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-Lives of the Eminent Philosophers (1925) by Diogenes Laërtius, translated by Robert Drew Hicks.
+The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, by Diogenes Laertius, Literally translated by C.D. Yonge. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853 | Life of Anacharsis only, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius, translated by Robert Drew Hicks, Wikisource
-====== The Seven Sages: Diogenes Laertius ======
+====== Diogenes Laertius: The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers Book 1 ======
-===== Prologue =====
+===== The Seven Sages =====
+===== BOOK I =====
-. There are some who say that the study of philosophy had its beginning among the barbarians. They urge that the Persians have had their Magi, the Babylonians or Assyrians their Chaldaeans, and the Indians their Gymnosophists; and among the Celts and Gauls there are the people called Druids or Holy Ones, for which they cite as authorities the Magicus of Aristotle and Sotion in the twenty-third[1] book of his Succession of Philosophers. Also they say that Mochus was a Phoenician, Zamolxis a Thracian, and Atlas a Libyan.
+===== INTRODUCTION. =====
-If we may believe the Egyptians, Hephaestus was the son of the Nile, and with him philosophy began, priests and prophets being its chief exponents. 2. Hephaestus lived 48,863 years before Alexander of Macedon, and in the interval there occurred 373 solar and 832 lunar eclipses. The date of the Magians, beginning with Zoroaster the Persian, was 5000 years before the fall of Troy, as given by Hermodorus the Platonist in his work on mathematics; but Xanthus the Lydian reckons 6000 years from Zoroaster to the expedition of Xerxes, and after that event he places a long line of Magians in succession, bearing the names of Ostanas, Astrampsychos, Gobryas, and Pazatas, down to the conquest of Persia by Alexander.
-. These authors forget that the achievements which they attribute to the barbarians belong to the Greeks, with whom not merely philosophy but the human race itself began. For instance, Musaeus is claimed by Athens, Linus by Thebes. It is said that the former, the son of Eumolpus, was the first to compose a genealogy of the gods and to construct a sphere, and that he maintained that all things proceed from unity and are resolved again into unity. He died at Phalerum, and this is his epitaph:[2]
+I. SOME say that the study of philosophy originated with the barbarians. In that among the Persians there existed the Magi,1 and among the Babylonians or Assyrians the Chaldaei,2 among the Indians the Gymnosophistae,3 and among the Celts and Gauls men who were called Druids4 and Semnothei, as Aristotle relates in his book on Magic, and Sotion in the twenty-third book of his Succession of Philosophers. Besides those men there were the Phoenician Ochus, the Thracian Zamolxis,5 and the Libyan Atlas. For the Egyptians say that Vulcan was the son of Nilus*, and that he was the author of philosophy, in which those who were especially eminent were called his priests and prophets.
-    Musaeus, to his sire Eumolpus dear,
+II. From his age to that of Alexander, king of the Macedonians, were forty-eight thousand eight hundred and sixty-three years, and during this time there were three hundred and seventy-three eclipses of the sun, and eight hundred and thirty-two eclipses of the moon.
-    In Phalerean soil lies buried here;
-and the Eumolpidae at Athens get their name from the father of Musaeus.
+Again, from the time of the Magi, the first of whom was Zoroaster the Persian, to that of the fall of Troy, Hermodorus the Platonic philosopher, in his treatise on Mathematics, calculates that fifteen thousand years elapsed. But Xanthus the Lydian says that the passage of the Hellespont by Xerxes took place six thousand years after the time of Zoroaster,6 and that after him there was a regular succession of Magi under the names of Ostanes and Astrampsychos and Gobryas and Pazatas, until the destruction of the Persian empire by Alexander.
-. Linus again was (so it is said) the son of Hermes and the Muse Urania. He composed a poem describing the creation of the world, the courses of the sun and moon, and the growth of animals and plants. His poem begins with the line:
+III. But those who say this, ignorantly impute to the barbarians the merits of the Greeks, from whom not only all philosophy, but even the whole human race in reality originated. For Musaeus was born among the Athenians, and Linus among the Thebans; and they say that the former, who was the son of Eumolpus, was the first person who taught the system of the genealogy of the gods, and who invented the spheres; and that he taught that all things originated in one thing, and when dissolved returned to that same thing; and that he died at Phalerum, and that this epitaph was inscribed on his tomb:
-    Time was when all things grew up at once;
+    Phalerum's soil beneath this tomb contains
+    Musaeus dead, Eumolpus' darling son.
-and this idea was borrowed by Anaxagoras when he declared that all things were originally together until Mind came and set them in order. Linus died in Euboea, slain by the arrow of Apollo, and this is his epitaph:[3]
+And it is from the father of Musaeus that the family called Eumolpidae among the Athenians derive their name. They say too that Linus was the son of Mercury and the Muse Urania; and that he invented a system of Cosmogony, and of the motions of the sun and moon, and of the generation of animals and fruits; and the following is the beginning of his poem,
-    Here Theban Linus, whom Urania bore,
+    There was a time when all the present world
-    The fair-crowned Muse, sleeps on a foreign shore.
+    Uprose at once.
-And thus it was from the Greeks that philosophy took its rise: its very name refuses to be translated into foreign speech.
+From which Anaxagoras derived his theory, when he said that all things had been produced at the same time, and that then intellect had come and arranged them all in order.
-. But those who attribute its invention to barbarians bring forward Orpheus the Thracian, calling him a philosopher of whose antiquity there can be no doubt. Now, considering the sort of things he said about the gods, I hardly know whether he ought to be called a philosopher; for what are we to make of one who does not scruple to charge the gods with all human suffering, and even the foul crimes wrought by the tongue amongst a few of mankind? The story goes that he met his death at the hands of women; but according to the epitaph at Dium in Macedonia he was slain by a thunderbolt; it runs as follows:[4]
+They say, moreover, that Linus died in Euboea, having been shot with an arrow by Apollo, and that this epitaph was set over him:
-    Here have the Muses laid their minstrel true,
+    The Theban Linus sleeps beneath this ground,
-    The Thracian Orpheus whom Jove's thunder slew.
+    Urania's son with fairest garlands crown'd.
-. But the advocates of the theory that philosophy took its rise among the barbarians go on to explain the different forms it assumed in different countries. As to the Gymnosophists and Druids we are told that they uttered their philosophy in riddles, bidding men to reverence the gods, to abstain from wrongdoing, and to practise courage. That the Gymnosophists at all events despise even death itself is affirmed by Clitarchus in his twelfth book; he also says that the Chaldaeans apply themselves to astronomy and forecasting the future; while the Magi spend their time in the worship of the gods, in sacrifices and in prayers, implying that none but themselves have the ear of the gods. They propound their views concerning the being and origin of the gods, whom they hold to be fire, earth, and water; they condemn the use of images, and especially the error of attributing to the divinities difference of sex. 7. They hold discourse of justice, and deem it impious to practise cremation; but they see no impiety in marriage with a mother or daughter, as Sotion relates in his twenty-third book. Further, they practise divination and forecast the future, declaring that the gods appear to them in visible form. Moreover, they say that the air is full of shapes which stream forth like vapour and enter the eyes of keen-sighted seers. They prohibit personal ornament and the wearing of gold. Their dress is white, they make their bed on the ground, and their food is vegetables, cheese,[5] and coarse bread; their staff is a reed and their custom is, so we are told, to stick it into the cheese and take up with it the part they eat.
+IV. And thus did philosophy arise among the Greeks, and indeed its very name shows that it has no connection with the barbarians. But those who attribute its origin to them, introduce Orpheus the Thracian, and say that he was a philosopher, and the most ancient one of all. But if one ought to call a man who has said such things about the gods as he has said, a philosopher, I do not know what name one ought to give to him who has not scrupled to attribute all sorts of human feelings to the gods, and even such discreditable actions as are but rarely spoken of among men; and tradition relates that he was murdered by women;7 but there is an inscription at Dium in Macedonia, saying that he was killed by lightning, and it runs thus:
-. With the art of magic they were wholly unacquainted, according to Aristotle in his Magicus and Dinon in the fifth book of his History Dinon tells us that the name Zoroaster, literally interpreted, means "star-worshipper";[6] and Hermodorus agrees with him in this. Aristotle in the first book of his dialogue On Philosophy declares that the Magi are more ancient than the Egyptians; and further, that they believe in two principles, the good spirit and the evil spirit, the one called Zeus or Oromasdes, the other Hades or Arimanius. This is confirmed by Hermippus in his first book about the Magi, Eudoxus in his Voyage round the World, and Theopompus in the eighth book of his Philippica. 9. The last-named author says that according to the Magi men will live in a future life and be immortal, and that the world will endure through their invocations.[7] This is again confirmed by Eudemus of Rhodes. But Hecataeus relates that according to them the gods are subject to birth. Clearchus of Soli in his tract On Education further makes the Gymnosophists to be descended from the Magi; and some trace the Jews also to the same origin. Furthermore, those who have written about the Magi criticize Herodotus. They urge that Xerxes would never have cast javelins at the sun nor have let down fetters into the sea, since in the creed of the Magi sun and sea are gods. But that statues of the gods should be destroyed by Xerxes was natural enough.
+    Here the bard buried by the Muses lies,
+            The Thracian Orpheus of the golden lyre;
+    Whom mighty Jove, the Sovereign of the skies,
+            Removed from earth by his dread lightning's fire.
-. The philosophy of the Egyptians is described as follows so far as relates to the gods and to justice. They say that matter was the first principle, next the four elements were derived from matter, and thus living things of every species were produced. The sun and the moon are gods bearing the names of Osiris and Isis respectively; they make use of the beetle, the dragon, the hawk, and other creatures as symbols of divinity, according to Manetho in his Epitome of Physical Doctrines, and Hecataeus in the first book of his work On the Egyptian Philosophy. They also set up statues and temples to these sacred animals because they do not know the true form of the deity. 11. They hold that the universe is created and perishable, and that it is spherical in shape. They say that the stars consist of fire, and that, according as the fire in them is mixed, so events happen upon earth; that the moon is eclipsed when it falls into the earth's shadow; that the soul survives death and passes into other bodies; that rain is caused by change in the atmosphere; of all other phenomena they give physical explanations, as related by Hecataeus and Aristagoras. They also laid down laws on the subject of justice, which they ascribed to Hermes; and they deified those animals which are serviceable to man. They also claimed to have invented geometry, astronomy, and arithmetic. Thus much concerning the invention of philosophy.
+V. But they who say that philosophy had its rise among the barbarians, give also an account of the different systems prevailing among the various tribes. And they say that the Gymnosophists and the Druids philosophize, delivering their apophthegmns in enigmatical language, bidding men worship the gods and do no evil, and practise manly virtue.
-. But the first to use the term, and to call himself a philosopher or lover of wisdom, was Pythagoras;[8] for, said he, no man is wise, but God alone. Heraclides of Pontus, in his De mortua, makes him say this at Sicyon in conversation with Leon, who was the prince of that city or of Phlius. All too quickly the study was called wisdom and its professor a sage, to denote his attainment of mental perfection; while the student who took it up was a philosopher or lover of wisdom. Sophists was another name for the wise men, and not only for philosophers but for the poets also. And so Cratinus when praising Homer and Hesiod in his Archilochi gives them the title of sophist.
+VI. Accordingly Clitarchus, in his twelfth book, says that the Gymnosophists despise death, and that the Chaldaeans study astronomy and the science of soothsaying--that the Magi occupy themselves about the service to be paid to the gods, and about sacrifices and prayers, as if they were the only people to whom the deities listen: and that they deliver accounts of the existence and generation of the gods, saying that they are fire, and earth, and water; and they condemn the use of images, and above all things do they condemn those who say that the gods are male and female; they speak much of justice, and think it impious to destroy the bodies of the dead by fire; they allow men to marry their mothers or their daughters, as Sotion tells us in his twenty-third book; they study the arts of soothsaying and divination, and assert that the gods reveal their will to them by those sciences. They teach also that the air is full of phantoms, which, by emanation and a sort of evaporation, glide into the sight of those who have a clear perception; they forbid any extravagance of ornament, and the use of gold; their garments are white, their beds are made of leaves, and vegetables are their food, with cheese and coarse bread; they use a rush for a staff, the top of which they run into the cheese, and so taking up a piece of it they eat it. Of all kinds of magical divination they are ignorant, as Aristotle asserts in his book on Magic, and Dinon in the fifth book of his Histories. And this writer says, that the name of Zoroaster being interpreted means, a sacrifice to the stars; and Hermodorus makes the same statement. But Aristotle, in the first book of his Treatise on Philosophy, says, that the Magi are more ancient than the Egyptians; and that according to them there are two principles, a good demon and an evil demon, and that the name of the one is Jupiter or Oromasdes, and that of the other Pluto or Arimanius. And Hermippus gives the same account in the first book of his History of the Magi; and so does Eudoxus in his Period; and so does Theopompus in the eighth book of his History of the Affairs of Philip; and this last writer tells us also, that according to the Magi men will have a resurrection and be immortal, and that what exists now will exist hereafter under its own present name; and Eudemus of Rhodes coincides in this statement. But Hecataeus says, that according to their doctrines the gods also are beings who have been born. But Clearchus the Solensian, in his Treatise on Education says, that the Gymnosophists are descendants of the Magi; and some say that the Jews also are derived from them. Moreover, those who have written on the subject of the Magi condemn Herodotus; for they say that Xerxes would never have shot arrows against the sun, or have put fetters on the sea, as both sun and sea have been handed down by the Magi as gods, but that it was quite consistent for Xerxes to destroy the images of the gods.
-. The men who were commonly regarded as sages were the following: Thales, Solon, Periander, Cleobulus, Chilon, Bias, Pittacus. To these are added Anacharsis the Scythian, Myson of Chen, Pherecydes of Syros, Epimenides the Cretan; and by some even Pisistratus the tyrant. So much for the sages or wise men.[9]
+VII. The following is the account that authors give of the philosophy of the Egyptians, as bearing on the gods and on justice. They say that the first principle is matter; then that the four elements were formed out of matter and divided, and that some animals were created, and that the sun and moon are gods, of whom the former is called Osiris and the latter Isis, and they are symbolised under the names of beetles and dragons, and hawks, and other animals, as Manetho tells us in his abridged account of Natural Philosophy, and Hecataeus confirms the statement in the first book of his History of the Philosophy of the Egyptians. They also make images of the gods, and assign them temples because they do not know the form of God. They consider that the world had a beginning and will have an end, and that it is a sphere; they think that the stars are fire, and that it is by a combination of them that the things on earth are generated; that the moon is eclipsed when it falls into the shadow of the earth; that the soul is eternal and migratory; that rain is caused by the changes of the atmosphere; and they enter into other speculations on points of natural history, as Hecataeus and Aristagoras inform us.
-But philosophy, the pursuit of wisdom, has had a twofold origin; it started with Anaximander on the one hand, with Pythagoras on the other. The former was a pupil of Thales, Pythagoras was taught by Pherecydes. The one school was called Ionian, because Thales, a Milesian and therefore an Ionian, instructed Anaximander; the other school was called Italian from Pythagoras, who worked for the most part in Italy. 14. And the one school, that of Ionia, terminates with Clitomachus and Chrysippus and Theophrastus, that of Italy with Epicurus. The succession passes from Thales through Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, to Socrates, who introduced ethics or moral philosophy; from Socrates to his pupils the Socratics, and especially to Plato, the founder of the Old Academy; from Plato, through Speusippus and Xenocrates, the succession passes to Polemo, Crantor, and Crates, Arcesilaus, founder of the Middle Academy, Lacydes,[10] founder of the New Academy, Carneades, and Clitomachus. This line brings us to Clitomachus.
+They also have made laws about justice, which they attribute to Mercury, and they consider those animals which are useful to be gods. They claim to themselves the merit of having been the inventors of geometry, and astrology, and arithmetic. So much then for the subject of invention.
-. There is another which ends with Chrysippus, that is to say by passing from Socrates to Antisthenes, then to Diogenes the Cynic, Crates of Thebes, Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes, Chrysippus. And yet again another ends with Theophrastus; thus from Plato it passes to Aristotle, and from Aristotle to Theophrastus. In this manner the school of Ionia comes to an end.
+VIII. But Pythagoras was the first person who invented the term Philosophy, and who called himself a philosopher; when he was conversing at Sicyon with Leon, who was tyrant of the Sicyonians or of the Phliasians (as Heraclides Ponticus relates in the book which he wrote about a dead woman); for he said that no man ought to be called wise, but only God. For formerly what is now called philosophy (philosophia) was called wisdom (sophia), and they who professed it were called wise men (sophoi), as being endowed with great acuteness and accuracy of mind; but now he who embraces wisdom is called a philosopher (philosophos).
-In the Italian school the order of succession is as follows: first Pherecydes, next Pythagoras, next his son Telauges, then Xenophanes, Parmenides,[11] Zeno of Elea, Leucippus, Democritus, who had many pupils, in particular Nausiphanes [and Naucydes], who were teachers of Epicurus.
+But the wise men were also called Sophists. And not only they, but poets also were called Sophists: as Cratinus in his Archilochi calls Homer and Hesiod, while praising them highly.
-. Philosophers may be divided into dogmatists and sceptics: all those who make assertions about things assuming that they can be known are dogmatists; while all who suspend their judgement on the ground that things are unknowable are sceptics. Again, some philosophers left writings behind them, while others wrote nothing at all, as was the case according to some authorities with Socrates, Stilpo, Philippus, Menedemus, Pyrrho, Theodorus, Carneades, Bryson; some add Pythagoras and Aristo of Chios, except that they wrote a few letters. Others wrote no more than one treatise each, as Melissus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras. Many works were written by Zeno, more by Xenophanes, more by Democritus, more by Aristotle, more by Epicurus, and still more by Chrysippus. 17. Some schools took their name from cities, as the Elians and the Megarians, the Eretrians and the Cyrenaics; others from localities, as the Academics and the Stoics; others from incidental circumstances, as the Peripatetics; others again from derisive nicknames, as the Cynics; others from their temperaments, as the Eudaemonists or Happiness School; others from a conceit they entertained, as Truth-lovers, Refutationists, and Reasoners from Analogy; others again from their teachers, as Socratics, Epicureans, and the like; some take the name of Physicists from their investigation of nature, others that of Moralists because they discuss morals; while those who are occupied with verbal jugglery are styled Dialecticians.
+IX. Now these were they who were accounted wise men. Thales, Solon, Periander, Cleobulus, Chilo, Bias, Pittacus. To these men add Anacharsis the Scythian, Myson the Chenean, Pherecydes the Syrian, and Epimenides the Cretan; and some add, Pisistratus, the tyrant: These then are they who were called the wise men.
-. Philosophy has three parts, physics, ethics, and dialectic or logic. Physics is the part concerned with the universe and all that it contains; ethics that concerned with life and all that has to do with us; while the processes of reasoning employed by both form the processes of dialectic. Physics flourished down to the time of Archelaus; ethics, as we have said, started with Socrates; while dialectic goes as far back as Zeno of Elea. In ethics there have been ten schools: the Academic, the Cyrenaic, the Elian, the Megarian, the Cynic, the Eretrian, the Dialectic, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean.
+X. But of Philosophy there arose two schools. One derived from Anaximander, the other from Pythagoras. Now, Thales had been the preceptor of Anaximander, and Pherecydes of Pythagoras. And the one school was called the Ionian, because Thales, being an Ionian (for he was a native of Miletus), had been the tutor of Anaximander; --but the other was called the Italian from Pythagoras, because he spent the chief part of his life in Italy. And the Ionic school ends with Clitomachus, and Chrysippus, and Theophrastus; and the Italian one with Epicurus; for Anaximander succeeded Thales, and he was succeeded again by Anaximenes, and he by Anaxagoras, and he by Archelaus, who was the master of Socrates, who was the originator of moral philosophy. And he was the master of the sect of the Socratic philosophers, and of Plato, who was the founder of the old Academy; and Plato's pupils were Speusippus and Xenocrates; and Polemo was the pupil of Xenocrates, and Crantor and Crates of Polemo. Crates again was the master of Arcesilaus, the founder of the Middle Academy, and his pupil was Lacydes, who gave the new Academy its distinctive principles. His pupil was Carneades, and he in his turn was the master of Clitomachus. And this school ends in this way with Clitomachus and Chrysippus.
-. The founders of these schools were: of the Old Academy, Plato; of the Middle Academy, Arcesilaus; of the New Academy, Lacydes; of the Cyrenaic, Aristippus of Cyrene; of the Elian, Phaedo of Elis; of the Megarian, Euclides of Megara; of the Cynic, Antisthenes of Athens; of the Eretrian, Menedemus of Eretria; of the Dialectical school, Clitomachus of Carthage; of the Peripatetic, Aristotle of Stagira; of the Stoic, Zeno of Citium; while the Epicurean school took its name from Epicurus himself.
+Antisthenes was the pupil of Socrates, and the master of Diogenes the Cynic; and the pupil of Diogenes was Crates the Theban; Zeno the Cittiaean was his; Cleanthes was his; Chrysippus was his. Again it ends with Theophrastus in the following manner:
-Hippobotus in his work On Philosophical Sects declares that there are nine sects or schools, and gives them in this order: (1) Megarian, (2) Eretrian, (3) Cyrenaic, (4) Epicurean, (5) Annicerean,[12] (6) Theodorean, (7) Zenonian or Stoic, (8) Old Academic, (9) Peripatetic. He passes over the Cynic, Elian, and Dialectical schools; 20. for as to the Pyrrhonians, so indefinite are their conclusions that hardly any authorities allow them to be a sect; some allow their claim in certain respects, but not in others. It would seem, however, that they are a sect, for we use the term of those who in their attitude to appearance follow or seem to follow some principle; and on this ground we should be justified in calling the Sceptics a sect. But if we are to understand by "sect" a bias in favour of coherent positive doctrines, they could no longer be called a sect,[13] for they have no positive doctrines. So much for the beginnings of philosophy, its subsequent developments, its various parts, and the number of the philosophic sects.
+Aristotle was the pupil of Plato, Theophrastus the pupil of Aristotle; and in this way the Ionian school comes to an end.
-. One word more: not long ago an Eclectic school was introduced by Potamo of Alexandria,[14] who made a selection from the tenets of all the existing sects. As he himself states in his Elements of Philosophy, he takes as criteria of truth (1) that by which the judgement is formed, namely, the ruling principle of the soul; (2) the instrument used, for instance the most accurate perception. His universal principles are matter and the efficient cause, quality, and place; for that out of which and that by which a thing is made, as well as the quality with which and the place in which it is made, are principles. The end to which he refers all actions is life made perfect in all virtue, natural advantages of body and environment being indispensable to its attainment.
+Now the Italian school was carried on in this way. Pythagoras was the pupil of Pherecydes; his pupil was Telauges his son; he was the master of Xenophanes, and he of Parmenides; Parmenides of Zeno the Eleatic, he of Leucippus, he of Democritus: Democritus had many disciples, the most eminent of whom were Nausiphanes and Nausicydes, and they were the masters of Epicurus.
-It remains to speak of the philosophers themselves, and in the first place of Thales.
+XI. Now, of Philosophers some were dogmatic and others were inclined to suspend their opinions. By dogmatic, I mean those who explain their opinions about matters, as if they could be comprehended. By those who suspend their opinions, I mean those who give no positive judgment, thinking that these things cannot be comprehended. And the former class have left many memorials of themselves; but the others have never written a line; as for instance, according to some people, Socrates, and Stilpo, and Philippus, and Menedemus, and Pyrrho, and Theodorus, and Carneades, and Bryson; and, as some people say, Pythagoras, and Aristo of Chios, except that he wrote a few letters. There are some men too who have written one work only, Melissus, Parmenides, and Anaxagoras; but Zeno wrote many works, Xenophanes still more; Democritus more, Aristotle more, Epicurus more, and Chrysippus more.
-===== Thales =====
+XII. Again, of philosophers some derived a surname from cities, as, the Elians, and Megaric sect, the Eretrians, and the Cyrenaics. Some from the places which they frequented, as the Academics and Stoics. Some from accidental circumstances, as the Peripatetics; or, from jests, as the Cynics.
+Some again from their dispositions, as the Eudaemonics; some from an opinion, as the Elenctic, and Analogical schools. Some from their masters, as the Socratic and Epicurean philosophers; and so on. The Natural Philosophers were so called from their study of nature; the Ethical philosophers from their investigation of questions of morals (peri ta ethê).
-. Herodotus, Duris, and Democritus are agreed that Thales was the son of Examyas and Cleobulina, and belonged to the Thelidae[15] who are Phoenicians, and among the noblest of the descendants of Cadmus and Agenor. As Plato testifies, he was one of the Seven Sages. He was the first to receive the name of Sage, in the archonship of Damasias[16] at Athens, when the term was applied to all the Seven Sages, as Demetrius of Phalerum mentions in his List of Archons. He was admitted to citizenship at Miletus when he came to that town along with Nileos, who had been expelled from Phoenicia. Most writers, however, represent him as a genuine Milesian and of a distinguished family.
+The Dialecticians are they who devote themselves to quibbling on words.
-. After engaging in politics he became a student of nature. According to some he left nothing in writing; for the Nautical Astronomy[17] attributed to him is said to be by Phocus of Samos. Callimachus knows him as the discoverer of the Ursa Minor; for he says in his Iambics:
+XIII. Now there are three divisions of philosophy. Natural, Ethical, and Dialectic. Natural philosophy occupies itself about the world and the things in it; Ethical philosophy about life, and the things which concern us; Dialectics are conversant with the arguments by which both the others are supported.
-    Who first of men the course made plain
+Natural philosophy prevailed till the time of Archelaus; but after the time of Socrates, Ethical philosophy was predominant; and after the time of Zeno the Eleatic, Dialectic philosophy got the upper hand.
-    Of those small stars we call the Wain,
-    Whereby Phoenicians sail the main.[18]
-But according to others he wrote nothing but two treatises, one On the Solstice and one On the Equinox, regarding all other matters as incognizable. He seems by some accounts to have been the first to study astronomy,[19] the first to predict eclipses of the sun and to fix the solstices; so Eudemus in his History of Astronomy. It was this which gained for him the admiration of Xenophanes and Herodotus and the notice of Heraclitus and Democritus.
+Ethical philosophy was subdivided into ten sects; the Academic, the Cyrenaic, the Elian, the Megaric, the Cynic, the Eretrian, the Dialectic, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean. Of the old Academic school Plato was the president; of the middle, Arcesilaus; and of the New, Lacydes:--the Cyrenaic school was founded by Aristippus the Cyrenian; the Elian, by Phaedo, of Elis; the Megaric, by Euclid, of Megara; the Cynic, by Antisthenes, the Athenian; the Eretrian, by Menedemus, of Eretria; the Dialectic by Clitomachus, the Carthaginian; the Peripatetic, by Aristotle, the Stagirite; the Stoic, by Zeno, the Cittiaean; the Epicurean school derives its name from Epicurus, its founder.
-. And some, including Choerilus the poet, declare that he was the first to maintain the immortality of the soul. He was the first to determine the sun's course from solstice to solstice, and according to some the first to declare the size of the sun to be one seven hundred and twentieth part of the solar circle, and the size of the moon to be the same fraction of the lunar circle. He was the first to give the last day of the month the name of Thirtieth, and the first, some say, to discuss physical problems.
+But Hippobotus, in his Treatise on Sects, says that there are nine sects and schools: first, the Megaric; secondly, the Eretrian; thirdly, the Cyrenaic; fourthly, the Epicurean; fifthly, the Annicerean; sixthly, the Theodorean; seventhly, the sect of Zeno and the Stoics; eighthly, that of the Old Academy; and ninthly, the Peripatetic;--not counting either the Cynic, or the Eliac, or the Dialectic school. That also which is called the Pyhrronean is repudiated by many writers, on account of the obscurity of its principles. But others consider that in some particulars it is a distinct sect, and in others not. For it does appear to be a sect--for what we call a sect, say they, is one which follows, or appears to follow, a principle which appears to it to be the true one; on which principle we correctly call the Sceptics a sect. But if by the name sect we understand those who incline to rules which are consistent with the principles which they profess, then the Pyrrhonean cannot be called a sect, for they have no rules or principles.
-Aristotle[20] and Hippias affirm that, arguing from the magnet and from amber, he attributed a soul or life even to inanimate objects. Pamphila states that, having learnt geometry from the Egyptians, he was the first to inscribe a right-angled triangle in a circle, whereupon he sacrificed an ox. Others tell this tale of Pythagoras, amongst them Apollodorus the arithmetician. 25. (It was Pythagoras who developed to their furthest extent the discoveries attributed by Callimachus in his Iambics to Euphorbus the Phrygian, I mean "scalene triangles" and whatever else has to do with theoretical geometry.)[21]
+These, then, are the beginnings, these are the successive masters, these are the divisions, and schools of philosophy.
-Thales is also credited with having given excellent advice on political matters. For instance, when Croesus sent to Miletus offering terms of alliance, he frustrated the plan; and this proved the salvation of the city when Cyrus obtained the victory. Heraclides makes Thales himself[22] say that he had always lived in solitude as a private individual and kept aloof from State affairs. Some authorities say that he married and had a son Cybisthus; 26. others that he remained unmarried and adopted his sister's son, and that when he was asked why he had no children of his own he replied "because he loved children." The story is told that, when his mother tried to foroe him to marry, he replied it was too soon, and when she pressed him again later in life, he replied that it was too late. Hieronymus of Rhodes in the second book of his Scattered Notes relates that, in order to show how easy it is to grow rich, Thales, foreseeing that it would be a good season for olives, rented all the oil-mills and thus amassed a fortune.[23]
+XIV. Moreover, it is not long ago, that a new Eclectic school was set up by Potamo, of Alexandria, who picked out of the doctrines of each school what pleased him most. And as he himself says, in his Elementary Instruction, he thinks that there are certain criteria of truth: first of all the faculty which judges, and this is the superior one; the other that which is the foundation of the judgment, being a most exact appearance of the objects. And the first principles of everything he calls matter, and the agent, and the quality, and the place. For they show out of what, and by what, and how, and where anything is done. The end is that to which everything is referred; namely, a life made perfect with every virtue, not without the natural and external qualities of the body.
-. His doctrine was that water is the universal primary substance, and that the world is animate and full of divinities. He is said to have discovered the seasons of the year and divided it into 365 days.
+But we must now speak of the men themselves; and first of all about Thales.
+Notes by Yonge
-He had no instructor, except that he went to Egypt and spent some time with the priests there. Hieronymus informs us that he measured the height of the pyramids by the shadow they cast, taking the observation at the hour when our shadow is of the same length as ourselves. He lived, as Minyas relates, with Thrasybulus, the tyrant of Miletus.
+. "The religion of the ancient Persians was the worship of fire or of the elements, in which fire was symbolical of the Deity. At a later period in the time of the Greeks, the ancient worship was changed into the adoration of the stars (Sabaeism), especially of the sun and of the morning star. This religion was distinguished by a simple and majestic character. Its priests were called Magi."-Tenneman's Manual of the History of Philosophy, Introd. §70.
-The well-known story of the tripod found by the fishermen and sent by the people of Miletus to all the Wise Men in succession runs as follows. 28. Certain Ionian youths having purchased of the Milesian fishermen their catch of fish, a dispute arose over the tripod which had formed part of the catch. Finally the Milesians referred the question to Delphi, and the god gave an oracle in this form:[24]
+. "The Chaldeans were devoted to the worship of the stars and to astrology; the nature of their climate and country disposing them to it. The worship of the stars was revived by them and widely disseminated even subsequently to the Christian era."-- -Tenneman's Manual of the History of Philosophy, Introd. §71.
-    Who shall possess the tripod? Thus replies
+. "Cicero speaks of those who in India are accounted philosophers, living naked and enduring the greatest severity of winter without betraying any feeling of pain, and displaying the same insensibility when exposed to the flames.'--Tusc. Quaest. v. 27.
-    Apollo: "Whosoever is most wise."[25]
-Accordingly they give it to Thales, and he to another, and so on till it comes to Solon, who, with the remark that the god was the most wise, sent it off to Delphi. Callimachus in his Iambics has a different version of the story, which he took from Maeandrius of Miletus.[26] It is that Bathycles, an Arcadian, left at his death a bowl with the solemn injunction that it "should be given to him who had done most good by his wisdom." So it was given to Thales, went the round of all the sages, and came back to Thales again. 29. And he sent it to Apollo at Didyma, with this dedication, according to Callimachus:
+. "The religion of the Britons was one of the most considerable parts of their government, and the Druids who were their priests, possessed great authority among them. Besides ministering at the altar, and directing all religious duties, they presided over the education of youth; they possessed both the civil and criminal jurisdiction; they decided all controversies among states as well as among private persons, and whoever refused to submit to their decree was exposed to the most severe penalties. The sentence of excommunication was pronounced against him; he was forbidden access to the sacrifices of public worship; he was debarred all intercourse with his fellow citizens even in the common affairs of life: his company was universally shunned as profane and dangerous, he was refused the protection of law, and death itself became an acceptable relief from the misery and infamy to which he was exposed. Thus the bonds of government, which were naturally loose among that rude and turbulent people, were happily corroborated by the terrors of their superstition.
-    Lord of the folk of Neleus' line,
+"No species of superstition was ever more terrible than that of the Druids; besides the several penalties which it was in the power of the ecclesiastics to inflict in this world, they inculcated the eternal transmigration of souls, and thereby extended their authority as far as the fears of their timorous votaries. They practised their rites in dark groves or other secret recesses, and in order to throw a greater mystery over their religion, they communicated their doctrines only to the initiated, and strictly forbade the committing of them to writing, lest they should at any time be exposed to the examination of the profane and vulgar. Human sacrifices were practised among them; the spoils of war were often devoted to their divinities, and they punished with the severest tortures whoever dared to secrete any part of the consecrated offering. These treasures they kept secreted in woods and forests secured by no other guard than the terrrors of their religion; and their steady conquest over human avidity may be regarded as more signal than their prompting men to the most extraordinary and most violent efforts. No idolatrous worship ever attained such an ascendant over mankind as that of the ancient Gauls and Britons. And the Romans after their conquest, finding it impossible to reconcile those nations to the laws and institutions of their masters while it maintained its authority, were at last obliged to abolish it by penal statutes, a violence which had never in any other instance been resorted to by those tolerating conquerors.'--Hume's History of England, chap. 1. § 1.
-    Thales, of Greeks adjudged most wise,
-    Brings to thy Didymaean shrine
-    His offering, a twice-won prize.
-But the prose inscription is:
+. Zamolxis, or Zalmoxis, so called from the bear-skin (zalmos) in which he was wrapped as soon as he was born, was a Getan, and a slave cf Pythagoras at Samos; having been emancipated by his master, he travelled into Egypt; and on his return to his own country he introduced the ideas which he had acquired in his travels on the subject of civilisation, religion, and the immortality of the soul. He was made priest of the chief deity among the Getae, and was afterwards himself worshipped as a divine person. He was said to have lived in a subterraneous cavern for three years, and after that to have re-appeared among his countrymen. Herodotus however, who records these stories (iv. 95), expresses his disbelief of them, placing him before the time of Pythagoras by many years, and seems to incline to the belief that he was an indigenous Getan deity.
-Thales the Milesian, son of Examyas [dedicates this] to Delphinian Apollo after twice winning the prize from all the Greeks.
+. The real time of Zoroaster is, as may be supposed, very uncertain, but he is said by some eminent writers to have lived in the time of Darius Hystaspes; though others, apparently on better grounds, place him at a very far earlier date. He is not mentioned by Herodotus at all. His native country too is very uncertain. Some writers, among whom are Ctesias and Ammian, call him a Bactrian, while Porphyry speaks of him as a Chaldaean, and Pliny as a native of Proconnesus;--Niebuhr considers him a purely mythical personage. The great and fundamental article of the system (of the Persian theology) was the celebrated doctrine of the two principles; a bold and injudicious attempt of Eastern philosophy to reconcile the existence of moral and physical evil with the attributes of a beneficent Creator and governor of the world. The first and original being, in whom, or by whom the universe exists, is denominated, in the writings of Zoroaster, Time without bounds. . . . From either the blind or the intelligent operation of this infinite Time, which bears but too near an affinity to the Chaos of the Greeks, the two secondary but active principles of the universe were from all eternity produced; Ormusd and Ahriman, each of them possessed of the powers of creation, but each disposed by his invariable nature to exercise them with different designs; the principle of good is eternally absorbed in light, the principle of evil is eternally buried in darkness. The wise benevolence of Ormusd formed man capable of virtue, and abundantly provided his fair habitation with the materials of happiness. By his vigilant providence the motion of the planets, the order of the seasons, and the temperate mixture of the elements are preserved. But the maker of Ahriman has long since pierced Ormusd's Egg, or in other words, has violated the harmony of his works. Since that fatal irruption, the most minute articles of good and evil are intimately intermingled and agitated together; the rankest poisons spring up among the most salutary Plants; deluges, earthquakes, and conflagrations attest the conflict of nature, and the little world of man is perpetually shaken by vice and misfortune. While the rest of mankind are led away captives in the chains of their infernal enemy, the faithful Persian alone reserves his religious adoration for his friend and protector Ormusd, and fights under his banner of light, in the full confidence that he shall, in the last day, share the glory of his triumph. At that decisive period, the enlightened wisdom of goodness will render the power of Ormusd superior to the furious malice of his rival; Ahriman and his followers, disarmed and subdued, will sink into their native darkness, and virtue will maintain the eternal peace and harmony of the universe.
-The bowl was carried from place to place by the son of Bathycles, whose name was Thyrion, so it is stated by Eleusis in his work On Achilles, and Alexo the Myndian in the ninth book of his Legends.
+. . . As a legislator, Zoroaster "discovered a liberal concern for the public and private happiness seldom to be found among the visionary schemes of superstition. Fasting and celibacy, the common means of purchasing the divine favour, he condemns with abhorrence as a criminal rejection of the best gifts of Providence."-Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, c. viii.
-But Eudoxus of Cnidos and Euanthes of Miletus agree that a certain man who was a friend of Croesus received from the king a golden goblet in order to bestow it upon the wisest of the Greeks; this man gave it to Thales, and from him it passed to others and so to Chilon.
+. This is the account given by Virgil:
-. Chilon laid the question "Who is a wiser man than I?" before the Pythian Apollo, and the god replied "Myson." Of him we shall have more to say presently. (In the list of the Seven Sages given by Eudoxus, Myson takes the place of Cleobulus; Plato also includes him by omitting Periander.) The answer of the oracle respecting him was as follows[27]:
+    Spretae Ciconum quo munere matres
+    Inter sacra Deum nocturnique orgia Bacchi,
+    Discerptum latos juvenem sparsere per agros.-GEORG. IV.520.
-    Myson of Chen in Oeta; this is he
+Which Dryden translates:
-    Who for wiseheartedness surpasseth thee;
-and it was given in reply to a question put by Anacharsis. Daimachus the Platonist and Clearchus allege that a bowl was sent by Croesus to Pittacus and began the round of the Wise Men from him.
+    The Thracian matrons who the youth accus'd,
+    Of love disdain'd and marriage rites refus'd ;
+    With furies and nocturnal orgies fir'd,
+    At length against his sacred life conspir'd ;
+    Whom ev'n the savage beasts had spar'd they kill'd,
+    And strew'd his mangled limbs about the field.
-The story told by Andron[28] in his work on The Tripod is that the Argives offered a tripod as a prize of virtue to the wisest of the Greeks; Aristodemus of Sparta was adjudged the winner but retired in favour of Chilon. 31. Aristodemus is mentioned by Alcaeus thus:[29]
+===== LIFE OF THALES =====
-    Surely no witless word was this of the Spartan, I deem,
-    "Wealth is the worth of a man; and poverty void of esteem."
-Some relate that a vessel with its freight was sent by Periander to Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus, and that, when it was wrecked in Coan waters, the tripod was afterwards found by certain fishermen. However, Phanodicus declares it to have been found in Athenian waters and thence brought to Athens. An assembly was held and it was sent to Bias; 32. for what reason shall be explained in the life of Bias.
+I. THALES, then, as Herodotus and Duris and Democritus say, was the son of Examyes and Cleobulina; of the family of the Thelidae, who are Phoenicians by descent, among the most noble of all the descendants of Cadmus and Agenor, as Plato testifies. And he was the first man to whom the name of Wise was given, when Damasias was Archon at Athens, in whose time also the seven wise men had that title given to them, as Demetrius Phalereus records in his Catalogue of the Archons. He was enrolled as a citizen at Miletus when he came thither with Neleus, who had been banished from Phoenicia; but a more common statement is that he was a native Milesian, of noble extraction.
-There is yet another version, that it was the work of Hephaestus presented by the god to Pelops on his marriage. Thence it passed to Menelaus and was carried off by Paris along with Helen and was thrown by her into the Coan sea, for she said it would be a cause of strife. In process of time certain people of Lebedus, having purchased a catch of fish thereabouts, obtained possession of the tripod, and, quarrelling with the fishermen about it, put in to Cos, and, when they could not settle the dispute, reported the fact to Miletus, their mother-city. The Milesians, when their embassies were disregarded, made war upon Cos; many fell on both sides, and an oracle pronounced that the tripod should be given to the wisest; both parties to the dispute agreed upon Thales. After it had gone the round of the sages, Thales dedicated it to Apollo of Didyma. 33. The oracle which the Coans received was on this wise:
+II. After having been immersed in state affairs he applied himself to speculations in natural philosophy; though, as some people state, he left no writings behind him. For the book on Naval Astronomy, which is attributed to him is said in reality to be the work of Phocus the Samian. But Callimachus was aware that he was the discoverer of the Lesser Bear; for in his Iambics he speaks of him thus:
-    Hephaestus cast the tripod in the sea;
+    And, he, 'tis said, did first compute the stars
-    Until it quit the city there will be
+    Which beam in Charles's wain, and guide the bark
-    No end to strife, until it reach the seer
+    Of the Phoenician sailor o'er the sea.
-    Whose wisdom makes past, present, future clear.
-That of the Milesians beginning "Who shall possess the tripod?" has been quoted above. So much for this version of the story.
+According to others he wrote two books, and no more, about the solstice and the equinox; thinking that everything else was easily to be comprehended. According to other statements, he is said to have been the first who studied astronomy, and who foretold the eclipses and motions of the sun, as Eudemus relates in his history of the discoveries made in astronomy; on which account Xenophanes and Herodotus praise him greatly; and Heraclitus and Democritus confirm this statement.
-Hermippus in his Lives refers to Thales the story which is told by some of Socrates, namely, that he used to say there were three blessings for which he was grateful to Fortune: "first, that I was born a human being and not one of the brutes; next, that I was born a man and not a woman; thirdly, a Greek and not a barbarian." 34. It is said that once, when he was taken out of doors by an old woman in order that he might observe the stars, he fell into a ditch, and his cry for help drew from the old woman the retort, "How can you expect to know all about the heavens, Thales, when you cannot even see what is just before your feet?" Timon too knows him as an astronomer, and praises him in the Silli where he says:[30]
+III.   Some again (one of whom is Choerilus the poet) say that he was the first person who affirmed that the souls of men were immortal; and he was the first person, too, who discovered the path of the sun from one end of the ecliptic to the other; and who, as one account tells us, defined the magnitude of the sun as being seven hundred and twenty times as great as that of the moon. He was also the first person who called the last day of the month the thirtieth. And likewise the first to converse about natural philosophy, as some say. But Aristotle and Hippias say that he attributed souls also to lifeless things, forming his conjecture from the nature of the magnet, and of amber. And Pamphila relates that he, having learnt geometry from the Egyptians, was the first person to describe a right-angled triangle in a circle, and that he sacrificed an ox in honour of his discovery. But others, among whom is Apollodorus the calculator, say that it was Pythagoras who made this discovery. It was Thales also who carried to their greatest point of advancement the discoveries which Callimachus in his iambics says were first made by Euphorbus the Phrygian, such as those of the scalene angle, and of the triangle, and of other things which relate to investigations about lines. He seems also to have been a man of the greatest wisdom in political matters. For when Croesus sent to the Milesians to invite them to an alliance, he prevented them from agreeing to it, which step of his, as Cyrus got the victory, proved the salvation of the city. But Clytus relates, as Heraclides assures us, that he was attached to a solitary and recluse life.
-    Thales among the Seven the sage astronomer.
+IV.    Some assert that he was married, and that he had a son named Cybisthus; others, on the contrary, say that he never had a wife, but that he adopted the son of his sister; and that once being asked why he did not himself become a father, he answered, that it was because he was fond of children. They say, too, that when his mother exhorted him to marry, he said, "No, by Jove, it is not yet time." And afterwards, when he was past his youth, and she was again pressing him earnestly, he said, "It is no longer time."
-His writings are said by Lobon of Argos to have run to some two hundred lines. His statue is said to bear this inscription:[31]
+V.   Hieronymus, of Rhodes, also tells us, in the second book of his Miscellaneous Memoranda, that when he was desirous to show that it was easy to get rich, he, foreseeing that there would be a great crop of olives, took some large plantations of olive trees, and so made a great deal of money.
-    Pride of Miletus and Ionian lands,
+VI.   He asserted water to be the principle of all things, and that the world had life, and was full of daemons: they say, too, that he was the original definer of the seasons of the year, and that it was he who divided the year into three hundred and sixty-five days. And he never had any teacher except during the time that he went to Egypt, and associated with the priests. Hieronymus also says that he measured the Pyramids: watching their shadow, and calculating when they were of the same size as that was. He lived with Thrasybulus the tyrant of Miletus, as we are informed by Minyas.
-    Wisest astronomer, here Thales stands.
-. Of songs still sung these verses belong to him:
+VII.   Now it is known to every one what happened with respect to the tripod that was found by the fishermen and sent to the wise men by the people of the Milesians, For they say that some Ionian youths bought a cast of their nets from some Milesian fishermen. And when the tripod was drawn up in the net there was a dispute about it; until the Milesians sent to Delphi: and the God gave them the following answer:
-    Many words do not declare an understanding heart.
+    You ask about the tripod, to whom you shall present it;
-    Seek one sole wisdom.
+    'Tis for the wisest, I reply, that fortune surely meant it.
-    Choose one sole good.
-    For thou wilt check the tongues of chatterers prating without end.
-Here too are certain current apophthegms assigned to him:
+Accordingly they gave it to Thales, and he gave it to someone, who again handed it over to another, till it came to Solon. But he said that it was the God himself who was the first in wisdom; and so he sent it to Delphi. But Callimachus gives a different account of this in his Iambic taking the tradition which he mentions from Leander the Milesian; for he says that a certain Arcadian of the name of Bathycles, when dying, left a goblet behind him with an injunction that it should be given to the first of the wise men. And it was given to Thales, and went the whole circle till it came back to Thales, on which he sent it to Apollo Didymaeus, adding (according to Callimachus,) the following distich:
-    Of all things that are, the most ancient is God, for he is uncreated.
+    Thales, who's twice received me as a prize,
-    The most beautiful is the universe, for it is God's workmanship.
+    Gives me to him who rules the race of Neleus.
-    The greatest is space, for it holds all things.
-    The swiftest is mind, for it speeds everywhere.
-    The strongest, necessity, for it masters all.
-    The wisest, time, for it brings everything to light.
-He held there was no difference between life and death. "Why then," said one, "do you not die?" "Because," said he, "there is no difference." 36. To the question which is older, day or night, he replied: "Night is the older by one day." Some one asked him whether a man could hide an evil deed from the gods: "No," he replied, "nor yet an evil thought." To the adulterer who inquired if he should deny the charge upon oath he replied that perjury was no worse than adultery. Being asked what is difficult, he replied, "To know oneself." "What is easy?" "To give advice to another." "What is most pleasant?" "Success." "What is the divine?" "That which has neither beginning nor end." To the question what was the strangest thing he had ever seen, his answer was, "An aged tyrant." "How can one best bear adversity?" "If he should see his enemies in worse plight." "How shall we lead the best and most righteous life?" "By refraining from doing what we blame in others." 37. "What man is happy?" "He who has a healthy body, a resourceful mind and a docile nature." He tells us to remember friends, whether present or absent; not to pride ourselves upon outward appearance, but to study to be beautiful in character. "Shun ill-gotten gains," he says. "Let not idle words prejudice thee against those who have shared thy confidence." "Whatever provision thou hast made for thy parents, the same must thou expect from thy children." He explained the overflow of the Nile as due to the etesian winds which, blowing in the contrary direction, drove the waters upstream.
+And the prose inscription runs thus:
-Apollodorus in his Chronology places his birth in the first year of the 35th Olympiad.[32] 38. He died at the age of 78 (or, according to Sosicrates, of 90 years); for he died in the 58th Olympiad, being contemporary with Croesus, whom he undertook to take across the Halys without building a bridge, by diverting the river.
+    Thales the son of Examyas, a Milesian, offers this to Apollo Didymaeus, having twice received it from the Greeks as the reward for virtue.
-There have lived five other men who bore the name of Thales, as enumerated by Demetrius of Magnesia in his Dictionary of Men of the Same Name:
+And the name of the son of Bathycles who carved the goblet about from one to the other, was Thyrion, as Eleusis tells us in his History of Achilles. And Alexander the Myndian agrees with him in the ninth book of his Traditions. But Eudoxus of Cnidos, and Euanthes of Miletus, say that one of the friends of Croesus received from the king a golden goblet, for the purpose of giving it to the wisest of the Greeks; and that he gave it to Thales, and that it came round to Chilon, and that he inquired of the God at Delphi who was wiser than himself; and that the God replied, Myson, whom we shall mention hereafter. (He is the man whom Eudoxus places among the seven wise men instead of Cleobulus ; but Plato inserts his name instead of Periander.) The God accordingly made this reply concerning him:
-    A rhetorician of Callatia, with an affected style.
+    I say that Myson the Aetoean sage,
-    A painter of Sicyon, of great gifts.
+    The citizen of Chen, is wiser far
-    A contemporary of Hesiod, Homer and Lycurgus, in very early times.
+    In his deep mind than you.
-    A person mentioned by Duris in his work On Painting.
-    An obscure person in more recent times who is mentioned by Dionysius in his Critical Writings.
-. Thales the Sage died as he was watching an athletic contest from heat, thirst, and the weakness incident to advanced age. And the inscription on his tomb is[33]:
+The person who went to the temple to ask the question was Anacharsis ; but again Daimachus the Platonic philosopher, and Clearchus, state that the goblet was sent by Croesus to Pittacus, and so was carried round to the different men. But Andron, in his book called The Tripod, says that the Argives offered the tripod as a prize for excellence to the wisest of the Greeks; and that Aristodemus, a Spartan, was judged to deserve it, but that he yielded the palm to Chilon; and Alcaeus mentions Aristodemus in these lines:
-    Here in a narrow tomb great Thales lies;
+    And so they say Aristodemus once
-    Yet his renown for wisdom reached the skies.
+    Uttered a truthful speech in noble Sparta:
+    'Tis money makes the man; and he who's none,
+    Is counted neither good nor honourable.
-I may also cite one of my own, from my first book, Epigrams in Various Metres[34]:
+But some say that a vessel fully loaded was sent by Periander to Thrasybulus the tyrant of the Milesians; and that as the ship was wrecked in the sea, near the island of Cos, this tripod was afterwards found by some fishermen. Phanodicus says that it was found in the sea near Athens, and so brought into the city; and then, after an assembly had been held to decide on the disposal, it was sent to Bias—and the reason why we will mention in our account of Bias. Others say that this goblet had been made by Vulcan and presented by the Gods to Pelops, on his marriage; and that subsequently it came into the possession of Menelaus, and was taken away by Paris when he carried off Helen, and was thrown into the sea near Cos by her, as she said that it would become a cause of battle. And after some time, some of the citizens of Lebedos having bought a net, this tripod was brought up in it; and as they quarrelled with the fishermen about it, they went to Cos; and not being able to get the matter settled there, they laid it before the Milesians, as Miletus was their metropolis; and they sent ambassadors, who were treated with neglect, on which account they made war on the Coans; and after each side had met with many revolutions of fortune, an oracle directed that the tripod should be given to the wisest; and then both parties agreed that it belonged to Thales: and he, after it had gone the circuit of all the wise men, presented it to the Didymaean Apollo. Now, the assignation of the oracle was given to the Coans in the following words:
-    As Thales watched the games one festal day
+    The war between the brave Ionian race
-    The fierce sun smote him, and he passed away;
+    And the proud Meropes will never cease,
-    Zeus, thou didst well to raise him; his dim eyes
+    Till the rich golden tripod which the God,
-    Could not from earth behold the starry skies.[35]
+    Its maker, cast beneath the briny waves,
+    Is from your city sent, and justly given
+    To that wise being who knows all present things,
+    And all that's past, and all that is to come.
-. To him belongs the proverb "Know thyself," which Antisthenes in his Successions of Philosophers attributes to Phemonoë, though admitting that it was appropriated by Chilon.
+And the reply given to the Milesians was
-This seems the proper place for a general notice of the Seven Sages, of whom we have such accounts as the following. Damon of Cyrene in his History of the Philosophers carps at all sages, but especially the Seven. Anaximenes remarks that they all applied themselves to poetry; Dicaearchus that they were neither sages nor philosophers, but merely shrewd men with a turn for legislation.[36] Archetimus of Syracuse describes their meeting at the court of Cypselus, on which occasion he himself happened to be present; for which Ephorus substitutes a meeting without Thales at the court of Croesus. Some make them meet at the Pan-Ionian festival, at Corinth, and at Delphi. 41. Their utterances are variously reported, and are attributed now to one now to the other, for instance the following:[37]
+    You ask about the tripod
-    Chilon of Lacedaemon's words are true:
+and so on, as I have related it before. And now we have said enough on this subject.
-    Nothing too much; good comes from measure due.
-Nor is there any agreement how the number is made up; for Maeandrius, in place of Cleobulus and Myson, includes Leophantus, son of Gorgiadas, of Lebedus or Ephesus, and Epimenides the Cretan in the list; Plato in his Protagoras admits Myson and leaves out Periander; Ephorus substitutes Anacharsis for Myson; others add Pythagoras to the Seven. Dicaearchus hands down four names fully recognized: Thales, Bias, Pittacus and Solon; and appends the names of six others, from whom he selects three: Aristodemus, Pamphylus, Chilon the Lacedaemonian, Cleobulus, Anacharsis, Periander. Others add Acusilaus, son of Cabas or Scabras, of Argos. 42. Hermippus in his work On the Sages reckons seventeen, from which number different people make different selections of seven. They are: Solon, Thales, Pittacus, Bias, Chilon, Myson, Cleobulus, Periander, Anacharsis, Acusilaus, Epimenides, Leophantus, Pherecydes, Aristodemus, Pythagoras, Lasos, son of Charmantides or Sisymbrinus, or, according to Aristoxenus, of Chabrinus, born at Hermione, Anaxagoras. Hippobotus in his List of Philosophers enumerates: Orpheus, Linus, Solon, Periander, Anacharsis, Cleobulus, Myson, Thales, Bias, Pittacus, Epicharmus, Pythagoras.
+But Hermippus, in his Lives, refers to Thales what has been by some people reported of Socrates; for he recites that he used to say that he thanked fortune for three things: first of all, that he had been born a man and not a beast; secondly, that he was a man and not a woman; and thirdly, that he was a Greek and not a barbarian.
-Here follow the extant letters of Thales.
+VIII.   It is said that once he was led out of his house by an old woman for the purpose of observing the stars, and he fell into a ditch and bewailed himself, on which the old woman said to him—"Do you, O Thales, who cannot see what is under your feet, think that you shall understand what is in heaven?" Timon also knew that he was an astronomer, and in his Silli he praises him, saying:
-Thales to Pherecydes
+    Like Thales, wisest of the seven sages,
+    That great astronomer.
-. "I hear that you intend to be the first Ionian to expound theology to the Greeks. And perhaps it was a wise decision to make the book common property without taking advice, instead of entrusting it to any particular persons whatsoever, a course which has no advantages. However, if it would give you any pleasure, I am quite willing to discuss the subject of your book with you; and if you bid me come to Syros I will do so. For surely Solon of Athens and I would scarcely be sane if, after having sailed to Crete to pursue our inquiries there, and to Egypt to confer with the priests and astronomers, we hesitated to come to you. For Solon too will come, with your permission. 44. You, however, are so fond of home that you seldom visit Ionia and have no longing to see strangers, but, as I hope, apply yourself to one thing, namely writing, while we, who never write anything, travel all over Hellas and Asia."
+And Lobon, of Argos, says, that which was written by him extends to about two hundred verses; and that the following inscription is engraved upon his statue:
-Thales to Solon
+    Miletus, fairest of Ionian cities,
+    Gave birth to Thales, great astronomer,
+    Wisest of mortals in all kinds of knowledge.
-"If you leave Athens, it seems to me that you could most conveniently set up your abode at Miletus, which is an Athenian colony; for there you incur no risk. If you are vexed at the thought that we are governed by a tyrant, hating as you do all absolute rulers, you would at least enjoy the society of your friends. Bias wrote inviting you to Priene; and if you prefer the town of Priene for a residence, I myself will come and live with you."
+IX.   And these are quoted as some of his lines :
-===== Solon =====
+    It is not many words that real wisdom proves;
+    Breathe rather one wise thought,
+    Select one worthy object,
+    So shall you best the endless prate of silly men reprove.—
+And the following are quoted as sayings of his: "God is the most ancient of all things, for he had no birth: the world is the most beautiful of things, for it is the work of God: place is the greatest of things, for it contains all things: intellect is the swiftest of things, for it runs through everything: necessity is the strongest of things, for it rules everything: time is the wisest of things, for it finds out everything."
-. Solon , the son of Execestides, was born at Salamis. His first achievement was the σεισάχθεια or Law of Release, which he introduced at Athens; its effect was to ransom persons and property. For men used to borrow money on personal security, and many were forced from poverty to become serfs or daylabourers. He then first renounced his claim to a debt of seven talents due to his father, and encouraged others to follow his example. This law of his was called σεισάχθεια, and the reason is obvious.
+He said also that there was no difference between life and death. "Why, then," said some one to him, "do not you die?" "Because," said he, "it does make no difference." A man asked him which was made first, night or day, and he replied "Night was made first by one day." Another man asked him whether a man who did wrong, could escape the notice of the Gods. "No, not even if he thinks wrong," said he. An adulterer inquired of him whether he should swear that he had not committed adultery. "Perjury," said he, "is no worse than adultery." When he was asked what was very difficult, he said, "To know one's self." And what was easy, "To advise another." What was most pleasant? "To be successful." To the question, "What is the divinity?" he replied "That which has neither beginning nor end." When asked what hard thing he had seen, he said, "An old man a tyrant." When the question was put to him how a man might most easily endure misfortune, he said, "If he saw his enemies more unfortunate still." When asked how men might live most virtuously and most justly, he said, "If we never do ourselves what we blame in others." To the question, "Who was happy?" he made answer. "He who is healthy in his body, easy in his circumstances, and well-instructed as to his mind." He said that men ought to remember those friends who were absent as well as those who were present, and not to care about adorning their faces, but to be beautified by their studies. "Do not," said he, "get rich by evil actions, and let not any one ever be able to reproach you with speaking against those who partake of your friendship. All the assistance that you give to your parents, the same you have a right to expect from your children." He said that the reason of the Nile overflowing, was, that its streams were beaten back by the Etesian winds blowing in a contrary direction.
-He next went on to frame the rest of his laws, which would take time to enumerate, and inscribed them on the revolving pillars.
+X.   Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says, that Thales was born in the first year of the thirty-fifth Olympiad; and he died at the age of seventy-eight years, or according to the statement of Sosicrates, at the age of ninety; for he died in the fifty-eighth Olympiad, having lived in the time of Croesus, to whom he promised that he would enable him to pass the Halys without a bridge, by turning the course of the river.
-. His greatest service was this: Megara and Athens laid rival claims to his birthplace Salamis, and after many defeats the Athenians passed a decree punishing with death any man who should propose a renewal of the Salaminian war. Solon, feigning madness, rushed into the Agora with a garland on his head; there he had his poem on Salamis read to the Athenians by the herald and roused them to fury. They renewed the war with the Megarians and, thanks to Solon, were victorious. 47. These were the lines which did more than anything else to inflame the Athenians:[38]
+XI.   There have also been other men of the name of Thales, as Demetrius of Magnesia says, in his Treatise on People and Things of the Same Name; of whom five are particularly mentioned, an orator of Calatia of a very affected style of eloquence; a painter of Sicyon, a great man; the third was one who lived in very ancient times, in the age of Homer and Hesiod and Lycurgus ; the fourth is a man who is mentioned by Duris in his work On Painting; the fifth is a more modern person, of no great reputation, who is mentioned by Dionysius in his Criticisms.
-    Would I were citizen of some mean isle
+XII.   But this wise Thales died while present as a spectator at a gymnastic contest, being worn out with heat and thirst and weakness, for he was very old, and the following inscription was placed on his tomb:
-    Far in the Sporades! For men shall smile
-    And mock me for Athenian: "Who is this?"
-    "An Attic slave who gave up Salamis";
-and[39]
+    You see this tomb is small—but recollect,
+    The fame of Thales reaches to the skies.
-    Then let us fight for Salamis and fair fame,
+I have also myself composed this epigram on him in the first book of my epigrams or poems in various metres:
-    Win the beloved isle, and purge our shame!
-He also persuaded the Athenians to acquire the Thracian Chersonese. 48. And lest it should be thought that he had acquired Salamis by force only and not of right, he opened certain graves and showed that the dead were buried with their faces to the east, as was the custom of burial among the Athenians; further, that the tombs themselves faced the east,[40] and that the inscriptions graven upon them named the deceased by their demes, which is a style peculiar to Athens. Some authors assert that in Homer's catalogue of the ships after the line:[41]
+    O mighty sun our wisest Thales sat
+          Spectator of the games, when you did seize upon him;
+    But you were right to take him near yourself,
+          Now that his aged sight could scarcely reach to heaven.
-    Ajax twelve ships from Salamis commands,
+XIII.   The apophthegm, "know yourself," is his; though Antisthenes in his Successions, says that it belongs to Phemonoe, but that Chilon appropriated it as his own.
-Solon inserted one of his own:
+XIV.   Now concerning the seven, (for it is well here to speak of them all together,) the following traditions are handed down. Damon the Cyrenaean, who wrote about the philosophers, reproaches them all, but most especially the seven. And Anaximenes says, that they all applied themselves to poetry. But Dicaearchus says, that they were neither wise men nor philosophers, but merely shrewd men, who had studied legislation. And Archetimus, the Syracusian, wrote an account of their having a meeting at the palace of Cypselus, at which he says that he himself was present. Ephorus says that they all except Thales met at the court of Croesus. And some say that they also met at the Pandionium,(1) and at Corinth, and at Delphi. There is a good deal of disagreement between different writers with respect to their apophthegms, as the same one is attributed by them to various authors. For instance there is the epigram:
-    And fixed their station next the Athenian bands.
+    Chilon, the Spartan sage, this sentence said:
+    Seek no excess—all timely things are good
-. Thereafter the people looked up to him, and would gladly have had him rule them as tyrant; he refused, and, early perceiving the designs of his kinsman Pisistratus (so we are told by Sosicrates), did his best to hinder them. He rushed into the Assembly armed with spear and shield, warned them of the designs of Pisistratus, and not only so, but declared his willingness to render assistance, in these words: "Men of Athens, I am wiser than some of you and more courageous than others: wiser than those who fail to understand the plot of Pisistratus, more courageous than those who, though they see through it, keep silence through fear." And the members of the council, who were of Pisistratus' party, declared that he was mad: which made him say the lines:[42]
+There is also a difference of opinion with respect to their number. Leander inserts in the number instead of Cleobulus and Myson, Leophantus Gorsias, a native of either Lebedos or Ephesus; and Epimenides, the Cretan; Plato, in his Protagoras, reckons Myson among them instead of Periander. And Ephorus mentions Anacharsis in the place of Myson; some also add Pythagoras to the number. Dicaearchus speaks of four, as universally agreed upon, Thales, Bias, Pittacus, and Solon; and then enumerates six more, of whom we are to select three, namely, Aristodemus, Pamphilus, Chilon the Lacedaemonian, Cleobulus, Anacharsis, and Periander. Some add Acusilaus of Argos, the son of Cabas, or Scabras. But Hermippus, in his Treatise on the Wise Men says that there were altogether seventeen, out of whom different authors selected different individuals to make up the seven. These seventeen were Solon, Thales, Pittacus, Bias, Chilon, Myson, Cleobulus, Periander, Anacharsis, Acusilaus, Epimenides, Leophantus, Pherecydes, Aristodemus, Pythagoras, Lasus the son of Charmantides, or Sisymbrinus, or as Aristoxenus calls him the son of Chabrinus, a citizen of Hermione, and Anaxagoras. But Hippobotus in his Description of the Philosophers enumerates among them Orpheus, Linus, Solon, Periander, Anacharsis, Cleobulus, Myson, Thales, Bias, Pittacus, Epicharmus, and Pythagoras.
-    A little while, and the event will show
+XV.   The following letters are preserved as having been written by Thales:
-    To all the world if I be mad or no.
-. That he foresaw the tyranny of Pisistratus is proved by a passage from a poem of his:[43]
+THALES TO PHERECYDES.
-    On splendid lightning thunder follows straight,
+    I hear that you are disposed, as no other Ionian has been, to discourse to the Greeks about divine things, and perhaps it will be wiser of you to reserve for your own friends what you write rather than to entrust it to any chance people, without any advantage. If therefore it is agreeable to you, I should be glad to become a pupil of yours as to the matters about which you write; and if you invite me I will come to you to Syros; for Solon the Athenian and I must be out of our senses if we sailed to Crete to investigate the history of that country, and to Egypt for the purpose of conferring with the priests and astronomers who are to be found there, and yet are unwilling to make a voyage to you; for Solon will come too, if you will give him leave, for as you are fond of your present habitation you are not likely to come to Ionia, nor are you desirous of seeing strangers; but you rather, as I hope, devote yourself wholly to the occupation of writing. We, on the other hand, who write nothing, travel over all Greece and Asia
-    Clouds the soft snow and flashing hail-stones bring;
-    So from proud men comes ruin, and their state
-    Falls unaware to slavery and a king.
-When Pisistratus was already established, Solon, unable to move the people, piled his arms in front of the generals' quarters, and exclaimed, "My country, I have served thee with my word and sword!" Thereupon he sailed to Egypt and to Cyprus, and thence proceeded to the court of Croesus. There Croesus put the question, "Whom do you consider happy?" and Solon replied, "Tellus of Athens, and Cleobis and Biton," and went on in words too familiar to be quoted here.
-. There is a story that Croesus in magnificent array sat himself down on his throne and asked Solon if he had ever seen anything more beautiful. "Yes," was the reply, "cocks and pheasants and peacocks; for they shine in nature's colours, which are ten thousand times more beautiful." After leaving that place he lived in Cilicia and founded a city which he called Soli after his own name. In it he settled some few Athenians, who in process of time corrupted the purity of Attic and were said to "solecize." Note that the people of this town are called Solenses, the people of Soli in Cyprus Solii. When he learnt that Pisistratus was by this time tyrant, he wrote to the Athenians on this wise:[44]
+THALES TO SOLON.
-. If ye have suffered sadly through your own wickedness, lay not the blame for this upon the gods. For it is you yourselves who gave pledges to your foes and made them great; this is why you bear the brand of slavery. Every one of you treadeth in the footsteps of the fox, yet in the mass ye have little sense. Ye look to the speech and fair words of a flatterer, paying no regard to any practical result.
+    XVI.   If you should leave Athens it appears to me that you would find a home at Miletus among the colonists of Athens more suitably than anywhere else, for here there are no annoyances of any kind. And if you are indignant because we Milesians are governed by a tyrant, (for you yourself hate all despotic rulers), still at all events you will find it pleasant to live with us for your companions. Bias has also written to invite you to Priene, and if you prefer taking up your abode in the city of the Prieneans, then we ourselves will come thither and settle near you.
-Thus Solon. After he had gone into exile Pisistratus wrote to him as follows:
-Pisistratus to Solon
-. "I am not the only man who has aimed at a tyranny in Greece, nor am I, a descendant of Codrus, unfitted for the part. That is, I resume the privileges which the Athenians swore to confer upon Codrus and his family, although later they took them away. In everything else I commit no offence against God or man; but I leave to the Athenians the management of their affairs according to the ordinances established by you. And they are better governed than they would be under a democracy; for I allow no one to extend his rights, and though I am tyrant I arrogate to myself no undue share of reputation and honour, but merely such stated privileges as belonged to the kings in former times. Every citizen pays a tithe of his property, not to me but to a fund for defraying the cost of the public sacrifices or any other charges on the State or the expenditure on any war which may come upon us.
-. "I do not blame you for disclosing my designs; you acted from loyalty to the city, not through any enmity to me, and further, in ignorance of the sort of rule which I was going to establish; since, if you had known, you would perhaps have tolerated me and not gone into exile. Wherefore return home, trusting my word, though it be not sworn, that Solon will suffer no harm from Pisistratus. For neither has any other enemy of mine suffered; of that you may be sure. And if you choose to become one of my friends, you will rank with the foremost, for I see no trace of treachery in you, nothing to excite mistrust; or if you wish to live at Athens on other terms, you have my permission. But do not on my account sever yourself from your country.
+. This was the temple of the national diety of the Ionians, Neptune Heliconius, on Mount Mycale."-Vide Smith, Dict. Gr. and Rom. Antiq.
-. So far Pisistratus. To return to Solon: one of his sayings is that 70 years are the term of man's life.
+The Bohn original has "Euxamius and Cleobule".
-He seems to have enacted some admirable laws; for instance, if any man neglects to provide for his parents, he shall be disfranchised; moreover there is a similar penalty for the spendthrift who runs through his patrimony. Again, not to have a settled occupation is made a crime for which any one may, if he pleases, impeach the offender. Lysias, however, in his speech against Nicias ascribes this law to Draco, and to Solon another depriving open profligates of the right to speak in the Assembly. He curtailed the honours of athletes who took part in the games, fixing the allowance for an Olympic victor at 500 drachmae, for an Isthmian victor at 100 drachmae, and proportionately in all other cases. It was in bad taste, he urged, to increase the rewards of these victors, and to ignore the exclusive claims of those who had fallen in battle, whose sons ought, moreover, to be maintained and educated by the State.
+===== LIFE OF SOLON =====
-. The effect of this was that many strove to acquit themselves as gallant soldiers in battle, like Polyzelus, Cynegirus, Callimachus and all who fought at Marathon; or again like Harmodius and Aristogiton, and Miltiades and thousands more. Athletes, on the other hand, incur heavy costs while in training, do harm when successful, and are crowned for a victory over their country rather than over their rivals, and when they grow old they, in the words of Euripides,[45]
-    Are worn threadbare, cloaks that have lost the nap;
+I.SOLON the son of Execestides, a native of Salamis, was the first person who introduced among the Athenians, an ordinance for the lowering1 of debts; for this was the name given to the release of the bodies and possessions of the debtors. For men used to borrow on the security of their own persons, and many became slaves in consequence of their inability to pay; and as seven talents were owed to him as a part of his paternal inheritance when he succeeded to it, he was the first person who made a composition with his debtors, and who exhorted the other men who had money owing to them to do likewise, and this ordinance was called seisachtheia; and the reason why is plain. After that he enacted his other laws, which it would take a long time to enumerate; and he wrote them on wooden revolving tablets.
-and Solon, perceiving this, treated them with scant respect.[46] Excellent, too, is his provision that the guardian of an orphan should not marry the mother of his ward, and that the next heir who would succeed on the death of the orphans should be disqualified from acting as their guardian. 57. Furthermore, that no engraver of seals should be allowed to retain an impression of the ring which he has sold, and that the penalty for depriving a one-eyed man of his single eye should be the loss of the offender's two eyes. A deposit shall not be removed except by the depositor himself, on pain of death. That the magistrate found intoxicated should be punished with death.
+II. But what was his most important act of all was, when there had been a great dispute about his native land Salamis, between the Athenians and Megarians, and when the Athenians had met with many disasters in war, and had passed a decree that if any one proposed to the people to go to war for the sake of Salamis he should be punished with death, he then pretended to be mad and putting on a crown rushed into the market place, and there he recited to the Athenians by the agency of a crier, the elegies which he had composed, and which were all directed to the subject of Salamis, and by these means he excited them; and so they made war again upon the Megarians and conquered them by means of Solon. And the elegies which had the greatest influence on the Athenians were these:
-He has provided that the public recitations of Homer shall follow in fixed order:[47] thus the second reciter must begin from the place where the first left off. Hence, as Dieuchidas says in the fifth book of his Megarian History, Solon did more than Pisistratus to throw light on Homer. The passage in Homer more particularly referred to is that beginning "Those who dwelt at Athens ..."[48]
+    Would that I were a man of Pholegandros,2
+    Or small Sicinna,3 rather than of Athens:
+    For soon this will a common proverb be,
+    That's an Athenian who won't fight for Salamis.
-. Solon was the first to call the 30th day of the month the Old-and-New day, and to institute meetings of the nine archons for private conference, as stated by Apollodorus in the second book of his work On Legislators. When civil strife began, he did not take sides with those in the city, nor with the plain, nor yet with-the coast section.
+And another was:
-One of his sayings is: Speech is the mirror of action; and another that the strongest and most capable is king. He compared laws to spiders' webs, which stand firm when any light and yielding object falls upon them, while a larger thing breaks through them and makes off. Secrecy he called the seal of speech, and occasion the seal of secrecy. 59. He used to say that those who had influence with tyrants were like the pebbles employed in calculations; for, as each of the pebbles represented now a large and now a small number, so the tyrants would treat each one of those about them at one time as great and famous, at another as of no account. On being asked why he had not framed any law against parricide, he replied that he hoped it was unnecessary. Asked how crime could most effectually be diminished, he replied, "If it caused as much resentment in those who are not its victims as in those who are," adding, "Wealth breeds satiety, satiety outrage." He required the Athenians to adopt a lunar month. He prohibited Thespis from performing tragedies on the ground that fiction was pernicious. 60. When therefore Pisistratus appeared with self-inflicted wounds, Solon said, "This comes from acting tragedies." His counsel to men in general is stated by Apollodorus in his work on the Philosophic Sects as follows: Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath. Never tell a lie. Pursue worthy aims. Do not be rash to make friends and, when once they are made, do not drop them. Learn to obey before you command. In giving advice seek to help, not to please, your friend. Be led by reason. Shun evil company. Honour the gods, reverence parents. He is also said to have criticized the couplet of Mimnermus:
+    Let's go and fight for lovely Salamis,
+    And wipe off this our present infamy.
-    Would that by no disease, no cares opprest,
+He also persuaded them to take possession of the Thracian Chersonesus, and in order that it might appear that the Athenians had got possession of Salamis not by force alone, but also with justice, he opened some tombs, and showed that the corpses buried in them were all turned towards the east, according to the Athenian fashion of sepulture; likewise the tombs themselves all looked east, and the titles of the boroughs to which the dead belonged were inscribed on them, which was a custom peculiar to the Athenians. Some also say that it was he who added to the catalogue of Homer, after the lines:
-    I in my sixtieth year were laid to rest;
-. and to have replied thus:[49]
+    With these appear the Salaminian bands,
+    Whom Telamon's gigantic son commands—
-    Oh take a friend's suggestion, blot the line,
+These other verses:
-    Grudge not if my invention better thine;
-    Surely a wiser wish were thus expressed,
-    At eighty years let me be laid to rest.
-Of the songs sung this is attributed to Solon:[50]
+    In twelve black ships to Troy they steer their course,
+    And with the great Athenians join their force.4
-    Watch every man and see whether,
+III. And ever after this time the people was willingly obedient to him, and was contented to be governed by him: but he did not choose to be their ruler, and moreover, as Sosicrates relates, he, as far as in him lay, hindered also his relative Pisistratus from being so, when he saw that he was inclined to such a step. Rushing into one of the assemblies armed with a spear and shield, he forewarned the people of the design of Pisistratus, and not only that but told them that he was prepared to assist them; and these were his words: "Ye men of Athens, I am wiser than some of you, and braver than others. Wiser than those of you who do not perceive the treachery of Pisistratus; and braver than those who are aware of it, but out of fear hold their peace." But the council, being in the interest of Pisistratus, said that he was mad, on which he spoke as follows:
-    hiding hatred in his heart,
-    he speaks with friendly countenance,
-    and his tongue rings with double speech from a dark soul.
-He is undoubtedly the author of the laws which bear his name; of speeches, and of poems in elegiac metre, namely, counsels addressed to himself, on Salamis and on the Athenian constitution, five thousand lines in all, not to mention poems in iambic metre and epodes.
+    A short time will to all my madness prove,
+    When stern reality presents itself.
-. His statue has the following inscription:[51]
+And these elegiac verses were written by him about the tyranny of Pisistratus, which he foretold,
-    At Salamis, which crushed the Persian might,
+    Fierce snow and hail are from the clouds borne down,
-    Solon the legislator first saw light.
+          And thunder after brilliant lightning roars,
+    And by its own great men a city falls,
+          The ignorant mob becoming slaves to kings.
-He flourished, according to Sosicrates, about the 46th Olympiad, in the third year of which he was archon at Athens;[52] it was then that he enacted his laws. He died in Cyprus at the age of eighty. His last injunctions to his relations were on this wise: that they should convey his bones to Salamis and, when they had been reduced to ashes, scatter them over the soil. Hence Cratinus in his play, The Chirons, makes him say:[53]
+IV. And when Pisistratus had obtained the supreme power, he, as he would not influence him, laid down his arms before the chief council-house, and said, "O my country, I have stood by you in word and deed." And then he sailed away to Egypt, and Cyprus, and came to Croesus. And while at his court being asked by him, "Who appears to you to be happy?"5 He replied, "Tellus the Athenian, and Cleobis and Biton," and enumerated other commonly spoken of instances. But some people say, that once Croesus adorned himself in every possible manner, and took his seat upon his throne, and then asked Solon whether he had ever seen a more beautiful sight. But he said, "Yes, I have seen cocks and pheasants, and peacocks; for they are adorned with natural colours, and such as are ten thousand times more beautiful." Afterwards leaving Sardis he went to Cilicia, and there he founded a city which he called Soli after his own name; and he placed in it a few Athenians as colonists, who in time departed from the strict use of their native language, and were said to speak Solecisms; and the inhabitants of that city are called Solensians; but those of Soli in Cyprus are called Solians.
-    This is my island home; my dust, men say,
+V. And when he learnt that Pisistratus continued to rule in Athens as a tyrant, he wrote these verses on the Athenians:
-    Is scattered far and wide o'er Ajax' land.
-. An epigram of my own is also contained in the collection of Epigrams in Various Metres mentioned above, where I have discoursed of all the illustrious dead in all metres and rhythms, in epigrams and lyrics. Here it is:[54]
+    If through your vices you afflicted are,
+          Lay not the blame of your distress on God;
+    You made your rulers mighty, gave them guards,
+          So now you groan 'neath slavery's heavy rod—
+    Each one of you now treads in foxes' steps,
+          Bearing a weak, inconstant, faithless mind,
+    Trusting the tongue and slippery speech of man;
+          Though in his acts alone you truth can find.
-    Far Cyprian fire his body burnt; his bones,
+This, then, he said to them.
-    Turned into dust, made grain at Salamis:
-    Wheel-like, his pillars bore his soul on high;
-    So light the burden of his laws on men.
-It is said that he was the author of the apophthegm "Nothing too much," Ne quid nimis. According to Dioscurides in his Memorabilia, when he was weeping for the loss of his son, of whom nothing more is known, and some one said to him, "It is all of no avail," he replied, "That is why I weep, because it is of no avail."
+VI. But Pisistratus, when he was leaving Athens, wrote him a letter in the following terms:
-The following letters are attributed to Solon:
+PISISTRATUS TO SOLON.
-Solon to Periander
+I am not the only one of the Greeks who has seized the sovereignty of his country, nor am I one who had no right whatever to do so, since I am of the race of Codrus; for I have only recovered what the Athenians swore that they would give to Codrus and all his family, and what they afterwards deprived them of. And in all other respects I sin neither against men nor against gods, but I allow the Athenians to live under the laws which you established amongst them, and they are now living in a better manner than they would if they were under a democracy; for I allow no one to behave with violence: and I, though I am the tyrant, derive no other advantage beyond my superiority in rank and honour, being content with the fixed honours which belonged to the former kings. And every one of the Athenians brings the tithe of his possessions, not to me, but to the proper place in order that it may be devoted to the public sacrifices of the city; and for any other public purposes, or for any emergencies of war which may arise.
-. "You tell me that many are plotting against you. You must lose no time if you want to get rid of them all. A conspirator against you might arise from a quite unexpected quarter, say, one who had fears for his personal safety or one who disliked your timorous dread of anything and everything. He would earn the gratitude of the city who found out that you had no suspicion. The best course would be to resign power, and so be quit of the reproach. But if you must at all hazards remain tyrant, endeavour to make your mercenary force stronger than the forces of the city. Then you have no one to fear, and need not banish any one."
+But I do not blame you for laying open my plans, for I know that you did so out of regard for the city rather than out of dislike to me; and also because you did not know what sort of government I was about to establish; since, if you had been acquainted with it, you would have been content to live under it and would not have fled. Now, therefore, return home again; believing me even without my swearing to you that Solon shall never receive any harm at the hands of Pisistratus; know also that none of my enemies have suffered any evil from me; and if you will consent to be one of my friends, you shall be among the first; for I know that there is no treachery or faithlessness in you. Or if you wish to live at Athens in any other manner, you shall be allowed to do so; only do not deprive yourself of your country because of my actions.
-Solon to Epimenides
+Thus wrote Pisistratus.
-"It seems that after all I was not to confer much benefit on Athenians by my laws, any more than you by purifying the city. For religion and legislation are not sufficient in themselves to benefit cities; it can only be done by those who lead the multitude in any direction they choose. And so, if things are going well, religion and legislation are beneficial; if not, they are of no avail.
+VII. Solon also said, that the limit of human life was seventy years, and he appears to have been a most excellent lawgiver, for he enjoined, "that if any one did not support his parents he should be accounted infamous; and that the man who squandered his patrimony should be equally so, and the inactive man was liable to prosecution by any one who choose to impeach him. But Lysias, in his speech against Nicias, says that Draco first proposed this law, but that it was Solon who enacted it. He also prohibited all who lived in debauchery from ascending the tribunal; and he diminished the honours paid to Athletes who were victorious in the games, fixing the prize for a victor at Olympia at five hundred drachmae,6 and for one who conquered at the Isthmian games at one hundred; and in the same proportion did he fix the prizes for the other games, for he said, that it was absurd to give such great honours to those men as ought to be reserved for those only who died in the wars; and their sons he ordered to be educated and bred up at the public expense. And owing to this encouragement, the Athenians behave themselves nobly and valiantly in war; as for instance, Polyzelus, and Cynaegirus, and Callimachus, and all the soldiers who fought at Marathon, and Harmodius, and Aristogiton, and Miltiades, and numberless other heroes.
-. "Nor are my laws nor all my enactments any better; but the popular leaders did the commonwealth harm by permitting licence, and could not hinder Pisistratus from setting up a tyranny. And, when I warned them, they would not believe me. He found more credit when he flattered the people than I when I told them the truth. I laid my arms down before the generals' quarters and told the people that I was wiser than those who did not see that Pisistratus was aiming at tyranny, and more courageous than those who shrank from resisting him. They, however, denounced Solon as mad. And at last I protested: "My country, I, Solon, am ready to defend thee by word and deed; but some of my countrymen think me mad. Wherefore I will go forth out of their midst as the sole opponent of Pisistratus; and let them, if they like, become his bodyguard." For you must know, my friend, that he was beyond measure ambitious to be tyrant. " 66. He began by being a popular leader; his next step was to inflict wounds on himself and appear before the court of the Heliaea, crying out that these wounds had been inflicted by his enemies; and he requested them to give him a guard of 400 young men. And the people without listening to me granted him the men, who were armed with clubs. And after that he destroyed the democracy. It was in vain that I sought to free the poor amongst the Athenians from their condition of serfdom, if now they are all the slaves of one master, Pisistratus."
+But as for the Athletes, their training is very expensive, and their victories injurious, and they are crowned rather as conquerors of their country than of their antagonists, and when they become old, as Euripides says:
-Solon to Pisistratus
+    They're like old cloaks worn to the very woof.
-"I am sure that I shall suffer no harm at your hands; for before you became tyrant I was your friend, and now I have no quarrel with you beyond that of every Athenian who disapproves of tyranny. Whether it is better for them to be ruled by one man or to live under a democracy, each of us must decide for himself upon his own judgement. 67. You are, I admit, of all tyrants the best; but I see that it is not well for me to return to Athens. I gave the Athenians equality of civil rights; I refused to become tyrant when I had the opportunity; how then could I escape censure if I were now to return and set my approval on all that you are doing?"
+IX. So Solon, appreciating these facts, treated them with moderation. This also was an admirable regulation of his, that a guardian of orphans should not live with their mother, and that no one should be appointed a guardian, to whom the orphans' property would come if they died. Another excellent law was, that a seal engraver might not keep an impression of any ring which had been sold by him, and that if a person struck out the eye of a man who had but one, he should lose both his own, and that no one should claim what he had not deposited, otherwise death should be his punishment. If an archon was detected being drunk, that too was a capital crime. And he compiled the poems of Homer, so that they might be recited by different bards taking the cue from one another, so that where one had left off the next one might take him up, so that it was Solon rather than Pisistratus who brought Homer to light, as Dieuchidas says, in the fifth book of his History of Megara, and the most celebrated of his verses were:
-Solon to Croesus
+    Full fifty more from Athens stem the main.
-"I admire you for your kindness to me; and, by Athena, if I had not been anxious before all things to live in a democracy, I would rather have fixed my abode in your palace than at Athens, where Pisistratus is setting up a rule of violence. But in truth to live in a place where all have equal rights is more to my liking. However, I will come and see you, for I am eager to make your acquaintance."
+And the rest of that passage—"And Solon was the first person who called the thirtieth day of the month evê kai nea."7
-===== Chilon =====
+He was the first person also who assembled the nine archons together to deliver their opinions, as Apollodorus tells us in the second book of his Treatise on Lawgivers. And once, when there was a sedition in the city, he took part neither with the citizens, nor with the inhabitants of the plain, nor with the men of the sea-coast.
+X. He used to say, too, that speech was the image of actions, and that the king was the mightiest man as to his power; but that laws were like cobwebs—for that if any trifling or powerless thing fell into them, they held it fast; but if a thing of any size fell into them, it broke the meshes and escaped. He used also to say that discourse ought to be sealed by silence, and silence by opportunity. It was also a saying of his, that those who had influence with tyrants, were like the pebbles which are used in making calculations; for that every one of those pebbles were sometimes worth more, and sometimes less, and so that the tyrants sometimes made each of these men of consequence, and sometimes neglected them. Being asked why he had made no law concerning parricides, he made answer, that he did not expect that any such person would exist. When he was asked how men could be most effectually deterred from committing injustice, he said, "If those who are not injured feel as much indignation as those who are." Another apophthegm of his was, that satiety was generated by wealth, and insolence by satiety.
-. Chilon , son of Damagetas, was a Lacedaemonian. He wrote a poem in elegiac metre some 200 lines in length; and he declared that the excellence of a man is to divine the future so far as it can be grasped by reason. When his brother grumbled that he was not made ephor as Chilon was, the latter replied, "I know how to submit to injustice and you do not." He was made ephor in the 55th Olympiad; Pamphila, however, says the 56th. He first became ephor, according to Sosicrates, in the archonship of Euthydemus. He first proposed the appointment of ephors as auxiliaries to the kings, though Satyrus says this was done by Lycurgus.[55]
+XI. He it was who taught the Athenians to regulate their days by the course of the moon; and he also forbade Thespis to perform and represent his tragedies, on the ground of falsehood being unprofitable; and when Pisistratus wounded himself, he said it all came of Thespis's tragedies.
-As Herodotus relates in his first book, when Hippocrates was sacrificing at Olympia and his cauldrons boiled of their own accord, it was Chilon who advised him not to marry, or, if he had a wife, to divorce her and disown his children. 69. The tale is also told that he inquired of Aesop what Zeus was doing and received the answer: "He is humbling the proud and exalting the humble." Being asked wherein lies the difference between the educated and the uneducated, Chilon answered, "In good hope." What is hard? "To keep a secret, to employ leisure well, to be able to bear an injury." These again are some of his precepts: To control the tongue, especially at a banquet. 70. Not to abuse our neighbours, for if you do, things will be said about you which you will regret. Do not use threats to any one; for that is womanish. Be more ready to visit friends in adversity than in prosperity. Do not make an extravagant marriage. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. Honour old age. Consult your own safety. Prefer a loss to a dishonest gain: the one brings pain at the moment, the other for all time. Do not laugh at another's misfortune. When strong, be merciful, if you would have the respect, not the fear, of your neighbours. Learn to be a wise master in your own house. Let not your tongue outrun your thought. Control anger. Do not hate divination. Do not aim at impossibilities. Let no one see you in a hurry. Gesticulation in speaking should be avoided as a mark of insanity. Obey the laws. Be restful.
+XII. He gave the following advice, as is recorded by Apollodorus in his Treatise on the Sects of Philosophers: "Consider your honour, as a gentleman, of more weight than an oath.—Never speak falsely.—Pay attention to matters of importance.—Be not hasty in making friends; and do not cast off those whom you have made.—Rule, after you have first learnt to submit to rule.—Advise not what is most agreeable, but what is best.—Make reason your guide.—Do not associate with the wicked.—Honour the gods; respect your parents."
-. Of his songs the most popular is the following: "By the whetstone gold is tried, giving manifest proof; and by gold is the mind of good and evil men brought to the test." He is reported to have said in his old age that he was not aware of having ever broken the law throughout his life; but on one point he was not quite clear. In a suit in which a friend of his was concerned he himself pronounced sentence according to the law, but he persuaded his colleague who was his friend to acquit the accused, in order at once to maintain the law and yet not to lose his friend.
+XIII. They say also that when Mimnermus had written:
-He became very famous in Greece by his warning about the island of Cythera off the Laconian coast. For, becoming acquainted with the nature of the island, he exclaimed: "Would it had never been placed there, or else had been sunk in the depths of the sea." 72. And this was a wise warning; for Demaratus, when an exile from Sparta, advised Xerxes to anchor his fleet off the island; and if Xerxes had taken the advice Greece would have been conquered. Later, in the Peloponnesian war, Nicias reduced the island and placed an Athenian garrison there, and did the Lacedaemonians much mischief.
+    Happy's the man who 'scapes disease and care,
+    And dies contented in his sixtieth year
-He was a man of few words; hence Aristagoras of Miletus calls this style of speaking Chilonean. . . . is of Branchus, founder of the temple at Branchidae. Chilon was an old man about the 52nd Olympiad, when Aesop the fabulist was flourishing. According to Hermippus, his death took place at Pisa, just after he had congratulated his son on an Olympic victory in boxing. It was due to excess of joy coupled with the weakness of a man stricken in years. And all present joined in the funeral procession.
+Solon rebuked him, and said:
-I have written an epitaph on him also, which runs as follows:[56]
+    Be guided now by me, erase this verse,
+          Nor envy me if I'm more wise than you.
+    If you write thus, your wish would not be worse,
+          May I be eighty ere death lays me low.
-. I praise thee, Pollux, for that Chilon's son
+The following are some lines out of his poems:
-    By boxing feats the olive chaplet won.
-    Nor at the father's fate should we repine;
-    He died of joy; may such a death be mine.
-The inscription on his statue runs thus:[57]
+    Watch well each separate citizen,
+    Lest having in his heart of hearts
+    A secret spear, one still may come
+    Saluting you with cheerful face,
+    And utter with a double tongue
+    The feigned good wishes of his wary mind.
-    Here Chilon stands, of Sparta's warrior race,
+As for his having made laws, that is notorious; he also composed speeches to the people, and a book of suggestions to himself, and some elegiac poems, and five thousand verses about Salamis and the constitution of the Athenians; and some iambics and epodes.
-    Who of the Sages Seven holds highest place.
-His apophthegm is: "Give a pledge, and suffer for it." A short letter is also ascribed to him.
+XV. And on his statue is the following inscription—
-Chilon to Periander
+    Salamis that checked the Persian insolence,
+    Brought forth this holy lawgiver, wise Solon.
-"You tell me of an expedition against foreign enemies, in which you yourself will take the field. In my opinion affairs at home are not too safe for an absolute ruler; and I deem the tyrant happy who dies a natural death in his own house."
+He flourished about the forty-sixth Olympiad, in the third year of which he was archon at Athens, as Sosicrates records; and it was in this year that he enacted his laws; and he died in Cyprus, after he had lived eighty years, having given charge to his relations to carry his bones to Salamis, and there to burn them to ashes, and to scatter the ashes on the ground. In reference to which Cratinus in his Chiron represents him as speaking thus:
-===== Pittacus =====
+    And as men say, I still this isle inhabit,
+    Sown o'er the whole of Ajax' famous city.
+There is also an epigram in the before mentioned collection of poems, in various metres, in which I have made a collection of notices of all the illustrious men that have ever died, in every kind of metre and rhythm, in epigrams and odes. And it runs thus:
-. Pittacus was the son of Hyrrhadius and a native of Mitylene. Duris calls his father a Thracian. Aided by the brothers of Alcaeus he overthrew Melanchrus, tyrant of Lesbos; and in the war between Mitylene and Athens for the territory of Achileis he himself had the chief command on the one side, and Phrynon, who had won an Olympic victory in the pancratium, commanded the Athenians. Pittacus agreed to meet him in single combat; with a net which he concealed beneath his shield he entangled Phrynon, killed him, and recovered the territory. Subsequently, as Apollodorus states in his Chronology, Athens and Mitylene referred their claims to arbitration. Periander heard the appeal and gave judgement in favour of Athens.
+    The Cyprian flame devour'd great Solon's corpse,
+    Far in a foreign land; but Salamis
+    Retains his bones, whose dust is turned to corn.
+    The tablets of his laws do bear aloft
+    His mind to heaven. Such a burden light
+    Are these immortal rules to th' happy wood.
-. At the time, however, the people of Mitylene honoured Pittacus extravagantly and entrusted him with the government. He ruled for ten years and brought the constitution into order, and then laid down his office. He lived another ten years after his abdication and received from the people of Mitylene a grant of land, which he dedicated as sacred domain; and it bears his name to this day Sosicrates relates that he cut off a small portion for himself and pronounced the half to be more than the whole. Furthermore, he declined an offer of money made him by Croesus, saying that he had twice as much as he wanted; for his brother had died without issue and he had inherited his estate.
+XVI. He also, as some say, was the author of the apophthegm—"Seek excess in nothing." And Dioscorides, in his Commentaries, says, that, when he was lamenting his son, who was dead (with whose name I am not acquainted), and when some one said to him, "You do no good by weeping," he replied, "But that is the very reason why I weep, because I do no good."
-. Pamphila in the second book of her Memorabilia narrates that, as his son Tyrraeus sat in a barber's shop in Cyme, a smith killed him with a blow from an axe. When the people of Cyme sent the murderer to Pittacus, he, on learning the story, set him at liberty and declared that "It is better to pardon now than to repent later." Heraclitus, however, says that it was Alcaeus whom he set at liberty when he had got him in his power, and that what he said was: "Mercy is better than vengeance."
+XVII. The following letters also are attributed to him :
-Among the laws which he made is one providing that for any offence committed in a state of intoxication the penalty should be doubled; his object was to discourage drunkenness, wine being abundant in the island. One of his sayings is, "It is hard to be good," which is cited by Simonides in this form: "Pittacus's maxim, `Truly to become a virtuous man is hard."' 77. Plato also cites him in the Protagoras:[58] "Even the gods do not fight against necessity." Again, "Office shows the man." Once, when asked what is the best thing, he replied, "To do well the work in hand." And, when Croesus inquired what is the best rule, he answered, "The rule of the shifting wood," by which he meant the law. He also urged men to win bloodless victories. When the Phocaean said that we must search for a good man, Pittacus rejoined, "If you seek too carefully, you will never find him." He answered various inquiries thus: "What is agreeable?" "Time." "Obscure?" "The future." "Trustworthy?" "The earth." "Untrustworthy?" "The sea." "It is the part of prudent men," he said, "before difficulties arise, to provide against their arising; 78. and of courageous men to deal with them when they have arisen." Do not announce your plans beforehand; for, if they fail, you will be laughed at. Never reproach any one with a misfortune, for fear of Nemesis. Duly restore what has been entrusted to you. Speak no ill of a friend, nor even of an enemy. Practise piety. Love temperance. Cherish truth, fidelity, skill, cleverness, sociability, carefulness.
+SOLON TO PERIANDER.
-Of his songs the most popular is this:
+You send me word that many people are plotting against you; but if you were to think of putting everyone of them out of the way, you would do no good; but some one whom you do not suspect would still plot against you, partly because he would fear for himself, and partly out of dislike to you for fearing all sorts of things; and he would think, too, that he would make the city grateful to him, even if you were not suspected. It is better, therefore, to abstain from the tyranny, in order to escape from blame. But if you absolutely must be a tyrant, then you had better provide for having a foreign force in the city superior to that of the citizens; and then no one need be formidable to you, nor need you put any one out of the way.
-    With bow and well-stored quiver
-    We must march against our foe,
-    Words of his tongue can no man trust,
-    For in his heart there is a deceitful thought.
-. He also wrote poems in elegiac metre, some 600 lines, and a prose work On Laws for the use of the citizens.
+SOLON TO EPIMENIDES.
-He was flourishing about the 42nd Olympiad. He died in the archonship of Aristomenes, in the third year of the 52nd Olympiad,[59] having lived more than seventy years, to a good old age. The inscription on his monument runs thus:[60]
+XVIII. My laws were not destined to be long of service to the Athenians, nor have you done any great good by purifying the city. For neither can the Deity nor lawgivers do much good to cities by themselves; but these people rather have this power, who, from time to time, can lead the people to any opinions they choose; so also the Deity and the laws, when the citizens are well governed, are useful; but when they are ill governed, they are no good. Nor are my laws nor all the enactments that I made, any better; but those who were in power transgressed them, and did great injury to the commonwealth, inasmuch as they did not hinder Pisistratus from ursurping the tyranny. Nor did they believe me when I gave them warning beforehand. But he obtained more credit than I did, who flattered the Athenians while I told him the truth: but I, placing my arms before the principal councilhouse, being wiser than they, told those who had no suspicion of it, that Pisistratus was desirous to make himself a tyrant; and I showed myself more valiant than those who hesitated to defend the state against him. But they condemned the madness of Solon. But at last I spoke loudly—"O, my country, I, Solon, here am ready to defend you by word and deed; but to these men I seem to be mad. So I will depart from you, being the only antagonist of Pisistratus; and let these men be his guards if they please." For you know the man, my friend, and how cleverly he seized upon the tyranny. He first began by being a demagogue; then, having inflicted wounds on himself, he came to the Heliaea, crying out, and saying, "That he had been treated in this way by his enemies." And he entreated the people to assign him as guards four hundred young men; and they, disregarding my advice, gave them to him. And they were all armed with bludgeons. And after that he put down the democracy. They in vain hoped to deliver the poor from their state of slavery, and so now they are all of them slaves to Pisistratus."
-    Here holy Lesbos, with a mother's woe,
-    Bewails her Pittacus whom death laid low.
-To him belongs the apophthegm, "Know thine opportunity."
+SOLON TO PISISTRATUS.
-There was another Pittacus, a legislator, as is stated by Favorinus in the first book of his Memorabilia, and by Demetrius in his work on Men of the Same Name. He was called the Less.
+I am well assured that I should suffer no evil at your hands. For before your assumption of the tyranny I was a friend of yours, and now my case is not different from that of any other Athenian who is not pleased with tyranny. And whether it is better for them to be governed by one individual, or to live under a democracy, that each person may decide according to his own sentiments. And I admit that of all tyrants you are the best. But I do not judge it to be good for me to return to Athens, lest any one should blame me, for, after having established equality of civil rights among the Athenians, and after having refused to be a tyrant myself when it was in my power, returning now and acquiescing in what you are doing.
-To return to the Sage: the story goes that a young man took counsel with him about marriage, and received this answer, as given by Callimachus in his Epigrams:[61]
-. A stranger of Atarneus thus inquired of
+SOLON TO CROESUS.
-    Pittacus, the son of Hyrrhadius:
-    Old sire, two offers of marriage are made to me;
-    the one bride is in wealth and birth my equal;
-    The other is my superior. Which is the better?
-    Come now and advise me which of the two I shall wed.
-    So spake he. But Pittacus, raising his staff,
-    an old man's weapon,
-    said, "See there, yonder boys will tell you the whole tale."
-    The boys were whipping their tops to make them go fast
-     and spinning them in a wide open space.
-    "Follow in their track," said he.
-    So he approached near,
-    and the boys were saying,
-    "Keep to your own sphere."
-    When he heard this, the stranger desisted from
-    aiming at the lordlier match,
-    assenting to the warning of the boys.
-    And, even as he led home the humble bride,
-    so do you, Dion, keep to your own sphere.
-. The advice seems to have been prompted by his situation. For he had married a wife superior in birth to himself: she was the sister of Draco, the son of Penthilus, and she treated him with great haughtiness.
+XX. I thank you for your goodwill towards me. And, by Minerva, if I did not think it precious above everything to live in a democracy, I would willingly prefer living in your palace with you to living at Athens, since Pisistratus has made himself tyrant by force. But life is more pleasant to me where justice and equality prevail universally. However, I will come and see you, being anxious to enjoy your hospitality for a season.
-Alcaeus nicknamed him σαράπους and σάραπος because he had flat feet and dragged them in walking; also "Chilblains," because he had chapped feet, for which their word was χειράς; and Braggadocio, because he was always swaggering; Paunch and Potbelly, because he was stout; a Diner-in-the-Dark, because he dispensed with a lamp; and the Sloven, because he was untidy and dirty. The exercise he took was grinding corn, as related by Clearchus the philosopher.
-The following short letter is ascribed to him:
-Pittacus to Croesus
-"You bid me come to Lydia in order to see your prosperity: but without seeing it I can well believe that the son of Alyattes is the most opulent of kings. There will be no advantage to me in a journey to Sardis, for I am not in want of money, and my possessions are sufficient for my friends as well as myself. Nevertheless, I will come, to be entertained by you and to make your acquaintance."
+. Vide Thirlwall, Hist. of Greece, ii. p. 34.
-===== Bias =====
+. One of the Sporades.
+. An island near Crete.
-. Bias , the son of Teutames, was born at Priene, and by Satyrus is placed at the head of the Seven Sages. Some make him of a wealthy family, but Duris says he was a labourer living in the house. Phanodicus relates that he ransomed certain Messenian maidens captured in war and brought them up as his daughters, gave them dowries, and restored them to their fathers in Messenia. In course of time, as has been already related, the bronze tripod with the inscription "To him that is wise" having been found at Athens by the fishermen, the maidens according to Satyrus, or their father according to other accounts, including that of Phanodicus, came forward into the assembly and, after the recital of their own adventures, pronounced Bias to be wise. And thereupon the tripod was dispatched to him; but Bias, on seeing it, declared that Apollo was wise, and refused to take the tripod. 83. But others say that he dedicated it to Heracles in Thebes, since he was a descendant of the Thebans who had founded a colony at Priene; and this is the version of Phanodieus.
+. Hom. II 2. 671. Dryden's Version.
-A story is told that, while Alyattes was besieging Priene, Bias fattened two mules and drove them into the camp, and that the king, when he saw them, was amazed at the good condition of the citizens actually extending to their beasts of burden. And he decided to make terms and sent a messenger. But Bias piled up heaps of sand with a layer of corn on the top, and showed them to the man, and finally, on being informed of this, Alyattes made a treaty of peace with the people of Priene. Soon afterwards, when Alyattes sent to invite Bias to his court, he replied, "Tell Alyattes, from me, to make his diet of onions," that is, to weep. 84. It is also stated that he was a very effective pleader; but he was accustomed to use his powers of speech to a good end. Hence it is to this that Demodicus of Leros makes reference in the line:
+. Vide Herod. lib. 1. c. 30-33.
-    If you happen to be prosecuting a suit, plead as they do at Priene;
+. A drachma was something less than ten pence.
-and Hipponax thus: "More powerful in pleading causes than Bias of Priene."[62]
+. "Enê kai nea the last day of the month: elsewhere trianias. So called for this reason. The old Greek year was lunar; now the moon's monthly orbit is twenty-nine and a half days. So that if the first month began with the sun and moon together at sunrise at the month's end it would be sunset; and the second month would begin at sunset. To prevent this irregularity, Solon made the latter half day belong to the first month; so that this thirtieth day consisted of two halves, one belonging to the old, the other to the new moon. And when the lunar month fell into disuse, the last day of the calendar month was still called Enê kai neaa." L. & S. Greek Lexicon, in v. enos.
-This was the manner of his death. He had been pleading in defence of some client in spite of his great age. When he had finished speaking, he reclined his head on his grandson's bosom. The opposing counsel made a speech, the judges voted and gave their verdict in favour of the client of Bias, who, when the court rose, was found dead in his grandson's arms. 85. The city gave him a magnificent funeral and inscribed on his tomb:[63]
+===== LIFE OF CHILON =====
-    Here Bias of Priene lies, whose name
-    Brought to his home and all Ionia fame.
-My own epitaph is:[64]
+I. CHILON was a Lacedaemonian, the son of Damagetus. He composed verses in elegiac metre to the number of two hundred: and it was a saying of his that a foresight of future events, such as could be arrived at by consideration was the virtue of a man. He also said once to his brother, who was indignant at not being an ephor, while he himself was one, "The reason is because I know how to bear injustice: but you do not." And he was made ephor in the fifty-fifth Olympiad; but Pamphila says that it was in the fifty-sixth. And he was made first ephor in the year of the archonship of Euthydemus, as we are told by Sosicrates. Chilon was also the first person who introduced the custom of joining the ephors to the kings as their counsellors: though Satyrus attributes this institution to Lycurgus. He, as Herodotus says in his first book, when Hippocrates was sacrificing at Olympia, and the cauldrons began to boil of their own accord, advised him either to marry, or, if he were married already, to discard his wife, and disown his children.
-    Here Bias rests. A quiet death laid low
+II. They tell a story, also of his having asked Aesop what Jupiter was doing, and that Aesop replied "He is lowering what is high, and exalting what is low." Being asked in what educated men differed from those who were illiterate, he said, "In good hopes." Having had the question put to him, What was difficult, he said, "To be silent about secrets; to make good use of one's leisure, and to be able to submit to injustice." And besides these three things he added further, "To rule one's tongue, especially at a banquet, and not to speak ill of one's neighbours; for if one does so one is sure to hear what one will not like." He advised, moreover, "To threaten no one; for that is a womanly trick. To be more prompt to go to one's friends in adversity than in prosperity. To make but a moderate display at one's marriage. Not to speak evil of the dead. To honour old age.—To keep a watch upon one's self.—To prefer punishment to disgraceful gain; for the one is painful but once, but the other for one's whole life.—Not to laugh at a person in misfortune.—If one is strong to be also merciful, so that one's neighbours may respect one rather than fear one.—To learn how to regulate one's own house well.—Not to let one's tongue outrun one's sense.—To restrain anger.—Not to dislike divination.—Not to desire what is impossible.—Not to make too much haste on one's road.—When speaking not to gesticulate with the hand; for that is like a madman.—To obey the laws.—To love quiet."
-    The aged head which years had strewn with snow.
-    His pleading done, his friend preserved from harms,
-    A long sleep took him in his grandson's arms.
-He wrote a poem of 2000 lines on Ionia and the manner of rendering it prosperous. Of his songs the most popular is the following:
+And of all his songs this one was the most approved:
-    Find favour with all the citizens . . . . . . in whatever state you dwell.
+    Gold is best tested by a whetstone hard,
+    Which gives a certain proof of purity;
+    And gold itself acts as the test of men,
+    By which we know the temper of their minds.
-For this earns most gratitude; the headstrong spirit often flashes forth with harmful bane.
+III. They say, too, that when he was old he said, that he was not conscious of having ever done an unjust action in his life; but that he doubted about one thing. For that once when judging in a friend's cause he had voted himself in accordance with the law, but had persuaded a friend to vote for his acquittal, in order that so he might maintain the law, and yet save his friend.
-. The growth of strength in man is nature's work; but to set forth in speech the interests of one's country is the gift of soul and reason. Even chance brings abundance of wealth to many. He also said that he who could not bear misfortune was truly unfortunate; that it is a disease of the soul to be enamoured of things impossible of attainment; and that we ought not to dwell upon the woes of others. Being asked what is difficult, he replied, "Nobly to endure a change for the worse." He was once on a voyage with some impious men; and, when a storm was encountered, even they began to call upon the gods for help. "Peace!" said he, "lest they hear and become aware that you are here in the ship." When an impious man asked him to define piety, he was silent; and when the other inquired the reason, "I am silent," he replied, "because you are asking questions about what does not concern you."
+IV. But he was most especially celebrated among the Greeks for having delivered an early opinion about Cythera, an island belonging to Laconia. For having become acquainted with its nature, he said, "I wish it had never existed, or that, as it does exist, it were sunk at the bottom of the sea." And his foresight was proved afterwards. For when Demaratus was banished by the Lacedaemonians, he advised Xerxes to keep his ships at that island: and Greece would have been subdued, if Xerxes had taken the advice. And afterwards Nicias, having reduced the island at the time of the Peloponnesian war, placed in it a garrison of Athenians, and did a great deal of harm to the Lacedaemonians.
-. Being asked "What is sweet to men," he answered, "Hope." He said he would rather decide a dispute between two of his enemies than between two of his friends; for in the latter case he would be certain to make one of his friends his enemy, but in the former case he would make one of his enemies his friend. Asked what occupation gives a man most pleasure, he replied, "Making money." He advised men to measure life as if they had both a short and a long time to live; to love their friends as if they would some day hate them, the majority of mankind being bad. Further, he gave this advice: Be slow to set about an enterprise, but persevere in it steadfastly when once it is undertaken. Do not be hasty of speech, for that is a sign of madness. 88. Cherish wisdom. Admit the existence of the gods. If a man is unworthy, do not praise him because of his wealth. Gain your point by persuasion, not by force. Ascribe your good actions to the gods. Make wisdom your provision for the journey from youth to old age; for it is a more certain support than all other possessions.
+V. He was very brief in his speech. On which account Aristagoras, the Milesian, calls such conciseness, the Chilonean fashion; and says that it was adopted by Branchus, who built the temple among the Branchidae. Chilon was an old man, about the fifty-second Olympiad, when Aesop, the fable writer, flourished. And he died, as Hermippus says, at Pisa, after embracing his son, who had gained the victory in boxing at the Olympic games. The cause of his death was excess of joy, and weakness caused by extreme old age. All the spectators who were present at the games attended his funeral, paying him the highest honours. And we have written the following epigram on him:
-Bias is mentioned by Hipponax as stated above, and Heraclitus, who is hard to please, bestows upon him especial praise in these words:[65] "In Priene lived Bias, son of Teutames, a man of more consideration than any." And the people of Priene dedicated a precinct to him, which is called the Teutameum. His apophthegm is: Most men are bad.
+    I thank you, brightest Pollux, that the son
+          Of Chilon wears the wreath of victory;
+    Nor need we grieve if at the glorious sight
+          His father died. May such my last end be!
-===== Cleobulus =====
+And the following inscription is engraved on his statue:
+    The warlike Sparta called this Chilon son,
+    The wisest man of all the seven sages.
-. Cleobulus , the son of Euagoras, was born at Lindus, but according to Duris he was a Carian. Some say that he traced his descent back to Heracles, that he was distinguished for strength and beauty, and was acquainted with Egyptian philosophy. He had a daughter Cleobuline, who composed riddles in hexameters; she is mentioned by Cratinus, who gives one of his plays her name, in the plural form Cleobulinae. He is also said to have rebuilt the temple of Athena which was founded by Danaus.
+One of his sayings was, "Suretyship, and then destruction." The following letter of his is also extant:
-He was the author of songs and riddles, making some 3000 lines in all.
+CHILON TO PERIANDER.
-The inscription on the tomb of Midas is said by some to be his:[66]
+You desire me to abandon the expedition against the emigrants, as you yourself will go forth. But I think that a sole governor is in a slippery position at home; and I consider that tyrant a fortunate man who dies a natural death in his own house.
-    I am a maiden of bronze and I rest upon Midas's tomb.
+===== LIFE OF PITTACUS =====
-    So long as water shall flow and tall trees grow,
-    and the sun shall rise and shine, 90. and the bright moon,
-    and rivers shall run and the sea wash the shore,
-    here abiding on his tearsprinkled tomb I shall tell the passers-by
-    – Midas is buried here.
-The evidence they adduce is a poem of Simonides in which he says:[67]
-    Who, if he trusts his wits,
+I. PITTACUS was a native of Mitylene, and son of Hyrradius. But Duris says, that his father was a Thracian. He, in union with the brothers of Alcaeus, put down Melanchrus the tyrant of Lesbos. And in the battle which took place between the Athenians and Mitylenaeans on the subject of the district of Achilis, he was the Mitylenaean general; the Athenian commander being Phrynon, a Pancratiast, who had gained the victory at Olympia. Pittacus agreed to meet him in single combat, and having a net under his shield, he entangled Phrynon without his being aware of it beforehand, and so, having killed him, he preserved the district in dispute to his countrymen. But Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says, that subsequently, the Athenians had a trial with the Mitylenaeans about the district, and that the cause was submitted to Periander, who decided it in favour of the Athenians.
-    will praise Cleobulus the dweller at Lindus
-    for opposing the strength of a column to everflowing rivers,
-    the flowers of spring, the flame of the sun,
-    and the golden moon and the eddies of the sea?
-    But all things fall short of the might of the gods;
-    even mortal hands break marble in pieces;
-    this is a fool's devising.
-The inscription cannot be by Homer, because he lived, they say, long before Midas.
+II. In consequence of this victory the Mitylenaeans held Pittacus in the greatest honour, and committed the supreme power into his hands. And he held it for ten years, and then, when he had brought the city and constitution into good order, he resigned the government. And he lived ten years after that, and the Mitylenaeans assigned him an estate which he consecrated to the God, and to this day it is called the Pittacian land. But Sosicrates says that he cut off a small portion of it, saying that half was more than the whole; and when Croesus offered him some money he would not accept it as he said that he had already twice as much as he wanted; for that he had succeeded to the inheritance of his brother, who had died without children.
-The following riddle of Cleobulus is preserved in Pamphila's collection:[68]
+III. But Pamphila says, in the second book of her Commentaries, that he had a son named Tyrrhaeus, who was killed while sitting in a barber's shop, at Cyma, by a brazier, who threw an axe at him; and that the Cymaeans sent the murderer to Pittacus, who when he had learnt what had been done, dismissed the man, saying, "Pardon is better than repentance." But Heraclitus says that the true story is, that he had got Alcaeus into his power, and that he released him, saying, "Pardon is better than punishment." He was also a law-giver; and he made a law that if a man committed a crime while drunk, he should have double punishment; in the hope of deterring men from getting drunk, as wine was very plentiful in the island.
-. One sire there is, he has twelve sons,
+IV. It was a saying of his that it was a hard thing to be good, and this apophthegm is quoted by Simonides, who says, "It was a saying of Pittacus, that it is a hard thing to be really a good man." Plato also mentions it in his Protagoras. Another of his sayings was, "Even the Gods cannot strive against necessity." Another was, " Power shows the man." Being once asked what was best, he replied, "To do what one is doing at the moment well." When Croesus put the question to him, "What is the greatest power?" "The power," he replied, "of the variegated wood," meaning the wooden tablets of the laws. He used to say too, that there were some victories without bloodshed. He said once to a man of Phocaea, who was saying that we ought to seek out a virtuous man, "But if you seek ever so much you will not find one." Some people once asked him what thing was very grateful? and he replied, "Time."—What was uncertain? "The future."—What was trusty? "The land."—What was treacherous? "The sea" Another saying of his was, that it was the part of wise men, before difficult circumstances arose, to provide for their not arising; but that it was the part of brave men to make the best of existing circumstances. He used to say too, "Do not say before hand what you are going to do; for if you fail, you will be laughed at." "Do not reproach a man with his misfortunes, fearing lest Nemesis may overtake you." "If you have received a deposit, restore it." "Forbear to speak evil not only of your friends, but also of your enemies." "Practise piety, with temperance." "Cultivate truth, good faith, experience, cleverness, sociability, and industry."
-    and each of these has twice thirty daughters different in feature;
-    some of the daughters are white, the others again are black;
-    they are immortal, and yet they all die.
-    And the answer is, "The year."
+V. He wrote also some songs, of which the following is the most celebrated one:
-Of his songs the most popular are: It is want of taste that reigns most widely among mortals and multitude of words; but due season will serve. Set your mind on something good. Do not become thoughtless or rude. He said that we ought to give our daughters to their husbands maidens in years but women in wisdom; thus signifying that girls need to be educated as well as boys. Further, that we should render a service to a friend to bind him closer to us, and to an enemy in order to make a friend of him. For we have to guard against the censure of friends and the intrigues of enemies. 92. When anyone leaves his house, let him first inquire what he means to do; and on his return let him ask himself what he has effected. Moreover, he advised men to practise bodily exercise; to be listeners rather than talkers; to choose instruction rather than ignorance; to refrain from ill-omened words; to be friendly to virtue, hostile to vice; to shun injustice; to counsel the state for the best; not to be overcome by pleasure; to do nothing by violence; to educate their children; to put an end to enmity. Avoid being affectionate to your wife, or quarrelling with her, in the presence of strangers; for the one savours of folly, the other of madness. Never correct a servant over your wine, for you will be thought to be the worse for wine. Mate with one of your own rank; for if you take a wife who is superior to you, her kinsfolk will become your masters. 93. When men are being bantered, do not laugh at their expense, or you will incur their hatred. Do not be arrogant in prosperity; if you fall into poverty, do not humble yourself. Know how to bear the changes of fortune with nobility.[69]
+    The wise will only face the wicked man,
+    With bow in hand well bent,
+    And quiver full of arrows—
+    For such a tongue as his says nothing true,
+    Prompted by a wily heart
+    To utter double speeches.
-He died at the ripe age of seventy; and the inscription over him is:[70]
+He also composed six hundred verses in elegiac metre; and he wrote a treatise in prose, on Laws, addressed to his countrymen.
-    Here the wise Rhodian, Cleobulus, sleeps,
+VI. He flourished about the forty-second Olympiad; and he died when Aristomenes was Archon, in the third year of the fifty-second Olympiad; having lived more than seventy years, being a very old man. And on his tomb is this inscription:
-    And o'er his ashes sea-proud Lindus weeps.
-His apophthegm was: Moderation is best. And he wrote to Solon the following letter:
+    Lesbos who bore him here, with tears doth bury
+    Hyrradius' worthy son, wise Pittacus.
-Cleobulus to Solon
+Another saying of his was, "Watch your opportunity."
-"You have many friends and a home wherever you go; but the most suitable for Solon will, say I, be Lindus, which is governed by a democracy. The island lies on the high seas, and one who lives here has nothing to fear from Pisistratus. And friends from all parts will come to visit you."
+VII. There was also another Pittacus, a lawgiver, as Favorinus tells us in the first book of his Commentaries; and Demetrius says so too, in his Essay on Men and Things of the same name. And that other Pittacus was called Pittacus the less.
-===== Periander =====
+VIII. But it is said that the wise Pittacus once, when a young man consulted him on the subject of marriage, made him the following answer, which is thus given by Callimachus in his Epigrams.
+    Hyrradius' prudent son, old Pittacus
+    The pride of Mitylene, once was asked
+    By an Atarnean stranger; "Tell me, sage,
+    I have two marriages proposed to me;
+    One maid my equal is in birth and riches;
+    The other's far above me; which is best?
+    Advise me now which shall I take to wife?"
+    Thus spoke the stranger; but the aged prince,
+    Raising his old man's staff before his face,
+    Said, "These will tell you all you want to know;"
+    And pointed to some boys, who with quick lashes
+    Were driving whipping tops along the street.
+    "Follow their steps," said he; so he went near them
+    And heard them say, "Let each now mind his own."—
+    So when the stranger heard the boys speak thus,
+    He pondered on their words, and laid aside
+    Ambitious thoughts of an unequal marriage.
+    As then he took to shame the poorer bride,
+    So too do you, O reader, mind thy own.
-. Periander , the son of Cypselus, was born at Corinth, of the family of the Heraclidae. His wife was Lysida, whom he called Melissa. Her father was Procles, tyrant of Epidaurus, her mother Eristheneia, daughter of Aristocrates and sister of Aristodemus, who together reigned over nearly the whole of Arcadia, as stated by Heraclides of Pontus in his book On Government. By her he had two sons, Cypselus and Lycophron, the younger a man of intelligence, the elder weak in mind. 95. However, after some time, in a fit of anger, he killed his wife by throwing a footstool at her, or by a kick, when she was pregnant, having been egged on by the slanderous tales of concubines, whom he afterwards burnt alive.
+And it seems that he may have here spoken from experience, for his own wife was of more noble birth than himself, since she was the sister of Draco, the son of Penthilus; and she gave herself great airs, and tyrannized over him.
-When the son whose name was Lycophron grieved for his mother, he banished him to Corcyra. And when well advanced in years he sent for his son to be his successor in the tyranny; but the Corcyraeans put him to death before he could set sail. Enraged at this, he dispatched the sons of the Corcyraeans to Alyattes that he might make eunuchs of them; but, when the ship touched at Samos, they took sanctuary in the temple of Hera, and were saved by the Samians.
+IX. Alcaeas calls Pittacus sarapous and sarapos, because he was splay-footed, and used to drag his feet in walking; he also called him cheiropodês, because he had scars on his feet which were called cheirades. And gaurêx, implying that he gave himself airs without reason. And phuskôn and gastrôn, because he was fat. He also called him zophodorpidas, because he had weak eyes, and agasurtos, because he was lazy and dirty. He used to grind corn for the sake of exercise, as Clearchus, the philosopher, relates.
-Periander lost heart and died at the age of eighty. Sosicrates' account is that he died fortyone years before Croesus, just before the 49th Olympiad.[71] Herodotus in his first book says that he was a guest-friend of Thrasybulus, tyrant of Miletus.
+X. There is a letter of his extant, which runs thus:
-. Aristippus in the first book of his work On the Luxury of the Ancients[72] accuses him of incest with his own mother Crateia, and adds that, when the fact came to light, he vented his annoyance in indiscriminate severity. Ephorus records his now that, if he won the victory at Olympia in the chariot-race, he would set up a golden statue. When the victory was won, being in sore straits for gold, he despoiled the women of all the ornaments which he had seen them wearing at some local festival. He was thus enabled to send the votive offering.
+PITTACUS TO CROESUS.
-There is a story that he did not wish the place where he was buried to be known, and to that end contrived the following device. He ordered two young men to go out at night by a certain road which he pointed out to them; they were to kill the man they met and bury him. He afterwards ordered four more to go in pursuit of the two, kill them and bury them; again, he dispatched a larger number in pursuit of the four. Having taken these measures, he himself encountered the first pair and was slain. The Corinthians placed the following inscription upon a cenotaph:[73]
+You invite me to come to Lydia in order that I may see your riches; but I, even without seeing them, do not doubt that the son of Alyattes is the richest of monarchs. But I should get no good by going to Sardis; for I do not want gold myself, but what I have is sufficient for myself and my companions. Still, I will come, in order to become acquainted with you as a hospitable man.
-. In mother earth here Periander lies,
+===== LIFE OF BIAS =====
-    The prince of sea-girt Corinth rich and wise.
-My own epitaph on him is:[74]
+I. BIAS was a citizen of Priene, and the son of Teutamus, and by Satyrus he is put at the head of the seven wise men. Some writers affirm that he was one of the richest men of the city; but others say that he was only a settler: And Phanodicus says, that he ransomed some Messenian maidens who had been taken prisoners, and educated them as his own daughters, and gave them dowries, and then sent them back to Messina to their fathers. And when, as has been mentioned before, the tripod was found near Athens by some fishermen, the brazen tripod I mean, which bore the inscription—"For the Wise;" then Satyrus says that the damsels (but others, such as Phanodicus, say that it was their father,) came into the assembly, and said that Bias was the wise man—recounting what he had done to them: and so the tripod was sent to him. But Bias, when he saw it, said that it was Apollo who was "the Wise," and would not receive the tripod.
-    Grieve not because thou hast not gained thine end,
+II. But others say that he consecrated it at Thebes to Hercules because he himself was a descendant of the Thebans, who had sent a colony to Priene, as Phanodicus relates. It is said also that when Alyattes was besieging Priene, Bias fattened up two mules and drove them into his camp; and that the king, seeing the condition that the mules were in, was astonished at their being able to spare food to keep the brute beasts so well, and so he desired to make peace with them, and sent an ambassador to them. On this Bias, having made some heaps of sand, and put corn on the top, showed them to the convoy; and Alyattes, hearing from him what he had seen, made peace with the people of Priene; and then, when he sent to Bias, desiring him to come quickly to him, "Tell Alyattes, from me," he replied, "to eat onions;"—which is the same as if he had said, "go and weep."
-    But take with gladness all the gods may send;
-    Be warned by Periander's fate, who died
-    Of grief that one desire should be denied.
-To him belongs the maxim: Never do anything for money; leave gain to trades pursued for gain. He wrote a didactic poem of 2000 lines. He said that those tyrants who intend to be safe should make loyalty their bodyguard, not arms. When some one asked him why he was tyrant, he replied, "Because it is as dangerous to retire voluntarily as to be dispossessed." Here are other sayings of his: Rest is beautiful. Rashness has its perils. Gain is ignoble. Democracy is better than tyranny. Pleasures are transient, honours are immortal. 98. Be moderate in prosperity, prudent in adversity. Be the same to your friends whether they are in prosperity or in adversity. Whatever agreement you make, stick to it. Betray no secret. Correct not only the offenders but also those who are on the point of offending.
+III. It is said that he was very energetic and eloquent when pleading causes; but that he always reserved his talents for the right side. In reference to which Demodicus of Alerius uttered the following enigmatical saying—"If you are a judge, give a Prienian decision." And Hipponax says, "More excellent in his decisions than Bias of Priene." Now he died in this manner:
-He was the first who had a bodyguard and who changed his government into a tyranny, and he would let no one live in the town without his permission, as we know from Ephorus and Aristotle.
+IV. Having pleaded a cause for some one when he was exceedingly old, after he had finished speaking, he leaned back with his head on the bosom of his daughter's son; and after the advocate on the opposite side had spoken, and the judges had given their decision in favour of Bias's client, when the court broke up he was found dead on his grandson's bosom. And the city buried him in the greatest magnificence, and put over him this inscription—
-He flourished about the 38th Olympiad and was tyrant for forty years.
+    Beneath this stone lies Bias, who was born
+    In the illustrious Prienian land,
+    The glory of the whole Ionian race.
-Sotion and Heraclides and Pamphila in the fifth book of her Commentaries distinguish two Perianders, one a tyrant, the other a sage who was born in Ambracia. 99. Neanthes of Cyzicus also says this, and adds that they were near relations. And Aristotle[75] maintains that the Corinthian Periander was the sage; while Plato denies this.
+And we ourselves have also written an epigram on him—
-His apophthegm is: Practice makes perfect. He planned a canal across the Isthmus.
+    Here Bias lies, whom when the hoary snow
+    Had crowned his aged temples, Mercury
+    Unpitying led to Pluto's darken'd realms.
+    He pleaded his friend's cause, and then reclin'd
+    In his child's arms, repos'd in lasting sleep.
-A letter of his is extant:
+V. He also wrote about two thousand verses on Ionia, to show in what matter a man might best arrive at happiness; and of all his poetical sayings these have the greatest reputation:
-Periander to the Wise Men
+    Seek to please all the citizens, even though
+    Your house may be in an ungracious city.
+    For such a course will favour win from all:
+    But haughty manners oft produce destruction.
-"Very grateful am I to the Pythian Apollo that I found you gathered together; and my letters will also bring you to Corinth, where, as you know, I will give you a thoroughly popular reception. I learn that last year you met in Sardis at the Lydian court. Do not hesitate therefore to come to me, the ruler of Corinth. The Corinthians will be pleased to see you coming to the house of Periander."
+And this one too:
-Periander to Procles
+    Great strength of body is the gift of nature;
+    But to be able to advise whate'er
+    Is most expedient for one's country's good,
+    Is the peculiar work of sense and wisdom.
-. "The murder of my wife was unintentional; but yours is deliberate guilt when you set my son's heart against me. Either therefore put an end to my son's harsh treatment, or I will revenge myself on you. For long ago I made expiation to you for your daughter by burning on her pyre the apparel of all the women of Corinth."
+Another is:
-There is also a letter written to him by Thrasybulus, as follows:
+    Great riches come to many men by chance.
-Thrasybulus to Periander
+He used also to say that that man was unfortunate who could not support misfortune; and that it is a disease of the mind to desire what was impossible, and to have no regard for the misfortunes of others. Being asked what was difficult, he said—"To bear a change of fortune for the worse with magnanimity." Once he was on a voyage with some impious men, and the vessel was overtaken by a storm; so they began to invoke the assistance of the Gods; on which he said, "Hold your tongues, lest they should find out that you are in this ship." When he was asked by an impious man what piety was, he made no reply; and when his questioner demanded the reason of his silence, he said, "I am silent because you are putting questions about things with which you have no concern." Being asked what was pleasant to men, he replied, "Hope." It was a saying of his that it was more agreeable to decide between enemies than between friends; for that of friends, one was sure to become an enemy to him; but that of enemies, one was sure to become a friend. When the question was put to him, what a man derived pleasure while he was doing, he said, "While acquiring gain." He used to say, too, that men ought to calculate life both as if they were fated to live a long and a short time: and that they ought to love one another as if at a future time they would come to hate one another; for that most men were wicked. He used also to give the following pieces of advice:—"Choose the course which you adopt with deliberation; but when you have adopted it, then persevere in it with firmness.—Do not speak fast, for that shows folly.—Love prudence.—Speak of the Gods as they are.—Do not praise an undeserving man because of his riches.—Accept of things, having procured them by persuasion, not by force.—Whatever good fortune befalls you, attribute it to the gods.—Cherish wisdom as a means of travelling from youth to old age, for it is more lasting than any other possession."
-"I made no answer to your herald; but I took him into a cornfield, and with a staff smote and cut off the over-grown ears of corn, while he accompanied me. And if you ask him what he heard and what he saw, he will give his message. And this is what you must do if you want to strengthen your absolute rule: put to death those among the citizens who are pre-eminent, whether they are hostile to you or not. For to an absolute ruler even a friend is an object of suspicion."
+VI. Hipponax also mentions Bias, as has been said before; and Heraclitus too, a man who was not easily pleased, has praised him; saying, in Priene there lived Bias the son of Teutamus, whose reputation is higher than that of the others; and the Prienians consecrated a temple to him which is called the Teutamium. A saying of his was, "Most men are wicked."
-===== Anacharsis =====
+===== LIFE OF CLEOBULUS =====
+I. CLEOBULUS was a native of Lindus, and the son of Evagoras; but according to Duris he was a Carian; others again trace his family back to Hercules. He is reported to have been eminent for personal strength and beauty, and to have studied philosophy in Egypt; he had a daughter named Cleobulina, who used to compose enigmas in hexameter verse, and she is mentioned by Cratinus in his play of the same name, except that the title is written in the plural number. They say also that he restored the temple of Minerva which had been built by Danaus.
+II. Cleobulus composed songs and obscure sayings in verse to the number of three thousand lines, and some say that it was he who composed the epigram on Midas.
+    I am a brazen maiden lying here
+    Upon the tomb of Midas. And as long
+    As water flows, as trees are green with leaves,
+    As the sun shines and eke the silver moon,
+    As long as rivers flow, and billows roar,
+    So long will I upon this much wept tomb,
+    Tell passers by, "Midas lies buried here."
+And as an evidence of this epigram being by him they quote a song of Simonides, which runs thus:
+    What men possessed of sense
+    Would ever praise the Lindian Cleobulus?
+    Who could compare a statue made by man
+    To everflowing streams,
+    To blushing flowers of spring,
+    To the suns rays, to beams o' the golden morn,
+    And to the ceaseless waves of mighty Ocean?
+    All things are trifling when compared to God.
+    While men beneath their hands can crush a stone;
+    So that such sentiments can only come from fools.
+And the epigram cannot possibly be by Homer, for he lived many years, as it is said, before Midas.
+III. There is also the following enigma quoted in the Commentaries of Pamphila, as the work of Cleobulus :
+    There was one father and he had twelve daughters,
+    Each of his daughters had twice thirty children.
+    But most unlike in figure and complexion;
+    For some were white, and others black to view,
+    And though immortal they all taste of death.
+And the solution is, "the year."
+IV. Of his apophthegms, the following are the most celebrated. Ignorance and talkativeness bear the chief sway among men. Opportunity will be the most powerful. Cherish not a thought. Do not be fickle, or ungrateful. He used to say too, that men ought to give their daughters in marriage while they were girls in age, but women in sense; as indicating by this that girls ought to be well educated. Another of his sayings was, that one ought to serve a friend that he may become a greater friend; and an enemy, to make him a friend. And that one ought to guard against giving one's friends occasion to blame one, and one's enemies opportunity of plotting against one. Also, when a man goes out of his house, he should consider what he is going to do: and when he comes home again he should consider what he has done. He used also to advise men to keep their bodies in health by exercise.--To be fond of hearing rather than of talking.--To be fond of learning rather than unwilling to learn.--To speak well of people.--To seek virtue and eschew vice.--To avoid injustice.--To give the best advice in one's power to one's country.--To be superior to pleasure.--To do nothing by force.--To instruct one's children,--To be ready for reconciliation after quarrels.--Not to caress one's wife, nor to quarrel with her when strangers are present, for that to do the one is a sign of folly, and to do the latter is downright madness.--Not to chastise a servant while elated with drink, for so doing one will appear to be drunk one's self.--To marry from among one's equals, for if one takes a wife of a higher rank than one's self, one will have one's connexions for one's masters.--Not to laugh at those who are being reproved, for so one will be detested by them.--Be not haughty when prosperous.--Be not desponding when in difficulties.--Learn to bear the changes of fortune with magnanimity.
+V. And he died at a great age, having lived seventy years, and this inscription was put over him :
+    His country, Lindus, this fair sea-girt city
+    Bewails wise Cleobulus here entombed.
+VI. One of his sayings was, "Moderation is the best thing." He also wrote a letter to Solon in these terms:
+CLEOBULUS TO SOLON.
+You have many friends, and a home everywhere, but yet I think that Lindus will be the most agreeable habitation for Solon, since it enjoys a democratic government, and it is a maritime island, and whoever dwells in it has nothing to fear from Pisistratus, and you will have friends flock to you from all quarters.
+===== LIFE OF PERIANDER =====
+I. PERIANDER was a Corinthian, the son of Cypselus, of the family of the Heraclidae. He married Lyside (whom he himself called Melissa), the daughter of Procles the tyrant of Epidaurus, and of Eristhenea the daughter of Aristocrates, and sister of Aristodemus, who governed nearly all Arcadia, as Heraclides Ponticus says in his Treatise on Dominion and had by her two sons Cypselus and Lycophron, the younger of whom was a clever boy, but the elder was deficient in intellect. At a subsequent period he in a rage either kicked or threw his wife down stairs when she was pregnant, and so killed her, being wrought upon by the false accusations of his concubines, whom he afterwards burnt alive. And the child, whose name was Lycophron, he sent away to Corcyra because he grieved for his mother.
+II. But afterwards, when he was now extremely old, he sent for him back again, in order that he might succeed to the tyranny. But the Corcyreans, anticipating his intention, put him to death, at which he was greatly enraged, and sent their children to Corcyra to be made eunuchs of; and when the ship came near to Samos, the youths, having made supplications to Juno, were saved by the Samians. And he fell into despondency and died, being eighty years old. Sosicrates says that he died forty-one years before Croesus, in the last year of the forty-eighth Olympiad. Herodotus, in the first book of his History, says that he was connected by ties of hospitality with Thrasybulus the tyrant of Miletus. And Aristippus, in the first book of his Treatise on Ancient Luxury, tells the following story of him; that his mother Cratea fell in love with him, and introduced herself secretly into his bed; and he was delighted; but when the truth was discovered he became very oppressive to all his subjects, because he was grieved at the discovery. Ephorus relates that he made a vow that, if he gained the victory at Olympia in the chariot race, he would dedicate a golden statue to the God. Accordingly he gained the victory; but being in want of gold, and seeing the women at some national festival beautifully adorned, he took away their golden ornaments, and then sent the offering which he had vowed.
+III. But some writers say that he was anxious that his tomb should not be known, and that with that object he adopted the following contrivance. He ordered two young men to go out by night, indicating a particular road by which they were to go, and to kill the first man they met, and bury him; after them he sent out four other men who were to kill and bury them. Again he sent out a still greater number against these four, with similar instructions. And in this manner he put himself in the way of the first pair, and was slain, and the Corinthians erected a cenotaph over him with the following inscription:
+    The sea-beat land of Corinth in her bosom,
+    Doth here embrace her ruler Periander,
+    Greatest of all men for his wealth and wisdom.
+We ourselves have also written an epigram upon him:
+    Grieve not when disappointed of a wish,
+    But be content with what the Gods may give you —
+    For the great Periander died unhappy,
+    At failing in an object he desired.
+IV. It was a saying of his that we ought not to do anything for the sake of money; for that we ought only to acquire such gains as are allowable. He composed apophthegms in verse to the number of two thousand lines; and said that those who wished to wield absolute power in safety, should be guarded by the good will of their countrymen, and not by arms. And once, being asked why he assumed tyrannical power, he replied, "Because, to abdicate it voluntarily, and to have it taken from one, are both dangerous." The following sayings also belong to him:—Tranquillity is a good thing.—Rashness is dangerous.—Gain is disgraceful.—Democracy is better than tyranny.—Pleasures are transitory, but honour is immortal.—Be moderate when prosperous, but prudent when unfortunate. Be the same to your friends when they are prosperous, and when they are unfortunate.—Whatever you agree to do, observe—Do not divulge secrets.—Punish not only those who do wrong, but those who intend to do so.
+V. This prince was the first who had body-guards, and who changed a legitimate power into a tyranny; and he would not allow any one who chose to live in his city, as Ephorus and Aristotle tell us.
+VI. And he flourished about the thirty-eighth Olympiad, and enjoyed absolute power for forty years. But Sotion, and Heraclides, and Pamphila, in the fifth book of her Commentaries, says that there were two Perianders; the one a tyrant, and the other a wise man, and a native of Ambracia. And Neanthes of Cyzicus makes the same assertion, adding, that the two men were cousins to one another. And Aristotle says, that it was the Corinthian Periander who was the wise one; but Plato contradicts him. The saying—"Practice does everything," is his. He it was, also, who proposed to cut through the Isthmus.
+VII. The following letter of his is quoted:
+PERIANDER TO THE WISE MEN.
+I give great thanks to Apollo of Delphi that my letters are able to determine you all to meet together at Corinth; and I will receive you all, as you may be well assured, in a manner that becomes free citizens. I hear also that last year you met at Sardis, at the court of the King of Lydia. So now do not hesitate to come to me, who am the tyrant of Corinth; for the Corinthians will all be delighted to see you come to the house of Periander.
+VIII. There is this letter too:
+PERIANDER TO PROCLES.
+The injury of my wife was unintended by me; and you have done wrong in alienating from me the mind of my child. I desire you, therefore, either to restore me to my place in his affections, or I will revenge myself on you; for I have myself made atonement for the death of your daughter, by burning in her tomb the clothes of all the Corinthian women.1
+IX. Thrasybulus also wrote him a letter in the following terms:
+I have given no answer to your messenger; but having taken him into a field, I struck with my walking-stick all the highest ears of corn, and cut off their tops, while he was walking with me: And he will report to you, if you ask him, everything which he heard or saw while with me; and do you act accordingly if you wish to preserve your power safely, taking off the most eminent of the citizens, whether he seems an enemy to you or not, as even his companions are deservedly objects of suspicion to a man possessed of supreme power.
+. Herodotus mentions the case of Periander's children, iii. 50, and the death of his wife, and his burning the clothes of all the Corinthian women, v. 92.
+===== LIFE OF ANACHARSIS =====
 . Anacharsis the Scythian was the son of Gnurus and brother of Caduidas, king of Scythia. His mother was a Greek, and for that reason he spoke both languages. He wrote on the institutions of the Greeks and the Scythians, dealing with simplicity of life and military matters, a poem of 800 lines. So outspoken was he that he furnished occasion for a proverb, "To talk like a Scythian."
@@ Line 578: / Line 680: @@
 "I have come, O King of the Lydians, to the land of the Greeks to be instructed in their manners and pursuits. And I am not even in quest of gold, but am well content to return to Scythia a better man. At all events here I am in Sardis, being greatly desirous of making your acquaintance."
-===== Myson =====
+===== LIFE OF MYSON =====
-. Myson was the son of Strymon, according to Sosicrates, who quotes Hermippus as his authority, and a native of Chen, a village in the district of Oeta or Laconia; and he is reckoned one of the Seven Sages. They say that his father was a tyrant. We are told by some one that, when Anacharsis inquired if there were anyone wiser than himself, the Pythian priestess gave the response which has already been quoted in the Life of Thales as her reply to a question by Chilon:[79]
-    Myson of Chen in Oeta; this is he
+I. MYSON, the son of Strymon, as Sosicrates states, quoting Hermippus as his authority, a Chenean by birth, of some Aetaean or Laconian village, is reckoned one of the seven wise men, and they say that his father was tyrant of his country. It is said by some writers that when Anacharsis inquired if any one was wiser than he, the priestess at Delphi gave the answer which has been already quoted in the life of Thales in reference to Chilon:
-    Who for wiseheartedness surpasseth thee.
-His curiosity aroused, Anacharsis went to the village in summer time and found him fitting a share to a plough and said, "Myson, this is not the season for the plough." "It is just the time to repair it," was the reply. 107. Others cite the first line of the oracle differently, "Myson of Chen in Etis," and inquire what "Myson of Etis" means. Parmenides indeed explains that Etis is a district in Laconia to which Myson belonged. Sosicrates in his Successions of Philosophers makes him belong to Etis on the father's side and to Chen on the mother's. Euthyphro, the son of Heraclides of Pontus, declares that he was a Cretan, Eteia being a town in Crete. Anaxilaus makes him an Arcadian.
+    I say that Myson the Aetaean sage,
+    The citizen of Chen, is wiser far
+    In his deep mind than you.
-Myson is mentioned by Hipponax, the words being:[80]
+And that he, having taken a great deal of trouble, came to the village, and found him in the summer season fitting a handle to a plough, and he addressed him, "O Myson, this is not now the season for the plough." "Indeed," said he, "it is a capital season for preparing one;" but others say, that the words of the oracle are the Etean sage, and they raise the question, what the word Etean means. So Parmenides says, that it is a borough of Laconia, of which Myson was a native; but Sosicrates, in his Successions says, that he was an Etean on his father's side, and a Chenean by his mother's. But Euthyphro, the son of Heraclides Ponticus, says that he was a Cretan, for that Etea was a city of Crete.
-    And Myson, whom Apollo's self proclaimed
+II. And Anaxilaus says that he was an Arcadian. Hipponax also mentions him, saying, "And Myson, whom Apollo stated to be the most prudent of all men." But Aristoxenus, in his Miscellanies, says that his habits were not very different from those of Timon and Apemantus, for that he was a misanthrope. And that accordingly he was one day found in Lacedaemon laughing by himself in a solitary place, and when some one came up to him on a sudden and asked him why he laughed when he was by himself, he said, "For that very reason." Aristoxenus also says that he was not thought much of, because he was not a native of any city, but only of a village, and that too one of no great note; and according to him, it is on account of this obscurity of his that some people attribute his sayings and doings to Pisistratus the tyrant, but he excepts Plato the philosopher, for he mentions Myson in his Protagoras, placing him among the wise men instead of Periander.
-    Wisest of all men.
-Aristoxenus in his Historical Gleanings says he was not unlike Timon and Apemantus, for he was a misanthrope. 108. At any rate he was seen in Lacedaemon laughing to himself in a lonely spot; and when some one suddenly appeared and asked him why he laughed when no one was near, he replied, "That is just the reason." And Aristoxenus says that the reason why he remained obscure was that he belonged to no city but to a village and that an unimportant one. Hence because he was unknown, some writers, but not Plato the philosopher, attributed to Pisistratus the tyrant what properly belonged to Myson. For Plato mentions him in the Protagoras,[81] reckoning him as one of the Seven instead of Periander.
+III. It used to be a common saying of his that men ought not to seek for things in words, but for words in things; for that things are not made on account of words, but that words are put together for the sake of things.
-He used to say we should not investigate facts by the light of arguments, but arguments by the light of facts; for the facts were not put together to fit the arguments, but the arguments to fit the facts.
+IV. He died when he had lived ninety-seven years.
-He died at the age of ninety-seven.
+===== LIFE OF EPIMENIDES =====
-===== Epimenides =====
+I. EPIMENIDES, as Theopompus and many other writers tell us, was the son of a man named Phaedrus*, but some call him the son of Dosiadas; and others of Agesarchus. He was a Cretan by birth, of the city of Cnossus; but because he let his hair grow long, he did not look like a Cretan.
-. Epimenides , according to Theopompus and many other writers, was the son of Phaestius; some, however, make him the son of Dosiadas, others of Agesarchus. He was a native of Cnossos in Crete, though from wearing his hair long he did not look like a Cretan. One day he was sent into the country by his father to look for a stray sheep, and at noon he turned aside out of the way, and went to sleep in a cave, where he slept for fifty-seven years. After this he got up and went in search of the sheep, thinking he had been asleep only a short time. And when he could not find it, he came to the farm, and found everything changed and another owner in possession. Then he went back to the town in utter perplexity; and there, on entering his own house, he fell in with people who wanted to know who he was. At length he found his younger brother, now an old man, and learnt the truth from him. 110. So he became famous throughout Greece, and was believed to be a special favourite of heaven.
+II. He once, when he was sent by his father into the fields to look for a sheep, turned out of the road at mid-day and lay down in a certain cave and fell asleep and slept there fifty-seven years; and after that, when he awoke, he went on looking for the sheep, thinking that he had been taking a short nap; but as he could not find it he went on to the field and there he found everything changed, and the estate in another person's possession, and so he came back again to the city in great perplexity, and as he was going into his own house he met some people who asked him who he was, until at last he found his younger brother who had now become an old man, and from him he learnt all the truth.
-Hence, when the Athenians were attacked by pestilence, and the Pythian priestess bade them purify the city, they sent a ship commanded by Nicias, son of Niceratus, to Crete to ask the help of Epimenides. And he came in the 46th Olympiad,[82] purified their city, and stopped the pestilence in the following way. He took sheep, some black and others white, and brought them to the Areopagus; and there he let them go whither they pleased, instructing those who followed them to mark the spot where each sheep lay down and offer a sacrifice to the local divinity. And thus, it is said, the plague was stayed. Hence even to this day altars may be found in different parts of Attica with no name inscribed upon them, which are memorials of this atonement. According to some writers he declared the plague to have been caused by the pollution which Cylon brought on the city and showed them how to remove it. In consequence two young men, Cratinus and Ctesibius, were put to death and the city was delivered from the scourge.
+III. And when he was recognized he was considered by the Greeks as a person especially beloved by the Gods, on which account when the Athenians were afflicted by a plague, and the priestess at Delphi enjoined them to purify their city; they sent a ship and Nicias the son of Niceratus to Crete, to invite Epimenides to Athens; and he, coming there in the forty-sixth Olympiad, purified the city and eradicated the plague for that time; he took some black sheep and some white ones and led them up to the Areopagus, and from thence he let them go wherever they chose, having ordered the attendants to follow them, and wherever any one of them lay down they were to sacrifice him to the God who was the patron of the spot, and so the evil was stayed; and owing to this one may even now find in the different boroughs of the Athenians altars without names, which are a sort of memorial of the propitiation of the Gods that then took place. Some said that the cause of the plague was the pollution contracted by the city in the matter of Cylon, and that Epimenides pointed out to the Athenians how to get rid of it, and that in consequence they put to death two young men, Cratinus and Ctesilius*, and that thus the pestilence was put an end to.
-. The Athenians voted him a talent in money and a ship to convey him back to Crete. The money he declined, but he concluded a treaty of friendship and alliance between Cnossos and Athens.
+And the Athenians passed a vote to give him a talent and a ship to convey him back to Crete, but he would not accept the money, but made a treaty of friendship and alliance between the Cnossians and Athenians.
-So he returned home and soon afterwards died. According to Phlegon in his work On Longevity he lived one hundred and fifty-seven years; according to the Cretans two hundred and ninety-nine years. Xenophanes of Colophon gives his age as 154, according to hearsay.
+IV. And not long after he had returned home he died, as Phlegon relates in his book on long-lived people, after he had lived a hundred and fifty-seven years; but as the Cretans report he had lived two hundred and ninety-nine; but as Xenophanes the Colophonian, states that he had heard it reported, he was a hundred and fifty-four years old when he died.
-He wrote a poem On the Birth of the Curetes and Corybantes and a Theogony,[83] 5000 lines in all; another on the building of the Argo and Jason's voyage to Colchis in 6500 lines. 112. He also compiled prose works On Sacrifices and the Cretan Constitution, also On Minos and Rhadamanthus, running to about 4000 lines. At Athens again he founded the temple of the Eumenides, as Lobon of Argos tells us in his work On Poets. He is stated to have been the first who purified houses and fields, and the first who founded temples. Some are found to maintain that he did not go to sleep but withdrew himself[84] for a while, engaged in gathering simples.
+V. He wrote a poem of five thousand verses on the Generation and Theogony of the Curetes and Corybantes, and another poem of six thousand five hundred verses on the building of the Argo and the expedition of Jason to Colchis.
-There is extant a letter of his to Solon the lawgiver, containing a scheme of government which Minos drew up for the Cretans. But Demetrius of Magnesia, in his work on poets and writers of the same name, endeavours to discredit the letter on the ground that it is late and not written in the Cretan dialect but in Attic, and New Attic too. However, I have found another letter by him which runs as follows:
+VI. He also wrote a treatise in prose on the Sacrifices in Crete, and the Cretan Constitution, and on Minos and Rhadamanthus, occupying four thousand lines.
-Epimenides to Solon
+Likewise he built at Athens the temple which is there dedicated to the venerable goddesses, as Lobon the Augur says in his book on Poets; and he is said to have been the first person who purified houses and lands, and who built temples.
-. "Courage, my friend. For if Pisistratus had attacked the Athenians while they were still serfs and before they had good laws, he would have secured power in perpetuity by the enslavement of the citizens. But, as it is, he is reducing to subjection men who are no cowards, men who with pain and shame remember Solon's warning and will never endure to be under a tyrant. But even should Pisistratus himself hold down the city, I do not expect that his power will be continued to his children; for it is hard to contrive that men brought up as free men under the best laws should be slaves. But, instead of going on your travels, come quietly to Crete to me; for here you will have no monarch to fear, whereas, if some of his friends should fall in with you while you are travelling about, I fear you may come to some harm.'
+VII. There are some people who assert that he did not sleep for the length of time that has been mentioned above, but that he was absent from his country for a considerable period, occupying himself with the anatomisation and examination of roots.
-. This is the tenor of the letter. But Demetrius reports a story that he received from the Nymphs food of a special sort and kept it in a cow's hoof; that he took small doses of this food, which was entirely absorbed into his system, and he was never seen to eat. Timaeus mentions him in his second book. Some writers say that the Cretans sacrifice to him as a god; for they say that he had superhuman foresight. For instance, when he saw Munichia, at Athens, he said the Athenians did not know how many evils that place would bring upon them; for, if they did, they would destroy it even if they had to do so with their teeth. And this he said so long before the event. It is also stated that he was the first to call himself Aeacus; that he foretold to the Lacedaemonians their defeat by the Arcadians; and that he claimed that his soul had passed through many incarnations.
+VIII. A letter of his is quoted, addressed to Solon the lawgiver, in which he discusses the constitution which Minos gave the Cretans. But Demetrius the Magnesian, in his treatise on Poets and Prose writers of the same name as one another, attempts to prove that the letter is a modern one, and is not written in the Cretan but in the Attic dialect, and the new Attic too.
-. Theopompus relates in his Mirabilia that, as he was building a temple to the Nymphs, a voice came from heaven: "Epimenides, not a temple to the Nymphs but to Zeus," and that he foretold to the Cretans the defeat of the Lacedaemonians by the Arcadians, as already stated; and in very truth they were crushed at Orchomenus.
+IX. But I have also discovered another letter of his which runs thus:
-And he became old in as many days as he had slept years; for this too is stated by Theopompus. Myronianus in his Parallels declares that the Cretans called him one of the Curetes. The Lacedaemonians guard his body in their own keeping in obedience to a certain oracle; this is stated by Sosibius the Laconian.
+EPIMENIDES TO SOLON.
-There have been two other men named Epimenides, namely, the genealogist and another who wrote in Doric Greek about Rhodes.
+Be of good cheer, my friend; for if Pisistratus had imposed his laws on the Athenians, they being habituated to slavery and not accustomed to good laws previously, he would have maintained his dominion for ever, succeeding easily in enslaving his fellow countrymen; but as it is, he is lording it over men who are no cowards, but who remember the precepts of Solon and are indignant at their bonds, and who will not endure the supremacy of a tyrant. But if Pisistratus does possess the city to-day, still I have no expectation that the supreme power will ever descend to his children. For it is impossible that men who have lived in freedom and in the enjoyment of most excellent laws should be slaves permanently; but as for yourself, do not you go wandering about at random, but come and visit me, for here there is no supreme ruler to be formidable to you; but if while you are wandering about any of the friends of Pisistratus should fall in with you, I fear you might suffer some misfortune.
-===== Pherecydes =====
+He wrote thus.
+X. But Demetrius says that some writers report that he used to receive food from the nymphs and keep it in a bullock's hoof; and that eating it in small quantities he never required any evacuations, and was never seen eating. And Timaeus mentions him in his second book.
-. Pherecydes , the son of Babys, and a native of Syros according to Alexander in his Successions of Philosophers, was a pupil of Pittacus. Theopompus tells us that he was the first who wrote in Greek on nature and the gods.
+XI. Some authors say also that the Cretans sacrifice to him as a god, for they say that he was the wisest of men; and accordingly, that when he saw the port of Munychia,1 at Athens, he said that the Athenians did not know how many evils that place would bring upon them: since, if they did, they would tear it to pieces with their teeth; and he said this a long time before the event to which he alluded. It is said also, that he at first called himself Aeacus; and that he foretold to the Lacedaemonians the defeat which they should suffer from the Arcadians; and that he pretended that he had lived several times. But Theopompus, in his Strange Stories, says that when he was building the temple of the Nymphs, a voice burst forth from heaven;—"Oh! Epimenides, build this temple, not for the Nymphs but for Jupiter." He also foretold to the Cretans the defeat of the Lacedaemonians by the Arcadians as has been said before. And, indeed, they were beaten at Orchomenos.
-Many wonderful stories are told about him. He was walking along the beach in Samos and saw a ship running before the wind; he exclaimed that in no long time she would go down, and, even as he watched her, down she went. And as he was drinking water which had been drawn up from a well he predicted that on the third day there would be an earthquake; which came to pass. And on his way from Olympia he advised Perilaus, his host in Messene, to move thence with all belonging to him; but Perilaus could not be persuaded, and Messene was afterwards taken.[85]
+XII. He pretended also, that he grew old rapidly, in the same number of days as he had been years asleep; at least, so Theopompus says. But Mysonianus*, in his Coincidences, says, that the Cretans call him one of the Curetes. And the Lacedaemonians preserve his body among them, in obedience to some oracle, as Sosilius the Lacedaemonian says.
-. He bade the Lacedaemonians set no store by gold or silver, as Theopompus says in his Mirabilia. He told them he had received this command from Heracles in a dream; and the same night Heracles enjoined upon the kings to obey Pherecydes. But some fasten this story upon Pythagoras.
+XIII. There were also two other Epimenides, one the genealogist; the other, the man who wrote a history of Rhodes in the Doric dialect.
-Hermippus relates that on the eve of war between Ephesus and Magnesia he favoured the cause of the Ephesians, and inquired of some one passing by where he came from, and on receiving the reply "From Ephesus," he said, "Drag me by the legs and place me in the territory of Magnesia; and take a message to your countrymen that after their victory they must bury me there, and that this is the last injunction of Pherecydes." 118. The man gave the message; a day later the Ephesians attacked and defeated the Magnesians; they found Pherecydes dead and buried him on the spot with great honours. Another version is that he came to Delphi and hurled himself down from Mount Corycus. But Aristoxenus in his work On Pythagoras and his School affirms that he died a natural death and was buried by Pythagoras in Delos; another account again is that he died of a verminous disease, that Pythagoras was also present and inquired how he was, that he thrust his finger through the doorway and exclaimed, "My skin tells its own tale," a phrase subsequently applied by the grammarians as equivalent to "getting worse," although some wrongly understand it to mean "all is going well." 119. He maintained that the divine name for "table" is θυωρός, or that which takes care of offerings.
+. This refers to the result of the war which Antipater, who became regent of Macedonia on the death of Alexander the Great, carried on against the confederacy of Greek states, of which Athens was the head; and in which, after having defeated them at Cranon, he compelled the Athenians to abolish the democracy, and to admit a garrison into Munychia.
-Andron of Ephesus says that there were two natives of Syros who bore the name of Pherecydes: the one was an astronomer, the other was the son of Babys and a theologian, teacher of Pythagoras. Eratosthenes, however, says that there was only one Pherecydes of Syros, the other Pherecydes being an Athenian and a genealogist.
+===== LIFE OF PHERECYDES =====
-There is preserved a work by Pherecydes of Syros, a work which begins thus: "Zeus and Time and Earth were from all eternity, and Earth was called Γῆ because Zeus gave her earth (γῆ) as guerdon (γέρας)." His sun-dial is also preserved in the island of Syros.
-Duris in the second book of his Horae gives the inscription on his tomb as follows:[86]
+I. PHERECYDES was a Syrian, the son of Babys, and, as Alexander says, in his Successions, he had been a pupil of Pittacus.
-. All knowledge that a man may have had I;
+II. Theopompus says that he was the first person who ever wrote among the Greeks on the subject of Natural Philosophy and the Gods. And there are many marvellous stories told of him. For it is said that he was walking along the sea-shore at Samos, and that seeing a ship sailing by with a fair wind, he said that it would soon sink; and presently it sank before their eyes. At another time he was drinking some water which had been drawn up out of a well, and he foretold that within three days there would be an earthquake; and there was one. And as he was going up to Olympia, and had arrived at Messene, he advised his entertainer, Perilaus, to migrate from the city with all his family, but that Perilaus would not be guided by him; and afterwards Messene was taken.
-    Yet tell Pythagoras, were more thereby,
-    That first of all Greeks is he; I speak no lie.
-Ion of Chios says of him:[87]
+III. And he is said to have told the Lacedaemonians to honour neither gold nor silver, as Theopompus says in his Marvels; and it is reported that Hercules laid this injunction on him in a dream, and that the same night he appeared also to the kings of Sparta, and enjoined them to be guided by Pherecydes; but some attribute these stories to Pythagoras.
-    With manly worth endowed and modesty,
+IV. And Hermippus relates that when there was a war between the Ephesians and Magnesians, he, wishing the Ephesians to conquer, asked some one, who was passing by, from whence he came? and when he said, "From Ephesus," "Drag me now," said he, "by the legs, and place me in the territory of the Magnesians, and tell your fellow countrymen to bury me there after they have got the victory; and that he went and reported that Pherecydes had given him this order. And so they went forth the next day and defeated the Magnesians; and as Pherecydes was dead, they buried him there, and paid him very splendid honours.
-    Though he be dead, his soul lives happily,
-    If wise Pythagoras indeed saw light
-    And read the destinies of men aright.
-There is also an epigram of my own in the Pherecratean metre:[88]
+V. But some writers say that he went to Delphi, and threw himself down from the Corycian hill; Aristoxenus, in his History of Pythagoras and his Friends, says that Pherecydes fell sick and died, and was buried by Pythagoras in Delos. But others say that he died of the lousy disease; and when Pythagoras came to see him, and asked him how he was, he put his finger through the door, and said, "You may see by my skin." And from this circumstance that expression passed into a proverb among the philosophers, when affairs are going on badly; and those who apply it to affairs that are going on well, make a blunder. He used to say, also, that the Gods call their table thuôros.
-    The famous Pherecydes, to whom Syros gave birth, 121. when his former beauty was consumed by vermin, gave orders that he should be taken straight to the Magnesian land in order that he might give victory to the noble Ephesians. There was an oracle, which he alone knew, enjoining this; and there he died among them. It seems then it is a true tale; if anyone is truly wise, he brings blessings both in his lifetime and when he is no more.
+VI. But Andron, the Ephesian, says that there were two men of the name of Pherecydes, both Syrians: one an astronomer, and the other a writer on God and the Divine Nature; and that this last was the son of Babys, who was also the master of Pythagoras. But Eratosthenes asserts that there was but one, who was a Syrian; and that the other Pherecydes was an Athenian, a genealogist; and the work of the Syrian Pherecydes is preserved and it begins thus:—"Jupiter, and Time, and Chthon existed externally." And the name of Cthonia became Tellus, after Jupiter gave it to her as a reward. A sun-dial is also preserved, in the island of Syra, of his making.
-He lived in the 59th Olympiad. He wrote the following letter:
+VII. But Duris, in the second book of his Boundaries, says that this epigram was written upon him:
-Pherecydes to Thales[89]
+    The limit of all wisdom is in me;
+    And would be, were it larger. But report
+    To my Pythagoras that he's the first
+    Of all the men that tread the Grecian soil;
+    I shall not speak falsehood, saying this.
-. "May yours be a happy death when your time comes. Since I received your letter, I have been attacked by disease. I am infested with vermin and subject to a violent fever with shivering fits. I have therefore given instructions to my servants to carry my writing to you after they have buried me. I would like you to publish it, provided that you and the other sages approve of it, and not otherwise. For I myself am not yet satisfied with it. The facts are not absolutely correct, nor do I claim to have discovered the truth, but merely such things as one who inquires about the gods picks up. The rest must be thought out, for mine is all guess-work. As I was more and more weighed down with my malady, I did not permit any of the physicians or my friends to come into the room where I was, but, as they stood before the door and inquired how I was, I thrust my finger through the keyhole and showed them how plague-stricken I was; and I told them to come to-morrow to bury Pherecydes."
+And Ion, the Chian, says of him:
-So much for those who are called the Sages, with whom some writers also class Pisistratus the tyrant. I must now proceed to the philosophers and start with the philosophy of Ionia. Its founder was Thales, and Anaximander was his pupil.
+    Adorned with valour while alive, and modesty,
+            Now that he's dead he still exists in peace;
+    For, like the wise Pythagoras, he studied
+            The manners and the minds of many nations.
-===== Footnotes =====
+And I myself have composed an epigram on him in the Pherecratean metre :
+    The story is reported,
+    That noble Pherecydes
+    Whom Syros calls her own,
+    Was eaten up by lice;
+    And so he bade his friends,
+    Convey his corpse away
+    To the Magnesian land,
+    That he might victory give
+    To holy Ephesus.
+    For well the God had said,
+    (Though he alone did know
+    Th' oracular prediction),
+    That this was fate's decree.
+    So in that land he lies.
+    This then is surely true,
+    That those who're really wise
+    Are useful while alive,
+    And e'en when breath has left them.
-↑ The alteration of the numeral from 23 to 13 is supported by what little we know of Sotion's work. It was from a similar source that Clement of Alexandria must have taken what we find in Strom. i. 71 concerning Chaldaeans, Druids, Magians, Gymnosophists, and other barbarian philosophers.\\
+VIII. And he flourished about the fifty-ninth Olympiad. There is a letter of his extant in the following terms:
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 615.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 616.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. ii. 99.\\
-↑ Compare Pliny, N. H. xx. 11. 242: Zoroaster lived in the wilderness on cheese (cf. Yasht, xxii. 18 "Spring butter is the ambrosia of the blessed"). For fuller comments on 7-9 see J. H. Moulton's Early Zoroastrianism, pp. 410-418.\\
-↑ This popular etymology, though wide-spread, is erroneous, the true form of the prophet's name being Zarathustra, almost certainly derived from zarath="old" (a Zend stem, parallel to γέροντ-) and ustra="camel." Cf. J. H. Moulton, op. cit. p. 426, and, for star-lore in the Avesta, ib. p. 210.\\
-↑ In this clause the word ἐπικλήσεσι is usually taken as equivalent to ὀνόμασι (names). The meaning then would be: "What exists now will exist hereafter under its own present name." Diels would alter ἐπικλήσεσι to περικυκλήσεσι, thus obtaining something very like the Heraclitean union of opposites: "the things which are will continue to be through all their revolutions." But ἐπίκλησις like ἐτικαλεῖσθαι can be used of prayer, and there is some evidence that Avestan religion fully recognized the efficacy of prayers and spells. The testimony of Theopompus, who wrote in the fourth century, to the Zoroastrian doctrine of immortality is regarded by J. H. Moulton as specially important: cf. Early Zoroastrianism, pp. 177 sq. and 416.\\
-↑ This is confirmed by Clement, Strom. i. 61, who also repeats (Strom. i. 24) the statement that σοφιστής=σοφός.\\
-↑ Compare Clem. Alex. Strom. i. 59. His authority includes another candidate for admission to the Seven, Acusilaus of Argos, but makes no mention of Pisistratus.\\
-↑ See iv. 59-61, where Lacydes is made the founder of the New Academy, although other authorities, e.g. Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. i. 220. say the Third or New Academy began with Carneades. But the claim of Lacydes is supported by Ind. Acad. pp. 76. 37 sq. Mekler, and the article s.v. in Suidas, which comes from Hesychius.\\
-↑ This succession (Pythagoras, Telauges, Xenophanes, Parmenides) does not exactly agree with what is said in the lives of Xenophanes and Parmenides, ix. 18, 21, where Parmenides, not Xenophanes, is made a pupil of the Pythagoreans. The arrangement followed in i. 12-15 treats the Italian school as a true succession, whereas in Book IX. many of them are regarded as sporadic thinkers, according to the view expressed in viii. 91.\\
-↑ The separation of the followers of Anniceris from the Cyrenaic school was made by the author whom Clement of Alexandria followed in ii. 130. This author may have been Antiochus of Ascalon. Strabo x. 837 s.f. supports the same view: Ἀννίκερις ὁ δοκῶν ἐπανορθῶσαι τὴν Κυρηναϊκὴν αἵρεσιν, καὶ παραγαγεῖν ἀντ' αὐτῆς τὴν Ἀννικερείαν.\\
-↑ Cf. the distinction drawn by Sextus Empiricus in Pyrrh. Hyp. i. 16, 17. If by rules for conduct dogmas are implied, then the Pyrrhonians are not a sect, i.e. a dogmatic school.\\
-↑ Certainly not the same as the person mentioned by Porphyry in his Life of Plotinus, 9, 11, for Polemo, not Potamo, is the correct form of the name in that place. Potamo is said by Suidas (s.v. Ηοτάμων Ἀλ.) to have lived shortly before and contemporary with Augustus, whence it follows that Diogenes has taken without alteration a statement by an earlier writer who might truthfully say "not long ago" of the reign of Augustus. Suidas, whose article αἵρεσις agrees closely with our text, naturally omits πρὸ ὀλίγου.\\
-↑ Nelidac, if Bywater's emendation is correct.\\
-↑ 582 B.C.\\
-↑ Cf. Simplicius, In Phys. i. 23, 29-33 d.\\
-↑ Greek mariners steered by the Great Bear, the Phoenicians by the Little Bear, as Ovid states, Tristia, iv. 3. 1, 2.\\
-↑ See Sir T. L. Heath, Aristarchus of Samos, pp. 12-23.\\
-↑ De anima, A 2, 405 a 19.\\
-↑ i.e. a theory concerned with lines, γραμμαί, which of course include curves as well as straight lines.
-↑ Namely, in a dialogue. Cf. viii. 4.\\
-↑ Because, having created a monopoly, he could charge what he pleased. See Aristotle's version of the story, Pol. i. 11, 1259 a 6-18.\\
-↑ Anth. Plan. vi. 51.\\
-↑ Or in prose: "Offspring of Miletus, do you ask Phoebus concerning the tripod? Whoso in wisdom is of all the first, to him the tripod I adjudge."\\
-↑ Although disguised as Leandrius, the writer meant is Maeandrius, who is known (Inscr. Gr. no. 2905) to have written a local history of Miletus. Such histories, eg. of Sicyon, Megara, Samos, Naxos, Argolis, Epirus, Thessaly, abounded in the Alexandrian age.\\
-↑ Anth. Plan. vi. 40.\\
-↑ Andron of Ephesus (§119) is known to have written in the life-time (or at least before the death) of Theopompus, who is accused of having plagiarized from The Tripod: Eusebius, Praep. Ev. x. 3, 7.\\
-↑ Fr. 49 Bergk; cf. Schol. Pindar, Isthm. ii. 17.29\\
-↑ Fr. 23 Diels.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 83.\\
-↑ 640 B.C.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 84.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 85.\\
-↑ In plain prose: "As the wise Thales was one day watching the contest of the racers, thou, O Sun-god, O Zeus, didst snatch him from the stadium. I praise thee for removing him to be near thee; for verily the old man could no more discern the stars from earth."\\
-↑ The opinion of Dicaearchus thus expressed is correct. With the exception of Thales, no one whose life is contained in Book I. has any claim to be styled a philosopher. The tradition of the Seven Wise Men and of their meeting at some court, whether of a native tyrant like Periander or of a foreign prince like Croesus, was used by Plato (Protag. 343 A) and, largely through his influence, grew into a romantic legend, the result being late biographies, collections of apophthegms, and letters attributed to various authors, e.g. the apophthegms of Demetrius of Phalerum. Diogenes Laertius swallows all this as true; modern criticism rejects it all as forgery.\\
-↑ Anth. Plan. iv. 22.\\
-↑ Fr. 2 Bergk.\\
-↑ Ib. 3.\\
-↑ If these words are pressed, they contradict the precise statement in Plutarch's Life of Solon (c. 10) that the Athenians buried their dead to face the setting sun; cf. Aelian, Var. Hist. v. 14. The Mycenaean graves with two exceptions showed the dead with their heads to the east and their feet to the west. Sir W. Ridgeway (Early Age of Greece, c. 7) assumes that Plutarch and Aelian are right and Diogenes either misktaken or inaccurate in his mode of expression. A view has been put forward that there was no uniform orientation in early times (see H. J. Rose, Classical Review, xxxiv. p. 141 sq.).\\
-↑ Il. ii. 557.\\
-↑ Fr. 10 Bergk.\\
-↑ Fr. 9 Bergk.\\
-↑ Fr. 11 Bergk.\\
-↑ Autolycus, Fr. 1, 1. 12 Nauck, T.G.F.2, Eur. 282.\\
-↑ This censure of athletes recurs Diod. Sic. ix. 2. 3 f. It was probably a commonplace κεφάλαιον in some earlier life of Solon.\\
-↑ Or "in succession," though this is rather ἐξ ὑποδοχῆς. In Plato, Hipparchus 228 B, the same thing is expressed by ἐξ ὑπολήψεως ἐφεξῆς.\\
-↑ Iliad, ii. 546.\\
-↑ Fr. 20 Bergk.\\
-↑ Fr. 42 Bergk.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 86.\\
-↑ 594 B.C.\\
-↑ Fr. 5 Meineke, C.G.F. ii. 149.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 87.\\
-↑ There seems to be some confusion in these extracts. Possibly Diogenes Laertius found among his materials some such note as this: Χίλων τῶν ἑπτὰ σοφῶν πρῶτος ἔφορος, and connected it with the date as given by Sosicrates, namely, the archonship of Euthydemus, meticulously correcting this date from Pamphila. But he seems to have mislaken the meaning of πρῶτος ἔφορος and to have rashly inferred from it that it was Chilon who introduced the ephorate.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 88.\\
-↑ 'Anth. Pal. ix. 596.\\
-↑ 345d.\\
-↑ 570 B.C.\\
-↑ Anth. Plan. ii. 3.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 89.\\
-↑ P. 79 Bergk; Strabo xiv. p. 636.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 90.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 91.\\
-↑ P. 39 d, 112 b.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 153.\\
-↑ Fr. 57 Bergk.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. xiv. 101; Stob. Ecl. Phys. i. 99. 15 W.\\
-↑ These moral precepts are similar to those of Stobaeus in the Florilegium, e.g. i. 172.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 618.\\
-↑ 584-580 B.C.\\
-↑ An unsavoury work by a scandal-monger who, to judge from the fragment of bk. iv., bore a grudge against philosophers, especially Academics: cf. Wilamowitz, Antigonos von Karystos, pp. 48 ff.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 619.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 620.\\
-↑ Periander is mentioned in the Politics of Aristotle (v. 4, 1304 a 32), but not as one of the Seven Wise Men. In Plato's Protagoras, 343 A, where the Seven Wise Men are enumerated, Periander's name is omitted, his place being taken by Myson. It would almost seem as if Diogenes Laertius knew of some passage in Aristotle in which Periander was called one of the Seven, though no such passage is extant.\\
-↑ 591-588 B.C.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 92.\\
-↑ i.e. in the form of charcoal. Cf. A. S. Ferguson in Class. Rev. vol. xxxi. p. 97.\\
-↑ Anth. Plan. vi. 40.\\
-↑ Fr. 45 Bergk.\\
-↑ 343 a.\\
-↑ 595-592 B.C.\\
-↑ These long poems may have been written by Lobon himself on the Hesiodic model; or Lobon may merely have affirmed their existence in his treatise On Poets.\\
-↑ This is the meaning of ἐκπατεῖν in three other passages, iv. 19, ix. 3, 63, in the last of which it is glossed by ἐρημάζειν, as if the sage were a recluse, a lover of solitude.\\
-↑ These stories no doubt come from Theopompus, whose work on Marvels is cited in the next paragraph.\\
-↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 93.\\
-↑ Fr. 4 Bergk.\\
-↑ Anth. Plan. iii. 128.\\
-↑ This forgery is easily analysed. There is the tradition of the malady which proved fatal to Pherecydes (cf. Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. §55), with the anecdote of his protruding his finger through the door. There is also an allusion to the alleged obscurity of the work on the gods which passed current as written by him.\\
+PHERECYDES TO THALES.
+May you die happily when fate overtakes you. Disease has seized upon me at the same time that I received your letter. I am all over lice, and suffering likewise under a low fever. Accordingly, I have charged my servants to convey this book of mine to you, after they have buried me. And do you, if you think fit, after consulting with the other wise men, publish it; but if you do not approve of doing so, then keep it unpublished, for I am not entirely pleased with it myself. The subject is not one about which there is any certain knowledge, nor do I undertake to say that I have arrived at the truth; but I have advanced arguments, from which any one who occupies himself with speculations on the divine nature, may make a selection; and as to other points, he must exercise his intellect, for I speak obscurely throughout. I, myself, as I am afflicted more severely by this disease every day, no longer admit any physicians, or any of my friends. But when they stand at the door, and ask me how I am, I put out my finger to them through the opening of the door, and show them how I am eaten up with the evil; and I desired them to come to-morrow to the funeral of Pherecydes.
+These, then, are they who were called wise men; to which list some writers add the name of Pisistratus. But we must also speak of the philosophers. And we will begin first with the Ionic philosophy, the founder of which school was Thales, who was the master of Anaximander.