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

probably in verse, for Athenaeus says that they were sung in Athens at banquets. Aristotle tells us that they were adapted to an aristocracy. It is much doubted whether it is really true that he was a disciple of Pythagoras, though we are not sure of his exact time, so that we cannot pronounce it as impossible as in the preceding case. He must have lived before the time of Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium, who reigned from BC 494 to BC 476, because he abolished the laws of Charondas, which had previously been in force in that city. Diodorus gives a code of laws which he states that Charondas gave to the city of Thurii, which was not founded till BC 443, when he must certainly have been dead a long time. There is one law of his preserved by Stobaeus, which is probably authentic, since it is found in a fragment of Theophrastus; enacting that all buying and selling shall be transacted by ready money only. ↩

This doctrine is alluded to doubtfully by Virgil, Georgics i247.

Illic, ut perhibent, aut intempesta silet nox
Semper, et obductâ densantur nocte tenebræ;
Aut redit a nobis Aurora, diemque reducit;
Nosque ubi primus equis oriens afflavit anhelis,
Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper.

Thus translated by Dryden, l 338:

There, as they say, perpetual night is found,
In silence brooding o’er th’ unhappy ground.
Or when Aurora leaves our northern sphere,
She lights the downward heav’n and rises there;
And when on us she breathes the living light
Red Vesper kindles there the tapers of the night.

↩

νοῦς appears, in a division like this, to be the deliberative part of the mind; φρὴν, the rational part of the intellect: θυμὸς, that part with which the passions are concerned. ↩

There is a great variety of suggestions as to the proper reading here. There is evidently some corruption in the text. ↩

From παύω, to cause to cease, ἀνία, sorrow. ↩

It is impossible to give the force of this epigram in any other language. It is a pun on Ἄκρων, Ἀκράγας, and ἄκρος. The last word meaning not only high, lofty, but also eminent, very skillful. The plain English would be: “The lofty height of a most eminent country conceals Acron, a skillful physician of Acragas, the son of a skillful father.” The variation would be: “A high tomb on a very high summit, conceals,” etc. ↩

This story is mentioned by Horace:

Siculique poetæ,
Narrabo interitum; deus immortalis haberi,
Dum cupit Empedocles ardentem frigidus Ætnam,
Insiluit.

—⁠Ars Poetica, 466.

↩

This is slightly parodied from Homer, Odyssey xi. 278. Pope’s Version, 337. ↩

There were three festivals of Bacchus at Athens at which dramatic contests took place, the Διονύσια κατ᾿ ἄγρους, or, “in the fields;” the Ληναῖα or τὰ ἐν Λίμναις, or “the marshes,” a part of the city near the Acropolis, in which was situated the Λήναιον, an enclosure dedicated to Bacchus; and the τὰ ἐν ἄστει, “in the city,” or τὰ μέγαλα Διονύσια. The comic contests usually took place at the second or Lenaean festivals. Sometimes also at the Great Dionysia. ↩

ἔνδοξος, glorious. ↩

According to Strabo, the descendants of Androclus, the founder of Ephesus (of which family Heraclitus came), bore the title of king, and had certain prerogatives and privileges attached to the title. ↩

There is probably some corruption in the text here. ↩

There is great obscurity and uncertainty of the text here. The reading translated is that of Huebner, πεφωρᾶσθαι. Some read πεπρᾶσθαι, he seems to have abandoned the Pythagoreans. Others propose πεπρᾶχθαι. The French translator renders⁠—He had for enemies the Pythagoreans. ↩

See the account of Zeno of Citium. ↩

See the life of Parmenides. ↩

There is evidently a considerable gap in the text here. ↩

As there is no such passage in Herodotus, Valckenaer conjectures that we ought here to read Metrodorus. ↩

The Thesmophoria was a festival in honor of Ceres, celebrated in various parts of Greece; and only by married women; though girls might perform some of the ceremonies. Herodotus says, that it was introduced into Greece from Egypt, by the daughters of Danaus. The Attic Thesmophoria lasted probably three days, and began on the eleventh day of the month Pyanession; the first day was called ἄνοδος, or κάθοδος, from the women going in procession to Eleusis; the second νηστεία, or fasting; the third was called καλλιγένεια, as on that day Ceres was invoked under that name, and it was the day of merriment of the festival. ↩

Namely, reasoning well, expressing oneself well, and acting well. ↩

This is thus embodied by Lucretius:

Nam nihil e nihilo, in nihilum nîl posse reverti.

↩

Homer, Iliad v, 340. Pope’s version, 422. ↩

Iliad vi, 146. ↩

Iliad xxi, 106. Pope’s version, 115. ↩

Homer, Iliad xx, 248. Pope’s version, 294. ↩

There is too remarkable a similarity in this to Campbell’s lines:

’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountains in their azure hue:

to allow one to pass it over without pointing it out. ↩

“Diogenes here appears (though he gives no intimation of his doing so) to be transcribing the reasonings of someone of the Skeptics.” —⁠French Translator