Thales, then, turns out to be a thoroughly ambiguous figure. When Diogenes comes to reflect briefly on the sages as a group, one comment he cites is Dicaearchus’ deflationary verdict that they were neither wise nor lovers of wisdom, but just men who were canny and involved in legislative activity (1.40). What we can certainly say is that politics is a theme prominent in Diogenes’ lives of the Seven Sages. For example, the next figure he presents after Thales is the great Athenian legislator Solon. Virtually the whole section is devoted to his political and legislative achievements, which provide the general context for the ample listing Diogenes supplies of the wise sayings—pithy practical maxims—attributed to him (as he offers for all the Seven Sages) (1.58–61). The ending consists of a sequence of letters of political advice allegedly sent by him to other statesmen or sages (1.64–67). Diogenes is clearly proud of his ability to reproduce such documents—all nowadays regarded as forgeries by various hands—as evidence of the authority with which he writes. Similar letters, mostly political in content, punctuate his treatments of later thinkers.
As for the rest of the Seven Sages, specification of their political activity is emphatic in the cases of Chilon, Pittacus, and Periander, who is described as the first to transform the ruling position he held into tyranny, complete with personal bodyguard (1.98). The book ends with Pherecydes, one of the extra sages Diogenes has identified, and with a letter written by him to Thales on his deathbed (1.122), matching the first of all the letters in the sequence, from Thales to him, which comments on Pherecydes’ reluctance to leave his native island of Syros (1.43–44). It is preceded by an epigram of Diogenes’ own, which unlike Pherecydes’ letter is invested with a specifically political dimension: Pherecydes alone knew of an oracle to the effect that if he died in Magnesia on the Ionian coast, he would bring victory for the noble citizens of Ephesus in battle against the Magnesians. A truly wise man, Diogenes adds, is a blessing both in life and in death (1.121).
Periander’s invention of tyranny introduces a distinctive preoccupation of Diogenes. Thus Pythagoras leaves his native Samos for Croton in Italy when on returning from travel he finds that his city has fallen under the tyrannical rule of Polycrates (8.3). In due course there are allegations that he is plotting tyranny himself (8.39), but Diogenes reproduces a list of persons called Pythagoras that serves to distinguish the philosopher from someone from Croton of the same name “who aspired to a tyranny” (8.46). Diogenes’ account of Zeno of Elea initially presents Zeno as a master dialectician (9.25), but relegates his work in philosophy to the end of his life, in a single brief paragraph of mostly dubious doxography (9.29). The nobility of his activity in politics is the main focus, in particular the different accounts of his attempt to overthrow the tyrant Nearchus, which ended in Zeno’s heroic death. Diogenes offers an epigram of his own on the subject, a sure sign his interest in the topic is aroused (9.26–28).
Other instances could readily be cited: the claim Diogenes retails from Demetrius of Magnesia that Heraclides Ponticus freed his native country from tyranny by assassinating the monarch (5.89); and the story that occupies most of the life of Anaxarchus of Abdera, who made an enemy of the tyrant Nicocreon of Cyprus and in consequence died a gruesomely heroic death similar to Zeno’s—celebrated by Diogenes in another of his own epigrams (9.58–59). But a star example is the very first, in the elaborate narrative that Diogenes makes the crowning section of Book 2. The portrait of Menedemus of Eretria, derived in the main (whether or not through intermediary sources) from the third-century BC biographer Antigonus of Carystus, makes his resistance to tyranny key. His persistent Socratic frankness of speech at the court of the same Nicocreon puts his life at risk (2.129–30). The section ends with rival accounts (2.140–44) of Menedemus’ dealings with Antigonus Gonatas, king of Macedon. The version Diogenes clearly prefers makes Menedemus someone who has several times liberated his city from tyrants. That he ended up at Antigonus’ court is something that must therefore be seen as one more attempt to do so, contrary to the slanderous accusations to which he was subject—an attempt whose failure made him so despair that he refused food and died after a week. Diogenes again signals his investment in the incident with an epigram on Menedemus’ suicide (2.144), one more critical than the verses that celebrate the deaths of Zeno and Anaxarchus.
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The early Hellenistic monarchs Antigonus Gonatas, his father Demetrius, and various Ptolemies appear not infrequently in Diogenes’ biographical material. Probably the most famous incident involves the Stoic Sphaerus. Ptolemy II Philopator had allegedly written to Cleanthes, by then the distinctly elderly head of the Stoa, requesting his presence or that of some other Stoic at court in Alexandria. Chrysippus, who is criticized by Diogenes for his arrogance in dedicating none of his writings to a king, refused to go, but Sphaerus obliged (7.185). In the course of a subsequent philosophical discussion on whether a wise person would hold a mere opinion (Sphaerus said he would not), the king produced some wax pomegranates. Sphaerus was taken in. The king roared with delight that he had assented to a false impression: to which Sphaerus replied that what he had assented to was not the proposition that they were pomegranates, but that it was reasonable to think that they were—not at all the same thing as claiming to have a cognitive impression (7.177).
Hellenistic kings liked to have in their company cultivated people—including philosophers—with whom they could enjoy such intellectual sparring. To judge from Diogenes’ narrative, that was true from the beginning of the era. The first of the Ptolemies, Ptolemy Soter, is portrayed as having the philosophers Stilpo and Diodorus Cronus engage in dialectical argument in his presence. Stilpo, described by Diogenes as “exceedingly well versed in politics” (2.114), had from the start of their mutual acquaintance been a great favorite of Ptolemy (2.115). Diodorus was not quick enough on his feet to supply an instant solution to the puzzles Stilpo set him, and so acquired the nickname Cronus—i.e., antediluvian. He is said to have ended his life in despair upon leaving the symposium at which the exchange occurred—and he earned himself (like Menedemus in similar circumstances) a cruel epigram from Diogenes (2.112).
There is something of a pattern in these narratives. When Demetrius of Phalerum (5.75–79), a pupil of Theophrastus who was the leading political figure in Athens for a decade, fled to Egypt on the death of Cassander, ruler of Macedonia, Diogenes tells us he spent quite a while at Ptolemy’s court, advising him on various matters, including the Egyptian dynastic succession. The advice was ignored (different versions of the story are given), and on Ptolemy’s death Demetrius fell out of favor, succumbed to despair, and died of a mysterious asp bite—inevitably collecting one of Diogenes’ funerary epigrams. The Cyrenaic Theodorus fared rather better at court. Although his candor did not endear him as an ambassador on the one occasion Ptolemy employed him in the role, he eventually retired honorably to Cyrene (2.102–3).
Antigonus II Gonatas of Macedon is portrayed as intensely interested in philosophy, something on which Antigonus of Carystus seems to have laid particular emphasis. Diogenes reports that the king had received instruction in philosophy from the dialectician Euphantus of Olynthus, who dedicated to him a well-regarded treatise On Kingship (2.110). According to one of the traditions Diogenes reports (apparently as the standard account), King Antigonus was a friend of Menedemus, and is said to have declared himself a pupil (2.141–42). His attachment to Bion of Borysthenes was such that he sent servants to look after him in his final illness, and according to Favorinus attended the funeral in Chalcis in person (4.54). Diogenes thoroughly disapproved of Bion, and includes extended hostile verses of his own composition on Bion’s manner of death (4.55–57). Whenever Antigonus came to Athens, he would listen to the aged Zeno of Citium discoursing, and often invited him to Macedonia, without success: Zeno sent his favorite pupil and compatriot Persaeus instead. Diogenes is clearly pleased to be able to reproduce correspondence between Zeno and Antigonus on the subject (7.6–9). He reports that Antigo
nus listened also to Cleanthes lecturing, and made him a gift of three thousand minas, perhaps because he thought Cleanthes’ day job—drawing water—unworthy of a philosopher (7.169). The Academic Arcesilaus, however, had no desire to have anything to do with Antigonus on the king’s visits to Athens, although according to Diogenes he once undertook a diplomatic mission—without success—to the Macedonian court at the Thessalian stronghold of Demetrias. He otherwise spent his entire time in the Academy, regarding the political sphere as alien territory (ektopizōn, 4.39).
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Interestingly, all the philosophers Diogenes represents as playing major roles in the politics of their native cities—apart from Demetrius—belong to what he counts as the Italian school, in one or other of his listings of its members (1.15; the Pythagorean succession of Book 8). Thus Pythagoras acted as lawgiver for the Italian Greeks, and his pupils managed the political affairs of Croton so well that the constitution was effectively a true aristocracy—i.e., a regime of the virtuous (8.3). Parmenides, likewise, is said on Speusippus’ authority to have acted as lawgiver for the citizens of his native Elea (9.23). His pupil Melissus was elected admiral of the Samian fleet, out of the regard the citizens had for his political abilities (9.24). Diogenes’ admiration for the political courage of Zeno of Elea has already been touched upon (9.26–28).
Among the Italian philosophers there was no figure more controversial than Empedocles. Diogenes is at pains to present him as a committed democrat, effective and courageous in preempting a tyrannical coup (his debut as a political actor), opposing erection of a grandiose honorific monument, and bringing an end to the prevailing oligarchy (8.63–66; cf. 8.72). At the same time he concedes that Empedocles was in the end to become unpopular, demanding excessive deference and behaving like royalty (8.66–67; cf. 8.70 and 73). When Diogenes turns to Archytas of Tarentum, we learn that he was admired even among the populace for the excellence of his qualities, and served as a highly successful general for his city for seven (probably successive) years (8.79). His pupil Eudoxus of Cnidus is described as “an astronomer, a geometer, a doctor, and a legislator” (8.86); in the role of legislator for his own city, he is said on Hermippus’ authority to have become famous among the Greeks at large (8.88).
By contrast, philosophers in the Ionian tradition (1.13–15), if they have any political involvement at all in the cities where their life is lived, find themselves at odds with the prevailing regime. Heraclitus, who strictly speaking is treated as standing apart from either tradition, criticizes the Ephesians and refuses to act as their lawgiver when requested to do so—because the city is already in the grip of a depraved set of political arrangements. He will have nothing to do with their political life, and eventually withdraws and lives like sheep or goats in the mountains (9.2–3). Diogenes takes satisfaction in reproducing letters between him and Darius, king of the Persians, in which the philosopher rebuffs the monarch’s invitation to come to his court, instruct him, and enjoy elevated conversation on a daily basis and a way of life in conformity with Heraclitus’ own prescriptions (9.12–14). Anaxagoras, who is squarely placed in the Ionian school, is put on trial by the Athenians, probably for impiety. Diogenes cites no fewer than four different accounts of the trial and its outcome: from Sotion, Satyrus, Hermippus, and Hieronymus (2.12–14). Socrates, similarly placed in the Ionian school, is portrayed as a strong-minded democrat; he resists the oligarchic regime of Critias and his associates in refusing to produce Leon of Salamis for execution, and he is the only one to vote for the acquittal of the ten generals after the naval battle of Arginusae (2.24). Diogenes reports various accounts of the trial that ended in his death sentence, and stresses the subsequent remorse of the Athenians (2.38–42).
As for Socrates’ pupils, Xenophon was banished by the Athenians for his pro-Spartan activities (2.51); and Diogenes apparently knows only of unfavorable accounts of Aeschines, who is said (by Polycritus of Mende) to have lived a good while with the tyrant Dionysius II of Syracuse in Sicily (2.61–63). Plato’s Sicilian adventures (3.18–23) are reviewed sympathetically. The elder Dionysius is portrayed as a typically intolerant autocrat, whose tyrannical bearing is denounced by Plato to his face. Plato is rescued from the clutches of the younger Dionysius by a letter from Archytas to the tyrant, reproduced by Diogenes. On his return to Athens he stays out of politics, despite the political wisdom evident in his writings, for the same basic reason as Heraclitus: the people are inured to political arrangements other than those he would advocate (he turns down a request to legislate for the newly founded city of Megalópolis on similar grounds). Diogenes does tell a story that represents Plato as the only citizen prepared to support the general Chabrias when on trial for his life, despite a threat of hemlock made by an informer (3.23–24).
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Philosophical contempt for autocracy is nowhere more memorably celebrated in Diogenes than in the many variations on the theme played by the Cynic Diogenes of Sinope, to whom the last words may accordingly be given. Three examples will suffice. When someone remarked on how fortunate Callisthenes was to share in Alexander’s expensive lifestyle, Diogenes bewailed his misfortune: he can eat breakfast or dinner only when Alexander decides (6.45). When a tyrant asked him what was the best bronze for a statue, he replied: the one they used for Harmodius and Aristogeiton (the Athenian liberators) (6.50). Finally—and most famously—when Alexander himself stood over him and told him to request anything he liked, he said, “Stand out of my light” (6.38).
Diogenes Laertius and Philosophical Lives in Antiquity
Giuseppe Cambiano
In the ancient world, philosophy was conceived of and practiced not only as a specific intellectual activity, characterized by a set of doctrines, but first and foremost as a particular way of life, different from and considered superior to the kinds of lives lived by most other men. The written account of a new type of man, the philosopher, was an achievement of the followers of Socrates, in particular Plato and Xenophon. In these accounts, the practice of philosophy was deemed inseparable from the practitioner.
The work of Diogenes Laertius is one of the most remarkable documents that attests to this way of perceiving the philosophical life. This might seem obvious, since the work presents biographical data about different philosophers. It recounts picturesque and sometimes comical events in their lives, perhaps with the intention of entertaining readers. But it also documents the complex relationship of philosophers with the polis or with an empire, with the demos or with tyrants of the Hellenistic age from Alexander on, in dramatic episodes such as trials, exiles, and death sentences.
None of these biographies, however, is characterized by a continuous narrative of salient life events in chronological order; instead they are formed by a selection of events considered decisive. The central preoccupation is to describe a type of life, assuming that the narrated events are an expression of this life. Such events take the form of anecdotes, stripped of precise chronological references, recounted in order to show the peculiarities of character, way of life, and way of thinking of a philosopher. Woven into the anecdote we find the apothegms, sayings, or maxims of the philosopher or a response to someone else’s interrogation, or an exhortation to embrace philosophy as a way of life. In the lives of the Cynic philosophers, these maxims may be pointed, ironic, joking, or polemical. Sometimes they take the form of reprimands or criticisms meant to provoke bystanders into embracing the philosophical life.
The conversion to philosophy is a theme in Diogenes Laertius. One encounters a philosopher—listening to his words or lessons, reading or listening to him read his work, as in the case of the Stoic Zeno—and adopts a radically new way of life, accepting and sharing certain doctrines. Those converted are sometimes poor individuals or slaves, like Aeschines or Phaedo, both followers of Socrates, or Cleanthes, a disciple of Zeno. But the converts also include well-to-do individuals who choose to renounce their wealth in order to be able to dedicate themselves exclusively to philosophy, as i
n the case of Democritus (9.35–36) or Anaxagoras (2.6–7).
A number of the philosophers Diogenes describes also leave their native city and move to Athens, where foreigners had no political rights. Their willingness to abjure such rights suggests the superiority of philosophy even to citizenship, or the perquisites of participating in politics.
Stilpo addressed the larger issue with a saying that would later become famous. Demetrius I, known as Poliorcetes, had conquered his city, Megara, and asked Stilpo to draw up a list of things he had lost as a result. He had not lost anything that really belonged to him, Stilpo responded, because he still possessed logos and episteme, namely, reason and knowledge (2.115).
Diogenes Laertius presents a varied picture of the relationship of the philosophical life to sex. Throughout the Hellenistic age, the different schools debated whether or not philosophers should marry, take wives, and have children. Though some did—Socrates, Xenophon, Aristotle—many others remained bachelors: one thinks of Plato, but also Epicurus. Homoerotic relationships between master and students seem to have been common in the Academy, as witness the lives of Crates, Crantor, and Arcesilaus (4.21–22, 24, and 29). Still other philosophers, such as Stilpo and Aristippus, preferred the company of educated courtesans, or hetaerae. Aristippus was especially fond of them, particularly Lais of Corinth, one of the most famous of the ancient Greek courtesans—a fact in keeping with his philosophical claim that pleasure is the aim of life (2.75). But it is interesting in this case that Aristippus’ self-control is emphasized as well; he is never at the mercy of the courtesans (2.67 and 75). Xenocrates’ ability to resist the sexual attractiveness of the courtesan Phryne, spread out on his bed (4.7), recalls Socrates’ ability to resist the charms of Alcibiades in Plato’s Symposium.
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers Page 73
