The Lives and Opinions of Eminent PhilosophersDiogenes Laertius
Philosophy
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
Diogenes Laertius
Philosophers, Ancient -- Biography; Philosophy, Ancient
II. And this induced Socrates to say, the only one who knows how to pay
us proper respect is the son of the sausage-seller. Idomeneus asserts,
that it was he who, in the prison, tried to persuade Socrates to make
his escape, and not Crito. But that Plato, as he was rather inclined to
favour Aristippus, attributed his advice to Crito.
III. And Æschines was calumniated on more than one occasion; and
especially by Menedemus of Eretria, who states that he appropriated many
dialogues of Socrates as his own, having procured them from Xanthippe.
And those of them which are called “headless,” are exceedingly slovenly
performances, showing nothing of the energy of Socrates. And Pisistratus,
of Ephesus, used to say, that they were not the work of Æschines. There
are seven of them, and most of them are stated by Persæus to be the work
of Pasiphon, of Eretria, and to have been inserted by him among the works
of Æschines. And he plagiarised from the Little Cyrus, and the Lesser
Hercules, of Antisthenes, and from the Alcibiades, and from the Dialogues
of the other philosophers. The Dialogues then of Æschines, which profess
to give an idea of the system of Socrates are, as I have said, seven in
number. First of all, the Miltiades, which is rather weak; the Callias,
the Axiochus, the Aspasia, the Alcibiades, the Telauges, and the Rhino.
And they say that he, being in want, went to Sicily, to Dionysius, and
was looked down upon by Plato, but supported by Aristippus, and that he
gave Dionysius some of his dialogues, and received presents for them.
IV. After that he came to Athens, and there he did not venture to
practise the trade of a sophist, as Plato and Aristippus were in high
reputation there. But he gave lectures for money, and wrote speeches
to be delivered in the courts of law for persons under prosecution. On
which account, Timon said of him, “The speeches of Æschines which do
not convince any one.” And they say that when he was in great straights
through poverty, Socrates advised him to borrow of himself, by deducting
some part of his expenditure in his food.
V. And even Aristippus suspected the genuineness of some of his
Dialogues; accordingly, they say that when he was reciting some of them
at Megara, he ridiculed him, and said to him, “Oh! you thief; where did
you get that?”
VI. And Polycritus, of Menda, in the first book of his History of
Dionysius, says that he lived with the tyrant till he was deposed, and
till the return of Dion to Syracuse; and he says that Carcinus, the
tragedian, was also with him. And here is extant a letter of Æschines
addressed to Dionysius.
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