Vitae philosophorum

There is an epigram of mine on him also[*](Anth. Pal. vii. 97.):

Up the steep path to fame toiled Xenophon
1. In that long march of glorious memories;
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2. In deeds of Greece, how bright his lesson shone!
3. How fair was wisdom seen in Socrates

Albeit the countrymen of Cranaus and Cecrops condemned thee, Xenophon, to exile on account of thy friendship for Cyrus, yet hospitable Corinth welcomed thee, so well content with the delights of that city wast thou, and there didst resolve to take up thy rest.

In other authorities I find the statement that he flourished, along with the other Socratics, in the 89th Olympiad,[*](This would be 424-420 b.c., a date obviously absurd as the floruit for either Xenophon or Plato.) and Istrus affirms that he was banished by a decree of Eubulus and recalled by a decree of the same man.

There have been seven Xenophons: the first our subject himself; the second an Athenian, brother of Pythostratus, who wrote the Theseid, and himself the author, amongst other works, of a biography of Epaminondas and Pelopidas; the third a physician of Cos; the fourth the author of a history of Hannibal; the fifth an authority on legendary marvels; the sixth a sculptor, of Paros; the seventh a poet of the Old Comedy.

Aeschines was the son of Charinus the sausagemaker, but others make his father’s name Lysanias. He was a citizen of Athens, industrious from his birth up. For this reason he never quitted Socrates; hence Socrates’ remark, Only the sausage-maker’s son knows how to honour me. Idomeneus declared

Persaeus indeed attributes the majority of the seven to Pasiphon of the school of Eretria, who inserted them among the dialogues of Aeschines. Moreover, Aeschines made use of the Little Cyrus, the Lesser Heracles and the Alcibiades of Antisthenes as well as dialogues by other authors. However that may be, of the writings of Aeschines those stamped with a Socratic character are seven, namely Miltiades, which for that reason is somewhat weak; then Callias, Axiochus, Aspasia, Alcibiades, Telauges, and Rhinon.

They say that want drove him to Sicily to the court of Dionysius, and that Plato took no notice of him, but he was introduced to Dionysius by Aristippus, and on presenting certain dialogues received gifts from him.

Afterwards on his return to Athens he did not venture to lecture owing to the popularity of Plato and Aristippus. But he took fees from pupils, and subsequently composed forensic speeches for aggrieved clients. This is the point of Timon’s reference to him as the might of Aeschines, that not unconvincing writer. They say that Socrates,

Polycritus of Mende, in the first book of his History of Dionysius, says that he lived with the tyrant until his expulsion from Syracuse, and survived until the return of Dion, and that with him was Carcinus the tragic poet. There is also extant an epistle of Aeschines to Dionysius. That he had received a good rhetorical training is clear from his defence of the father of Phaeax the general, and from his defence of Dion. He is a close imitator of Gorgias of Leontini. Moreover, Lysias attacked him in a speech which he entitled On dishonesty. And from this too it is clear that he was a rhetorician. A single disciple of his is mentioned, Aristotle, whose nickname was Story.

Panaetius thinks that, of all the Socratic dialogues, those by Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes and Aeschines are genuine; he is in doubt about those ascribed to Phaedo and Euclides; but he rejects the others one and all.

There are eight men who have borne the name of Aeschines: (1) our subject himself; (2) the author of handbooks of rhetoric; (3) the orator who opposed Demosthenes; (4) an Arcadian, a pupil of Isocrates; (5) a Mitylenean whom they used to call the scourge of rhetoricians; (6) a Neapolitan, an Academic philosopher, a pupil and favourite of Melanthius of Rhodes; (7) a Milesian who wrote upon politics; (8) a sculptor.

Aristippus was by birth a citizen of Cyrene and, as Aeschines informs us, was drawn to Athens by the fame of Socrates. Having come forward as a lecturer or sophist, as Phanias of Eresus, the Peripatetic, informs us, he was the first of the followers of Socrates to charge fees and to send money to his master. And on one occasion the sum of twenty minae which he had sent was returned to him, Socrates declaring that the supernatural sign would not let him take it; the very offer, in fact, annoyed him. Xenophon was no friend to Aristippus; and for this reason he has made Socrates direct against Aristippus the discourse in which he denounces pleasure.[*](Mem. ii. 1.) Not but what Theodorus in his work On Sects abuses him, and so does Plato in the dialogue On the Soul,[*](In the Introduction to the Phaedo, 59 c, Aristippus is said to have been in Aegina on the day when Socrates drank the hemlock. How little this justifies the use of the terms ἐκάκισεν and διαβάλλων may be seen from the previous statement in the Phaedo that Plato himself is said to have been absent through illness on that occasion. Notice that Diogenes Laertius refers to the Life of Plato as already written; see iii. 36.) as has been shown elsewhere.

He was capable of adapting himself to place, time and person, and of playing his part appropriately under whatever circumstances. Hence he found more favour than anybody else with Dionysius, because he could always turn the situation to good account. He derived pleasure from what was present, and did not toil to procure the enjoyment of something not present Hence Diogenes called him the king’s poodle[*](Or royal cynic. It is impossible to preserve the double entendre here, for κύων, dog, also means cynic; in fact the very name of that sect proclaims that they gloried in their dog-like attributes, especially in snarling and biting.) Timon, too, sneered at him for luxury in these words[*](Fr. 27 D.):

Such was the delicate nature of Aristippus, who groped after error by touch.[*](This alludes to his doctrine of sensation, sometimes called internal touch. Compare infra§92, and more fully Sext. Emp. Adv. mathem. vii. 191. It has been paraphrased thus: quae potuit tactu a falso discernere verum.)

And when Dionysius gave him his choice of three courtesans, he carried off all three, saying, Paris paid dearly for giving the preference to one out of three. And when he had brought them as far as the porch, he let them go. To such lengths did he go both in choosing and in disdaining. Hence the remark of Strato, or by some accounts of Plato, You alone are endowed with the gift to flaunt in robes or go in rags. He bore with Dionysius when he spat on him, and to one who took him to task he replied, If the fishermen let themselves be drenched with sea-water in order to catch a gudgeon, ought I not to endure to be wetted with negus in order to take a blenny?

Diogenes, washing the dirt from his vegetables, saw him passing and jeered at him in these terms, If you had learnt to make these your diet, you would not have paid court to kings, to which his rejoinder was, And if you knew how to associate with men, you would not be washing vegetables. Being asked what he had gained from philosophy, he replied, The ability to feel at ease in any society. Being reproached for his extravagance, he said, If it were wrong to be extravagant, it would not be in vogue at the festivals of the gods.

When Dionysius inquired what was the reason that philosophers go to rich men’s houses, while rich men no longer visit philosophers, his reply was that the one know what they need while the other do not. When he was reproached by Plato for his extravagance, he inquired, Do you think Dionysius a good man? and the reply being in the affirmative, And yet, said he, he lives more extravagantly than I do. So that there is nothing to hinder a man living extravagantly and well. To the question how the educated differ from the uneducated, he replied, Exactly as horses that have been trained differ from untrained horses. One day, as he entered the house of a courtesan, one of the lads with him blushed, whereupon he remarked, It is not going in that is dangerous, but being unable to go out.

Some one brought him a knotty problem with the request that he would untie the knot. Why, you simpleton, said he, do you want it untied, seeing that it causes trouble enough as it is? It is better, he said, to be a beggar than to be uneducated; the one needs money, the others need to be humanized. One day that he was reviled, he tried to slip away; the other pursued him, asking, Why do you run away? Because, said he, as it is your privilege to use foul language, so it is my privilege not to listen. In answer to one who remarked that he always saw philosophers at rich men’s doors, he said, So, too, physicians are in attendance on those who are sick, but no one for that reason would prefer being sick to being a physician.

It happened once that he set sail for Corinth and, being overtaken by a storm, he was in great consternation. Some one said, We plain men are not alarmed, and are you philosophers turned cowards? To this he replied, The lives at stake in the two cases are not comparable. When some one gave himself airs for his wide learning, this is what he said: As those who eat most and take the most exercise are not better in health than those who restrict themselves to what they require, so too it is not wide reading but useful reading that tends to excellence. An advocate, having pleaded for him and won the case, thereupon put the question, What good did Socrates do you? Thus much, was the reply, that what you said of me in your speech was true.

He gave his daughter Arete the very best advice, training her up to despise excess. He was asked by some one in what way his son would be the better for being educated. He replied, If nothing more than this, at all events, when in the theatre he will not sit down like a stone upon stone. When some one brought his son as a pupil, he asked a fee of 500 drachmae. The father objected, For that sum I can buy a slave. Then do so, was the reply, and you will have two. He said that he did not take money from his friends for his own use, but to teach them upon what objects their money should be spent. When he was reproached for employing a rhetorician to conduct his case, he made reply, Well, if I give a dinner, I hire a cook.

Being once compelled by Dionysius to enunciate some doctrine of philosophy, It would be ludicrous, he said, that you should learn from me what to

To one who accused him of living with a courtesan, he put the question, Why, is there any difference between taking a house in which many people have lived before and taking one in which nobody has ever lived? The answer being No, he continued, Or again, between sailing in a ship in which ten thousand persons have sailed before and in one in which nobody has ever sailed? There is no difference. Then it makes no difference, said he, whether the woman you live with has lived with many or with nobody. To the accusation that, although he was a pupil of Socrates, he took fees, his rejoinder was, Most certainly I do, for Socrates, too, when certain people sent him corn and wine, used to take a little and return all the rest; and he had the foremost men in Athens for his stewards, whereas mine is my slave Eutychides. He enjoyed the favours of Laïs, as Sotion states in the second book of his Successions of Philosophers.

To those who censured him his defence was, I have Lais, not she me; and it is not abstinence from

When Charondas (or, as others say, Phaedo) inquired, Who is this who reeks with unguents? he replied, It is I, unlucky wight, and the still more unlucky Persian king. But, as none of the other animals are at any disadvantage on that account, consider whether it be not the same with man. Confound the effeminates who spoil for us the use of good perfume. Being asked how Socrates died, he answered, As I would wish to die myself. Polyxenus the sophist once paid him a visit and, after having seen ladies present and expensive entertainment, reproached him with it later. After an interval Aristippus asked him, Can you join us today?

On the other accepting the invitation, Aristippus inquired, Why, then, did you find fault? For you appear to blame the cost and not the entertainment. When his servant was carrying money and found the load too heavy—the story is told by Bion in his Lectures—Aristippus cried, Pour away the greater part, and carry no more than you can manage. Being once on a voyage, as soon as he