Vitae philosophorum

Diogenes Laertius

Diogenes Laertius. Hicks, R. D., editor. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1925.

and says that Anaxagoras declared the whole firmament to be made of stones; that the

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rapidity of rotation caused it to cohere; and that if this were relaxed it would fall.[*](This version of the story agrees with that of Plutarch in his Life of Lysander, § 12 λέγεται δὲ. . . τοῦ παντός.)

Of the trial of Anaxagoras different accounts are given. Sotion in his Succession of the Philosophers says that he was indicted by Cleon on a charge of impiety, because he declared the sun to be a mass of red-hot metal; that his pupil Pericles defended him, and he was fined five talents and banished. Satyrus in his Lives says that the prosecutor was Thucydides, the opponent of Pericles, and the charge one of treasonable correspondence with Persia as well as of impiety; and that sentence of death was passed on Anaxagoras by default.

When news was brought him that he was condemned and his sons were dead, his comment on the sentence was, Long ago nature condemned both my judges and myself to death; and on his sons, I knew that my children were born to die. Some, however, tell this story of Solon, and others of Xenophon. That he buried his sons with his own hands is asserted by Demetrius of Phalerum in his work On Old Age. Hermippus in his Lives says that he was confined in the prison pending his execution; that Pericles came forward and asked the people whether they had any fault to find with him in his own public career; to which they replied that they had not. Well, he continued, I am a pupil of Anaxagoras; do not then be carried away by slanders and put him to death. Let me prevail upon you to release him. So he was released; but he could not brook the indignity he had suffered and committed suicide.

Hieronymus in the second book of his Scattered Notes states that Pericles brought him into court so weak and wasted from illness that he owed his

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acquittal not so much to the merits of his case as to the sympathy of the judges. So much then on the subject of his trial.

He was supposed to have borne Democritus a grudge because he had failed to get into communication with him.[*](In ix. 34, 35 the statement that Democritus was hostile to Anaxagoras and criticized his doctrines is ascribed to Favorinus, and, as the motive alleged is similar, Favorinus may also be the source of the statement of ii. 14.) At length he retired to Lampsacus and there died. And when the magistrates of the city asked if there was anything he would like done for him, he replied that he would like them to grant an annual holiday to the boys in the month in which he died; and the custom is kept up to this day.