2. Cicero, On The Ends of Good And Evil, 3.32, 3.60-3.61 (2nd cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 3.32. Sed in ceteris artibus cum dicitur artificiose, posterum quodam modo et consequens putandum est, quod illi e)pigennhmatiko/n appellant; cum cum Ern. Dav. quod autem in quo sapienter dicimus, dicimus etiam A ( cf. ad. v. 5 ) id a primo a primo BE ad primo AR ad primum N apprime V rectissime dicitur. quicquid enim a sapientia asapiencia E as apia (= asapientia) B a sapienti ARV a sapiente N proficiscitur, id continuo debet expletum esse omnibus suis partibus; in eo enim positum est id, enim positum est id positum est enim id BE enim positum ad est ( om. id) V quod dicimus dicimus om. A esse expetendum. nam ut peccatum est patriam prodere, parentes violare, violari ABER fana depeculari, quae sunt in effectu, effecto ABERN 1 oppido V opido sic timere, sic maerere, sic in libidine esse peccatum est etiam sine effectu. verum ut haec non in posteris et in consequentibus, sed in primis continuo peccata sunt, sic ea, quae proficiscuntur a virtute, susceptione prima, non perfectione recta sunt iudicanda. 3.60. Sed cum ab his omnia proficiscantur officia, non sine causa dicitur ad ea referri omnes nostras cogitationes, in his et excessum e vita et in vita mansionem. in quo enim plura sunt quae secundum naturam sunt, huius officium est in vita manere; in quo autem aut sunt plura contraria aut fore videntur, huius officium est de vita excedere. ex quo ex quo RV e quo (equo) apparet et sapientis esse aliquando officium excedere e vita, cum beatus sit, et stulti manere in vita, cum sit miser. 3.61. nam bonum illud et malum, quod saepe iam dictum est, postea consequitur, prima autem illa naturae sive secunda sive contraria sub iudicium sapientis et dilectum cadunt, estque illa subiecta quasi materia materie BE sapientiae. itaque et manendi in vita et migrandi ratio omnis iis iis edd. in V his rebus, quas supra dixi, metienda. nam neque virtute retinetur ille in add. Se. vita, nec iis, qui qui que BER sine virtute sunt, mors est oppetenda. et et Urs. ut saepe officium est sapientis desciscere a vita, cum sit beatissimus, si id oportune facere possit, quod est convenienter naturae. sic naturae sic B naturae vivere sic ( etiam E) enim censent, oportunitatis esse beate vivere. itaque a sapientia praecipitur se ipsam, si usus sit, sapiens ut relinquat. quam ob rem cum vitiorum ista vis non sit, ut causam afferant mortis voluntariae, perspicuum est etiam stultorum, qui idem miseri sint, officium esse manere in vita, si sint in maiore parte rerum earum, earum rerum BE quas secundum naturam esse dicimus. et quoniam excedens e vita et manens aeque miser est nec diuturnitas magis ei magis ei ei (et E) magis BE vitam fugiendam facit, non sine causa dicitur iis, qui pluribus naturalibus frui possint, esse in vita manendum. | 3.32. "But in the other arts when we speak of an 'artistic' performance, this quality must be considered as in a sense subsequent to and a result of the action; it is what the Stoics term epigennÄmatikon (in the nature of an after-growth). Whereas in conduct, when we speak of an act as 'wise,' the term is applied with full correctness from the first inception of the act. For every action that the Wise Man initiates must necessarily be complete forthwith in all its parts; since the thing desirable, as we term it, consists in his activity. As it is a sin to betray one's country, to use violence to one's parents, to rob a temple, where the offence lies in the result of the act, so the passions of fear, grief and lust are sins, even when no extraneous result ensues. The latter are sins not in their subsequent effects, but immediately upon their inception; similarly, actions springing from virtue are to be judged right from their first inception, and not in their successful completion. 3.60. But since these neutral things form the basis of all appropriate acts, there is good ground for the dictum that it is with these things that all our practical deliberations deal, including the will to live and the will to quit this life. When a man's circumstances contain a preponderance of things in accordance with nature, it is appropriate for him to remain alive; when he possesses or sees in prospect a majority of the contrary things, it is appropriate for him to depart from life. This makes it plain that it is on occasion appropriate for the Wise Man to quit life although he is happy, and also of the Foolish Man to remain in life although he is miserable. 3.61. For with the Stoics good and evil, as has repeatedly been said already, are a subsequent outgrowth; whereas the primary things of nature, whether favourable or the reverse, fall under the judgment and choice of the Wise Man, and form so to speak the subject-matter, the given material with which wisdom deals. Therefore the reasons both for remaining in life and for departing from it are to be measured entirely by the primary things of nature aforesaid. For the virtuous man is not necessarily retained in life by virtue, and also those who are devoid of virtue need not necessarily seek death. And very often it is appropriate for the Wise Man to abandon life at a moment when he is enjoying supreme happiness, if an opportunity offers for making a timely exit. For the Stoic view is that happiness, which means life in harmony with nature, is a matter of seizing the right moment. So that Wisdom her very self upon occasion bids the Wise Man to leave her. Hence, as vice does not possess the power of furnishing a reason for suicide, it is clear that even for the foolish, who are also miserable, it is appropriate to remain alive if they possess a predomice of those things which we pronounce to be in accordance with nature. And since the fool is equally miserable when departing from life and when remaining in it, and the undesirability of his life is not increased by its prolongation, there is good ground for saying that those who are in a position to enjoy a preponderance of things that are natural ought to remain in life. |
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8. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of The Philosophers, 4.4, 4.14, 4.44, 4.61, 6.46, 6.73, 6.76, 7.28, 7.108, 7.183-7.184, 8.39, 10.13 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 4.4. Plutarch in the Lives of Lysander and Sulla makes his malady to have been morbus pedicularis. That his body wasted away is affirmed by Timotheus in his book On Lives. Speusippus, he says, meeting a rich man who was in love with one who was no beauty, said to him, Why, pray, are you in such sore need of him? For ten talents I will find you a more handsome bride.He has left behind a vast store of memoirs and numerous dialogues, among them:Aristippus the Cyrenaic.On Wealth, one book.On Pleasure, one book.On Justice,On Philosophy,On Friendship,On the Gods,The Philosopher,A Reply to Cephalus,Cephalus,Clinomachus or Lysias,The Citizen,of the Soul,A Reply to Gryllus 4.14. Elementary Principles of Monarchy, in four books, dedicated to Alexander.To Arybas.To Hephaestion.On Geometry, two books.These works comprise in all 224,239 lines.Such was his character, and yet, when he was unable to pay the tax levied on resident aliens, the Athenians put him up for sale. And Demetrius of Phalerum purchased him, thereby making twofold restitution, to Xenocrates of his liberty, and to the Athenians of their tax. This we learn from Myronianus of Amastris in the first book of his Chapters on Historical Parallels. He succeeded Speusippus and was head of the school for twenty-five years from the archonship of Lysimachides, beginning in the second year of the 110th Olympiad. He died in his 82nd year from the effects of a fall over some utensil in the night.Upon him I have expressed myself as follows: 4.44. I have given Diogenes my will to be conveyed to you. For, owing to my frequent illnesses and the weak state of my body, I decided to make a will, in order that, if anything untoward should happen, you, who have been so devotedly attached to me, should not suffer by my decease. You are the most deserving of all those in this place to be entrusted with the will, on the score both of age and of relationship to me. Remember then that I have reposed the most absolute confidence in you, and strive to deal justly by me, in order that, so far as you are concerned, the provisions I have made may be carried out with fitting dignity. A copy is deposited at Athens with some of my acquaintance, and another in Eretria with Amphicritus.He died, according to Hermippus, through drinking too freely of unmixed wine which affected his reason; he was already seventy-five and regarded by the Athenians with unparalleled good-will. 4.61. He assumed the headship of the school in the fourth year of the 134th Olympiad, and at his death he had been head for twenty-six years. His end was a palsy brought on by drinking too freely. And here is a quip of my own upon the fact:of thee too, O Lacydes, I have heard a tale, that Bacchus seized thee and dragged thee on tip-toe to the underworld. Nay, was it not clear that when the wine-god comes in force into the frame, he loosens our limbs? Perhaps this is why he gets his name of the Loosener. 6.46. Being short of money, he told his friends that he applied to them not for alms, but for repayment of his due. When behaving indecently in the marketplace, he wished it were as easy to relieve hunger by rubbing an empty stomach. Seeing a youth starting off to dine with satraps, he dragged him off, took him to his friends and bade them keep strict watch over him. When a youth effeminately attired put a question to him, he declined to answer unless he pulled up his robe and showed whether he was man or woman. A youth was playing cottabos in the baths. Diogenes said to him, The better you play, the worse it is for you. At a feast certain people kept throwing all the bones to him as they would have done to a dog. Thereupon he played a dog's trick and drenched them. 6.73. And he saw no impropriety either in taking something from a sanctuary or in eating the flesh of any animal; nor even anything impious in touching human flesh, this, he said, being clear from the custom of some foreign nations. Moreover, according to right reason, as he put it, all elements are contained in all things and pervade everything: since not only is meat a constituent of bread, but bread of vegetables; and all other bodies also, by means of certain invisible passages and particles, find their way in and unite with all substances in the form of vapour. This he makes plain in the Thyestes, if the tragedies are really his and not the work of his friend Philiscus of Aegina or of Pasiphon, the son of Lucian, who according to Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History wrote them after the death of Diogenes. He held that we should neglect music, geometry, astronomy, and the like studies, as useless and unnecessary. 6.76. When, thirdly, the father himself arrived, he was just as much attracted to the pursuit of philosophy as his sons and joined the circle – so magical was the spell which the discourses of Diogenes exerted. Amongst his hearers was Phocion surnamed the Honest, and Stilpo the Megarian, and many other men prominent in political life.Diogenes is said to have been nearly ninety years old when he died. Regarding his death there are several different accounts. One is that he was seized with colic after eating an octopus raw and so met his end. Another is that he died voluntarily by holding his breath. This account was followed by Cercidas of Megalopolis (or of Crete), who in his meliambics writes thus:Not so he who aforetime was a citizen of Sinope,That famous one who carried a staff, doubled his cloak, and lived in the open air. 7.28. And in very truth in this species of virtue and in dignity he surpassed all mankind, ay, and in happiness; for he was ninety-eight when he died and had enjoyed good health without an ailment to the last. Persaeus, however, in his ethical lectures makes him die at the age of seventy-two, having come to Athens at the age of twenty-two. But Apollonius says that he presided over the school for fifty-eight years. The manner of his death was as follows. As he was leaving the school he tripped and fell, breaking a toe. Striking the ground with his fist, he quoted the line from the Niobe:I come, I come, why dost thou call for me?and died on the spot through holding his breath. 7.108. Zeno was the first to use this term καθῆκον of conduct. Etymologically it is derived from κατά τινας ἥκειν, i.e. reaching as far as, being up to, or incumbent on so and so. And it is an action in itself adapted to nature's arrangements. For of the acts done at the prompting of impulse some, they observe, are fit and meet, others the reverse, while there is a third class which is neither the one nor the other.Befitting acts are all those which reason prevails with us to do; and this is the case with honouring one's parents, brothers and country, and intercourse with friends. Unbefitting, or contrary to duty, are all acts that reason deprecates, e.g. to neglect one's parents, to be indifferent to one's brothers, not to agree with friends, to disregard the interests of one's country, and so forth. 7.183. At wine-parties he used to behave quietly, though he was unsteady on his legs; which caused the woman-slave to say, As for Chrysippus, only his legs get tipsy. His opinion of himself was so high that when some one inquired, To whom shall I entrust my son? he replied, To me: for, if I had dreamt of there being anyone better than myself, I should myself be studying with him. Hence, it is said, the application to him of the line:He alone has understanding; the others flit shadow-like around;andBut for Chrysippus, there had been no Stoa. 7.184. At last, however, – so we are told by Sotion in his eighth book, – he joined Arcesilaus and Lacydes and studied philosophy under them in the Academy. And this explains his arguing at one time against, and at another in support of, ordinary experience, and his use of the method of the Academy when treating of magnitudes and numbers.On one occasion, as Hermippus relates, when he had his school in the Odeum, he was invited by his pupils to a sacrificial feast. There after he had taken a draught of sweet wine unmixed with water, he was seized with di7iness and departed this life five days afterwards, having reached the age of seventy-three years, in the 143rd Olympiad. This is the date given by Apollodorus in his Chronology. I have toyed with the subject in the following verses:Chrysippus turned giddy after gulping down a draught of Bacchus; he spared not the Stoa nor his country nor his own life, but fared straight to the house of Hades. 8.39. Pythagoras met his death in this wise. As he sat one day among his acquaintances at the house of Milo, it chanced that the house was set ablaze out of jealousy by one of the people who were not accounted worthy of admittance to his presence, though some say it was the work of the inhabitants of Croton anxious to safeguard themselves against the setting-up of a tyranny. Pythagoras was caught as he tried to escape; he got as far as a certain field of beans, where he stopped, saying he would be captured rather than cross it, and be killed rather than prate about his doctrines; and so his pursuers cut his throat. So also were murdered more than half of his disciples, to the number of forty or thereabouts; but a very few escaped, including Archippus of Tarentum and Lysis, already mentioned. 10.13. Apollodorus in his Chronology tells us that our philosopher was a pupil of Nausiphanes and Praxiphanes; but in his letter to Eurylochus, Epicurus himself denies it and says that he was self-taught. Both Epicurus and Hermarchus deny the very existence of Leucippus the philosopher, though by some and by Apollodorus the Epicurean he is said to have been the teacher of Democritus. Demetrius the Magnesian affirms that Epicurus also attended the lectures of Xenocrates.The terms he used for things were the ordinary terms, and Aristophanes the grammarian credits him with a very characteristic style. He was so lucid a writer that in the work On Rhetoric he makes clearness the sole requisite. |
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