Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

by Pamela Mensch

  He wrote roughly forty works, though these have been divided into books in various ways:

  57 The Anabasis (with a preface for each book, but no general introduction)

  Cyropaedia

  Hellenica

  Memorabilia

  Symposium

  Oeconomicus

  On Horsemanship

  On Hunting

  On the Duties of a Cavalry Commander

  Apology of Socrates

  On Revenues

  Hieron or On Tyranny

  Agesilaus

  The Constitutions of Athens and Sparta

  The latter, according to Demetrius of Magnesia, is not by Xenophon. It is said that he also made famous the works of Thucydides, which had remained unknown until then, and which he could have appropriated for his own purposes.150 For the sweetness of his style he was called the Attic Muse; hence he and Plato were jealous of each other, as will be mentioned in the chapter on Plato.151

  58 My own epigram about him runs as follows:

  Xenophon marched to Persia not only because of Cyrus,

   But because he sought a path that would lead him to Zeus.

  Well-taught, he narrated the Greek exploits,

   And then recalled how fine was the wisdom of Socrates.

  And another about how he died:

  Xenophon, the citizens of Cranaus and Cecrops152

   Condemned you to exile for your friendship with Cyrus;

  But Corinth, hospitable to strangers, welcomed you,

   So fond were you of her delights, and there you chose to abide.

  59 I have found in other accounts the statement that he flourished in the eighty-ninth Olympiad,153 at the same time as the other Socratics; and Istrus says that he was banished by a decree of Eubulus, and was recalled by a decree of the same man.

  There have been seven men named Xenophon: the first was our present subject; the second an Athenian (the brother of the Pythostratus who wrote the Theseid) who wrote, among other works, a biography of Epaminondas and Pelopidas;154 the third a doctor from Cos; the fourth the author of a history of Hannibal; the fifth an authority on mythical marvels; the sixth a sculptor from Paros; and the seventh a poet of the Old Comedy.

  Aeschines

  60,61 Aeschines was the son of Charinus the sausage maker, though some say his father was Lysanias. He was an Athenian, and industrious from an early age; this was why he never left Socrates. Hence the latter used to say, “Only the son of the sausage maker knows how to honor me.” Idomeneus says that it was Aeschines, not Crito, who advised Socrates in the prison about his escape; and that Plato, because Aeschines was friendlier to Aristippus155 than to himself, attributed Aeschines’ words to Crito. Aeschines was maliciously slandered, especially by Menedemus of Eretria,156 who claimed that most of the dialogues Aeschines passed off as his own were by Socrates, and that he had obtained them from Xanthippe. Of these dialogues, some, the ones that are called “headless,”157 are very slack and show none of the Socratic vigor; Peristratus of Ephesus denied that they were the work even of Aeschines. Persaeus says that most of the seven were written by Pasiphon of Eretria, who inserted them among the dialogues of Aeschines. Moreover, Aeschines claimed authorship of Antisthenes’ Little Cyrus, Lesser Heracles, and Alcibiades,158 as well as dialogues by other writers. As for the second category of dialogues by Aeschines, namely those that carry the stamp of the Socratic manner, they are seven in number: the first was the Miltiades (which for that reason is rather weak); Callias, Axiochus, Aspasia, Alcibiades, Telauges, and Rhinon.

  62 They say that poverty drove him to Sicily, to the court of Dionysius, and that Plato ignored him, whereas Aristippus introduced him to Dionysius;159 and that when he offered Dionysius some of his dialogues he received gifts from him. Later, when Aeschines returned to Athens, he did not venture to assume the profession of sophist, since at that period the associates of Plato and Aristippus were highly esteemed. But he took fees for his lectures160 and later composed forensic speeches for victims of injustice, which is why Timon wrote:

  … and the Aeschines might be persuaded to write.

  When Aeschines was hard-pressed by poverty, it is said that Socrates told him he ought to borrow from himself by reducing his consumption of food. Even Aristippus cast doubt on the genuineness of his dialogues. At any rate it is said that one day, when Aeschines was reading one of them at Megara, Aristippus made fun of him by asking, “Where, thief, did you come by that?”

  63 Polycritus of Mende, in the first book of his work On Dionysius, says that Aeschines lived with the tyrant until the man’s banishment, and remained in Sicily until Dion returned to Syracuse;161 he adds that Dion was accompanied by Carcinus the comic poet. There is a letter to Dionysius attributed to Aeschines.162 He was well trained in rhetoric, as is clear from his defense of the father of Phaeax the general, and from the speeches in which he closely imitates Gorgias of Leontini. Moreover, Lysias wrote a speech against him that he entitled On Dishonest Prosecution. And from this too, it is clear that he was skilled in rhetoric. One disciple has been attributed to him: the Aristotle who was nicknamed Myth.163

  64 Still, of all the Socratic dialogues, Panaetius thinks that those of Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and Aeschines are genuine; he is in doubt about those of Phaedo and Euclides, and rejects all the others.

  There have been eight men named Aeschines: the first was our present subject; the second an author of handbooks on rhetoric; the third the orator who opposed Demosthenes;164 the fourth an Arcadian, a student of Isocrates; the fifth a Mytilenaean whom they call “the rhetoricians’ scourge”; the sixth a Neapolitan, an Academic philosopher, a student and beloved of Melanthius of Rhodes; the seventh a Milesian, a political writer; and the eighth a sculptor.

  Aristippus

  65 Aristippus was by family a citizen of Cyrene,165 but he was drawn to Athens, as Aeschines says, by the fame of Socrates. Assuming the profession of sophist, according to Phanias, the Peripatetic of Eresus, he was the first of the followers of Socrates to charge a fee and to send money to his teacher. One day, after sending him twenty minas,166 he received them back, Socrates claiming that his daimonion167 did not permit him to accept them, finding the offer itself offensive. Xenophon was ill disposed to Aristippus. And this is why the discourse against pleasure that he has Socrates making is directed against Aristippus.168 Theodorus also maligns him in his work On the Philosophic Schools, as does Plato in his work On the Soul, as we have mentioned elsewhere.169

  66 He was skillful at adapting himself to place and time and person, and at playing his role suitably under all circumstances; this is why he was more esteemed than anyone else by Dionysius,170 for he always managed to make the best of any situation. He derived pleasure from enjoyments that were present, and did not trouble himself to seek those that were not; hence Diogenes171 used to call him the “royal dog.”172 And Timon sneered at him for his luxuriousness in these words:

  Such is the luxurious nature of Aristippus, who traffics in lies.

  67 One day, it is said, Aristippus gave orders for a partridge to be purchased for fifty drachmas; and when someone reproached him for it he said, “Would you have bought it for an obol?” And when the man nodded assent, Aristippus said, “Well, fifty drachmas mean no more to me.”173 One day when Dionysius told him to pick one of three courtesans, Aristippus took them all, saying, “It did Paris no good to prefer one to the others.”174 But when he had brought them as far as his porch, he let them depart, so extreme were his preferences and his disdain. This is why Strato (or Plato, according to some) once said to him, “To you alone it has been granted to sport both a fine cloak and rags.” When Dionysius spat at him, he put up with it. And when someone faulted him for this, he said, “Well, the fishermen put up with being sprinkled by the sea in order to catch the sardine; so should I not put up with being sprinkled with spittle, that I may catch the anchovy?”175

  68,69 One day when Aristippus was walking past him, Diogenes
, who was washing lettuces, mocked him and said, “If you had learned to live on these, you would not be paying court to tyrants”; to which Aristippus replied, “And if you had learned to associate with men, you would not be washing lettuces.” When asked what he had gained from philosophy, he said, “To be able to consort confidently with everyone.” Reproached one day for living extravagantly, he said, “If this were wrong, it would not be done at the festivals of the gods.” When asked one day what advantage philosophers enjoyed, he said, “If all the laws are repealed, we will live just as we do now.” When asked by Dionysius why the philosophers go to the doors of rich men but rich men no longer go to philosophers, he said, “Because the philosophers know what they need, while the rich do not.” When asked how the educated differ from the uneducated, he said, “Just as horses that have been tamed differ from untamed horses.” One day, as he was entering the house of a courtesan and one of the young men with him blushed, he said, “It’s not hard to go in; what’s hard is not being able to leave.”

  Statuette of a draped female figure, fourth to third century BC.

  70 To someone who presented him with a riddle and said, “Solve it,” he replied, “Why, fool, do you want to solve it, since even unsolved it gives us trouble?”176 He said it was better to be a beggar than to be uneducated; for the former is in need of money, the latter of humanity. When reviled one day, he withdrew; and when the other man pursued him and asked, “Why do you run away?” he said, “Because you have the right to malign me, while I have the right not to listen.” When someone said that he always saw philosophers at the doors of rich men, he replied, “Yes, and doctors at doors of sick people; but no one would prefer being sick to being a doctor.”

  71 One day, on a voyage to Corinth, he was overtaken by a storm and became distressed. To someone who said, “We ordinary folk are not afraid, but you philosophers are scared to death,” he said, “That’s because the souls concerned are not comparable.” To someone who plumed himself on his vast knowledge, he said, “Just as people who eat and exercise most are not healthier than those who eat and exercise only as much as they need, likewise it is those who read with an eye not to quantity but to usefulness who are virtuous.” To a speechwriter who, after arguing on his behalf and winning the case, asked him “What good did Socrates do you?” he replied, “Just this: that the speeches you made in my defense are true.”

  72 He gave his daughter Arete177 the best advice, training her to despise excess. When someone asked him in what way his son would be better off if educated, he replied, “If nothing else, at least in the theater he won’t sit like a stone upon stone.” When someone brought his son to him as a student, Aristippus asked him for five hundred drachmas; and when the man said, “For that much I can buy a slave,” he replied, “Buy one, then, and you’ll have two.” He said that he took money from his students not for his own use, but so that they might know on what their money should be spent. When reproached one day because he hired a speechwriter to handle his lawsuit, he said, “Well, when I give a dinner, I hire a chef.”

  73 Compelled one day by Dionysius178 to discuss some doctrine of philosophy, he said, “It would be absurd that you should learn from me what to say, and yet instruct me when to say it.” They say that Dionysius was offended at this and made Aristippus recline at the foot of the table. And Aristippus said, “You must have wanted to make the place more prestigious.” When someone boasted of being a good diver, he said, “Aren’t you ashamed to pride yourself on the feats of a dolphin?” When asked one day how the wise man differs from the unwise, he said, “Send both of them naked among strangers, and you will learn.”179 When someone boasted that he could drink a great deal without getting drunk, he said, “So can a mule.”

  74,75 When someone reproached him for living with a courtesan, he said, “Is there any difference between taking a house in which many once lived and taking one in which no one has lived?” When the man said, “No,” he asked, “Or between sailing in a ship in which countless people once sailed or in one in which nobody has?” “None.” “Then it makes no difference,” he said, “whether the woman you live with has lived with many or with nobody.” When someone blamed him for taking fees though he was a student of Socrates, he said, “So I do! And Socrates, when people sent him grain and wine, used to accept a little and send back the rest; that’s because he had the preeminent Athenians to supply his needs,180 whereas I have only Eutychides, my slave.” He consorted with Lais the courtesan, as Sotion says in the second book of his Successions. To those who faulted him for it, he said, “I possess Lais, but am not possessed by her. For it’s the height of virtue not to abstain from pleasures, but to conquer and not be mastered by them.” To someone who reproached him for his extravagant banquet, he said, “Wouldn’t you have bought this for three obols?”181 And when the man assented, he said, “Then it’s not I who love pleasure, but you who love money.” One day when Simus, Dionysius’ steward (a Phrygian and a pest), was showing him the tyrant’s luxurious house and its mosaic floors, Aristippus coughed up phlegm and spat in his face; and when the man got angry, Aristippus said, “I couldn’t find a more appropriate place.”

  Terra-cotta kylix (drinking-cup), attributed to the Painter of Bologna 417, c. 460–450 BC. The tondo, in which the girl on the left carries a pair of writing tablets and a stylus, provides evidence of the education of women in the mid-fifth century BC.

  76,77,78 When Charondas (or Phaedo, according to some) asked, “Who is it that has drenched himself with unguent?” he replied, “I am the unfortunate wretch, and the king of the Persians is even more unfortunate than me. But consider this: since none of the other animals would be worse off for being perfumed, the same might be true of man. And may those blasted catamites die miserable deaths, who make it shameful for us to use a fine scent!”182 When Plato reproached him for living extravagantly, he said, “Do you regard Dionysius as a good man?” When Plato assented, Aristippus said, “And yet he lives more extravagantly than I do; so nothing prevents one from living both extravagantly and nobly.” When asked how Socrates died, he said, “As I myself would wish to die.”183 Polyxenus the sophist paid him a visit one day, and when he noticed women and costly food, he reproached Aristippus. A few moments later, Aristippus asked, “Can you join us today?” And when the other accepted the invitation, Aristippus said, “Why, then, did you fault us? For you evidently object not to the food, but to the cost.” When his servant, in the course of a journey, was carrying money and was oppressed by the weight of it (as Bias reports in his Lectures), Aristippus said, “Pour away the greater part and carry only as much as you can.” On a voyage once, when he realized that the vessel was manned by pirates, he took his money and began counting it; then, as if unintentionally, he threw it into the sea, and made a show of bemoaning his loss. According to others, he remarked that it was better for the money to be lost because of Aristippus than for Aristippus to be lost because of the money. When Dionysius asked him one day what he had come for, he said he had come to offer what he had, and to obtain what he had not. But some say he replied, “When I needed wisdom, I went to Socrates; but now that I need money, I have come to you.” He disparaged the general run of men who, when purchasing pots, strike them to test their soundness, but judge haphazardly when adopting a way of life. (Others, however, attribute this observation to Diogenes.) Once at a drinking party, when Dionysius ordered each guest to put on purple clothes and dance, Plato declined, saying184

  I could not wear women’s clothing;

  Aristippus, on the other hand, took the clothes and, when about to dance, made the apt reply:

       For at the Bacchic revelry,

  She who is modest will not be corrupted.

  79,80 Once when he asked a favor of Dionysius on behalf of a friend, and failed to obtain it, he fell to the tyrant’s feet. And to someone who mocked him he said, “I am not to blame, but Dionysius, who has ears in his feet.” When residing in Asia, he was taken captive by Artaphe
rnes the satrap;185 and when someone asked him, “Can you be confident under these circumstances?” he replied, “When, fool, could I be more confident than now, since I am going to converse with Artaphernes?” He used to say that those who obtained a general education but were deprived of philosophy were like the suitors of Penelope; for they had their way with Melantho, Polydora, and the other serving women, and were able to do everything but marry the mistress herself.186 Ariston makes a similar remark; for he says that Odysseus, when he went down to Hades, saw and encountered almost all the dead, but never set eyes on the queen herself.187

  When Aristippus was asked what subjects talented boys should study, he said, “Those that will be useful to them when they’ve become men.” To someone who reproached him for going from Socrates to Dionysius, he said, “Well, I went to Socrates for education (paideia), to Dionysius for amusement (paidia).” When he had made some money by teaching, Socrates asked him, “Where did you get so much?” to which Aristippus replied, “Where you got so little.”

  81 To a courtesan who said, “I am pregnant by you,” he said, “You could be no more sure of it than if, after walking through a field of rushes, you claimed you’d been pricked by one particular thorn.” When someone reproached him for rejecting his own son as if he were not his offspring, he replied, “We know that phlegm and lice spring from us, but since they are useless we throw them as far away as possible.” When he had received money from Dionysius, whereas Plato had received a book, and someone reproached him, he replied, “Well, I need money, and Plato needs books.” To someone who asked him why Dionysius reproached him, he replied, “For the same reason others do.”188