Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

by Pamela Mensch

  39 The distinction here is between physis (nature) and nomos (convention, or the customs and laws that structure human forms of association), a distinction that later became a major topic of debate, especially in the dialogues of Plato.

  40 Some editors emend the text to read “Mnesimachus,” a poet of Middle Comedy (fl. c. 360 BC).

  41 A pun on the title Phrygians (Phruges in Greek). The word phrugana means “firewood.”

  42 Diogenes quotes a passage of dialogue between two characters, without identifying who they are. “A” and “B” are used here, and throughout this volume, to distinguish two anonymous speakers.

  43 This passage does not appear in our manuscripts of Clouds, a play that survives intact. It may come from a play by Teleclides, also called Clouds, or from a different version of Aristophanes’ play, which is known to have been revised.

  44 Damon of Athens was a musical theorist of the fifth century BC.

  45 The statues of the three Graces were located at the entrance to the Acropolis. Pausanias reports that when Socrates decided to dedicate his life to philosophy, he destroyed the statues; another ancient source, Pliny the Elder, says that the statues on the Acropolis were the work of a different stoneworker named Socrates.

  46 The Thirty were a brutal oligarchic regime installed after Sparta’s defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War (404 BC). The passage of Xenophon that Diogenes cites here belongs to a surviving work, the Memorabilia (1.2.31).

  47 A reference to Clouds, where a personified Weaker Argument wins out in a contest with Stronger Argument. The play caricatures Socrates as a shyster who can help litigants win dubious court cases.

  48 Not the famous orator, but Aeschines of Sphettus, a follower of Socrates whose Socratic dialogues survive only in fragments (see 2.60–64).

  49 A wealthy Athenian whose devotion to Socrates is immortalized in the Platonic dialogue named after him. See 2.121.

  50 Homer, Odyssey 4.392.

  51 In his dialogues Plato mentions Socrates’ military service in three campaigns of the 420s BC, the time of Athens’s war against Sparta.

  52 Heraclitus of Ephesus was a philosopher and poet with a famously obscure mode of expression. Diogenes discusses his life and views in 9.1–17.

  53 The island of Delos was the birthplace of Apollo, the god who communicated, often enigmatically, through the Delphic oracle. Deep-sea divers harvested pearls and sponges off its coast.

  54 The Battle of Amphipolis (422 BC) was a decisive victory for the Spartans in the Peloponnesian War.

  55 The Boeotians, allies of Sparta, defeated the Athenians at Delium in 424 BC. According to Plato, Socrates showed great stamina in that battle (see Symposium, 221a–b), but he could not in fact have rescued Xenophon, who was only a few years old at the time.

  56 The siege of Potidaea, in the Chalcidice, occupied the years 432–429 BC, and resulted in a costly victory for the Athenians. According to the account given in Plato’s Symposium (219e–220e), Socrates rescued Alcibiades during the combat.

  57 Alcibiades (c. 450–404 BC) was an Athenian general and statesman, notorious for changing his allegiance several times during the course of the Peloponnesian War; he was also the most prominent follower of Socrates. The most famous depiction of their relationship occurs in the Symposium of Plato, where, in the course of making a speech praising Socrates, Alcibiades recalls how Socrates rejected his sexual advances. Plato also wrote a dialogue called Alcibiades that paints a warm picture of the teacher-student relationship.

  58 Not the hedonist philosopher Aristippus of Cyrene (whose life is discussed at 2.65–104), but a later author who assumed that name, presumably to give his work greater credibility. This man is sometimes referred to as Pseudo-Aristippus.

  59 None of Aristotle’s surviving works contain this information.

  60 Critias, a former student of Socrates, headed the regime of the Thirty that briefly ruled Athens after its defeat by Sparta in 404 BC. Among their tactics was the deputizing of private citizens to arrest their political enemies. Socrates was enlisted to arrest Leon of Salamis, but apparently refused to comply, and the regime fell before he paid any penalty for his recalcitrance. Plato’s Apology of Socrates alludes to this episode (32c).

  61 Socrates was taking his allotted turn as one of the officers in charge of the Boulē, a governing body, on the day when a controversial trial took place. The stratēgoi (generals) leading the Athenian navy at Arginusae (406 BC) were indicted on a capital charge for failing to retrieve the bodies of the dead after the battle. Six of the group stood trial. According to Plato, Socrates did not vote to acquit, but insisted, alone and without success, on standing by existing rules and trying each of the stratēgoi separately (Apology 32b).

  62 In his dialogue Crito, Plato depicts one of Socrates’ followers, Crito, trying to persuade his friend to escape from prison and go into exile rather than submit to execution.

  63 On the day his death sentence was carried out (Plato, Phaedo 117d–e).

  64 These verses have been variously attributed. Whoever wrote them, they likely postdate the death of Socrates, so he could not in fact have recited them.

  65 Of these three would-be benefactors of Socrates, only Archelaus, king of the Macedonians in the late fifth century BC, is otherwise known.

  66 Aristides was an Athenian statesman and general of the early fifth century BC; he was nicknamed the Just for his sterling record of public service.

  67 Diogenes agrees with Plutarch and other late sources in claiming that Socrates married twice. But it should be noted that Plato and Xenophon, both contemporaries of Socrates, mention only Xanthippe.

  68 The passage quoted here is a slightly altered version of Clouds 412–17.

  69 A comic poet and contemporary of Aristophanes. The passage is from his lost play Konnos, which features a caricature of Socrates very similar to that in Clouds.

  70 Clouds 362–63.

  71 The dialogue recounts a drinking party at the house of the tragedian Agathon, during which the participants made speeches about love.

  72 Theaetetus (c. 414–369 BC), an Athenian mathematician, appears as a character in Plato’s dialogue of the same name.

  73 This conversation is dramatized in Plato’s Euthyphro.

  74 Lysis is Socrates’ main interlocutor in Plato’s dialogue Lysis.

  75 Memorabilia 2.2.1–2.

  76 Ibid., 3.6.1–2.

  77 Glaucon’s son Charmides became an Athenian statesman. He is the chief interlocutor of Socrates in Plato’s dialogue Charmides, a discussion of temperance.

  78 Iphicrates was an Athenian general of the first half of the fourth century; he was a youth during Socrates’ old age.

  79 Callias was a tyrant of Chalcis and a very powerful man, by contrast with the insignificant Meidias.

  80 Given the patronymic form of the name (“son of Glaucon”), this may refer to Plato’s nephew, Charmides.

  81 Euclides of Megara (c. 450–380 BC) was a Socratic philosopher; his life and views are discussed at 2.106–12.

  82 Throughout his dialogues, Plato sharply distinguishes between eristic arguments, made in the spirit of trying to defeat an opponent, and dialectic, which deploys reason in a shared effort to gain knowledge.

  83 Plato’s Euthydemus satirizes the sophists and contrasts their methods with those of Socrates.

  84 In Plato’s Symposium, beginning at 216d, Alcibiades recounts his unsuccessful attempt to seduce Socrates.

  85 4.44.

  86 Considered the founder of the Cynic school. Diogenes discusses Antisthenes’ life and views at 6.1–19.

  87 A follower of Socrates. Diogenes discusses Phaedo at 2.105.

  88 Daimonion is a diminutive form of the word daimōn, a term that can refer to a god, to a demigod or spirit, or to the supernatural generally. According to several sources, Socrates heard an in-dwelling voice, inaudible to others, which he called his daimonion. Plato (Apology 31d) has Socrates claim that his daimonion told him onl
y what not to do, but Xenophon (e.g., Memorabilia 4.8.1) says it also urged positive action.

  89 See Plato, Apology 21–22.

  90 This translation presents one possible interpretation of a difficult sentence. Another is that Socrates is asking whether the man has anything on his conscience—i.e., a transgression that the Thirty will discover and punish.

  91 According to Plato, Socrates recounted this dream to Crito, not Aeschines (Crito 44b). The line of verse is quoted from the Iliad (9.363), where Achilles vows to leave the Greek army at Troy and sail homeward. The interpretation of the dream thus configures death as a voyage toward one’s homeland.

  92 Socrates was famous for dressing in ragged clothing.

  93 According to both Plato and Xenophon, Chaerephon journeyed to Delphi to ask the oracle about Socrates. The response of the oracle is given differently by the two authors. In Plato’s Apology (21a), the oracle says that no one was wiser than Socrates; Xenophon’s Apology (14) has the oracle assert that no one was freer, more just, or more prudent. Neither text quotes the oracle’s response in verse form, as Diogenes does here (in iambic trimeter).

  94 Anytus was the principal accuser in Socrates’ trial (and, according to some sources, also a suitor of Alcibiades, who spurned him in favor of Socrates). In Meno (89e–95a), Anytus argues with Socrates over why men do not raise sons as virtuous as themselves and ends up accusing Socrates of slandering the great.

  95 Meletus was another of Socrates’ accusers; in Plato’s Apology (24d–27d) he is humiliated when cross-examined by Socrates.

  96 Lycon was the third Athenian to put his name to Socrates’ indictment, along with Anytus and Meletus. The “preliminary arrangements” mentioned here are legal procedures for bringing a defendant to trial.

  97 Not the Athenian philosopher of Socrates’ own time, but Antisthenes of Rhodes, who lived two centuries later.

  98 The walls referred to are the Long Walls that connected Athens to its seaport, Piraeus. Partly torn down in 404 BC as a result of the Athenian defeat in the Peloponnesian War, they were rebuilt in the 390s, with the help of Conon, an Athenian naval strategist.

  99 The Metröon (literally, “mother’s building”) was a temple in Athens dedicated to the mother goddess; it was used as an archive and council hall.

  100 In Plato’s Apology (36a), Socrates says he would have been acquitted had 30 votes been changed. Diogenes alone gives an exact number of votes cast for conviction. Assuming that the size of the jury was 501—a typical size for Athenian juries—there is a small mathematical discrepancy between Diogenes and Plato, since subtracting 30 from 281 would still result in a conviction. It could be that Plato had Socrates use a round number, 30 instead of 31.

  101 A relatively modest amount, since a drachma was a day’s wage for a skilled laborer.

  102 The Prytaneum was a state council house where councilors, as well as victorious athletes, were fed at public expense. Given the chance to propose his own sentence, after conviction, Socrates mockingly suggested that he dine in the Prytaneum, according to Plato (Apology 36d).

  103 No other source attests to this remarkable increase in the antipathy to Socrates between the guilt phase of his trial and the sentencing phase. If Diogenes’ information is accurate, 80 jurors who had previously voted to acquit Socrates, presumably angered by his flippant sentencing proposals, now voted to execute him.

  104 Plutarch (Moralia 537f–538a) says that the accusers of Socrates were socially ostracized but neither banished nor killed.

  105 Lysippus of Sicyon, one of the greatest sculptors of the fourth century BC, was born after Socrates’ death and could not have cast his features from life. A bust of Socrates widely reproduced in the ancient world, of which several copies survive, is thought to reflect an idealized original created by Lysippus.

  106 The Pompeion was a place for the storage of processional gear for the ceremonies accompanying the Panathenaic Festival.

  107 Neither Homer nor the archaic Spartan poet Tyrtaeus ever resided in Athens or was subject to Athenian law; and Astydamas, a minor tragic poet of the fourth century BC, certainly never attained higher fame than Aeschylus, who was already revered as a master playwright before Astydamas’s birth.

  108 This lost play dealt with a hero of the Trojan War, who (according to other myths) invented musical notation. The lines quoted must have referred to the killing of Palamedes by the Greek army at Troy.

  109 The third year of this Olympiad began in the summer of 470 BC, but Thargelion was the second to last month of the year, so Socrates would actually have been born in 469 by our calendar. Apsephion was archon (chief magistrate) from 469 to 468.

  110 This Olympiad began in 400 BC.

  111 See 2.6–15 on Anaxagoras.

  112 Calliades was archon from 480 to 479 BC; the seventy-fifth Olympiad began in 480.

  113 This story is not found in the extant works of Aristotle.

  114 Not the extant work by Aristotle, usually called Poetics, but a lost work with a similar title.

  115 Ionian philosopher and mathematician of the sixth century BC; his life and views are discussed at 8.1–50.

  116 This list does not correspond to the sequence of Diogenes’ text; his treatment of Antisthenes, though he was one of the earliest followers of Socrates, is held off until Book 6, so as to be grouped with other Cynics. The others listed here are discussed in Books 2 and 3.

  117 See 1.19, where Diogenes lists, as descendants of Plato’s Academy, the schools known as Academic, Cyrenaic, Elian, Megarian, Cynic, Eretrian, Dialectical, Peripatetic, Stoic, and Epicurean, as well as later phases of the Academy itself.

  118 Xenophon was about four decades Socrates’ junior.

  119 The work still survives, as do several of Xenophon’s Socratic dialogues: Apology, Symposium, and Oeconomicus.

  120 Not Aristippus of Cyrene (discussed at 2.65–104), but a later writer who appropriated the name and is known today as Pseudo-Aristippus.

  121 A member of the family that produced Pericles and Alcibiades, Clinias appears as a character in Plato’s dialogue Euthydemus.

  122 These words are nearly an exact quote of a passage of Xenophon’s Symposium (4.12), where a character in the dialogue, Critobulus, is the speaker.

  123 Cyrus the Younger (d. 401 BC) was a Persian prince who tried to unseat his older brother, the reigning king Artaxerxes II, with the help of Greek mercenaries. Xenophon was one of the mercenaries who assisted him in his attempted coup.

  124 An old friend of Xenophon who had joined the mercenary army Cyrus was then recruiting.

  125 An influential sophist and teacher of rhetoric (c. 485–380 BC).

  126 The story of Xenophon’s decision is adapted by Diogenes from Xenophon’s own account in the Anabasis (3.1.4–8), his narrative of the adventures of the so-called Ten Thousand, a Greek mercenary army hired by Cyrus to help him unseat his brother.

  127 The Anabasis describes how the Ten Thousand, stranded deep within Persian territory after Cyrus’ death, managed to fight their way back to port cities of the Black Sea, largely under Xenophon’s leadership.

  128 A character in the eponymous dialogue by Plato and one of Xenophon’s fellow soldiers in the army of the Ten Thousand. Xenophon describes him as a greedy schemer at Anabasis 2.6.21–29.

  129 Ibid., 3.1.26 and 31. The second passage makes clear that male ear-piercing was seen as inappropriate for a proper Greek.

  130 Seuthes served as a general for Amadocus I, a Thracian king, and later seized the throne for himself. For a time he employed the Ten Thousand. The betrayals mentioned here include Seuthes’ reluctance to pay the Greek troops and his attempt to undermine Xenophon’s command.

  131 Agesilaus II (c. 445–359 BC) was a Spartan king whom Xenophon portrayed admiringly in his extant biographical work, Agesilaus. Some years after the Ten Thousand arrived back in Anatolia, having fought their way out of Mesopotamia, Xenophon met up with Agesilaus, who was then leading a Spartan invasion of the western P
ersian empire (Anabasis 5.6).

  132 The Corinthian War, which resulted in a Spartan victory over Thebes and its allies in 394 BC.

  133 A Greek proxenos lived in a foreign city and served as a kind of chargé d’affaires for all legal and procedural matters involving visitors from his home city.

  134 A small town in the western Peloponnese.

  135 The speech referred to countered a suit apparently brought by Xenophon against a certain Aeschylus, whom he accused of a contract violation.

  136 A reference to Castor and Pollux, a pair of divine twin brothers. It’s not clear whether Xenophon’s sons were also twins.

  137 Anabasis 5.3.7–10.

  138 The Hellenica, a historical record of Greece in the late fifth and early fourth centuries BC, survives intact. Xenophon also wrote most of his Socratic works at Scillus, by his own report.

  139 A city on the Hellespont, named after the mythical progenitor of the Trojan royal family.

  140 A town about twelve miles south of Scillus.

  141 The Battle of Mantinea (362 BC) was fought between the Thebans and Spartans, with many allies assisting each side. Xenophon describes the battle in his Hellenica but says nothing of the death of his son.

  142 A Theban general and statesman (c. 418–362 BC) who was instrumental in freeing Thebes from Spartan subjugation and building up its army.

  143 The surviving works of Aristotle contain no such information.

  144 Athenian statesman and essayist active during most of the fourth century BC.

  145 This Olympiad began in 404 BC, so the fourth year was 401.

  146 Xenaenetus was archon (chief magistrate) in the year that began in the summer of 401 BC. The execution of Socrates occurred in 399.

  147 This Olympiad began in 360 BC. In fact Xenophon lived several years past this date, as is known from his surviving works.

  148 Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great.

  149 Xenophon’s corpus includes a treatise on hunting with dogs and another on the skills required of a cavalry commander.