The Lives and Opinions of Eminent PhilosophersDiogenes Laertius
Philosophy
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
Diogenes Laertius
Philosophers, Ancient -- Biography; Philosophy, Ancient
IV. He was also a man of a very powerful voice, so that the president of
the Gymnasium sent to him once, to desire he would not shout so loudly.
And he replied, “Give me then, measure for my voice.” And the gymnasiarch
again rejoined with great wit, for he said, “You have a measure in your
pupils.”
V. He was a very vehement speaker, and one difficult to contend with in
the investigation of a point. And he used to decline all invitations to
entertainments, for the reasons I have already mentioned.
VI. On one occasion, when Mentor, the Bithynian, one of his pupils, came
to him to attend his school, observing that he was trying to seduce his
mistress (as Phavorinus relates in his Universal History), while he was
in the middle of his lecture, he made the following parody in allusion to
him:—
A weak old man comes hither, like in voice,
And gait, and figure, to the prudent Mentor
I order him to be expelled this school.
And Mentor rising up, replied:—
Thus did they speak, and straight the others rose.
VII. He appears to have been beset with fears of death; as he was
continually saying, “Nature, who has put this frame together, will also
dissolve it.” And learning that Antipater had died after having taken
poison, he felt a desire to imitate the boldness of his departure, and
said, “Give me some too.” And when they asked “What?” “Some mead,” said
he. And it is said that an eclipse of the moon happened when he died,
the most beautiful of all the stars, next to the sun, indicating (as any
one might say) its sympathy with the philosopher. And Apollodorus, in
his Chronicles, says that he died in the fourth year of the hundred and
sixty-second olympiad, being eighty-five years old.
VIII. There are some letters extant addressed by him to Ariarathes, the
king of the Cappadocians. All the other writings which are attributed to
him were written by his disciples, for he himself left nothing behind
him. And I have written on him the following lines in logaœdical
Archebulian metre.
Why now, O Muse, do you wish me Carneades to confute?
He was an ignoramus, as he did not understand
Why he should stand in fear of death: so once, when he’d a cough,
The worst of all diseases that affect the human frame,
He cared not for a remedy; but when the news did reach him,
That brave Antipater had ta’en some poison, and so died,
“Give me, said he, some stuff to drink.” “Some what?”—“Some luscious
mead.”
Moreover, he’d this saying at all times upon his lips:
“Nature did make me, and she does together keep me still;
But soon the time will come when she will pull me all to pieces.”
But still at last he yielded up the ghost: though long ago
He might have died, and so escaped the evils that befell him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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