Vitae philosophorum

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.