Vitae philosophorum

Democritus also pulled to pieces the views of Anaxagoras on cosmogony and on mind, having a spite against him, because Anbaxagoras did not take to him. If this be so, how could he have been his pupil, as some suggest?

According to Demetrius in his book on Men of the Same Name and Antisthenes in his Successions of Philosophers, he travelled into Egypt to learn geometry from the priests, and he also went into Persia to visit the Chaldaeans as well as to the Red Sea. Some say that he associated with the Gymnosophists in India and went to Aethiopia. Also that, being the third son, he divided the family property. Most authorities will have it that he chose the smaller portion, which was in money, because he had need of this to pay the cost of travel; besides, his brothers were crafty enough to foresee that this would be his choice.

Demetrius estimates his share at over 100 talents, the whole of which he spent. His industry, says the same author, was so great that he cut off a little room in the garden round the house and shut himself up there. One day his father brought an ox to sacrifice and tied it there, and he was not aware of it for a considerable time,

If the Rivals be the work of Plato, says Thrasylus, Democritus will be the unnamed character, different from Oenopides and Anaxagoras, who makes his appearance when conversation is going on with Socrates about philosophy, and to whom Socrates says that the philosopher is like the all-round athlete.[*](Rivals, 132 a-c.) And truly Democritus was versed in every department of philosophy, for he had trained himself both in physics and in ethics, nay more, in mathematics and the routine subjects of education, and he was quite an expert in the arts. From him we have the saying, Speech is the shadow of action. Demetrius of Phalerum in his Defence of Socrates affirms that he did not even visit Athens. This is to make the larger claim, namely, that he thought that great city beneath his notice, because he did not care to win fame from a place, but preferred himself to make a place famous.

His character can also be seen from his writings. He would seem, says Thrasylus, to have been an admirer of the Pythagoreans. Moreover, he mentions Pythagoras himself, praising him in a work of his own entitled Pythagoras.[*]( § 46.) He seems to have taken all his ideas from him and, if chronology did not stand in the way, he might have been thought his pupil. Glaucus of Rhegium certainly says that

He would train himself, says Antisthenes, by a variety of means to test his sense-impressions by going at times into solitude and frequenting tombs.

The same authority states that, when he returned from his travels, he was reduced to a humble mode of life because he had exhausted his means; and, because of his poverty, he was supported by his brother Damasus. But his reputation rose owing to his having foretold certain future events; and after that the public deemed him worthy of the honour paid to a god.[*](ὡς δὲ προειπών . . . ἠξιώθη. This sentence in oratio recta, interrupting the extract from Antisthenes, finds its counterpart in the stories attributing to Democritus the power of forecasting the weather or the seasons, on the strength of his scientific attainments. Cf.. Pliny, N.H. xviii. 273, 341, and Clem. Alex. Strom. vii. 32.) There was a law, says Antisthenes, that no one who had squandered his patrimony should be buried in his native city. Democritus, understanding this, and fearing lest he should be at the mercy of any envious or unscrupulous prosecutors, read aloud to the people his treatise, the Great Diacosmos, the best of all his works; and then he was rewarded with 500 talents; and, more than that, with bronze statues as well; and when he died, he received a public funeral after a lifetime of more than a century.