Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
Page 52
13 Euphorbus was a mythic Trojan who fought in the Trojan War. According to the Iliad, he fatally wounded Patroclus, Achilles’ closest companion, and then was himself killed by Menelaus in the fight over Patroclus’ body.
14 A mysterious and possibly legendary philosopher whom Aristotle credits with having developed some of the same ideas as Anaxagoras.
15 The family name of the priests of the temple and oracle at Didyma, near Miletus.
16 Heraclitus of Ephesus (fl. c. 500 BC) was a Pre-Socratic philosopher. Diogenes discusses his life and views at 9.1–17.
17 Lysis had apparently “escaped” a massacre of Pythagoreans at Croton (see 8.39), in which Pythagoras himself was killed.
18 A Theban general and statesman (d. 362 BC). He was instrumental in freeing Thebes from Spartan subjugation and made his city the most powerful in Greece.
19 Epicharmus of Cos (fl. early fifth century BC) was one of the earliest comic poets; Diogenes later (at 8.78) claims he was a student of Pythagoras, though in fact he lived much later.
20 Hippasus of Metapontum is discussed by Diogenes at 8.84.
21 Otherwise unknown.
22 Orpheus, the semidivine musician of myth, was also considered a mystic philosopher, and a mystery cult known today as Orphism sprang up around his legend and the theological writings attributed to him (the so-called Orphic hymns).
23 The translation would be something like Liars.
24 See 1.12, where Pythagoras is also said to have coined the noun “philosophy.”
25 The Hyperboreans (“Those beyond the North Wind”) were thought to reside in a paradisical land at the northern edge of the world; Apollo supposedly spent part of each year among them.
26 Also called the Nestos, a river in Thrace that flows into the Aegean near the island of Thasos.
27 The word used in the original here for maiden is korē, also a cult name for the goddess Persephone; the word for bride is nymphē, or nymph; and mētēr (mother) was a name for Demeter, the goddess of grain and fertility.
28 Diogenes is probably referring to the Moeris who reigned as pharaoh of Egypt in the second millennium BC and who, according to Herodotus, invented geometry (2.101 and 2.148).
29 An acoustical instrument consisting of an oblong box, usually with a single string, used for the mathematical determination of musical intervals.
30 A hecatomb consists of a hundred head of cattle, a prestigious offering.
31 The Pythagorean theorem, which can be expressed as a2 + b2 = c2.
32 Eurymenes of Samos was apparently unusually small but nevertheless triumphed over even the largest man thanks to Pythagoras’s dietary regimen.
33 The Evening Star (Hesperus) and the Morning Star (Phosphorus) both refer to the planet Venus.
34 Presumably this refers to the doctrine of transmigration of souls, though the significance of the number is obscure.
35 Four non-Greek peoples of Italy. The Romans, in Pythagoras’s time, were only a small, provincial people, not an expansive imperial power.
36 Philolaus of Croton, also known as Philolaus of Tarentum (c. 470–390 BC), was a Pythagorean and a contemporary of Socrates. Diogenes discusses his life and views at 8.84–85.
37 A significant sum, as one mina was equal to one hundred drachmas. Diogenes also recounts this story at 3.9 when discussing the life of Plato.
38 Dwellers on the eastern coast of the Gulf of Tarentum, in Italy.
39 The word is used here in its original sense, meaning “shrine of the muses.”
40 Two semilegendary Greek lawgivers, associated with the Italian cities of Locri and Catana, respectively.
41 Two species of Mediterranean fish.
42 A mullet.
43 See 8.8.
44 Both poets, in their epic and didactic works, portrayed the gods as powerful but also vengeful, scheming, and occasionally buffoonish.
45 Aristippus derives the philosopher’s name from Pythia, a name for the priestess of the oracle at Delphi, and agoreuō, a verb meaning “to speak aloud.”
46 The line is composed in dactylic hexameter, the meter of epic poetry.
47 The Greek word daimones can refer to various kinds of semidivine or divine beings.
48 That is, their tendency to cause flatulence. Diogenes gives other reasons for this mysterious prohibition at 8.34.
49 In fact, most of the doctrines that follow seem to derive from a variety of later sources, notably Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Plato’s Timaeus.
50 “Monad” is derived from monos, meaning “one” or “alone,” while “dyad,” which is based on duo, means “a group of two” or “a couple.”
51 The Furies, or Erinyes, were snaky-haired underworld deities of retribution.
52 This refers specifically to the stem of the plant, which is straight and without joints. How this corresponds with the gates of Hades is a little unclear, and some editors have marked a lacuna between the two thoughts.
53 Here the Greek word mēn (month) is treated as the name of a divinity.
54 Perhaps a reference to the division of the monad into a dyad mentioned at 8.25.
55 Another name for Apollo.
56 Another name for Hades.
57 Milo of Croton was one of the most famous athletes of the ancient world. He was awarded the wrestling prize at the Olympic games six times.
58 Otherwise unknown.
59 At 8.7.
60 Diogenes Laertius also mentions this anecdote at 1.118.
61 An aristocrat who seems to have opposed Pythagoras. Various stories are told about their rivalry, including one recounted by Porphyry in which Cylon sought to study with Pythagoras but was refused because of his tyrannical nature.
62 Two Greek cities in Sicily. Agrigentum was on the south coast of the island, Syracuse on the east coast.
63 A colony in southern Italy founded by Sparta.
64 Otherwise unknown, except as one of three dedicatees of a treatise by Alcmeon (see 8.83).
65 Empedocles of Agrigentum (c. 492–c. 432 BC), a philosopher influenced by Pythagoreanism, is discussed at 8.51–77.
66 Pythagoras divided the ages of man into four twenty-year segments (see 8.10).
67 Euphorbus, the Trojan warrior, was one of the men whose past lives Pythagoras claimed to have lived (see 8.5).
68 This Olympiad began in 540 BC.
69 According to 3.6, Plato encountered Philolaus and Eurytus, whom Diogenes there terms the last Pythagoreans, in his late twenties, probably around 400 BC.
70 An island in the Ionian Sea off the west coast of the Peloponnese.
71 This Olympiad began in 588 BC.
72 An obscure poet, not the same person as the interlocutor of Socrates in Plato’s dialogue Theaetetus. The poem that follows is framed as an epitaph on the tomb of the boxer Pythagoras.
73 The philosopher is meant, not the boxer discussed just before. Diogenes returns to the boxer briefly at 8.49, then resumes speaking of the philosopher.
74 Diogenes discusses the life and views of Zeno of Citium at 7.1–160.
75 The same comparison of rivalries is made at 2.46, where Antilochus is identified as a Lemnian, but nothing else is known about him. On Cylon of Croton, see 8.40 and corresponding note.
76 Diogenes discusses the Pre-Socratic philosopher Anaximenes at 2.3–5 and quotes two of his (spurious) letters to Pythagoras. The spurious letter of Pythagoras quoted here addresses the same theme as the letter attributed to Anaximenes at 2.5: the danger posed to the Ionian Greeks by their growing conflict with the Persian empire (referred to here as the Medes), as well as the question of emigration.
77 The term “scattered” (sporadēn) is introduced here to designate those thinkers whom Diogenes cannot place within the lines of philosophic transmission laid down at 1.13–15. It applies principally to Heraclitus and Xenophanes, the first two figures discussed in Book 9.
78 One of the most powerful and prosperous Greek cities in Sicily.
79 This
Olympiad began in 496 BC.
80 A panhellenic colony in southern Italy founded in 443 BC on the site of the destroyed city of Sybaris.
81 Telauges was supposedly the teacher of Empedocles (see 8.43). Diogenes refers again to a letter attributed to Telauges just below (8.55), but also indicates doubts about its authenticity.
82 Another name for Agrigentum.
83 A fifth-century BC philosopher who founded the Eleatic school and wrote a philosophical poem that examined the nature of reality. Diogenes discusses his life and views at 9.21–23.
84 Philolaus of Croton or Tarentum (c. 470–390 BC), a Pythagorean and a contemporary of Socrates. His work On Nature was likely the first book written by a Pythagorean. See 8.84–85.
85 Hippasus of Metapontum is discussed briefly by Diogenes at 8.84. A Brotinus is mentioned at 8.83, perhaps the same man as the one found here, but probably distinct from Brontinus, Pythagoras’ father-in-law, mentioned at 8.42 (the similarity of the names has produced confused spellings in the manuscripts).
86 Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 570–c. 475 BC) was a Pre-Socratic philosopher and poet. At 8.36, Diogenes quotes some verses of his that satirized Pythagoras, and discusses his life and views at 9.18–20.
87 Zeno of Elea (fl. early fifth century BC), a member of the Eleatic School founded by Parmenides. This Zeno is distinct from Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism. Diogenes discusses Zeno of Elea’s life and views at 9.25–29.
88 Anaxagoras (c. 500–428 BC) is discussed at 2.6–15.
89 The title no doubt refers to the crossing of the Hellespont by the Persian army invading Greece, led by Xerxes, in 480 BC, when Empedocles was an adolescent.
90 An influential sophist (c. 485–380 BC) and teacher of rhetoric.
91 The strong summer northerlies known in Greece today as meltemi.
92 An eminent physician of Agrigentum.
93 This detail may come from On the Luxuriousness of the Ancients, which was written not by the philosopher whose life is discussed in 2.65–104 but by a later author who assumed that name (a man sometimes referred to as Pseudo-Aristippus), presumably to give his work greater credibility. As the title suggests, the book purveyed erotic gossip about various philosophers.
94 Persephone was the daughter of the goddess Demeter and the wife of the god Hades; here she stands for the underworld generally.
95 Not until 8.67 does Diogenes supply the resolution of the tale, namely that the woman made a full recovery.
96 The toastmaster (symposiarchos in Greek, literally “leader of the symposium”) decided how the rounds of drinking should proceed, including how liberally the wine should be mixed with water.
97 These verses repeatedly pun on Acron’s name, which derives from the same root as the words akros, meaning “high” or “eminent,” and akron, a “mountain peak” or “summit.” The point of the proposed inscription was to highlight the arrogance of building such a monument, by overemphasizing the idea of elevation.
98 Simonides of Ceos (c. 556–468 BC), a Greek lyric poet, often composed epigrams for the tombs of eminent men.
99 The Thousand were evidently an oligarchic regime, made up of the wealthiest citizens. By disbanding them, Empedocles restored power to a broader spectrum of the population.
100 The phrase translated as “when he sought to settle in Agrigentum” is deemed corrupt by some editors.
101 Located in eastern Sicily, the tallest active volcano in Europe. In mythology Etna was the prison of the giant Typhos, whose wrathful attempts to escape caused it to belch fire.
102 Anaximander, the Pre-Socratic philosopher (c. 610–540 BC), is discussed at 2.1–2.
103 The southwesternmost Greek city of Sicily.
104 Empedocles’ father, mentioned at 8.51.
105 This Olympiad began in 444 BC.
106 Adapted from Odyssey 11.278. Odysseus describes the death of Epicaste (more commonly known as Jocasta), the mother of Oedipus, who killed herself when she discovered she had married her son.
107 A collection of Diogenes’ verse, now lost; it translates roughly to “[Poems of] All Meters,” referring to the wide variety of metrical forms it employed.
108 Another name for the god Hades.
109 A cult title for Persephone, Hades’ queen.
110 Epicharmus (fl. early fifth century BC) was a Sicilian comic playwright as well as a sage, whose plays are quoted extensively by Diogenes as a possible source for some of Plato’s ideas (see 3.9–17).
111 A large, prosperous city on the eastern coast of Sicily, originally a Corinthian colony.
112 Tarentum was a colony in southern Italy founded by Sparta.
113 Diogenes refers to Dionysius II (b. c. 397 BC), ruler of Syracuse, whose court Plato visited twice in the 360s BC; on the second of these visits, Dionysius had him imprisoned. Diogenes quotes the letter referred to here at 3.21.
114 Luciana was an ancient district of southern Italy. Ocellus (or Occelus) was a Pythagorean.
115 A town in Lycia, a district in southwestern Asia Minor.
116 Laomedon was a mythical king of Troy and the father of Priam.
117 Otherwise unknown.
118 The problem known as “doubling the cube”—constructing a cube such that its volume would be exactly twice that of a given cube, using only a compass and straightedge—gave much vexation to ancient mathematicians; it is now known to be insoluble. According to Plutarch (Moralia 718e–f), Plato himself assigned the problem to Archytas and two other philosophers and was disappointed that they approached it through means other than geometric reasoning.
119 Plato has Glaucon say in the Republic (528b–c) that the subject of cubes and other solids “has not been investigated yet.” The meaning of that statement is opaque, but it certainly cannot mean that the cube had not yet been “discovered” in the late fifth century, and it says nothing about Archytas.
120 Some words have dropped out of the manuscript.
121 A Brotinus is mentioned at 8.55, perhaps the same man as the one addressed by Alcmeon here, but probably distinct from Brontinus, Pythagoras’ father-in-law, mentioned at 8.42 (the similarity of the names has produced confused spellings in the manuscripts). The other two addressees are little known.
122 Mentioned at 8.55 as a possible teacher of Empedocles.
123 The term “Lacedemonian” encompassed both citizens of Sparta and other Greeks who dwelled close to the city.
124 Philolaus, elsewhere in Diogenes’ work, is often said to be from Tarentum (see, e.g., 8.46).
125 Diogenes also recounts this anecdote at 3.9 and 8.15. Plato as a young man may have encountered Philolaus in Italy (see 3.6).
126 No other evidence suggests that Philolaus had political ambitions, though many Pythagoreans were suspected of sedition (including one of Philolaus’ students, as the text describes below).
127 This point is confirmed by other sources. Philolaus apparently believed that all celestial objects, including the sun, revolved around an unseen “central fire.”
128 A fifth-century Pythagorean, little known.
129 Diogenes could mean either Dionysius I (c. 430–367 BC), or his son, Dionysius II (c. 396–c. 343 BC), tyrants of Syracuse; Plato spent time at both their courts (see 3.18–23).
130 Plato was often accused of plagiarism by ancient critics (see, e.g., 3.9–17).
131 Cnidus was a Greek city on the southwestern coast of Asia Minor. Eudoxus’ father is a different person than either the famous fourth-century orator or Aeschines of Sphettus, whom Diogenes discusses at 2.60–64.
132 For Archytas, see 8.79–83. Philistion of Locri (c. 427–347 BC) espoused Empedocles’ idea that the world is composed of water, earth, fire, and air.
133 Agesilaus II was a king of Sparta during the first four decades of the fourth century BC; he went to Egypt at the end of his life and served as a mercenary general under the pharaoh Nectanebo II (here called Nectanabis), who was then revolting from Persian rule.
; 134 Depilation was a sacred duty among Egyptian priests.
135 The title means “eight-year period,” indicating a work of calendrical astronomy. Lunar and solar calendars come into alignment in a repeating eight-year cycle.
136 Now known as the Sea of Marmara, which lies between the Aegean and Black Seas.
137 The king of Caria from 377 to 353 BC. After his death his sister-wife Artemisia built him a magnificent tomb at Halicarnassus, which was called the Mausoleum—the origin of the English word.
138 This doctrinal point intrudes abruptly into an account of Eudoxus’ life. The source of this information is not in fact Nicomachus, but his father, Aristotle, who describes the views of Eudoxus in two passages of the Nicomachean Ethics (1101b and 1172b).
139 This decree has not survived.
140 If the title given here is correct, “dogs” may have referred to Cynic philosophers (see 6.13).
141 That is, the grandson of the Chrysippus who studied with Eudoxus.
142 Both were important annual panhellenic festivals that included competitions in music and poetry.
143 Since Diogenes has already listed the three men he knew of named Eudoxus, this “other doctor from Cnidus” may be yet another Chrysippus, a third Cnidian doctor to add to the two discussed just above.
144 Presumably meaning Apollodorus.
145 This Olympiad began in 368 BC.
146 One of the Egyptian “wise men” who shared their insights with Greeks.
147 Apis was a sacred bull worshipped at Memphis.
148 The term here rendered “scattered,” sporadēn, refers to those thinkers whom Diogenes cannot place within the lines of philosophic transmission laid down at 1.13–15.
Book 9
HERACLITUS
fl. c. 500 bc
XENOPHANES
c. 570–c. 475 bc
PARMENIDES
fl. early 5th cent. bc
MELISSUS
fl. 441 bc
ZENO
fl. early 5th cent. bc
LEUCIPPUS
late 5th cent. bc
DEMOCRITUS
b. 460/57 bc
PROTAGORAS