Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

by Pamela Mensch

  On Laws, one book

  On Customs, one book

  On Opportunity, one book

  Dionysius, one book

  On Chalcis, one book

  An Attack on the Athenians, one book

  On Antiphanes, one book

  Historical Introduction, one book

  Letters, one book

  An Assembly Bound by Oath, one book

  On Old Age, one book

  Rights, one book

  Aesop’s Fables, one book

  Maxims, one book

  82,83 His style is philosophical, combining rhetorical vigor and force. When he heard that the Athenians had destroyed his statues, he said: “But not the virtue that caused them to be erected.” He used to say that though the eyebrows are only a small part of the face, they have the power to darken the whole of life. He said that not only was wealth blind, but also luck, its guide. Everything that iron achieves in war is achieved in politics by speech. Noticing a young spendthrift, he said, “Behold a four-square Hermes—with robe, belly, genitals, and beard!”138 When men are arrogant, he said we should take away their stature, but leave them their spirit. He said that at home the young should honor their parents, when out of doors everyone they meet, and in solitude themselves. In prosperity friends do not depart unless bidden, whereas in adversity they do so of their own accord. All these sayings seem to be attributed to him.

  84,85 There have been twenty noteworthy men named Demetrius: the first was an orator from Chalcedon, older than Thrasymachus; the second our present subject; the third a Peripatetic from Byzantium; the fourth, known as Graphicus, a lucid narrator (he was also a painter);139 the fifth a native of Aspendus,140 a student of Apollonius of Soli; the sixth a native of Callatis who wrote a work about Asia and Europe in twenty books; the seventh a native of Byzantium, who wrote a history of the migration of the Gauls from Europe to Asia in thirteen books, and another work, in eight books, about Antiochus and Ptolemy and their administration of Libya; the eighth the sophist who lived at Alexandria, an author of handbooks on rhetoric; the ninth a grammarian from Adramyttium, nicknamed Ixion141 because he was thought to be unjust with regard to Hera; the tenth a grammarian from Cyrene, nicknamed Wine-Jar, a distinguished man; the eleventh a native of Scepsis, a wealthy, well-born man, deeply devoted to learning and literature; he also advanced the career of his countryman Metrodorus; the twelfth a grammarian from Erythrae, enrolled as a citizen of Temnos; the thirteenth a Bithynian, the son of Diphilus the Stoic and a student of Panaetius of Rhodes;142 and the fourteenth an orator from Smyrna. So much for the prose authors. Of the poets who shared his name, the first was a poet of the Old Comedy; the second an epic poet whose only surviving lines are addressed to the envious:

  Scorned when alive, he’s missed when he’s gone;

  And for the sake of his tomb and lifeless image

  Strife seizes cities, and the people are at war;

  the third a native of Tarsus, a writer of satires; the fourth a writer of iambic verse, a bitter man; the fifth a sculptor mentioned by Polemon; and the sixth a native of Erythrae, a versatile author, who also wrote historical and rhetorical works.

  Heraclides

  Heraclides, son of Euthyphro, born at Heraclea in Pontus,143 was a man of wealth. At Athens he studied first with Speusippus144 but also attended the lectures of the Pythagoreans and admired the doctrines of Plato; he later became a student of Aristotle, as Sotion says in his Successions. He wore elegant clothes and was enormously fat, and consequently the Athenians called him not Ponticus, but Pompicus.145 His gait was gentle and dignified. The best and most beautiful writings are attributed to him. His ethical {dialogues} include:

  86,87,88 On Justice, three books

  On Temperance, one book

  On Piety, five books

  On Courage, one book

  Combined in one volume: On Virtue, one book and another work

  On Happiness, one book

  On Power, one book

  Laws, one book and subjects related to laws

  On Names, one book

  Agreements, one book

  On the Involuntary, one book

  On Love

  Clinias, one book

  On Nature

  On Mind

  On Soul

  Separately, another On Soul

  On Nature

  On Images

  Against Democritus

  On Celestial Bodies, one book

  On Those in Hades

  On Ways of Life, two books

  The Causes of Diseases, one book

  On the Good, one book

  Against the Doctrines of Zeno, one book

  Against the Doctrines of Metron, one book

  Works on Grammar and Literary Criticism:

  On the Age of Homer and Hesiod, two books

  On Archilochus and Homer, two books

  Works on the Arts:

  On Passages in Euripides and Sophocles <…>, three books

  On Music, two books

  Solutions of Homeric Problems, two books

  On Contemplation, one book

  On the Three Tragic Poets, one book

  Characters, one book

  On Poetry and Poets, one book

  On Intuition, one book

  On Prognostication, one book

  Expositions of Heraclitus, four books

  Expositions Against Democritus, one book

  Solutions of Eristic Problems, two books

  Logical Proposition, one book

  On Species, one book

  Solutions, one book

  Advice, one book

  Against Dionysius, one book

  A Work on Rhetoric:

  On Public Speaking or Protagoras

  Works on History:

  On the Pythagoreans and

  On Discoveries

  Some of these works are in the comic style—for example, On Pleasure and On Temperance; others in the tragic style—for example, On Those in Hades, On Piety, and On Authenticity.

  89 He also has a style between poetry and prose that he uses when philosophers, generals, and statesmen converse with one another. He also wrote works on geometry and dialectic, and is everywhere versatile and noble in style, and remarkably adept at charming the reader.

  90 It seems that he liberated his native city from tyranny by assassinating its monarch,146 as Demetrius of Magnesia says in his Men of the Same Name. Demetrius also tells the following story about him: “From boyhood, and when he grew up, he kept a pet snake. And when he was about to die he ordered one of his trusted servants to conceal his corpse and place the snake on his bier, so that he might appear to have departed to the gods. All of this was done. And while the citizens were escorting Heraclides’ bier and singing the man’s praises, the snake, hearing the uproar, popped up out of the shroud, creating mass confusion. Later, however, all was revealed, and Heraclides was seen not as he appeared, but as he really was.”

  My verses about him run as follows:

  You wished to leave all men with the rumor, Heraclides,

   That at your death you resumed life as a snake.

  But you were deceived, sophist. For the snake was indeed a beast,

   But you were detected as a beast, not a sage.

  This story is also told by Hippobotus.

  91 Hermippus reports that when a famine ravaged their territory, the people of Heraclea asked the Pythian priestess147 for relief. But Heraclides bribed the envoys sent to the shrine and the above-mentioned priestess to reply that they would be freed from the scourge if Heraclides, son of Euthyphro, were crowned with a golden crown in his lifetime and received a hero’s honors after his death. The pretended oracle was brought home, but its forgers reaped no benefit from it. For as soon as Heraclides was crowned in the theater he suffered a stroke, and the sacred envoys were stoned to death. And the Pythian priestess too, descending at that very hour to the shrine, stepped on one of the snakes,148 was bitten, and instantly breathed her last. These
are the tales told about his death.

  92,93 Aristoxenus the musician says that Heraclides also wrote tragedies and titled them works by Thespis. Chamaeleon claims that Heraclides’ work on Hesiod and Homer was plagiarized from his own. And Antidorus the Epicurean censures him in a polemic against his work On Justice. And Dionysius the Turncoat149 (or Spintharus, according to some), when he wrote the Parthenopaeus, entitled it a play by Sophocles; and Heraclides, who suspected nothing, cited passages from it in one of his own treatises, in the belief that it was by Sophocles. When Dionysius noticed this, he confessed what had happened; but when Heraclides refused to believe him, Dionysius wrote to him, advising him to examine the acrostic; and it contained “Pancalus”; this was the name of Dionysius’ beloved. When Heraclides remained unconvinced and said that such a thing might have happened by chance, Dionysius wrote to him again: “You will also find these lines:

  A. An old monkey is not caught in a trap.

  B. He’s caught all right; it just takes time.

  as well as:

  Heraclides is ignorant of literature.”

  And Heraclides was ashamed.

  94 There have been fourteen men named Heraclides: the first was our present subject; the second a fellow citizen of his, an author of collections of war dances and fooleries; the third a native of Cyme, who wrote about Persia in five books; the fourth another native of Cyme, who wrote manuals on rhetoric; the fifth a native of Callatis or Alexandria, who wrote the Successions in six books and a work entitled Lembeuticus, for which he was nicknamed Lembus; the sixth a native of Alexandria, who wrote On the Unique Features of Persia; the seventh a dialectician from Bargylis, who wrote against Epicurus; the eighth a doctor of the school of Hicesias; the ninth a native of Tarentum, a doctor of the empiric school; the tenth a poet who wrote exhortations; the eleventh a sculptor from Phocaea; the twelfth a pleasant writer of epigrams; the thirteenth a native of Magnesia, who wrote about Mithridates;150 and the fourteenth the compiler of an astronomy.

  1 Stagira was a small city on the Chalcidice peninsula. It was destroyed by Philip II of Macedon in 349 as part of his imperial expansion, long after Aristotle himself had left it. Stagira may have been rebuilt at Aristotle’s request (see 5.4).

  2 The healer god Asclepius, son of Apollo, was an appropriate ancestor for a doctor like Nicomachus, as was Machaon, a legendary physician who fought at Troy.

  3 Amyntas II was the king of Macedonia from 393 to 370 or 369 BC, and the father of Philip II. He brought Aristotle’s father, Nicomachus, to his court as physician to the royal family.

  4 Herpyllis, originally Aristotle’s household slave, became his consort after the death of Pythias, Aristotle’s wife. Aristotle’s work Nicomachean Ethics may be named after this man (although Aristotle’s father had the same name), because either Nicomachus helped edit it or it was directed toward him.

  5 The “school” referenced here is Plato’s Academy; Xenocrates (see 4.6–15) assumed leadership of it in 339 BC, at a time when Athens was preparing for war with the Macedonians. There is no other evidence that Aristotle was sent as an ambassador to Philip, king of the Macedonians, and indeed he was most likely not living in Athens at this time.

  6 The Lyceum was originally a sanctuary dedicated to Apollo (who bore the cultic epithet “Lyceius”) as well as a gymnasium. Like the grove of Academe, where Plato established his school, the Lyceum was a favorite gathering place for philosophically minded young Athenians before it became identified with a particular school. The peripatos became closely identified with the Lyceum and was sometimes used as another name for the school itself (see 5.70).

  7 The word derives from the Greek adjective meaning “pacing about.”

  8 The vignette described here is set during the late 340s, when Aristotle was employed by Philip as tutor to his son, Alexander the Great.

  9 The verse parodies a line from Euripides’ lost Philoctetes, inserting Xenocrates’ name in place of “barbarians.”

  10 Atarneus was a Greek city in Persian-controlled Asia Minor; Hermias, a former slave who may perhaps have been castrated by his master Eubulus, came to power there in the mid-fourth century BC and greatly expanded its territory. At some point in his youth, Hermias had studied at Plato’s Academy, where he became friendly with Aristotle. When Aristotle left Athens around 348 BC, partly as a result of the city’s growing anti-Macedonian sentiments, he landed at the court of Hermias.

  11 Aristotle married Pythias, adoptive daughter or niece of Hermias, around 345 BC, when he was around forty.

  12 Not the hedonist philosopher Aristippus of Cyrene but a later author who assumed that name, presumably to give his work (which purveys gossip about the erotic lives of the philosophers) greater credibility. This writer is also known as Pseudo-Aristippus.

  13 Aristotle’s close connections to Hermias drew many politically motivated attacks in Athens. The goddess Demeter was the focus of the pious Athenian mystery rites at Eleusis.

  14 At 5.7–8.

  15 Philip II employed Aristotle as tutor to Alexander beginning in 343 BC. There is no record of what occurred during the period of instruction, which lasted perhaps three years.

  16 By “head” (archōn), Diogenes must here mean some administrative official subordinate to the scholarch.

  17 Callisthenes, born around 360 BC, was Aristotle’s grandnephew. In 334, he accompanied Alexander on his expedition into Asia as court historian; his highly complimentary account of the campaign is now lost.

  18 This episode occurred after Alexander had largely completed his conquest of the Persian Empire and was seeking to be greeted by his officers with a low bow, in the manner of a Persian king. Callisthenes, formerly a supporter of Alexander’s policies, balked at this and spoke out against it at a staff dinner. Alexander, according to other sources, was not present, but listened from another room.

  19 The line is from Homer’s Iliad (18.95). The sea-goddess Thetis warns her son, Achilles, that if he kills Hector—which he has just sworn to do—he will in turn bring about his own death.

  20 Callisthenes was arrested on suspicion of having aided Hermolaus, a royal page, in mounting a conspiracy to assassinate Alexander, though the charge may have been fabricated by Alexander to eliminate a perceived dissident. Other sources give a milder account of Callisthenes’ fate, some suggesting that he died of natural causes while being held for trial.

  21 The chief city on the island of Euboea, and the birthplace of Aristotle’s mother.

  22 Both the “hymn” (called a paean at 5.4) and the statue (possibly adorning a cenotaph; see 5.11) were meant to honor the courage of Hermias, Aristotle’s father-in-law, for refusing to give up information even while being tortured to death. Hermias had been conspiring with Philip of Macedon in the planned Macedonian invasion of Asia. The Persians lured him into a trap and arrested him, but failed to get him to reveal the plans. The charge of impiety brought by Eurymedon stems from the way in which Aristotle personifies and addresses Virtue, as if it were a god. The hymn is quoted below.

  23 Other sources do not suggest that Aristotle committed suicide, but died of a stomach ailment. Diogenes says that he died of natural causes, at 5.10.

  24 Both Heracles and the “sons of Leda” (the demigods Castor and Pollux) were famous for their toils and feats of stamina, including those endured on Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece.

  25 The “nursling of Atarneus” is Hermias. His death under torture is here compared with the mythic struggles of the greatest warriors at Troy.

  26 Another name for Demeter.

  27 A quote cobbled from two lines of the Odyssey (7.120–21), where Homer praises the orchards in mythic Phaeacia, which are always in fruit. The point of the quip lies in the Greek word for “fig,” sukos, which evokes sukophantēs, literally “fig-shower,” the term for schemers who advanced themselves by bringing indictments against others.

  28 This Olympiad began in 384 BC.

  29 A prominent Athenian statesman (c. 405–c.
335 BC), not the master of Hermias mentioned at 5.3.

  30 The year referred to is 345–344 BC (archon years began in summer). Athens was at this time in a strongly anti-Macedonian mood, and Aristotle, known to be a close friend and employee of Philip II, left the city in part as a result of the unfriendly treatment he received there.

  31 348–347 BC.

  32 343–342 BC.

  33 335–334 BC.

  34 322 BC.

  35 The year referred to began in the summer of 322 BC. That autumn, Demosthenes, a refugee from Athens after the city had lost a war he had helped to promote, committed suicide on the island of Calauria in order to avoid being taken prisoner by the Macedonians.

  36 Anaximenes of Lampsacus (c. 380–320 BC) was a rhetorician and historian who accompanied Alexander on his Asian campaigns.

  37 See 4.8 and the corresponding note for more on this incident.

  38 An orator trained by Isocrates and renowned for his caustic wit. He traded insults with both Alexander the Great and Antigonus I, and was eventually executed by the latter.

  39 That is, a cenotaph. Hermias had died in Persian custody and his body could not be recovered.

  40 This line is based on a verse found several times in the Iliad (15.16, 22.457, and 23.701).

  41 Antipater (c. 397–319 BC) was a Macedonian nobleman who served both Philip II and Alexander the Great, ruling Macedonia while Alexander was on campaign. Aristotle became his friend while residing at Philip’s court; several quotes survive from his letters to the elder statesman.

  42 Aristotle’s nephew, Nicanor (360–317 BC), was probably serving in the Macedonian army at this time.

  43 Of the executors listed here, only Theophrastus, Aristotle’s close companion and successor as head of the Lyceum (see 5.36–57), is otherwise known. Aristotle had two children, a daughter named Pythias and a son named Nicomachus; the first was from his wife, also named Pythias, the second perhaps from his later consort, Herpyllis.