Vitae philosophorum

Diogenes of Apollonia, son of Apollothemis, was a natural philosopher and a most famous man. Antisthenes

The doctrines of Diogenes were as follows.[*](Diels (op. cit. p. 144) compares Plutarch, Strom. apud Euseb. Praep. Evang. i. 8. 13; Aëtius i. 3. 26; Theophrastus, Phys. Opin. Fr. 2.) Air is the universal element. There are worlds unlimited in number, and unlimited empty space. Air by condensation and rarefaction generates the worlds. Nothing comes into being from what is not or passes away into what is not. The earth is spherical, firmly supported in the centre, having its construction determined by the revolution which comes from heat and by the congealment caused by cold.

The words with which his treatise begins are these: At the beginning of every discourse I consider that one ought to make the starting-point unmistakably clear and the exposition simple and dignified.

Anaxarchus, a native of Abdera, studied under Diogenes of Smyrna,[*](Here a Diogenes is mentioned as a link between Demo critus and Anaxarchus. See p. 468, note c. Cf. Clem. Alex. Strom. i. 64, p. 301 D Δημοκρίτου δὲ ἀκουσταὶ Πρωταγόρας ὁ Ἀβδηρίτης καὶ Μητρόδωρος ὁ Χίος, οὗ Διογένης ὁ Σμυρναῖος, οὗ Ἀνάξαρχος, τούτου δὲ Πύρρων, οὗ Ναυσιφάνης; Euseb. xiv. 17. 10; Epiphanius, De fide, 9, p. 591.) and the latter under Metrodorus of Chios, who used to declare that he knew nothing, not even the fact that he knew nothing; while Metrodorus was a pupil of Nessas of Chios, though some say that he was taught by Democritus. Now Anaxarchus accompanied Alexander and flourished in the 110th Olympiad.[*](340-337 b.c.) He made an enemy of Nicocreon, tyrant of Cyprus. Once at a

This was a hit at Nicocreon, who never forgot it, and when after the king’s death Anaxarchus was forced against his will to land in Cyprus, he seized him and, putting him in a mortar, ordered him to be pounded to death with iron pestles. But he, making light of the punishment, made that well-known speech, Pound, pound the pouch containing Anaxarchus; ye pound not Anaxarchus. And when Nicocreon commanded his tongue to be cut out, they say he bit it off and spat it at him. This is what I have written upon him[*](Anth. Pal. vii. 133.):

Pound, Nicocreon, as hard as you like: it is but a pouch. Pound on; Anaxarchus’s self long since is housed with Zeus. And after she has drawn you upon her carding-combs a little while, Persephone will utter words like these: Out upon thee, villainous miller !

For his fortitude and contentment in life he was called the Happy Man. He had, too, the capacity of bringing anyone to reason in the easiest possible way. At all events he succeeded in diverting Alexander when he had begun to think himself a god; for, seeing blood running from a wound he had sustained, he pointed to him with his finger and said, See, there is blood and not

Ichor which courses in the veins of the blessed gods.[*](Il. v. 340.)

One of the gods shall fall by the stroke of mortal man.[*](Euripides, Orestes, 271.)

Pyrrho of Elis was the son of Pleistarchus, as Diocles relates. According to Apollodorus in his Chronology, he was first a painter; then he studied under Stilpo’s son Bryson[*](For Stilpo’s son Bryson Roeper’s conjecture βρύσωνος ἢ Στίλπωνος (Philolog. xxx. 462) would substitute under Bryson or Stilpo. In any case chronology seems to forbid the supposition that Pyrrho was a pupil of either Stilpo or Bryson.): thus Alexander in his Successions of Philosophers. Afterwards he joined Anaxarchus, whom he accompanied on his travels everywhere so that he even forgathered with the Indian Gymnosophists and with the Magi. This led him to adopt a most noble philosophy, to quote Ascanius of Abdera, taking the form of agnosticism and suspension of judgement. He denied that anything was honourable or dishonourable, just or unjust.[*](i.e. a particular act is no more just than unjust.) And so, universally, he held that there is nothing really existent, but custom and convention govern human action; for no single thing is in itself any more this than that.

He led a life consistent with this doctrine, going out of his way for nothing, taking no precaution, but facing all risks as they came, whether carts, precipices, dogs or what not, and, generally, leaving nothing to the arbitrament of the senses; but he was kept out of harm’s way by his friends who, as Antigonus of Carystus tells us, used to follow close after him. But Aenesidemus says that it was only his philosophy that was based upon suspension of judgement, and that he did not lack foresight in his everyday acts. He lived to be nearly ninety.

This is what Antigonus of Carystus says of Pyrrho in his book upon him. At first he was a poor and unknown painter, and there are still some indifferent

He would withdraw from the world and live in solitude, rarely showing himself to his relatives; this he did because he had heard an Indian reproach Anaxarchus, telling him that he would never be able to teach others what is good while he himself danced attendance on kings in their courts. He would maintain the same composure at all times, so that, even if you left him when he was in the middle of a speech, he would finish what he had to say with no audience but himself, although in his youth he had been hasty.[*](Here Diels would insert in the text words which would make the meaning easily moved by the applause of the crowd and ambitious of fame.) Often, our informant adds, he would leave his home and, telling no one, would go roaming about with whomsoever he chanced to meet. And once, when Anaxarchus fell into a slough, he passed by without giving him any help, and, while others blamed him, Anaxarchus himself praised his indifference and sang-froid.

On being discovered once talking to himself, he answered, when asked the reason, that he was training to be good. In debate he was looked down upon by no one, for he could both discourse at length and also sustain a cross-examination, so that even Nausiphanes when a young man was captivated by him: at all events he used to say that we should follow Pyrrho in disposition but himself in doctrine; and he would often remark that Epicurus, greatly admiring Pyrrho’s way of life, regularly asked him for information about Pyrrho; and that he was so respected by his native city that they made him high priest, and on his account they voted that all philosophers should be exempt from taxation.

Moreover, there were many who emulated his

O Pyrrho, O aged Pyrrho, whence and how
1. Found’st thou escape from servitude to sophists,
2. Their dreams and vanities; how didst thou loose
3. The bonds of trickery and specious craft?
4. Nor reck’st thou to inquire such things as these,
5. What breezes circle Hellas, to what end,
6. And from what quarter each may chance to blow.

This, Pyrrho, this my heart is fain to know,
1. Whence peace of mind to thee doth freely flow,
2. Why among men thou like a god dost show?

Athens honoured him with her citizenship, says Diocles, for having slain the Thracian Cotys.

He lived in fraternal piety with his sister, a midwife, so says Eratosthenes in his essay On Wealth and Poverty, now and then even taking things for sale to market, poultry perchance or pigs, and he would dust the things in the house, quite indifferent as to what he did. They say he showed his indifference by washing a porker. Once he got enraged in his sister’s cause (her name was Philista), and he told the man who blamed him that it was not over a weak woman that one should display indifference. When a cur rushed at him and terrified him, he answered his critic that it was not easy entirely to strip oneself of human weakness; but one should strive with all one’s might against facts, by deeds if possible, and if not, in word.

They say that, when septic salves and surgical and caustic remedies were applied to a wound he had sustained, he did not so much as frown. Timon

As leaves on trees, such is the life of man.[*](Il. vi. 146.)

Ay, friend, die thou; why thus thy fate deplore?
1. Patroclus too, thy better, is no more,[*](Il. xxi. 106 f.)

Posidonius, too, relates of him a story of this sort. When his fellow-passengers on board a ship were all unnerved by a storm, he kept calm and confident, pointing to a little pig in the ship that went on eating, and telling them that such was the unperturbed state in which the wise man should keep himself. Numenius alone attributes to him positive tenets. He had pupils of repute, in particular one Eurylochus, who fell short of his professions; for they say that he was once so angry that he seized the spit with the meat on it and chased his cook right into the market-place.

Once in Elis he was so hard pressed by his pupils’ questions that he stripped

Philo, again, who had a habit of very often talking to himself, is also referred to in the lines[*](Cf.Od. xxi. 364.):

Yea, him that is far away from men, at leisure to himself,
1. Philo, who recks not of opinion or of wrangling.

Besides these, Pyrrho’s pupils included Hecataeus of Abdera, Timon of Phlius, author of the Silli, of whom more anon, and also Nausiphanes of Teos, said by some to have been a teacher of Epicurus. All these were called Pyrrhoneans after the name of their master, but Aporetics, Sceptics, Ephectics, and even Zetetics, from their principles, if we may call them such—

Zetetics or seekers because they were ever seeking truth, Sceptics or inquirers because they were always looking for a solution and never finding one, Ephectics or doubters because of the state of mind which followed their inquiry, I mean, suspense of judgement, and finally Aporetics or those in perplexity, for not only they but even the dogmatic philosophers themselves in their turn were often perplexed. Pyrrhoneans, of course, they were called from Pyrrho. Theodosius in his Sceptic Chapters denies that Scepticism should be called Pyrrhonism; for if the movement of the mind in either direction is unattainable by us, we shall never know for certain what Pyrrho really intended, and without knowing that, we cannot be called Pyrrhoneans. Besides this (he says), there is the fact that Pyrrho was not the founder of Scepticism; nor had he any positive tenet; but a Pyrrhonean is one who in manners and life resembles Pyrrho.

Some call Homer the founder of this school, for to the same questions he more than anyone else is

Man’s soul, O Glaucus, son of Leptines,
1. Is but as one short day that Zeus sends down.

Great God ! how can they say poor mortal men
1. Have minds and think? Hang we not on thy will?
2. Do we not what it pleaseth thee to wish?

Furthermore, they find Xenophanes, Zeno of Elea, and Democritus to be sceptics: Xenophanes because he says,[*](Fr. 34 D.)

Clear truth hath no man seen nor e’er shall know;

Who knoweth if to die be but to live,
1. And that called life by mortals be but death?

So to these mortal may not list nor look
1. Nor yet conceive them in his mind;

Each believes naught but his experience.

Pliant is the tongue of mortals; numberless the tales within it;

Ample is of words the pasture, hither thither widely ranging;

And the saying which thou sayest, back it cometh later on thee,

The Sceptics, then, were constantly engaged[*](διετέλουν, imperfect.) in overthrowing the dogmas of all schools, but enuntiated none themselves; and though they would go so far as to bring forward and expound the dogmas of the others, they themselves laid down nothing definitely, not even the laying down of nothing. So much so that they even refuted their laying down of nothing, saying, for instance, We determine nothing, since otherwise they would have been betrayed into determining[*](Inf. § 104.); but we put forward, say they, all

But Not more (one thing than another) can also be taken positively, indicating that two things are alike; for example, The pirate is no more wicked than the liar. But the Sceptics meant it not positively but negatively, as when, in refuting an argument, one says, Neither had more existence, Scylla or the Chimaera. And More so itself is sometimes comparative, as when we say that Honey is more sweet than grapes; sometimes both positive and negative, as when we say, Virtue profits more than it harms, for in this phrase we indicate that virtue profits and does not harm.

But the Sceptics even refute the statement Not more (one thing than another). For, as forethought is no more existent than non-existent, so Not more (one thing than another) is no more existent than not. Thus, as Timon says in the Pytho, the statement means just absence of all determination and withholding of assent. The other statement, Every saying, etc.,[*](i.e.Every saying has its corresponding opposite (supra, § 74).) equally compels suspension of judgement; when facts disagree, but the contradictory statements have exactly the same weight, ignorance of the truth is the necessary consequence. But even this statement has its corresponding antithesis, so that after destroying others it turns round and destroys itself, like a purge which drives the substance