Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
Page 53
c. 490–420 bc
DIOGENES
fl. 425 bc
ANAXARCHUS
mid to late 4th cent. bc
PYRRHO
c. 365–275 bc
TIMON
c. 320–230 bc
Heraclitus and Democritus (detail), by Dirck van Baburen, early seventeenth century.
Heraclitus
1 Heraclitus, son of Bloson or, according to some, of Heracon, was a native of Ephesus; he flourished in the sixty-ninth Olympiad.1 He was exceptionally haughty and disdainful, as is clear from his book, in which he says, “Much learning does not teach understanding; otherwise it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, or, in turn, Xenophanes and Hecataeus.”2 For “what is wise is one thing: to understand thought, which steers3 all things through all.” He used to say that Homer should be thrown out of the public contests and beaten with a stick, and Archilochus likewise.4
2,3 He also used to say, “One should extinguish pride more quickly than a fire,” and “The people should defend the law as they would their city wall.” And he attacked the Ephesians for banishing his friend Hermodorus, in the passage where he says, “All the adults of Ephesus would do better to end their lives and leave the city to the children; for they have banished Hermodorus, the most useful man among them, saying, ‘Let there be no “most useful” among us; if anyone be such, let him go elsewhere and live with others.’” When asked by them to establish laws, he would not deign to do so, since by then the city was in the grip of a bad constitution. Withdrawing to the temple of Artemis,5 he would play at knucklebones6 with the children, and when the Ephesians stood around him, he said, “Why are you surprised, you rascals? Isn’t it better to do this than take part in your civic life?”
At last, having become a misanthrope, he departed for the mountains, where he lived on grass and herbs. But when this diet gave him dropsy, he returned to town and asked the doctors, enigmatically, if they could produce a drought after heavy rain.7 When they failed to understand him, he buried himself in a cowshed, hoping that the heat of the cow dung would draw the fluid out of him. But as even this had no effect, he died at the age of sixty.
“Knucklebones” (astragaloi) of the Greco-Roman world, third to second century BC. The one on the left is made of bronze; on the right of translucent cobalt blue glass.
4 My own verses about him run as follows:
I have often wondered how Heraclitus lived
Such a troubled and ill-fated life and then died.
An awful disease, flooding his body,
Extinguished the light in his eyes and brought on darkness.
Hermippus says that Heraclitus asked the doctors whether anyone could draw off the fluid by emptying his intestines; and when they said it was impossible, he lay in the sun and told his servants to plaster him with cow dung. Thus laid out, he died the next day and was buried in the marketplace. But Neanthes of Cyzicus says that when Heraclitus was unable to push off the cow dung he stayed where he was, and that he became unrecognizable by this transformation and was devoured by dogs.
5 He was extraordinary from boyhood. When young, he used to say that he knew nothing; as an adult, that he knew everything. He became no one’s student, and said that he had searched himself, and from himself had learned everything. Some say that he attended the lectures of Xenophanes, according to Sotion, who reports that Ariston, in his book On Heraclitus, says that he was cured of the dropsy, but died of another disease. Hippobotus says the same.
6 The book attributed to him, in light of its chief subject, is a treatise on nature, but it is divided into three discourses: one on the universe, another on politics, and a third on theology. He deposited it in the temple of Artemis, as some say, having purposely written it in a rather obscure style so that
Among them arose a crower, a riddler,
Mob-reviling Heraclitus.
Theophrastus says that owing to his melancholy he left some parts of his work half-finished; other parts survive in a number of different versions. As proof of his magnanimity Antisthenes8 cites, in his Successions, his having renounced the kingship in favor of his brother. His book won such renown that from it arose disciples, those called the Heracliteans.
7 Heraclitus’ doctrines, in general terms, are as follows. All things are made of fire, and into fire they are dissolved; all things come about by fate, and it is by the convergence of opposites that beings are brought into harmony; and all things are full of souls and of deities. He has also given an account of all the changes that are effected in the universe, and declares that the sun is as large as it appears. He is also reported to have said, “You could not find the boundaries of the soul, even by treading every path; so deep is its reckoning.” He used to call conceit a sacred disease, and sight a deceptive sense. Sometimes, in his book, his phrases are so brilliant and clear that even the slowest mind could easily understand and derive from them elevation of soul. For the brevity and depth of his exposition are incomparable.
8 His particular doctrines are as follows. Fire is the element; all things are an exchange of fire and come into being by rarefaction and condensation; but of this he offers no clear explanation. All things come into being from a conflict of opposites, and the universe in its entirety flows like a river. The whole is limited and forms one world. It is alternately born from fire and again resolved into fire at fixed periods through all eternity; and this comes about in accordance with destiny. Of the opposites, that which leads to creation is called war and strife, and that which leads to the conflagration is called concord and peace. Change is called a path up and down, and the world comes into being in conformity with it.
9 For when fire contracts it turns into moisture; and when this condenses, it turns into water; as for water, when it solidifies it turns into earth. This he calls the downward path. In turn the earth is liquefied, and thus gives rise to water, from which everything else is derived. For he reduces almost everything to exhalation from the sea. This is the upward path. Exhalations arise from the earth as well as from the sea; those from the sea are bright and pure, those from the earth are dark. Fire is fed by the bright exhalations, the moist element by the others.
Air Dies Giving Birth to Fire, by Eric Martin, 2016. Charcoal and gap fire ash on paper, 56 x 76 cm. From a series of drawings inspired by Heraclitus’ aphorisms on fire.
10 As for the nature of the element that surrounds the world, he does not make clear what it is. But he says that in it there are bowls whose concavities are turned toward us, in which the bright exhalations collect and produce flames. These are the stars. The flame of the sun is the brightest and the hottest. The other stars are farther from the earth, which is why they shine less and give off less heat. As for the moon, it is closer to the earth but does not travel through the pure region. The sun, on the other hand, travels in a translucent and pure region and remains at a uniform distance from us, which is why it gives us more heat and light. The sun and the moon are eclipsed when the bowls are turned upward; the monthly phases of the moon occur as the bowl itself gradually revolves in place.
Heraclitus, by Hendrick ter Brugghen, 1628.
11 Day and night, months, seasons, years, rains, winds, and similar phenomena result from the various exhalations. The bright exhalation, set on fire in the hollow of the sun, makes day, while the opposite exhalation, when it gets the upper hand, causes night. The heat, nourished by the bright exhalation, produces summer; and the moist element, augmented by the dark exhalation, produces winter. It is in conformity with these theories that he indicates the causes of the other phenomena. As for the earth, he gives no account of its nature nor that of the bowls. These, then, were his views.
12,13,14 The story Ariston tells about Socrates and what the philosopher said when he read Heraclitus’ book, which had been brought to him by Euripides, has been related in the chapter on Socrat
es.9 But Seleucus the grammarian says that a certain Croton reports in his work The Diver that a certain Crates10 first brought Heraclitus’ book to Greece, and that it was he who said it required a Delian diver not to be drowned in it. Some give it the title The Muses, others On Nature. Diodotus calls it
An infallible helm for the rule of life
and others “a code of conduct for one and all.”11 They say that, when asked why he remained silent, he replied, “So that you can chatter.” Darius12 too was eager to make his acquaintance, and wrote to him as follows:
King Darius, son of Hystaspes, to Heraclitus, the wise man of Ephesus, greetings.
You have written a discourse, On Nature, which is hard to understand and to interpret. In some parts, if one takes you at your word, it seems to have the force of a theory of the entire universe and the things it contains, which depend on motion most divine. But for the most part one is called upon to suspend judgment, so that even those who are most well versed in literature are at a loss to know how to interpret your work correctly. Therefore King Darius, son of Hystaspes, wishes to receive your teaching and Greek culture. Come quickly into my sight at the palace. For the Greeks in general do not know how to distinguish their wise men, and neglect their excellent precepts, which are well worth hearing and learning. At my court you will enjoy every privilege, daily conversation of the noble and worthy kind, and a life that does honor to your counsels.
Heraclitus of Ephesus to King Darius, son of Hystaspes, greetings.
All men on earth hold aloof from truth and justice, and in their wretched folly devote themselves to avarice and the thirst for fame. But I, keeping myself oblivious of all wickedness, and avoiding the satiety of everything, which is usually accompanied by envy, would not come to Persia, as I am content with little, in conformity with my judgment.
15 Such was our philosopher, even toward a king. Demetrius, in his Men of the Same Name, says that Heraclitus despised even the Athenians, though they held him in the highest esteem, and that though he himself was despised by the Ephesians, he nevertheless preferred his own country. Demetrius of Phalerum mentions him in his Apology of Socrates. And there have been a great many interpreters of his work, including Antisthenes, Heraclides of Pontus, Cleanthes, and Sphaerus the Stoic,13 as well as Pausanias, who was surnamed the Heraclitist, Nicomedes, and Dionysius;14 and among the grammarians Diodotus, who claims that Heraclitus’ work was not about nature but about government, and that the part about nature serves merely as an illustration.
Heraclitus, the Weeping Philosopher, from the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory, c. 1757.
16 Hieronymus says that Scythinus, the iambic poet, undertook to put the discourse of Heraclitus into verse. And he is the subject of many epigrams, including the following:
I am Heraclitus. Why do you boors drag me up and down?
I don’t toil for you, but for those who understand me.
One man to me is worth thirty thousand, but the multitude are not
[worth a single one.
This I declare, even in the halls of Persephone.15
And another runs as follows:
Be in no hurry to unroll to its end the book of Heraclitus
The Ephesian; for the path is hard to travel,
Gloom prevails, and a darkness devoid of light; but if an initiate leads you,
The paths are brighter than sunlight.
17 There have been five men named Heraclitus: the first was our present subject; the second a lyric poet who wrote an Encomium of the Twelve Gods; the third an elegiac poet from Halicarnassus, for whom Callimachus16 wrote this epitaph:
They told me, Heraclitus, of your death, and to my eyes
Brought tears. I recalled how often you and I
Let the sun go down in talk. But you,
My Halicarnassian host, have long been a heap of ashes; Yet
your nightingale songs live on;
Hades, the robber, cannot touch them.
The fourth was a native of Lesbos, who wrote a history of Macedonia; and the fifth, a seriocomic author, who had been a musician before he adopted that profession.
Xenophanes
18 Xenophanes of Colophon,17 son of Dexius, or, according to Apollodorus, of Orthomenes, is praised by Timon, who speaks, at any rate, of
Xenophanes, nearly free of vanity, denouncer of Homer’s deceits.
Banished from his native land, he lived in Zancle18 in Sicily <…>. He also spent time in Catana.19 Some say he was no man’s student, though others maintain he was a student of Boton of Athens,20 or, as others say, of Archelaus.21 Sotion makes him a contemporary of Anaximander.22 He wrote in epic meter, and also composed elegies and iambics condemning Homer and Hesiod and disparaging what they say about the gods. He also recited his own works. He is said to have opposed the views of Thales and Pythagoras,23 and attacked those of Epimenides.24 He lived to a great age, as he himself somewhere says:
19
Seven and sixty years have by now been
Buffeting my thought up and down the land of Greece;
And since my birth there have been twenty-five more,
If I may speak truly about these matters.25
He maintains that there are four elements of existing things, and worlds that are unlimited in number but not apt to change. He says that clouds are formed when vapor from the sun ascends and lifts them into the atmosphere. The substance of god is spherical and bears no resemblance to man; he is all-seeing and all-hearing, but does not breathe; he is the totality of mind and intelligence and is immortal. Xenophanes was the first to declare that everything that comes into being is perishable and that the soul is breath.
20 He maintained that most things are inferior to thought. He also held that one’s encounters with tyrants
He also wrote The Founding of Colophon and The Establishment of the Colony at Elea in Italy, two thousand verses.27 He flourished in the sixtieth Olympiad.28 Demetrius of Phalerum, in his work On Old Age, and Panaetius the Stoic, in his work On Contentment, say that Xenophanes buried his sons with his own hands, like Anaxagoras.29 He is thought to have been sold into slavery by <…>
The Vitreous Body, by Kiki Smith, 2001. Book of eighteen woodblock prints with text by Parmenides of Elea. Published by Graphicstudio/USF.
These, then, are the “scattered” philosophers.31
Parmenides
21 Parmenides, son of Pyres, a native of Elea,32 was a student of Xenophanes (though Theophrastus, in his Epitome, says he studied with Anaximander).33 But though he was a pupil of Xenophanes, he did not become his follower. According to Sotion he associated with Ameinias,34 son of Diochaetas, a Pythagorean who was poor but respectable. Parmenides was more inclined to adopt Ameinias’s ideas, and after the man’s death built him a hero’s shrine, since he himself belonged to a distinguished and wealthy family; and it was under the influence of Ameinias, rather than that of Xenophanes, that he was persuaded to adopt a contemplative life.
22 He was the first to declare that the earth is spherical and is situated at the center.35 He held that there are two elements, fire and earth, and that the former has the role of craftsman, the latter of his material. The generation of human beings proceeded initially from the sun. And
e somewhere says:
You must learn all things:
Both the precise heart of persuasive Truth,
And the opinions of mortals, in which there is no true conviction.
Parmenides also commits his doctrines to verse, as did Hesiod, Xenophanes, and Empedocles.36 He made reason the criterion, and declared that the sensations are inexact. At any rate, he says,
May long-standing habit not force you along this path,
To be guided by a heedless eye and an echoing ear and tongue;
But discern by reason the much contested proof.
23 Hence Timon says of him:
And the strength of high-minded Parmenides, a man of no varied opinions,
Who separated thought from the deception of appearance.
It was about him that Plato wrote the dialogue entitled Parmenides or On the Forms.37
He flourished in the sixty-ninth Olympiad.38 He is thought to have been the first to discover that Hesperus and Phosphorus are the same,39 as Favorinus says in the fifth book of his Reminiscences. Others say that Pythagoras was the first to do so.40 Callimachus says that the poem was not the work of Parmenides. The philosopher is said to have given laws to his fellow citizens, as Speusippus says in his work On Philosophers. And he was the first to use the Achilles argument,41 as Favorinus says in his Miscellaneous History.
There was another Parmenides, an orator who wrote a handbook on rhetoric.