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Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database



4479
Diogenes Laertius, Lives Of The Philosophers, 1.13-1.15
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Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

5 results
1. Plato, Theaetetus, None (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)

2. Epictetus, Discourses, 1.14.6 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)

3. Mishnah, Avot, 1 (1st cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)

4. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of The Philosophers, 1.14-1.16, 9.5, 9.20-9.21, 9.61, 9.69, 9.71-9.74 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)

9.5. He was exceptional from his boyhood; for when a youth he used to say that he knew nothing, although when he was grown up he claimed that he knew everything. He was nobody's pupil, but he declared that he inquired of himself, and learned everything from himself. Some, however, had said that he had been a pupil of Xenophanes, as we learn from Sotion, who also tells us that Ariston in his book On Heraclitus declares that he was cured of the dropsy and died of another disease. And Hippobotus has the same story.As to the work which passes as his, it is a continuous treatise On Nature, but is divided into three discourses, one on the universe, another on politics, and a third on theology. 9.20. He also said that the mass of things falls short of thought; and again that our encounters with tyrants should be as few, or else as pleasant, as possible. When Empedocles remarked to him that it is impossible to find a wise man, Naturally, he replied, for it takes a wise man to recognize a wise man. Sotion says that he was the first to maintain that all things are incognizable, but Sotion is in error.One of his poems is The Founding of Colophon, and another The Settlement of a Colony at Elea in Italy, making 2000 lines in all. He flourished about the 60th Olympiad. That he buried his sons with his own hands like Anaxagoras is stated by Demetrius of Phalerum in his work On Old Age and by Panaetius the Stoic in his book of Cheerfulness. He is believed to have been sold into slavery by [... and to have been set free by] the Pythagoreans Parmeniscus and Orestades: so Favorinus in the first book of his Memorabilia. There was also another Xenophanes, of Lesbos, an iambic poet.Such were the sporadic philosophers. 9.21. 3. PARMENIDESParmenides, a native of Elea, son of Pyres, was a pupil of Xenophanes (Theophrastus in his Epitome makes him a pupil of Anaximander). Parmenides, however, though he was instructed by Xenophanes, was no follower of his. According to Sotion he also associated with Ameinias the Pythagorean, who was the son of Diochaetas and a worthy gentleman though poor. This Ameinias he was more inclined to follow, and on his death he built a shrine to him, being himself of illustrious birth and possessed of great wealth; moreover it was Ameinias and not Xenophanes who led him to adopt the peaceful life of a student.He was the first to declare that the earth is spherical and is situated in the centre of the universe. He held that there were two elements, fire and earth, and that the former discharged the function of a craftsman, the latter of his material. 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. 9.69. Once in Elis he was so hard pressed by his pupils' questions that he stripped and swam across the Alpheus. Now he was, as Timon too says, most hostile to Sophists.Philo, again, who had a habit of very often talking to himself, is also referred to in the lines:Yea, him that is far away from men, at leisure to himself,Philo, who recks not of opinion or of wrangling.Besides these, Pyrrho's pupils included Hecataeus of Abdera, Timon of Phlius, author of the Silli, of whom more anon, and also Nausiphanes of Teos, said by some to have been a teacher of Epicurus. All these were called Pyrrhoneans after the name of their master, but Aporetics, Sceptics, Ephectics, and even Zetetics, from their principles, if we may call them such — 9.71. Some call Homer the founder of this school, for to the same questions he more than anyone else is always giving different answers at different times, and is never definite or dogmatic about the answer. The maxims of the Seven Wise Men, too, they call sceptical; for instance, Observe the Golden Mean, and A pledge is a curse at one's elbow, meaning that whoever plights his troth steadfastly and trustfully brings a curse on his own head. Sceptically minded, again, were Archilochus and Euripides, for Archilochus says:Man's soul, O Glaucus, son of Leptines,Is but as one short day that Zeus sends down.And Euripides:Great God! how can they say poor mortal menHave minds and think? Hang we not on thy will?Do we not what it pleaseth thee to wish? 9.72. Furthermore, they find Xenophanes, Zeno of Elea, and Democritus to be sceptics: Xenophanes because he says,Clear truth hath no man seen nor e'er shall knowand Zeno because he would destroy motion, saying, A moving body moves neither where it is nor where it is not; Democritus because he rejects qualities, saying, Opinion says hot or cold, but the reality is atoms and empty space, and again, of a truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well. Plato, too, leaves the truth to gods and sons of gods, and seeks after the probable explanation. Euripides says: 9.73. Who knoweth if to die be but to live,And that called life by mortals be but death?So too Empedocles:So to these mortal may not list nor lookNor yet conceive them in his mind;and before that:Each believes naught but his experience.And even Heraclitus: Let us not conjecture on deepest questions what is likely. Then again Hippocrates showed himself two-sided and but human. And before them all Homer:Pliant is the tongue of mortals; numberless the tales within it;andAmple is of words the pasture, hither thither widely ranging;andAnd the saying which thou sayest, back it cometh later on thee,where he is speaking of the equal value of contradictory sayings. 9.74. The Sceptics, then, were constantly engaged in overthrowing the dogmas of all schools, but enuntiated none themselves; and though they would go so far as to bring forward and expound the dogmas of the others, they themselves laid down nothing definitely, not even the laying down of nothing. So much so that they even refuted their laying down of nothing, saying, for instance, We determine nothing, since otherwise they would have been betrayed into determining; but we put forward, say they, all the theories for the purpose of indicating our unprecipitate attitude, precisely as we might have done if we had actually assented to them. Thus by the expression We determine nothing is indicated their state of even balance; which is similarly indicated by the other expressions, Not more (one thing than another)
5. Plotinus, Enneads, 1.6.2, 2.3.9, 2.9.16, 2.9.18, 3.5.1, 4.3.1, 5.5.1, 6.9.7 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)



Subjects of this text:

subject book bibliographic info
academy Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 112
aenesidemus Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 75, 112
alexandria Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 112
anaxagoras Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17
anaximander Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17
anaximenes Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17
antiochus of ascolon,platonist Esler (2000), The Early Christian World, 65
archilochus Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 110, 113
bernabé,a. Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17
cornford,f.m. Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17
democritus Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17; Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 110, 113
diogenes laertius Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17; Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 75, 110, 112, 113
empedocles Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 110
epicurus Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17
eudorus of alexandria,platonist Esler (2000), The Early Christian World, 65
euripides Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 110, 113
guthrie,w.k.c. Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17
heraclitus Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 75, 110, 112
homer Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 110, 113
kahn,c.h. Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17
leucippus Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17
lists Bickerman and Tropper (2007), Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 537
marcus aurelius,stoic Esler (2000), The Early Christian World, 65
oral law Bickerman and Tropper (2007), Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 537
parmenides Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17; Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 75
pharisees Bickerman and Tropper (2007), Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 537
philosophers Bickerman and Tropper (2007), Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 537
philosophy,graeco-roman Esler (2000), The Early Christian World, 65
phoenicians Bickerman and Tropper (2007), Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 537
plato Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17; Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 110
platonism,hellenistic Esler (2000), The Early Christian World, 65
plotinus,platonism Esler (2000), The Early Christian World, 65
pyrrho Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 75
pyrrhonism Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 75, 112, 113
pyrrhonists Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 112
pythagoras Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17
pythagoras and pythagoreans Bickerman and Tropper (2007), Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 537
reality Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 110
rome,law Bickerman and Tropper (2007), Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 537
sassi,m.m. Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17
schools Bickerman and Tropper (2007), Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 537
seven sages Bickerman and Tropper (2007), Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 537; Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 110, 113
sextus empiricus Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 75, 110
shechemites Bickerman and Tropper (2007), Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 537
skepticism,academic skepticism Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 112
skepticism Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 110, 112
socrates Bickerman and Tropper (2007), Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 537; Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17
sotion Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 112
stoicism Bickerman and Tropper (2007), Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 537
stoics Esler (2000), The Early Christian World, 65
suspension of judgment Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 113
theodosius Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 113
timon Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 75
xenophanes Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17; Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 75, 110, 112, 113
zeno Bickerman and Tropper (2007), Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 537
zeno of elea' Cornelli (2013), In Search of Pythagoreanism: Pythagoreanism as an Historiographical Category, 17
zeno of elea Vogt (2015), Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. 110, 113
zoroaster Bickerman and Tropper (2007), Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 537