Vitae philosophorum

Diogenes Laertius

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

Furthermore, he was extremely independent; at all events, when Alexander sent him a large sum of money, he took three thousand Attic drachmas and sent back the rest to Alexander, whose needs, he said, were greater than his own, because he had a greater number of people to keep. Again, he would not accept the present sent him by Antipater, as Myronianus attests in his Parallels. And when he had been honoured at the court of Dionysius with a golden crown as the prize for his prowess in drinking at the Feast of Pitchers, he went out and placed it on the statue of Hermes just as he had been accustomed to place there garlands of flowers. There is a story that, when he was sent, along with others also, on an embassy to Philip, his colleagues, being bribed, accepted Philip’s invitations to feasts and talked with him. Xenocrates did neither the one nor the other. Indeed on this account Philip declined to see him.

Hence, when the envoys returned to Athens, they complained that Xenocrates had accompanied them without rendering any service. Thereupon the people were ready to fine him. But when he told them that now more than ever they ought to consider the interests of the state—for, said he, Philip knew

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that the others had accepted his bribes, but that he would never win me over—then the people paid him double honours. And afterwards Philip said that, of all who had arrived at his court, Xenocrates was the only man whom he could not bribe. Moreover, when he went as envoy to Antipater to plead for Athenians taken prisoners in the Lamian war,[*](322 b.c.) being invited to dine with Antipater, he quoted to him the following lines[*](Hom. Od. x. 383-5.):
O Circe! what righteous man would have the heart to taste meat and drink ere he had redeemed his company and beheld them face to face?
and so pleased Antipater with his ready wit that he at once released them.

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.