From Diogenes’ accounts of his life (VIII. 59, 60-73), he also seems to have been a kind of magician and sorcerer, like Pythagoras. During his life he was much respected by his fellow-citizens, and, after his death, a statue was erected to him in his native town; his fame extended very far. He did not live apart, like Heraclitus, but in the exercise of great influence on the affairs of the town of Agrigentum, like Parmenides in Elea. He acquired the credit, after the death of Meton, the ruler of Agrigentum, of bringing about a free constitution and equal rights to all citizens. He likewise frustrated several attempts which were made by people of Agrigentum to seize upon the rulership of their city; and when the esteem of his fellow-citizens rose so high that they offered him the crown, he rejected their offers, and lived ever after amongst them as a respected private individual. Both of his life and death much which was fabulous was told. Seeing that he was famous in life, we are told that he wished not to appear to die an ordinary death, as a proof that he was not a mortal man, but had merely passed out of sight. After a feast he is said either to have suddenly disappeared, or else to have been on Etna with his friends, and suddenly to have been seen of them no more. But what became of him was revealed by the fact that one of his shoes was thrown up by Etna, and found by one of his friends; this made it clear that he threw himself into Etna, thereby to withdraw himself from the notice of mankind, and to give rise to the idea that he did not really die, but that he was taken up amongst the gods. The origin and occasion for this fable seems to lie in a poem in which there are several verses that, taken alone, make great professions. He says, according to Sturz, (p. 530: Reliquiæ _τῶν καθαρμῶν_, v. 364-376):— “Friends who dwell within the fort on yellow Acragas And who in the best of works are busy, I greet you! To you I am an immortal god, no more a mortal man, Do ye not see how that where’er I go, all honour me, My head being ‘circled round with diadems and crowns of green? When so decked out, I show myself in towns of wealth, Men and women pray to me. And thousands follow My steps, to seek from me the way to bliss, Others ask for prophecies; others again, Healing words for ailments manifold beseech. But what is this to me—as though ‘twere anything By art to conquer much corrupted man.” But, taken in the context, this laudation means that I am highly honoured, but what is the value of that to me; it expresses weariness of the honour given him by men.