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

new moon. And when the lunar month fell into disuse, the last day of the calendar month was still called Ἔνη καὶ νέα.” —⁠Liddle and Scott Greek Lexicon, in v, ἔνος ↩

Herodotus mentions the case of Periander’s children, iii 50, and the death of his wife, and his burning the clothes of all the Corinthian women, v 92. ↩

Some propose to read καρπὸν, “fruit,” instead of καπνὸν, “smoke,” here; others explain this saying as meaning that the Greeks avoided houses on the hills in order not to be annoyed with the smoke from the low cottage, and yet did not use coal, but wood, which would make more smoke. ↩

This refers to the result of the war which Antipater, who became regent of Macedonia on the death of Alexander the Great, carried on against the confederacy of Greek states, of which Athens was the head; and in which, after having defeated them at Cranon, he compelled the Athenians to abolish the democracy, and to admit a garrison into Munychia. ↩

Φρύγανα, sticks or faggots. ↩

After the battle of Arginusae. ↩

“This is not quite correct. Socrates believed that the daemon which attended him limited his warnings to his own conduct; preventing him from doing what was wrong, but not prompting him to do right.” —⁠See Grote’s admirable chapter on Socrates, History of Greece, volume v ↩

Grote gives good reasons for disbelieving this. ↩

The Greek is, ἐν τῷ πρὸς Ξενοφῶντα ἀποστασίου⁠—“ἀποστασίου δίκη, an action against a freedman for having forsaken or slighted his προστάτης.” —⁠Liddle and Scott, Greek Lexicon ↩

This is exactly the character that Horace gives of him:

Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res;
Tentantem majora, fere præsentibus æequum.

—⁠Epistles i 23, 24.

↩

Plutarch, in his life of Pompey, attributes these lines to Sophocles, but does not mention the play in which they occurred. ↩

The French translator gives the following examples, to show what is meant by these several kinds of quibbling arguments:

The lying one is this: Is the man a liar who says that he tells lies. If he is, then he does not tell lies; and if he does not tell lies, is he a liar?

The concealed one: Do you know this man who is concealed? If you do not, you do not know your own father; for he it is who is concealed.

The veiled one is much the same as the preceding.

The electra is a quibble of the same kind as the two preceding ones: Electra sees Orestes: she knows that Orestes is her brother, but does not know that the man she sees is Orestes; therefore she does know, and does not know, her brother at the same time.

The Sorites is universally known.

The bald one is a kind of Sorites; pulling one hair out of a man’s head will not make him bald, nor two, nor three, and so on till every hair in his head is pulled out.

The horned one: You have what you have not lost. You have not lost horns, therefore you have horns. ↩

From ἐλέγχω, to confute. ↩

Κρόνος, take away “Κρ,” leaves ὄνος, an ass. ↩

The quibble here is that θεὸς is properly only masculine, though it is sometimes used as feminine. ↩

The Greek is a parody on the descriptions of Tantalus and Sisyphus. Homer, Odyssey ii, 581, 592. See also, Dryden’s Version, B ii, 719. ↩

The Greek is τοῦ μιμογράφου. “A mime was a kind of prose drama, intended as a familiar representation of life and character, without any distinct plot. It was divided into μῖμιοι ἀνδρεῖοι and γυναικεῖοι, also into μῖμοι σπουδαίων and γελοίων.” —⁠Liddle and Scott in voc. μῖμος ↩

The Greek is, ὡς ἀνέπλαττε Πλάτων πεπλασμένα θαύματα εἰδώς. ↩

This figure was like a barbed arrow, according to Zevort. ↩

Herophilus was one of the most celebrated physicians of antiquity, who founded the Medical School at Alexandria, in the time of the first Ptolemy. ↩

Homer, Odyssey x, 387. Pope’s Version, 450. ↩

Perhaps there is a pun here; ἀστράγαλος means not only a knout composed of small bones strung together, but also a die. ↩

This is a quotation from some lost play of Euripides, slightly altered, the line, as printed in the Variorum Edition, volume vii, Mc. Tragoediis cxxx is:

ἀκόλαστα πάντα γίνεται, δούλων τέκνα.

↩

There is a pun here which is untranslateable. The Greek is πλὴν ὅταν τόκος παρῇ, meaning usury, and also offspring or delivery. ↩

Homer Odyssey x, 335. Pope’s Version, 387. ↩

Homer Iliad vi, 211. Pope’s Version, 254. ↩

This is a quotation from the Hippolytus of Euripides, v. 424. ↩

I doubt if the wit of these parodies will be appreciated by the modern reader. The lines of Homer, which they are intended to parody, are:

Ὦ μάκαρ Ατρεΐδη, μοιρηγενὲς, ὀλβιοδαίμων

—⁠Iliad 3, 182.

ἠέ συ Πηλεΐδη, πάντων ἐκπαγλότατ᾿ ἀνδρῶν

—⁠Iliad v 146.

The first of which is translated by Pope:

Oh, blest Atrides, born of prosperous fate,
Successful monarch of a mighty state!

The Greek parody in the text is:

Ὦ πέπον