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

And the epigram cannot possibly be by Homer, for he lived many years, as it is said, before Midas.

There is also the following enigma quoted in the Commentaries of Pamphila, as the work of Cleobulus:

There was one father and he had twelve daughters,
Each of his daughters had twice thirty children.
But most unlike in figure and complexion;
For some were white, and others black to view,
And though immortal they all taste of death.

And the solution is, “the year.”

Of his apothegms, the following are the most celebrated: “Ignorance and talkativeness bear the chief sway among men. Opportunity will be the most powerful. Cherish not a thought. Do not be fickle, or ungrateful.” He used to say too that men ought to give their daughters in marriage while they were girls in age, but women in sense; as indicating by this that girls ought to be well educated. Another of his sayings was that one ought to serve a friend that he may become a greater friend; and an enemy, to make him a friend. And that one ought to guard against giving one’s friends occasion to blame one, and one’s enemies opportunity of plotting against one. Also, when a man goes out of his house, he should consider what he is going to do: and when he comes home again he should consider what he has done. He used also to advise men to keep their bodies in health by exercise.⁠—To be fond of hearing rather than of talking.⁠—To be fond of learning rather than unwilling to learn.⁠—To speak well of people.⁠—To seek virtue and eschew vice.⁠—To avoid injustice.⁠—To give the best advice in one’s power to one’s country.⁠—To be superior to pleasure.⁠—To do nothing by force.⁠—To instruct one’s children.⁠—To be ready for reconciliation after quarrels.⁠—Not to caress one’s wife, nor to quarrel with her when strangers are present, for that to do the one is a sign of folly, and to do the latter is downright madness.⁠—Not to chastise a servant while elated with drink, for so doing one will appear to be drunk oneself.⁠—To marry from among one’s equals, for if one takes a wife of a higher rank than oneself, one will have one’s connections for one’s masters.⁠—Not to laugh at those who are being reproved, for so one will be detested by them.⁠—Be not haughty when prosperous.⁠—Be not desponding when in difficulties.⁠—Learn to bear the changes of fortune with magnanimity.

And he died at a great age, having lived seventy years, and this inscription was put over him:

His country, Lindus, this fair seagirt city
Bewails wise Cleobulus here entombed.

One of his sayings was: “Moderation is the best thing.” He also wrote a letter to Solon in these terms:

Cleobulus to Solon

You have many friends, and a home everywhere, but yet I think that Lindus will be the most agreeable habitation for Solon, since it enjoys a democratic government, and it is a maritime island, and whoever dwells in it has nothing to fear from Pisistratus, and you will have friends flock to you from all quarters.

Periander was a Corinthian, the son of Cypselus, of the family of the Heraclidae. He married Lyside (whom he himself called Melissa), the daughter of Procles the tyrant of Epidaurus, and of Eristhenea the daughter of Aristocrates, and sister of Aristodemus, who governed nearly all Arcadia, as Heraclides Ponticus says in his Treatise on Dominion, and had by her two sons Cypselus and Lycophron, the younger of whom was clever boy, but the elder was deficient in intellect. At a subsequent period he in a rage either kicked or threw his wife downstairs when she was pregnant, and so killed her, being wrought upon by the false accusations of his concubines, whom he afterwards burnt alive. And the child, whose name was Lycophron, he sent away to Corcyra because he grieved for his mother.

But afterwards, when he was now extremely old, he sent for him back again, in order that he might succeed to the tyranny. But the Corcyreans, anticipating his intention, put him to death, at which he was greatly enraged, and sent their children to Corcyra to be made eunuchs of; and when the ship came near to Samos, the youths, having made supplications to Juno, were saved by the Samians. And he fell into despondency and died, being eighty years old. Sosicrates says that he died forty-one years before Croesus, in the last year of the forty-eighth Olympiad. Herodotus, in the first book of his History, says that he was connected by ties of hospitality with Thrasybulus the tyrant of Miletus. And Aristippus, in the first book of his Treatise on Ancient Luxury, tells the following story of him: that his mother Cratea fell in love with him, and introduced herself secretly into his bed; and he was delighted, but when the truth was discovered he became very oppressive to all his subjects, because he was grieved at the discovery. Ephorus relates that he made a vow that, if he gained the victory at Olympia in the chariot race, he would dedicate a golden statue to the God. Accordingly he gained the victory; but being in want of gold, and seeing the women at some national festival beautifully adorned, he took away their golden ornaments, and then sent the offering which he had vowed.

But some writers say that he was anxious that his tomb should not be known, and that with that object he adopted the following contrivance: He ordered two young men to go out by night, indicating a particular road by which they were to go, and to kill the first man they met, and bury him; after them he sent out four other men who were to kill and bury them. Again he sent out a still greater number against these four, with similar instructions. And in this manner he put himself in the way of the first pair, and