Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

by Pamela Mensch

  103 There are three kinds of good civic order. First, we call the civic order good if the laws are good. Secondly, we also call it good if the citizens abide by the existing laws. Thirdly, if in the absence of laws the citizens live well in accordance with their customs and practices, we also call this good order. Thus there is good civic order if the laws are good; secondly, if the citizens are law-abiding; and thirdly, if the citizens live in accordance with good customs and practices.

  104 There are three kinds of lawlessness. The first arises if the laws that affect both strangers and citizens are bad; the second, if the citizens do not obey the existing laws; the third, if there is no law at all. Thus lawlessness exists if the laws are bad; secondly, if the laws are not obeyed; and thirdly, if there is no law.

  105 There are three kinds of contraries. For example, we say that goods are contrary to evils, as justice is contrary to injustice, wisdom to folly, and so forth. Furthermore, evils are contrary to evils; for example, prodigality is contrary to stinginess, and to be tortured unjustly is the contrary of being tortured justly, and so forth. Finally, heavy is contrary to light, swift to slow, black to white, pairs of contraries in which neither element is good or evil. Among the contraries, then, there are some that oppose goods to evils, others that oppose evils to evils, and still others that oppose things neither good nor evil to things neither good nor evil.

  There are three kinds of goods: those that can be possessed, those that can be partaken of, and those that simply exist. The goods that can be possessed include such things as justice and health. The goods that can be partaken of include all the things that cannot be possessed but of which one can partake; for example, the absolute good cannot be possessed, but one can partake of it. The third kind includes the goods that simply exist, though we can neither partake of them nor possess them. For example, the mere existence of excellence and justice is a good; and these things can neither be possessed nor partaken of, but must simply exist. Among the goods, then, there are those that one possesses, those that one partakes of, and those that simply exist.

  106 There are three kinds of advice. One is taken from the past, one from the future, and one from the present. Advice taken from the past consists of examples; for instance, what the Lacedemonians suffered by trusting others.176 Advice taken from the present is meant to show, for example, that walls are weak, men cowardly, or food scanty. Advice from the future is, for example, not to undermine embassies by suspicions, lest Greece lose her good name. Thus advice is taken either from the past, the present, or the future.

  107 Voice is of two kinds, animate and inanimate. The voice of living things is animate, while noises and sounds are inanimate. Of the voice of living things, part is articulate, part inarticulate. The voice of human beings is articulate, that of animals inarticulate. Thus voice is either animate or inanimate.

  108 Whatever exists is either divisible or indivisible. Among divisible things, some are homogeneous, others not. The indivisible things are those that cannot be divided and are not composed of elements; for example, the unit, the point, and the musical note; whereas those that have constituent parts, for example, syllables, musical chords, animals, water, and gold, are divisible. Things that are composed of similar parts, so that the whole does not differ from the part except in mass, like water, gold, and all that is fusible, and so forth, are called homogeneous. But things that are composed of dissimilar parts, for example a house and the like, are called heterogeneous. Thus existent things are either divisible or indivisible; and among divisible things, some are homogeneous, others heterogeneous.

  109 Among existing things, some are absolute and some are called relative. The things said to be absolute are those that require no explanation, like man, horse, and the other animals. For none of these things gains by explanation. The things said to be relative are those that do require some explanation; for example, that which is greater than something, or faster than something, or more beautiful, and so forth. For the greater implies a lesser, the faster a slower. Among existing things, then, some are said to be absolute, some relative. These were Plato’s primary divisions, according to Aristotle.

  There was another Plato, a philosopher of Rhodes, who was a pupil of Panaetius, as Seleucus the grammarian says in his first book On Philosophy; another a Peripatetic, a student of Aristotle; another, a student of Praxiphanes; and another, a poet of the Old Comedy.

  1 Athenian statesman of the sixth century BC and one of the Seven Sages, known for the reforms he championed in Athens. His life and works are discussed by Diogenes at 1.45–67.

  2 After Sparta’s defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War (404 BC), a small group of pro-Spartan Athenians, known as the Thirty Tyrants (or the Thirty), abolished the democracy and established an oligarchy. The regime lasted only a year before it was overthrown and democracy was restored by Thrasybulus and an army of exiles.

  3 Neleus was a legendary king of Pylos and the son of the sea-god Poseidon. He was also the father of Nestor, the wise counselor in Homer’s Iliad.

  4 A mythical king of Athens.

  5 The story suggests that Apollo was responsible for Plato’s conception, since Perictione, though married to Ariston, had thus far remained a virgin (or so the phrase here translated “in the bloom of youth” implies).

  6 This Olympiad began in 428 BC; Thargelion began in May and extended into June. Plato must have been born in the first year of this Olympiad to have reached eighty-one, the age Diogenes assigns him at the time of his death in 347.

  7 The island of Delos was said to be the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis.

  8 This Olympiad began in 348 BC.

  9 A famously long-lived Athenian orator and teacher of rhetoric.

  10 These dates correspond to 436–435 BC and 428–427 BC, respectively. In fact Isocrates died in 338 BC, at the age of eighty-eight or eighty-nine.

  11 A different Thales than the sage discussed at 1.22–44.

  12 The role of a choregos at Athens was to subsidize one of the three productions of tragic drama at the annual Festival of Dionysus. It was a voluntary role taken on by wealthy citizens.

  13 Dion (c. 408–353 BC), a follower of Plato, was an adviser to two tyrants of Syracuse, Dionysius I, his brother-in-law, and Dionysius II, his nephew. He introduced Plato to the court (see 2.18–19 and 21–22 below), hoping that the city’s constitution could be refashioned along philosophic lines.

  14 Both appear as characters in Plato’s works. Glaucon serves as Socrates’ principal interlocutor in the Republic, a dialogue that also includes Adeimantus. Glaucon is also a part of the frame narrative that surrounds the Symposium.

  15 On the life and work of Speusippus, to whom Plato bequeathed leadership of the Academy, see 4.1–5.

  16 Not the tyrant of Syracuse with whom Plato later became embroiled, but an Athenian orator.

  17 The name Plato is derived from the Greek word platos, meaning “broad.”

  18 In the ancient world swans were admired for their beautiful voices.

  19 The name can refer either to the grove sacred to the hero Academus, as it does here, or to the school Plato later founded there.

  20 A small deme of Athens, a little over a mile from the Acropolis.

  21 On Heraclitus, see 9.1–17.

  22 The verse is adapted from the Iliad 18.392, where Achilles’ mother, Thetis, asks Hephaestus to make her son a new set of armor. There is a complex irony in having Plato quote epic verse even while burning his own poetry in disdain. In the Republic Plato has Socrates ban virtually all poetry from the education of his ideal city’s governing class.

  23 Parmenides of Elea (fl. early fifth century BC) founded the Eleatic school. His life and views are discussed at 9.21–23. Little is known about either Cratylus or Hermogenes (a different person than the son of Crito mentioned at 2.121).

  24 Euclides of Megara (c. 450–380 BC), the Socratic philosopher whose life and views Diogenes discusses at 2.106–12.

  25 Not the Theod
orus profiled at 2.98–103, but one of his many namesakes, the second of those listed at 2.104.

  26 Philolaus of Croton or Tarentum (c. 470–390 BC) was a Pythagorean and a contemporary of Socrates; his life and views are discussed at 8.84–85. Erytus was one of Philolaus’ followers. On Pythagoras himself, see 8.1–50.

  27 Euripides, who died when Plato was in his twenties, is not otherwise known to have visited Egypt.

  28 The quote is from Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris, line 1193.

  29 The reference is to Odyssey 4.229–32, where Menelaus, who had visited Egypt on his way home from Troy, praises the medicines he had found and states that “every man is a healer there.”

  30 The priestly caste of Persia, reputed to possess supernatural powers.

  31 An obscure mythological hero (also known as Academus) who gave his name to the Academy.

  32 One of the greatest poets of Old Comedy (fifth century BC).

  33 The word forms a pun on Plato’s name.

  34 An influential Athenian orator and teacher of rhetoric (436–338 BC).

  35 Diogenes seems to refer to three engagements of the Peloponnesian War, all of which Plato was far too young to take part in. Athens conducted operations at Tanagra in 426 BC, at Corinth in 425, and at Delium in 424. Aristoxenus may have confused Plato’s military career with that of the much older Socrates, who did fight at Delium.

  36 A substantial sum of money: a skilled worker earned approximately one drachma a day; a mina was worth one hundred drachmas.

  37 Diogenes could mean either Dionysius I, tyrant of Syracuse, or his son, Dionysius II.

  38 Alcimus, a Sicilian rhetorician and historian, argued to his eponymous addressee that Plato had stolen some of his ideas from Epicharmus. Since Epicharmus was also Sicilian, the book To Amyntas might have sought to claim Plato’s ideas for Sicily, or there may be some connection between Alcimus and Dionysius II of Syracuse, who had reasons to discredit Plato. Whatever his motive, Alcimus gets a remarkably sympathetic hearing from Diogenes Laertius, who quotes his argument at great length in what follows, including long passages where Alcimus quotes Epicharmus’ comedies to prove his point. Diogenes’ own discussion of Plato resumes at 3.18.

  39 See Plato, Timaeus 27d–29a.

  40 See Plato, Phaedo 79c, and Sophist 246b.

  41 See Plato, Phaedo 92a ff.

  42 See Plato, Theaetetus 181d; Sophist 250a, 251d; Parmenides 129e, 130b; Phaedo 265d; and Laws XII, 965b ff.

  43 See Plato, Parmenides 133c ff.; Phaedo 100c–103b; and Timaeus 52a; see also Aristotle, Metaphysics II 2, 997b5 ff., and XI 6, 1071b14 ff.; and Eudemian Ethics I 1218a10 ff.

  44 See Plato, Theatetus 176e, and Timaeus 51a.

  45 Plato, Phaedo 96b.

  46 Sophron of Syracuse (fl. fifth century BC) wrote comic dialogues.

  47 Dionysius I (c. 430–367 BC), for many years ruler of Syracuse. A feared tyrant who dismantled what had been a democratic city-state, he also organized a large army of mercenaries, thereby making Syracuse the most powerful of the western Greek colonies. On his death, his power passed to his son, Dionysius II.

  48 The account of the trips to Sicily given by Diogenes does not entirely square with the account given by Plato himself in his Seventh Letter (which a majority of modern scholars regard as genuine). Plato does refer there (326c–327a) to a voyage to Syracuse during the reign of Dionysius I, but says nothing of any confrontations with the tyrant nor of a subsequent captivity.

  49 Not the Cyrenaic philosopher profiled in Book 2, but perhaps that man’s grandfather.

  50 An Athenian mercenary commander in the first half of the fourth century BC. The battle in which he defeated Pollis, a Spartan commander, probably took place at Naxos in 376. Plato seems to have been an ally of Chabrias (see 3.24), making the outcome of the battle all the more meaningful.

  51 Plato’s second visit to Syracuse, probably in 366 BC (more than two decades after his first), is described in the Seventh Letter, 328d–330b.

  52 After it was clear that Dionysius II was a vicious and corrupt ruler (as his father had been), Dion, a key adviser and the young tyrant’s uncle, became estranged from the court. Plato, as Dion’s close ally, was naturally suspected of collusion in Dion’s plans, which did include an ouster of Dionysius (later achieved); but according to the Seventh Letter, Plato held aloof from all such conspiracies.

  53 In the Seventh Letter the philosopher Archytas (whose life and views are discussed at 8.79–83) plays a very different role, attempting to persuade Plato to return to Syracuse a third time (338c–d). Modern scholars consider the letter just below to be spurious.

  54 At this point—361 BC, about five years after Plato’s last visit to Sicily—Dion was in exile, and Dionysius was in control of his estates; according to the account in the Seventh Letter, Plato tried to get Dionysius to release the proceeds of the estates to Dion (345c–350b). Plato himself quickly fell from Dionysius’ favor and was detained in Syracuse, against his own wishes, until Archytas intervened and secured permission for Plato to leave, in 360 BC.

  55 In the Seventh Letter, Plato (if he is indeed the author) discusses his disillusionment with the Athenian government, which had executed his teacher Socrates, and his rejection of a political path (324b–326d).

  56 Megalópolis was founded by Thebes as a home for liberated Messenians, formerly enslaved to the Spartan warrior caste, in 368 BC.

  57 Chabrias’s trial seems to have resulted from suspicions of treachery in a recent military action.

  58 A mathematician who was associated with the Academy.

  59 In this dialogue, Phaedrus encounters Socrates just after listening to a speech on erotic love by Lysias, a contemporary orator. He repeats the speech for the benefit of Socrates, who proceeds to refute its premises (230e–235e).

  60 Democritus of Abdera (b. 460/57 BC) is jointly credited, along with his teacher Leucippus, with originating the atomic theory. Diogenes discusses his life and views at 9.34–49.

  61 At the Olympic games of 360 BC, Plato, by his own testimony, held a colloquy with Dion, who was then gathering an army for an invasion of Syracuse (Seventh Letter 350b–351e).

  62 Otherwise unknown.

  63 A Greek sculptor who flourished in the fourth century BC. He is best known for his sculptures of Plato and Sappho; copies of these survive.

  64 A fourth-century poet of Middle Comedy who won several dramatic competitions at the major Athenian festivals.

  65 The point of the quip may be Plato’s acceptance of largesse from Dionysius II of Syracuse (see 6.25).

  66 The Greek twice echoes the sound of Plato’s name, in the verb aneplasse (“made”) and in peplasmena (which isn’t literally translated here but forms part of “astonishing discoveries”).

  67 This may be the same Alexis to whom Plato addressed his erotic epigram (see 3.31).

  68 Not the philosopher Aristippus of Cyrene discussed at 2.65–104, but a later author who assumed that name (and is often referred to as Pseudo-Aristippus), presumably to give his work greater credibility.

  69 Probably both here and at 3.31, a different Phaedrus is meant than the figure in Plato’s eponymous dialogue; that Phaedrus was much older than Plato.

  70 In this epigram and the next, Plato puns on Aster’s name, which is the Greek word for “star.” In saying here that Aster gazes at the stars, Plato indicates that he is lying in his grave.

  71 Plato’s relationship with Dion, the chief adviser to both Dionysiuses and Plato’s sponsor at their court in Syracuse, is not described as erotic in the Seventh Letter, nor does other evidence outside this epigram indicate it was so. Scholars are skeptical about the Platonic authorship of this and the other epigrams quoted here (see “Corporeal Humor in Diogenes Laertius,” page 567).

  72 “Lost” here refers not to death but to the transfer of Phaedrus’ affections away from Plato.

  73 An otherwise unknown woman. The epigram describes her as a hetaira, or courtesan.

  74 This
may be the tragedian who appears as a character in Plato’s Symposium.

  75 The tossing of an apple was a gesture demonstrating erotic interest. In Greek it is clear that the addressee is a woman.

  76 Otherwise unknown (clearly not the wife of Socrates).

  77 The epigram refers to Eretrians who were captured in 490 BC by invading Persians and taken as prisoners to what is now Iran.

  78 Susa, a city on a tributary of the Tigris, was the winter capital of the Achaemenid kings of Persia, beginning with Darius I.

  79 Another name for Aphrodite.

  80 The son of Aphrodite, Eros was the god of sexual desire.

  81 The Muses were famously chaste. Ares, god of war, was one of Aphrodite’s lovers.

  82 The epigram that follows is attributed elsewhere to a certain Statyllius Flaccus.

  83 Apollonius Molon was a first-century BC orator. Corinth, originally the mother city that founded Syracuse, gave refuge to Dionysius II when he was driven from power by Dion.

  84 Xenophon (c. 430–c. 354 BC) was a historian, essayist, and follower of Socrates; his life and views are discussed at 2.48–59.

  85 Xenophon’s idealized biography of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire in the sixth century BC, was probably not intended to answer Plato, as Diogenes implies, but does hold up a vision of idealized monarchy differing from that of the Republic.

  86 Laws 694c–e, where Xenophon is not in fact mentioned explicitly.

  87 3.6.1, an incidental reference.

  88 A student of Gorgias the orator and then a follower of Socrates. Diogenes discusses the life and views of Antisthenes at 6.1–19.

  89 This title, slang for penis in ancient Greek, implies some sort of crude attack on Plato.

  90 Aristippus of Cyrene (c. 435–350 BC) was a follower of Socrates; Diogenes discusses his life and views at 2.65–104.

  91 On the Soul is known today by the title Phaedo. The passage referred to (59d) contains no explicit disparagement, but merely lists Aristippus as one of two absentees from Socrates’ deathbed.

  92 As seen earlier (2.61), rivalries were intense among the philosophers at the court of Dionysius II in Syracuse.