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

now, he was not thought much of, being called cynic and trifler by the Eretrians; but subsequently he was so much admired by his countrymen that they entrusted him with the chief government of the state. And he was sent on embassies to Ptolemy and Lysimachus, and was greatly honored everywhere. He was sent as envoy to Demetrius; and, as the city used to pay him two hundred talents a year, he persuaded him to remit fifty. And having been falsely accused to him as having betrayed the city to Ptolemy, he defended himself from the charge, in a letter which begins thus:

“Menedemus to king Demetrius.⁠—Health. I hear that information has been laid before you concerning us.⁠ ⁠…” And the tradition is, that a man of the name of Aeschylus, who was one of the opposite party in the state, was in the habit of making these false charges. It is well known too that he was sent on a most important embassy to Demetrius, on the subject of Oropus, as Euphantus relates in his History.

Antigonus was greatly attached to him, and professed himself his pupil; and when he defeated the barbarians, near Lysimachia, Menedemus drew up a decree for him, in simple terms, free from all flattery, which begins thus:

“The generals and councillors have determined, since king Antigonus has defeated the barbarians in battle, and has returned to his own kingdom, and since he has succeeded in all his measures according to his wishes, it has seemed good to the council and to the people.⁠ ⁠…” And from these circumstances, and because of his friendship for him as shown in other matters, he was suspected of betraying the city to him; and being impeached by Aristodemus, he left the city, and returned to Oropus, and there took up his abode in the temple of Amphiaraus; and as some golden goblets which were there were lost, he was ordered to depart by a general vote of the Boeotians. Leaving Oropus, and being in a state of great despondency, he entered his country secretly; and taking with him his wife and daughters, he went to the court of Antigonus, and there died of a broken heart.

But Heraclides gives an entirely different account of him, saying that while he was the chief councillor of the Eretrians, he more than once preserved the liberties of the city from those who would have brought in Demetrius the tyrant; so that he never could have betrayed the city to Antigonus, and the accusation must have been false; and that he went to the court of Antigonus, and endeavored to effect the deliverance of his country; and as he could make no impression on him, he fell into despondency and starved himself for seven days, and so he died. And Antigonus of Carystus gives a similar account: and Persaeus was the only man with whom he had an implacable quarrel; for he thought that when Antigonus himself was willing to reestablish the democracy among the Eretrians for his sake, Persaeus prevented him. And on this account Menedemus once attacked him at a banquet, saying many other things, and among them: “He may, indeed, be a philosopher, but he is the worst man that lives or that ever will live.”

And he died, according to Heraclides, at the age of seventy-four. And we have written the following epigram on him:

I’ve heard your fate, O Menedemus, that of your own accord,
You starved yourself for seven days and died;
Acting like an Eretrian, but not much like a man,
For spiritless despair appears your guide.

These men then were the disciples of Socrates, and their successors; but we must now proceed to Plato, who founded the Academy, and to his successors, or at least to all those of them who enjoyed any reputation.

Book III Plato

Plato was the son of Ariston and Perictione or Potone, and a citizen of Athens; and his mother traced her family back to Solon, for Solon had a brother named Dropidas, who had a son named Critias, who was the father of Callaeschrus, who was the father of that Critias who was one of the thirty tyrants, and also of Glaucon, who was the father of Charmides and Perictione. And she became the mother of Plato by her husband Ariston, Plato being the sixth in descent from Solon. And Solon traced his pedigree up to Neleus and Neptune. They say too that on the father’s side, he was descended from Codrus, the son of Melanthus, and they too are said by Thrasylus to derive their origin from Neptune. And Speusippus, in his book which is entitled the Funeral Banquet of Plato, and Clearchus in his Panegyric on Plato, and Anaxilides in the second book of his History of Philosophers, say that the report at Athens was that Perictione was very beautiful, and that Ariston endeavored to violate her and did not succeed; and that he, after he had desisted from his violence saw a vision of Apollo in a dream, in consequence of which he abstained from approaching his wife till after her confinement.

And Plato was born, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles, in the eighty-eighth Olympiad, on the seventh day of the month Thargelion, on which day the people of Delos say that Apollo also was born. And he died, as Hermippus says, at a marriage feast, in the first year of the hundred and eighth Olympiad, having lived eighty-one years. But Neanthes says that he was eighty-four years of age at his death. He is then younger than Isocrates by six years; for Isocrates was born in the archonship of Lysimachus, and Plato in that of Aminias, in which year Pericles died.

And he was of the borough of Colytus, as Antileon tells us in his second book on Dates. And he was born, according to some writers, in Aegina, in the house of Phidiades the son of Thales, as Phavorinus affirms in his