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

that once when he was conversing with Crates, he interrupted the discourse to go off and buy some fish; and as Crates tried to drag him back, and said: “You are leaving the argument;”⁠—“Not at all,” he replied. “I keep the argument, but I am leaving you; for the argument remains, but the fish will be sold to someone else.”

There are nine dialogues of his extant, written in a frigid style: The Moschus; the Aristippus or Callias; the Ptolemy; the Choerecrates; the Metrocles; the Anaximenes; the Epigenes; the one entitled To My Daughter, and the Aristotle.

Heraclides affirms that Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, had been one of his pupils.

Hermippus says that he died at a great age, after drinking some wine in order to die more rapidly. And we have written this epigram upon him:

Stranger, old age at first, and then disease,
A hateful pair, did lay wise Stilpo low.
The pride of Megara: he found good wine
The best of drivers for his mournful coach,
And drinking it, he drove on to the end.

And he was ridiculed by Sophilus the comic poet, in his play called Marriages:

The dregs of Stilpo make the whole discourse of this Charinus.

Crito

Crito was an Athenian. He looked upon Socrates with the greatest affection, and paid such great attention to him that he took care that he should never be in want of anything.

His sons also were all constant pupils of Socrates, and their names were Critobulus, Hermogenes, Epigenes, and Ctesippus.

Crito wrote seventeen dialogues, which were all published in one volume; and I subjoin their titles: That men are not made good by Teaching; on Superfluity; what is Suitable, or the Statesman; on the Honorable; on doing ill; on Good Government; on Law; on the Divine Being; on Arts; on Society; Protagoras, or the Statesman; on Letters; on Political Science; on the Honorable; on Learning; on Knowledge; on Science; on what Knowledge is.

Simon

Simon was an Athenian, a leather-cutter. He, whenever Socrates came into his workshop and conversed, used to make memorandums of all his sayings that he recollected.

And from this circumstance, people have called his dialogues leathern ones. But he has written thirty-three which, however, are all combined in one volume: On the Gods; on the Good; on the Honorable; what the Honorable is; the first Dialogue on Justice; the second Dialogue on Justice; on Virtue, showing that it is not to be taught; the first Dialogue on Courage; the second; the third; on Laws; on the Art of Guiding the People; on Honor; on Poetry; on Good Health; on Love; on Philosophy; on Knowledge; on Music; on Poetry; on what the Honorable is; on Teaching; on Conversation; on Judgment; on the Existent; on Number; on Diligence; on Activity; on Covetousness; on Insolence; on the Honorable; Some also add to these dialogues; on taking Counsel; on Reason or Suitableness; on doing Harm.

He is, as some people say, the first writer who reduced the conversations of Socrates into the form of dialogues. And when Pericles offered to provide for him, and invited him to come to him, he said that he would not sell his freedom of speech.

There was also another Simon, who wrote a treatise on Oratorical Art. And another, who was a physician in the time of Seleucus Nicanor. And another, who was a statuary.

Glauco

Glauco was an Athenian; and there are nine dialogues of his extant, which are all contained in one volume: The Phidylus; the Euripides; the Amyntichias; the Euthias; the Lysithides; the Aristophanes; the Cephalus; the Anaxiphemus; the Menexenus. There are thirty-two others which go under his name, but they are spurious.

Simias

Simias was a Theban; and there are twenty-three dialogues of his extant, contained in one single volume: On Wisdom; on Ratiocination; on Music; on Verses; on Fortitude; on Philosophy; on Truth; on Letters; on Teaching; on Art; on Government; on what is Becoming; on what is Eligible, and what Proper to be Avoided; on A Friend; on Knowledge; on the Soul; on Living Well; on what is Possible; on Money; on Life; on what the Honorable is; on Industry; and on Love.

Cebes

Cebes was a Theban, and there are three dialogues of his extant: The Tablet; the Seventh; and the Phrynichus.

Menedemus

This Menedemus was one of those who belonged to the school of Phaedo; and he was one of those who are called Theopropidae, being the son of Clisthenes, a man of noble family but a poor man and a builder. And some say that he was a tentmaker, and that Menedemus himself learned both trades. On which account, when he on one occasion brought forward a motion for some decree, a man of the name of Alexinius attacked him, saying that a wise man had no need to draw a tent nor a decree.

But when Menedemus was sent by the Eretrians to Megara, as one of the garrison, he deserted the rest, and went to the Academy to Plato; and being charmed by him, he abandoned the army altogether. And when Asclepiades the Phliasian drew him over to him, he went and lived in Megara near Stilpo, and they both became his disciples. And from thence they sailed to Elis, where they joined Anchipylus and Moschus, who belonged to Phaedo’s school. And up to this time, as I have already mentioned in my account of Phaedo, they were called Eleans; and they were also called Eretrians, from the native country of Menedemus, of whom I am now speaking.

Now Menedemus appears to have been a very severe and rigid man, on which account Crates, parodying a description, speaks of him thus:

And Asclepiades the sage of Phlius,
And the Eretrian bull.

And Timon mentions him thus:

Rise up, you frowning, bristling, frothy sage.

And he was a man of such excessive rigour of principle that when Eurylochus of Cassandrea had been