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

by Menedemus of Eretria, who states that he appropriated many dialogues of Socrates as his own, having procured them from Xanthippe. And those of them which are called “headless” are exceedingly slovenly performances, showing nothing of the energy of Socrates. And Pisistratus, of Ephesus, used to say that they were not the work of Aeschines. There are seven of them, and most of them are stated by Persaeus to be the work of Pasiphon, of Eretria, and to have been inserted by him among the works of Aeschines. And he plagiarised from the Little Cyrus, and the Lesser Hercules, of Antisthenes, and from the Alcibiades, and from the Dialogues of the other philosophers. The Dialogues then of Aeschines, which profess to give an idea of the system of Socrates are, as I have said, seven in number. First of all, the Miltiades, which is rather weak; the Callias, the Axiochus, the Aspasia, the Alcibiades, the Telauges, and the Rhino. And they say that he, being in want, went to Sicily, to Dionysius, and was looked down upon by Plato, but supported by Aristippus, and that he gave Dionysius some of his dialogues, and received presents for them.

After that he came to Athens, and there he did not venture to practice the trade of a sophist, as Plato and Aristippus were in high reputation there. But he gave lectures for money, and wrote speeches to be delivered in the courts of law for persons under prosecution. On which account, Timon said of him: “The speeches of Aeschines which do not convince anyone.” And they say that when he was in great straights through poverty, Socrates advised him to borrow of himself, by deducting some part of his expenditure in his food.

And even Aristippus suspected the genuineness of some of his Dialogues; accordingly, they say that when he was reciting some of them at Megara, he ridiculed him, and said to him: “Oh! you thief; where did you get that?”

And Polycritus of Menda, in the first book of his History of Dionysius, says that he lived with the tyrant till he was deposed, and till the return of Dion to Syracuse; and he says that Carcinus, the tragedian, was also with him. And here is extant a letter of Aeschines addressed to Dionysius.

But he was a man well versed in rhetorical art, as is plain from the defense of his father Phaeax, the general; and from the works which he wrote in especial imitation of Gorgias of Leontini. And Lysias wrote an oration against him entitling it, On Sycophancy; from all which circumstances it is plain that he was a skillful orator. And one man is spoken of as his especial friend, Aristotle, who was surnamed The Table.

Now Panaetius thinks that the Dialogues of the following disciples of the Socratic school are all genuine⁠—Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and Aeschines; but he doubts about those which go under the names of Phaedon, and Euclides; and he utterly repudiates all the others.

And there were eight men of the name of Aeschines. The first, this philosopher of ours; the second was a man who wrote a treatise on Oratorical Art; the third was the orator who spoke against Demosthenes; the fourth was an Arcadian, a disciple of Isocrates; the fifth was a citizen of Mitylene, whom they used to call the Scourge of the Orators; the sixth was a Neapolitan, a philosopher of the Academy, a disciple and favorite of Melanthius, of Rhode; the seventh was a Milesian, a political writer; the eighth was a statuary.

Aristippus

Aristippus was by birth a Cyrenean, but he came to Athens, as Aeschines says, having been attracted thither by the fame of Socrates.

He, having professed himself a Sophist, as Phanias of Eresus the Peripatetic informs us, was the first of the pupils of Socrates who exacted money from his pupils, and who sent money to his master. And once he sent him twenty drachmas, but had them sent back again, as Socrates said that his daemon would not allow him to accept them; for in fact he was indignant at having them offered to him. And Xenophon used to hate him; on which account he wrote his book against pleasure as an attack upon Aristippus, and assigned the main argument to Socrates. Theodorus also, in his Treatise on Sects, has attacked him severely, and so has Plato in his book on the Soul, as we have mentioned in another place.

But he was a man very quick at adapting himself to every kind of place, and time, and person,24 and he easily supported every change of fortune. For which reason he was in greater favor with Dionysius than any of the others, as he always made the best of existing circumstances. For he enjoyed what was before him pleasantly, and he did not toil to procure himself the enjoyment of what was not present. On which account Diogenes used to call him the king’s dog. And Timon used to snarl at him as too luxurious, speaking somewhat in this fashion:

Like the effeminate mind of Aristippus,
Who, as he said, by touch could judge of falsehood.

They say that he once ordered a partridge to be bought for him at the price of fifty drachmas; and when someone blamed him: “And would not you,” said he, “have bought it if it had cost an obol?” And when he said he would: “Well,” replied Aristippus, “fifty drachmas are no more to me.” Dionysius once bade him select which he pleased of three beautiful courtesans; and he carried off all three, saying that even Paris did not get any good by preferring one beauty to the rest. However, they say that when he had carried them as far as the vestibule, he dismissed them; so easily inclined was he to select or to disregard things. On which account Strato, or, as others will have it, Plato, said to him: “You are