Diogenes Laërtius - Complete Works of Diogenes Laertius (Delphi Classics) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 47)

The Complete Works of

DIOGENES LARTIUS

(fl. c. 3rd century AD)

Contents

Delphi Classics 2015

Version 1

The Complete Works of

DIOGENES LARTIUS

By Delphi Classics, 2015

Complete Works of Diogenes Laertius

First published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by Delphi Classics.

Delphi Classics, 2015.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

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Ancient ruins in Caria very little is known about the life of Diogenes Lartius. Some historians believe his native town was Laerte in Caria.

Translated by R. D. Hicks

This biography of ancient Greek philosophers is believed to have been written by Diogenes Lartius in the first half of the third century AD. Diogenes treats his subject in two divisions, which he divides between the Ionian and the Italian schools. The Ionian biographies begin with Anaximander and conclude with Clitomachus, Theophrastus and Chrysippus, while the Italian school commences with Pythagoras and culminates with Epicurus. The Socratic school, with its various branches, is classed with the Ionic; while the Eleatics and sceptics are treated under the Italian branch. Diogenes also includes his own poetic, though pedestrian, verse about the philosophers he discusses.

The compendium of biographies contains incidental remarks on many other philosophers and there are useful accounts concerning Hegesias, Anniceris, and Theodorus. Book VII is incomplete and breaks off during the life of Chrysippus. From a table of contents in one of the manuscripts (manuscript P), this book is known to have continued with Zeno of Tarsus, Diogenes, Apollodorus, Boethus, Mnesarchides, Mnasagoras, Nestor, Basilides, Dardanus, Antipater, Heraclides, Sosigenes, Panaetius, Hecato, Posidonius, Athenodorus, another Athenodorus, Antipater, Arius, and Cornutus. The whole of Book X is devoted to Epicurus, containing three long letters written by Epicurus, explaining the philosophers doctrines.

Diogenes chief authorities were Favorinus and Diocles of Magnesia, but his work also draws on books by Antisthenes of Rhodes, Alexander Polyhistor and Demetrius of Magnesia, as well as works by Hippobotus, Aristippus, Panaetius, Apollodorus of Athens, Sosicrates, Satyrus, Sotion, Neanthes, Hermippus, Antigonus, Heraclides, Hieronymus, and Pamphila.

Dionysiou monastery, codex 90 a 13th-century manuscript containing Diogenes Laertius famous work

Thales of Miletus (c. 624 c. 546 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Miletus in Asia Minor and one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Aristotle regarded him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition and he is the first to appear in Diogenes work.

Plato (c. 428-c. 348 BC) is considered an essential figure in the development of philosophy, especially the Western tradition, and he founded the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Plato fills the entire third book of Diogenes Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers.

Epicurus (341270 BC) was the founder of the school of Epicureanism. Only a few fragments and letters of Epicurus 300 written works remain. Much of what is known about Epicurean philosophy derives from later followers and commentators. Epicurus is last philosopher to appear in Diogenes Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers.

1. 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 book of his Succession of Philosophers . Also they say that Mochus was a Phoenician, Zamolxis a Thracian, and Atlas a Libyan.

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.

3. 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:

Musaeus, to his sire Eumolpus dear,
In Phalerean soil lies buried here;

and the Eumolpidae at Athens get their name from the father of Musaeus.

4. 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:

Time was when all things grew up at once;

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: