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

used to receive food from the nymphs and keep it in a bullock’s hoof; and that eating it in small quantities he never required any evacuations, and was never seen eating. And Timaeus mentions him in his second book.

Some authors say also that the Cretans sacrifice to him as a god, for they say that he was the wisest of men: and accordingly that when he saw the port of Munychia,18 at Athens, he said that the Athenians did not know how many evils that place would bring upon them, since, if they did, they would tear it to pieces with their teeth; and he said this a long time before the event to which he alluded. It is said also, that he at first called himself Aeacus, and that he foretold to the Lacedaemonians the defeat which they should suffer from the Arcadians, and that he pretended that he had lived several times. But Theopompus, in his Strange Stories, says that when he was building the temple of the Nymphs, a voice burst forth from heaven: “Oh! Epimenides, build this temple, not for the Nymphs but for Jupiter.” He also foretold to the Cretans the defeat of the Lacedaemonians by the Arcadians, as has been said before. And, indeed, they were beaten at Orchomenos.

He pretended also that he grew old rapidly, in the same number of days as he had been years asleep; at least so Theopompus says. But Mysonianus, in his Coincidences, says that the Cretans call him one of the Curetes. And the Lacedaemonians preserve his body among them, in obedience to some oracle, as Sosibius the Lacedaemonian says.

There were also two other Epimenides: one the genealogist; the other, the man who wrote a history of Rhodes in the Doric dialect.

Pherecydes

Pherecydes was a Syrian, the son of Babys, and, as Alexander says in his Successions, he had been a pupil of Pittacus.

Theopompus says that he was the first person who ever wrote among the Greeks on the subject of Natural Philosophy and the Gods. And there are many marvellous stories told of him. For it is said that he was walking along the seashore at Samos, and that seeing a ship sailing by with a fair wind, he said that it would soon sink; and presently it sank before their eyes. At another time he was drinking some water which had been drawn up out of a well, and he foretold that within three days there would be an earthquake; and there was one. And as he was going up to Olympia, and had arrived at Messene, he advised his entertainer, Perilaus, to migrate from the city with all his family, but that Perilaus would not be guided by him; and afterwards Messene was taken.

And he is said to have told the Lacedaemonians to honor neither gold nor silver, as Theopompus says in his Marvels; and it is reported that Hercules laid this injunction on him in a dream, and that the same night he appeared also to the kings of Sparta, and enjoined them to be guided by Pherecydes; but some attribute these stories to Pythagoras.

And Hermippus relates that when there was a war between the Ephesians and Magnesians, he, wishing the Ephesians to conquer, asked someone who was passing by from whence he came? and when he said: “From Ephesus,”⁠—“Drag me now,” said he, “by the legs, and place me in the territory of the Magnesians, and tell your fellow countrymen to bury me there after they have got the victory;” and that he went and reported that Pherecydes had given him this order. And so they went forth the next day and defeated the Magnesians; and as Pherecydes was dead, they buried him there, and paid him very splendid honors.

But some writers say that he went to Delphi, and threw himself down from the Corycian hill; Aristoxenus, in his History of Pythagoras and His Friends, says that Pherecydes fell sick and died, and was buried by Pythagoras in Delos. But others say that he died of the lousy disease; and when Pythagoras came to see him, and asked him how he was, he put his finger through the door and said: “You may see by my skin.” And from this circumstance that expression passed into a proverb among the philosophers, when affairs are going on badly; and those who apply it to affairs that are going on well make a blunder. He used to say, also, that the Gods call their table θυωρὸς.

But Andron the Ephesian says that there were two men of the name of Pherecydes, both Syrians: one an astronomer and the other a writer on God and the Divine Nature; and that this last was the son of Babys, who was also the master of Pythagoras. But Eratosthenes asserts that there was but one, who was a Syrian; and that the other Pherecydes was an Athenian, a genealogist; and the work of the Syrian Pherecydes is preserved, and it begins thus: “Jupiter, and Time, and Chthon existed externally.” And the name of Cthonia became Tellus, after Jupiter gave it to her as a reward. A sundial is also preserved, in the island of Syra, of his making.

But Duris, in the second book of his Boundaries, says that this epigram was written upon him:

The limit of all wisdom is in me;
And would be, were it larger. But report
To my Pythagoras that he’s the first
Of all the men that tread the Grecian soil;
I shall not speak a falsehood, saying this.

And Ion, the Chian, says of him:

Adorned with valor while alive, and modesty,
Now that he’s dead he still exists in peace;
For, like the wise Pythagoras, he studied
The manners and the minds of many nations.

And I myself have composed an epigram on him in the Pherecratean meter:

The story is reported,
That noble Pherecydes
Whom Syros calls her own,
Was eaten up by lice;
And so he bade his friends,
Convey