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Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database



4479
Diogenes Laertius, Lives Of The Philosophers, 9.45


nanAll things happen by virtue of necessity, the vortex being the cause of the creation of all things, and this he calls necessity. The end of action is tranquillity, which is not identical with pleasure, as some by a false interpretation have understood, but a state in which the soul continues calm and strong, undisturbed by any fear or superstition or any other emotion. This he calls well-being and many other names. The qualities of things exist merely by convention; in nature there is nothing but atoms and void space. These, then, are his opinions.Of his works Thrasylus has made an ordered catalogue, arranging them in fours, as he also arranged Plato's works.


Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

9 results
1. Hesiod, Theogony, 115, 114 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE)

114. Such is the precious gift of each goddess.
2. Homer, Iliad, 2.284 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE)

2.284. /in the likeness of a herald, bade the host keep silence, that the sons of the Achaeans, both the nearest and the farthest, might hear his words, and lay to heart his counsel. He with good intent addressed their gathering and spake among them:Son of Atreus, now verily are the Achaeans minded to make thee, O king
3. Homer, Odyssey, 5.392, 11.575, 12.169 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE)

4. Theophrastus, On The Senses, 64, 63 (4th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)

5. Seneca The Younger, On Leisure, 2.3 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)

6. Sextus, Against The Mathematicians, 7.135 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)

7. Sextus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, 1.3, 1.213, 1.226 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)

8. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of The Philosophers, 6.26-6.27, 9.61, 9.63-9.64, 9.67-9.68, 9.72 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)

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. 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. 9.63. 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. 9.64. On being discovered once talking to himself, he answered, when asked the reason, that he was training to be good. In debate he was looked down upon by no one, for he could both discourse at length and also sustain a cross-examination, so that even Nausiphanes when a young man was captivated by him: at all events he used to say that we should follow Pyrrho in disposition but himself in doctrine; and he would often remark that Epicurus, greatly admiring Pyrrho's way of life, regularly asked him for information about Pyrrho; and that he was so respected by his native city that they made him high priest, and on his account they voted that all philosophers should be exempt from taxation.Moreover, there were many who emulated his abstention from affairs, so that Timon in his Pytho and in his Silli says: 9.67. They say that, when septic salves and surgical and caustic remedies were applied to a wound he had sustained, he did not so much as frown. Timon also portrays his disposition in the full account which he gives of him to Pytho. Philo of Athens, a friend of his, used to say that he was most fond of Democritus, and then of Homer, admiring him and continually repeating the lineAs leaves on trees, such is the life of man.He also admired Homer because he likened men to wasps, flies, and birds, and would quote these verses as well:Ay, friend, die thou; why thus thy fate deplore?Patroclus too, thy better, is no more,and all the passages which dwell on the unstable purpose, vain pursuits, and childish folly of man. 9.68. Posidonius, too, relates of him a story of this sort. When his fellow-passengers on board a ship were all unnerved by a storm, he kept calm and confident, pointing to a little pig in the ship that went on eating, and telling them that such was the unperturbed state in which the wise man should keep himself. Numenius alone attributes to him positive tenets. He had pupils of repute, in particular one Eurylochus, who fell short of his professions; for they say that he was once so angry that he seized the spit with the meat on it and chased his cook right into the market-place. 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. Eusebius of Caesarea, Preparation For The Gospel, 14.18.1-14.18.5 (3rd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)



Subjects of this text:

subject book bibliographic info
anaxarchus xxv,and indifference regarding value Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 683, 684
anaxarchus xxv Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 683, 684
annas,julia Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 684
arguments (λóγοι) Schibli (2002), Hierocles of Alexandria, 244
ataraxia Long (2006), From Epicurus to Epictetus Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, 73
atomism,and sense perception Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 683, 684
barnes,jonathan Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 684
belief (doxa) Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 684
bett,richard Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 683
bett.,r. Long (2006), From Epicurus to Epictetus Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, 73
burnyeat,m.f. Long (2006), From Epicurus to Epictetus Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, 73
cannibalism Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 683
character,excellence of Long (2006), From Epicurus to Epictetus Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, 73
cicero,as source for democritus Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 216
consistency Long (2006), From Epicurus to Epictetus Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, 73
cynics Long (2006), From Epicurus to Epictetus Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, 73
deception and falsehood Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 683
democritus,evidence and sources Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 216
democritus Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 216, 684
diogenes of babylon Long (2006), From Epicurus to Epictetus Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, 73
epicureans Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 684
epicurus,on nature and the self Long (2006), From Epicurus to Epictetus Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, 73
euthumia/-ē Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 684
flattery Schibli (2002), Hierocles of Alexandria, 244
goodness,good life Long (2006), From Epicurus to Epictetus Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, 73
heraclitus,evidence of works Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 216
homer Long (2006), From Epicurus to Epictetus Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, 73
imagination Schibli (2002), Hierocles of Alexandria, 244
indifference Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 683, 684
kathekon,kenos Long (2006), From Epicurus to Epictetus Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, 73
nature,of things Long (2006), From Epicurus to Epictetus Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, 73
nausiphanes Long (2006), From Epicurus to Epictetus Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, 73
objectivism,objectivity Long (2006), From Epicurus to Epictetus Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, 73
perceptual relativism Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 683, 684
pyrrho,and anaxarchus Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 683, 684
reason(ing) (σ λόγος) Schibli (2002), Hierocles of Alexandria, 244
right (όρθός λόγος / λογισμός) Schibli (2002), Hierocles of Alexandria, 244
shame Schibli (2002), Hierocles of Alexandria, 244
skepticism,indifference Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 683, 684
socratic problem Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 216
sophists' Long (2006), From Epicurus to Epictetus Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, 73
taylor,christopher Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 684
timon of phlius Long (2006), From Epicurus to Epictetus Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy, 73
tyrants Schibli (2002), Hierocles of Alexandria, 244
vlastos,gregory Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 684
worth (άξία) Schibli (2002), Hierocles of Alexandria, 244
οὐ μᾶλλον\u200e arguments Wolfsdorf (2020), Early Greek Ethics, 683, 684