1. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of The Philosophers, 6.15, 6.21-6.22, 6.35, 6.37, 6.57, 6.59, 6.61, 6.66, 7.3, 7.26-7.27, 7.29, 7.179, 9.6, 9.61-9.63, 9.96 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 6.15. Antisthenes gave the impulse to the indifference of Diogenes, the continence of Crates, and the hardihood of Zeno, himself laying the foundations of their state. Xenophon calls him the most agreeable of men in conversation and the most temperate in everything else.His writings are preserved in ten volumes. The first includes:A Treatise on Expression, or Styles of Speaking.Ajax, or The Speech of Ajax.Odysseus, or Concerning Odysseus.A Defence of Orestes, or Concerning Forensic Writers.Isography (similar writing), or Lysias and Isocrates.A Reply to the Speech of Isocrates entitled Without Witnesses.Vol. 2 includes:of the Nature of Animals.of Procreation of Children, or of Marriage: a discourse on love.of the Sophists: a work on Physiognomy. 6.21. One version is that his father entrusted him with the money and that he debased it, in consequence of which the father was imprisoned and died, while the son fled, came to Delphi, and inquired, not whether he should falsify the coinage, but what he should do to gain the greatest reputation; and that then it was that he received the oracle.On reaching Athens he fell in with Antisthenes. Being repulsed by him, because he never welcomed pupils, by sheer persistence Diogenes wore him out. Once when he stretched out his staff against him, the pupil offered his head with the words, Strike, for you will find no wood hard enough to keep me away from you, so long as I think you've something to say. From that time forward he was his pupil, and, exile as he was, set out upon a simple life. 6.22. Through watching a mouse running about, says Theophrastus in the Megarian dialogue, not looking for a place to lie down in, not afraid of the dark, not seeking any of the things which are considered to be dainties, he discovered the means of adapting himself to circumstances. He was the first, say some, to fold his cloak because he was obliged to sleep in it as well, and he carried a wallet to hold his victuals, and he used any place for any purpose, for breakfasting, sleeping, or conversing. And then he would say, pointing to the Stoa of Zeus and the Pompeion, that the Athenians had provided him with places to live in. 6.35. Some one dropped a loaf of bread and was ashamed to pick it up; whereupon Diogenes, wishing to read him a lesson, tied a rope to the neck of a wine-jar and proceeded to drag it across the Ceramicus.He used to say that he followed the example of the trainers of choruses; for they too set the note a little high, to ensure that the rest should hit the right note. Most people, he would say, are so nearly mad that a finger makes all the difference. For, if you go along with your middle finger stretched out, some one will think you mad, but, if it's the little finger, he will not think so. Very valuable things, said he, were bartered for things of no value, and vice versa. At all events a statue fetches three thousand drachmas, while a quart of barley-flour is sold for two copper coins. 6.37. One day, observing a child drinking out of his hands, he cast away the cup from his wallet with the words, A child has beaten me in plainness of living. He also threw away his bowl when in like manner he saw a child who had broken his plate taking up his lentils with the hollow part of a morsel of bread. He used also to reason thus: All things belong to the gods. The wise are friends of the gods, and friends hold things in common. Therefore all things belong to the wise. One day he saw a woman kneeling before the gods in an ungraceful attitude, and wishing to free her of superstition, according to Zoilus of Perga, he came forward and said, Are you not afraid, my good woman, that a god may be standing behind you? – for all things are full of his presence – and you may be put to shame? 6.57. On coming to Myndus and finding the gates large, though the city itself was very small, he cried, Men of Myndus, bar your gates, lest the city should run away. Seeing a man who had been caught stealing purple, he said:Fast gripped by purple death and forceful fate.When Craterus wanted him to come and visit him, No, he replied, I would rather live on a few grains of salt at Athens than enjoy sumptuous fare at Craterus's table. He went up to Anaximenes the rhetorician, who was fat, and said, Let us beggars have something of your paunch; it will be a relief to you, and we shall get advantage. And when the same man was discoursing, Diogenes distracted his audience by producing some salt fish. This annoyed the lecturer, and Diogenes said, An obol's worth of salt fish has broken up Anaximenes' lecture-class. 6.59. When some one expressed astonishment at the votive offerings in Samothrace, his comment was, There would have been far more, if those who were not saved had set up offerings. But others attribute this remark to Diagoras of Melos. To a handsome youth, who was going out to dinner, he said, You will come back a worse man. When he came back and said next day, I went and am none the worse for it, Diogenes said, Not Worse-man (Chiron), but Lax-man (Eurytion). He was asking alms of a bad-tempered man, who said, Yes, if you can persuade me. If I could have persuaded you, said Diogenes, I would have persuaded you to hang yourself. He was returning from Lacedaemon to Athens; and on some one asking, Whither and whence? he replied, From the men's apartments to the women's. 6.61. He was gathering figs, and was told by the keeper that not long before a man had hanged himself on that very fig-tree. Then, said he, I will now purge it. Seeing an Olympian victor casting repeated glances at a courtesan, See, he said, yonder ram frenzied for battle, how he is held fast by the neck fascinated by a common minx. Handsome courtesans he would compare to a deadly honeyed potion. He was breakfasting in the marketplace, and the bystanders gathered round him with cries of dog. It is you who are dogs, cried he, when you stand round and watch me at my breakfast. When two cowards hid away from him, he called out, Don't be afraid, a hound is not fond of beetroot. 6.66. Being reproached with drinking in a tavern, Well, said he, I also get my hair cut in a barber's shop. Being reproached with accepting a cloak from Antipater, he replied:The gods' choice gifts are nowise to be spurned.When some one first shook a beam at him and then shouted Look out, Diogenes struck the man with his staff and added Look out. To a man who was urgently pressing his suit to a courtesan he said, Why, hapless man, are you at such pains to gain your suit, when it would be better for you to lose it? To one with perfumed hair he said, Beware lest the sweet scent on your head cause an ill odour in your life. He said that bad men obey their lusts as servants obey their masters. 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. 7.179. 7. CHRYSIPPUSChrysippus, the son of Apollonius, came either from Soli or from Tarsus, as Alexander relates in his Successions. He was a pupil of Cleanthes. Before this he used to practise as a long-distance runner; but afterwards he came to hear Zeno, or, as Diocles and most people say, Cleanthes; and then, while Cleanthes was still living, withdrew from his school and attained exceptional eminence as a philosopher. He had good natural parts and showed the greatest acuteness in every branch of the subject; so much so that he differed on most points from Zeno, and from Cleanthes as well, to whom he often used to say that all he wanted was to be told what the doctrines were; he would find out the proofs for himself. Nevertheless, whenever he had contended against Cleanthes, he would afterwards feel remorse, so that he constantly came out with the lines:Blest in all else am I, save only whereI touch Cleanthes: there I am ill-fortuned. 9.6. This book he dedicated in the sanctuary of Artemis and, according to some, he deliberately made it the more obscure in order that none but adepts should approach it, and lest familiarity should breed contempt. of our philosopher Timon gives a sketch in these words:In their midst uprose shrill, cuckoo-like, a mob-reviler, riddling Heraclitus.Theophrastus puts it down to melancholy that some parts of his work are half-finished, while other parts make a strange medley. As a proof of his magimity, Antisthenes in his Successions of Philosophers cites the fact that he renounced his claim to the kingship in favour of his brother. So great fame did his book win that a sect was founded and called the Heracliteans, after him. 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. 9.62. He led a life consistent with this doctrine, going out of his way for nothing, taking no precaution, but facing all risks as they came, whether carts, precipices, dogs or what not, and, generally, leaving nothing to the arbitrament of the senses; but he was kept out of harm's way by his friends who, as Antigonus of Carystus tells us, used to follow close after him. But Aenesidemus says that it was only his philosophy that was based upon suspension of judgement, and that he did not lack foresight in his everyday acts. He lived to be nearly ninety.This is what Antigonus of Carystus says of Pyrrho in his book upon him. At first he was a poor and unknown painter, and there are still some indifferent torch-racers of his in the gymnasium at Elis. 9.63. He would withdraw from the world and live in solitude, rarely showing himself to his relatives; this he did because he had heard an Indian reproach Anaxarchus, telling him that he would never be able to teach others what is good while he himself danced attendance on kings in their courts. He would maintain the same composure at all times, so that, even if you left him when he was in the middle of a speech, he would finish what he had to say with no audience but himself, although in his youth he had been hasty. often, our informant adds, he would leave his home and, telling no one, would go roaming about with whomsoever he chanced to meet. And once, when Anaxarchus fell into a slough, he passed by without giving him any help, and, while others blamed him, Anaxarchus himself praised his indifference and sang-froid. 9.96. They deny, too, that there is such a thing as a sign. If there is, they say, it must either be sensible or intelligible. Now it is not sensible, because what is sensible is a common attribute, whereas a sign is a particular thing. Again, the sensible is one of the things which exist by way of difference, while the sign belongs to the category of relative. Nor is a sign an object of thought, for objects of thought are of four kinds, apparent judgements on things apparent, non-apparent judgements on things non-apparent, non-apparent on apparent, or apparent on non-apparent; and a sign is none of these, so that there is no such thing as a sign. A sign is not apparent on apparent, for what is apparent needs no sign; nor is it non-apparent on non-apparent, for what is revealed by something must needs appear; |
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