Diogenes Laërtius
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
BOOK II
p145 CHAPTER 4
ARCHELAUS1 (c. 450 B.C.)
There have been three other men who bore the name of Archelaus: the topographer who described the countries traversed by Alexander; the author p149 of a treatise on Natural Curiosities; and lastly a rhetorician who wrote a handbook on his art.
The Loeb Editor's Notes:
1 Diels (Dox. Gr. p139) compares Hippolytus (Ref. Haer. I.9.1‑5); Aëtius, I.3.6; Theophrastus, Phys. Opin. Fr. 4.
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2 οὗτος. This statement is not really applicable to Archelaus. Clement of Alexandria in Strom. I.63 understood it of Anaxagoras: μέθ’ οὗ [Anaximenes] Ἀναξαγόρας Ἡγησιβούλου Κλαζομένιος. οὗτος μετήγαγεν ἀπὸ τῆς Ἰωνίας Ἀθήναζε τὴν διατριβήν.
Diogenes Laërtius
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
BOOK II
p149 CHAPTER 5
SOCRATES (469‑399 B.C.)
This new play of Euripides is The Phrygians; and Socrates provides the wood for frying.2
And again he calls Euripides "an engine riveted by Socrates." And Callias in The Captives:3
A. Pray why so solemn, why this lofty air?
B. I've every right: I'm helped by Socrates.
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Aristophanes4 in The Clouds:
'Tis he composes for Euripides
Those clever plays, much sound and little sense.
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p151From these diverged the sculptor, a prater about laws, the enchanter of Greece, inventor of subtle arguments, the sneerer who mocked at fine speeches, half-Attic in his mock humility.
He was formidable in public speaking, according to Idomeneus; moreover, as Xenophon tells us, the Thirty forbade him to teach the art of words.
20 And Aristophanes attacks him in his plays for making the worse appear the better reason. For Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History says Socrates and his pupil Aeschines were the first to teach rhetoric; and this is confirmed by Idomeneus in his work on the Socratic circle.6 Again, he was the first who discoursed on the conduct of life, and the first philosopher who was tried and put to death. Aristoxenus, the son of Spintharus, says of him that he made money; he would at all events invest sums, collect the interest accruing, and then, when this was expended, put out the principal again.
Demetrius of Byzantium relates that Crito removed him from his workshop and educated him, being struck by his beauty of soul;
21 that he discussed moral questions in the workshops and the market-place, being convinced that the study of nature is no concern of ours; and that he claimed that his inquiries embraced
Whatso'er is good or evil in an house;7
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that frequently, owing to his vehemence in argument, men set upon him with their fists or tore his hair out; and that for the most part he was despised and laughed at, yet bore all this ill‑usage patiently. So much so that, when he had been kicked, and p153 some one expressed surprise at his taking it so quietly, Socrates rejoined, "Should I have taken the law of a donkey, supposing that he had kicked me?" Thus far Demetrius.
He took care to exercise his body and kept in good condition. At all events he served on the expedition to Amphipolis: and when in the battle of Delium Xenophon had fallen from his horse, he stepped in and saved his life.
23 For in the general flight of the Athenians he personally retired at his ease, quietly turning round from time to time and ready to defend himself if he were attacked. Again, he served at Potidaea, whither he had gone by sea, as land communications were interrupted by the war;8 and while there he is said to have remained a whole night without changing his position, and to have won the prize of valour. But he resigned it to Alcibiades, for whom he cherished the tenderest affection, according to Aristippus in the fourth book of his treatise On the Luxury of the Ancients. Ion of p155 Chios relates that in his youth he visited Samos in the company of Archelaus; and Aristotle that he went to Delphi; he went also to the Isthmus, according to Favorinus in the first book of his Memorabilia.
He was a man of great independence and dignity of character. Pamphila in the seventh book of her Commentaries tells how Alcibiades once offered him a large site on which to build a house; but he replied, "Suppose, then, I wanted shoes and you offered me a whole hide to make a pair with, would it not be ridiculous in me to take it?"
25 Often when he looked at the multitude of wares exposed for sale, he would say to himself, "How many things I can do without!" And he would continually recite the lines:
The purple robe and silver's shine
More fits an actor's need than mine.9
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He showed his contempt for Archelaus of Macedon and Scopas of Cranon and Eurylochus of Larissa by refusing to accept their presents or to go to their court. He was so orderly in his way of life that on p157 several occasions when pestilence broke out in Athens he was the only man who escaped infection.
O man that justly desirest great wisdom, how blessed will be thy life amongst Athenians and Greeks, retentive of memory and thinker that thou art, with endurance of toil for thy character: never art thou weary whether standing or walking, p159 never numb with cold, never hungry for breakfast; from wine and from gross feeding and all other frivolities thou dost turn away.
A. You come to join us, Socrates, worthiest of a small band and emptiest by far? You are a robust fellow. Where can we get you a proper coat?
B. Your sorry plight is an insult to the cobblers.
A. And yet, hungry as he is, the man has never stooped to flatter.
B. Your sorry plight is an insult to the cobblers.
A. And yet, hungry as he is, the man has never stooped to flatter.
This disdainful, lofty spirit of his is also noticed by Aristophanes when he says:12
Because you stalk along the streets, rolling your eyes, and endure, barefoot, many a hardship, and gaze up at us [the clouds].
And yet at times he would even put on fine clothes to suit the occasion, as in Plato's Symposium,13 where he is on his way to Agathon's house.
He used to say it was strange that, if you asked a man how many sheep he had, he could easily tell you the precise number; whereas he could not name his friends or say how many he had, so slight was the value he set upon them. Seeing Euclides keenly interested in eristic arguments, he said to him: "You will be able to get on with sophists, Euclides, but with men not at all." For he thought there was no use to this sort of hair-splitting, as Plato shows us in the Euthydemus.
'Tis best to let her roam at will,15
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he got up and left the theatre. For he said it was absurd to make a hue and cry about a slave who could not be found, and to allow virtue to perish in this way. Some one asked him whether he should marry or not, and received the reply, "Whichever you do you will repent it." He used to express his astonishment that the sculptors of marble statues p165 should take pains to make the block of marble into a perfect likeness of a man, and should take no pains about themselves lest they should turn out mere blocks, not men. He recommended to the young the constant use of the mirror, to the end that handsome men might acquire a corresponding behaviour, and ugly men conceal their defects by education.
On the third day thou shalt come to the fertile fields of Phthia;
and he told Aeschines, "On the third day I shall die."17 When he was about to drink the hemlock p167 Apollodorus offered him a beautiful garment to die in: "What," said he, "is my own good enough to live in but not to die in?" When he was told that So‑and‑so spoke ill of him, he replied, "True, for he has never learnt to speak well."c
36 When Antisthenes turned his cloak so that the tear in it came into view, "I see," said he, "your vanity through your cloak." To one who said, "Don't you find so‑and‑so very offensive?" his reply was, "No, for it takes two to make a quarrel." We ought not to object, he used to say, to be subjects for the Comic poets, for if they satirize our faults they will do us good, and if not they do not touch us. When Xanthippe first scolded him and then drenched him with water, his rejoinder was, "Did I not say that Xanthippe's thunder would end in rain?" When Alcibiades declared that the scolding of Xanthippe was intolerable, "Nay, I have got used to it," said he, "as to the continued rattle of a windlass.
37 And you do not mind the cackle of geese." "No," replied Alcibiades, "but they furnish me with eggs and goslings." "And Xanthippe," said Socrates, "is the mother of my children." When she tore his coat off his back in the market-place and his acquaintances advised him to hit back, "Yes, by Zeus," said he, "in order that while we are sparring each of you may join in with 'Go it, Socrates!' 'Well done, Xanthippe!' " He said he lived with a shrew, as horsemen are fond of spirited horses, "but just as, when they have mastered these, they can easily cope with the rest, so I in the society of Xanthippe shall learn to adapt myself to the rest of the world."
These and the like were his words and deeds, to p169 which the Pythian priestess bore testimony when she gave Chaerephon the famous response:
Of all men living Socrates most wise.
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The indictment was brought by Meletus, and the speech was delivered by Polyeuctus, according to Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History. The speech was written by Polycrates the sophist, according to Hermippus, but some say that it was by Anytus. Lycon the demagogue had made all the needful preparations.19
Justus of Tiberias in his book entitled The Wreath says that in the course of the trial Plato mounted the platform and began: "Though I am the youngest, men of Athens, of all who ever rose to address you" — whereupon the judges shouted out, "Get down! Get down!" When therefore he was condemned by 281 votes more than those given for acquittal, and when the judged were assessing what he would suffer or what fine he should pay, he proposed to pay 25 drachmae. Eubulides indeed says he offered 100.
42 When this caused an uproar among the judges, he said, "Considering my services, I assess the penalty at maintenance in the Prytaneum at the public expense."
Sentence of death was passed, with an accession of eighty fresh votes. He was put in prison, and a p173 few days afterwards drank the hemlock, after much noble discourse which Plato records in the Phaedo. Further, according to some, he composed a paean beginning:
All hail, Apollo! Delos' lord!
Hail Artemis, ye noble pair!
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Dionysodorus denies that he wrote the paean. He also composed a fable of Aesop, not very skilfully, beginning:20
"Judge not, ye men of Corinth," Aesop cried,
"Of virtue as the jury-courts decide."
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p175 He was born, according to Apollodorus in his Chronology, in the archonship of Apsephion, in the fourth year of the 77th Olympiad,23 on the 6th day of the month of Thargelion, when the Athenians purify their city, which according to the Delians is the birthday of Artemis. He died in the first year of the 95th Olympiad24 at the age of seventy. With this Demetrius of Phalerum agrees; but some say he was sixty when he died.
In my opinion Socrates discoursed on physics as well as on ethics, since he hods some conversations about providence, even according to Xenophon, who, however, declares that he only discussed ethics. But Plato, after mentioning Anaxagoras and certain other physicists in the Apology,26 treats for his own part themes which Socrates disowned, although he puts everything into the mouth of Socrates.
Aristotle relates that a magician came from Syria to Athens and, among other evils with which he threatened Socrates, predicted that he would come to a violent end.
Drink then, being in Zeus's palace, O Socrates; for truly did the god pronounce thee wise, being wisdom himself; for when thou didst frankly take the hemlock at the hands of the Athenians, they themselves drained it as it passed thy lips.
He was sharply criticized, according to Aristotle p177 in his third book On Poetry, by a certain Antilochus of Lemnos, and by Antiphon the soothsayer, just as Pythagoras was by Cylon of Croton, or as Homer was assailed in his lifetime by Syagrus, and after his death by Xenophanes of Colophon. So too Hesiod was criticized in his lifetime by Cercops, and after his death by the aforesaid Xenophanes; Pindar by Amphimenes of Cos; Thales by Pherecydes; Bias by Salarus of Priene; Pittacus by Antimenidas and Alcaeus; Anaxagoras by Sosibius; and Simonides by Timocreon.
Of those who bear the name of Socrates there is one, a historian, who wrote a geographical work upon Argos; another, a Peripatetic philosopher of Bithynia; a third, a poet who wrote epigrams; lastly, Socrates of Cos, who wrote on the names of the gods.
The Loeb Editor's Notes:
1 So Cobet for vulgate Mnesilochus, returned by Meineke, C. G. F. II.371.
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3 Meineke, C. G. F. II.739.
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4 A mistake for Teleclides: see Meineke, Comicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, II p371 sq. Dindorf conjectured that τὰς σωκρατογόμφους belongs to the same passage of Teleclides' Clouds and might well follow σοφάς.
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5 Fr. 25 D.
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6 Possibly the reference is to the same citation as in § 19 which Diogenes Laertius may have found independently in two of his authorities. Diogenes himself notices the agreement between Favorinus and Idomeneus of Lampsacus, a much earlier author, for he was a disciple of Epicurus, whom he knew from 310 to 270 B.C.
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7 Hom. Od. IV.392.
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8 The reason assigned for an expedition to Potidaea by sea will not hold. Communications between Athens and Thrace were, as a rule, made by sea. Moreover, the siege of Potidaea began in 432 B.C., the year before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war. It has been suggested that the words διὰ θαλάττης . . . κωλύοντος should properly follow Ἰσθμόν eight lines lower down. If any Athenian wished to attend the Isthmian games during the early part of the Peloponnesian war, it was probably safer not to risk the land journey owing to the bitter hostility of the Megarians.
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9 Stobaeus, Florilegium, LVI.15, attributes these and three preceding lines to Philemon, the well-known poet of the NewComedy. If Philemon wrote them, Socrates cannot have recited them, however well they express his temper.
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10 Clouds, 412‑417.
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12 Clouds, 362.
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13 174A.
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14 Mem. III.7.
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15 This line, now found in Eur. Electra, 39, may have come into our text from the lost play Auge: cf. Nauck, T. G. F.2, p437, s.v. ΑΥΓΗ.
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16 Hom. Il. IX.363.
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17 The proposal that Socrates should escape from prison was attributed to Aeschines as well as to Crito (see below, § 60). The Homeric citation occurs in Plato's Crito, 44B.
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18 95A.
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19 The confusion in the last sentence of §38 is due to the insertion in the wrong place of two extracts, one from Favorinus and the other from Hermippus. When these are removed, the parts assigned to the three accusers, Meletus, Anytus and Lycon, become clear: ἀπηνέγκατο μὲν οὖν τὴν γραφὴν ὁ Μέλητος, εἶπε δὲ τὴν δίκην Ἄνυτος, προητοίμασε δὲ πάντα Λύκων ὁ δημαγωγόν.
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20 Anth. Plan. IV.16.
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21 Most probably Heraclides of Pontus. This remarkable assertion may have occurred in one of his dialogues, and was perhaps not meant to be taken seriously.
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23 469‑468 B.C.
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24 400‑399 B.C.
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25 480‑479 B.C.
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26 26D.
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28 The text would perhaps be clearer if we transposed thus: τῶν δὲ διαδεξαμένων αὐτὸν οἱ κορυφαιότατοι μὲν Πλάτων, Ξενοφῶν, Ἀντισθένης. τῶν δὲ <λεγομένων Σωκρατικῶν> οἱ διασημότατοι τέσσαρες, Αἰσχίνης, Φαίδων, Εὐκλείδης, Ἀρίστιππος κτλ. . . . εἶθ’ οὕτω περὶ Πλάτωνος· ἐπεὶ κατάρχει τῶν <φερομένων> δέκα αἱρέσεων. The division of moral philosophers into ten schools was mentioned above, I.18.
Thayer's Notes:
a As elsewhere in this L. C. L. translation of Diogenes, "was very fond of him" is a bowdlerization of the Greek, which has "whose boy-lover he was."
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