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

The Greek is ἔρανον αἰτούμενος πρὸς τὸν ἐρανάρχην ἔφη⁠—ἔρανος was not only a subscription or contribution for the support of the poor, but also a club or society of subscribers to a common fund for any purpose, social, commercial, or charitable, or especially political.⁠ ⁠… On the various ἔρανοι, v Böckh, Public Economy i, 328. Att. Process. p. 540, s. 99. Liddle and Scott in voc. ἔρανος. ↩

Homer, Iliad Γ, 65. ↩

There is a pun here; κόρη means both “a girl” and “the pupil of the eye.” And φθείρω, “to destroy,” is also especially used for “to seduce.” ↩

This is a parody on Homer, Iliad, 591. Pope’s Version, 760. ↩

Homer, Iliad Σ, 395. Pope’s version, 460. ↩

This line is from the Bacchae of Euripides, v. 1228. ↩

From this last paragraph it is inferred by some critics that originally the preceding memoirs of Crates, Metrocles, and Hipparchia formed only one chapter or book. ↩

This a parody on two lines in the Antiope of Euripides:

Γνώμῃ γὰρ ἀνδρὸς εὖ μὲν οἰκοῦνται πόλεις,
Εὖ δ᾿ οἶκος εἴς τ᾿ αὖ πόλεμον ἰσχύει μέγα.

Which may be translated:

Wisdom it is which regulates both cities,
And private citizens, and makes their lot
Secure and happy; nor is her influence
Of less account in war.

↩

A sort of guitar or violin. ↩

The Greek is, ἐν τῷ θερίζοντι λόγῳ, a species of argument so called, because he who used it mowed or knocked down his adversaries. —⁠Aldob. ↩

The Greek in the text is:

Κεῖνος μὲν πανάριστος ὃς εὖ εἰπόντι πίθηται,
Ἐσθλὸς δ᾿ αὖ κἀκεῖνος ὃς αὐτὸς πάντα νοήσῃ.

The lines in Hesiod are:

Κεῖνος μὲν πανάριστος ὃς αὐτὸς πάντα νοήσῃ
Ἐσθλὸς δ᾿ αὖ κἀκεῖνος ὃς εὖ εἰπόντι πίθηται.

That man is best, whose unassisted wit
Perceives at once what in each case is fit.
And next to him, he surely is most wise,
Who willingly submits to good advice.

↩

Huerner thinks (as indeed is evident) that something is lost here; and proposes to read the sentence thus: Τῶν δὲ κατηγορημάτων τὰ μέν ἐστι συμβάματα ὡς τὸ πλεῖν, οἷον Σωκράτης πλεῖ, τὰ δὲ παρασυμβάματα ὡς τὸ διὰ πέτρας πλεῖν. With reference to which passage, Liddell and Scott, Greek and English Lexicon voc. σύμβαμα, thus speak: “σύμβαμα⁠ ⁠… as a philosophical term of the Stoics = κατηγόρημα, a complete predicament such as is an intransitive verb: e.g. Σωκράτης περιπατεῖ; while an imperfect verb was regarded as an incomplete predicament; e.g. Σωκράτει μέλει, and called παρασύμβαμα, or παρακατηγόρημα.” ↩

This line is from the Inachus of Sophocles (one of his lost plays). ↩

Homer, Iliad, II 484. ↩

This line is from the Citharista of Menander. ↩

It would appear that there is a considerable hiatus here; for the instance following is a sorites, and not a specimen of the veiled argument. And there is no instance given of the concealed, or of the horned one. Still, the mere fact of the text being unintelligible, is far from proving that we have not got it as Diogenes wrote it; as though in the language of the writer in Smith’s Biographical Dictionary, volume i pages 1022, 1023, “the work contains a rich store of living features, which serve to illustrate the private life of the Greeks,” it is equally clear that the author “was unequal to writing a history of Greek philosophy. His work in reality is nothing but a compilation of the most heterogeneous and often contradictory accounts.⁠ ⁠… The traces of carelessness and mistakes are very numerous; much in the work is confused, and there is also much that is quite absurd. And as far as philosophy itself is concerned, Diogenes very frequently did not know what he was talking about when he abridged the theories of the philosophers.” ↩

The third point of view is wanting; and those that are given appear to be ill selected. The French translator, following the hint of Huebner, gives the following passage from Sextus Empiricus (a physician of the Skeptic school, about BC 250), in his work against the Philosophers, which he says may serve to rectify and complete the statement of Diogenes Laërtius. “Good is said in one sense of that which produces the useful, or from which the useful results; that is, the good par excellence, virtue. For virtue is as it were the source from which all utility naturally flows. In another sense it is said of that which is accidentally the cause of utility; under this point of view we call good not only virtue, but also those actions which are conformable to virtue, for they are accidentally useful. In the third and last place, we call good everything that possibly can be useful, comprehending under this definition virtue, virtuous actions, friends, good men, the Gods, etc., etc.” ↩

Homer, Iliad I, 81. Pope’s Version, l 105. ↩

It is hardly necessary to remark that Ἀθηνᾶ is the name of Minerva, not of Jupiter; Ἥρα, of Juno; Ἥφαιστος, of Vulcan; Ποσειδῶν, of Neptune, and Δημήτηρ, of Ceres. Ἥφαιστος is properly derived from φαίνω, to shine; Ποσειδῶν has some affinity with πόω, to drink. Δημήτηρ is only a dialectic variation of Τῆ μητὴρ. ↩

There is a hiatus in