Vitae philosophorum

Diogenes Laertius

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

When a little sparrow was pursued by a hawk and rushed into his bosom, he stroked it and let it go, declaring that a suppliant must not be betrayed. When bantered by Bion, he said he would make no reply. For neither, said he, does tragedy deign to answer the banter of comedy. To some one who had never learnt either music or geometry or astronomy, but nevertheless wished to attend his lectures, Xenocrates said, Go your ways, for you offer philosophy nothing to lay hold of. Others report him as saying, It is not to me that you come for the carding of a fleece.

When Dionysius told Plato that he would lose his head, Xenocrates, who was present, pointed to his own and added, No man shall touch it till he cut off mine. They say too that, when Antipater came to Athens and greeted him, he did not address him in return until he had finished what he was saying. He was singularly free from pride; more than once

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a day he would retire into himself, and he assigned, it is said, a whole hour to silence.

He left a very large number of treatises, poems and addresses, of which I append a list:

  • On Nature, six books.
  • On Wisdom, six books.
  • On Wealth, one book.
  • The Arcadian, one book.
  • On the Indeterminate, one book.

  • On the Child, one book.
  • On Continence, one book.
  • On Utility, one book.
  • On Freedom, one book.
  • On Death, one book.[*](Supposed by Marsilius Ficinus to be the extant dialogue Axiochus attributed to Plato (cf. supra, iii. 62).)
  • On the Voluntary, one book.
  • On Friendship, two books.
  • On Equity, one book.
  • On that which is Contrary, two books.
  • On Happiness, two books.
  • On Writing, one book.
  • On Memory, one book.
  • On Falsehood, one book.
  • Callicles, one book.
  • On Prudence, two books.
  • The Householder, one book.
  • On Temperance, one book.
  • On the Influence of Law, one book.
  • On the State, one book.
  • On Holiness, one book.
  • That Virtue can be taught, one book.
  • On Being, one book.
  • On Fate, one book.
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  • On the Emotions, one book.
  • On Modes of Life, one book.
  • On Concord, one book.
  • On Students, two books.
  • On Justice, one book.
  • On Virtue, two books.
  • On Forms, one book.
  • On Pleasure, two books.
  • On Life, one book.
  • On Bravery, one book.
  • On the One, one book.
  • On Ideas, one book.

  • On Art, one book.
  • On the Gods, two books.
  • On the Soul, two books.
  • On Science, one book.
  • The Statesman, one book.
  • On Cognition, one book.
  • On Philosophy, one book.
  • On the Writings of Parmenides, one book.
  • Archedemus or Concerning Justice, one book.
  • On the Good, one book.
  • Things relating to the Understanding, eight books.
  • Solution of Logical Problems, ten books.
  • Physical Lectures, six books.
  • Summary, one book.
  • On Genera and Species, one book.
  • Things Pythagorean, one book.
  • Solutions, two books.
  • Divisions, eight books.
  • Theses, in twenty books, 30,000 lines.
  • The Study of Dialectic, in fourteen books, 12,740 lines.
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  • After this come fifteen books, and then sixteen books of Studies relating to Style.
  • Nine books on Ratiocination.
  • Six books concerned with Mathematics.
  • Two other books entitled Things relating to the Intellect.
  • On Geometers, five books.
  • Commentaries, one book.
  • Contraries, one book.
  • On Numbers, one book.
  • Theory of Numbers, one book.
  • On Dimensions, one book.
  • On Astronomy, six books.

  • Elementary Principles of Monarchy, in four books, dedicated to Alexander.
  • To Arybas.
  • To Hephaestion.
  • On Geometry, two books.

    • These works comprise in all 224,239 lines.

    Such was his character, and yet, when he was unable to pay the tax levied on resident aliens, the Athenians put him up for sale. And Demetrius of Phalerum purchased him, thereby making twofold restitution, to Xenocrates of his liberty, and to the Athenians of their tax. This we learn from Myronianus of Amastris in the first book of his Chapters on Historical Parallels. He succeeded Speusippus and was head of the school for twenty-five years from the archonship of Lysimachides, beginning in the second year of the 110th Olympiad.[*](339-338 b.c.) He died in his 82nd year from the effects of a fall over some utensil in the night.

    Upon him I have expressed myself as follows[*](Anth. Pal. vii. 102.):

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    Xenocrates, that type of perfect manliness, stumbled over a vessel of bronze and broke his head, and, with a loud cry, expired.

    There have been six other men named Xenocrates: (1) a tactician in very ancient times; (2) the kinsman and fellow-citizen of the philosopher: a speech by him is extant entitled the Arsinoëtic, treating of a certain deceased Arsinoë[*](In the enumeration of the first three one has accidentally dropped out.); (4) a philosopher and not very successful writer of elegies; it is a remarkable fact that poets succeed when they undertake to write prose, but prose-writers who essay poetry come to grief; whereby it is clear that the one is a gift of nature and the other of art; (5) a sculptor; (6) a writer of songs mentioned by Aristoxenus.

    Polemo, the son of Philostratus, was an Athenian who belonged to the deme of Oea. In his youth he was so profligate and dissipated that he actually carried about with him money to procure the immediate gratification of his desires, and would even keep sums concealed in lanes and alleys.[*](Cf. Lucian’s account of his follies (Bis accusatus, 16), the more piquant because put into the mouth of Academy pleading against Carouse, Μέθη.) Even in the Academy a piece of three obols was found close to a pillar, where he had buried it for the same purpose. And one day, by agreement with his young friends, he burst into the school of Xenocrates quite drunk, with a garland on his head. Xenocrates, however, without being at all disturbed, went on with his discourse as before, the subject being temperance. The lad, as he listened, by degrees was taken in the toils. He became so industrious

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    as to surpass all the other scholars, and rose to be himself head of the school in the 116th Olympiad.[*](316-312 b.c.)

    Antigonus of Carystus in his Biographies says that his father was foremost among the citizens and kept horses to compete in the chariot-race; that Polemo himself had been defendant in an action brought by his wife, who charged him with cruelty owing to the irregularities of his life; but that, from the time when he began to study philosophy, he acquired such strength of character as always to maintain the same unruffled calm of demeanour. Nay more, he never lost control of his voice. This in fact accounts for the fascination which he exercised over Crantor. [*](Cf. infra, §24.) Certain it is that, when a mad dog bit him in the back of his thigh, he did not even turn pale, but remained undisturbed by all the clamour which arose in the city at the news of what had happened. In the theatre too he was singularly unmoved.

    For instance, Nicostratus, who was nicknamed Clytemnestra, was once reading to him and Crates something from Homer; and, while Crates was deeply affected, he was no more moved than if he had not heard him. Altogether he was a man such as Melanthius the painter describes in his work On Painting. There he says that a certain wilfulness and stubbornness should be stamped on works of art, and that the same holds good of character. Polemo used to say that we should exercise ourselves with facts and not with mere logical speculations, which leave us, like a man who has got by heart some paltry handbook on harmony but never practised, able, indeed, to win admiration for skill in asking questions, but utterly at variance with ourselves in the ordering of our lives.

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    He was, then, refined and generous, and would beg to be excused, in the words of Aristophanes about Euripides, the acid, pungent style,