The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Diogenes Laërtius [the gingerbread man read aloud TXT] 📗

Senate House of the Romans divested of its clothing, as the Romans had carried it off and erected it there. And there are traces of some inscriptions or reliefs still discernible on it.

Neanthes of Cyzicus, who also wrote about the Pythagoreans, says that when Meton was dead, the seeds of tyrannical power began to appear; and that then Empedocles persuaded the Agrigentines to desist from their factious disputes, and to establish political equality. And besides, as there were many of the female citizens destitute of dowry, he portioned them out of his own private fortune. And relying on these actions of his, he assumed a purple robe and wore a golden circlet on his hand, as Phavorinus relates in the first book of his Commentaries. He also wore slippers with brazen soles, and a Delphian garland. His hair was let grow very long, and he had boys to follow him; and he himself always preserved a solemn countenance, and a uniformly grave deportment. And he marched about in such style, that he seemed to all the citizens, who met him and who admired his deportment, to exhibit a sort of likeness to kingly power. And afterwards, it happened that as on the occasion of some festival he was going in a chariot to Messene, he was upset and broke his thigh; and he was taken ill in consequence, and so died, at the age of seventy-seven. And his tomb is in Megara.

But as to his age, Aristotle differs from this account of Neanthes; for he asserts that he died at sixty years of age; others again say that he was a hundred and nine when he died. He flourished about the eighty-fourth olympiad. Demetrius, of Troezen, in his book against the Sophists, reports that, as the lines of Homer say:

He now, self-murdered, from a beam depends,
And his mad soul to blackest hell descends.118

But in the letter of Telauges, which has been mentioned before, it is said that he slipped down through old age, and fell into the sea, and so died.

And this is enough to say about his death.

There is also a jesting epigram of ours upon him, in our collection of Poems in all Metres, which runs thus:

You too, Empedocles, essayed to purge
Your body in the rapid flames, and drank
The liquid fire from the restless crater;
I say not that you threw yourself at once
Into the stream of Etna’s fiery flood.
But seeking to conceal yourself you fell,
And so you met with unintended death.

And another:

’Tis said the wise Empedocles did fall
Out of his chariot, and so broke his thigh:
But if he leapt into the flames of Etna,
How could his tomb be shown in Megara?

The following were some of his doctrines: He used to assert that there were four elements: fire, water, earth, and air. And that that is friendship by which they are united, and discord by which they are separated. And he speaks thus on this subject:

Bright Jove, life-giving Juno, Pluto dark,
And Nestis, who fills mortal eyes with tears.

Meaning by Jove fire, by Juno the earth, by Pluto the air, and by Nestis water. And these things, says he, never cease alternating with one another; inasmuch as this arrangement is perpetual. Accordingly, he says subsequently:

Sometimes in friendship bound they coalesce,
Sometimes they’re parted by fell discord’s hate.

And he asserts that the sun is a vast assemblage of fire, and that it is larger than the moon. And the moon is disk-shaped; and that the heaven itself is like crystal; and that the soul inhabits every kind of form of animals and plants. Accordingly, he thus expresses himself:

For once I was a boy, and once a girl.
A bush, a bird, a fish who swims the sea,

His writings on Natural Philosophy and his Purifications extend to five thousand verses; and his Medical Poem to six hundred; and his Tragedies we have spoken of previously.

Epicharmus

Epicharmus was a native of Cos, the son of Helothales; he also was a pupil of Pythagoras. When he was three months old he was brought to Megara, in Sicily, and from thence he came to Syracuse, as he himself tells us in his writings. And on his statue there is the following inscription.

As the bright sun excels the other stars,
As the sea far exceeds the river streams:
So does sage Epicharmus men surpass,
Whom hospitable Syracuse has crowned.

He has left behind him Commentaries in which he treats of natural philosophy, and delivers apothegms, and discusses medicine. He has also added brief notes to many of his commentaries, in which he declares plainly that he is the author of the works.

He died at the age of ninety years.

Archytas

Archytas was a native of Tarentum, and the son of Mnesagoras; or, as Aristoxenus relates, of Histiaeus.

He also was a Pythagorean; and he it was who saved Plato’s life by means of a letter, when he was in danger of being put to death by Dionysius.

He was a man held in very general esteem on account of his universal virtue; and he was seven times appointed general of his countrymen, when no one else had ever held the office for more than one year, as the law forbade it to be held for a longer period.

Plato wrote his letters to him; as he had begun the correspondence by writing himself to Plato, which he did in the following manner:

Archytas to Plato, Greeting

I am very glad that you have recovered from your delicate state of health; for you yourself have sent me word of your recovery, and Lamiscus gives the same account. I have been much occupied with some commentaries, and have been among the Lucanians, and have met with the descendants of Ocellus. I have now in my possession, and I send to you the treatises on Law, and Kingly Power, and Piety, and the Creation of the Universe. As for the rest, I have not been able to find them, but whenever