Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers

ToposText · Diogenes Laertius · 1,207 sections

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§ 6.62 After seeing a stupid wrestler practising as a doctor he inquired of him, “What does this mean? Is it that you may now have your revenge on the rivals who formerly beat you?” Seeing the child of a courtesan throw stones at a crowd, he cried out, “Take care you don't hit your father.” A boy having shown him a dagger that he had received from an admirer, Diogenes remarked, “A pretty blade with an ugly handle.” When some people commended a person who had given him a gratuity, he broke in with “You have no praise for me who was worthy to receive it.” When some one asked that he might have back his cloak, “If it was a gift,” replied Diogenes, “I possess it; while, if it was a loan, I am using it.” A supposititious son having told him that he had gold in the pocket of his dress, “True,” said he, “and therefore you sleep with it under your pillow.”
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§ 6.63 On being asked what he had gained from philosophy, he replied, “This at least, if nothing else – to be prepared for every fortune.” Asked where he came from, he said, “I am a citizen of the world.” Certain parents were sacrificing to the gods, that a son might be born to them. “But,” said he, “do you not sacrifice to ensure what manner of man he shall turn out to be?” When asked for a subscription towards a club, he said to the president: Despoil the rest; off Hector keep thy hands. The mistresses of kings he designated queens; for, said he, they make the kings do their bidding. When the Athenians gave Alexander the title of Dionysus, he said, “Me too you might make Sarapis.” Some one having reproached him for going into dirty places, his reply was that the sun too visits cesspools without being defiled.
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§ 6.64 When he was dining in a sanctuary, and in the course of the meal loaves not free from dirt were put on the table, he took them up and threw them away, declaring that nothing unclean ought to enter a sanctuary. To the man who said to him, “You don't know anything, although you are a philosopher,” he replied, “Even if I am but a pretender to wisdom, that in itself is philosophy.” When some one brought a child to him and declared him to be highly gifted and of excellent character, “What need then,” said he, “has he of me?” Those who say admirable things, but fail to do them, he compared to a harp; for the harp, like them, he said, has neither hearing nor perception. He was going into a theatre, meeting face to face those who were coming out, and being asked why, “This,” he said, “is what I practise doing all my life.”
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§ 6.65 Seeing a young man behaving effeminately, “Are you not ashamed,” he said, “that your own intention about yourself should be worse than nature's: for nature made you a man, but you are forcing yourself to play the woman.” Observing a fool tuning a psaltery, “Are you not ashamed,” said he, “to give this wood concordant sounds, while you fail to harmonize your soul with life?” To one who protested that he was ill adapted for the study of philosophy, he said, “Why then do you live, if you do not care to live well?” To one who despised his father, “Are you not ashamed,” he said, “to despise him to whom you owe it that you can so pride yourself?” Noticing a handsome youth chattering in unseemly fashion, “Are you not ashamed,” he said, “to draw a dagger of lead from an ivory scabbard?”
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§ 6.66 Being reproached with drinking in a tavern, “Well,” said he, “I also get my hair cut in a barber's shop.” Being reproached with accepting a cloak from Antipater, he replied: The gods' choice gifts are nowise to be spurned. When some one first shook a beam at him and then shouted “Look out,” Diogenes struck the man with his staff and added “Look out.” To a man who was urgently pressing his suit to a courtesan he said, “Why, hapless man, are you at such pains to gain your suit, when it would be better for you to lose it?” To one with perfumed hair he said, “Beware lest the sweet scent on your head cause an ill odour in your life.” He said that bad men obey their lusts as servants obey their masters.
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§ 6.67 The question being asked why footmen are so called, he replied, “Because they have the feet of men, but souls such as you, my questioner, have.” He asked a spendthrift for a mina. The man inquired why it was that he asked others for an obol but him for a mina. “Because,” said Diogenes, “I expect to receive from others again, but whether I shall ever get anything from you again lies on the knees of the gods.” Being reproached with begging when Plato did not beg, “Oh yes,” says he, “he does, but when he does so – He holds his head down close, that none may hear.” Seeing a bad archer, he sat down beside the target with the words “in order not to get hit.” Lovers, he declared, derive their pleasures from their misfortune.
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§ 6.68 Being asked whether death was an evil thing, he replied, “How can it be evil, when in its presence we are not aware of it?” When Alexander stood opposite him and asked, “Are you not afraid of me?” “Why, what are you?” said he, “a good thing or a bad?” Upon Alexander replying “A good thing,” “Who then,” said Diogenes, “is afraid of the good?” Education, according to him, is a controlling grace to the young, consolation to the old, wealth to the poor, and ornament to the rich. When Didymon, who was a rake, was once treating a girl's eye, “Beware,” says Diogenes, “lest the oculist instead of curing the eye should ruin the pupil.” On somebody declaring that his own friends were plotting against him, Diogenes exclaimed, “What is to be done then, if you have to treat friends and enemies alike?”
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§ 6.69 Being asked what was the most beautiful thing in the world, he replied, “Freedom of speech.” On entering a boys' school, he found there many statues of the Muses, but few pupils. “By the help of the gods,” said he, “schoolmaster, you have plenty of pupils.” It was his habit to do everything in public, the works of Demeter and of Aphrodite alike. He used to draw out the following arguments. “If to breakfast be not absurd, neither is it absurd in the market-place; but to breakfast is not absurd, therefore it is not absurd to breakfast in the marketplace.” Behaving indecently in public, he wished “it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly.” Many other sayings are attributed to him, which it would take long to enumerate.
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§ 6.70 He used to affirm that training was of two kinds, mental and bodily: the latter being that whereby, with constant exercise, perceptions are formed such as secure freedom of movement for virtuous deeds; and the one half of this training is incomplete without the other, good health and strength being just as much included among the essential things, whether for body or soul. And he would adduce indisputable evidence to show how easily from gymnastic training we arrive at virtue. For in the manual crafts and other arts it can be seen that the craftsmen develop extraordinary manual skill through practice. Again, take the case of flute-players and of athletes: what surpassing skill they acquire by their own incessant toil; and, if they had transferred their efforts to the training of the mind, how certainly their labours would not have been unprofitable or ineffective.
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§ 6.71 Nothing in life, however, he maintained, has any chance of succeeding without strenuous practice; and this is capable of overcoming anything. Accordingly, instead of useless toils men should choose such as nature recommends, whereby they might have lived happily. Yet such is their madness that they choose to be miserable. For even the despising of pleasure is itself most pleasurable, when we are habituated to it; and just as those accustomed to a life of pleasure feel disgust when they pass over to the opposite experience, so those whose training has been of the opposite kind derive more pleasure from despising pleasure than from the pleasures themselves. This was the gist of his conversation; and it was plain that he acted accordingly, adulterating currency in very truth, allowing convention no such authority as he allowed to natural right, and asserting that the manner of life he lived was the same as that of Heracles when he preferred liberty to everything.
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§ 6.72 He maintained that all things are the property of the wise, and employed such arguments as those cited above. All things belong to the gods. The gods are friends to the wise, and friends share all property in common; therefore all things are the property of the wise. Again as to law: that it is impossible for society to exist without law; for without a city no benefit can be derived from that which is civilized. But the city is civilized, and there is no advantage in law without a city; therefore law is something civilized. He would ridicule good birth and fame and all such distinctions, calling them showy ornaments of vice. The only true commonwealth was, he said, that which is as wide as the universe. He advocated community of wives, recognizing no other marriage than a union of the man who persuades with the woman who consents. And for this reason he thought sons too should be held in common.
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§ 6.73 And he saw no impropriety either in taking something from a sanctuary or in eating the flesh of any animal; nor even anything impious in touching human flesh, this, he said, being clear from the custom of some foreign nations. Moreover, according to right reason, as he put it, all elements are contained in all things and pervade everything: since not only is meat a constituent of bread, but bread of vegetables; and all other bodies also, by means of certain invisible passages and particles, find their way in and unite with all substances in the form of vapour. This he makes plain in the Thyestes, if the tragedies are really his and not the work of his friend Philiscus of Aegina or of Pasiphon, the son of Lucian, who according to Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History wrote them after the death of Diogenes. He held that we should neglect music, geometry, astronomy, and the like studies, as useless and unnecessary.
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§ 6.74 He became very ready also at repartee in verbal debates, as is evident from what has been said above. Further, when he was sold as a slave, he endured it most nobly. For on a voyage to Aegina he was captured by pirates under the command of Scirpalus, conveyed to Crete and exposed for sale. When the auctioneer asked in what he was proficient, he replied, “In ruling men.” Thereupon he pointed to a certain Corinthian with a fine purple border to his robe, the man named Xeniades above-mentioned, and said, “Sell me to this man; he needs a master.” Thus Xeniades came to buy him, and took him to Corinth and set him over his own children and entrusted his whole household to him. And he administered it in all respects in such a manner that Xeniades used to go about saying, “A good genius has entered my house.”
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§ 6.75 Cleomenes in his work entitled Concerning Pedagogues says that the friends of Diogenes wanted to ransom him, whereupon he called them simpletons; for, said he, lions are not the slaves of those who feed them, but rather those who feed them are at the mercy of the lions: for fear is the mark of the slave, whereas wild beasts make men afraid of them. The man had in fact a wonderful gift of persuasion, so that he could easily vanquish anyone he liked in argument. At all events a certain Onesicritus of Aegina is said to have sent to Athens the one of his two sons named Androsthenes, and he having become a pupil of Diogenes stayed there; the father then sent the other also, the aforesaid Philiscus, who was the elder, in search of him; but Philiscus also was detained in the same way.
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§ 6.76 When, thirdly, the father himself arrived, he was just as much attracted to the pursuit of philosophy as his sons and joined the circle – so magical was the spell which the discourses of Diogenes exerted. Amongst his hearers was Phocion surnamed the Honest, and Stilpo the Megarian, and many other men prominent in political life. Diogenes is said to have been nearly ninety years old when he died. Regarding his death there are several different accounts. One is that he was seized with colic after eating an octopus raw and so met his end. Another is that he died voluntarily by holding his breath. This account was followed by Cercidas of Megalopolis (or of Crete ), who in his meliambics writes thus: Not so he who aforetime was a citizen of Sinope, That famous one who carried a staff, doubled his cloak, and lived in the open air.
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§ 6.77 But he soared aloft with his lip tightly pressed against his teeth And holding his breath withal. For in truth he was rightly named Diogenes, a true-born son of Zeus, a hound of heaven. Another version is that, while trying to divide an octopus amongst the dogs, he was so severely bitten on the sinew of the foot that it caused his death. His friends, however, according to Antisthenes in his Successions of Philosophers, conjectured that it was due to the retention of his breath. For he happened to be living in the Craneum, the gymnasium in front of Corinth. When his friends came according to custom and found him wrapped up in his cloak, they thought that he must be asleep, although he was by no means of a drowsy or somnolent habit. They therefore drew aside his cloak and found that he was dead. This they supposed to have been his deliberate act in order to escape thenceforward from life.
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§ 6.78 Hence, it is said, arose a quarrel among his disciples as to who should bury him: nay, they even came to blows; but, when their fathers and men of influence arrived, under their direction he was buried beside the gate leading to the Isthmus. Over his grave they set up a pillar and a dog in Parian marble upon it. Subsequently his fellow-citizens honoured him with bronze statues, on which these verses were inscribed: Time makes even bronze grow old: but thy glory, Diogenes, all eternity will never destroy. Since thou alone didst point out to mortals the lesson of self-sufficingness and the easiest path of life.
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§ 6.79 We too have written on him in the proceleusmatic metre: a. Diogenes, come tell me what fate took you to the world below? d. A dog's savage tooth. But some say that when dying he left instructions that they should throw him out unburied, that every wild beast might feed on him, or thrust him into a ditch and sprinkle a little dust over him. But according to others his instructions were that they should throw him into the Ilissus, in order that he might be useful to his brethren. Demetrius in his work On Men of the Same Name asserts that on the same day on which Alexander died in Babylon Diogenes died in Corinth. He was an old man in the 113th Olympiad.
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§ 6.80 The following writings are attributed to him. Dialogues: Cephalion. Ichthyas. Jackdaw. Pordalus. The Athenian Demos. Republic. Art of Ethics. On Wealth. On Love. Theodorus. Hypsias. Aristarchus. On Death. Letters. Seven Tragedies: Helen. Thyestes. Heracles. Achilles. Medea. Chrysippus. Oedipus. Sosicrates in the first book of his Successions, and Satyrus in the fourth book of his Lives, allege that Diogenes left nothing in writing, and Satyrus adds that the sorry tragedies are by his friend Philiscus, the Aeginetan. Sotion in his seventh book declares that only the following are genuine works of Diogenes: On Virtue, On Good, On Love, A Mendicant, Tolmaeus, Pordalus, Cassandrus, Cephalion, Philiscus, Aristarchus, Sisyphus, Ganymedes, Anecdotes, Letters.
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§ 6.81 There have been five men who were named Diogenes. The first, of Apollonia, a natural philosopher. The beginning of his treatise runs thus: “At the outset of every discourse, methinks, one should see to it that the basis laid down is unquestionable.” The second – of Sicyon – who wrote an “Account of Peloponnesus.” The third, our present subject. The fourth, a Stoic born at Seleucia, who is also called the Babylonian, because Seleucia is near Babylon. The fifth, of Tarsus, author of a work on poetical problems, which he attempts to solve. Now the philosopher is said by Athenodorus in the eighth book of his Walks to have always had a sleek appearance owing to his use of unguents.
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§ 6.82 3. MONIMUS Monimus of Syracuse was a pupil of Diogenes; and, according to Sosicrates, he was in the service of a certain Corinthian banker, to whom Xeniades, the purchaser of Diogenes, made frequent visits, and by the account which he gave of his goodness in word and deed, excited in Monimus a passionate admiration of Diogenes. For he forthwith pretended to be mad and proceeded to fling away the small change and all the money on the banker's table, until at length his master dismissed him; and he then straightway devoted himself to Diogenes. He often followed Crates the Cynic as well, and embraced the like pursuits; whereupon his master, seeing him do this, was all the more persuaded that he was mad.
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§ 6.83 He came to be a distinguished man; so much so that he is even mentioned by the comic poet Menander. At any rate in one of his plays, The Groom, his words are: One Monimus there was, a wise man, Philo, But not so very famous. a. He, you mean, Who carried the scrip? b. Nay, not one scrip, but three. Yet never a word, so help me Zeus, spake he To match the saying, Know thyself, nor such Famed watchwords. Far beyond all these he went, Your dusty mendicant, pronouncing wholly vain All man's supposings. Monimus indeed showed himself a very grave moralist, so that he ever despised mere opinion and sought only truth. He has left us, besides some trifles blended with covert earnestness, two books, On Impulses and an Exhortation to Philosophy.
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§ 6.84 4. ONESICRITUS Onesicritus some report to have been an Aeginetan, but Demetrius of Magnesia says that he was a native of Astypalaea. He too was one of the distinguished pupils of Diogenes. His career seems to have resembled that of Xenophon; for Xenophon joined the expedition of Cyrus, Onesicritus that of Alexander; and the former wrote the Cyropaedia, or Education of Cyrus, while the latter has described how Alexander was educated: the one a laudation of Cyrus, the other of Alexander. And in their diction they are not unlike: except that Onesicritus, as is to be expected in an imitator, falls short of his model. Amongst other pupils of Diogenes were Menander, who was nicknamed Drymus or “Oakwood,” a great admirer of Homer; Hegesias of Sinope, nicknamed “Dog-collar”; and Philiscus of Aegina mentioned above.
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§ 6.85 5. CRATES Crates, son of Ascondas, was a Theban. He too was amongst the Cynic's famous pupils. Hippobotus, however, alleges that he was a pupil not of Diogenes, but of Bryson the Achaean. The following playful lines are attributed to him: There is a city Pera in the midst of wine-dark vapour, Fair, fruitful, passing squalid, owning nought, Into which sails nor fool nor parasite Nor glutton, slave of sensual appetite, But thyme it bears, garlic, and figs and loaves, For which things' sake men fight not each with other, Nor stand to arms for money or for fame.
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§ 6.86 There is also his widely circulated day-book, which runs as follows: Set down for the chef ten minas, for the doctor One drachma, for a flatterer talents five, For counsel smoke, for mercenary beauty A talent, for a philosopher three obols. He was known as the “Door-opener” – the caller to whom all doors fly open – from his habit of entering every house and admonishing those within. Here is another specimen of his composition: That much I have which I have learnt and thought, The noble lessons taught me by the Muses: But wealth amassed is prey to vanity. And again he says that what he has gained from philosophy is A quart of lupins and to care for no one. This too is quoted as his: Hunger stops love, or, if not hunger, Time, Or, failing both these means of help, – a halter.
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§ 6.87 He flourished in the 113th Olympiad. According to Antisthenes in his Successions, the first impulse to the Cynic philosophy was given to him when he saw Telephus in a certain tragedy carrying a little basket and altogether in a wretched plight. So he turned his property into money, – for he belonged to a distinguished family, – and having thus collected about 200 talents, distributed that sum among his fellow-citizens. And (it is added) so sturdy a philosopher did he become that he is mentioned by the comic poet Philemon. At all events the latter says: In summer-time a thick cloak he would wear To be like Crates, and in winter rags. Diocles relates how Diogenes persuaded Crates to give up his fields to sheep pasture, and throw into the sea any money he had.
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§ 6.88 In the home of Crates Alexander is said to have lodged, as Philip once lived in Hipparchia's. Often, too, certain of his kinsmen would come to visit him and try to divert him from his purpose. These he would drive from him with his stick, and his resolution was unshaken. Demetrius of Magnesia tells a story that he entrusted a banker with a sum of money on condition that, if his sons proved ordinary men he was to pay it to them, but, if they became philosophers, then to distribute it among the people: for his sons would need nothing, if they took to philosophy. Eratosthenes tells us that by Hipparchia, of whom we shall presently speak, he had a son born to him named Pasicles, and after he had ceased to be a cadet on service, Crates took him to a brothel and told him that was how his father had married.
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§ 6.89 The marriage of intrigue and adultery, he said, belonged to tragedy, having exile or assassination as its rewards; while the weddings of those who take up with courtesans are material for comedy, for as a result of extravagance and drunkenness they bring about madness. This man had a brother named Pasicles, who was a disciple of Euclides. Favorinus, in the second book of his Memorabilia, tells a pleasant story of Crates. For he relates how, when making some request of the master of the gymnasium, he laid hold on his hips; and when he demurred, said, “What, are not these hip-joints yours as much as your knees?” It was, he used to say, impossible to find anybody wholly free from flaws; but, just as in a pomegranate, one of the seeds is always going bad. Having exasperated the musician Nicodromus, he was struck by him on the face. So he stuck a plaster on his forehead with these words on it, “Nicodromus's handiwork.”
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§ 6.90 He carried on a regular campaign of invective against the courtesans, habituating himself to meet their abuse. When Demetrius of Phalerum sent him loaves of bread and some wine, he reproached him, saying, “Oh that the springs yielded bread as well as water!” It is clear, then, that he was a water-drinker. When the police-inspectors found fault with him for wearing muslin, his answer was, “I'll show you that Theophrastus also wears muslin.” This they would not believe: so he led them to a barber's shop and showed them Theophrastus being shaved. At Thebes he was flogged by the master of the gymnasium – another version being that it was by Euthycrates and at Corinth; and being dragged by the heels, he called out, as if it did not affect him: Seized by the foot and dragged o'er heaven's high threshold:
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§ 6.91 Diocles, however, says that it was by Menedemus of Eretria that he was thus dragged. For he being handsome and being thought to be intimate with Asclepiades the Phliasian, Crates slapped him on the side with a brutal taunt; whereupon Menedemus, full of indignation, dragged him along, and he declaimed as above. Zeno of Citium in his Anecdotes relates that in a fit of heedlessness he sewed a sheepskin to his cloak. He was ugly to look at, and when performing his gymnastic exercises used to be laughed at. He was accustomed to say, raising his hands, “Take heart, Crates, for it is for the good of your eyes and of the rest of your body.
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§ 6.92 You will see these men, who are laughing at you, tortured before long by disease, counting you happy, and reproaching themselves for their sluggishness.” He used to say that we should study philosophy to the point of seeing in generals nothing but donkey -drivers. Those who live with flatterers he declared to be as defenceless as calves in the midst of wolves; for neither these nor those have any to protect them, but only such as plot against them. Perceiving that he was dying, he would chant over himself this charm, “You are going, dear hunchback, you are off to the house of Hades, – bent crooked by old age.” For his years had bowed him down.
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§ 6.93 When Alexander inquired whether he would like his native city to be rebuilt, his answer was, “Why should it be? Perhaps another Alexander will destroy it again.” Ignominy and Poverty he declared to be his country, which Fortune could never take captive. He was, he said, a fellow-citizen of Diogenes, who defied all the plots of envy. Menander alludes to him in the Twin Sisters in the following lines: Wearing a cloak you'll go about with me, As once with Cynic Crates went his wife: His daughter too, as he himself declared, He gave in marriage for a month on trial. We come now to his pupils.
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§ 6.94 6. METROCLES Metrocles of Maroneia was the brother of Hipparchia. He had been formerly a pupil of Theophrastus the Peripatetic, and had been so far corrupted by weakness that, when he made a breach of good manners in the course of rehearsing a speech, it drove him to despair, and he shut himself up at home, intending to starve himself to death. On learning this Crates came to visit him as he had been asked to do, and after advisedly making a meal of lupins, he tried to persuade him by argument as well that he had committed no crime, for a prodigy would have happened if he had not taken the natural means of relieving himself. At last by reproducing the action he succeeded in lifting him from his dejection, using for his consolation the likeness of the occurrences. From that time forward Metrocles was his pupil, and became proficient in philosophy.
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§ 6.95 Hecato in the first book of his Anecdotes tells us he burned his compositions with the words: Phantoms are these of dreams o' the world below. Others say that when he set fire to his notes of Theophrastus's lectures, he added the line: Come hither, Hephaestus, Thetis now needeth thee. He divided things into such as are procurable for money, like a house, and such as can be procured by time and trouble, like education. Wealth, he said, is harmful, unless we put it to a worthy use. He died of old age, having choked himself. His disciples were Theombrotus and Cleomenes: Theombrotus had for his pupil Demetrius of Alexandria, while Cleomenes instructed Timarchus of Alexandria and Echecles of Ephesus. Not but what Echecles also heard Theombrotus, whose lectures were attended by Menedemus, of whom we shall speak presently. Menippus of Sinope also became renowned amongst them.
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§ 6.96 7. HIPPARCHIA Hipparchia too, sister of Metrocles, was captured by their doctrines. Both of them were born at Maroneia. She fell in love with the discourses and the life of Crates, and would not pay attention to any of her suitors, their wealth, their high birth or their beauty. But to her Crates was everything. She used even to threaten her parents she would make away with herself, unless she were given in marriage to him. Crates therefore was implored by her parents to dissuade the girl, and did all he could, and at last, failing to persuade her, got up, took off his clothes before her face and said, “This is the bridegroom, here are his possessions; make your choice accordingly; for you will be no helpmeet of mine, unless you share my pursuits.”
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§ 6.97 The girl chose and, adopting the same dress, went about with her husband and lived with him in public and went out to dinners with him. Accordingly she appeared at the banquet given by Lysimachus, and there put down Theodorus, known as the atheist, by means of the following sophism. Any action which would not be called wrong if done by Theodorus, would not be called wrong if done by Hipparchia. Now Theodorus does no wrong when he strikes himself: therefore neither does Hipparchia do wrong when she strikes Theodorus. He had no reply wherewith to meet the argument, but tried to strip her of her cloak. But Hipparchia showed no sign of alarm or of the perturbation natural in a woman.
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§ 6.98 And when he said to her: “Is this she Who quitting woof and warp and comb and loom?” she replied, “It is I, Theodorus, – but do you suppose that I have been ill advised about myself, if instead of wasting further time upon the loom I spent it in education?” These tales and countless others are told of the female philosopher. There is current a work of Crates entitled Epistles, containing excellent philosophy in a style which sometimes resembles that of Plato. He has also written tragedies, stamped with a very lofty kind of philosophy; as, for example, the following passage: Not one tower hath my country nor one roof, But wide as the whole earth its citadel And home prepared for us to dwell therein. He died in old age, and was buried in Boeotia.
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§ 6.99 8. MENIPPUS Menippus, also a Cynic, was by descent a Phoenician – a slave, as Achaicus in his treatise on Ethics says. Diocles further informs us that his master was a citizen of Pontus and was named Baton. But as avarice made him very resolute in begging, he succeeded in becoming a Theban. There is no seriousness in him; but his books overflow with laughter, much the same as those of his contemporary Meleager. Hermippus says that he lent out money by the day and got a nickname from doing so. For he used to make loans on bottomry and take security, thus accumulating a large fortune.
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§ 6.100 At last, however, he fell a victim to a plot, was robbed of all, and in despair ended his days by hanging himself. I have composed a trifle upon him: May be, you know Menippus, Phoenician by birth, but a Cretan hound: A money-lender by the day – so he was called – At Thebes when once on a time his house was broken into And he lost his all, not understanding what it is to be a Cynic, He hanged himself. Some authorities question the genuineness of the books attributed to him, alleging them to be by Dionysius and Zopyrus of Colophon, who, writing them for a joke, made them over to Menippus as a person able to dispose of them advantageously.
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§ 6.101 There have been six men named Menippus: the first the man who wrote a History of the Lydians and abridged Xanthus; the second my present subject; the third a sophist of Stratonicea, a Carian by descent; the fourth a sculptor; the fifth and sixth painters, both mentioned by Apollodorus. However, the writings of Menippus the Cynic are thirteen in number: Necromancy. Wills. Epistles artificially composed as if by the gods. Replies to the physicists and mathematicians and grammarians; and A book about the birth of Epicurus; and The School's reverence for the twentieth day. Besides other works.
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§ 6.102 9. MENEDEMUS Menedemus was a pupil of Colotes of Lampsacus. According to Hippobotus he had attained such a degree of audacity in wonder-working that he went about in the guise of a Fury, saying that he had come from Hades to take cognisance of sins committed, and was going to return and report them to the powers down below. This was his attire: a grey tunic reaching to the feet, about it a crimson girdle; an Arcadian hat on his head with the twelve signs of the zodiac inwrought in it; buskins of tragedy; and he wore a very long beard and carried an ashen staff in his hand.
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§ 6.103 Such are the lives of the several Cynics. But we will go on to append the doctrines which they held in common – if, that is, we decide that Cynicism is really a philosophy, and not, as some maintain, just a way of life. They are content then, like Ariston of Chios, to do away with the subjects of Logic and Physics and to devote their whole attention to Ethics. And what some assert of Socrates, Diocles records of Diogenes, representing him as saying: “We must inquire into Whate'er of good or ill within our halls is wrought.” They also dispense with the ordinary subjects of instruction. At least Antisthenes used to say that those who had attained discretion had better not study literature, lest they should be perverted by alien influences.
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§ 6.104 So they get rid of geometry and music and all such studies. Anyhow, when somebody showed Diogenes a clock, he pronounced it a serviceable instrument to save one from being late for dinner. Again, to a man who gave a musical recital before him he said: By men's minds states are ordered well, and households, Not by the lyre's twanged strings or flute's trilled notes. They hold further that “Life according to Virtue ” is the End to be sought, as Antisthenes says in his Heracles: exactly like the Stoics. For indeed there is a certain close relationship between the two schools. Hence it has been said that Cynicism is a short cut to virtue; and after the same pattern did Zeno of Citium live his life.
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§ 6.105 They also hold that we should live frugally, eating food for nourishment only and wearing a single garment. Wealth and fame and high birth they despise. Some at all events are vegetarians and drink cold water only and are content with any kind of shelter or tubs, like Diogenes, who used to say that it was the privilege of the gods to need nothing and of god-like men to want but little. They hold, further, that virtue can be taught, as Antisthenes maintains in his Heracles, and when once acquired cannot be lost; and that the wise man is worthy to be loved, impeccable, and a friend to his like; and that we should entrust nothing to fortune. Whatever is intermediate between Virtue and Vice they, in agreement with Ariston of Chios, account indifferent. So much, then, for the Cynics. We must now pass on to the Stoics, whose founder was Zeno, a disciple of Crates.
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§ 7.1 BOOK 7: 1. ZENO Zeno, the son of Mnaseas (or Demeas ), was a native of Citium in Cyprus, a Greek city which had received Phoenician settlers. He had a wry neck, says Timotheus of Athens in his book On Lives. Moreover, Apollonius of Tyre says he was lean, fairly tall, and swarthy – hence some one called him an Egyptian vine-branch, according to Chrysippus in the first book of his Proverbs. He had thick legs; he was flabby and delicate. Hence Persaeus in his Convivial Reminiscences relates that he declined most invitations to dinner. They say he was fond of eating green figs and of basking in the sun.
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§ 7.2 He was a pupil of Crates, as stated above. Next they say he attended the lectures of Stilpo and Xenocrates for ten years – so Timocrates says in his Dion – and Polemo as well. It is stated by Hecato and by Apollonius of Tyre in his first book on Zeno that he consulted the oracle to know what he should do to attain the best life, and that the god's response was that he should take on the complexion of the dead. Whereupon, perceiving what this meant, he studied ancient authors. Now the way he came across Crates was this. He was shipwrecked on a voyage from Phoenicia to Peiraeus with a cargo of purple. He went up into Athens and sat down in a bookseller's shop, being then a man of thirty.
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§ 7.3 As he went on reading the second book of Xenophon's Memorabilia, he was so pleased that he inquired where men like Socrates were to be found. Crates passed by in the nick of time, so the bookseller pointed to him and said, “Follow yonder man.” From that day he became Crates's pupil, showing in other respects a strong bent for philosophy, though with too much native modesty to assimilate Cynic shamelessness. Hence Crates, desirous of curing this defect in him, gave him a potful of lentil-soup to carry through the Ceramicus; and when he saw that he was ashamed and tried to keep it out of sight, with a blow of his staff he broke the pot. As Zeno took to flight with the lentil-soup flowing down his legs, “Why run away, my little Phoenician?” quoth Crates, “nothing terrible has befallen you.”
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§ 7.4 For a certain space, then, he was instructed by Crates, and when at this time he had written his Republic, some said in jest that he had written it on Cynosura, i.e. on the dog's tail. Besides the Republic he wrote the following works: Of Life according to Nature. Of Impulse, or Human Nature. Of Emotions. Of Duty. Of Law. Of Greek Education. Of Vision. Of the Whole World. Of Signs. Pythagorean Questions. Universals. Of Varieties of Style. Homeric Problems, in five books. Of the Reading of Poetry. There are also by him: A Handbook of Rhetoric. Solutions. Two books of Refutations. Recollections of Crates. Ethics. This is a list of his writings. But at last he left Crates, and the men above mentioned were his masters for twenty years. Hence he is reported to have said, “I made a prosperous voyage when I suffered shipwreck.” But others attribute this saying of his to the time when he was under Crates.
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§ 7.5 A different version of the story is that he was staying at Athens when he heard his ship was wrecked and said, “It is well done of thee, Fortune, thus to drive me to philosophy.” But some say that he disposed of his cargo in Athens, before he turned his attention to philosophy. He used then to discourse, pacing up and down in the Stoa Poikile, which is also called the stoa or Portico of Pisianax, but which received its name from the painting of Polygnotus; his object being to keep the spot clear of a concourse of idlers. It was the spot where in the time of the Thirty 1400 Athenian citizens had been put to death. Hither, then, people came henceforth to hear Zeno, and this is why they were known as men of the Stoa, or Stoics; and the same name was given to his followers, who had formerly been known as Zenonians. So it is stated by Epicurus in his letters. According to Eratosthenes in his eighth book On the Old Comedy, the name of Stoic had formerly been applied to the poets who passed their time there, and they had made the name of Stoic still more famous.
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§ 7.6 The people of Athens held Zeno in high honour, as is proved by their depositing with him the keys of the city walls, and their honouring him with a golden crown and a bronze statue. This last mark of respect was also shown to him by citizens of his native town, who deemed his statue an ornament to their city, and the men of Citium living in Sidon were also proud to claim him for their own. Antigonus ( Gonatas ) also favoured him, and whenever he came to Athens would hear him lecture and often invited him to come to his court. This offer he declined but dispatched thither one of his friends, Persaeus, the son of Demetrius and a native of Citium, who flourished in the 130th Olympiad, at which time Zeno was already an old man. According to Apollonius of Tyre in his work upon Zeno, the letter of Antigonus was couched in the following terms:
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§ 7.7 “King Antigonus to Zeno the philosopher, greeting. ”While in fortune and fame I deem myself your superior, in reason and education I own myself inferior, as well as in the perfect happiness which you have attained. Wherefore I have decided to ask you to pay me a visit, being persuaded that you will not refuse the request. By all means, then, do your best to hold conference with me, understanding clearly that you will not be the instructor of myself alone but of all the Macedonians taken together. For it is obvious that whoever instructs the ruler of Macedonia and guides him in the paths of virtue will also be training his subjects to be good men. As is the ruler, such for the most part it may be expected that his subjects will become." And Zeno's reply is as follows:
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§ 7.8 “ Zeno to King Antigonus, greeting. ”I welcome your love of learning in so far as you cleave to that true education which tends to advantage and not to that popular counterfeit of it which serves only to corrupt morals. But if anyone has yearned for philosophy, turning away from much-vaunted pleasure which renders effeminate the souls of some of the young, it is evident that not by nature only, but also by the bent of his will he is inclined to nobility of character. But if a noble nature be aided by moderate exercise and further receive ungrudging instruction, it easily comes to acquire virtue in perfection.
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§ 7.9 But I am constrained by bodily weakness, due to old age, for I am eighty years old; and for that reason I am unable to join you. But I send you certain companions of my studies whose mental powers are not inferior to mine, while their bodily strength is far greater, and if you associate with these you will in no way fall short of the conditions necessary to perfect happiness." So he sent Persaeus and Philonides the Theban; and Epicurus in his letter to his brother Aristobulus mentions them both as living with Antigonus. I have thought it well to append the decree also which the Athenians passed concerning him. It reads as follows:
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§ 7.10 “In the archonship of Arrhenides, in the fifth prytany of the tribe Acamantis on the twenty-first day of Maemacterion, at the twenty-third plenary assembly of the prytany, one of the presidents, Hippo, the son of Cratistoteles, of the deme Xypetaeon, and his co-presidents put the question to the vote; Thraso, the son of Thraso of the deme Anacaea, moved: ”Whereas Zeno of Citium, son of Mnaseas, has for many years been devoted to philosophy in the city and has continued to be a man of worth in all other respects, exhorting to virtue and temperance those of the youth who come to him to be taught, directing them to what is best, affording to all in his own conduct a pattern for imitation in perfect consistency with his teaching, it has seemed good to the people –
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§ 7.11 and may it turn out well – to bestow praise upon Zeno of Citium, the son of Mnaseas, and to crown him with a golden crown according to the law, for his goodness and temperance, and to build him a tomb in the Ceramicus at the public cost. And that for the making of the crown and the building of the tomb, the people shall now elect five commissioners from all Athenians, and the Secretary of State shall inscribe this decree on two stone pillars and it shall be lawful for him to set up one in the Academy and the other in the Lyceum. And that the magistrate presiding over the administration shall apportion the expense incurred upon the pillars, that all may know that the Athenian people honour the good both in their life and after their death.
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§ 7.12 Thraso of the deme Anacaea, Philocles of Peiraeus, Phaedrus of Anaphlystus, Medon of Acharnae, Micythus of Sypalettus, and Dion of Paeania have been elected commissioners for the making of the crown and the building." These are the terms of the decree. Antigonus of Carystus tells us that he never denied that he was a citizen of Citium. For when he was one of those who contributed to the restoration of the baths and his name was inscribed upon the pillar as “ Zeno the philosopher,” he requested that the words “of Citium ” should be added. He made a hollow lid for a flask and used to carry about money in it, in order that there might be provision at hand for the necessities of his master Crates.
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§ 7.13 It is said that he had more than a thousand talents when he came to Greece, and that he lent this money on bottomry. He used to eat little loaves and honey and to drink a little wine of good bouquet. He rarely employed men-servants; once or twice indeed he might have a young girl to wait on him in order not to seem a misogynist. He shared the same house with Persaeus, and when the latter brought in a little flute-player he lost no time in leading her straight to Persaeus. They tell us he readily adapted himself to circumstances, so much so that King Antigonus often broke in on him with a noisy party, and once took him along with other revellers to Aristocles the musician; Zeno, however, in a little while gave them the slip.
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§ 7.14 He disliked, they say, to be brought too near to people, so that he would take the end seat of a couch, thus saving himself at any rate from one half of such inconvenience. Nor indeed would he walk about with more than two or three. He would occasionally ask the bystanders for coppers, in order that, for fear of being asked to give, people might desist from mobbing him, as Cleanthes says in his work On Bronze. When several persons stood about him in the Colonnade he pointed to the wooden railing at the top round the altar and said, “This was once open to all, but because it was found to be a hindrance it was railed off. If you then will take yourselves off out of the way you will be the less annoyance to us.” When Demochares, the son of Laches, greeted him and told him he had only to speak or write for anything he wanted to Antigonus, who would be sure to grant all his requests, Zeno after hearing this would have nothing more to do with him.
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§ 7.15 After Zeno's death Antigonus is reported to have said, “What an audience I have lost.” Hence too he employed Thraso as his agent to request the Athenians to bury Zeno in the Ceramicus. And when asked why he admired him, “Because,” said he, “the many ample gifts I offered him never made him conceited nor yet appear poor-spirited.” His bent was towards inquiry, and he was an exact reasoner on all subjects. Hence the words of Timon in his Silli: A Phoenician too I saw, a pampered old woman ensconced in gloomy pride, longing for all things; but the meshes of her subtle web have perished, and she had no more intelligence than a banjo.
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§ 7.16 He used to dispute very carefully with Philo the logician and study along with him. Hence Zeno, who was the junior, had as great an admiration for Philo as his master Diodorus. And he had about him certain ragged dirty fellows, as Timon says in these lines: The while he got together a crowd of ignorant serfs, who surpassed all men in beggary and were the emptiest of townsfolk. Zeno himself was sour and of a frowning countenance. He was very niggardly too, clinging to meanness unworthy of a Greek, on the plea of economy, If he pitched into anyone he would do it concisely, and not effusively, keeping him rather at arm's length. I mean, for example, his remark upon the fop showing himself off.
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§ 7.17 When he was slowly picking his way across a watercourse, “With good reason,” quoth Zeno, “he looks askance at the mud, for he can't see his face in it.” When a certain Cynic declared he had no oil in his flask and begged some of him, Zeno refused to give him any. However, as the man went away, Zeno bade him consider which of the two was the more impudent. Being enamoured of Chremonides, as he and Cleanthes were sitting beside the youth, he got up, and upon Cleanthes expressing surprise, “Good physicians tell us,” said he, “that the best cure for inflammation is repose.” When of two reclining next to each other over the wine, the one who was neighbour to Zeno kicked the guest below him, Zeno himself nudged the man with his knee, and upon the man turning round, inquired, “How do you think your neighbour liked what you did to him?”
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§ 7.18 To a lover of boys he remarked, “Just as schoolmasters lose their common-sense by spending all their time with boys, so it is with people like you.” He used to say that the very exact expressions used by those who avoided solecisms were like the coins struck by Alexander: they were beautiful in appearance and well-rounded like the coins, but none the better on that account. Words of the opposite kind he would compare to the Attic tetradrachms, which, though struck carelessly and inartistically, nevertheless outweighed the ornate phrases. When his pupil Ariston discoursed at length in an uninspired manner, sometimes in a headstrong and over-confident way. “Your father,” said he, “must have been drunk when he begat you.” Hence he would call him a chatterbox, being himself concise in speech.
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§ 7.19 There was a gourmand so greedy that he left nothing for his table companions. A large fish having been served, Zeno took it up as if he were about to eat the whole. When the other looked at him, “What do you suppose,” said he, “those who live with you feel every day, if you cannot put up with my gourmandise in this single instance?” A youth was putting a question with more curiosity than became his years, whereupon Zeno led him to a mirror, and bade him look in it; after which he inquired if he thought it became anyone who looked like that to ask such questions. Some one said that he did not in general agree with Antisthenes, whereupon Zeno produced that author's essay on Sophocles, and asked him if he thought it had any excellence; to which the reply was that he did not know. “Then are you not ashamed,” quoth he, “to pick out and mention anything wrong said by Antisthenes, while you suppress his good things without giving them a thought?”
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§ 7.20 Some one having said that he thought the chain-arguments of the philosophers seemed brief and curt, Zeno replied, “You are quite right; indeed, the very syllables ought, if possible, to be clipped.” Some one remarked to him about Polemo, that his discourse was different from the subject he announced. He replied with a frown, “Well, what value would you have set upon what was given out?” He said that when conversing we ought to be earnest and, like actors, we should have a loud voice and great strength; but we ought not to open the mouth too wide, which is what your senseless chatterbox does. “Telling periods,” he said, “unlike the works of good craftsmen, should need no pause for the contemplation of their excellences; on the contrary, the hearer should be so absorbed in the discourse itself as to have no leisure even to take notes.”
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§ 7.21 Once when a young man was talking a good deal, he said, “Your ears have slid down and merged in your tongue.” To the fair youth, who gave it as his opinion that the wise man would not fall in love, his reply was: “Then who can be more hapless than you fair youths?” He used to say that even of philosophers the greater number were in most things unwise, while about small and casual things they were quite ignorant. And he used to cite the saying of Caphisius, who, when one of his pupils was endeavouring to blow the flute lustily, gave him a slap and told him that to play well does not depend on loudness, though playing loudly may follow upon playing well. And to a youth who was talking somewhat saucily his rejoinder was, “I would rather not tell you what I am thinking, my lad.”
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§ 7.22 A Rhodian, who was handsome and rich, but nothing more, insisted on joining his class; but so unwelcome was this pupil, that first of all Zeno made him sit on the benches that were dusty, that he might soil his cloak, and then he consigned him to the place where the beggars sat, that he might rub shoulders with their rags; so at last the young man went away. Nothing, he declared, was more unbecoming than arrogance, especially in the young. He used also to say that it was not the words and expressions that we ought to remember, but we should exercise our mind in disposing to advantage of what we hear, instead of, as it were, tasting a well-cooked dish or well-dressed meal. The young, he thought, should behave with perfect propriety in walk, gait and dress, and he used continually to quote the lines of Euripides about Capaneus: Large means had he, yet not the haughtiness That springs from wealth, nor cherished prouder thoughts Of vain ambition than the poorest man.
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§ 7.23 Again he would say that if we want to master the sciences there is nothing so fatal as conceit, and again there is nothing we stand so much in need of as time. To the question “Who is a friend?” his answer was, “A second self (alter ego).” We are told that he was once chastising a slave for stealing, and when the latter pleaded that it was his fate to steal, “Yes, and to be beaten too,” said Zeno. Beauty he called the flower of chastity, while according to others it was chastity which he called the flower of beauty. Once when he saw the slave of one of his acquaintance marked with weals, “I see,” said he, “the imprints of your anger.” To one who had been drenched with unguent, “Who is this,” quoth he, “who smells of woman?” When Dionysius the Renegade asked, “Why am I the only pupil you do not correct?” the reply was, “Because I mistrust you.” To a stripling who was talking nonsense his words were, “The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less.”
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§ 7.24 One day at a banquet he was reclining in silence and was asked the reason: whereupon he bade his critic carry word to the king that there was one present who knew how to hold his tongue. Now those who inquired of him were ambassadors from King Ptolemy, and they wanted to know what message they should take back from him to the king. On being asked how he felt about abuse, he replied, “As an envoy feels who is dismissed without an answer.” Apollonius of Tyre tells us how, when Crates laid hold on him by the cloak to drag him from Stilpo, Zeno said, “The right way to seize a philosopher, Crates, is by the ears: persuade me then and drag me off by them; but, if you use violence, my body will be with you, but my mind with Stilpo.”
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§ 7.25 According to Hippobotus he forgathered with Diodorus, with whom he worked hard at dialectic. And when he was already making progress, he would enter Polemo's school: so far from all self-conceit was he. In consequence Polemo is said to have addressed him thus: “You slip in, Zeno, by the garden door – I'm quite aware of it – you filch my doctrines and give them a Phoenician make-up.” A dialectician once showed him seven logical forms concerned with the sophism known as “The Reaper,” and Zeno asked him how much he wanted for them. Being told a hundred drachmas, he promptly paid two hundred: to such lengths would he go in his love of learning. They say too that he first introduced the word Duty and wrote a treatise on the subject. It is said, moreover, that he corrected Hesiod's lines thus: He is best of all men who follows good advice: good too is he who finds out all things for himself.
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§ 7.26 The reason he gave for this was that the man capable of giving a proper hearing to what is said and profiting by it was superior to him who discovers everything himself. For the one had merely a right apprehension, the other in obeying good counsel superadded conduct. When he was asked why he, though so austere, relaxed at a drinking-party, he said, “Lupins too are bitter, but when they are soaked become sweet.” Hecato too in the second book of his Anecdotes says that he indulged freely at such gatherings. And he would say, “Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue.” “Well-being is attained by little and little, and nevertheless it is no little thing itself.” [Others attribute this to Socrates.]
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§ 7.27 He showed the utmost endurance, and the greatest frugality; the food he used required no fire to dress, and the cloak he wore was thin. Hence it was said of him: The cold of winter and the ceaseless rain Come powerless against him: weak the dart Of the fierce summer sun or racking pain To bend that iron frame. He stands apart Unspoiled by public feast and jollity: Patient, unwearied night and day doth he Cling to his studies of philosophy. Nay more: the comic poets by their very jests at his expense praised him without intending it. Thus Philemon says in a play, Philosophers: This man adopts a new philosophy. He teaches to go hungry: yet he gets Disciples. One sole loaf of bread his food; His best dessert dried figs; water his drink. Others attribute these lines to Poseidippus. By this time he had almost become a proverb. At all events, “More temperate than Zeno the philosopher” was a current saying about him. Poseidippus also writes in his Men Transported: So that for ten whole days More temperate than Zeno's self he seemed.
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§ 7.28 And in very truth in this species of virtue and in dignity he surpassed all mankind, ay, and in happiness; for he was ninety-eight when he died and had enjoyed good health without an ailment to the last. Persaeus, however, in his ethical lectures makes him die at the age of seventy-two, having come to Athens at the age of twenty-two. But Apollonius says that he presided over the school for fifty-eight years. The manner of his death was as follows. As he was leaving the school he tripped and fell, breaking a toe. Striking the ground with his fist, he quoted the line from the Niobe: I come, I come, why dost thou call for me? and died on the spot through holding his breath.
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§ 7.29 The Athenians buried him in the Ceramicus and honoured him in the decrees already cited above, adding their testimony of his goodness. Here is the epitaph composed for him by Antipater of Sidon: Here lies great Zeno, dear to Citium, who scaled high Olympus, though he piled not Pelion on Ossa, nor toiled at the labours of Heracles, but this was the path he found out to the stars – the way of temperance alone.
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§ 7.30 Here too is another by Zenodotus the Stoic, a pupil of Diogenes: Thou madest self-sufficiency thy rule, Eschewing haughty wealth, O godlike Zeno, With aspect grave and hoary brow serene. A manly doctrine thine: and by thy prudence With much toil thou didst found a great new school, Chaste parent of unfearing liberty. And if thy native country was Phoenicia, What need to slight thee? came not Cadmus thence, Who gave to Greece her books and art of writing? And Athenaeus the epigrammatist speaks of all the Stoics in common as follows: O ye who've learnt the doctrines of the Stoa And have committed to your books divine The best of human learning, teaching men That the mind's virtue is the only good! She only it is who keeps the lives of men And cities, – safer than high gates and walls. But those who place their happiness in pleasure Are led by the least worthy of the Muses.
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§ 7.31 We have ourselves mentioned the manner of Zeno's death in the Pammetros (a collection of poems in various metres): The story goes that Zeno of Citium after enduring many hardships by reason of old age was set free, some say by ceasing to take food; others say that once when he had tripped he beat with his hand upon the earth and cried, “I come of my own accord; why then call me?” For there are some who hold this to have been the manner of his death. So much then concerning his death. Demetrius the Magnesian, in his work on Men of the Same Name, says of him: his father, Mnaseas, being a merchant often went to Athens and brought away many books about Socrates for Zeno while still a boy.
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§ 7.32 Hence he had been well trained even before he left his native place. And thus it came about that on his arrival at Athens he attached himself to Crates. And it seems, he adds, that, when the rest were at a loss how to express their views, Zeno framed a definition of the end. They say that he was in the habit of swearing by “capers” just as Socrates used to swear by “the dog.” Some there are, and among them Cassius the Sceptic and his disciples, who accuse Zeno at length. Their first count is that in the beginning of his Republic he pronounced the ordinary education useless: the next is that he applies to all men who are not virtuous the opprobrious epithets of foemen, enemies, slaves, and aliens to one another, parents to children, brothers to brothers, friends to friends.
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§ 7.33 Again, in the Republic, making an invidious contrast, he declares the good alone to be true citizens or friends or kindred or free men; and accordingly in the view of the Stoics parents and children are enemies, not being wise. Again, it is objected, in the Republic he lays down community of wives, and at line 200 prohibits the building of sanctuaries, law-courts and gymnasia in cities; while as regards a currency he writes that we should not think it need be introduced either for purposes of exchange or for travelling abroad. Further, he bids men and women wear the same dress and keep no part of the body entirely covered.
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§ 7.34 That the Republic is the work of Zeno is attested by Chrysippus in his De Republica. And he discussed amatory subjects in the beginning of that book of his which is entitled “The Art of Love.” Moreover, he writes much the same in his Interludes. So much for the criticisms to be found not only in Cassius but in Isidorus of Pergamum, the rhetorician. Isidorus likewise affirms that the passages disapproved by the school were expunged from his works by Athenodorus the Stoic, who was in charge of the Pergamene library; and that afterwards, when Athenodorus was detected and compromised, they were replaced. So much concerning the passages in his writings which are regarded as spurious.
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§ 7.35 There have been eight persons of the name of Zeno. First the Eleatic, of whom more hereafter; the second our present subject; the third a Rhodian who wrote a local history in one volume; the fourth a historian who wrote about the expedition of Pyrrhus into Italy and Sicily, and besides that an epitome of the political history of Rome and Carthage; the fifth a pupil of Chrysippus, who left few writings but many disciples; the sixth a physician of the school of Herophilus, a competent practitioner, though a poor writer; the seventh a grammarian, who besides other writings has left behind him epigrams; the eighth a Sidonian by birth and an Epicurean philosopher, lucid both in thinking and in style.
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§ 7.36 Of the many disciples of Zeno the following are the most famous: Persaeus, son of Demetrius, of Citium, whom some call a pupil and others one of the household, one of those sent him by Antigonus to act as secretary; he had been tutor to Antigonus's son Halcyoneus. And Antigonus once, wishing to make trial of him, caused some false news to be brought to him that his estate had been ravaged by the enemy, and as his countenance fell, “Do you see,” said he, “that wealth is not a matter of indifference?” The following works are by Persaeus: Of Kingship. The Spartan Constitution. Of Marriage. Of Impiety. Thyestes. Of Love. Exhortations. Interludes. Four books of Anecdotes. Memorabilia. A Reply to Plato's Laws in seven books.
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§ 7.37 Ariston, the son of Miltiades and a native of Chios, who introduced the doctrine of things morally indifferent; Herillus of Carthage, who affirmed knowledge to be the end; Dionysius, who became a renegade to the doctrine of pleasure, for owing to the severity of his ophthalmia he had no longer the nerve to call pain a thing indifferent: his native place was Heraclea; Sphaerus of Bosporus; Cleanthes, son of Phanias, of Assos, his successor in the school: him Zeno used to compare to hard waxen tablets which are difficult to write upon, but retain the characters written upon them. Sphaerus also became the pupil of Cleanthes after Zeno's death, and we shall have occasion to mention him in the Life of Cleanthes.
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§ 7.38 And furthermore the following according to Hippobotus were pupils of Zeno: Philonides of Thebes; Callippus of Corinth; Posidonius of Alexandria; Athenodorus of Soli; and Zeno of Sidon. I have decided to give a general account of all the Stoic doctrines in the life of Zeno because he was the founder of the School. I have already given a list of his numerous writings, in which he has spoken as has no other of the Stoics. And his tenets in general are as follows. In accordance with my usual practice a summary statement must suffice.
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§ 7.39 Philosophic doctrine, say the Stoics, falls into three parts: one physical, another ethical, and the third logical. Zeno of Citium was the first to make this division in his Exposition of Doctrine, and Chrysippus too did so in the first book of his Exposition of Doctrine and the first book of his Physics; and so too Apollodorus and Syllus in the first part of their Introductions to Stoic Doctrine, as also Eudromus in his Elementary Treatise on Ethics, Diogenes the Babylonian, and Posidonius. These parts are called by Apollodorus “Heads of Commonplace”; by Chrysippus and Eudromus specific divisions; by others generic divisions.
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§ 7.40 Philosophy, they say, is like an animal, Logic corresponding to the bones and sinews, Ethics to the fleshy parts, Physics to the soul. Another simile they use is that of an egg: the shell is Logic, next comes the white, Ethics, and the yolk in the centre is Physics. Or, again, they liken Philosophy to a fertile field: Logic being the encircling fence, Ethics the crop, Physics the soil or the trees. Or, again, to a city strongly walled and governed by reason. No single part, some Stoics declare, is independent of any other part, but all blend together. Nor was it usual to teach them separately. Others, however, start their course with Logic, go on to Physics, and finish with Ethics; and among those who so do are Zeno in his treatise On Exposition, Chrysippus, Archedemus and Eudromus.
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§ 7.41 Diogenes of Ptolemas, it is true, begins with Ethics; but Apollodorus puts Ethics second, while Panaetius and Posidonius begin with Physics, as stated by Phanias, the pupil of Posidonius, in the first book of his Lectures of Posidonius. Cleanthes makes not three, but six parts, Dialectic, Rhetoric, Ethics, Politics, Physics, Theology. But others say that these are divisions not of philosophic exposition, but of philosophy itself: so, for instance, Zeno of Tarsus. Some divide the logical part of the system into the two sciences of rhetoric and dialectic; while some would add that which deals with definitions and another part concerning canons or criteria: some, however, dispense with the part about definitions.
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§ 7.42 Now the part which deals with canons or criteria they admit as a means for the discovery of truth, since in the course of it they explain the different kinds of perceptions that we have. And similarly the part about definitions is accepted as a means of recognizing truth, inasmuch as things are apprehended by means of general notions. Further, by rhetoric they understand the science of speaking well on matters set forth by plain narrative, and by dialectic that of correctly discussing subjects by question and answer; hence their alternative definition of it as the science of statements true, false, and neither true nor false. Rhetoric itself, they say, has three divisions: deliberative, forensic, and panegyric.
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§ 7.43 Rhetoric according to them may be divided into invention of arguments, their expression in words, their arrangement, and delivery; and a rhetorical speech into introduction, narrative, replies to opponents, and peroration. Dialectic (they hold) falls under two heads: subjects of discourse and language. And the subjects fall under the following headings: presentations and the various products to which they give rise, propositions enunciated and their constituent subjects and predicates, and similar terms whether direct or reversed, genera and species, arguments too, moods, syllogisms and fallacies whether due to the subject matter or to the language;
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§ 7.44 these including both false and true and negative arguments, sorites and the like, whether defective, insoluble, or conclusive, and the fallacies known as the Veiled, or Horned, No man, and The Mowers. The second main head mentioned above as belonging to Dialectic is that of language, wherein are included written language and the parts of speech, with a discussion of errors in syntax and in single words, poetical diction, verbal ambiguities, euphony and music, and according to some writers chapters on terms, divisions, and style.
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§ 7.45 The study of syllogisms they declare to be of the greatest service, as showing us what is capable of yielding demonstration; and this contributes much to the formation of correct judgements, and their arrangement and retention in memory give a scientific character to our conception of things. An argument is in itself a whole containing premisses and conclusion, and an inference (or syllogism) is an inferential argument composed of these. Demonstration is an argument inferring by means of what is better apprehended something less clearly apprehended. A presentation (or mental impression) is an imprint on the soul: the name having been appropriately borrowed from the imprint made by the seal upon the wax.
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§ 7.46 There are two species of presentation, the one apprehending a real object, the other not. The former, which they take to be the test of reality, is defined as that which proceeds from a real object, agrees with that object itself, and has been imprinted seal-fashion and stamped upon the mind: the latter, or non-apprehending, that which does not proceed from any real object, or, if it does, fails to agree with the reality itself, not being clear or distinct. Dialectic, they said, is indispensable and is itself a virtue, embracing other particular virtues under it. Freedom from precipitancy is a knowledge when to give or withhold the mind's assent to impressions.
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§ 7.47 By wariness they mean a strong presumption against what at the moment seems probable, so as not to be taken in by it. Irrefutability is strength in argument so as not to be brought over by it to the opposite side. Earnestness (or absence of frivolity) is a habit of referring presentations to right reason. Knowledge itself they define either as unerring apprehension or as a habit or state which in reception of presentations cannot be shaken by argument. Without the study of dialectic, they say, the wise man cannot guard himself in argument so as never to fall; for it enables him to distinguish between truth and falsehood, and to discriminate what is merely plausible and what is ambiguously expressed, and without it he cannot methodically put questions and give answers.
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§ 7.48 Overhastiness in assertion affects the actual course of events, so that, unless we have our perceptions well trained, we are liable to fall into unseemly conduct and heedlessness; and in no other way will the wise man approve himself acute, nimblewitted, and generally skilful in argument; for it belongs to the same person to converse well and to argue well, to put questions to the purpose and to respond to the questions put; and all these qualifications are qualifications belonging to the skilled dialectician. Such is, summarily stated, the substance of their logical teaching. And in order to give it also in detail, let me now cite as much of it as comes within the scope of their introductory handbook. I will quote verbatim what Diocles the Magnesian says in his Synopsis of Philosophers. These are his words:
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§ 7.49 “The Stoics agree to put in the forefront the doctrine of presentation and sensation, inasmuch as the standard by which the truth of things is tested is generically a presentation, and again the theory of assent and that of apprehension and thought, which precedes all the rest, cannot be stated apart from presentation. For presentation comes first; then thought, which is capable of expressing itself, puts into the form of a proposition that which the subject receives from a presentation.”
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§ 7.50 There is a difference between the process and the outcome of presentation. The latter is a semblance in the mind such as may occur in sleep, while the former is the act of imprinting something on the soul, that is a process of change, as is set forth by Chrysippus in the second book of his treatise Of the Soul (De anima). For, says he, we must not take “impression” in the literal sense of the stamp of a seal, because it is impossible to suppose that a number of such impressions should be in one and the same spot at one and the same time. The presentation meant is that which comes from a real object, agrees with that object, and has been stamped, imprinted and pressed seal-fashion on the soul, as would not be the case if it came from an unreal object.
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§ 7.51 According to them some presentations are data of sense and others are not: the former are the impressions conveyed through one or more sense-organs; while the latter, which are not data of sense, are those received through the mind itself, as is the case with incorporeal things and all the other presentations which are received by reason. Of sensuous impressions some are from real objects and are accompanied by yielding and assent on our part. But there are also presentations that are appearances and no more, purporting, as it were, to come from real objects. Another division of presentations is into rational and irrational, the former being those of rational creatures, the latter those of the irrational. Those which are rational are processes of thought, while those which are irrational have no name. Again, some of our impressions are scientific, others unscientific: at all events a statue is viewed in a totally different way by the trained eye of a sculptor and by an ordinary man.
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§ 7.52 The Stoics apply the term sense or sensation (αἴσθησις) to three things: (1) the current passing from the principal part of the soul to the senses, (2) apprehension by means of the senses, (3) the apparatus of the sense-organs, in which some persons are deficient. Moreover, the activity of the sense-organs is itself also called sensation. According to them it is by sense that we apprehend black and white, rough and smooth, whereas it is by reason that we apprehend the conclusions of demonstration, for instance the existence of gods and their providence. General notions, indeed, are gained in the following ways: some by direct contact, some by resemblance, some by analogy, some by transposition, some by composition, and some by contrariety.
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§ 7.53 By incidence or direct contact have come our notions of sensible things; by resemblance notions whose origin is something before us, as the notion of Socrates which we get from his bust; while under notions derived from analogy come those which we get (1) by way of enlargement, like that of Tityos or the Cyclops, or (2) by way of diminution, like that of the Pygmy. And thus, too, the centre of the earth was originally conceived on the analogy of smaller spheres. Of notions obtained by transposition creatures with eyes on the chest would be an instance, while the centaur exemplifies those reached by composition, and death those due to contrariety. Furthermore, there are notions which imply a sort of transition to the realm of the imperceptible: such are those of space and of the meaning of terms. The notions of justice and goodness come by nature. Again, privation originates notions; for instance, that of the man without hands. Such are their tenets concerning presentation, sensation, and thought.
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§ 7.54 The standard of truth they declare to be the apprehending presentation, i.e. that which comes from a real object – according to Chrysippus in the twelfth book of his Physics and to Antipater and Apollodorus. Boethus, on the other hand, admits a plurality of standards, namely intelligence, sense-perception, appetency, and knowledge; while Chrysippus in the first book of his Exposition of Doctrine contradicts himself and declares that sensation and preconception are the only standards, preconception being a general notion which comes by the gift of nature (an innate conception of universals or general concepts). Again, certain others of the older Stoics make Right Reason the standard; so also does Posidonius in his treatise On the Standard.
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§ 7.55 In their theory of dialectic most of them see fit to take as their starting-point the topic of voice. Now voice is a percussion of the air or the proper object of the sense of hearing, as Diogenes the Babylonian says in his handbook On Voice. While the voice or cry of an animal is just a percussion of air brought about by natural impulse, man's voice is articulate and, as Diogenes puts it, an utterance of reason, having the quality of coming to maturity at the age of fourteen. Furthermore, voice according to the Stoics is something corporeal: I may cite for this Archedemus in his treatise On Voice, Diogenes, Antipater and Chrysippus in the second book of his Physics.
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§ 7.56 For whatever produces an effect is body; and voice, as it proceeds from those who utter it to those who hear it, does produce an effect. Reduced to writing, what was voice becomes a verbal expression, as “day”; so says Diogenes. A statement or proposition is speech that issues from the mind and signifies something, e.g. “It is day.” Dialect (διάλεκτος) means a variety of speech which is stamped on one part of the Greek world as distinct from another, or on the Greeks as distinct from other races; or, again, it means a form peculiar to some particular region, that is to say, it has a certain linguistic quality; e.g. in Attic the word for “sea” is not θάλασσα but θάλαττα, and in Ionic “day” is not ἡμέρα but ἡμέρη. Elements of language are the four-and-twenty letters. “Letter,” however, has three meanings: (1) the particular sound or element of speech; (2) its written symbol or character; (3) its name, as Alpha is the name of the sound A.

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by Robert Drew Hicks (1850-1929). Composed ca. 240 CE. Licence: public domain. Source.