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

who burnt the dead as though they felt nothing, and then mocked them as though they did feel. And he was always saying that it was better to put one’s own beauty at the disposal of another than to covet the beauty of others; for that one who did so was injuring both his body and his soul. And he used to blame Socrates, saying that if he derived no advantage from Alcibiades he was foolish, and if he never derived any advantage from him he then deserved no credit. He used to say that the way to the shades below was easy; and accordingly, that people went there with their eyes shut. He used to blame Alcibiades, saying that while he was a boy he seduced husbands from their wives, and when he had become a young man he seduced the wives from their husbands. While most of the Athenians at Rhodes practiced rhetoric, he himself used to give lectures on philosophical subjects; and to one who blamed him for this he said: “I have bought wheat, and I sell barley.”

It was a saying of his that the inhabitants of the shades below would be more punished if they carried water in buckets that were whole, than in such as were bored. To a chattering fellow who was soliciting him for aid, he said: “I will do what is sufficient for you, if you will send deputies to me, and forbear to come yourself.” Once when he was at sea in the company of some wicked men, he fell into the hands of pirates; and when the rest said: “We are undone, if we are known.”⁠—“But I,” said he, “am undone if we are not known.” He used to say that self-conceit was the enemy of progress. Of a rich man who was mean and niggardly, he said: “That man does not possess his estate, but his estate possesses him.” He used to say that stingy men took care of their property as if it was their own, but derived no advantage from it as if it belonged to other people. Another of his sayings was that young men ought to display courage, but that old men ought to be distinguished for prudence. And that prudence was as much superior to the other virtues as sight was to the other senses. And that it was not right to speak of old age, at which everyone is desirous to arrive. To an envious man who was looking gloomy, he said: “I know not whether it is because some misfortune has happened to you, or some good fortune to someone else.” One thing that he used to say was that a mean extraction was a bad companion to freedom of speech, for:

It does enslave a man, however bold
His speech may be.41

And another was that we ought to keep our friends, whatever sort of people they may be, so that we may not seem to have been intimate with wicked men, or to have abandoned good men.

Very early in his career he abandoned the school of the Academy, and at the same time became a disciple of Crates. Then he passed over to the sect of the Cynics, taking their coarse cloak and wallet. For what else could ever have changed his nature into one of such apathy? After that he adopted the Theodorean principles, having become a disciple of Theodorus the Atheist, who was used to employ every kind of reasoning in support of his system of philosophy. After leaving him, he became a pupil of Theophrastus, the Peripatetic.

He was very fond of theatrical entertainments, and very skillful in distracting his hearers by exciting a laugh, giving things disparaging names. And because he used to avail himself of every species of reasoning, they relate that Eratosthenes said that Bion was the first person who had clothed philosophy in a flowery robe.

He was also very ingenious in parodying passages, and adapting them to circumstances as they arose. As for instance, I may cite the following:

Tender Archytas, born of tuneful lyre,
Whom thoughts of happy vanity inspire;
Most skilled of mortals in appeasing ire.42

And he jested on every part of music and geometry.

He was a man of very expensive habits, and on this account he used to go from city to city, and at times he would contrive the most amazing devices.

Accordingly, in Rhodes, he persuaded the sailors to put on the habiliments of philosophical students and follow him about; and then he made himself conspicuous by entering the gymnasium with this train of followers.

He was accustomed also to adopt young men as his sons, in order to derive assistance from them in his pleasures, and to be protected by their affection for him. But he was a very selfish man, and very fond of quoting the saying “The property of friends is common;” owing to which it is that no one is spoken of as a disciple of his, though so many men attended his school. And he made some very shameless; accordingly, Betion, one of his intimate acquaintances, is reported to have said once to Menedemus: “So Menedemus constantly spends the evening with Bion, and I see no harm in it.” He used also to talk with great impiety to those who conversed with him, having derived his opinions on this subject from Theodorus.

And when at a later period he became afflicted with disease, as the people of Chalcis said, for he died there, he was persuaded to wear amulets and charms, and to show his repentance for the insults that he had offered to the Gods. But he suffered fearfully for want of proper people to attend him, until Antigonus sent him two servants. And he followed him in a litter, as Phavorinus relates in his Universal History. And the circumstances of his death we have ourselves spoken of in the following lines:

We hear that Bion the Borysthenite,
Whom the ferocious Scythian land