The Lives and Opinions of Eminent PhilosophersDiogenes Laertius
Philosophy
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
Diogenes Laertius
Philosophers, Ancient -- Biography; Philosophy, Ancient
O ye, who learned are in Stoic fables,
Ye who consign the wisest of all doctrines
To your most sacred books; you say that virtue
Is the sole good; for that alone can save
The life of man, and strongly fenced cities.
But if some fancy pleasure their best aim,
One of the Muses ’tis who has convinc’d them.
He was the original cause of the apathy of Diogenes, and the temperance
of Crates, and the patience of Zeno, having himself, as it were, laid the
foundations of the city which they afterwards built. And Xenophon says,
that in his conversation and society, he was the most delightful of men,
and in every respect the most temperate.
IX. There are ten volumes of his writings extant. The first volume is
that in which there is the essay on Style, or on Figures of Speech;
the Ajax, or speech of Ajax; the Defence, of Orestes or the treatise
on Lawyers; the Isographe, or the Lysias and Isocrates; the reply to
the work of Isocrates, entitled the Absence of Witnesses. The second
volume is that in which we have the treatise on the Nature of Animals;
on the Pro-creation of Children, or on Marriage, an essay of an amatory
character; on the Sophists, an essay of a physiognomical character; on
Justice and Manly Virtue, being three essays of an hortatory character;
two treatises on Theognis. The third volume contains a treatise on the
Good; on Manly Courage; on Law, or Political Constitutions; on Law, or
what is Honourable and Just; on Freedom and Slavery; on Good Faith;
on a Guardian, or on Persuasion; on Victory, an economical essay. The
fourth volume contains the Cyrus; the Greater Heracles, or a treatise on
Strength. The fifth volume contains the Cyrus, or a treatise on Kingly
Power; the Aspasia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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