymnosophists and with the Magi. This led him to adopt a most noble philosophy, to quote Ascanius of Abdera, taking the form of agnosticism and suspension of judgement. He denied that anything was honourable or dishonourable, just or unjust. And so, universally, he held that there is nothing really existent, but custom and convention govern human action; for no single thing is in itself any more this than that. 9.108. For in matters which are for us to decide we shall neither choose this nor shrink from that; and things which are not for us to decide but happen of necessity, such as hunger, thirst and pain, we cannot escape, for they are not to be removed by force of reason. And when the dogmatists argue that he may thus live in such a frame of mind that he would not shrink from killing and eating his own father if ordered to do so, the Sceptic replies that he will be able so to live as to suspend his judgement in cases where it is a question of arriving at the truth, but not in matters of life and the taking of precautions. Accordingly we may choose a thing or shrink from a thing by habit and may observe rules and customs. According to some authorities the end proposed by the Sceptics is insensibility; according to others, gentleness. 10.6. It is added that he corresponded with many courtesans, and especially with Leontion, of whom Metrodorus also was enamoured. It is observed too that in his treatise On the Ethical End he writes in these terms: I know not how to conceive the good, apart from the pleasures of taste, sexual pleasures, the pleasures of sound and the pleasures of beautiful form. And in his letter to Pythocles: Hoist all sail, my dear boy, and steer clear of all culture. Epictetus calls him preacher of effeminacy and showers abuse on him.Again there was Timocrates, the brother of Metrodorus, who was his disciple and then left the school. He in the book entitled Merriment asserts that Epicurus vomited twice a day from over-indulgence, and goes on to say that he himself had much ado to escape from those notorious midnight philosophizings and the confraternity with all its secrets; 10.7. further, that Epicurus's acquaintance with philosophy was small and his acquaintance with life even smaller; that his bodily health was pitiful, so much so that for many years he was unable to rise from his chair; and that he spent a whole mina daily on his table, as he himself says in his letter to Leontion and in that to the philosophers at Mitylene. Also that among other courtesans who consorted with him and Metrodorus were Mammarion and Hedia and Erotion and Nikidion. He alleges too that in his thirty-seven books On Nature Epicurus uses much repetition and writes largely in sheer opposition to others, especially to Nausiphanes, and here are his own words: Nay, let them go hang: for, when labouring with an idea, he too had the sophist's off-hand boastfulness like many another servile soul; 10.8. besides, he himself in his letters says of Nausiphanes: This so maddened him that he abused me and called me pedagogue. Epicurus used to call this Nausiphanes jelly-fish, an illiterate, a fraud, and a trollop; Plato's school he called the toadies of Dionysius, their master himself the golden Plato, and Aristotle a profligate, who after devouring his patrimony took to soldiering and selling drugs; Protagoras a pack-carrier and the scribe of Democritus and village schoolmaster; Heraclitus a muddler; Democritus Lerocritus (the nonsense-monger); and Antidorus Sannidorus (fawning gift-bearer); the Cynics foes of Greece; the Dialecticians despoilers; and Pyrrho an ignorant boor. |
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| 31. Stobaeus, Anthology, 3.14 (5th cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: nan nan |
| 32. Menander Protector, Fragments, 215 (6th cent. CE - 6th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 81 |
| 33. Bion of Boysthenes, Fr., None Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Long (2006) 81 |
| 34. Simplicius of Cilicia, In Aristotelis Categorias Commentarium, 8, 196 (missingth cent. CE - 5th cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Long (2006) 79 |
35. Strabo, Geography, 15.1.63-15.1.65 Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 85 | 15.1.63. Onesicritus says, that he himself was sent to converse with these wise men. For Alexander heard that they went about naked, practised constancy and fortitude, and were held in the highest honour; that, when invited, they did not go to other persons, but commanded others to come to them, if they wished to participate in their exercises or their conversation. Such being their character, Alexander did not consider it to be consistent with propriety to go to them, nor to compel them to do anything contrary to their inclination or against the custom of their country; he therefore despatched Onesicritus to them.Onesicritus found, at the distance of 20 stadia from the city, fifteen men standing in different postures, sitting or lying down naked, who continued in these positions until the evening, and then returned to the city. The most difficult thing to endure was the heat of the sun, which was so powerful, that no one else could endure without pain to walk on the ground at mid-day with bare feet. 15.1.64. He conversed with Calanus, one of these sophists, who accompanied the king to Persia, and died after the custom of his country, being placed on a pile of [burning] wood. When Onesicritus came, he was lying upon stones. Onesicritus approached, accosted him, and told him that he had been sent by the king, who had heard the fame of his wisdom, and that he was to give an account of his interview, if there were no objection, he was ready to listen to his discourse. When Calanus saw his mantle, head-covering, and shoes, he laughed, and said, 'Formerly, there was abundance everywhere of corn and barley, as there is now of dust; fountains then flowed with water, milk, honey, wine, and oil, but mankind by repletion and luxury became proud and insolent. Jupiter, indigt at this state of things, destroyed all, and appointed for man a life of toil. On the reappearance of temperance and other virtues, there was again an abundance of good things. But at present the condition of mankind approaches satiety and insolence, and there is danger lest the things which now exist should disappear.'When he had finished, he proposed to Onesicritus, if he wished to hear his discourse, to strip off his clothes, to lie down naked by him on the same stones, and in that manner to listen to him; while he was hesitating what to do, Mandanis, who was the oldest and wisest of the sophists, reproached Calanus for his insolence, although he censured such insolence himself. Mandanis called Onesicritus to him, and said, I commend the king, because, although he governs so large an empire, he is yet desirous of acquiring wisdom, for he is the only philosopher in arms that I ever saw; it would be of the greatest advantage, if those were philosophers who have the power of persuading the willing and of compelling the unwilling to learn temperance; but I am entitled to indulgence, if, when conversing by means of three interpreters, who, except the language, know no more than the vulgar, I am not able to demonstrate the utility of philosophy. To attempt it is to expect water to flow pure through mud. 15.1.65. 'The tendency of his discourse,' he said, 'was this, that the best philosophy was that which liberated the mind from pleasure and grief; that grief differed from labour, in that the former was inimical, the latter friendly to men; for that men exercised their bodies with labour in order to strengthen the mental powers, by which means they would be able to put an end to dissensions, and give good counsel to all, to the public and to individuals; that he certainly should at present advise Taxiles to receive Alexander as a friend; for if he entertained a person better than himself, he might be improved; but if a worse person, he might dispose him to good.'After this Mandanis inquired, whether such doctrines were taught among the Greeks. Onesicritus answered, that Pythagoras taught a similar doctrine, and enjoined his disciples to abstain from whatever has life; that Socrates and Diogenes, whose discourses he had heard, held the same opinions. Mandanis replied, 'that in other respects he thought them wise, but that in one thing they were mistaken, namely, in preferring custom to nature, for otherwise they would not be ashamed of going naked, like himself, and of subsisting on frugal fare; for the best house was that which required least repairs.' He says also that they employ themselves much on natural subjects, as prognostics, rain, drought, and diseases. When they repair to the city, they disperse themselves in the market-places; if they meet any one carrying figs or bunches of grapes, they take what is offered gratuitously; if it is oil, it is poured over them, and they are anointed with it. Every wealthy house, even to the women's apartment, is open to them; when they enter it, they engage in conversation, and partake of the repast. Disease of the body they regard as most disgraceful, and he who apprehends it, after preparing a pyre, destroys himself by fire; he (previously) anoints himself, and sitting down upon it orders it to be lighted, remaining motionless while he is burning. |
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| 36. Long And Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, None Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Long (2006) 11 |
| 37. Epigraphy, Kaibel, 546.16 Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 65 |
| 38. Monimus, Ssr V G, 2 Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 64 |
| 39. Phoenix of Colophon, Fr., 231-232, 234 Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Rohland (2022) 70 |
| 40. [Alexis], Fr., 25 Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 68, 70 |
| 41. Crates of Thebes, Fragments, None Tagged with subjects: •nan Found in books: Long (2006) 81 |
| 42. Choerilus of Iasus, Sh, 335.3 Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 63, 64, 65 |
| 43. Various, Ap, 7.326 Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 63, 64, 65 |
| 44. Crates Atheniensis 1. Jh. V. Chr., Fragments, None Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 63, 64, 65 |
| 45. Epicurus, Letter To Menoeceus, 127 Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 79 |
| 46. Epicurus, Sententiae Vaticanae, 79 Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 79 |
| 47. Hegesippus, Philetairoi, 2.5-2.6 Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Rohland (2022) 70 |
| 48. Posidonius, Testimonia And Fragments, 187 Tagged with subjects: •crates of thebes Found in books: Long (2006) 79 |
