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BOHN’S CLASSICAL LIBRARY

DIOGENES LAËRTIUS




    G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.

    LONDON: PORTUGAL ST., KINGSWAY
    CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO.
    NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
    BOMBAY: A. H. WHEELER AND CO.




                        THE LIVES AND OPINIONS OF
                          EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS

                                   BY
                           DIOGENES LAËRTIUS.

                          LITERALLY TRANSLATED
                          BY C. D. YONGE, M.A.,
               _Fellow of the Royal University of London;
            Regius Professor of English Literature and Modern
                   History, Queen’s College, Belfast._

                             [Illustration]

                                 LONDON
                          G. BELL AND SONS, LTD
                                  1915

                  [_Reprinted from Stereotype plates._]




CONTENTS.


                                    PAGE.

    PREFACE                            1

                BOOK I.

    INTRODUCTION                       3
    THALES                            14
    SOLON                             23
    CHILO                             32
    PITTACUS                          35
    BIAS                              38
    CLEOBULUS                         41
    PERIANDER                         43
    ANACHARSIS, THE SCYTHIAN          46
    MYSON                             49
    EPIMENIDES                        50
    PHERECYDES                        53

               BOOK II.

    ANAXIMANDER                       57
    ANAXIMENES                        57
    ARCHELAUS                         62
    SOCRATES                          63
    XENOPHON                          75
    ÆSCHINES                          79
    ARISTIPPUS                        81
    PHÆDO                             96
    EUCLIDES                          97
    STILPO                           100
    CRITO                            103
    SIMON                            104
    GLAUCO                           104
    SIMIAS                           105
    CEBES                            105
    MENEDEMUS                        105

               BOOK III.

    PLATO                            113

               BOOK IV.

    SPEUSIPPUS                       152
    XENOCRATES                       154
    POLEMO                           158
    CRATES                           160
    CRANTOR                          161
    ARCESILAUS                       163
    BION                             171
    LACYDES                          176
    CARNEADES                        177
    CLITOMACHUS                      178

                BOOK V.

    ARISTOTLE                        181
    THEOPHRASTUS                     194
    STRATO                           202
    LYCON                            205
    DEMETRIUS                        209
    HERACLIDES                       213

               BOOK VI.

    ANTISTHENES                      217
    DIOGENES                         224
    MONIMUS                          248
    ONESICRITUS                      249
    CRATES                           249
    METROCLES                        253
    HIPPARCHIA                       254
    MENIPPUS                         256
    MENEDEMUS                        257

               BOOK VII.

    ZENO                             259
    ARISTON                          318
    HERILLUS                         320
    DIONYSIUS                        321
    CLEANTHES                        322
    SPHÆRUS                          326
    CHRYSIPPUS                       327

              BOOK VIII.

    PYTHAGORAS                       338
    EMPEDOCLES                       359
    EPICHARMUS                       368
    ARCHYTAS                         369
    ALCMÆON                          371
    HIPPASUS                         371
    PHILOLAUS                        372
    EUDOXUS                          372

               BOOK IX.

    HERACLITUS                       376
    XENOPHANES                       382
    PARMENIDES                       384
    MELISSUS                         386
    ZENO, THE ELEATIC                386
    LEUCIPPUS                        388
    DEMOCRITUS                       390
    PROTAGORAS                       397
    DIOGENES, OF APOLLONIA           400
    ANAXARCHUS                       400
    PYRRHO                           402
    TIMON                            420

                BOOK X.

    EPICURUS                         424




PREFACE.


Diogenes, the author of the following work, was a native (as is generally
believed) of Laërte, in Cilicia, from which circumstance he derived the
cognomen of Laërtius. Little is known of him personally, nor is even the
age in which he lived very clearly ascertained. But as Plutarch, Sextus
Empiricus, and Saturninus are among the writers whom he quotes, he is
generally believed to have lived near the end of the second century of
our era: although some place him in the time of Alexander Severus, and
others as late as Constantine. His work consists of ten books, variously
called: The Lives of Philosophers, A History of Philosophy, and The Lives
of Sophists. From internal evidence (iii. 47, 29), we learn that he wrote
it for a noble lady (according to some, Arria; according to others,
Julia, the Empress of Severus), who occupied herself with the study of
philosophy, and especially of Plato.

Diogenes Laërtius divides the philosophy of the Greeks into the Ionic,
beginning with Anaximander, and ending with Theophrastus (in which class,
he includes the Socratic philosophy and all its various ramifications);
and the Italian, beginning with Pythagoras, and ending with Epicurus, in
which he includes the Eleatics, as also Heraclitus and the Sceptics. From
the minute consideration which he devotes to Epicurus and his system, it
has been supposed that he himself belonged to that school.

His work is the chief source of information we possess concerning the
history of Greek philosophy, and is the foundation of nearly all the
modern treatises on that subject; some of the most important of which are
little more than translations or amplifications of it. It is valuable,
as containing a copious collection of anecdotes illustrative of the life
and manners of the Greeks; but he has not always been very careful in
his selection, and in some parts there is a confusion in his statements
that makes them scarcely intelligible. These faults have led some critics
to consider the work as it now exists merely a mutilated abridgment of
the original. Breslæus, who in the thirteenth century, wrote a Treatise
on the Lives and Manners of the Philosophers, quotes many anecdotes and
sayings, which seem to be derived from Diogenes, but which are not to be
found in our present text; whence Schneider concludes that he had a very
different and far more complete copy than has come down to us.

The text used in the following translation is chiefly that of Huebner, as
published at Leipsic, A.D. 1828.




LIVES AND OPINIONS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS.




BOOK I.


INTRODUCTION.

I. Some say that the study of philosophy originated with the barbarians.
In that among the Persians there existed the Magi,[1] and among
the Babylonians or Assyrians the Chaldæi,[2] among the Indians the
Gymnosophistæ,[3] and among the Celts and Gauls men who were called
Druids[4] and Semnothei, as Aristotle relates in his book on Magic,
and Sotion in the twenty-third book of his Succession of Philosophers.
Besides those men there were the Phœnician Ochus, the Thracian
Zamolxis,[5] and the Libyan Atlas. For the Egyptians say that Vulcan
was the son of Nilus, and that he was the author of philosophy, in which
those who were especially eminent