The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius (best free ebook reader txt) 📕

brought him an ox to sacrifice, and fastened it there, he for a long time did not discover it, until his father having roused him, on the pretext of the sacrifice, told him what he had done with the ox.

He further asserts that it is well known that he went to Athens, and as he despised glory, he did not desire to be known; and that he became acquainted with Socrates, without Socrates knowing who he was. “For I came,” says he, “to Athens, and no one knew me.”⁠—“If,” says Thrasylus, “the Rivals is really the work of Plato, then Democritus must be the anonymous interlocutor, who is introduced in that dialogue, besides Oenopides and Anaxagoras, the one I mean who, in the conversation with Socrates, is arguing about philosophy, and whom the philosopher tells that a philosopher resembles a conqueror in the Pentathlum.” And he was veritably a master of five branches of philosophy. For he was thoroughly acquainted with physics, and ethics, and mathematics, and the whole encyclic system, and indeed he was thoroughly experienced and skillful in every kind of art. He it was who was the author of the saying: “Speech is the shadow of action.” But Demetrius Phalereus, in his Defense of Socrates, affirms that he never came to Athens at all. And that is a still stranger circumstance than any, if he despised so important a city, not wishing to derive glory from the place in which he was, but preferring rather himself to invest the place with glory.

And it is evident from his writings what sort of man he was. “He seems,” says Thrasylus, “to have been also an admirer of the Pythagoreans.” And he mentions Pythagoras himself, speaking of him with admiration, in the treatise which is inscribed with his name. And he appears to have derived all his doctrines from him to such a degree, that one would have thought that he had been his pupil, if the difference of time did not prevent it. At all events, Glaucus of Rhegium, who was a contemporary of his, affirms that he was a pupil of some of the Pythagorean school.

And Apollodorus of Cyzicus says that he was intimate with Philolaus; “He used to practice himself,” says Antisthenes, “in testing perceptions in various manners; sometimes retiring into solitary places, and spending his time even among tombs.”

And he further adds that when he returned from his travels he lived in a most humble manner, like a man who had spent all his property, and that on account of his poverty he was supported by his brother Damasus. But when he had foretold some future event which happened as he had predicted, and had in consequence become famous, he was for all the rest of his life thought worthy of almost divine honors by the generality of people. And as there was a law that a man who had squandered the whole of his patrimony should not be allowed funeral rites in his country, Antisthenes says that he, being aware of this law and not wishing to be exposed to the calumnies of those who envied him and would be glad to accuse him, recited to the people his work called the Great World, which is far superior to all his other writings, and that as a reward for it he was presented with five hundred talents; and not only that, but he also had some brazen statues erected in his honor. And when he died, he was buried at the public expense; after having attained the age of more than a hundred years. But Demetrius says that it was his relations who read the Great World, and that they were presented with a hundred talents only; and Hippobotus coincides in this statement.

And Aristoxenus, in his Historic Commentaries, says that Plato wished to burn all the writings of Democritus that he was able to collect; but that Amyclas and Cleinias, the Pythagoreans, prevented him, as it would do no good, for that copies of his books were already in many hands. And it is plain that that was the case; for Plato, who mentions nearly all the ancient philosophers, nowhere speaks of Democritus, not even in those passages where he has occasion to contradict his theories; evidently, because he said that if he did, he would be showing his disagreement with the best of all philosophers; a man whom even Timon praises in the following terms:

Like that Democritus, wisest of men,
Sage ruler of his speech; profound converser,
Whose works I love to read among the first.

But he was, according to the statement made by himself in the Little World, a youth when Anaxagoras was an old man, being forty years younger than he was. And he says that he composed the Little World seven hundred and thirty years after the capture of Troy. And he must have been born, according to the account given by Apollodorus in his Chronicles, in the eightieth olympiad; but, as Thrasylus says, in his work entitled the Events, which took place before the reading of the books of Democritus, in the third year of the seventy-seventh olympiad, being, as it is there stated, one year older than Socrates. He must therefore have been a contemporary of Archelaus, the pupil of Anaxagoras, and of Oenopides, for he makes mention of this letter. He also speaks of the theories of Parmenides and Zeno, on the subject of the One, as they were the men of the highest reputation in histories, and he also speaks of Protagoras of Abdera, who confessedly lived at the same time as Socrates.

Athenodorus tells us, in the eighth book of his Conversations, that once, when Hippocrates came to see him, he ordered some milk to be brought; and that, when he saw the milk, he said that it was the milk of a black goat, with her first kid; on which Hippocrates marvelled at his accurate knowledge. Also,