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

the study of Homer; and next to him to that of the Lyric poets; then to Sophocles, and also to Achaeus, to whom he assigned the second place as a writer of satiric dramas, giving Aeschylus the first. And it is from Achaeus that he quoted these verses against the politicians of the opposite party:

A speedy runner once was overtaken
By weaker men than he. An eagle too,
Was beaten by a tortoise in a race.

And these lines are out of the satiric play of Achaeus, called Omphale; so that they are mistaken who say that he had never read anything but the Medea of Euripides, which is found, they add, in the collection of Neophron, the Sicyonian.

Of masters of philosophy, he used to despise Plato and Xenocrates, and Paraebates of Cyrene; and admired no one but Stilpo. And once, being questioned about him, he said nothing more of him than that he was a gentleman.

Menedemus was not easy to be understood, and in his conversation he was hard to argue against; he spoke on every subject, and had a great deal of invention and readiness. But he was very disputatious, as Antisthenes says in his Successions; and he used to put questions of this sort, “Is one thing different from another thing?”⁠—“Yes.”⁠—“And is benefiting a person something different from the good?”⁠—“Yes.”⁠—“Then the good is not benefiting a person.” And he, as it is said, discarded all negative axioms, using none but affirmative ones; and of these he only approved of the simple ones, and rejected all that were not simple; saying that they were intricate and perplexing. But Heraclides says that in his doctrines he was a thorough disciple of Plato, and that he scorned dialectics; so that once when Alexinus asked him whether he had left off beating his father, he said, “I have not beaten him, and I have not left off;” and when he said further that he ought to put an end to the doubt by answering explicitly yes or no, “It would be absurd,” he rejoined, “to comply with your conditions, when I can stop you at the entrance.”

When Bion was attacking the soothsayers with great perseverance, he said that he was killing the dead over again. And once, when he heard someone assert that the greatest good was to succeed in everything that one desires; he said: “It is a much greater good to desire what is proper.” But Antigonus of Carystus tells us that he never wrote or composed any work, and never maintained any principle tenaciously. But in cross-questioning he was so contentious as to get quite black in the face before he went away. But though he was so violent in his discourse, he was wonderfully gentle in his actions. Accordingly, though he used to mock and ridicule Alexinus very severely, still he conferred great benefits on him, conducting his wife from Delphi to Chalcis for him, as she was alarmed about the danger of robbers and banditti in the road.

And he was a very warm friend, as is plain from his attachment to Asclepiades; which was hardly inferior to the friendship of Pylades and Orestes. But Asclepiades was the elder of the two, so that it was said that he was the poet, and Menedemus the actor. And they say that on one occasion, Archipolis bequeathed them three thousand pieces of money between them, they had such a vigorous contest as to which should take the smaller share that neither of them would receive any of it.

It is said that they were both married; and that Asclepiades was married to the mother, and Menedemus to the daughter; and when Asclepiades’s wife died, he took the wife of Menedemus; and Menedemus, when he became the chief man of the state, married another who was rich; and as they still maintained one house in common, Menedemus entrusted the whole management of it to his former wife. Asclepiades died first at Eretria, being of a great age; having lived with Menedemus with great economy, though they had ample means. So that, when on one occasion after the death of Asclepiades a friend of his came to a banquet, and when the slaves refused him admittance, Menedemus ordered them to admit him, saying that Asclepiades opened the door for him even now that he was under the earth. And the men who chiefly supported them were Hipponicus the Macedonian, and Agetor the Lamian. And Agetor gave each of them thirty minae, and Hipponicus gave Menedemus two thousand drachmas to portion his daughters with; and he had three, as Heraclides tells us, the children of his wife, who was a native of Oropus.

And he used to give banquets in this fashion: First of all, he would sit at dinner, with two or three friends, till late in the day; and then he would invite in anyone who came to see him, even if they had already dined; and if anyone came too soon, they would walk up and down and ask those who came out of the house what there was on the table, and what o’clock it was; and then, if there were only vegetables or salt fish, they would depart; but if they heard it was meat, they would go in. And during the summer, mats of rushes were laid upon the couches, and in winter soft cushions; and each guest was expected to bring a pillow for himself. And the cup that was carried round did not hold more than a cotyla. And the second course consisted of lupins or beans, and sometimes fruits, such as pears, pomegranates, pulse, and sometimes, by Jove, dried figs. And all these circumstances are detailed by Lycophron, in his satiric dramas, which he inscribed with the name of Menedemus, making his play a panegyric on the philosopher. And the following are some of the lines:

After a temperate feast, a small-sized cup
Is handed round with moderation due;
And conversation wise makes the dessert.

At first,