Vitae philosophorum

Diogenes Laertius

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

Both were pupils of Anaxagoras, I mean Socrates and Euripides, who was born in the first year of the 75th Olympiad in the archonship of Calliades.[*](480-479 b.c.)

In my opinion Socrates discoursed on physics as well as on ethics, since he holds some conversations about providence, even according to Xenophon, who, however, declares that he only discussed ethics. But Plato, after mentioning Anaxagoras and certain other physicists in the Apology,[*](26 d.) treats for his own part themes which Socrates disowned, although he puts everything into the mouth of Socrates.

Aristotle relates that a magician came from Syria to Athens and, among other evils with which he threatened Socrates, predicted that he would come to a violent end.

I have written verses about him too, as follows[*](Anth. Pal. vii. 96.):

Drink then, being in Zeus’s palace, O Socrates; for truly did the god pronounce thee wise, being wisdom himself; for when thou didst frankly take the hemlock at the hands of the Athenians, they themselves drained it as it passed thy lips.

He was sharply criticized, according to Aristotle

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in his third book On Poetry, by a certain Antilochus of Lemnos, and by Antiphon the soothsayer, just as Pythagoras was by Cylon of Croton, or as Homer was assailed in his lifetime by Syagrus, and after his death by Xenophanes of Colophon. So too Hesiod was criticized in his lifetime by Cercops, and after his death by the aforesaid Xenophanes; Pindar by Amphimenes of Cos; thales by Pherecydes; Bias by Salarus of Priene; Pittacus by Antimenidas and Alcaeus; Anaxagoras by Sosibius; and Simonides by Timocreon.

Of those who succeeded him and were called Socratics[*](The text would perhaps be clearer if we transposed thus: τῶν δὲ διαδεξαμένων αὐτὸν οἱ κορυφαιότατοι μὲν Πλάτων, Ξενοφῶν, Ἀντισθένης. τῶν δὲ λεγομένων Σωκρατικῶν οἱ διασημότατοι τέσσαρες, Αἰσχίνης, Φαίδων, Εὐκλείδης, Ἀρίστιππος κτλ ... εἶθʼ οὔτω περὶ Πλάτωνος· ἐπεὶ κατάρχει τῶν φερομένων δέκα αἱρέσεων. The division of moral philosophers into ten schools was mentioned above, i. 18.) the chief were Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and of ten names on the traditional list the most distinguished are Aeschines, Phaedo, Euclides, Aristippus. I must first speak of Xenophon; Antisthenes will come afterwards among the Cynics; after Xenophon I shall take the Socratics proper, and so pass on to Plato. With Plato the ten schools begin: he was himself the founder of the First Academy. This then is the order which I shall follow.

Of those who bear the name of Socrates there is one, a historian, who wrote a geographical work upon Argos; another, a Peripatetic philosopher of Bithynia; a third, a poet who wrote epigrams; lastly, Socrates of Cos, who wrote on the names of the gods.

Xenophon, the son of Gryllus, was a citizen of Athens and belonged to the deme Erchia; he was

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a man of rare modesty and extremely handsome. The story goes that Socrates met him in a narrow passage, and that he stretched out his stick to bar the way, while he inquired where every kind of food was sold. Upon receiving a reply, he put another question, And where do men become good and honourable? Xenophon was fairly puzzled; Then follow me, said Socrates, and learn. From that time onward he was a pupil of Socrates. He was the first to take notes of, and to give to the world, the conversation of Socrates, under the title of Memorabilia. Moreover, he was the first to write a history of philosophers.

Aristippus, in the fourth book of his work On the Luxury of the Ancients, declares that he was enamoured of Clinias,

and said in reference to him, It is sweeter for me to gaze on Clinias than on all the fair sights in the world. I would be content to be blind to everything else if I could but gaze on him alone. I am vexed with the night and with sleep because I cannot see Clinias, and most grateful to the day and the sun for showing him to me.

He gained the friendship of Cyrus in the following way. He had an intimate friend named Proxenus, a Boeotian, a pupil of Gorgias of Leontini and a friend of Cyrus. Proxenus, while living in Sardis at the court of Cyrus, wrote a letter to Xenophon at Athens, inviting him to come and seek the friendship of Cyrus.