Vitae philosophorum

Diogenes Laertius

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

And when he said to her:

    Is this she
  1. Who quitting woof and warp and comb and loom?[*](Eur. Bacch. 1236.)
she replied, It is I, Theodorus,—but do you suppose that I have been ill advised about myself, if instead of wasting further time upon the loom I spent it in education? These tales and countless others are told of the female philosopher.

There is current a work of Crates entitled Epistles,

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containing excellent philosophy in a style which sometimes resembles that of Plato. He has also written tragedies, stamped with a very lofty kind of philosophy; as, for example, the following passage[*](Nauck, T.G.F.2, Crat. i. p. 810.):
    Not one tower hath my country nor one roof,
  1. But wide as the whole earth its citadel
  2. And home prepared for us to dwell therein.

He died in old age, and was buried in Boeotia.

Menippus,[*](Menippus ille, nobilis quidem canis, Varro apud Nonium 333. Cf. Lucian, Icaromenippus 15, Bis Accusatus 33. Varro’s Saturae Menippeae, a mixture of prose and verse, were an imitation of the style of Menippus, although their subject matter was original and genuinely Roman.) also a Cynic, was by descent a Phoenician—a slave, as Achaïcus in his treatise on Ethics says. Diocles further informs us that his master was a citizen of Pontus and was named Baton. But as avarice made him very resolute in begging, he succeeded in becoming a Theban.

There is no seriousness[*](Strabo, however (xvi. p. 759), speaks of him as σπουδογέλοιος.) in him; but his books overflow with laughter, much the same as those of his contemporary Meleager.[*](For a fragment from his Banquet see Athenaeus 502 c.)

Hermippus says that he lent out money by the day and got a nickname from doing so. For he used to make loans on bottomry and take security, thus accumulating a large fortune.