in his wits can be so impertinent as to applaud Cleobulus the Lindian for equalling a Statue in diuturnity to the course of Rivers Vernal Flowers the Beams of the Sun the Light of the Moon and Waves of the Sea For all these things says he are inferiour to the Gods but for a Stone how easily is it broken by mortal hands So that at last he calls Cleobulus in plain Terms a meer mad Man. Whence it is apparent that it was none of Homer's who as they say was many years before Midas There is likewise extant in Pamphila's Commentaries an Enigma of his in these words One Father has twelve Sons and each of these Has thirty various colour'd Sons apiece For some are white and some in black disguise Immortal too and yet not one but dies By which is meant the year His chiefest and most celebrated Sentences were these That ignorance and multitude of words predominates in the greatest part of Mankind whereas Opportunity and Season would suffice That vertue and honour ought to be our chiefest study and that we ought to avoid Vanity and Ingratitude That we ought to give our Daughters that Education that when they come to be married they should be Virgins in Age but Women in Prudence That we ought to be kind to our Friends to make 'em more our Friends and to our Enemies to gain their Friendship That we ought to beware being upbraided by our Friends and ensnared by our Enemies That when a Man goes abroad he should consider what he has to do and when he returns home what he has done That it was the duty of all Men to be more desirous to hear than speak and to be lovers of Instruction rather than Illiterate To restrain the Tongue from Slander and Back-biting fly injustice and advise the Public to the best advantage To refrain voluptuous Pleasure act nothing violently give Children good Education and reconcile Enmity Neither to flatter nor contend with a Woman in the presence of Strangers the one being a sign of Folly the other of Madness To marry among Equals for he that marries a Wife superiour to himself must be a slave to her Relations Not to be puft up with prosperity nor to despair in want and generously to brook the Changes of Fortune He dy'd an old Man in the Seventieth year of his Age and had this Epitaph engrav'd upon his Monument Wise Cleobulus was no sooner gone But Sea-girt Lindus did his loss bemoan There is also extant the following short Epistle of his to Solon Cleobulus to Solon MAny are thy Friends and all Mens doors are open to receive thee However I believe that Lindus being under a Democratical Government can never be inconvenient for Solon where he may live out of fear of Pisistratus beside that being a Sea Town he may be certain of the visits of his Friends from all part THE LIFE of PERIANDER PEriander the Corinthian was the Son of Cypselus of the Race of the Heraclidae He marry'd Lysida whom he himself call'd by the name of Melissa the Daughter of Procleus Tyrant of Epidaurum and Eristhenea the Daughter of Aristocrates and Sister of Aristodemus Which Procleus as Heraclides Ponticus witnesses in his Book of Government extended his Dominion almost over all Arcadia By her he had two Sons Cypselus and Lycophron of which the younger became a Wise Man the elder grew a meer Natural After some time in the height of his Passion he threw his Wise under the Stairs being then big with Child and spurn'd her to death incensed thereto by his Harlots which afterwards nevertheles he flung into the fire and burnt And then renounc'd his Son Lycophron and sent him into Corcyra for weeping at his Mother's Funeral However when he grew in years he sent for him again to invest him in the Tyranny while he liv'd Which the Corcyreans understanding resolved to prevent his design and so slew the young Prince At which Periander enrag'd sent their Children to Alyattes to be Eunuchiz'd But when the Ship arriv'd at Samos the Children upon their supplications to Juno were sav'd by the Samians Which when the Tyrant understood he dy'd for very anguish of mind being at that time fourscore years of Age. Sosicrates affirms That he dy'd before Croesus one and forty years before the forty ninth Olympiad Heredetus also reports That he was entertain'd by Thrasybulus Tyrant of the Milesians In like manner Aristippus in his first Book of Antiquities relates thus much farther concerning him How that his Mother Cratea being desperately in love with him privately enjoy'd him nothing scrupulous of the Crime But that when the Incest came to be discover'd he grew uneasie to all his Subjects out of meer madness that his insane Amours were brought to light Ephorus moreover tells us another Story That he made a Vow if he won his Chariot Race at the Olympic Games to offer up a Golden Statue to the Deity But when he had won the Victory he wanted money and therefore understanding that the Women would be all in their Pomp upon such a solemn approaching Festival he sent and despoil'd 'em of all their Rings and Jewels and by that means supply'd himself for the performance of his Vow Some there are who report That designing to conceal the Place of his Burial he made use of this Invention He commanded two young Men shewing 'em a certain Road to set forth in the night and to kill and bury him they met first after them he sent four more with command to kill and bury them and after those he sent a greater number with the same Orders by which means meeting the first he was slain himself However the Corinthians would not suffer his supposed Tomb to go without an Anagram in memory of so great a Person in these words For Wealth and Wisdom Periander fam'd Now Corinth holds the place where once he reign'd Close to the Shore he lies and that same Earth Conceals him now that gave him once his Birth To which we may add another of our own Ne'er grieve because thou art not Rich or Wise But what the Gods bestow let that suffice For here we see great Periander gone With all his Wealth and all his high Renown Extinct and in the Grave laid low for all His Art and Wit could not prevent his Fall. It was one of his Admonitions to do nothing for Money 's sake and to Princes that designed to reign securely to guard themselves with the good Will of their Subjects not with Arms. Being asked why he persisted to govern singly He answered Because 't was equally dangerous to resign whether willingly or by Compulsion Some of his Apothegms were these That Peace was a good thing Precipitancy dangerous That Democracy was better than Tyranny That Pleasure was Corruptible and Transitory but Honour Immortal In Prosperity said he be moderate in Adversity Prudent Be the same to thy Friends as well in their Misfortunes as in all their Splendour Be
as to the manner and cause of his Death that he dy'd as he was beholding a Publick Wrastling Match not able through old age to support the inconveniencies of Heat and Thirst Which occasion'd the following Epigram to be engrav'd upon his Tomb. Viewing th' Olympic Wrestlers stout and strong Eâ—lian Jove withdrew him from the Throng Kind Heav'n to bring him nearer whose dim Eyes Had lost from Earth the prospect of the Skies This same Thales also was the Author of that Golden Sentence Know thy self which Antisthenes in his Successions ascribes to Phemonoes and which Chile also assum'd to himself And here it will not be amiss to repeat what were the various and different Opinions of the Ancients concerning the seven Wise Men. For Damon the Cyrenean in the first place discoursing of the Philosophers arraigns 'em All especially the Seven Anaximenes avers that they addicted themselves to the study of Poetry Dicaearchus denys 'em to be either Wise Men or Philosophers but only certain Persons of good Natural Parts and Lawgivers Archetimus of Syracuse has set down in writing their manner of meeting and discourse with Cypselus where he says he was present himself And Euphorus relates how they all attended upon Croesus except only Thales Some report that they met all together at Panionium at Corinth and Delphos and are so confident as to recite their Sentences and to distinguish the sayings of the one from those of the other As for Example The Spartan Chilo say they was the Wise Man who uttered the Proverb of Nothing to Excess and that other The observance of Season and Opportunity produces all things Great and Glorious In the next place they cannot agree about their Number For Leandrius instead of Myso and Cleobulus inserts Leophantus the Ephesian and Epimenides of Creet Plato in his Protagoras puts Myso for Periander Euphorus advances Anacharsis instead of Myso Others add Pythagoras Moreover Dicaearchus will acknowledge no more than four Wise Men Thales Bias Pittacus and Solon Then he names six others out of which he chuses three Aristodemus Pamphilus and Chilo the Lacedaemonian Cleobulus Anacharsis and Periander And some there are who also bring into the number Acusilaus and Cabas or Scabras of Argos But then Hermippus in his History of the Wise Men musters up no less than Seventeen out of which number others make choice of what seven they please Now the whole Seventeen were Solon Thales Pittacus Bias Chilo Cleobulus Periander Anacharsis Acusilaus Epimenides Leophantus Pherecycles Aristodemon Pythagoras Lasus the Son of Charmantida or Sisymbrinus or Chabrinus according to Aristoxenus Hermioneus and Anaxagoras Nor must we omit that Hippobatus observes another order in setting down their Names For he places Orpheus first then Linus then Solon Periander Anacharsis Cleobulus Myso Thales Byas Pittacus Epicharmus and last of all Pythagoras There are also the following Epistles which are publish'd abroad under the name of Thales Thales to Pherecydes I Understand thy Design to be the first among the Ionians that ever publish'd to the Greeks the Mysteries of Divinity Though perhaps it may be more proper upon second thoughts to Communicate thy Writings only to thy Friends than to expose to the vulgar what to them will be of no use or advantage Which advice if it prove acceptable to thee I should be willing to confer with thee üpon the subjects of thy discourse To which purpose upon the least encouragement I will hasten with all imaginable speed to give thee a visit For neither Solon nor my self would be thought to be so indiscreet or unfriendly that we who can so easily make Voyages into Creet and Egypt to converse with the Priests and Astronomers in those parts should think it much to visit thee For Solon also will be my Companion upon the least intimation from thee well knowing that thou delighted with the pleasures of thy own abode little car'st to change it for Ionian Air nor desir'st much the converse of Strangers only as I am apt to believe thou mak'st it thy business to study close and write hard But as for us that trouble not our selves with writing our leasure will more readily permit us to travel abroad and visit both Greece and Asia Farewell Thales to Solon IF thou leavest Athens I know not where thou canst more conveniently settle thy self than at Miletum once a Colony of thy own Nation and where thou may'st be certain to live secure If it offend thee that we are under a Tyrannical Government for I know thou art an Enemy to all Tyrannies yet let not that deâ—â—r thee from believing that no man shall live more to his satisfaction with us and our friends than thy self Bias has written to thee to make choice of Prinna which if thou shalt think more convenient to do thither also will we hasten to attend thee THE LIFE of SOLON SOLON a Salaminian the Son of Execestides was the first that introduc'd the Seisachthia into Athens Which Seisachthia was the Redemption of Body and Possessions For many people constrain'd by extremity of want pawn'd their very Bodies to the Bankers for which they paid interest Seeing therefore that his Father had left him in money Seven Thousand Talents which were owing from several Men he presently remitted all those Debts and excited others to do the same by his Example and this Law was call'd Seisachthia Whence it is manifest how it came to pass that after such a prosperous Beginning he so easily past his other Laws which it would be too tedious to recite besides that they are to be seen inscrib'd in the publick Tables of Wood. But the greatest act of his was this that when the Athenians and Megareans had fought even to the utter extirpation of each other about the claim which both laid to his native Country of Salamine and that after several overthrows of the Athenians it was generally decreed that it should be death for any Man to propose another Salaminian War Solon counterfeiting himself Mad with a Crown upon his head threw himself into the Market-place where the people being assembled together he caus'd the Cryer to read with a loud Voice certain Heroic Verses which he had compos'd in reference to the Grand Affair of Salamine which so enliven'd and animated the courage of the Athenians that they renewed the War with the Megareans and became Victorious by Solon's means Now the Verses which most concern'd the Athenians were these Oh that some Pholegandrian I had been Or Sicenite and never had been seen In Athens bred then Fame had done me right And th' Attick shewn put Megara to flight And soon after Then haste away to Salamine amain With courage warm'd lost honour to regain He also perswaded the Athenians to lay claim to the Thracian Chersonese And that they might not seem to possess the Island of Salamine by force but of right he caus'd several Graves to be open'd and shew'd the Athenians the Bodies of the dead lying with their
again into a most firm and durable substance The second was a Geometrician of Cyrene and Plato's Master The third the Author of a Treatise Concerning the Exercise of the Voice The fourth he that wrote the Lives of the Legislators beginning from Terpander The fifth a Stoic The sixth he that wrote the Roman History The seventh a Syracusian that wrote of Military Discipline The eighth of Byzantium a famous writer of Politicks The ninth mention'd by Aristotle in his Epitome of the Rhetoricians The tenth a Theban Statuary The eleventh a Painter of which one Polemo makes mention The twelfth an Athenian Painter mention'd by Menodotus The thirteenth an Ephosian Painter of whom Theophrastus speaks in his Treatise of Painting The fourteenth an Epigrammatist The fifteenth wrote the Lives of the Poets The sixteenth a Physician and Disciple of Athenaeus The seventeenth a Chiote and a Stoic Philosopher The eighteenth a Milesian and a Stoic likewise The nineteenth a Tragedian and our own Philosopher makes the twentieth The LIFE of PHAEDO PHaedo an Elean born of a noble Family being taken in the general Sack of his Country was constrain'd for a livelihood to keep a small Victualing-House to which after he had got him a little Door he enjoy'd Socrates for his Bed-fellow and Master till Alcibiades or Crito by the persuasion of Socrates redeem'd him from that Penury and from that time forward he apply'd himself with great diligence to the study of Philosophy He wrote several Dialogues which are undoubtedly acknowledg'd to be his But his Zopyrus Simo and Nicias are called in question His Medus is said to have been written by Aeschines or as some will have it by Polyaenus His Antimachus is controverted And his Scythian Proverbs are attributed to Aeschines His Successor was Plistinus of Eleia and after him the Disciples of Menedemus of Eretricum and Asclepiades the Phthiasian Successor to Stilpo till their time call'd Eliaci but then again from Menedemus Eretrici But of him more hereafter in regard he was the head and founder of that Sect. The LIFE of EVCLIDES EVclides born at Megara adjoyning to the Isthmus as some assert or in Gelo as Alexander affirms in his Successions is reported to have been a great admirer of Parmenides whose writings he continually studied From him the Megarici took their denomination afterwards called Eretrici and after that Dialectici So nam'd by Dionysius the Carthaginian because they always wrote by way of Question and Answer To this great Man says Hermodotus repair'd Plato and all the rest of the Philosophers after the death of Socrates fearing the cruelty of the thirty Tyrants He allow'd but one Supream Good tho' he gave it several Names For sometimes he call'd it Prudence sometimes God and at other times the Great Intelligence He deny'd whatever was contrary to the Supream Good affirming there was no such thing For which he brought his Proofs not by way of Assumption but by way of Inference and Conclusion He also condemn'd the use of Allegories in Disputations For said he they consist either of Similitudes or Dissimilitudes If of Similitudes then it behoves the Disputant to insist upon the Similitude rather than upon those things for which the Illustration is intended If of Dissimilitudes then the Comparison is to no purpose Timon therefore derides him together with the rest of the Socratics in the following Lines Phaedo be hang'd with all his Rakeshame Crew I neither mind 'em nor their Trifles view Nor their fam'd Euclid neither fam'd for what For plaguing Megara with brawling Chat. He wrote six Dialogues entitl'd Lamprias Aeschines Phoenix Crito Alcibiades and Eroticum To Euclid succeeded Eubulides the Milesian who form'd in writing several Moods and Figures in Logic by way of Interrogation under the names of the Fallacious the Latent the Electra the Involv'd the Sorite the Horned and the Bald of which Timon Contentious Euclid with his Horned Queries And ranting Bumbast his admirers wearies Yet after all his babling thus by rote Demosthenes's R sticks in his Throat For Demosthenes seems to have been once his hearer but because he pronounc'd the Letter R worse than his Master he forsook his Master that could not remedy his impediment As for Eubulides it is manifest that he was a great Enemy to Aristotle in whose writings he finds a thousand faults Now among the rest that succeeded Eubulides Alexinus was one famous for a Brangler and a Man of strong parts for which reason he was call'd Alexinus but against no Man so much embitter'd as against Zeno. This Alexinus as Hermippus relates travelling from Elis to Olympia there divulged his Philosophy at what time being ask'd by his Scholars why he tarry'd there He reply'd That he intended to set up a new Sect and give it the Title of Olympiac Thereupon his Scholars finding their Provision spent and the place very unhealthy left Alexinus to shift for himself with one Servant only Afterwards as he was swimming in the River Alpheus the sharp end of a Reed ran into his Body of which wound he dy'd Which occasion'd this Epigram of our own 'T was then no story that a Nail should lame The Foot of one that in a River swam For Alexinus in Alpheus found The cursed Reed that gave him his death's wound He not only wrote against Zeno and Ephorus the Historian but several other Treatises Euphantus also the Olynthian was another admirer and follower of Eubulides who wrote the Story of his own Times and several Tragedies which won him great Reputation at the Public Exercises He was also Tutor to King Antigonus to whom he wrote a Treatise of Regality and Kingly Government very much applauded among the Learned and dy'd meerly of old Age. Eubulides had also several other Scholars and among the rest Apollonius Sur-nam'd Cronus The LIFE of DIODORVS DIodorus was the Son of Amenias an Iassian Sur-nam'd also Cronos of whom Callimachus seems to have been a bitter Enemy and writes in derision Yet Momus is so kind upon the Wall To write his Name in Letters Capital Cronos the Wise Oh! never then despise The Man whom Momus has Sur-nam'd the Wise He was a Logician and the first who is reported to have found out the Involv'd and Horned Enthymemes While he Sojourn'd with Ptolomy Soter Stilpo put several Logical Questions to him which when he was not able readily to resolve the King laught at him and call'd him Cronos in derision Thereupon he retir'd from the Banquet and after he had written a whole Treatise upon the Question propounded to him he dy'd for meer Grief Which occasion'd this Epigram of ours Poor Diodorus Cronus which of All The Daemons was it ow'd thee so much Gall So to besot thy Brains thou cou'dst not speak And then with silly Grief thy heart to break Alas thou couldst not Stilpo's knot unty 'T was knit too fast and that 's the reason why 'T was that took P and K from thy Name So Kronos Onos or an Ass
and sixteenth Olympiad Antigonus Carysthius in his Lives reports That his Father was one of the chief Men of the City and one that bred up Horses for the Chariot And that Polemo fled from the severe Sentence of Justice being prosecuted by his Wife for his addiction to Male-Venery In the first years that he fell to his studies he acquir'd such a constancy of Habit and Aspect that it became unalterable neither did he ever change his voice Which were the reasons that Crantor so highly admir'd him Hence it was that being bit in the Heel by a mad Dog he never so much as chang'd colour And that at another time a great uproar happening in the City and understanding what was the matter he stood undaunted like one that had been unconcern'd nor could the Theatre at any time move him to Joy Anger or Compassion So that when Nicostratus surnam'd Clytemnestra told a lamentable story to him and Crates that which mov'd the latter nothing affected him who all the while persever'd in an equal temper as though he had not heard him And indeed he was altogether just such another as Melanthius the Painter describes in his Treatise of Painting For he says that there is a certain Pride and Moroseness that ought to accompany a Man's Actions as well as his Manner And it was the saying of Polemo that iâ— behov'd Men to exercise themselves iâ— Things and not in Logical Speculations which is but labouring and as it were drinking up some little pleasing Science whereby they become admir'd for the subtilty of some particular questions but shew themselves most opposite in their affections And therefore as he was civiâ— and affable so was he no less resolutely constant and he avoided that which Aristophanes writes concerning Euripides when he gives him the Nick-names of Oxotes and Stilpho who no doubt were two cross-grain'd stingy vinegar-condition'd fellows well known at that time For he never sate when he return'd his Answers to the Questions that were propounded to him but always walking Polemo therefore for his extraordinary generosity was highly honour'd in his City Nor did he wander out of the way neither but remain'd in the Garden where his Pupils making up little sheds lodg'd near the Musaeum and the Cloister Indeed Polemo seems in every thing to emulate Xenocrates and to have had a great love for him as Aristippus witnesses in his fourth Book of the Ancient Delights For which reason he always took an occasion to talk of his Innocency and Sincerity and had appropriated to himself his resolution and gravity affecting as it were a kind of Dorick Government of himself He was a great admirer of Sophocles especially in those places where some surly Mastiff according to the Taunts of the Comedian seem'd to have assisted him in the composition of his Verses and where according to the relation of Phrynicus he did not towre in lofty swelling Language but flow'd in a smooth and placid Style And therefore he was wont to call Homer Epic Sophocles and Sophocles Tragic Homer He dy'd well stricken in years of â— Consumption leaving not a few Writingâ— and Commentaries behind him Upon whom we made the following Lines Know'st thou not Passenger already no. Then sickness here has hid fam'd Polemo For my part I believe ye Sir for why Diseases never spare Philosophy 'T is true but this I 'le tell ye for your comfort Though his dry Bones ly here his Soul is run for 't And whither think'st thou To the starry Spheres Let Death and Sickness now go shake their Ears The LIFE of CRATES CRATES the Son of Antigenes of the Thriasian Tribe was both a Hearer and Lover of Polemo and succeeded him in his School and profited in such a manner mutually together so that living they not only followed the same studies but to their very last gasps they liv'd alike one to another and being dead were buried in the same Tomb. Whence Antagoras made the following lines upon both Stranger who e're thou art that passest by Within this Tomb a noble pair doth lye The Holy Crates and Great Polemo From whose sweet Lips such Sacred Love did flow Whose Lives in Wisdom so serenely bright Shon forth to give succeeding Ages light Both equal in their praise both equal friends Both liv'd alike and both had equal ends Hence it was that Arcesilaus when he left Theophrastus to associate with them is reported to have said that they were either certain Deities or the remainders of the Golden Age. For they were neither of 'em lovers of Popularity nor did they covet vulgar Applause but rather it might be said of them as Dionysiodoruâ— the Musitian was wont to boast of himself That never any of his Composition were to be heard at your public Meetingâ— like those of Ismenius Antigonus reports that he was wont often to Sup at Crantor's House Aroesilaus and they two being all three inseparable Cronies Farther he adds that Arcesilaus and Crantor liv'd together and that Polemo liv'd with Crates and Lysiclides another of their Country-men Crates being particularly belov'd by Polemo and Arcesilaus having a peculiar friendship for Crantor As for Crates when he dy'd as Apollodorus relates in his third Book of Chronicles he left several Books behind him some Philosophical some concerning Comedy also several popular Orations and some in relation to Embassies He had also several Disciples of great note Of which number was Arcesilaus of whom more hereafter together with Bio and Borysthenites and lastly Theodorus the Author of the Theodoric Sect. Of whom next after Arcesilaus There were in all ten that carry'd the name of Crates The first a writer of Ancient Comedy The second a Trallian Rhetorician of the family of Isocrates The third an Engineer that serv'd under Alexander in his Wars The fourth a Cynic The fifth a Peripatetic The sixth an Academic of whom already The seventh a Grammarian The eighth a Geometâ—â—cian The ninth an Epigrammatist The tenth of Tarsus an Academic Philosopher also The LIFE of CRANTOR CRANTOR of the City of Soli being in great honour among his own Citizens went to Athens and there became a hearer of Xenocrates and a follow Student with Polemo He left behind him Verses amounting to thirty thousand of which there are some who ascribe a good number to Arcesilaus It is reported that being asked wherefore he was so strangely addicted to Polemo he should answer because he never heard any Man speak more acutely nor more gravely Finding himself not well he retir'd to the Asclepianum and there resided for his health At what time there flock'd to him Disciples from all parts believing that sickness was not the cause of his retirement but that he did it out of a resolution to set up a School there Among the rest came Arcesilaus desirous to be by him recommended to Polemo though no man more his friend than Crantor himself Which request he was so far from taking ill that when he recovered he
became Polemo's Hearer himself which won him great honour and applause It is reported that he left all his Estate to Arcesilaus to the value of twelve Talents And being by him requested to tell him where he intended to be inter'd he answered Within the kind recesses of the Earth There let me lye whence all things have their Birth He is said to have written Poems and to have laid 'em seal'd up in the Temple of Minerva Of whom the Poet Theaetetes thus writes Grateful to Men but yet much more The Muses sweet delight Such Crantor was whom we deplore Snatch'd from the World before his hairs grw whte Gently O Earth the Bard embrace Within thy tender Arms And from the common harms By Worms and Pick-axes increasâ— Defend his quiet rest This Crantor among all the Poets most admir'd Homer and Euripides saying that it was a work of great labour to observe propriety and at the same time to write Tragically and with a true sense of commiseration and fellow-feeling of the sufferings he describes and he vould often repeat that Verse in Bellerophoâ— Ay me But why Ay me Fo we no more Endure than mortals have endur'd before It is also reported that Antagoras the Poet would have the following Verses upon Love to have been made by Crantor Assist me Thoughts and Mind those heighths to soar Meet for the heav'nly Race all Men adore Then mighty Love will I in praise of thee â—â—gin of all the Immortal Progeny The first whom ancient Erebus begot O Night brought forth in Regions far remoâ—e Beneath the Sea's Foundations dark and vast Tree Son of Venus without blemish chast Or whether of the Earth or of the Winds The wondrous Off-spring since so many kinds Ofinterwâ—v'n Good and ill each hour Oblige weak Mortals to confess thy power This double power of thine would I display And teach the World thy Scepter to obey He had a shrewd faculty at giving shrewd and proper Epithetes and Characters both to Men and things Thus he was wont to say that it behoved a Tragedian to have a strong Voice which he called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to be smoothed with a Plainer but full of Bark that is to say rugged and uneven and of a certain Poet that his Verses were full of Prickles and of Thee-phrastus that his Tenents were written upon Oysters Among all his Works his Treatise of Mourning is most admir'd And though the time of his death be uncertain yet this is sure that he dy'd of a Dropsie before Crates and Polemo which gave occasion to these Lines of ours Ah Crantor there 's no mortal sickness-proof But thee the worst distemper carry'd off For tho' no water touch'd thy outward skin Alas Thy Bowels lay all drown'd within In thy own Styx thy Soul to Pluto floats As th' hadst design'd to cozen Charon's Boats. But that we can't believe conjecturing rather Thou thought'st to lay thy Low-lands under water Meaning thereby to hinder Death's approaches But death no colours fears so Buenas Noches The LIFE of ARCESILAVS ARcesilaus was the Son of Seuthus or Scythus as Apollodorus relates in his third Book of Chronicles a Pytanean of Eolia This was he who first set up the Middle Academy restraining negations through contrariety of words He was the first that disputed pro and con The first also that renewed Plato's manner of discourse which Plato introduc'd and render'd it more Argumentative by way of Question and Answer He came acquainted with Crantor after this manner He was the fourth and youngest of all his Brothers of which two were by the Father's and two by the Mother's side Of these the eldest by the Father's side was called Pylades and the eldest by the Mother's side Moereas who was also his Guardian First of all he heard Autolycus the Mathematician and his fellow Citizen before he went to Athens with whom he also travell'd to Sardis After that he was a Scholar under Xanthus an Athenian Musician and there he became Theophrastus's Scholar And lastly he betook himself to the Academy under Crantor For Moereas his Brother advis'd him to learn Rhetoric but he had a greater kindness for Philosophy Crantor therefore having an amorous Affection for him courted him with the following Verse out of Euripides's Andromeda O Virgin if I save thee thou wilt thank me To which he presently repartee'd Take me for which thou likest best Thy Handmaid or thy Wife And so from that time forward they both liv'd together Thereupon Theophrastus being disgusted is reported to have giâ—ded him with this expression How ingenious and tractable a Lad he went from School Where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or easie to be manag'd seems to be tak'n in an ill sence For he was at that time not only a grave and discreet Speaker and a great lover of Learning but much addicted to Poetry In so much that it is said he wrote the following Epigrams the first to Attalus Not only potent once in Arms Did Pergamus advance her Head She boasted too with equal Pride Her warlike Steeds on flowry Pissa bred But yet if Mortals may pronounce The high Decrees of ruling Fate Succeeding Ages shall behold Her ancient Fame renew'd and far more great The second was upon Menodorus a lover of Eudamus one of his fellow Students Though Phrygia distant lyes in space And Thyatim as remote a place Nor Menodorus if survay'd Less far thy native Cadenade Yet to the dark Infernal Court The way is plain the journey short Where by experience thou canst tell The best conveniencies of Hell Where soon or late all Motals go And center in the shades below Yet Eudamus with curious Art From a large Purse but larger Heart A Marble Monument does give And spite of Fate still makes thee live Poor tho' thou wert as all Men know And most adore the gaudy show His friendship from such dross refin'd Valu'd the Treasures of thy mind Above all the Poets he chiefly admir'd Homer of whose works when going to his rest he always read some few pages And when he rose in the morning being asked when he would go to his beloved youth his answer was when the Lad was ready to read Of Pindar he was wont to say That he fill'd the mouth with a noble sound and afforded a plentiful varity of names and words When he was a young man he affected the Ionic Dialect He was also a Hearer of Hipponicus the Geometrician whom he was wont to joque upon as being in other things dull and heavy but skilful in his Art saying That Geometry flew into his mouth when he gap'd He also kept him for some time at home being mad and took a continual care of him till he recover'd his senses When Crates dy'd he succeeded him in his School by the consent of one Socratides who would by no means contest the superiority with him He is not known ever to have wrote any Treatise or Discourse himself as being a severe
Fool Do I intend to banish from my School To which Mentor rising up immediately made this suddain Repartee This having heard the other briskly rose Disdains the Speaker and away he goes He seems to have born impatiently the approach of his last End as one that had this Expression frequently in his Mouth Nature that forms dissolves the frame as soon And thus we dye e're Life is well begun Now hearing that Antipater had killed himself by taking a draught of Poyson his Example encouraged him to do the like to the end he might anticipate the hour of his Death and to that purpose turning toward those that had told him the Story Give me a Potion too said he What Potion answered they A draught of Honied Wine cry'd he 'T is reported that there happened a great Eclipse of the Moon after his Death as if the most beautiful of all the Celestial Luminaries next the Sun had seemed to sympathize with Men for his Loss Apollodorus relates in his Chronicles that he departed this Life in the fourth Year of the Hundred seventy second Olympiad We find some Epistles of his to Ariarathes King of Cappadocia Whatever else was attributed to him was written by some of his Scholars for there is nothing of his own Writing extant Moreover we made him the following Epigram in Logadic and Archebulian Measure Tell me my Muse why dost thou teaz Me thus to chide Carneades Such an illiterate Fop as yet He understood not Nature's Debt Nor could find out the Reason why Men Rational should fear to dye An Vlcer in his Lungs begun Made him a walking Skeleton Whose putrid Fumes affect the Brain And down descend in slimy Rain A constant Feaver and a siow Retards deaths smart and suddain Blow Yet at these Symptoms he ne're starts But damns Physicians and their Arts. Mean time Antipater had quaff't In great distress a poisoned Draught Which having heard t' himself he laugh'd Then jocund to his Friends said he Give me a Dose too such another With equal swiftness Life to smother Dull Nature why so flegmatick That I must for Assistance seek When thou beginnest thou should'st be quick Poor silly Nature thus in vain Building and pulling down again While we have so short time to strive 'T is hardly worth our time to live Thus Bantring Nature e're he went To Staygian Shades himself he bent It is reported that being intent upon his Meditations he took so little notice of a dimness in his Sight to which he was very subject that one day not being able to see and having commanded the Boy to bring him a Candle so soon as he had brought it and told him it was upon the Table he bid him read on then as if it had been Night We find that he had several Disciples among whom was Clitomachus the most excellent of all the rest of whom we shall speak the very next in order There was also one more Carneades an Elegiac Poet who nevertheless was a Person little valued by reason of the meanness of his Stile The LIFE of CLITOMACHVS CLITOMACHVS a Carthaginan was called in the Language of his Country Asdrubal and was wont to argue Philosophically in his own Language among his Countrymen He travelled to Athens at forty years of Age and became a Hearer of Carneades who observing his Industry and Sedulity caused him to be instructed in Learning and took particular Care of him Wherein he attain'd to such a degree of Knowledge that he wrote above four Hundred Volumes and succeded Carneades upon whose Sayings he greatly enlarged in his Writings He principally embraced the Doctrine of the three chief Sects viz. The Academics the Peripateties and the Stoics But Timon was an inveterate Enemy to the Academics and therefore takes all occasions sharply to inveigh against 'em so that Clitomachus could not escape him as for Example Nor must I here omit that prating Fool Chief of the stupid Academic School And thus we have hitherto spoken of the Philosophers descended from Plate let us now come to the Peripatetics descended from Plato of whom Aristotle was the Chief The End of the fourth Book Diogenes Laertius Containing the Lives Opinions and Apophthegms Of those that were most Famous in PHILOSOPHY The Fifth Book Translated from the Greek by R. Kippax M. A. The LIFE of ARISTOTLE ARISTOTLE the Son of Nicomachus and Phaestras was a Native of the City of Stagyra now called Liba Nova As for Nicomachus he derived himself from one of the same Name Nicomachus the Son of Machaon the Son of Esculapius as Hermippus reports in his Treatise of Aristotle He spent a good part of his Years with Amyntas King of Macedon with whom he liv'd partly as a Physician partly upon the Score of that Friendship and Kindness which the Prince had for him This is he who among all the vast number of Plato's Disciples arrived to the most eminent degree of Honour He was of a moderate Stature a shrill squeaking Voice slender Legs and Pink-Ey'd as Timotheus recounts in his Book of Lives He always went very decently clad wearing Rings upon his Fingers his Garments of fine Materials and his Hair trimmed He had a Son called Nicomachus by Herpilis his Concubine as the same Timotheus relates He withdrew himself in Plato's Life-time from the Academy Which was the Reason that Plato said of him Aristotle has done by us like young Colts that lift up their heels and kick against their Damms Hermippus relates That Xenocrates was head of the Academic School when Aristotle was deputed by the Athenians Embassador to Philip but returning home and finding that the School was still in other hands than his own he made choice of a Place to walk in in the Lycaeum where he accustom'd himself so much to walk to and fro while he instructed his Disciples that he was from thence called the Peripatetic or the Walker Others report the original of this Name to have proceeded from hence For that Aristotle attending upon Alexander who had been a long time Sick and upon his Recovery was wont to walk up and down that he might have an opportunity to exercise himself made it his business to observe the motion of the young Prince to whom he discoursed all the while But as soon as the number of his Hearers encreased then he sate down when he taught saying of Xenocrates 'T would be a shame that I should silent walk And suffer still Xenocrates to talk After that he propounded some Proposition in Philosophy upon which he exercised their Wits not forgetting at the same time to instruct 'em in the Art of Oratory Not long after he took a Journey to visit the Eunuch Hermias Tyrant of the Atamensians with whom as some say he went to sport himself in his Male Amours others That he was nearly related to him by the Marriage of his Daughter or at least of his Niece as Demetrius the Magnesian reports in his Book of the Poets and equivocal Writers
Superfluity or Defect of Matter which some excuse by laying the Fault upon his Memory others upon his Multiplicity of Business which would not permit him to take a Review of what he had written Nevertheless he keeps his Station among those that may be thought most accomplish'd in all manner of Learning so that if I may speak my own Thoughts neither the Life of Plato nor the Epitome of the Zenonian Dogma's nor the three Epistles of Epicurus seem to be of his weaving Certain it is he wrote his Pammeter before his Lives which is nothing else but a Volume of Poems and Epigrams in all sorts of Meter in the Praise of several Persons which was divided as he testifies himself in the Life of Thales into several Books Some time after he had publisht it he collected out of several Authors the Lives of the most Illustrious Philosophers and dedicated them to a certain Lady as appears in the Life of Plato where he has this Expression Since you are so great an Admirer of Plato and a Lover of his Doctrine above any other c. Besides these Works of his we have no Authentic Testimony to confirm that he ever wrote any Thing more I also find several Remarkable Persons who bear the Name of Diogenes The First was a Sporadic Philosopher a Native of Apollonia and a Disciple of Anaximenes in the Seventieth Olympiad whose Life is recorded in the Ninth Book of this History and of whom Cicero makes mention in his First Book of the Nature of the Gods where he says But what kind of Thing can that Ayr be which Diogenes Apolloniates will have to be a God What Sence can it have or what Form The Second was the Cynic who was in his Declension about the 113th Olympiad whose Life is related at large in the Sixth Book of this History The Third was an Epicuredn born at Tarsus and a Disciple of Epicuriis who wrote a Treatise of the Most Famous Schools The Fourth a Stoic Sirnam'd the Babylonian though he were of Seleucia he flourish'd some Years before Cicero who testifies in the Fourth Book of his Tusculane Questions that he was sent with Carneades by the Athenians Ambassador to Rome You may see his Opinions in the Third Book De Finibus and the First De Natura Deorum the Second Of Divination the Third De Officiis and the Fourth De Oratore The last was our Laertius whose Life we here conclude The Names of the Translators THe First Book Translated from the Greek by T. Fetherstone D. D. The Second Book Translated from the Greek by Sam. White M. D. The Third Book Translated from the Greek by E. Smith M. A. The Fourth Book Translated from the Greek by J. Philips Gent. The Fifth Book Translated from the Greek by R. Kippax M. A. The Sixth Book Translated from the Greek by William Baxter Gent. The Seventh Book Translated from the Greek by R. M. Gent. Diogenes Laertius OF THE LIVES and SENTENCES of such Persons as were Famous in PHILOSOPHY The First Book Translated from the Greek by T. Fetherstone D. D. The Prooeme SOme there are who affirm That the study of Philosophy deriv'd its first Original from among the Barbarià ns For that among the Persians there were the Magi among the Babylonians or Assyrians the Chaldaeans and the Gymnosophists among the Indians Among the Gauls were another sort that went by the name of Druids or Semnotheans as Aristotle reports in his Magic and Sotion in his Thirteenth Book of Succession Among the Phoenicians flourish'd Ochus Zamolxes grew famous among the Thracians and Atlas among the Lybians Add to this That the Egyptians asserted Vulcan to be the Son of Nilus from whom among them Philosophy first commenc'd and over which they who presided as Presidents and Guardians were both Priests and Prophets From whence to the Time of Alexander the Macedonian were to be numbred Forty Eight Thousand Eight Hundred Sixty three Years In all which space of Time there appeared Eclipses of the Sun no less than Three hundred seventy three of the Moon Eight hundred thirty two From the Magi of whom the chiefwas Zoroastres the Persian by the computation of Hermodorus the Platonic in his Book of the Sciences to the Taking and Destruction of Troy were five thousand years though Xanthus the Lydian reck'ns from Zoroastres to the Descent of Xerxes not above six hundred years To which Zoroastres afterwards succeeded several other Magi under the various names of Ostanes Astrapsychi Gobryae and Pazatae till the total subversion of the Persian Monarchy by Alexander But they are grosly mistak'n while they attribute to the Barbarians the famous Acts and Inventions of the Grecians from whom not only Philosophy but even the Race of Mankind had its first Beginning For among the Athenians we behold the Ancient Musaeus among the Thebans Linus Ofwhich two the former reported to be the Son of Eumolpus is said to have first made out the Pedigree of the Gods to have invented the Sphere and first to have taught the World that All things were created of one Matter and should again be dissolv'd into the same This great Person ended his days at Phalerae where the following Elegy was ingrav'd upon his Tomb Here in Phalerian Dust beneath this stone Sleeps lov'd Musaeus once Eumolpus Son. Also from the Father of Musaeus the Eumolpidae among the Athenians deriv'd their Name As for Linus he was the Son of Mercury and the Muse Urania He wrote of the Creation of the World discovered the course of the Sun and Moon and from whence all Plants and Animals had their first Being Which lofty Poem of his began after this manner Once was the time when Nature's God display'd All things in Order and together made Whence Anaxagoras borrowing affirms that All things appear'd at first without shape together and at the same instant at what time the high Intelligence coming embellish'd and adorn'd the several Compositions This Linus ended his Life in Euboea being shot with an Arrow by Apollo After which accident this Epitaph was inscrib'd upon his Monument Here Theban Linus rests in Sacred Ground Vrania's Son with honour'd Garlands Crown'd And thus Philosophy had its Beginning among the Greeks which is also the more apparent from hence That in the very name it self there is not the least of barbarous Sound or Etymology True it is they who ascribe the Invention of it to the Barbarians produce the Thracian Orpheus to make good their Assertion whom they averr to have been a Philosopher and of great Antiquity But for my part I cannot understand how we can think him to be a Philosopher who utters such things as he does concerning the Gods while he asperses the Deities as guilty of all humane Passions and loads 'em with those Vices which are seldom discours'd of less frequently committed by the worst of Men. And therefore though the Fable reports him to have perish'd by the fury of enrag'd Women yet the Epigram
Naval Astrology reputed to be his is more probably aver'd to be the work of Phocus the Samian Yet Callimachus makes him so skilful in the Heavens as to have found out the Lesser Bear by which means the Phoenicians became such exquisite Saylors His Iambics are these He first descry'd the Northern Team of Stars That draw the Artic Wain about the Pole By which Phoenician Pilot fearless dares To steer through pathless Seas without controule But as others say he only wrote two Treatises concerning the Tropic and the Equinoctial believing it no difficult thing to apprehend the rest However most allow that he was the first that div'd into the Mysteries of Astrology and foretold the Eclipses of the Sun as Eudemus declares in his History of Astrology which was the reason that Zenophanes and Herodotus so much admir'd him besides that Heraclitus and Democritus testifie the same thing Some there are who affirm him to be the first who held the Immortality of the Soul of which number is Choerilus the Poet. As others report he was the first that found out the course of the Sun from Tropic to Tropic and comparing the Orb of the Moon with that of the Sun discover'd the one to be no more than the seven hundred and twentieth Part of the other He was also the first that limited the Month to thirty days He was likewise the first that discours'd of nature as some affirm Moreover Aristotle and Hippias testify that he was the first who taught that inanimate Things were endu'd with Souls which he prov'd from the Vertues of the Magnet and Amber Having learnt the Art of Geometry among the Egyptians he was the first that invented the Rightangl'd Triangle of a Circle for which he offer'd an Ox in Sacrifice according to the relation of Pamphilus though others attribute that invention to Pythagoras and among the rest Apollodorus the Accomptant And if it were true what Callimachus vouches in his Iambics that Euphorbus the Phrygian invented the Scalenum and Trigonum with many other things relating to the Speculation of Lines as certain it is that Thales gave much more light to that sort of Theory by many Additions of his own As to what concern'd Affairs of State apparent it is that he was a most prudent Counsellor for when Croesus sent to make a League with the Milesians he oppos'd it with all his might which afterwards when Cyrus obtain'd the Victory prov'd the preservation of the City Heraclides reports him greatly addicted to a solitary and private Life Some there are who say he was marry'd and that he had a Son whom he call'd Cibissus But others affirm that he persevered a Batchelor and made his Sisters Son his Heir by Adoption Insomuch that being demanded why he took no care to leave Off-spring behind him His reply was because he lov'd his Children too well At another time his Mother pressing him to marry he answer'd It was too soon Afterwards when he grew in years his Mother still urg'd him to Matrimony with greater importunity he told her 't was then too late Hieronymus the Rhodian in his second Book of Memorandums relates how that being desirous to shew how easie it was to grow rich foreseeing the great plenty of Oyl that would happen the next year he farm'd all the Plantations of Olives round about and by that means gain'd a vast summ of money He affirm'd that Water was the Beginning of all things and that the World was a Living Creature full of Spirits and Daemons He also distinguish'd the Seasons of the Year which he divided into three hundred sixty five Days Nor had he any person to instruct him only while he continu'd in Egypt he held a strict familiarity with the Priests of that Country The same Hieronymus relates That he measur'd the Pyramids by observing the shadows at what time they seem'd not to exceed human Proportion As Minyes relates he liv'd with Thrasybulus Tyrant of the Milesians As for what is recorded concerning the Tripos found out by the Fishermen and sent to the Wise Men by the Milesians it still remains an undoubted Truth For they say that certain Ionian young Gentlemen having bought of the Milesian Fishermen a single Cast of a Net so soon as the Net was drawn up and the Tripos appear'd a quarrel arose which could by no means be pacify'd till the Milesians sending to Delphos had this Answer return d by the Goddess Is 't your Desire Milesian youth to know How you the Golden Tripos must bestow Return and say what Phoebus here reveals Give it to Him in wisdom that excells They give it therefore to Thales he to another the other to a third until it came to Solon Who saying that only God excell'd in Wisdom advis d that it should be forthwith sent to the Temple of Delphos This story Callimachus relates another way as he had it from Leander the Milesian how that a certain Arcadian whose name was Bathycles bequeath'd a Bottle of Gold to be given to the chiefest of the Wise Men Which was accordingly given to Thales and so from one to another till it came to Thales again who thereupon sent it to Didymean Apollo with this Inscription according to the words of Callimachus Me Thales sends to Sacred Nilean King Twice to him fell the Grecian Offering But the Prose ran thus Thales the Milesian Son of Examius to Delphinian Apollo twice receiving the Guerdon of the Greeks And Eleusis in his Book of Achilles farther tells us That the person entrusted to carry the Present from one Wise Man to the other being the Son of Bathycles was call'd by the name of Thyrio with whom Alexo the Myndian also agrees However Eudemus the Gnidian and Evanthes the Milesian affirm That it was a certain friend of Croesus who receiv'd a Golden Cup from the King with a command to present it to the Wisest of the Greeks who gave it to Thales and so he went from one to another till he came to Chilo to whom when he sent to enquire of the Oracle who was wiser than himself it was answered Miso of whom more in due place Which person Eudemus mistakes for Cleobulus and Plato will have to be Periander and concerning whom Apollo made this return to Anacharsis who was sent to consult the Oracle OEtaean Myso born in Chenes I Beyond thy Fame for wisdom magnifie On the other side Daedachus the Platonic and Clearchus affirm that the Golden Present was sent by Croesus to Pittacus and so from one to another till it came to Pittacus again Moreover Andron in his Tripos relates That the Argives made a Tripos to be presented to the Wisest of the Greeks as the Guerdon of his Vertue and that Aristodemus the Spartan was adjudg'd the wisest Person who nevertheless submitted to Chilo Alceus also makes mention of Aristodemus ascribing to him that famous saying among the Spartans Wealth makes the Man no Poor Man can be good Some there are who relate
flattered the Athenians than to me that dealt sincerely And therefore after I had hung up my Arms in the Portico before the Senate House I told 'em plainly that I was wiser than they that were not sensible of Pisistratus's design and stouter than they who durst not resist him Who presently cry'd out that Solon was mad Thereupon upbraiding my Country O Country said I this Solon that once was ready to have lent thee the utmost assistance of his Arms and Eloquence is now taken for a Madman Therefore leaving thee to thy own ruin I le go seek another habitation the only Enemy of Pisistratus Thou knewest the Man dear friend how shrewdly and craftily he carried on his design He began with his complements to the People then after he had stab'd himself he ran wounded into the Eliaean Piazza crying That he had been set upon by his Enemies and therefore desired a Guard of four hundred Men only for the security of his Person Presently the People notwithstanding all the opposition I could make granted him his request And then he set up for himself after he had dissolv'd the Government And thus they who in vain endeavour'd to free their Poor from serving for Hire are now all the Slaves of Pisistratus Solon to Pisistratus I Do not believe thou wilt do me any injury For before thou wer 't a Tyrant I was thy Friend and now no more thy Enemy than any other of the Athenians who always hated a Tyrannical Government But whether Monarchy or Democracy be best let every one think as he pleases certainly I must acknowledge thee to be one of the best of Tyrants But I do not think it convenient for me to return to Athens since it would ill become the Person who set up Popular Government himself and refus'd the Tyrannic when offer'd to approve thy actions by a penitent submission to thy Rule Solon to Croesus I Must gratefully acknowledge thy Benevolence and Bounty towards Us And by Minerva were it not but that I am so great an admirer of Democracy I would rather chuse to make my abode in thy Kingdom than at Athens under the Tyranny of Pisistratus However since we cannot but think it a pleasure to live where Equity and Justice Reigns I shall hasten to attend thy Commands not a little covetous to be thy Guest THE Life of CHILO CHILO the Lacaedemonian was the Son of Demagetus He wrote several Elegies to the number of about two Hundred Verses and taught that Foreknowledg was attain'd by Ratiocination according to the Vertue of the Person To his Brother who took it ill he was not made an Ephorus or one of the Grand Council of Lacedaemon as well as He I know said He how to put up Injuries which thou dost not do He was made one of the Ephori in the fifty Sixth Olympiad and the first Ephorus in the Reign of Euthydemus according to Sosicrates and the first who caused it to be decreed that the Ephori should be joined in Authority with the Kings of Lacedaemon tho' Satyrus ascribes that Honour to Lycurgus This was he as Herodotus relates who advised Hippocrates offering Sacrifice at Olympia when the Caldrons boiled without Fire either not to Marry or if he had a Wife already to renounce his Children It is farther reported that when Aesopus asked him what Jupiter was doing He made answer Humbling the lofty and exalting the lowly He was won tto say that the Learned differed from the unlearned in good hopes To the Question what was difficult he replied To keep a Secret to spend a Man's leisure-time well and being wrong'd to brook the Injury His Precepts were these For a Man to govern his Tongue especially at Festivals not to speak evil of our Neighbours not to use threatning Language for it was Effeminate sooner to visit our Friends in their Misfortunes than in their Prosperity to chuse a Wife with a moderate Dowry Not to speak Evil of the Dead to reverence old Age to put a Guard upon himself to prefer loss before sordid Gain for by the one a Man suffers but once by the other always never to deride the Unfortunate being strong and valiant to be meek and humble it being much better to be beloved than feared to govern his family soberly and discreetly not to let his Tongue run before his Wit to master his Passion not to despise Divination not to desire Impossibilities in the Street not to make so much haste as if a Man were always going upon Life and Death in familiar discourse not to use so much motion of the Hands for it denotes a kind of Frenzy to be obedient to the Law and to study Peace and Quiet Among the rest of his Apothegms one of the most approved was this That Gold was tryed by the Touchstone but the Tryal of Men whether good or bad was by Gold. It is reported of him that when he was very old he should say that he was no way conscious to himself of having done an ill or unjust act One thing only troubled him as doubting whether he had done well or no. For that being to determine a difference between two Friends he advised 'em to appeal from him to the Law to the end he might act legally and not lose his Friend His Prophecy concerning the Island of Cythera gained him a high Renown among the Grecians For when he understood the Nature and Situation of it I wish said he it never had been or else that when it first appeared it had been swallowed up in the Abyss and he was right in his Judgment For Demaratus a Lacedaemonian Renegade advised Xerxes to keep a Navy always in that Island which had been the ruin of Greece had Xerxes followed his Counsel Afterwards during the Poloponnesian War Nicias having laid the Island desolate placed a Garrison of Athenians therein which proved a continual Plague to the Lacedaemonians He was a Person of few words for which reason Aristagoras the Milesian gives to Brevity of Speech the Epithete of Chilonean He was an old Man in the fifty Second Olympiad at what time Aesopus the Orator was in his Prime He died as Hermippus reports at Pissa embracing his Son returning victorious from the Olympic Games himself o'recome with Joy and the infirmity of his Years And he was no sooner dead but all Men strove to celebrate his Obsequies with all the Honours and Encomiums they could devise befitting his Renown Among the rest the following Offering was our own Thy Praises mighty Pollux we resound For Chilo's Son by thee so fairly Crownd What tho' his Father then for joy expir'd A Fate like his should be by me desir'd Upon his Statue was Engraved this Anagram Chilo the Great did armed Sparta breed Of all the Greeks the wisest Man decreed There is also extant a short Epistle of his to Periander Chilo to Periander THOU commandest us to leave the Wars and betake our selves to Exilement as if that would be more
safe for thee However 't is my opinion that a Monarch is not always safe at home and therefore I account him to be the most happy Tyrant that escapes the stab of Conspiracy and dies at last in his own Bed. THE LIFE of PITTACUS PIttacus born at Mitylene was the Son of Hyrrhadius yet Doris asserts his Father to have been a Thracian This was he who together with the Brothers of Alcanus utterly ruined Melancher the Tyrant of Lesbos And in the Contest between the Athenians and Mityleneans about the Territory of Achillitis he being General of the Mityleneans challenged Phryno the Athenian Chieftain to fight with him Hand to Hand at what time carrying a Net under his Buckler he threw it over Phryno's Shoulders when he least dreamed of any such thing and by that means having slain his Antagonist he recovered the Land to the Mityleneans Afterwards according to the relation of Apollodorus in his Chronicle another dispute happening between the Mityleneans and Athenians about the same Land Periander who was made Judg of the Controversy gave it for the Athenians But then it was that the Mityleneans held Pittacus in high Esteem and surrender'd the Supream Government into his Hands which after he had managed for ten Years and established those Orders and Regulations that he thought convenient he again resigned into the Hands of the People and lived ten Years after that For these great Benefits done to his Country the Mityleneans conferred on him a quantity of Land which he towards his latter End consecrated to Pious Uses Sosicrates writes that he restored back the one half of the Land saying at the same time That the half was more than the whole Sometime after when Croesus sent him a Summ of Money he refused to accept it saying that he had twice as much more as he desired For his Brother dying without Issue the Estate fell to him Pamphilus in his first Book of Memorandums relates that he had a Son whose name was Pyrrhaeus who was kill'd as he was sitting in a Barbers Chair at Cumae by a Smith that threw a Hatchet into the Shop for which the Murtherer was sent in Fetters by the Cumans to Pittaeus that he might punish him as he pleased himself But Pittacus after he had fully examined the Matter released and pardoned the Prisoner with this Saying that Indulgence was to be preferred before Repentance Heraclitus also relates that when he had taken Alcaeus Prisoner he let him go saying that Pardon was to be preferred before Punishment He ordained that Drunkards offending in their Drink should be doubly Punished to make Men the more wary how they got tipsy for the Island abounds in Wine Among his Apothegms these were some of the choicest That it was a difficult thing to be Vertuous Of which Simonides and Plato in Protagoras make mention That the Gods could not withstand Necessity That Command and Rule declare the Genius of the Man. Being demanded what was best he answered To do well what a Man is about To Croesus's Question which was the largest Dominion he answered That of the Varie-coloured Wood meaning the Laws written upon wooden Tables He applauded those Victories that were obtained without Bloodshed To Phocaicus who told him they wanted a diligent frugal Man We may seek said he long enough before we find one To them that asked him what was most desirable He answered Time. To what was most obscure Futurity To what was most Faithful The Earth To what was most Faithless The Sea. He was wont to say that it was the Duty of Prudent Men before Misfortunes happened to foresee and prevent ' em Of Stout and Couragious Men to bear their adversity Patiently Never said he talk of thy designs beforehand lest thy miscarriage be derided never to upbraid the misfortunes of any Man for fear of just Reprehension always to restore a Trust committed to thy Care never to backbite an Enemy much less a Friend to practise Piety and honour Temperance to love Truth Fidelity Experience Urbanity Friendship and Diligence His Axioms were chiefly these to encounter a wicked Man with a Bow and Quiver full of Arrows for that there was no truth to be expected from a loquacious Tongue where the Breast conceal'd a double Heart He composed about six hundred Elegiac Verses and several Laws in Prose for the Benefit of his Fellow-Citizens He flourished in the forty second Olympiad and died in the third Year of the fifty second Olympiad during the Reign of Aristomenes after he had lived above seventy Years worn out and broken with old Age and being buried in Lesbos this Epitaph was engrav'd upon his Monument Here lies the far fam'd Pittacus for whom The mournful Lesbians made this sacred Tomb. This was he whose general Admonition it was To observe the Season There was also another Pittacus a Legislator likewise according to Favorinus in his first Book of Commentaries and Demetrius in his Homonyma who was surnamed the Little. But as for the Great Pittacus who was also the Wise Pittacus he is reported when a young Gentleman came to take his Advice about Marriage to have returned the same answer which we find recorded by Callimachus in the following Epigram Hyrrhadius Son the far fam'd Pittacus An Atarnaean once demanded thus My Friends said he a double match propose The one a noble and Wealthy Spouse In both my equal t'other now advise My Youth what Choice to make for thou art Wise The Weapons of old Age the Ancient Seer His Staff then raising go said he and hear What yonder Children say for as he spoke The Children in the Street with nimble stroke Their Tops were scourging round to them he goes Go see your Match cries one for equal Blows Which when he heard the Stranger went his way Left Birth and Wealth resolving to obey The Sportive Documents of Childrens Play. But this Councel he seems to have given from woful Experience For he himself had married a noble Dame the Sister of Draco the Son of Penthelus who was a Woman of an insufferable Pride This Pittacus was variously nicknamed by Alcaeus who sometimes called him Splay-Foot and Flatfooted sometimes Cloven-footed because of the Clefts in his Feet sometimes Gauric as being perhaps too much affected in his Gate Sometimes Physcon and Gastron by reason of his prominent Belly Sometimes Bat-Eyed because he was dim-sighted and sometimes Agasyrtus as one that was nasty and careless in his Habit. His usual Exercise was grinding of Wheat with a Hand-Mill There is also extant a short Epistle of his to Croesus Pittacus to Croesus THOU send'st for me into Lydia to behold thy vast Wealth but altho'I never yet beheld it I am contented to believe the Son of Alyattis to be the richest of Monarchs without desiring to be ever the better for coming to Sardis For we want no Gold as having sufficient both for our selves and Friends Nevertheless I intend to visit thee were it only to be acquainted
with a generous and Hospitable Person THE LIFE of BIAS BIAS of Priene was the Son of Teutamus and by Satyrus preferred before all the rest of the seven Wiseman Doris will not allow him to be born at Priene but says he was a Stranger But several affirm him to have been very Rich and Phanodicus tells us That he redeem'd the Messenian Virgins being taken Captive bred 'em at home as his own Daughters and then sent 'em back to their Parents with every one a Portion in mony Soon after the Golden Tripos being found as we have already declar'd with this Inscription To the Wisest Satyrus relates how that the Messenian Virgins but others and among the rest Phanodicus that their Parents came into the Assembly and declaring what he had done pronounced him the Wisest Man. Whereupon the Tripos was sent to Bias who beholding it declar'd Apollo to be wiser than himself and so refus'd it Others report that he Consecrated it to Theban Hercules for that either he was there born or else because Priene was a Colony of the Thebans which Phanodicus also testifies It is reported when Priene his native Country was besieged by Alyattes that Bias fatted two Mules for the nonce and drave 'em into the Enemies Camp. Which Alyattes seeing began to be amaz'd to see the pamper'd Beasts so plump and smooth However before he rais'd his Siege he resolv'd to send some person under the pretence of certain Propositions to spy the condition of the City But Bias well aware of the King's design having caus'd several heaps of Sand to be cover'd with Wheat led the Messenger about to satisfie his Curiosity Which being reported to the King he presently made a Peace with the Prieneans Soon after when the King sent for Bias to come to him Bid him said he go eat Onions and that would make him weep He is reported to have been a most notable pleader of Causes but that still he us'd the force of his Eloquence on the right side Which Demodocus intimated when he said that an Orator was to imitate the Prienaean manner of Pleading And Hipponax when he gave this applause to any one That he pleaded better than Bias of Priene His death happen'd after this manner He had in his old Age pleaded a Cause for a friend of his After he had done being tired with declaming he rested his Head in the Bosom of his Sister's Son. In the mean time his Adversary having pleaded against him the Judges gave Sentence for his Client But then so soon as the Court rose he was found dead in the Bosom of his Nephew The City however made a sumptuous Funeral for him and caus'd this Anagram to be inscrib'd upon his Monument This Marble by the fam'd Priene rear'd Iona's Glory covers here interr'd To which we may add another of our own For Bias this whom in a gentle Dream Hermes convey'd to the Elysian stream Yet not till Age upon his Hair had snow'd When spent with pleading in the sultry Crowd His friend's just Cause he went aside to rest His drooping Head against his Nephew's Breast Whence in a Trance expiring his last Breath He fell asleep into the Arms of Death He wrote concerning the Affairs of Iona more especially by what means it might preserve it self in a happy and flourishing condition to the number of two Thousand Verses in Heroic Measure The choicest of his Sentences were these To be complaisant and familiar among the People where we live as being that which begat both love and respect Whereas a haughty demeanour prov'd many times the occasion of much mischief That to be stout was the gift of Nature to advise what was profitable to a Man's Country was the gift of a Prudent Mind but that Wealth was to many the benignity of Fortune He accounted him unfortunate that could not brook misfortune and said it was a disease of the Soul to love and desire impossibilities and to be unmindful of other Mens miseries Being ask'd what was difficult He answer'd Generously to brook an alteration for the worse Going a Voyage once with certain irreligious Persons who in the height of a raging Tempest loudly invok'd the Gods Peace said he lest they come to understand that you are here Being ask'd by an irreligious person what irreligion was To a second question why he made no answer He reply'd Because thou askest me that which nothing concerns thee To the question what was pleasing to Men He answer'd Hope He said it was more easie to determine differences between Enemies than Friends For that of two Friends the one would prove an Enemy but of two Enemies the other would become a Friend To the question What was most delightful for a Man to do He answer'd To be always gaining He advis'd Men so to measure their lives as they that were to live either a long or a short time and so to love as if we were to hate His Admonitions were Slowly to undertake an intended design but to persist in what a Man has once resolv'd upon Not to let the Tongue run before the Wit as being a sign of madness To love Prudence To discourse of the Gods as they are Not to praise an unworthy person for the sake of his wealth To receive perswading not constraining Whatever good we do to ascribe it to the Gods To take wisdom for our provision in our Journey from Youth to Old Age as being the most certain and durable of all other Possessions Hipponax also makes mention of Bias and the morose Heraclitus gives him the highest Applause in these words Bias the Son of Teutamus was born at Priene much more esteem'd than all the rest And the Prienaeans consecrated a Temple to him by the name of Tentameion THE LIFE of CLEOBULUS CLeobulus the Lindian was the Son of Evagoras but as Doris relates a Carian And some there are who derive his descent from Hercules but that he excell'd the Hero in strength and beauty That he learn'd his Philosophy in Egypt and that he had a Daughter Cleobuline who compos'd several Enigmaes in Hexameter Verse Of whom also Cratinus makes mention in a Poem of the same name writing in the Plural Number Farther it is reported That he repair'd the Temple of Minerva at Athens built by Danaus He also compos'd several Songs and obscure Problems to the number of three thousand Verses And some affirm that he made the following Epigram upon Midas I am that Brazen Virgin fixed here To Midas Tomb that never hence must stir Who till the liquid waters cease to flow And the tall Trees in Woods forbear to grow Till Phoebus once forget his course to run And the pale Moon for sake her Mate the Sun Till springs of Rivers stopt their Streams no more Into the dry'd up Sea shall headlong pour Must here remain by a perpetual Doom To tell that Midas lies beneath this Tomb. This they confirm by the Testimony of Simonides where he cries out What Man
punctual to thy Promises Beware of betraying a Secret. Punish not only Offenders but those that design to Offend He was the first that made use of a Life-guard and that changed Democratical Government into Tyranny nor would he permit every one that desired it to live in the City as Euphorus and Aristotle testify He flourished in his Prime about the thirty third Olympiad and reigned full Forty Years Nevertheless Sotion Heraclides and Pamphila affirm That there were two Perianders one a Tyrant the other a Wise Man and that the Tyrant was an Ambraciote however Neanthes of Cyzicum will have 'em to be Cousin Germans Aristotle also asserts the Corinthian to be the Wise Man and Plato denies it Whoever it were he designed it seems to have digged down the Neck of the Isthmus and his Motto was this Premeditation does all things There are also extant several Epistles of his and among the rest these that follow Periander to the Wise Men. IMmortal Thanks to Pythian Apollo that my Letters found ye all together And therefore I expect your Coming assuring you of a welcome befitting the quality of your Persons For seeing that you were so ready the last Year to visit Sardis in Lydia I make no question but that you will vouchsafe your Company to the Tyrant of Corinth nor will the Corinthian be unmindful to congratulate your coming to Periander's Habitation Periander to Procleus I Do not hear the Crime which thy Wise committed was done voluntarily and therefore thou wilt do ill if thou shalt act premeditately any thing against thy ungrateful Son. Forbear therefore thy Cruelty toward the Youth or I will assist and defend him in regard he has suffered enough already We also find another Letter written from Thrasybulus to Periander in these Words Thrasybulus to Periander WE dissembled nothing to thy Heraulds for I led him to the standing Corn and with my wand in his Presence struck off the Ears that grew up above the rest ask him therefore and he will tell thee what he heard me say and what he saw me do Then follow my advice if it be thy design to establish thy regal Power cut off the Principal Men of the City whether Friends or Enemies For Friends and Foes are to be alike suspected by a Tyrant THE LIFE of ANACHARSIS ANACHARSIS a Scythian was the Son of Gnurus and Brother of Cadovidas King of the Scythians his Mother being a Grecian by which means he spoke both the Languages He wrote concerning the Laws of the Scythians the Rites and Solemnities among the Grecians concerning a Frugal Life and military affairs to the Number of nine Hundred Verses Being bold and resolute in Speaking he gave occasion to the Proverb That whoever imitated his resolution was said to speak like a Scythian Sosicrates affirms that he arrived at Athens about the Forty seventh Olympiad at what time Eucrates was chief Magistrate of the City Hermippus relates That at the same time he went to Solon's House and bid one of the Servants tell his Master that Anacharsis was at the Door desirous of his Acquaintance and if it were convenient to be his Guest which Message the Servant repeating to Solon was sent back with this Answer That Guests were made by those that were in their own Country Upon which Anacharsis entred into the House with this Complement Now then said he I am in my own Country and it belongs to me to make the Guests Thereupon Solon admiring the dexterity of the Person not only gave him admittance but made him one of his most intimate Friends Sometime after returning into Scythia while he endeavoured to alter the Laws of his Country and to introduce the Grecian Constitutions he was shot through the Body by his Brother as he rode a Hunting breathing forth these last words as he expired For my Learning's sake I was preserved in Greece but perished through Envy at Home and in my Country Others say that he was slain as he was offering to the Gods after the Greek manner However it were the first report produced this Anagram of ours Through many Regions view'd and dangers past Great Anacharsis home returns at last And straight by soft Perswasion seeks to draw The ruder Scythians to the Grecian Law. But ere th' imperfect words he could impart A feather'd Arrow pierc'd his bleeding heart He was wont to say that the Vine bare three sorts of Clusters the first of Pleasure the second of Debauchery and the third of Discontent and Repentance He admired how it came to pass that in the Contentions among the Grecian Artificers the worst Artists were still made the Judges of the Dispute Being asked how a Man might best preserve himself Sober He answered By setting before the Eyes the evil Behaviour of those that drank to Excess He wondred why the Grecian Legislators enacting Laws against the Injurious honoured the Wrestlers that daily mischiefed one another When he understood the Plancks of a Ship to be but four Fingers thick he said that was the distance between Death and those that went by Sea. He called Oil the Provocative of Madness observing that the Wrestlers being anointed with it were the more enraged one against another How comes it to pass said he that they who forbid Lying Lye so frequently in the common Victualling-Houses He was wont to wonder why the Greeks at the beginning of their Banquets drank in little Cups but when their Stomachs were full still quaff'd on in large Bowls Upon his Statues this admonition is generally engraved to govern the Tongue the Belly and the Privy-Members Being asked whether there were any Fifes in Scythia he made answer No nor any Vines neither To the question what sort of Ships were safest He answered Those that were come into Harbour Another thing he also admired among the Grecians that they left the Smoke behind in the Mountains and brought the Wood into the City To the question which were most the Living or the Dead he replied with another Question in the number of which they ranked those that ventured by Sea To an Athenian that upbraided him for being a Scythian he retorted My Country indeed is a reproach to me but thou to thy Country To the question What was good or bad in Men He answer'd The Tongue He us'd to say 't was better to have one good friend than many that were Men of no worth He accounted the Market a place appointed for Men to deceive one another and display their Avarice Being affronted by a young Man at a Compotation Young Maâ— said he if thou caust not bear Wine in thy Youth thou wilt carry Water when thou art Old. He is said to have invented for the benefit of Mankind the Anchor and the Potters Wheel There is also extant the following Epistle of his to Croesus Anacharsis to Croesus I Came into Greece O King of the Lydians to learn their Customs and their Constitutions I want no Gold as having sufficient for a better
Scythian than my self to carry me back into my Country Nevertheless I will attend thee at Sardis esteeming as a high honour thy friendship and familiarity THE LIFE of MYSO MYSO the Son of Strymon according to Sosicrates who follows Hermippus was a Chenean by Birth so call'd from a certain OEtaean or Laconian Village and is reckon'd in the number of the Seven Wise Men. Others say that his Father was a Tyrant of some City not mention'd It is reported That when Anacharsis enquir'd of the Oracle whether any one were wiser than himself the Prophetesâ— return'd that Answer already recited in the Life of Thales OEtaean Myso born in Chenes I For Wisdom far before thee magnifie Thereupon Anacharsis to satisfie his curiosity came to the Village where he found Myso in the Summer-time fitting the handle to his Plough To whom O Myso said he 't is not now the Season for Ploughing No reply'd Myso but 't is time to prepare Others report that the Oracle did not answer OEtaean but Eteian and they are very diligent in their enquiries who that Eteian should be Parmenides asserts it to be the Village of Laconia where Myso was born Sosicrates affirms him to have been an Eteian by the Father's side but a Chenean by the Mother's side Euthyphron the Son of Heraclides Ponticus asserts him to have been a Cretan for that Eteia was a City of Creet Anaxilaus will have him an Arcadian Hipponax also makes mention of him in these words And Myso whom Apollo prefer'd for the wisest of Men. Lastly Aristoxenus in his Medleys relates That he differ'd little in his Disposition and Manners from Apemas and Timon as being a Man-hater and once found laughing by himself in a Solitary Place And when he was ask'd by him that had so discover'd him why he laugh'd by himself He answer'd At that very Accident Aristoxenus therefore calls him ignoble as not being born in a City but in a Village and that an obscure one too Which obscurity of his Birth was the reason that many of his sayings are attributed to the Tyrant Pisistratus by most Authors except Plato for he makes mention of him in his Protagoras in the stead of Periander He was wont to say that things were not to be examin'd by words but words by things for that actions were not perform'd for the sake of words but thaâ— words were fram'd to set forth actionâ— He dy'd in the ninety seventh year of hiâ— Age. THE LIFE of EPIMENIDES EPimenides according to Theopompus and several others was the Son of Phaestius Of Dosiades as some say as others of Agesarchus However it were he was by Birth a Cretan born in Gnossus where according to the nature of the Village he is said to have chang'd his shape It is reported of him that when he was young his Father sent him a field to fetch home a Wether but that he in the heat of the day turning aside out of the way enter'd into a Cave and there falling a sleep slept on for fifty seven years together When he awak'd he went to seek the Wether as one that believ'd he had slept not above an hour or two but not finding it he return'd to the Village Where when he saw an unexpected change of unknown Faces and found the Land in the possession of a stranger he hasten'd to the City At what time when he enter'd his own House he was ask'd who he was and what he would have He began to be in a deep amaze till being with much ado known by his younger Brother who was now grown into years from him he understood the whole Truth Upon which his fame flying over all Greece he was look't upon as one belov'd of the Gods. Whence it came to pass that the Athenians being afterwards infected with a sore Pestilence upon the answer which they receiv'd from the Oracle that their City was to be purify'd they sent Nicias the Son of Niceratus into Creet to bring away Epimenides Who coming in the forty seventh Olympiad purify'd the City and so the Plague ceas'd To which purpose he took certain black and white Sheep and driving 'em to the next Village let 'em go which way they pleased of their own accord ordering those that follow'd 'em to kill 'em in the place where they rested and then to Sacrifice 'em to the peculiar Deity Insomuch that to this day there are to be seen several Altars in several of the Athenian Villages erected to an unknown Deity in memory of this Expiation But by others the cause of that Pestilence is attributed to the Cylonian Fact for which two young Men Cratinus and Ctesibius dy'd and so the City was freed from the present Calamity Thereupon the Athenians order'd a Talent to Epimenides and provided him a Ship to carry him back to Creet But he refusing the money desired only to make a League of Friendship between the Athenians and the Gnossians and so returning home within a short time after he dy'd in the hundred fifty seventh year of his Age according to Phasgo in his History of long Livers As the Cretans relate in his two hundred ninety ninth year But as Xenophanes the Colophonian testifies that he heard by report in his hundred fifty fourth He wrote the History of the Curetes and Corybants and the Pedigree of the Gods to the number of six thousand Verses Also concerning the building and furniture of the Ship Argos and Jason's Voyage to Colchos to the number of six thousand five hundred Verses In Prose he wrote of the Sacrifices and Common-wealth of the Cretans and of Minos and Rhadamanthus to the number of four thousand Verses He also erected among the Athenians a Temple to the Venerable Gods as Lobon testifies in his Treatise of the Poets He is also said to be the first that erected Temples and purify'd Houses and Fields by Processions and Sacrifices Some there are who assert that he never slept but only retir'd himself out of the way busily employ'd about the cutting of Roots There is also an Epistle of his to Solon concerning the Republic which Minos erected among the Cretans But Demetrius the Magnesian in his Treatise of the Poets denies the Epistle to be Legitimate as not being writt'n in the Cretan but Attic Language and that not very ancient neither However I found another Epistle of his in these words Epimenides to Solon BE of good courage my dear Friend For had the Athenians been accustomed to servitude and wanted good Laws when Pisistratus erected his Tyranny he had establish'd himself for ever But now he has not enslav'd a sordid People but such as remembring Solon's Laws bemoan themselves out of meer shame and will no longer brook his severity But though Pisistratus have invaded the Liberty of the City yet I hope the Tyranny will not descend to his Successors And therefore I would not have thee wander about too far but come into Creet where there is no single Monarch to trouble thee
And beware that none of his friends do light upon thee by the way lest mischief befall thee Some there are by the report of Demetrius who affirm that he receiv'd his Food from the Nymphs which he preserv'd in the Hoof of an Ox of which he took a little at Times never needing Evacuation but that he was never seen to Eat Timaeus also makes mention of him in his Second Book Others there are who say that the Cretans offer'd Sacrifices to him as a God for they aver him to have been most skillful in Divination And therefore observing the Munictrian Port among the Athenians he told 'em that if they knew what Calamities that place would bring upon their City they would tear it up with their Teeth He is said to be the first who call'd himself Aeacus and foretold the Lacedaemonians the Bondage which they should endure under the Arcadians often pretending that he rose from death to life Theopompus also relates That when he was laying the Foundations of a Temple to the Nymphs a voice was heard from Heaven Not to the Nymphs but to Jove himself He likewise foretold the Cretans the issue of the War between the Lacedaemonians and Arcadians in which War being deserted by the Orchomenians they fell into the power of their Enemies There are not wanting some who affirm That he waxed old in so many days as he slept years which Theopompus also testifies And Murianus asserts That he was by the Cretans call'd Curetes The Lacedaemonians preserv'd his Body within their City being advis'd so to do by a certain Oracle as Sosibius the Lacedaemonian reports There were two more of the same name besides the one a writer of Genealogies and the second one that writ the History of Rhodes in the Doric Dialect THE LIFE of PHERECYDES THE Syrian Pherecydes was the Son of Badys as Alexander in his Successions reports and a Hearer of Pittacus He was the first as Theopompus testifies that wrote among the Greeks concerning Nature and the Gods more than that he is famous for many wonderful things for as he was walking near the Sea-shoar upon the Sand seeing a Ship under Sail right afore the Wind he foretold that the Vessel would sink in a short time which soon after happen'd in his sight Another time after he had drank a draught of Water drawn out of a Well he foretold an Earthquake within three days which fell out as he said Travelling thro' Messana to Olympia he advis'd his Friend and Host Perilaus to depart from thence with all his Family which he neglecting to do Messana was soon after taken by the Enemy He was wont to tell the Lacedemonians that neither Gold or Silver were to be valu'd or admir'd And the same night that Hercules commanded the Kings to obey Pherecydes the Deity gave him notice of it in a Dream However some there are do ascribe these things to Pythagoras But Hermippus hath this further of Pherecydes that in the War between the Magnesians and Ephesians he being desirous that the Ephesians should have the better demanded of one that travel'd upon the Road of what place he was who answering of Ephesus Then draw me said he by the Legs and lay me in the Territory of the Magnesians and bid thy fellow Citizens after they have obtain'd the Victory take care to bury me in that place adding withal that he was Pherecydes which when the Passenger had related to his Neighbours they were in great hopes of victory The next day they overthrew the Magnesians and being Victors found Pherecydes dead whom they not only honourably interr'd but held in great veneration afterwards Some say that going to Delphos from Corycium he threw himself from the top of a Mountain But Aristoxenus writing of Pythagoras and his familiar Acquaintance affirms that he dy'd of a sickness and was buried by Pythagoras Some say that he ended his days of the Lowsie Disease and that when Pythagoras coming to visit him ask'd him how he felt himself he answer'd thrusting his finger through the door my skin will tell thee Whence the Expression was ever afterwards taken by the Philosophers in a bad sence Andro the Ephesian asserts that there were two of the same name both Syrians One an Astrologer the other a Theologist whom Pythagoras admir'd On the other side Eratosthenes denies that there was any more than one Syrian but that the other was an Athenian and a writer of Genealogies Moreover there is yet extant a little Treatise written by Pherecydes the Syrian concerning the first Principle of all things which begins thus Jupiter and Time are the same and the Earth was always Upon his Tomb as Doris testifies this Epigram was inscrib'd In me all Wisdom ends if there be more And that Pythagoras enjoys this store Tell him the Truth that Pherecydes speaks It springs again in him among the Greeks Ion the Chiote writes also thus concerning him How sweetly lives his incorrupted Soul Who all the Vertues did himself controul Credit the wise Pythagoras who had seen The Customs and the Manners of most Men. To which we may add that which follows being one of our own in Pherecratian Measure The Learned Pherecyde Whom Syria boasts her own So Fame reports it dy'd By Vermin over-run To the Ephesians kind His Body to Magnesian Land He willingly resign'd The Pledge of Glory gain'd By Victory next day 'T was th' Oracles Command Which he that only knew Resolved to obey And thus to friendship true He dy'd to save his friends So sure it is that where The Wise Men have their Ends They no less useful dye Than when they living were This happen'd about the fifty ninth Olympiad leaving behind this Letter to Thales Pherecydes to Thales MAyest thou dy well when thy fatal day approaches I was taken desperately ill when I receiv'd thy Letters I was cover'd over with Vermin and a Quotidian Ague shook my Bones besides However I left it in charge with some of my Servants that so soon as they had interr'd me they should convey the enclosed to thee Which if thou do'st approve shew it to the rest of the Wise Men if not conceal it for my part I cannot say it pleased me very much I cannot commend it for infallibility for I neither promis'd it neither do I profess to know the Truth of all things Something perhaps of the Theology thou may'st make use of the rest must be consider'd For I rather chose to propose obscurely than to determine But my Distemper every day increasing I am unwilling to lose either any of my Physicians or any of my Friends And to those that ask me how I do I shew my finger through the Door to let 'em see my condition and bid 'em all be sure to come next day to Pherecydes's Funeral And these are they who were call'd the Wise Men to the number of which there are some who add Pisistratus the Tyrant Now we come to the Philosophers and therefore first
let us begin with the Ionick Philosophy of which we have already declar'd Thales the Instructor of Anaximander to be the first Founder The End of the First Book Diogenes Laertius Containing the Lives Opinions and Apophthegms Of the most Famous PHILOSOPHERS The Second Book Translated from the Greek by Sam. White M. D. The LIFE of ANAXIMANDER ANaximander a Milesian was the Son of Praxiades He held that the Beginning and Principle of all things was the Vast Immensity however no way bounding the Air the Water or any other Thing That the parts were subject to Alteration but that the whole was immutable that the Earth lay in the middle as it were claiming the place of a Center being of a Spherical Figure That the Light of the Moon was a false Light as being borrowed from the Sun which was at least equal to the Earth and the most pure sort of Fire He was the first inventer of the Gnomen which he fixed in the Dials of Lacedaemon which were then no other than places proper for the observation of the Shadows which the Sun cast whereby as Phavorinus records in his Universal History he mark'd out the Tropics and Equinoxes and erected Horoscopes He was also the first who undertook to delineate the Perimeter or Circuit of the Earth and Sea and to frame a Sphere that ' embody'd both those Elements Which done he set down in writing a short Exposition of such things as occur'd most plainly to his Apprehension In the second year of the fifty eighth Olympiad he had attained to the sixty fourth year of his Age as Apollodorus the Athenian declares in his Chronicle and dy'd not long after but he flourish'd in his prime during the Reign of Polycrates Tyrant of Samos It is reported That one time among the rest as he was singing certain Boys laugh'd at him which when he understood Therefore said he it behoves us to sing so much the better because of the Boys There was also another Anaximander a Milesian likewise who was an Historian and wrote in the Ionic Dialect The LIFE of ANAXIMENES ANaximenes a Milesian also was the Son of Eurystratus and a Hearer of Anaximander and as some say of Parmenides likewise He affirm'd the Air and the Infinite Immensity to be the beginning of All things and that the Stars did not move above the Earth but round about it He wrote in the Ionic Dialect affecting a plain and concise Style He was born in the sixty third Olympiad as Apollodorus testifies and dy'd about the time that Sardis was taken There were also two others of the same name born in Lampsacus the one an Orator the other an Historian and Nephew to the Rhetorician who wrote the History of Alexander's fam'd Atchievements There are likewise extant two Epistles of Anaximenes the Philosopher to Pythagoras of which the first â—uns thus Anaximenes to Pythagoras THales himself in the progress of his Studies from the flower of his Youth to his Old Age was not altogether free from misfortune For as it was his custom going forth one night with his Maid Servant to behold the Stars in the midst of his serious Contemplation forgetting the situation of the place while he went forward gazing up to the Skies he fell down a steep Precipice This was the end say the Milesians of that famous Astrologer But we among the rest of his Scholars forget not the Man nor our Children who are his Disciples likewise But we embrace his Doctrine and ascribe the beginning of all our Learning to Thales His second Epistle was this that follows Anaximenes to Pythagoras CErtainly thou did'st consult our Advantage more than our selves in returning from Samos to Crotona where thou livest in Peace For the Sons of Aeacus are offensive to others and for the Milesians they are in subjection to their Tyrants And the King of the Medes threatens us severely too unless we will submit our Necks to the Yoke of Servitude But as yet the Ionians seem readily resolv'd to fight with the Medes both for their own and the Liberty of their Neighbours But the Enemy so surrounds and over-powers us at present that we have little hopes to preserve it How then is it possible for Anaximenes to mind his Contemplation of the Skies living as he does in continual dread of Perdition or Slavery But thou enjoyest a perfect Tranquillity honour'd by the Crotonaeans and other Italians and crowded with Disciples out of Sicily The LIFE of ANAXAGORAS ANaxagoras a Clozomenian the Son of Hegesibulus or Eubulus was a diligent Disciple of Anaximenes He was the first who attributed to Matter Sense and Reason thus beginning his great Work which is both delightful and loftily compos'd All things at the beginning sprung together then came the World's Intelligence and shap'd and embellish'd every individual Species whereas it was call'd the Great Intelligence Of which thus Timon in his Silli For thus fam'd Anaxagoras profoundly taught That the vast Mind like some great Hero fought Rebellious Chaos that disdain'd controul And then it was that the Worlds mighty Soul Millions of ranging formless Bodies fix'd Rammass'd Compacted here conjoyn'd there mix'd Vntil at length the vanquish'd Mass gave o're And all agreed that was confus'd before This Person was not only eminent for his Birth and Riches but for the Grandeur of his aspiring Mind For he surrender'd his Patrimony to his Relations at what time being by them tax'd for neglecting his Estate What then said he are not you sufficiently able to take care of it Soon after he left 'em all and retir'd himself to the Contemplation of Nature not minding publick or private Affairs Insomuch that to one who thus accosted him What! then takest thou no care of thy Country Yes said he no Man more pointing to the Heav'ns He is said to have been twenty years of Age when Xerxes invaded Greece and to have liv'd seventy two But Apollodorus in his Chronicle affirms him to have flourish'd in his prime in the Seventieth Olympiad and that in the first year of the Se-Seventy eighth Olympiad he ended his days He began to divulge his Philosophical Exercises at Athens under Callias in the twentieth year of his Age as Demetrius Phalereus reports in his Compendium of the Athenian Rulers Where they say he continu'd thirty years He affirm'd the Sun to be a massy Plate of Red-hot Iron bigger than the Peloponnesus Which some assert to have been the Opinion of Tantalus before him He held that the Moon was full of Habitations Mountains and Vallies and that the Principles of all things were endu'd with similitude of Parts For that as the dust and filings of Gold might be embody'd into a Mass so was the Universe compos'd of little Bodies consisting of similar Particles That heavy Bodies possess'd the lowermost place as the Earth Light things the uppermost as Fire and the Middlemost he assign'd to Air and Water That the Sea lay below the Earth which was broad the moisture being
exhaled by the Sun. That the motions of the Stars were at first disorderly and confus'd as it were over the Top of the Earth or the Pole which always appears but that afterwards the change of Inclination happen'd That the Milky-way was only the Reflexion of the Sun where none of the Stars could cast their Light. That Comets were only the Meeting together or Conjunctions of all the Planets sending forth flames of Fire which danc'd to and fro according to the Motion of the Air. That the Rarifying the Air by the Sun was the occasion of Winds That Thunder was a compression of the Clouds Light'ning a brushing of the Clouds one against another That an Earthquake was the return of the Air from the Subterraneal Parts That all Living Creatures sprung at first from a mixture of Moist Hot and Earthy and then begat each other That Males were generated in the right Females in the left side of the Womb. It is reported that he foretold the fall of the Stone near the River of Aegos call'd Aegos-Potamos which he said would fall from the Sun. Whence Euripides who was his Disciple in his fable of Phaeton calls the Sun a Golden Mass or Clod of Gold. Coming to Olympia he sate himself down covered with a Leathern Hide as if it had been going to rain and being asked whether he thought the Sea would ever overflow the Mountains of Lampsacus Yes said he unless it want time To the question to what purpose he was Born He replied To contemplate the Sun the Moon and the Heavens To one that told him he had lost the Athenians Not so said he but they me Beholding Mausolus's Tomb Asumptuous Monument said he is a great Estate Metamorphosed into Stone To one who griev'd that he should dye in a foreign Country The Descent said he to the Infernal Shades is every where alike He was the first as Phavorinus relates in his Universal History who affirmed that Homer's Poem was composed of Vertue and Justice To which Opinion of his Metrodorus of Lampsacus his intimate Friend is said to have contributed very much who was the first that essayed to write of Natural things in Poetry However Anaxagoras was the first who ever published any Treatise written upon that Subject Silenus also farther reports in his first Book of History that a Stone fell from Heaven in the time that Dimylus Ruled at what time Anaxagoras aver'd that the whole Heaven was Composed of Stones only that the Swiftness of the Circumrotation fixed 'em in their Places which otherwise would suddenly loosen and fall down But as to his being called in Question there are various Reports For Sotion in his Succession of the Philosophers asserts that he was accused of Irreligion by Cleo because he held the Sun to be a Red-hot Mass of Iron for which when Pericles his Scholar defended him he was fin'd fifty Talents and exiled his Country Satyrus also in his Lives reports that he was accused by Thucydides who always opposed Pericles not only of Impiety but Treason and in his absence was Condemned to Death At what time when he received the News both of the Sentence pronounced against him and the Death of his Sons as to his Condemnation he answered That it was no more than what Nature had long before decreed that both he and they should Dye As to the Death of his Sons he replied That he well knew he had not begotten 'em to be Immortal Yet some there are who attribute these Sayings to Salon others to Zenophon However Demetrius Phaâ—areus records in his Treatise of old Age that he buried his Sons with his own Hands On the other side Hermippus relates that he was imprisoned in order to his Execution But then Pericles coming into the Assembly asked the Rulers whether they could accuse him of anything that reached his Life who returning no answer Why then said he I am his Disciple and therefore beware how ye destroy a Man impeached only by Malice and Calumny but rather take my Advice and let him go Which was accordingly done However he took the affront so hainously that he would not stay in the City In opposition to this Jerome in his second Book of Commentaries asserts That Pericles caused him to be brought into Court tottering every Step he went as being spent with Age and long Sickness and that he was acquitted rather through the Compassion of the Judges than that he was found innocent of what was laid to his Charge So strangely do Authors vary in their Reports concerning his Condemnation He was also thought to have born Democritus a grudge for refusing him a Conference which he desired At length retiring to Lampsacus he there ended his days And being asked by the Magistrates of the City whether he had any particular Command to lay upon 'em he desired that the Boys might have Liberty to Play every Year during the Month wherein he died which Custom is observed to this Day He was honourably interred by the Lampsacenses who caused this Epigram to be engraved upon his Monument Here he who th' utmost bounds of Earth and Skies For Truth and Knowledg rang'd entombed lies To which we shall add this other of our own For saying that the Sun was but a Mass Of Iron Red-hot doom'd Anaxagoras To Death great Pericles sav'd which danger past Another Error was his End at last There are also three more of the same Name The first an Orator and Scholar of Isocrates The Second a Statuary of whom Antigonus makes mention and the third a Grammarian the Disciple of Zenodorus The LIFE of ARCHELAVS ARchelaus an Athenian or Milesian was the Son of Apollodorus or of Mido as others affirm the Disciple of Anaxagoras and Socrates's Master He was the first that introduced natural Philosophy out of Ionia into Athens and was therefore called the Naturalist However he was the last Professor of natural Philosophy Socrates soon after advancing the Study of Ethics of which nevertheless he himself in his Life-time did not seem to have been utterly Ignorant for he made several of his publick Readings upon the Subjects of Law of Morality and Justice Which being borrowed from him and propagated by Socrates he was therefore look'd upon as the first Inventor of Ethics He asserted two Principles of Generation Heat and Cold and that Living Animals were first created out of Mud and that Good and Evil did not proceed from Nature but from the Law. For all which he gave these particular Reasons First that the Water being melted and dissolved by the Heat when it came to be thickned by the fiery Mixture made the Earth but being fluid produced the Air whence it came to pass that the one was curbed by the circular Motion of the Air the other by that of the Fire Then that living Animals were begotten out of the hot Earth which dissolved the Mud into a Substance almost like Milk for their Nourishment and that after the same manner Men were
produced He was the first who defined the Voice of Man to be the Repercussion of the Air and affirmed that the Sea was a vast Body of Water strained through the Earth into the Cavities of the terrestrial Globe that the Sun was the bigger of the Stars and the whole was infinite Besides this Archelaus there were three others of the same Name The one Chorographer who made a distinct Mapp of that part of the World over which Alexander had marched Another who wrote of natural Productions the third an Orator who also wrote of the Art of Rhetoric The LIFE of SOCRATES SOcrates was the Son of Sophroniscus a Stone-cutter and Phaenareta a Midwife as Plato witnesses in his Theaetetus however he challeng'd Athens for his Country as being born in Halopex a little Village in the Athenian Territory He is said to have assisted Euripides in composing his Tragedies Which occasion'd the following Verses of Mnesilochus New from the Mint the Phrygians here behold Made by Euripides as we are told But whispers run that Socrates was he Who gave perfection to the Tragedy In another place he calls him Socrates's Wedge And Callias in his Pedaetae thus retorts upon Euripides And why not I look great O Sir you may For Socrates assists your Verse they say Nor is Aristophanes less severe in his Clouds This is the great Euripides whose Plays Are full of Wisdom but who bears the praise He was a Hearer of Anaxagoras as some report but of Damon as Alexander asserts in his Successions who being condemned to death he follow'd Archelaus the Naturalist by whom he was belov'd in the worst Sence as Aristoxenus relates But Doris affirms That he serv'd as an Apprentice and then working at his Trade of a Stone-Cutter made the Statues of the Graces in their Habits which are to be seen in the Acropolis or Castle of Athens Which occasion'd the following lines of Timon in his Silli From These a shabby Stone-Cutter for sooth A babler about Law to tell ye truth His Learning boasts the Grecian's Prophet he If you 'l believe him quaint in Sophistry A scoffing Droll a Sub-Athenian more The cursed'st Flatterer e're known before For as Idomeneus relates he was a very smart and ready Orator only the thirty Tyrants forbid all teaching or practising the Art of Rhetoric as Zenophon testifies And he is severely censur'd by Aristophanes as one that could make a good Cause of a bad one Moreover as Phavorinus writes in his General History he was the first who together with Aeschines his Scholar taught Rhetorick in his Publick School Which Idomeneus also testifies in his Life of Socrates He was also the first who discours'd of the Government to be observ'd in Humane Life and Conversation and the first of the Philosophers who was publickly Executed after Condemnation And Aristoxenus also the Son of Spintharus reports him to have been the first that demanded money for teaching But Demetrius of Byzantium relates that Crito brought him off from that Mercenary Trade of begging and growing in love with his great Parts and the perfections of his Mind became his bountiful Scholar After he had cry'd down Natural Philosophy as neither beneficial nor profitable to Mankind he introduc'd Ethicks which he publickly taught in the Work-Houses and Market-places exhorting the People only to study that which according to the Verse in Homer In civil Converse and each Family Might civil most or most destructive be And such was his vehemency in discourse that he would frequently bend his fists knock his knuckles one against another and twitch the hairs of his Beard from his Chin after such a strange manner that the People contemning his antic Gestures would laugh at him and offer him twenty affronts which nevertheless he bore with an extraordinary Patience Insomuch that once being spurn'd and kick'd by a certain Person to another that admir'd at his forbearance he made answer What if an Ass had kick'd me should I have presently su'd him for it Thus much Demetrius He never thought it necessary to travel unless when any occasion call'd him to the Wars All the rest of his time he staid at home and spent it wholly in conversing and disputing with his familiar Friends not so much to convince them of their own Opinions as to find out the Truth himself To Euripides who ask'd him what he thought of a Treatise of Heraclitus's which he had given him to read he reply'd Those things that I understand are Genuine and Mascâ—liâ—e and so perhaps may they be likewise which I do not understand yet they want a Delian Diver He was very careful to exercise his Body and therefore he enjoy'd a most healthy and strong Constitution Insomuch that in the Expedition against Amphipolis at the Battle of Deliâ—s he sav'd Xenophon that was fallen from his Horse and mounted him again And when all the rest of the Athenians fled he retreated fair and softly and frequently look'd back without the least disturbance resolv'd to have defended himself had any one adventur'd to assail him He also serv'd in the War against Potidaea by Sea in which Expedition he is reported to have stood a whole night in one Posture More than that after a single Victory obtain'd by his own Valour he yielded the honour of the action to Alcibiades by whom he was highly esteem'd as Aristippus relates in his fourth Book of Ancient Delights Iâ— the Châ—â—â—e reports him to have travel'd with Archelaus into Samos Aristotle also affirms that he visited Pytho and Phavorinus in his first Book of Remembrances that he survey'd the Isthmus He was a person resolv'd and obstinate in his Opinions and a great Champion of Democracy which is apparent from hence that he withstood both Critias and his Faction who commanded Leontes the Salaminian a rich Man to be sent for that he might be put to death and was the sole Person that adventur'd to pronounce judgment contrary to the ten most powerful Captains and when the Prison doors were set open to him to go where he pleas'd refus'd severely chid those that wept for him and when fetter'd mollify'd the fury of his Enemies with his soft and smooth Language He was a person contented with his present condition and Majestic So that as Pamphila relates when Alcibiades had giv'n him a large piece of ground whereon to build him a House said he to his Benefactor Hadst thou given me a pair of Shoes and a Hide to make 'em my self would it not appear very ridiculous in me to accept it And when he saw the vast variety of Commodities that were put to sale among the Multitude he was wont to say to himself How many things are there in the World of which I have no need And it was his custom frequently to repeat the following Tambicks Silver and Purple breeding so much strife Fit for Tragoedians not for Humane Life He despis'd Archelaus the Macedonian Scopas the Crannonian and Eurylochus the Larissaean refusing the
and Diana which begins Diana Hail and Thou bright Delian Youth Apollo Hail renowned Off-spring Both. Though Dionysodorus will not allow it to be his He also wrote an Aesopian Fable highly significant and to the purpose which thus began The wise Aesopus his Corinthians taught Not to trust Vertue with the common Rout. This was the Exit which Socrates made out of the World. But soon after the Athenians so sorely repented of what they had done that they shut up for a time all their Places of Public Sports and Exercises And for his Judges some they Exil'd and condemn'd Melitus to Death But the Memory of Socrates they honour'd with a Brazen Statue the Workmanship of Lysippus which they erected in the chiefest Street of the City Anytus also being then beyond the Seas the Heracleots exterminated the same day Nor were the Athenians thus unkind to Socrates alone but to several other Illustrious Persons also For as Heraclides reports they Fin'd Homer fifty Drachma's as being a mad Man and condemn'd Tyrtaeus for a Fool though they honour'd Astydamas the first of Aeschylus's Scholars with a Brazen Statue Which Euripides throws upon 'em as a reproach in his Palamedes Y'have slain y'have slain the Wise sweet-singing Muse That liv'd among ye free from all abuse However Philochorus affirms that Enripides dy'd before Socrates He was born as Apollodorus relates in his Chronicle under the Government of Aphsephion in the fourth year of the 77th Olympiad upon the sixth day of the Month Thargelion or April when the Athenians purifie their City with a Solemn Procession the very same day that the Delians affirm Diana to have been born He dy'd in the first year of the ninety fifth Olympiad in the seventieth year of his Age Which Demetrius Phalereus also testifies in opposition to others who will not allow him to have liv'd above sixty However they were Disciples of Anaxagoras both he and Euripides who was born in the first year of the seventy fifth Olympiad under the Government of Callias Now it seems to me that Socrates apply'd himself also to Natural Philosophy which appears by his Discourses of Providence mention'd by Xenophon though he never made any set Orations but such as concern'd Morality and the well ordering of Humane Life And Plato in his Apology making mention of Anaxagoras and other Philosophers discourses of those things which Socrates is said not to have deny'd as attributing all to Socrates Aristotle also reports that a certain Magician coming out of Syria to Athens reprehended Socrates for many things and foretold his violent Death As for any Epigrams that were made upon him we find no other but this of our own Now Nectar sip among the Gods for thee Great Socrates the Delphian Deity Pronounc'd the Man and sure the God was wise Whom he for wisdom above all did prize Ingrateful Athens in a poyson'd Bowl To Starry Mansions sent thy swimming Soul The more ingrateful they and vile much more That drank such Wisdom from thy Lips before Aristotle tells us in his Poetics that Antiochus of Lemnos and Antiopho an expounder of Prodigies labour'd highly to be his Emulaters as Onatas and Kydo vy'd with Pythagoras Sagaris with Homer living and Xenophanes after his death Cecrops with Hesiod Pindar with Amphimenes the Coan Thales with Pherecydes Bias with Salarus of Priene Pittacus with Antimenides and Alceus Sosibius with Anaxagoras Simonides with Timocreon Now of those that succeeded Socrates and were called Socratics the most eminent were Plato Xenophon and Antisthenes Of those that were call'd the Ten the most famous were Aesthines Phaedo Euclid and Aristippus There was also another Socrates who was an Historian and wrote the History of Argos another a Bithynian and a Peripatetic a third a writer of Epigrams and a fourth a Coan who set down several Forms of Supplications to the Gods. The LIFE of XENOPHON XEnophon an Athenian was the Son of Gryllus Born in the Village of Argeus modest to Excess and the most lovely Person living It is reported that meeting Socrates in a narrow Passage he held up his Stick and having stopped him from going forward asked him where he might purchase such and such things that were necessary for humane Use to which when Socrates had returned him an Answer Socrates asked him again where good and vertuous Men were to be found which sudden question putting Xenophon to a non-plus Follow me then said Socrates and Learn and so from thenceforth Xenophon became a Hearer of Socrates and was the first who taking Notes of what he heard afterwards made his Observations public in writing to all the World being also the first that wrote the History of the Philosophers He was in Love with Cliniâ—s as Aristippus relates in his fourth Book of the delights of the Ancients to whom he is said to have used these Expressions And now Clinias I behold thee with more delight than all things else whatever that are accounted Beautiful among Men. Nor would I value my being Blind as to all other Objects so I might enjoy the Sight of Clinias only But I am perplexed all Night and disquieted in my Dreams because I see not Him. But I return the choicest of my Thanks to Day and to the Suâ— because they shew me Clinias again As for his Friendship with Cyrus he gained it in this manner There was then in the Persian Court a familiar Friend of his Proxenus by Name by Birth a Boeotian the Disciple of Gorgius Leontinus well known to Cyrus and by him highly beloved He remaining at Sardis with Cyrus sent an Epistle to Xenophon and then at Athens inviting him to an Acquaintance with the Prince Xenophon shewed the Letter to Socrates and asked his Advice who sent him to Delphos to consult the Oracle Thither Xenophon went in obedience to Socrates and enquires of the Deity not whether he should go to Cyrus but after what manner For which tho' Socrates modestly blamed him yet he advised him to go Thereupon he went and ingratiated himself in such a manner with the young Prince that he became no less his Friend than Proxenus As for what happened in the ascent of Cyrus and the return of the Greeks he himself has given us a perfect account with his own Pen. But he hated Meno the Pharsalian at the time of the Ascent Commander of the Foreign Troops who among other Reproaches upbraided him with his Excess of Male-Venery Moreover he was wont to scoff at Apollonides and tell him that his Ears were bored After the Ascent his misfortunes in Pontus and the violation of the Leagues he had made with Seuthus King of the Odrysians he marched into Asia and join'd with Agesilaus King of the Lacedemonians and listing under his Command the Souldiers that he brought along with him he became his familiar Acquaintance at what time because he seemed to take part with the Lacedemonians he was Condemn'd and Exil'd by the Athenians Marching then to Ephesus and being full of
Money he delivered the one half of his Gold to Megabyztes the Priest of Diana to keep till his Return but if he never came back for the consecration of a Statue to the Goddess Of the other half he sent a good part in Presents and Offerings to Delphos From thence he accompany'd Agesilaus into Greece being call'd home to command in the Theban War at what time the Lacedemonians kindly entertain'd him and afforded him all necessary Accommodations After that taking his leave of Agesilaus who retir'd to Scilluntes in the Territory of Elea not far distant from the City whither a certain ordinary Woman called Philesia as Dentetrius the Magnesian relates together with two Children Gryllus and Diodorus which were also said to be Twins as Dinarchus reports in his Book of Divorce against Xenophon Soon after Megabyzus coming to attend the public Solemnities of the Place he receiv'd his Money with which he purchased a piece of Land and consecrated the same to the Goddess lying upon the River Selenus which bare the same name with that which ran by the Walls of Ephâ—sus There he spent his time in Hunting feasting his Friends and writing Histories Though Dinarchus affirms that his House and Lands were the free gift of the Lacedemonians Philopidas also the Spartan sent him several Dardanian Captives of which he dispos'd as he thought fit himself At what time the Eleans marching against Scilluntes while the Lacedaemonians delay'd their assistance took the Country But then the Sons of Xenophon privately withdrew themselves with a small retinue and came to Lepreum Xenophon himself also first retir'd to Elis then to Lepreum to his Sons and thence all together getting safe to Corinth there settl'd themselves At the same time the Athenians having resolv'd to assist the Lacedaemonians he sent his Sons to Athens to serve in the Wars For they had been both bred up at Sparta as Diocles relates in his Lives of the Philosophers As for Diodorus he escap'd out of the Battel without performing any remarkable Atchievment But Gryllus serving among the Cavalry for it was at the Battle of Mantinea after he had behav'd himself with a more than ordinary courage dy'd valiantly in the Throng of his Enemies as Euphorus relates in the five and twentieth Book of his History Ctephisodotus then leading the Horse and Agesilaus commanding the Foot And the same Fate befalling the Theban General for Epaminondas was slain in the same fight It is reported That when the news of the defeat was brought to Xenophon he was then offering Sacrifices with a Crown upon his Head at what time when he heard that his Son Gryllus was slain he laid aside his Crown but afterwards finding by the continuance of the Relation that he had bravely fought and dy'd honourably he put on his Crown again Some report that he did not so much as shed a Tear only sigh'd out these words I know that my Son was not Immortal Aristotle also tells us That an infinite number of Persons wrote the Praises of Gryllus and bestow'd Epitaphs upon him partly to celebrate his Name and partly to gratifie his Father Hermippus moreover asserts That Socrates wrote an Encomium of Gryllus which Timon thus derides A sorry Duad or a Leash perhaps Of Doggrel Distichs he together scrapes To claw kind Xenophon or else to please His Friend and Scholar bawling Aeschines Xenophon flourish'd in the fourth year of the ninety fourth Olympiad and he accompany'd Cyrus in his Expedition at what time Xenaretus govern'd Athens a year before the death of Socrates He dy'd according to Stesiclides in his Epitome of the Archontes and Olympiaes in the first year of the hundred and fifth Olympiad during the Government of Callidemides at what time Philip the Son of Amyntas reign'd in Macedon And Demetrius the Magnesian affirms That he was far strick'n in years at the time of his decease A person of great Vertue and among his other Excellencies a great Lover of Horsemanship Hunting and Warlike Discipline as is manifest by his Writings He was very Religious a constant Offerer of Sacrifices one who was able to judge of Religion and an exact Emulator of Socrates in every thing He wrote about forty several Treatises the Ascent of Cyrus annexing a Prologue to every particular Book but not any to the Whole the Education of Cyrus the Transactions of the Greeks and several Commentaries his Symposium and Oeconomics He wrote also of Horsemanship and of Hunting an Apology for Socrates of Seeds Hiero or the Tyrant Agesilaus the Common-wealth of Athens and Lacedaemon Which latter Demetrius the Magnesian denies to be Xenophon's It is reported also that when it was in his power to have stifl'd the Works of Thucydides he was the first who made 'em public to the World for the honour of the Author He was call'd the Athenian Muse for the sweetness of his Style For which he was envy'd by Plato as we shall declare in his Life Nor could we our selves refrain his commendations in the following Epigrams By Cyrus call'd to assist his bold Ascent The valiant Xenophon not only went But back returning he so bravely fought As one that for Immortal honour sought Then writing his bold acts he plainly shew'd How much to Socrates his Valour ow'd Then this upon his Death Tho' Thee Great Xenophon thy Native Soil For Cyrus sake condemn'd to long Exile More kindly far by Corinth entertain'd A happy life thou lead'st where mildness reign'd In some other Authors I have read that he flourish'd about the Eighty ninth Olympiad together with the rest of the Socraetics On the other side Ister asserts that he was banish'd by the Decree of Eubulus but that afterwards the same person gave his Voice for his return home Of his name there were seven in all Himself the first The second an Athenian the Brother of Pythostratus who wrote a Poem entitl'd Theseis as also the Life of Epaminondas and Pelopidas The third was a Physician of Coos A fourth who compil'd the History of Hannibal The fifth a Collector of Fabulous Prodigies The sixth a Parian and a famous Statuary The seventh a writer of Comedies after the Ancient strain The LIFE of AESCHINES Aeschines an Athenian as some say was the Son of Charinus whose Trade it was to make Sawcidges as others assert of Lysanias industrious from his Infancy And therefore he never forsook Socrates Which occasion'd that saying of his Master The Sawcidge-makers Son is the only person that ever knew how to give us respect This was he as Idomeneus relates and not Crito who advis'd Socrates to make his escape out of Prison though Plato more a friend to Aristippus will have Crito to be the Author of that good Counsel However Aeschines was question'd for it and eagerly prosecuted by Menedemus the Eretrian because he had divulg'd several Dialogues under Socrates's name and which he pretended to have receiv'd from Xantippe Of which those that bear the Title of Acephali are very
and those pour'd down The Curtain draws and Coachman crys drive on Sophilus also the Comic Poet was very severe upon him in his Play call'd the Wedding Stilpo to hasten death what so provok'd thee But 't was Charinus Plaguy Problem choak'd thee The LIFE of CRITO CRito was an Athenian who above all others had such a singular affection for Socrates that he made it his business continually to supply his wants His Sons Critobulus Hermogenes Ctesippus and Epigenes were all the Disciples of Socrates Crito himself likewise was the Author of seventeen Dialogues all comprehended in one Volume and thus entitl'd That Learning does not make good Men. Of Plentiful Living Of what is sufficient Of Honesty and Vertue Of God. What it is to do evil Of Fertility Of the Law. Of Arts. Concerning Conversation Of Wisdom Of Protagoras or the Politician Of the Letters Of Poetry Of Generosity Concerning Education Of Knowledge What it is to know The LIFE of SIMO SIMO was an Athenian Stone-Cutter who when Socrates came into his Work-House and discours'd upon any subject set down in writing whatever he could remember For which reason his Dialogues are call'd Socratici of which there are three and thirty upon various subjects all bound together in one Volume with these running Titles Concerning the Gods. Of Honesty What is Honourable and Honest. Of Justice in two Parts Concerning Vertue that it is not to be taught Of Fortitude in three Dialogues Of Love. Concerning Popularity Of Honour Of Poetry Concerning Health Of Love Philosophy Knowledge and Music What is Honourable Of Education Of Labour Of Judgment Of Entity Of Number Of Industry Concerning the Love of Gain Of Vain-glory. Of Vertue Other Treatises he also wrote Concerning giving Counsel Of Reason and Dexterity Of Evil doing He is also reputed to be the first that made use of Socrates's Arguments And this was he who when Pericles promis'd him that if he would live with him he should want for nothing made him answer That he had no mind to part with his Liberty There was also another Simo who wrote a Treatise of Rhetoric A third who was a Physician and Kinsman to Seleucus and Nicanor and a fourth who was a Carver in Stone The LIFE of GLAVCO GLauco an Athenian was the Author of nine Dialogues all comprehended likewise in one Volume under these Titles Phydilus Euripides Amyntichus Euthias Lysichides Aristophanes Cephalus Anaxiphemus Menexeus There are also thirty two more that go abroad under his name but not allowed to be his The LIFE of SIMMIAS SImmias was a Theban and said to have wrote twenty three Dialogues under these Heads Of Wisdom Truth Musick Of Epic Verses Fortitude Philosophy Ratiocination Truth Letters Education Arts and Sciences How to govern Of Decency What to choose what to avoid Of Friendship Knowledge well living Of Possibility Of Money Concerning Life What is Honest Of Diligence and Love. The LIFE of CEBES CEbes a Theban likewise is reported to be the Author of three Dialogues entitl'd His Table Hebdome and Phrynichus The LIFE of MENEDEMVS MEnedemus the Son of Phaedo the Son of Clisthenes of the Family of the Theopropidae was a person of a Noble Extraction but a Carpenter and poor Others report him to have been a Tent-maker and that he learn'd both Trades Which was the reason that when he had made a certain Decree he was reproved by one Alexinus who told him that it did not become a Wise Man to make either a Tent or a Decree Afterwards being sent by the Eretrici to Garrison Megara he took a Journey to the Academy to visit Plato by whose perswasions not unwillingly entic'd he left off his being a Soldier But being invited by Asclepias the Phthiasian he liv'd at Megara with Stilpo whose followers they both became From whence going by Sea to Elis they fell into the company of Archipalus and Moschus and so till now they were call'd Eretrici from the Country where Menedemus was born Certainly it is that Menedemus was a Person highly esteem'd for his Vertue and Gravity For which reason Crates in his morose humour calls him The Eretric Bull. Nor is Timon less Satyrical in deriding his compos'd Demeanour Then rising up he knits his beetle Brows And gravely humms a lesson through his Nose However he was a person so awful that when Eurylochus the Cassandraan was sent for by Antigonus together with Clippides a young Gentleman of Cyzicum he refus'd to go for fear Menedemus should know it for he was quick and severe in his Reprimands Insomuch that when a young Man behav'd himself with an unbeseeming Insolence before him he said nothing but with a Reed upon the Pavement he describ'd the Posture of a Boy suffering under male Agitation till the young Man perceiving himself to be abus'd in the presence of all the standers by sneak'd out of the Room asham'd of what he had done Another time when Hierocles fell most severely foul upon him in the Pyraeum about Amphiaraus and told him several Stories concerning the taking of Eretria Menedemus said no more but only ask'd him Wherefore it was that Antigonus so highly extoll'd him To one that boasted of his Adultery Dost thou not know said he That Radishes contain as good a juice as Coleworts To a young Man that bawl'd and yaul'd after him Have a care said he lest thou forget for hast what thou hast left behind thee To Antigonus in a quandary whether he should go to a Feast where he knew there would be hard drinking He said no more than this Remember thou art the Son of a King. To a stupid fellow that talk'd impertinently to him Hast thou any Lands said he Who answering that he had several Farms Go then said he and look after 'em lest thou lose thy wealth and com'st to be a poor Fool. To one that ask'd his advice whether he should marry Dost thou not said he take me for a Wise Man Who not denying but that he was so Why then said he I am marry'd To one that affirm'd there were many Good Things he put the Question How many and whether he thought there were above a hundred Being invited to a sumptuous Feast which was a sort of Riot he could never abide he said nothing but by his silence reprehended the person while he was observ'd to take only a few Olives for his own share This liberty of speech which he us'd had like to have cost him and his Friend Asclepias their lives at Cyprus where he offended Nicocreon For the King having invited both them and several other Philosophers to a monthly Festival Menedemus could not forbear but with his wonted freedom publickly at the Table If there be any benefit said he in such Society these Feasts ought to be kept every day If not this is now superfluous To which the Tyrant answering That he set apart such leisure Holidays to hear the Philosophers Menedemus more sharply insisted That it behov'd him to hear the Philosophers
either Roast or Boil'd they went in The Guests in the Summer lay upon Mats in the Winter upon Sheep-skins with the woolly part upwards and every one had his Pillow brought him The Cup that went about contain'd something more than half a Pint. The junkets were Beans and Lupins Sometimes Pears or Pomgranates or dry Figgs Of all which Lycophron makes mention in his Satyr call'd Menedemus where he writes in praise of the Philosopher thus much in part The Banquet short the Cup that went about Of moderate size was fill'd again when out But the chief junkets that adorn these Feasts Were learning's sweet Preserves and harmless Jests He was at first very much contemn'd and slighted and by the Eretrians frequently abus'd who call'd him Curr and mad Man But afterwards he was so highly admir'd that he was solely intrusted with the Government of the City He perform'd three Embassies to Ptolomy to Lysimachus and Demetrius highly honour'd where-ever he came And when the City allow'd him two hundred Talents a year he remitted fifty Being accus'd to Demetrius for designing to betray the City to Ptolomy he justify'd himself in an Epistle of which this was the beginning Menedemus to Demetrius Happiness I Hear that several stories have been told thee concerning Vs c. By this Letter he admonishes Demetrius to have a watchful Eye upon Aeschylus who was one of the contrary Faction He seems to have been sent to Demetrius in the behalf of Oropus which Embassy was by him manag'd with singular Gravity as Euphantus in his History records Antigonus also had a particular esteem for him and own'd himself to be his Disciple and when he had vanquish'd the Barbarians about Lysimachia Menedemus sent him a Decree written in a plain Style and free from any flattery which thus began The Captains and chief Counsellors to Antigonus Seeing that King Antigonus victorious over the Barbarians is now advanc'd to Elia prosperous in all things else according to his wishes therefore the Senate and People have thought fit c. This Decree and his intimate familarity with the King were the Reasons that he was suspected for having a design to betray the City And being accus'd by Aristodemus he retir'd privately to the Temple of Amphiaraus in Oropus from whence after the loss of the Golden Cups as Hermippus relates he was by the general Decree of the Boeotians commanded to depart Removing therefore from thence with a heavy heart he privately return'd into his Country sent for his Wife and Children and retiring to Antigonus under his Protection ended his Days for grief and anguish of mind On the other side Heraclides tells us a story quite contrary how that being made President of the Senate he freed the Eretrians several times from the attempts of those that affected the Tyranny by calling in Demetrius to his assistance And that therefore it was not likely he should have any design to betray the City to Antigonus which was a meer Calumny thrown upon him But that he went to Antigonus with another design was true for when he could not prevail with him to set his Country at liberty he abstained from all manner of Food for seven days together and so ended his life And this is also testified by Antigonus the Carystian Only against Persaeus he profess'd an inexorable hatred for when Antigonus would have restor'd to the Eretrians their former Republican Government for the sake of Menedemus he was the only Person that disswaded him For which reason Menedemus bitterly incens'd against him in the hearing of a full Assembly at a great Feast 'T is true said he he is a Philosopher but of all Men that are or ever were or ever will be assuredly the most vile and wicked He dy'd according to Heraclides in the seventy third year of his Age. Nor could we chuse but dedicate this Epigram to his memory When first Great Menedemus loudest Fame Did to our Ears thy sudden End proclaim How thou morose and sternly obstinate By Abstinence did'st hasten on thy Fate It was no more 't is true than what thy Sect Allow'd however 't was a weak Defect Of Noble Courage in a Man so rare Not to be able to withstand Despair And thus much for the Socratics and those that descended from them We come now to Plato who founded the Academy and to those of his Followers who were most transcendent in Learning and Eloquence The End of the Second Book Diogenes Laertius Containing the Lives Opinions and Sayings Of the most Famous PHILOSOPHERS The Third Book Translated from the Greek by E. Smith M. A. The LIFE of PLATO PLATO the Son of Aristo and Perictione or Potona was Born at Athens his Mother being descended from the Race of Solon For the Brother of Solon was Dropides from whom Critias the Father of Calaeschrus whose Son was Critias also one of the thirty Tyrants the Father of Glauco from whom Charmides and Perictione of whom and Aristo Plato was the Son being the sixth from Solon who deriv'd his Pedigree from Neleus and Neptune His Father also is said to have deduc'd his Original from Codrus the Son of Melanthus who in like manner boasted his Descent from Neptune as Thrasylus testifies Speusippus also in Plato's Book entitl'd Thâ— Supper Clearchus in praise of Plato and Anaxilides in his Lives of the Philosophers tell us how the story went that Aristo inflam'd with Perictione's Beauty would have ravish'd her But finding too great a Resistance and warn'd by Apollo in his sleep he then courted her to the chast embraces of Wedlock So that Plato was born according to Apollodorus in his Chronicle in the eighty eighth Olympiad in the Month of April the same day that Apollo came into the World by the supputation of the Delians And dy'd as Hermippus reports in the first year of the hundred and eighth Olympiad being at that time fourscore and one years of Age and designing to marry another Wife Though Neauthes affirms him to have been fourscore and four years old at the time of his decease So that he was six years younger than Isocrates For that he was born under Lysimachus but Plato under the Government of Aminias about which time Pericles also dy'd Then for his most familiar and intimate Acquaintance Collyteus is number'd among the chiefest by Antileo in his second Book De Temporibus Others there are who report him to have been born in Aegina in the House of Phidiaedes who was the Son of Thales as Phavorinus records in his Various History his Father being sent with others about the Division of certain Lands and returning to Athens when they were expell'd by the Lacedaemonians who assisted the Aeginenses He is also said to have gratify'd the People of Athens with several pompous Shews and Interludes at the expences of Dio as Athenodorus relates He had two Brothers Adimantus and Glaucus and a Sister named Potâ—ma the Mother of Speusippus and was taught his first Rudiments of Learning by
which is Less and so of the rest And thus he divided the first Genus's of things according to Aristotle There were also besides our famous Plato several others of the same name One that was a Philosopher likewise and born at Rhodes the Disciple of Panatius as Seleucus the Grammarian records in his Treatise of Philosophy another that was a Peripatetic and the Disciple of Aristotle And one more the Son of Praxiphanes a Comic Poet that wrote after the Ancient manner of freedom without respect of Persons in imitation of Aristophanes The End of the Third Book Diogenes Laertius Containing the Lives Opinions and Apothegms Of the most Famous PHILOSOPHERS The Fourth Book Translated from the Greek by J. Philips Gent. The LIFE of SPEVSIPPVS THUS have we to the utmost of our power made a true and faithful Collection of whatever has occur'd to our Enquiry concerning the Life of Plato To him succeeded Speusippus an Athenian the Son of Eurymedon and Potone the Sister of Plato born in the Village of Myrchinusium He govern'd Plato's School for eight years together beginning from the hundred and eighth Olympiad He plac'd the Statues of the Graces also in the School which was erected by Plato in the Academy He likewise persever'd in the same Opinions with Plato but differed in his Manners For he was hasty and addicted to pleasure Therefore it is reported of him that in his Passion he threw a little whelp into a Well and that to indulge his pleasure he made a Journey into Macedonia to be present at the Nuptials of Cassander He is also said to have been a hearer of Plato's she Disciples Lasthenia the Prophetess and Axiothea the Phliasian Whence it happen'd that Dionysius thus derides him And we may learn Philosophy from thy Female Arcadian Disciple And in another place Plato taught for nothing all that came to his house but thou exactest pay and scrap'st as well from the unwilling as the willing He was the first according to Diodorus in his first Book of Commentaries who first sought out for what was common in all Arts and Sciences and as far as could be done joyn'd 'em together and made 'em agree one with another He likewise first divulg'd those things called Mysteries by Isocrates as Caenous affirms And was the first that invented the way of making Wicker Baskets and such like hollow Utensils compos'd of Twigs At length finding his Body consum'd by a Palsey he sent for Xenocrates desiring him to come and succeed him in his School While he was in this condition it is reported that being carry'd in a little Chariot to the Academy he met Diogenes whom after he had saluted with the usual complement of I am glad to see you well The other reply'd But I won't wish you well that can endure a life so miserable At last wasted with old age such was his despair and discontent that of his own accord he put an end to his irkâ—om Life However Plutarch in his Life of Lysander and Sylla reports that he was all over-run with Lice for he was of an infirm and loose Constitution according to the Report of Timotheus in his Book of Lives To a rich Man that lov'd a deform'd Woman he is said to have given this rebuke What need hast thou of such a Dowdy as this For I 'le procure thee a far handsomer for ten Talents He left behind him a great number of Commentaries and several Dialogues among which is that of Aristippus the Cyrenaean Of Riches one Of Pleasure one Of Justice one Of Philosophy one Of Friendship one Of the Gods one The Philosopher one To Cephalus one Cleinomachus or Lysias one The Citizen one Of the Soul one To Gryllus one Aristippus one The Probation of Arts one Dialogues by way of Commentary one Ten Dialogues relating to things alike in business Divisions and Propositions relating to things alike Concerning the Kinds and Forms of Examples To Amartyrus The Eucomium of Plato Epistles to Die Dionysius and Philip Concerning the making of Laws Mathematicus Mandryboulus Lysias Definitions The Order of Commentaries Of Verses an infinite number To all which Simonides adds some Histories wherein he has set down the Lives of Bion and Dio. And Phavorinus reports in his Second Book of Commentaries how that Aristotle bought all his Books for three Talents There was also another Speusippus a Physician Herophilius of Alexandria The LIFE of XENOCRATES XEnocrates the Son of Agathenor a Chalcedonian from his very youth was a great admirer and hearer of Plato nor would he leave him when he travelled into Sicily He was naturally dull and blockish insomuch that Plato was wont to say when he compar'd him with Aristotle That the one wanted a Spur and the other a Bridle And at other times To what a Horse what an Ass do I joyn As to other things Xenocrates was very grave in his gate and sowre-look'd insomuch that Plato would several times cry out to him Xenocrates go and sacrifice to the Graces He liv'd in the Academy for the most part But if at any time he went into the City the Rabble of loose and Harlotry People would still gather about him to molest and affront him as he passed along Phryne also the famous Curtezan having a mind to try her temptations upon him to that purpose pretended to be pursu'd and flying to his little house for shelter was by him let in meerly in compassion After that perceiving there was but one little Bed she desir'd him to let her have part of it which he readily granted But after she made use of all her allurementâ— she was forc'd to return as she came telling those that asked her how she had sped that she hâ—d lain with a Statue not with a Man. Some there are who report that certain of his Scholars put Lais to Bed to him but that he was so chast that he would suffer himself to be cut and burnt about the Privities to prevent venereal Insurrections He was faithful of his word even to admiration so that the Athenians gave him alone that liberty of delivering hiâ— testimony unsworn which was not allow'd to any other of what degree oâ— quality soever He was also a person of great Frugality so that when Alexander gave him a large sum of Money he only accepted of three thousand Atticks and return'd the rest with these words That he had need of more who had more to maintain And as for another Sum sent him by Antipater he would not so much as touch it as Myronianus witnesses in his Similes Another time being presented with a Crown of Gold by some of Dionysius's Favourites for bearing up briskly at a Drinking Match when he was gone out of doors he laid it before the Statue of Mercury where he was wont only to deposit Garlands of Flowers before It is also reported of him that being sent with others on an Embassy to Philip when all the rest suffering themselves to be mollify'd by the
King's Presents both accepted of his Invitation and held private Conferences with him he would neither do one nor t'other Neither indeed was it for Philip's interest to admit him Wherefore when the Ambassadors return'd to Athens they complain'd Xenocrates had done 'em no Service upon which the Senate was ready to have Fin'd him But being inform'd by himself when he came to plead in his own justification how much it behov'd 'em at that time more than ever to take care of the City in regard that Philip had corrupted his Accusers already but could never bring him over to his Designs then they gave him double honour And Philip himself afterwards confess'd that of all the Ambassadors that were sent to his Court only Xenocrates was the Person whom no Gold could dazle Another time being sent Ambassador to Antipater for the Redemption of the Athenian Captives taken in the Lamiac War and invited by the Prince to a Banquet he return'd him these Verses in answer O Circe thy allurements tempt in vain The Man whose Vertue prudent thoughts sustain For who can come with pleasure to a Feast Before he see his Captive Friends releas'd Which was so well taken by the Prince that he presently order'd all the Captives their liberty Another time a Sparrow being pursu'd by a Hawk flew into his Bosom where he secur'd the Bird saying withal That it was not generous to betray a Suppliant Being sharply reprimanded by Bion he would make him no return saying That Tragedy when injur'd by Comedy never vouchsafed her any answer To one who neither understanding Music Geometry nor Astronomy would yet frequent his School Be gone said he for thou want's◠the supports of Philosophy Others report that he thus reprov'd him For this is no place to hatchel Wooll in Dionysius threatning Plato in these words Some body will take off thy head Xenocrates being present and shewing his own No body said he before he take off this Farther they report of him that Antipater coming to Athens and saluting him he return'd no answer to the Prince until he had finish'd the discourse which he had begun Lastly being a great contemner of Pomp and Vain-glory many times he spent the day time in Contemplation and dedicated one hour particularly to Silence The most of the Commentaries proverbial Verses and Exhortations which he left behind him were these Of Nature six Books Of Philosophy six Of Riches one Arcas one Of Infinity one Of a Boy one Of Continency one Of Profitable one Of a Freeman One Of Death one Of Voluntary Acts one Of Friendship two Of Writing one Of Memory one Of Modesty one Of Contrary two Of Felicity two Of a Lye one One inscrib'd Callicles Of Prudence two One Oeconomic Of Frugality one Of the Power of the Law one Of a Common-wealth one Of Sanctity one That Vertue is subject to Treachery one Of that which is one Of Fate one Of Perturbations one Of Lives one Of Concord one Of Disciples one Of Justice one Of Vertue two Of Specios one Of Pleasure two Of Life one Of Knowledge one One Political Of Fortitude one Of the Number one Of Idea's one Of Art one Of the Gods two Of the Soul two Of Skill one One call'd Parmenides Archedemus or of Justice one Of Good one Of those things that belong to the mind eight A solution of those things that happen to discourse one Of Natural Hearing six One entitl'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Head Of Kinds and Species one Pythagories one Solution two Divisions eight Books of Positions thirty three Of the study and practice of Discourse fourteen After this fifteen Books and sixteen more Of Logical Instructions concerning reading six Of things relating to the Mind other two Books Of Geometricians five Books Of Commentaries one Of Contraries one Of Numbers one Of the Theory of Numbers one Of Intervals one Of those things that belong to Astrology six Elements to Alexander concerning Rule four To Arybas To Ephestion Of Geometry 345 Verses Nevertheless as great a person as he was the Athenians sold him once thinking to break his heart by Exilement He was bought by Demetrius Phalereus who salv'd up the matter between both to their satisfaction by restoring Xenocrates to his liberty and ordering the Athenians to receive their Exile This is recorded by Myronianus the Amastrian in the first of his Historical similar Chapters He succeeded Speusippus and govern'd his School five and twenty years beginning under Lysimachus in the second year of the 110th Olympiad He dy'd in the night-time stumbling at a Platter in the fourscore and second year of his age Whose death produc'd these following Lines of ours Xenocrates so learned and so grave Mark what a strange Fate brought him to his Grave 'T was late and dark and in his way a Platter Now whether toapt or sober 't is no matter But stumbling down he fell and broke his forehead And what was yet far more to be deplored Depriv'd of time to speak he only groan'd His Soul abhorring such a Scullion wound There were five others of the same name the first very ancient and both a Kinsman to the forementioned Philosopher and his Fellow-Citizen There goes about in public a Poem of his Entitl'd Arsinoetica upon Arsinoe deceas'd Another a Philosopher and a writer of Elegies but little taken notice of For so it happens that Poets endeavouring to write in Prose fortunately succeed but writers of Prose when they give themselves to Poetry unhappily falter And the reason is because the one is the Gift of Nature the other the Toyl of Art. The other was a Statuary and the last by the testimony of Aristoxenes a Writer of Odes The LIFE of POLEMO POlemo an Athenian the Son of Philostratus and born in the Village called Oeta when he was a young Man was so dissolute and profuse that it was his custom to carry summs of Money along with him where-ever he went that he might be provided still with sufficient supplies for the satisfaction of his pleasures Nay he would hide his money up and down in holes and corners of the streets in so much that some of his Cash was found in the Academy near a certain Pillar laid there to be ready when he had occasion to fetch it for his private uses Now it happen'd that one time among the rest as had been agreed between him and his companions in the height of their Carousing that in a drunken frolick with his Garland upon his head he brake into Xenocrates's School Who nothing disturb'd at the rudeness of such Roysters pursu'd his discourse which then fell out to be concerning Temperance the more vigorously And this Oration it was which so prevail'd at first upon the list'ning Debauchee that stopping the Career of his Extravagance at length he became quite reclaim'd And such were the effects of his laborious and industrious studies that he surpassed all others and himself succeeded in the School beginning from the hundred
in his various History he died in a Litter upon the Road where Antigonus himself was coming to meet him and bear him Company However after his Death we displayed him to the World in these nipping Verses of our own Bion the Man whom Soythian Earth On Borysthenian Banks gave Birth When he all herds of Sects had tryed The Gods themselves at last denied In which if fix'd I would presage Him Virtuoso of his Age. But long he could not thus persist An Accident dispers'd the Mist And made him surcease to pursue Thoughts surely false tho' seeming true A lingring Sickness on him seiz'd And neither Drink nor Diet pleas'd His Sight grown dim and short his Breath sure Symptoms of approaching Death He that the Gods call'd Sons of Whores with Prayers and Tears their aid implores He that at sight of Temples smil'd And scornfully their Rites revil'd With Superstition now oregrown No Zeal can please him like his own Their Altars oft by him despis'd With adoration now are priz'd With far-fetch'd Gums and rich Perfumes To expiate his Guilt presumes Such strange Effects works Big ot Fear Now Godâ— can Smell as well as Hear His Neck stoops down to bear whole loads Of Old Wives Charms and parched Toads His wrists the Philter'd Bracelet binds And strong Perswasion Reason Blinds White-Thorn and Laurel deck his Gates Vncertain Spells for certain Fates A thousand Tricks he 'd gladly try Rather than once submit to dye Confounded Sot to take such Pain To fashion Gods for thine own Gain As if that Gods must then be made Only when Bion wants their Aid All this too late when parch'd to Cole And nothing left but only Soul Nothing remains for thee to do But the Infernal God to woe And he no doubt will make thee room When thou shalt cry Great Bion's come We find that there were ten Bions in all the first was a Proconnesian in the time of Pherecydes the Syrian of whose Writing we have ten Treatises The second was a Syracusian who wrote a tract of Rhetoric The third was he whose Life we have exposed The fourth was an Abderite a follower of Democritus who wrote of the Mathematics in the Attic and Ionic Dialect and the first who affirm'd that there were Regions where there was six Months of Day and six Months Night together The fifth was a Native of Soli who wrote the Ethiopic History The sixth was a Rhetorician of whose Writings we have nine Books every one under the name of a particular Muse The seventh was a Lyric Poet. The eighth a Statuary of Miletum of whom Polemo makes mention the ninth a Tragic Poet of the number of those whom we call Tarsicks And the tenth a Statuary of Clazomenia or Chio of whom Hipponax makes mention THE LIFE OF LACYDES LACYDES a Native of Cyrene was the Son of Alexander Head of the new Academy succeeding Arcesilaus a Person certainly of an exquisite severity and one that had a number of Scholars that followed his Precepts From his Youth he was much addicted to study but very Poor which made him the more complaisant and delightful in Conversation 'T is reported that he had a custom to fix his Seal upon the Keyhole of his Buttery and then threw the Ring into the Buttery again through a small slit in the Door that no Body might get to his Victuals but himself Which his Servants observing did the same as he did for they took off the Seal stole his Meat then fixing the Impression of his Seal upon the Lock threw the Key into the Buttery again which little Theft though they frequently practised yet could they never be caught But now Lacydes being Head of the new Academy retired to the Garden which King Attalus caused to be made where he set up his School and call'd it Lacydion from his own Name He was the only Person who in his Life surrendered the Charge of his School to another for they report that he turned it over to two Phoceans Teleclus and Evander to whom succeeded Hegesinus a Pergamenian and from Hegesinus Carneades The chiefest of his Repartees were these Attalus sent for him one day to come to him to whom he returned for answer That Images were to be view'd afar off To one that check'd another for studying Geometry in his old Age and crying to him Is this a time to be learning Lacydes replied When wouldst thou have him learn then after he is Dead As to his death he ended his days presently after he was made chief of the School which was in the fourth Year of the Hundred thirty fourth Olympiad after he had spent six and twenty Years in the Schools He died of a Palsy which he got with excessive Drinking Which was the reason we gave him the following Epigram All the report about the Country goes Friend Lacydes how Bacchus bound thy toes And haul'd thee bound to Hells infernal Gate Where then he left thee overcharg'd in Pate What Riddle 's this for Riddle it must be When chearful Wine sets all the Members free That 's the Mistake for Bacchus did not bind him He only found him bound and so resign'd him The LIFE of CARNEADES CARNEADES the Son of Epicomus or according to Alexander in his Book of Successions the Son of Philocomus was a native of Cyrene He diligently employed his time in reading the Books of Speusippus and other Stoics which having done he was not readily drawn to consent to their opinions though if he were constrained to oppose 'em he did it with all the Modesty imaginable as he that was wont to say unless Chrysippus were I could not be He was wonderfully studious more especially in moral Philosophy for of natural Philosophy he made no great reckoning Nay he was so intent at his Study that he would not allow himself leisure to Comb his hair and pair his Nails So that at length his Discourses were so Sinewy in matters of Philosophy that the Orators flocked from all parts to his School on purpose to hear him Besides he had a very strong and sonorous Voice insomuch that the head of the Colledge sent to him not to speak so loud to whom he sent word that he should send him a Measure for his Voice upon which the Principal replied that Carneades had answered wisely and to the purpose For that the Auditory was the measure that set Bounds to the Voice However he was a violent Man and almost insupportable in his Disputes and therefore never cared to appear at great Meetings and Festivals It happened that Mentor a Bithynian fell in Love with his Concubine as Phavorinus in his Miscellanies reports which made him so angry that he could not refrain to give him a sharp Reprimand in the following Verses Within these Walls I see a Letcheroâ—â— Knave An old decripit fornicating Slave So like to Mentor both in Speech and Chins That they who saw 'em both would swear 'em Twins Him good for nothing but to play the
all the other Sciences and will have it to have a double End that is to say Truth and Probability Each of which is of some principal use to the two faculties For the use of Rhetoric and Logic tends to Probability Philosophy and Analytics to Truth Moreover he has omitted nothing of that which appertains either to Invention or Judgment or to the use of either for he sets before Invention a great number of Propositions from whence by way of Method and common Places an infinite number of probable Arguments may he drawn for every Question In reference to Judgment he has wrote his first and second Analytics The first to shew how to make a right Judgment of the Agreement of one Proposition with another and the latter to examine the Consequences of them by collecting what went before and what followed after As to the use of things which are in Controversy and under dispute either among the Logicians or the Sophisters he has shewn how to satisfy the Arguments as well of the one as the other He holds that Sence is the Rule upon which the Judgment of Truth relies as to actions that are in the Imagination But that the Judgment is the rule of Truth in reference to the Moral Vertues whether in relation to public or domestic affairs or in the Composition and making of Laws He proposes the use of Vertue in a perfect Life to be the end of all Mens Living He holds Felicity to be an Assemblage of three things really beneficial of that which depends upon the Soul which is the best and most powerful of that which proceeds from the Body as Health Strength Beauty and the like and lastly upon that which is grounded upon outward Conveniences as Riches Nobility Reputatation and the like which depend upon Fortune But that Vice is sufficient of it self to render Life miserable though accompanied with all outward and Corporeal Conveniences That a wiâ—â— Man might be miserable being afflicted sometimes with Pain sometimes with Poverty and sometimes with other Inconveniences That the Vertues do not depend one upon another For it may happen says he that a Man may be Prudent and Just and yet addicted to Intemperance and Incontinency That a wise Man can never be wholly exempt from Passions but only he may be able to govern 'em with more Moderation than another That Friendship is the Reciprocal Justice of good-will of which he makes three sorts of Parents of Lovers of Hospitality That Love does not only concern the Conversation of other Men but of Philosophers for says he a Wise Man may love as well as another mind the public affairs marry a Wife and live with a King. And lastly having established three several manners of Living the first in Contemplation the second in Action and the third in Pleasure he always preferred Contemplation before the rest He held that the Knowledge of the liberal Arts was of little Importance toward the attaining of Vertue There never was any Philosopher who 〈…〉 diligently enquired into the causes of Natural things than he so that he was able to give a Reason for the smallest thing that could be asked him and hence it was that he wrote so many Commentaries concerning natural Things He asserted with Platâ— that God was incorporeal and immoveable whose providence did not pass beyond the limits of the Colestial Bodies with which all terreâ—… things agreed and were disposed by Syâ—â—pâ—â—hy That there was a fifth Element which gives being to the Heavenly Bodies whose Motion iâ— different from that of the other four Elements of which the inferiour World was composed For that the Motion of this Element was circular â—â—d theirs in a right â—ine Also that the Soul is incorporeal and the first Entelechy of an Organick Natural Body having Life in Pâ—… Now you are to understand that he calls Entelechy an incorporeal Nature which imparts to the Corporeal power to move it self of which he makes two sorts the one Potential the other in Effect That which is in Potentiâ— is manifest in a thing that is not but may be aâ— a piece of Wax or a great â—ingot of Copper of which there may be made an Image or Statue of Marble by shaping the Wax or giving Lineaments to the Brass But that which is in the Effect is manifest in the thing it self which is already finished and perfected as Wax or Copper when wrought or cast into a Statue He adds Natural Bodies because there are some Bodies that are either wrought by the Hand as are all the Manifactures of Artisans as a Tower or a Ship or else others that are produced from the Earth as Plants and Animals Farther he adds Organic that is designed and prepared for some design as the Eye to see the Ear to hear Lastly he adds having Life in Potentia For Potentiality being less than the Effect always preceeds Action in every thing but the Effect cannot be without Action As for Example a Man that sleeps is enlivened with a Soul in Poâ—tentia but he that wakes is animated with a Soul in Act for he sees and understands such and such things which he that is a sleep does not do though he has a power so to do Such were his Philosophical Reasonings concerning these and many other things which would be here too long to recite For he was so Laborious and Industrious in all things and so acute in finding out Arguments for his Discourses that it was a thing almost incredible as may be seen by the great number of Volumes which we have already number'd up exceeding in all four hundred Volumes together with several others and an infinite Number of Sentences though I question whether all that are ascribed to him be his own In the last place we find that there were eight Aristotles The first the Great Philosopher himself A second formerly chief Magistrate of Athens Several of whose Orations or Judicial Pleadings very neat and elegant are extant to this day A third who Transcrib'd Homer's Iliads A fourth a Sicilian Orator who wrote an Answer to the Panegyric of Isocrates The fifth Sirnamed Mythus a Companion of Eschines the Socratic The sixth of Cyrene who wrote a Book of Poetry The seventh a Paedagogue of whom Aristoxenus makes mention in Plato's Life The last a Grammarian of little Esteem Of whose writing there is extant a small Treatise of Pleonâ—sm But as for the Stagyrian Philosopher he had several Disciples among whom Theophrastus was the chiefest and whose Life we are therefore next to write The LIFE of THEOPHRASTVS THEOPHRASTVS an Etesian was the Son of Metantâ—s a Fuller as Artemidorus reports in his Eighteenth Book of Deambulations He was first a Hearer of Leâ—cippâ—s his Countryman and in the same City afterwards he went to Athens and heard Plato and at length rang'd himself in the number of Aristotle's Scholars to whom he succeeded in the Government of his School after he had withdrawn himself to Chalcâ—â— which was about the
be no fault found with their Labour and Diligence but then let them have their Freedom Let my houshold Goods be appraised and sold for the Benefit of those to whom I have bequeathed them with this proviso That Pompylus may have enough for his own use as the Executors shall think reasonable I give Cano to Demotimus and Donax to Neleus As for Eâ—bius I would have him sold and that Hipparchus give three thousand Drachma's to Callio Had I not a respect for Hipparchus as to a Man to whom I have been greatly beholding and who is now perplexed in business of his own I had joyned him with Melantus and Pancreon in the Execution of this my Will. But I thought it better to assign a sum of Money upon Hipparchus than to put him to that trouble Therefore let Hipparchus pay Melantus and Pancreon two Talents each being also bound by that means to furnish the â—â—d Executors as occasion shall require with Money to defray the Expences in Execution of this my last Will and Testament Which being done I discharge him from all farther trouble according to the Covenants and Articles between us Moreover my will is That all the Profit which Hipparchus receives from Chalcis in my Name shall be entirely his own Now for the Executors whom I desire to be Executors of this my last Will let them be Hipparchus first then Neleus Strato Callio Demotimus Callisthenes and Cresarchus This was Theophrastus's Will of which a Copy being sealed with his Seal was put into the hands of Hegesias the Son of Hipparchus Witnesses to it were Calippus the Pelanean Philomelus Euonymus Lysander Hybeus and Philo of Alopeca Olympiodorus also received another Duplicate of the same Will in the presence of the same Witnesseâ—… Adimanthes another from Andrusthenes his Son to which were other Witnesses Acimuestes the Son of Cleobulus Lysistratus the Son of Phido the Thrasian Strato the Son of Arcesilaus of Lampsacum Thesippus the Son of Thesippus one of the Potters and Dioscorides the Son of Dionysius the Eâ—icopâ—… Some there are who affirm That Erâ—…stratus the Physician was one of his Hearers which I will not contradict However Strato succeeded him in his School The LIFE of STRATO STRATO of whom Theophrastus makes mention in his Will was a Native of Lampsacum the Son of one Arcesilaus a Man certainly of great Eloquence and who formerly assum'd the Title of a Physician as being by reason of his great Industry superiour to other in those kinds of Speculations But among other Employments that he had he was tutour to Ptolomy Philadelphus from whom they say he received a present of four and twenty Talents He began to precide in the forementioned School as Apâ—llâ—derus testifies in his Chronicles in the hundred thirty third Olympiad and held it eighteen years He wrote several Volumes of which these were the chiefest An Extract of Royal Philosophy three Books of Enthusiasm of Causes of Vacuum of Time of Light and Heavy of the Heaven of the Generation of Animals of Coition of the Faculties of the Wit of Growth and Nourishment of Dreams of the Sight of Colds of the Nature of Man of Sickness of Crises's of Hunger of dimness of Sight of Animals whose Original was uncertain Of Discourse Of Accident of more and less of Antecedent and Consequent of a Definition of the Principles of Places some Solutions of Doubts As to Manners Of Felicity three Books of Good of Pleasure of Strength three of Justice and a single Tract of Injustice As to Civils Three Books of a Kingdom two or three of a Magistrate A Tract of Judgments another of Metallic Engines He also wrote some Lives and some Commentaries but it is questioned whether they were his or no. There are also extant about 450 of his Epistles that begin Strato to Arsinoe Health He is reported to have been of so thin and exhausted a Constitution that he was not sensible of his Death as we have described him in the following Epigram At length reduced to Skin and Bone Strato was quite transparent grown A Candle set in Mouth upright Would through his Cheeks have giv'n ye light His Soul perceived it and afraid Of catching cold so thinly clad Away she stole as Nurses creep From Beds of sick Men when asleep Or as they steal from drinking Trade That leave the Reckoning to be paid So parted Strato and his Soul For whom all Athens did condole We meet with eight Strato's in all among the Writings of other Authors The first a hearer of Isocrates The second our Philosopher himself The third a Physician the Disciple or as others say the Foster-Child of Erasistratus The fourth was a Historian who wrote the Wars of Philip and Perseus who headed two Armies against the Romans The sixth a writer of Epigrams The seventh an Ancient Physician as Aristotle testifies The eighth a Peripapetic who lived in Alexandra His Will is also Extant in this Form. Seeing that according to the Frail Condition of other Men I must be laid in my Grave I dispose before my Death of my Affairs First my Will is that Lampyrion and Arcesilaus be possessors of all that I have in my House Moreover I assign the Expence of my Funeral upon the Money which I have lying at Athens charging my Executors that it be performed with all solemn Decency imaginable but not superfluous My Executors shall be Olympicus Aristides Mnesigenes Hippocrates Epicrates Gorgylus Diocles Lyco and Athanes I leave Lyco Head of the School as being not so full of business as the rest besides that he has a Body able enough to undergo the Trouble I also leave him all my Books except those that I have written my self with all the Vessels Pots and Carpets which I made use of when I entertained my Friends My Will also is That my Executors shall give to Epicrates five hundred Drachma's and a Boy such a one as Arcesilaus shall judge most convenient Moreover my Will is That Lampyrion and Arcesilaus shall cancel the Bonds which Daippus made for Hireus that he may be discharged from them and their Heirs of all dues and demands whatever And in regard of the Kindnesses and Benefits which we have received from him We order our Executors to pay him five hundred Drachma's and a Boy such a one as Arcesilans shall think fit that he may live handsomly I set free Diophantes Dioctes Abâ—â— and Dromo but as for Simmias I leave him to Arcesilans It is also my Will that till Arcesilaus shall return that Hirâ—â— shall give up his Accompts to Olympicus in the presence of Epicrates and the Reâ—â— of the Executors deducting my Funeral Expences and other necessary Ceremonies As for the rest of the Money remaining after the stating of the Accompts in the hands of Olympicus let Arcesilaus take it to his own use exacting nothing from him for Time or interest Lastly I desire Arcesilaus to cancel the Writings between me and Amimas and the said Olympicus which
lye in the hands of Philocrates the Son of Tisameâ—es And the let them make me such a Monument â—â— Arcesilaus Olympicus and Lyco shall thiâ—â—â— fitting Thus you may see by what we have already said he was a person of Note and for the Beauty Variety and Grace of his discourse worthy the Admiration of Posterity Nevertheless he was more addicted to the Study of the Natural Sciences than any other as being the most Ancient and that wherein the Greatest Wits had exercised their Ingenuities The LIFE of LYCO LYCO the Son of Astyanax of Troas was a person of great Eloquence and one that was every way fit to form and fashion the manners of young Men for he was wont to say That Shame and Praise were as requisite for Youth as the Bridle and Spur for Horses You may understand by some Touches what a great Person he was whether it were for Discourse or for the Interpretation of his own Conceptions For happening to speak of a Poor Virgin he said thus That a Poor Virgin who being arriv'd to ripe Years and in the Flower of her Age â—â—d lies at home in her Fathers House for â—â—â—â— of a Portion to marry her is an intolerable Burthen And therefore t is reported that Antigonus speaking of him compared the Nature of Men to the Nature of Pears saying that it was impossible to transport the Beauty and sweet Scent of one Pear into another or to exchange the Graces of this for the Endowments of that Man. And therefore in my Opinion we must seek for the true faculty of well expressing every thing in several Men as we do for the sweetness and goodness of Pears not all from one Tree Which was the Reason that some Men considering the sweetness of his Discourse put a G before the L and called him Glyco which signifies as much â— sweet Besides he was a Man that alwaâ—â— wrote different from himself such a Plenty of words he had at his command He often laught at those that repented themselves for having idl'd away theâ—e Youth without ever learning or improving their knowledge with a Resolution by their diligence for the future to repair the losses of their miss-spent time For said he They go about a thing which is almost impossible for that the one had too late repented their folly to think by wishes to repair the defects of their Negligence and they that betook themselves to Study in their old Age though they were not quite out of their wits yet they were next door by and resembled those that sought to see their faces iâ— troubl'd Waters or to find the Nature of a Right in a Crooked Line He was wont to say There were many that strove to out-doe one another at pleading and wrangling but few that ventur'd for the Olympic Crown And as for his Counsels the Athenians found Benefit of 'em more than once or twice There was never any Man more neat and curious in his Apparel than himself For as Hermippus reports he was wont to wear the most fashionable and the richest Stuffs he could buy so that his Effeminacy in that particular was almost Incredible However he was very much given to Exercise and preferred Wrestling before all others by which means he was very strong vigorous and lusty Antigonus the Carystian reports that in his younger days he was very feeble and tender of Body But having Convenience in his Country of Wrestling and hurling the Ball he omitted no means that might render a Man active and lusty He was always welcome to Attalus and Eumenes who with some few others held him in high Esteem and many times gave him signal Testimonies of their Royal Munificence Antigonus laboured by all ways imaginable to have had him in his House but all his Hopes and Contrivances fail'd him But he had such an Antipathy against Jerome the Peripatetic that he of all the Philosophers was the only Person who absented himself from the annual Solemnity to which they were invited because he would not come into his Enemies Company He governed the School forty two years from the day that Lyco surrendered up the Employment to him by his Will which was in the Hundred twenty seventh Olympiad Nor must I here forget to tell you that he was a hearer of Panthoedes the Logician He died in the Seventy fourth year of his Age being strangely tormented with the Gout as we have describ'd him in the following Epigram Fettered in Oily Rag and Cloâ—t Lyco long lay tormented with the Gout Till Death his Pain to ease Cur'd him at once of Life and his Disease But here 's the Wonder He that alive could hardly Crawl But still in danger of a Fall When dead and stiff ne'e stood to blunder But in the twinkling of an Eye To Pluto's Mansions in a Night could fly There were also several other Lyco's The first a Pythagorean the second himself the third a Writer of Verses and the fourth a Maker of Epigrams We have also recovered his last Will after much toil and diligent Search which was to this Effect My Will is if I cannot overcome the force of my present Distemper that my Estate shall be disposed as I hereby ordain First I give to Astyanax and Lyco my two Nephews all the Goods in my House unless what I have borrowed or taken upon Mortgage in Athens and what shall be expended upon the Solemnities of my Funeral As for what I have in the City and at Aegina I give it particularly to Lyco because he bears my Name and because we have liv'd long in great Friendship together as it was his duty to do because I have always looked upon him as my Son. I â— leave my walking place to my Friends and Familiars Bulo Callio Aristo Amphio Lyco Pytho Aristomachus Heroclius Lycomedes and to Lyco before-mentioned my Brothers Son. Moreover I desire Bulo and Callio and my other Friends to take Care that there be no want nor superfluity at my Funeral As for my part in Aegina let Lyco see it distributed after my Decease to the Youngmen to buy 'em Oil for their Exercises and that they may have an occasion to remember their Benefactor I would have him advise with Diophantes and Heraclides the Son of Demetrius where to set up my Statue As for my Estate in the City I desire Lyco to pay every Man his due and what Bulo and Callio shall have laid out upon my Funeral but for that Money let him charge it upon my Houshold Goods Let him satisfy my Physicians Pasithemis and Midas Persons highly deserving by reason of their great Skill and for the pains they took about me in my Sickness I give to Callinus's Son two fair Cups and to his Wife two pretious Stones and two Carpets the one Shagged the other smooth a Jacket and two Pillows that they may see we have not forgot 'em as far as it stood with our Honour I forgive Demetrins made free long since the Price of his
Redemption and order him a Legacy of four Mina's beside I give Micros his Freedom and recommend him to Lyco to instruct him for six Years I also give Chares his Freedom and order him his Being with Lyco two Mina's in Silver and all the rest of my Books except those which I never yet made publick which I recommend to Callinus to publish Moreover let Syrus my free'd Man have four Mina's and Menodora for his Servant-Maid and if he owe me any more I freely discharge him I give also five Mina's to Hilaras a sâ—â—ag Carpet two Pillows a figur'd Coverlet and a Bed such a one as she shall make choice of I also enfranchise the Mother of Micros Noemo Dio Theâ— Euphrano and Hermyas As for Agatho I do not think it fit that he have his Freedom these two Years And as for my Litter-Carriers Ophelio and Possidonius let them stay four Years longer before they be set at Liberty Moreover my Will is That Demetrius Crito and Syrus have each of them a Bed and one of my old Suits such as Lyco shall think most Convenient As for the place of my Burial let Lyco consider whether he will bury me here or in my House for I am assur'd that he knows what is decent and comely as well as my self And thus let him execute the Contents of my Will and all the rest is his own The witnesses to this Will were Callinus the Hermionean Aristo of Chios and Euphronius the Peanian He shewed himself in all his Actions that appertained either to Learning or the Study of Human Things so wise that his Prudence did not only extend it self to what was before his Eyes but also to provide so well by his Will for all his Affairs that he deserves to be a Pattern for every one to imitate The LIFE of DEMETRIVS DEMETRIVS the Son of Phâ—nostratus was a Native of Phalera and Hearer of Theophrastus But being a great pleader of Causes at Atheni he got into that Credit by means of his Parts that he was called to the Government of the City where he continued in the first rank of Dignity for ten whole Years during which time there were erected three Hundred and sixty Statues in his Honour the most part of which were on Horseback or drawn by Chariots with two Horses a-breast and all finished in ten Months He began to be engag'd in publick Business as Demetrius the Magnesian testifies in his Equivocals at what time Harpalus came to Athens flying the sight of Alexander He discharged the Trust reposed in him to a wonder and held it a long time to the great advantage of his Fellow-Citizens For tho' at the beginning of his Government he was not overmuch advanced in Honour and Wealth however he left his City much wâ—â—lthier in Revenue and adorned with sumptuous Buildings He was descended as Phavorinus reports from one of the most noble Families in the City that is to say from that of the Canons and as the same Author asserts in the second of his Commentaries he had a she Friend whose name was Lamia that was at his Service but that he had suffered under Cleo that which was neither for his Honour nor Modesty Moreover Didymus recounts that a certain Curtezan called him Charito-Bleâ—â—arus that is to say Charmer of Ladies and that another called him Lampetes as a great boaster of his Abilities to please Women 'T is reported that he fell blind at Alexandria but that Serapis restor'd him his Sight in praise of whom he wrote several Hymns such as they sing now at this time However being in so much Credit among the Athenians he could not avoid the assaults of Envy to which all Men in high Degree are obnoxious So that after he had escaped the Snares of some of his Maligners he was at length in his absence condemned to Death Nevertheless as Providence had ordered it they could not seize his Person and therefore like Madmen exercised their Rage upon his Statues some of which they threw in the Dirt sold others and buried several in the Sea besides a great number that were broken and spoil'd except one that was overlooked in the Castle This the Athenians did by the Command of King Demetrius as Phavorinus testifies in his various History Nor was this all for us the same Phavorinus relates they accused him of Irreligion in the Administration of the Government Moreover Hermippus relates that he withdrew himself after Cassander was put to Death and sheltered himself with Ptolemy Soter for fear of Antigonus and that after he had continued there a long time he advised the King among other things to declare his Children by his Wife â—â—rydice his Successors but the King rejecting his Counsel bequeath'd his Diadem to a Son that he had by Berenice which was the Reason that after his Fathers Death he kept Demetrius close in the Province where he spent the remainder of his days in a miserable Condition He dyed as it were in his Sleep being bit in the hand by an Asp as he lay slumbring and was buried in the Province of Busiritis near Diospolis and we made him the following Epigram As wise Demetrius slumbring lay An Aspiâ— to his Hand made way The Venom flew and thus by â—apping One little Vein Death caught him napping As for the Counsel which he gave the King in his Epitome of the successions of Sotion it diverted Ptolemy from his design of leaving the Kingdom to Philadelphus upon this account for said he If thou giv'st it the other thou wilt never enjoy it thy self However it were this is certain that Mâ—nandâ—r the Comic Poet was accused at Atheus upon this particular Point so that he narrowly escaped his being Condemned to Death for no other Reason but because he had been Demetrius's Friend But Telesphorus Son in Law to Demetrius made it his Business to clear him of that Imputation He exceeded in number of Books and Verses all the Peripatetics of his Age. Which Works of his were part Poetry part History partly of Government and partly concerning Rhetoric To which we may add his Speeches and Orations as well at the Council-Table as when employed in foreign Embassies To give ye then a Catalogue of his Writings They were these Five Books of Laws two of the Citizens of Athens one of Laws two of Rhetoric two of military Discipline two of the Iliads four of the Odysses one of a Republic one of an Employment for ten Years one of the Ionians one of Embassies one of Fidelity one of Favour one of Fortune one of Magnificence one of Laws one of Marriage one of Obstacles one of Peace one of Studies one of time one of Antiphanes one of Time Topics one one of Sentences Several others entituled Medon Cleon Socrates Erotics Phaedonides Ptolemy Artaxerxes Aristomachus Homerics Aristides Exhortatorius Dionysius the Chalcidian the incursion of the Athenians the Proem of History the sworn Harangue Right His Epistles making one Book his Stile is
Philosophical sometimes intermixed with Rhetorical vigour and force of Eloquence Understanding that the Athenians had pulled down his Images However said he they have not overturned that Vertue for which they were set up He was wont to say that the Eye-brows were Members which were not to be despised because of their smallness for that by them we might understand the whole course of our Lives that Riches were not only blind but Fortune their Mistress That Eloquence had as much power in Republicks as the Sword in War. One day beholding a young Debauch that liv'd a desolute Life Look there said he a perfect Mercury with a Belly Beard and Privy-Parts When he saw Men puffed up with Honour he was wont to say That the growing height should be taken down and only the understanding left behind He held it for a Maxim That young Men were to pay Reverence to their Parents at Home and in the Streets and when they were alone to respect themselves Moreover that it was not proper for a Man to visit his Friends in Prosperity without being called We meet with twenty more of the same Name all Persons of note and worthy to be remmembred The first Orator of Chalcedon the second our Philosopher the third a Peripatetic of Constantinople the fourth sirnamed Graphicus a Person ready in Discourse and a Painter withal the fifth an Aspadian and Disciple of of Apollodorus the Solensian the sixth a Calatinian who wrote twenty Books of Asia and Europe and eight more of the acts of Antiochus and Ptolemy and of the Government of Africa under their Reigns the eighth a Sophister who wrote of the Art of Rhetoric while he lived at Alexandria the ninth a Grammarian of Adramytum Sirnam'd Ixion because he was thought to have put some affront upon Juno the tenth a Grammarian of Cyrene sirnamed Stannus a Person of great Reputation the eleventh a Sceptian rich noble and a Lover of all learned Men who left his Estate to Metrodorus the twelfth a Grammarian of Erythraea registred among the Citizens of Temna the thirteenth a Bithynian the Son of Diphylus a Stoic and Disciple of Panaetius the Rhodian the fourteenth an Orator of Smyrna All these wrote in Prose The Poets of this name the first was a Comedian the second an Epic Poet of whose Writings we find nothing extant but these Verses against Envious Persons The Man whom lately Envious Fend So hotly to the Grave pursu'd How do they now his Aid implore That wrought his Bane but just before They who contemn'd the vigorous Life Are for the Tombstone now at strife The Man was scorn'd who Shadows claim'd And Potent Cities are inflam'd To War they go and slaughter make As if the Idol were awake And saw well pleased how bloody War Reveng'd his causless Massacre The third of Trasus and a writer of Satyrs The fourth a troublesome Scribler of Iambics The fifth a Statuary of whom Polemo makes mention The sixth and last an Erythraean both a Historian and a Rhetorician The LIFE of HERACLIDES HERACLIDES an Heracleote the Son of Euthyphron was a Person of a great Estate He came from Pontus to Athens where he made it his Business to hear the Philosophers and among the rest Spensippus to whom he first became a Scholar after that he went among the Pythagoreans in imitation of Plato and lastly was a Hearer of Aristotle as Sotio testifies in his Book of Successions He was very gorgeous in his Apparel He was shaped squat and with his Belly strutting out so that they gave him the nickname of Pompic as one that made a great Show in the Streets instead of Pontic otherwise he was a Man grave and of a graceful Deportment His Works also demonstrate the Excellency and soundness of his Judgment And first his Dialogues about the institution of evil Manners and Behaviour One of Justice one of Temperance one of Piety one of Strength one of Vertue one of Vertue so generally taken of Felicity of a Prince of Laws and things that are agreeable with them of Words of Bargains of forc'd Love otherwise entituled Clinias of the Understanding of the Soul of the Soul and Nature of Images against Democritus of Heaven of things in Hell two Books of Lives of the Causes of Sickness of Good against Leno against Metto of the age of Homer and Hesiod and Archilochus in two Books a tract of Music of things written by Sophocles and Euripides of Music in two Books one entituled Theorematic of the three Tragic Poets Characters four enarrations of Heraclitus an Enarration to Democritus two Books of Solutions advertisements to Dionysius of Rhetoric in two Books the Duty of an Orator Entituled Protagoras the History of the Pythagoreans of Inventions Here we are to understand that he handles some of these Subjects under Comical Fictions as Pleasure and Chastity others under Tragical Fictions as Piety Power and those things that are in Hell. He also keeps close to the Character of the Persons whom he introduces in his Dialogues so that still a Philosopher speaks like a Philosopher a Captain like a Captain a Citizen like a Citizen And besides those Dialogues already mentioned we meet with others that are of his Composition concerning Geometry and Logic In short he was a Man to whom nothing came amiss as being furnished both with Matter Phrases and Words for all manner of Subjects and Discourses Some report that he set his Country free from the yoak of Tyranny after he had put to death the Tyrant that held it in Subjection and among the rest Demetrius the Magnesian in his Homonymia's not only asserts this for Truth but recites another Story of him how that he charged one of his Familiar Friend to hide his Body after his Decease where it might not be found and that he should lay in his Bed a certain Snake which he had privately foster'd in his House from a young one on purpose that they might think he was taken by the Gods up into Heaven That his Friend did as he was ordered but that the Imposture waâ— discover'd For his Fellow-Citizens flocking from all Parts to deisy him with their Encomiums the silly Snake terrified with the noise came hissing from under the Bed-cloths and frighted all the Company out of the Room By which means the Cheat being discovered Heraclides waâ— adjudged quite another sort of a Man than he design'd to have been which was the Reason we made him this Epigram Great Heraclides thought to cheat the World To leave between his Sheets a Serpent furl'd As if the Gods had ravish'd their Delight To tast Ambrosial Food with them that Night T is true the Dragon might be call'd a Beast But yet more Beast was he with Heaven to jest For which with a swift Palsey struck his End Shew'd us how vainly Men with Gods contend Hippobotus avers the same But Hermippus tells the Story of his Death quite another way For he says that the Heraâ—…es seeing their Country
laid waste by Famine deputed certain Persons to consult the Oracle of Apollo about the redress of their Calamity Whereupon Heraclides brib'd the Pythian Priestess and the Deputies to the end that at their return they might say that their Country would not be reliev'd till they had honoured Heraclides the Son of Euthypron yet living with a Crown of Gold and plac'd him after his Death among the Hero's and Semi-Gods Which was done accordingly Nevertheless they who were Actors in this Tragedy got little by it for just as Heraclides was crowned in the Theatre he was struck with an Apoplexy and the Commissioners with an Epilepsy with such a giddiness in their Heads which never left 'em 'till they breath'd out their Souls And as for the Pythian Priestess she dyed at the same instant being bit by a venemous Snake in the Vestry Aristoxenus the Musician reports That he wrote several Tragedies under the Title of Thespis Cameleo also relates That he stole the choicest of his Writings from Homer and Hesiod Moreover Autodorus an Epicurean Philosopher reprooves him for mâ—â— things which he writ in his Treatises of Justice But Dyonisius the Mathematics an or as others will have it Spinthaâ—… attributes those Writings to Sophocles in his Parthenopea which Autodorus believing to be false when he comes to â—â—â— the same Verses in certain Commentaries of his he quotes 'em as made by Heraclides Dyonisius thereupon signified to Autodorus his mistake but the other still mistrusting the Truth he sent him the Verses transeribed out of the Original Copy conformable to Pancalus's Copy which Pancalus was Dyonisius's Friend But Autodorus still persisting in his Obstinacy and affirming he could prove the contrary Dionysius sent him the following Verses Thou must not think the wary Ape to nooze And therefore seek out Cullies to abuse For Senseless Heraclide's a Man well known T' have eaten Shame and drank to wash it down Besides this Heraclides there were thirteen others The first a native of the same Country and a writer of Pyrrich Fancies The second a Cumaean who wrote five Books of the Persian Story The third a Cumaean who wrote concerning the Art of Rhetoric The fourth a Calatinian or Alexandrian who set forth his Successions in six Books and a Lembeatic Oration entituled Lembas The fifth of Alexandria a Writer of the Persian Proprieties The sixth a Bargyleitan Logician who wrote against Epicurus The seventh a Nicesian Physician The eighth a Tarentine Empiric The ninth a writer of Precepts in Verse The tenth a Phocian Statuary The eleventh a smart Epigrammatist The twelfth a Magnesian who wrote a Poem entituled Mithridatics The thirteenth an Astrologer and our Philosopher makes the fourteenth The End of the fifth Book Diogenes Laertius Containing the Lives Opinions and Apophthegms Of those that were most Famous in PHILOSOPHY The Sixth Book Translated from the Greek by William Baxter Gent. The LIFE of ANTISTHENES ANTISTHENES was the Son of Antisthenes and an Athenian by birth but he was thought not to be rightly descended Whence it is that once he said to one that twitted him with it Even the Mother of the Gods is a Phrygian For his Mother was look't upon as a Thracian Whence it was that having â—ignalized himself in the Battel of Tanagra he gave occasion to Socrates to say of him So brave a man as he could not be an Athenian by both sides And himself once reflecting upon the Athenians for valuing themselves upon their being Earth-sprung said That could make them no better Gentlemen than Snails and Caterpillars He was first a hearer of Gorgias the Orator whence it is that he expresses an haranguing kind of style in his Dialogues and especially in his Truth and Persuasives And Hermippus saith That at the Isthmian Games he lookt upon him to praise and discommend the Athenians Thebans and Lacedaemonians but seeing a very great Concourse coming in from those Cities he left it off Afterwards he struck in with Socrates and improved so much by him that he persuade his Scholars to go with him to School to Socrates And though he dwelt at the Pireaeum yet went he up every day fourty Stadia to hear Socrates Of whom when he had got the Art of Patience and had affected a sedateness of Mind he became the first Founder of the Cynick Philosophy He would make out that Labour was good by the great Hercules and Cyrus borrowing the one Example from the Greeks and the other from the barbarous People He was also the first man that ever defined a Definition saying A Definition is that which declares what any thing is whereby it is He used often to say I had much rather be mad than sâ—â—sually delighted and That a man should accompany with no woman that would not acknowledge the kindness And to a young Youth of Pontus that purposed to be his Scholar and therefore asked him what things he should have occasion to use he replyed A new Writing-Book a new Writing-Pen and a new Writing Table intending in it his Mind To one that asked him what kind of woman he should marry he said If thou hast a handsome woman thou wilâ— have a Common woman but if an ugly one thou wilt have a Tormentor Hearing upon a time that Plato spoke ill of him he said It is like a Prince to do well and be ill spoken of Being admitted to the Mysteries of Orpheus and the Priest telling him that such as were initiated into those Rites should participate of many good things in the World beneath he said And why then dost not thou dye Being on a time upbraided as not being descended of Parents that were both free he said I am not descended of Parents that were both Wrestlers and yet I can wrestle Being asked why he had so few Scholars he said Because I don't keep them out with a silver Staff. Being aâ—kâ— why he did chide his Scholars so severely he said Doctors were wont to do the like to their Patients Seeing upon a time an Adulterer making his Escape he said Vnhappy Fellow what a danger mightest thoâ— have escaped for one Obolus He used to say as Hecato in his Sayings informs us It was far better to light among Ravens than among Flatterers for those would eâ—â— but dead men but these these the living Being askt what he thought the happiest thing among men he said To dye in a prosperous Condition As one of his Followers was bewailing the loss of his Memoirs he said You ought to have written them on your Mind and not upon Parchments As Iron is fretted by rust so he said were envious persons by their own ill nature He said They that would be immortal should live piously and justly He said Commonwealthâ— were then destroyed when they lost the distinction betwixt good men and bad Being once commended by wicked Fellows he said I am mightily afraid I have done some mischief The Cohabitation of Brothers living in Amity he
it being against Isocrates's Speecâ— called Amartyros or without Testimonies The second Tome in which he discourses of the nature of Animals of Propagation or of Marriage a Love Discourse of the Sophists a Phystognomical Discourse of Justice and Vâ—lour being his first second and third Perswasives of Theognis being his fourth and fifth The third Tome in which he treats of Goodness of Valour of Law or of Government of Law or of â—â—â— and just of Liberty and Slavery of Trust of a Steward of Conâ—iding and of Victory an Oeconomical discourse The fourth Tome wherein is â—â—â— Cyrus his Hercules the Elder or of Strength Tome the Fifth wherein is his Cyrus or of Monarchy and his Aspasiâ— Tome the sixth in which is his Truth of Disputing a Contradictory Discourse Sâ—thon Of Contradiction First Second and Third Of Discourse Tome the seventh in which is his Treatise of the Institution of Youth or of Terms First Second Third Fourth and Fifth Of Dying Of Life and Death Of things in the nether World Of the use of Terms or of Wrangling Of Questioning and Answering Of Opinion and Science First Second Third Fourth Of Nature First Second A Question about Nature in two Tracts Opinions or of Wrangling Of learning Problemes Tome the eighth wherein is his Discourse of Musick Of Commentators Of Homer Of Injustice and Impiety Of Calchas Of a Spy Of Pleasure Tome the ninth in which is his Discourse of the Odyssea Of Minerva's Rod Of Telemachus Of Helena and Penelope Of Proteus His Cyclops or of Vlysses Of the use of Wine or of Drunkenness or of the Cyelops Of Circe Of Amphiaraus Of Vlysses and Penelope And of Vlysses's Dog. The tenth Tome wherein is Hercules or Midas Hercules or of Prudence or of Strength The Master or the Lover The Masters or the Spies Menexenus or of Government Alcibiades Archelaus or of Monarchy And these are the things he wrote of Timon therefore rallying him for the great number of his Books calls him the Universal Tatler He died of a wasting Consumption At which time Diogenes coming in to visit him said to him Hast thou any need of a Friend And once he came to see him with a little Dagger about him and when he said Who will deliver me from these pains Diogenes pointed to the Dagger and said This will. But he replyed I said from my pains not from my life For he was thought to be over effeminate under his Distemper through excessive love of Life And I made my self the following Epigram upon him Thou wast a Cur in life Antisthenes Words were thy teeth black choler thy disease Now dead thou 'lt scare the Ghosts thou'â—t look so fell There should be one to lead thee down to Hell. There were besides him three other Antistheneses One a Heraclitist The other aâ— Ephesian And a third an Historian of Rhodes And now we have dispatched the Successors of Aristippus and Phaedoâ— we will bring in next the Cynicks and Stoicks the Followers of Antisthenes and that in the ensuing Order The LIFE of DIOGENES DIOGENES was the Son of Ikesias a Banker and by Birth a Sinopese Diocles saith that his Father keeping a publick Goldsmiths Shop and stamping false Money was condemned to Banishment But Eubulides in his Treatise of Diogenes saith Diogenes himself was guilty of it and therefore wandred abroad with his Father Yea himself speaks in his Leopard as if he had coined Money Some will have it that being made Overseer of the Goldsmiths Work and being over-perswaded by the Workmen he went to Delphi or else to the Temple at Delos and asked Apollo whether he might do what he was perswaded to in his own Country and he saying he might and understanding the Oracle to mean the publick Money he Counterfeited the Change-Money and was catch'd at it and as some say condemned to Banishment but as others he went of himself to Banishment out of fear There are others that say that his Father found the Money and himself adulterated it and that his Father was committed to Prison for it and there dyed but himself fled and came to Delphi and there enquiring not whether he should turn Coiner but what he should do to make himself most famous and that thereupon he received this Answer And being at Athens he sought Acquaintance with Antisthenes but he shoving him from him because he would entertain no Body he forced himself upon him at last with long assiduity And as one time he held his Staff at him he stooped hi Head to him and said strike for you will never find a Stick hard enough to keep me from you as long as I find you discoursing of any thing From that time forward he became his Hearer and being an Exile from his Country he betook himself to a mean way of Living Seeing a Mouse running over a Room as Theophrastus tells us in his Megarick and considering with himself that it neither sought for a Bed nor was affraid to be alone in the dark nor desired any of our esteemed Dainties he contrived a way to relieve his own Exigencies being the first as some think that folded in the Mantle because his Necessity obliged him to sleep in it He also carried with him a Scrip which held his Victuals and he made use of all places indifferently to eat sleep and discourse in Once he pointed with his Fingers at Jupiter's Portico and said The Athenians have built me here a brave Palace to dine in He used a Staff at first to lean on in the time of his Sickness but afterwards he always carried it with him yet not in the City but as he walked in the Country together with his Scrip as Olympiodorus Prince of Athens tells us and Polyeuctus the Orator and Lysanias Son of Aeschrion Having written to one to provide him a a Cottage and he delaying he made use of a Tub he found in the Metroon instead of a House as even himself reletes to us in his Letters In Summer â—ime he would roul himself in hot Sand and in the Winter he would embrace Statues clad with Snow thus every way exercising himself to hardship He was very good at ridiculing other Men. He would call Euclid's School his Chole that is his Choler and Plato's Diatribe or Exercise his Catatribe or Time-wasting The Bacchanalian Spectacles he would call the Fools Wonders and the popular Orators the Waiting Men of the Rabble As often as he saw Commanders of Ships Physicians and Philosophers he would say Man was the most intelligent of all Animals but when again he saw Expounders of Dreams Diviners and those that gave Ear to them or such as were puffed up by reason of Honour or Wealth he would say he thought no Creature on Earth more fond He was used often to say He thought a Man ought to provide himself either with Sense or with a Halter And once observing Plato at a great Feast lightly touching an Olive he said to him
Institution of Cyrus and he the Education of Alexander Xenophon wrote the Encomium of Cyrus and he the Encomium of Alexander He is very like him also in his Style and differs not from him but as the Copy from the Original Menander also surnamed Drymos the famous Admirer of Homer was a Disciple of Diogenes and Hegesaeus surnamed Cloius and Philiscus of Aegina as we told you before The LIFE of CRATES CRATES was the Son of Ascandes and a Theban Born He also was one of the prime Disciples of the Dog. But Hipobotus saith he was not the Disciple of Diogenes but of Bryson the Achaean There go about these Verses of his made after a Travesty fashion I' th' midst o' th' Land of Vana Gloria There is a Citty called Scrippia A Town it is both fair and fat Sir Well fenced round but nothing hath Sir. Into this doughty Town dare enter Neither sir Fop nor sir Lick-Trencher Nor yet your Liquorish Fool that barters His Coin and Health for Whores hind Quarters It 's stor'd with Onions Figs and Garlick With Scraps of Bread it knows no fare like For these the Neighbours do not swagger Nor huff and ding and draw the Dagger They have no Cut-throat Sparks to guard 'em Nor Fame nor Pence for to reward ' em There is also his much talk'd of Diary which is as followeth Write pay'd my Cook ten Mina very right Item five Talents to my Parasite A Drachm to th' prating Doctor and no more Sirra set down a Talent to my Whore. Just nothing to my scurvy Counseller Three Half-pence to my wise Philosopher He was wont to be termed the Door-opener because he would go into every Bodies House and give them free advise There are also these Verses of his Those sacred Truths I learnt by help Divine Or my own Toil those only I call mine Th ' Estate I once both fair and large believ'd I am of that by Vanity bereav'd He said also he had got by Philosophy A Peck of Lupins and to â—are for nought There also goes about this Distick of his Fasting or length of time Loves Fires will chill If that won't do the work a Halter will. He flourished about the three and thirtieth Olympiad Antisthenes saith in his Successions that upon seeing of Telephus in the Tragedy carrying a little Basket about the Stage and looking very mean and poor he had a violent Impulse upon his mind to turn Cynick Philosopher And that having converted his whole Patrimony into Silver for he was a Man of the first rank and amassed together the Sum of about a Hundred or two Hundred Talents he distributed them among his fellow Citizens and himself became so austere a Philosopher that Philemon the Comedian had taken notice of him in one of his Plays For he saith Crates that he might hardy be put on A Cloak in Summer time in Winter none But Diocles saith that Diogenes perswaded him to turn his Lands into Commons and if he had any Money to fling it into the Sea As to Crates's House it had been long before demolished by Alexander and his Wife Hipparchia's by Philip. And as any of his Kindred adressed themselves to him in order to disswade him from it he would many times run after them with his Staff for he was very high mettled But Demetrius of Magnesia saith He setled his Money upon a certain Banker in Trust agreeing with him That if his Children should provo to be common Men he should pay it to them but if they chanced to be Philosophers he should distribute it among the Commonalty of the Town reckoning they would have occasion for nothing if they proved Philosophers Eratosthenes saith that he having a Son by Hipparchia of whom we shall speak more anon whose Name was Pasicles assoon as he was arrived to years of Maturity he brought him to his Servant-maids Apartment and told him That was his Fathers way of wedlock And that the Adulterers in the Tragedies had Exiles and Stabbings for their pains and the Whore-masters in the Comedies did by their Debauchery and Drunkenness make themselves mad Crates had also a Brother named Pasicles and a Disciple of Euclid Favorinus in the second Book of his Memoires relates a pleasant story of him For he saith that as he was interceding with the Master of the Games for a certain Person that had committed â— fault instead of his Knees he touched his Lips At which he being much enraged What 's the matter with thee said he are not thy Lips thine as well as thy Knees He was used to say it was impossible to find a man without some Fault But that it was with the best of Men much as it was with a Pomegranate in which there would be some Grain or other rotten Having once quarrelled with Nicodromus the Harper and he having given him â— Black and Blew Eye he hung a Scrowl of Parchment before his Forehead having written upon it NICODROMUS FECIT He would set himself industriously to rail at the common Whores that he might exercise himself to bad Language As Demetrius Phalereus had sent him some Bread and Wine he spoke disdainfully of him and said O that the Springs would afford me Bread too From whence it is plain that he was used to drink Water Being reproved by the Athenian Astynomi or Censors for wearing linnen Garments he said I will shew you Theophrastus himself clad in Linnen But they not believing him he brought them into a Barbers-Shop and shewed him to them as he was Trimming Being once scourged by the Master of the Games at Thebes some say it was done at Corinth by Euthycrates and being dragged along by the Heels he shewed his Unconcernedness by repeating over the following Verse He hawl'd him by the Leg a're Heavens Sell. But Diocles saith he was dragg'd along by Menedemus of Eretria For he being a handsome Fellow and believed by many to be very obliging to Asclepiades of Phliâ—â—sâ— Crates clapped his hand upon his Buttock and said Is Asclepiades within At which Asclepiades being extreamly nettled dragg'd him along by the heels as was above related upon which he rehearsed the verse above-spoken Moreover Zeno the Cittiean in his Book of Sayings tells us he one while sewed an old Sheeps Skin to his Mantle to render himself the more disfigured He was also of a very disagreable Aspect and therefore was much laugh'd at when he exercised But he would often lift up his hands and say Take Comfort Crates in thy Eyes and the other Parts of thy Body and thou shalt one day see these People that now deride thee shrivel'd up with Age and Sickness and Praising thee but condemning themselves for their Slothfullness He was used to say A Man should study Philosophy so long until Leaders of Armies appeared to him to be but Leaders of Asâ—es He would say Those Men that conversed with Flatterers â—ere in as forlorn a condition as Calves in
to him as one that had skill to put them into Order There were in all six Menippi The first was he that wrote of the Lydian Affairs and made an Abridgment of Xanthus The Second was this Cynick The third was a Stratonicean Sophist and a Carian by Nation The fourth a Statuary The Fifth and the Sixth were Painters Apollodorus makes mention of both these And the Books of the Cynick are in all Thirteen viz. His Evocation of Ghosts his Wills his Letters which he embellished with the Names and Persons of the Gods against the Naturallists against the Mathematicians against the Literators Against the Birth-days of Epicurus and the Twentieth Days celebrated by his Followers and so the rest in order The LIFE of MENEDEMVS MENEDEMUS was the Scholar of * Colotes of Lampsacos This Man as we are told by Hippobotus arrived to that degree of Extravagancy as to take upon him the habit of a Fury and to go up and down saying He was come from the nether World to spy out Peoples Sins that so at his return down he might acquaint the Daemons there with them And this was the kind of Garb he wore A dark-coloured Gown down to his Feet and girt about him with a Purple Girdle an Arcadian Bonnet on his Head having the twelve signs of the Zodiack interwoven in it Tragick Buskins on his Feet a huge long Beard and an ashen Stick in his Hand And these are the Lives of each of the Cynick Philosophers to which we will subjoin what they hold in common among them For we esteem this as a Sect in Philosophy and not as some think it as only an affected way of Living Their Opinion therefore is that Logicks and Physicks should be laid aside in which they agree with Aristo of Chios and that we ought to addict our selves wholly to Morals And what some ascribe to Socrates that Diocles attributes to Diogenes saying he was wont to say we should make it our Enquiry VVhat 's good or bad within our proper Doors They decline also the * ordinary Course of Arts. Therefore Antisthenes was used to say sober Persons should never learn Letters for fear they should be perverted by other Mens Reasonings They also take away Geometry Musick and all such kind of things Diogenes therefore said once to one that shewed him a new Sun-dial Ay it is a fine thing and very useful to prevent one from loosing ones Dinner To one that made Ostentation to him of his Skill in Musick he said Counsells of Men rule Towns and Houses too Which playing on the Fiddle will not do They likewise hold That a Life agreeable to Vertue is a Man's last Good as Antisthenes tells us in his Hercules in which they exactly agree with the Stoicks For there is a kind of Affinity betwixt these two Sects which hath made some to define Cynicism to be a short Cut unto Vertue And Zeno the Cittiean lived like them They are moreover for a very mean way of Living and for using only a necessary Diet and wearing nothing but old thredbare Mantles and contemn Wealth Honour and Parentage And therefore some live altogether upon Herbs and cold Water and use such places for Shelter as they next meet with and live in Tubs as did Diogenes who would often say It was the Property of the Gods to need nothing and of such as were like the Gods to make use of but few things They believe also that Vertue may be acquired as Antisthenes writes in his Hercules And that a wise Man should never be rejected And that he merits Love. And that he will never do amiss And that he is a Friend to his Like And that he commits nothing to Fortune But the things in the midst betwixt Vertue and Vice they term Indifferents in the same manner with Aristo of Chios And these are the Cynicks we will next pass to the Stoicks who began in Zeno who was Disciple to Crates Diogenes Laertius Containing the Lives Opinions and Sayings Of the most Eminent PHILOSOPHERS The Seventh Book Translated from the Greek by R. M. The LIFE of ZENO ZENO the Son of Mnaseas or Demeas a Cittiean was born in a City of the Greeks in the Island of Cyprus inhabited by the Phoenicians He was wry-neck'd with his Head leaning more to one Shoulder than the other as Timotheus the Athenian relates in his Lives of the Philosophers And Apollonius the Tyrian reports him to have been very lean and slender of Body very tall and of a swarthy Complexion For which Reason there were some that Nick-nam'd him The Aegyptian Sprigg or Vine-Branch as Chrysippus testifies in his first Book of Proverbs Moreover his Thighs were always swollen to excess his Joints ill compacted and weak Therefore as Perseus writes in his Symposiacs he declin'd all Invitations to plentiful Feasts feeding most heartily upon Figs either green or dry'd in the Sun. He was a â—â—earer of Crates as already has been said Afterwards he adher'd to Stilpo and Xenocrates for Ten Years together as Timocrates asserts in his Dio. At what time he also very much frequented Polemo's School Hecaton likewise and Apollonius the Tyrian report that upon his consulting the Oracle What Course was fittest for a Man to take that intended to regulate and govern his Life after the best manner The Deity return'd for Answer That he should keep Consortship with the Dead Upon which he fell to reading the Writings of the Ancients As for Crates he met with him by this Accident Being bound for Greece in a Vessel from Phoenicia which he had laden with Purple he was cast away not far from the Piraeum Thereupon in a deep Melancholy for his Loss he came to Athens at that time Thirty years of Age he sate himself down in a Book-Seller's Shop When after he had read a while in the Second Book of Xenophon's Commentaries pleas'd with the Subject he enquir'd where any such Men dwelt The Words were no sooner out of his Mouth but Crates accidentally passing by the Book-seller pointing to him bid him follow that man. And so from that time forward he became a Hearer of Crates whose Philosophy as being that for which he had a great Reverence he readily and quickly learnt but his Modesty would never permit him to affect the impudent Behaviour of Cynic Moroseness Crates therefore having a mind to cure him of that same Bashfulness gave him a Pot of Lentil-Potage to carry through the Street call'd Keramicum but perceiving him to be asham'd that he hid his Pot under his Garment with a Slap of his Cane he brake the Pipkin so that the Liquid Potage ran down Zeno's Heels of a Colour somewhat ignominious Upon which Zeno nimbly mending his Pace Crates cry'd out Hey You Merchant of Eâ—lskins whither away so fast The Mischance will never spoil thy Marriage Thus for some time he was a Hearer of Crates at what time having written his Common-wealth several jok'd upon him and
said * They were only the F t s of the Dog's Tail. Several other Treatises he wrote upon various Subjects under the following Titles Of Life according to Nature Of Instinct or the Nature of Man. Of the Affections Of Decency Of the Sight Of the Law. Of Grecian Education Of the Whole Of Signs Pythagoricals Vniversals Of Words Five Homerical Problemes Of Poetry Of the Hearing He was also the Author of certain Solutions of Questions relating to several Sciences Two Books of Confutations Commentaries Crates's Morals which were all his Works At length he left Crates and for twenty years together heard the Persons before-nam'd at what time he is reported to have us'd this Expression 'T was then that I only sail'd with a prosperous Gale when I suffer'd Shipwrack Some assert that he spoke thus when he sojourn'd with Crates But others ascertain us that he liv'd at Athens when his Ship was cast away and that when he heard the News he cry'd out * Thou dost well O Fortune thus to compel me to a Thread bare Cloak and the Stoa or the Philosopher Portico Betaking himself therefore to the Poecile or the Vary-colour'd Portico so call'd from the great variety of Painting with which it was adoâ—â—d by the hand of Polygnotus designing it a Place of Peace and Quiet that had been a Place of Sedition he there began to teach his Philosophy and read upon several Subjects For in that Place during the Government of the Thirty Tyrants no less than fourteen hundred of the Athenians had been put to Death Thither a great Number of Disciples flock'd to him and for that reason they were call'd Stoics who before from his own Name were call'd Zenonians as Epicurus testifies in his Epistles Formerly also the Poets that frequented that Place were call'd in like manner by the Name of Stoics according to Eratosthenes in his Eighth Book of the Ancient Comedy by whose means the Name became very numerous By this time the Athenians had a high Esteem for Zeno insomuch that they entrusted him with the Keys of the City-Gates and honour'd him with a Crown of Gold and a Brazen Statue And the same Honours his own Countrymen conferr'd upon him believing his Statue to be an Ornament to their City The Cittians of Sidon paid him the same Respect Antigonus also was his great Admirer and when he came to Athen's always went to hear him and made him frequent Invitations to his own Court. To which though he gave modest Denials himself yet he sent Persaeus one of his familiar Acquaintance the Son of Demetrius a Cittian by Birth who flourish'd in the hundred and thirtieth Olympiad at what time Zeno was far stricken in years The Epistle sent him by Antigonus ran in these Words as it is recited by Apollonius the Tyrian in his Life of Zeno. King Antigonus to Zeno the Philosopher Greeting I Am apt to believe that Fortune and Honour have render'd my Life much more remarkable than Thine But on the other side for Learning Knowledge and perfect Happiness I cannot but think thee far above my self Therefore have We sent thee this Invitation to Our Court deeming thou will not be so unkind as to deny Our Request By all means therefore be sure to let Me enjoy thy Society upon the Recent of This assuring thee that thou shalt not be only Mine but the Instructer of all the Macedonians For he that is able to teach and conduct to Virtue the Prince of the Macedonians must of necessity be no less sufficient to instruct his Subjects in the Noble Lessons of Fortitude and Probity For such as is the Guide and Leader 't is most probable that such will be the Disciples To which Zeno return'd the following Answer Zeno to King Antigonus Health I Applaud thy Desire of Learning as being really true and tending altogether to Benefit not Vulgar which only drives â—â— the Corruption of Manners for he that applies himself to the Love of Wisdom decining those common Pleasures of the Croâ—â— of Mortals which only effeminate the Soâ—â— of Youth not only shews himself by Nature but by Choice inclin'd to Virtue and Gallaâ—try And such a Person endu'd with â— Noble and Generous Mind with less Practice so his Teacher not being wanting â—â— his Instructions will readily and easily â—â—tain to that Perfection which he aims 〈…〉 Now then as for my self I lie fetter'd with the Distempers of Old Age in the Eightieth Year of my Age and therefore the Happiness of attending thy Person is deny'd me But I have sent thee one of my Disciples for Learning Instruction and what concerns the Mind a Person equal to my self but far surpassing me in Strength of Body with whom conversing Thou wilt not want whatever may conduce to compleat thy Felicity With this Epistle he sent away Persaeus and Philonides the Theban of whose Familiarity with Antigonus Epicurus makes mention in his Epistle to his Brother Aristobulus To which I thought fit to add the Decree which the Athenians made in his behalf Of which this is the Copy The DECREE ARrhenides then Governor in the Ward of Acamantis during the Sitting of the Fifth Prutany the Thirteenth Day of August and the Three and Twentieth of the Sitting of the said Prutany the Assembly of the Chief Magistrates Hippo Gratistoteles Xynipeteo Thraso the Son of Thraso the Anacaean with the rest of the Court thus Decreed Whereas Zeno the Son of Mnaseus the Cittian has for many years liv'd a Philosophical Life in this City and in all things has behav'd himself like a Person of Virtue and Sincerity exhorting all Men that sought his Instruction to Honesty and Frugality as also in his own Person setting a fair Example before their Eyes by leading a Life altogether conformable to his Precepts wishing him therefore all good Fortune the People have thought meet to give a public Mark of their Commendations of Zeno and to crown him with a Crown of Gold according to the Laws as the Reward of his Virtue and Temperance and further to erect for him a public Monument in the Ceramicum Moreover for making the Crown and building the Tomb the People have made choice of five Athenians who shall also take care that this Decree be ingrav'd by the Public Scribe upon two Pillars of which one shall be set up in the Academy the other in the Lycaeum and the public Treasurer to pay the Charges of the Engraving to the end all men may know that the People of Athens understand how â—o value good Men both living and after their Decease For Surveyors also they make Choice of Thraso the Anacaean Philocles the Pyraean Phoedrus the Anaphlystian Melo the Acarnean Mycethus the Sympelletean and Dio the Poeanean Antigonus the Carystian affirms That Zeno never deny'd himself to be a Cittian For he himself being one who contributed to the Structure of the Bath and being present when Zeno beheld the Inscription of Zeno the Philosopher upon the
because their Virtue is exhal'd Moreover Sphaerus affirms that this Seed flows from all Parts of the Body by which means it comes to generate all the Parts of the Body That the Seed of a Woman conduces nothing to Generation being but small in Quantity and watery as Sphaerus asserts That the Hegemonicum is the most principal Part of the Soul where the Imagination and Desires reside and from whence the Reason proceeds which is the Heart And thus much for their Opinions in Natural Philosophy which is sufficient considering the Brevity design'd in this present Undertaking We are next to observe wherein they have differ'd and contradicted one another The LIFE of ARISTO ARISTO the Chiote and Phalanthian Sirnam'd the Syren affirm'd that the End and Scope of Mankind was to live in differently between Virtue and Vice observing no distinction between 'em but an equality in every one That a Wise Man was like a Famous Actor who whether he acted Thyrsites or Aganiemnon did both Parts well So that he rejected the Places of Natural and Rational saying That what was above us nothing concern'd us That therefore only Morals concern'd us He compar'd the Subtleties of Logic to Spiders Web which though Artificial to Sight were yet of no Use He neither introduc'd many Virtues like Zeno neither did he advance any one particularly above the rest giving to it particular Titles or Names like the Megarics And thus professing this kind of Philosophy and disputing in the Cynosarges he gain'd the Honour to be the Founder of a peculiar Sect. So that Miltiades and Dychilus were call'd Aristonians for he had an extraordinary perswasive Eloquence and very taking among the vulgar sort However as Diocles reports he was worsted by Polemo in a Dispute at what time Zeno fell into a tedious Fit of Sickness Yet he was a great Admirer of that Opinion of the Stoics That a wise man could never doubt Thereupon Persaeus brought him two Twins and order'd the one to deliver him a Trust with Instructions to the other to demand it again soon after from him at what time seeing him in a Doubt which to restore it to he convinc'd him of his Error He was an utter Enemy to Artesilaus So that it being his Chance to see a monstrous Bull that carry'd a Matrix Wo is me said he to Artesilaus as an Argument against Evidence To an Academic that deny'd he apprehended any thing Why said he Dost thou not see that Rich Man sitting by thee Who answering No he retorted upon him this Verse Who struck thee blind or from thy sight Remov'd the glittering Lamps of Light He is said to have been the Author of all the following Volumes Of Exhortations in two Books Dialogues concerning Zeno's Opinions Six Dialogues concerning Schools Seven Discourses upon Wisdom Amorous Exercises Commentaries concerning Vain-Glory Commentaries upon Fifteen Commentaries in three Volumes Eleven Books of Proverbs and Sentences Against the Orators against Alexinus against Logicians in three Volumes Four Books of Epistles to Cleanthes But Panatius and Sosicrates will allow no more then the Epistles to be his own The Report is that being Bald the Heat of the Sun pierc'd his Skull which brought him to his End. Old as thou wer't and Bald it was ill done T' expose thy Noddle to the Roasting Sun For when thou sought'st for more then needful Heat Thou found'st cold Death and Styx to cool thy Pate There was also another Aristo of Iliete a Peripatetic a second an Athenian and a Musitian Another a Tragic Poet a fourth who wrote the Art of Rhetoric and a fifth a Peripatetic of Alexandria The LIFE of ERILLVS ERillus the Carthaginian asserts Knowledge to be the End and Scope of Mankind which is to live for ever referring all things to a Life of Knowledge by which means we avoid the Death of Ignorance He defin'd Knowledge to be a Habit proceeding from a Crowd of Imaginations not to be express'd in Words Sometimes he held there was no End as being alter'd and chang'd as various Accidents and Businesses alter'd the Resolutions of Men. As if the same Metal may serve to make a Statue for Alexander or Socrates But he distinguish'd between the End and the thing subjected to the End For the one Fools as well as Wise Men apprehend the other only the Wise can conceive He also maintain'd that there were things Indifferent between Virtue and Vice. His Treatises are but short however full of Pith and Sence and full of Contradictions of Zeno. It is reported that when he was a Boy he was belov'd by several Men whom Socrates not being willing to admit caus'd Erillus to be shav'd and then they ceas'd to make any farther Addresses He wrote several Dialogues under the following Titles Of Exercise of the Affections of Apprehension the Legislator the Midwife Antiphero the Schoolmaster Preparatives Direction Mercury Medea and Moral Questions But Dionysius Sirnam'd Metathemenus asserted Pleasure to be the End and Aim of all men For having a Pain in his Eyes he was so tormented with it that he cry'd out that Pain could not be a thing indifferent His Father's Name was Theophantus of the City of Heraclea and when he came of Age he was first of all a Hearer of Heraclides his Fellow-Citizen after that of Alexinis and Menedemus and lastly of Zeno 〈…〉 Yet he lov'd none so clearly as Aratus whom he labour'd to imitate At length when he left Zeno he betook himself to the Cyrenaics frequented the Common Prostitutes and indulg'd himself to all manner of Voluptuous Pleasures Several Writings are Father'd upon him under these Titles Of Calming the Passions in two Volumes Of Exercise two Volumes Of Pleasure four Of Riches Favour and Punishment Of the Vse of Men Of Happiness Of the Ancient Kings Of Things deserving Applause Of Barbarous Customs These were they that differ'd from the Stoicks But to Zeno himself succeeded both his Scholar and Admirer Cleanthes The LIFE of CLEANTHES CLEANTHES the Son of Phanius and Asian as Antisthenes reports in his Successions was at first a Fisty-Cuffer but coming to Athens with no more then four Drachma's in his Pocket and meeting with Zeno he betook himself most sedulously to the Study of Philosophy and adher'd altogether to his Precepts and Opinions It is reported also that being miserably poor he hir'd himself out to draw Water in Gardens in the Night and follow'd his Studies by Day so that they gave him the Nickname of Well-Emptier For which they say he was call'd in question by the Judges who demanded of him Wherefore being such a stout and well made Fellow he follow'd such an effeminate Employment And being cast by the Testimony of the Gardiner that set him at Work and of a Woman whose Ovens he heated he was acquitted by the Judges who admiring his Parts order'◠him ten Mina's which Zeno forbid him to accept though afterwards it is reported that Antigonus sent him three Thousand Another time as he was
carrying certain Children to a Show the Wind blew off his single Garment and discover'd him quite naked upon which the People giving a loud Shout he was order'd to be new clad as Demetrius the Magnesian relates For which Antigonus admiring him and becoming his Hearer ask'd him Wherefore he drew Water To whom I do not only draw Water said he Do I not dig Do I not endure the bitter hardship of cold Weather and all for the Love of Philosophy For Zeno put him to it and made him bring him a Half-peny a time out of his Labour and one time among the rest fetching out one of his small Pieces and shewing it among his intimate Friends Well said he this Cleanthes is able to maintain another Cleanthes if he would and yet they who have enough of their own cannot be content but they must be begging of others though not half such diligent Philosophers For which Reason Cleanthes was call'd another Hercules for he was a most indefatigable Student but very slow and dull but he surmounted his want of Parts by Labour and Industry which occasion'd Timon to give him a very ill Character What Bell-weather is that that struts along And fain would seem to head the gazing Throng Fondly conceited of his Eloquence Yet a meer Blockhead without Wit or Sence And therefore when he was jeer'd and laugh'd at by his Fellow-Disciples who call'd him Ass and Dolt he took all patiently saying no more but that he was able to bear all Zeno ' s Burthens Another time being upbraided for being timorous Therefore it is said he that I so seldom mistake And preferring his own miserable Life before the Plenty of the wealthy he said no more then this They toil at Tennis and I dig hard for my Living Sometimes as he was digging he would be chiding himself which Aristo over-hearing Who 's that said he thou art scolding withal An old Fellow reply'd the other smiling that has grey Hairs but no Wit. When it was told him that Arcesilans neglected to do as became him Forbear said he and do not blame the Man for though he talk against Duty yet he upholds it in Deeds To one that ask'd him what Instructions he should most frequently give his Son He repeated that Verse in Euripides Softly there softly gently tread To a certain Lacedaemonian that asserted Labour to be a Felicity falling into a loud Laughter he cry'd out Sure some great Man from high Extraction sprung Discoursing to a Young Man he ask'd him Whether he understood him or no Who answering Yes Why then said he do not I understand that thou dost understand When Sositheus put the following Sarcasm upon him in the Public Theatre Whom dull Cleanthes Follies drive like Oxen. He never alter'd his Countenance nor his Gesture which when the whole Pit took notice of they applauded Cleanthes and laugh'd at Sositheus as one that had spent his Jest in vain Whereupon the other begging his Pardon for the Injury he had done him he made Answer That 't would be ill done in him to take notice of a slight Injury when Hercules and Bacchus were so frequently injur'd by the Poets He compar'd the Peripatetics to Harps which though they yielded ne'er so pleasing a Sound yet never heard themselves It is reported That as he was openly maintaining the Opinion of Zeno that the Disposition and Inclinations might be discover'd by the Shape and Form of the Party certain abusive Young Men brought him an old Catamite that had been long worn out and ask'd him what he thought of his Inclinations Which he perceiving after a short Pause bid the Fellow be gone but as he was going he fell a sneezing whereupon he cry'd out Hold I smell him now he 's a Rascal To one that upbraided him with his Old Age Truly said he I am willing to depart but then again when I consider my self to be perfectly in Health and that I am still able to write and read methinks I am as willing to stay yet a little longer It is reported that he wrote down upon Potsherds and Blade-bones of Oxen the Sayings of Zeno for want of Money to buy Paper and by this means he grew so famous that though Zeno had several other Scholars Men of great Parts and Learning yet he was only thought worthy to succeed him in his School He left several most excellent Pieces behind him as his Treatises of Time of Zeno's Physiology in two Volumes Expositions of Heraclitus Four Books of the Senses of Art against Democritus against Aristarchus against Erillus of Natural Inclination two Volumes Antiquities of the Gods of the Gyants of Marriage of a Poet of Offices three Books of Council of Favour of Exhortation of the Virtues of the Art of Love of Honour of Glory of Ingenuity of Gorgippus of Malevolence of the Mind of Liberty of Politicks of Counsel of Law of Judicature of Education of the End of Things Noble of Actions and Business of Regal Dominion Symposiacs of Friendship That the Virtue of Men and Women is the same of Sophistry in Wise Men of Proverbs two Books of Pleasure of Property of Ambiguity of Logic of the Moods and Predicaments The manner of his Death was thus It happen'd that his Gums swell'd and began to putrifie whereupon the Physicians order'd him to abstain from Meat for two Days which recover'd him so well again that the Physicians allow'd him to eat what he pleas'd But he was so far from making Use of that Liberty that on the other side he was resolv'd to eat nothing at all saying He was at the End of his Journey 't was to no purpose and so starv'd himself to Death after he had liv'd to Zeno's Years of which he had been Nineteen his Scholar The manner of whose Exit occasions the following Epigram of our own Cleanthes I applaud but Death much more That would not force him to the Stygian Shoar For he was old and weak nay more then so Death knew th' Old Man knew his own time to go Death therefore let him stay till he believing H' had liv'd too long himself gave over living The LIFE of SPHAERVS SPHAERVS the Bosphorian was a Hearer of Cleanthes after Zeno's Decease who after he had made a considerable Progress in his Studies went to Alexandria where he made his Addresses to Ptolomy Philopater At what time a Dispute arising upon the Question Whether a wise man ever made any doubt of any Thing and Sphaerus maintaining That no wise man could be deceiv'd the King desirous to convince him caus'd certain Pomegranates made of Wax to be set before him with which when Sphaerus was deluded taking one upon his Trencher to eat it the King cry'd out That he had been led by the Nose with an idle and false Imagination To whom Sphaerus made this ready Repartee That he knew they were no Pomegranates however 't was probable they might be Pomegranates Being accus'd by Mnesistratus for that he deny'd Ptolomy to
be a King he acknowledg'd the VVords with this Proviso if he were not wise For said he if Ptolomy be such a manner of Person I shall say he is a King much more He wrote several Pieces under several Titles Of the World of the Elements of Seed of Fortune of Atoms against Atoms and Idols of the Sences Upon the Discourses of Heraclitus of Moral Institutions of Duty of Natural Inclination of Perturbations of Regal Government of the Lacedaemon of Lycurgus and Socrates of Law of Divination of Amorous Dialogues of the Eretriac Philosophers of Things alike of Definitions of Habit of Contradictions of Riches Honour Death of the Art of Logic of Predicaments Amphibologies and Epistles The LIFE of CHRYSIPPVS CHRYSIPPVS the Son of Apollonius of Soli or rather Tarsus according to Alexander in his Successions was the Disciple of Cleanthes At first he taught Gentlemen to handle their Weapons but after that became the Disciple of Zeno or as Diocles reports of Cleanthes rather whom he also forsook in his Life-time Nor was he a mean Person in Philosophy as being endu'd with profound Parts and a most sharp Wit so that he differ'd from Zeno and Cleanthes himself in many things to whom he would often say that he only wanted the Doctrinal Part for the Demonstrative Part he would find it out himself Yet when he wrote against Cleanthes would often check himself and repeat the following Lines Were it another I would boast my Art But to oppose Cleanthes breaks my Heart He was so Famous a Logician that many said of him If the Gods wanted Logic they would make Vse of none but his Nevertheless though he abounded so much in Matter yet was he not soready at Expression but that he was very laborious his Writings testifie to the Number of Seventy five Treatises So voluminous in his Invention that he wrote several times upon the same Subject setting down whatever came into his Mind and then making Alterations again and beside all this so full of Quotations that having inserted the whole Tragedy of Medea by Euripides into one of his Pieces and another who had the Book in his Hand was ask'd what he was reading He reply'd Chrysippus's Medea Apollodorus the Athenian also going about to prove that Epicurus by the strength of his own Parts had written much more then ever Chrysippus wrote has this Expression For says he if any one should take out of Chrysippus ' s Works that which is none of his own there would be a world of Blank Paper However as Diocles reports a certain Old Woman who was either his Governess or his Nurse assur'd several of his Friends that he was wont to write five hundred Verses every Day To all which Hecato adds That he then fell to the Study of Philosophy when he had spent all his Estate in the King's Service He was a little spare-Body'd Man as appears by his Statue in the Ceramicum where he is hardly to be seen for the Statue of the Horseman that stands next him Which was the Reason that Carneades call'd him Krypsippus instead of Chrysippus And when it was thrown in his Dish that he did not Exercise with the rest that were a great many at Aristo's House Marry said he if I should keep many Company I should ne re be a Philosopher To Cleanthes his Logic lying before him and full of little Sophisms he us'd this Expression by way of Prosopopoea Forbear said he to entice a Young Man from more weighty Thoughts Moreover if any Person came to ask him a Question he always endeavour'd to satisfie in private the best he could but when he saw a Crowd coming to him then he would presently fall a repeating those Verses of Euripides in his Orestes Cousin I know th' art troubl'd at the sight Yet lay thy Passion by while thou art sober When he drank hard he lay very quiet but that he would be always moving his Thighs which the Servant-Maid observing was wont to say That never any Part of Chrysippus was fuddl'd but his Hips On the other side he had such an invincible high Conceit of himself that being ask'd by a certain Person Whom he should make Use of as a Tutor for his Son My self said he for if I thought that any other Man excell'd me in Philosophy I would my self become his Scholar And therefore it was said of him He 's the wise Man but shadows all the rest Of that same Thing for which they so contest And again Wer 't not but that Chrysippus's Renown Vpholds it soon the Stoa would fal down At length when Arcesilaus and Lacydes came into the Academy he associated with Them. For which Reason contrary to Custom he labour'd in Defence of it and in his Disputes of Magnitude and Multitude made Use of the Arguments of the Academics At length as he was busily employ'd in the Odeion a Public Place in Athens as Hermippus reports he was invited by his Scholars to a Sacrifice at what time upon his drinking of new sweet Wine he was taken with a Dizziness in his Head and the Fifth day after expir'd in the Twenty third Olympiad after he had liv'd Seventy three Years Fuddl'd Chrysippus a Vertigo took What car'd he then for Stoa or his Book For Country or for Soul All went to rack So to th' Abyss he pac'd the common Track Some say he expir'd in an excessive Fit of Laughter for that seeing an â—ss eat Figs he bid his old Woman give him some new Wine to his Meat Which when the Ass tippl'd with that Freedom as he did it put him into such an extream Laughter that he expir'd in the midst of his Mirth He seem'd to have been a great Contemner of other Men for that of all his numerous Volumes he never made the least Dedication to any Prince contenting himself only with the Society of a little Old Woman as Demetrius records of him in his Homonynia Also when Demetrius sent to Cleanthes an Invitation either to come to him himself or send another Sphaerus was sent for that Chrysipus refus'd to go But associating with himself his Sisters Sons Aristocreon and Philocrates with a handsom Train of other Disciples he was the first that presum'd to teach in the Lycaeum in the open Ayr as the foremention'd Demetrius testifies There was also another Chrysippus a Gnidian and a Physician by whom Erasistratus acknowledges that he profited very much And another who was Son to the former and Physician to Ptolomy who upon an Accusation brought against him was first ignominiously whipp'd and then put to Death Another that was the Disciple of Erasistratus and one more that was a Writer of Georgies But now to return to our Philosopher he was wont to put such Arguments as these upon several Persons He that divulges the Sacred Mysteries to Prophane Persons is himself impious but Hierophantus discloses the Sacred Mysteries to those that are not initiated therefore Hierophantus is an impious