The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

Introduction

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.

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.

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.

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:

Phalerum’s soil beneath this tomb contains
Musaeus dead, Eumolpus’ darling son.

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,

There was a time when all the present world
Uprose at once.

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.

They say, moreover, that Linus died in Euboea, having been shot with an arrow by Apollo, and that this epitaph was set over him:

The Theban Linus sleeps beneath this ground,
Urania’s son with fairest garlands crown’d.

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:

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 lightn’ng’s fire.

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 apothegms in enigmatical language, bidding men worship the gods and do no evil, and practice manly virtue.

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 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.

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.

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 (φιλοσοφία) was called wisdom (σοφία), and they who professed it were called wise men (σοφοὶ), as being endowed with great acuteness and accuracy of mind; but now he who embraces wisdom is called a philosopher (φιλόσοφος).

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.

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.

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.

Antisthenes was the pupil of Socrates, and the master of Diogenes the Cynic; and the pupil of Diogenes was Crates the Theban; Zeno of Citium was his; Cleanthes was his; Chrysippus was his. Again it ends with Theophrastus in the following manner:

Aristotle was the pupil of Plato, Theophrastus the pupil of Aristotle; and in this way the Ionian school comes to an end.

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.

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.

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 (περὶ τὰ ἔθη). The Dialecticians are they who devote themselves to quibbling on words.

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.

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.

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 of Citium; the Epicurean school derives its name from Epicurus, its founder.

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 Pyrrhonean 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 Skeptics 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.

These, then, are the beginnings, these are the successive masters, these are the divisions, and schools of philosophy.

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.

But we must now speak of the men themselves; and first of all about Thales.

Thales

Thales, then, as Herodotus and Duris and Democritus say, was the son of Euxamius and Cleobule; 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 Damasius was Archon at Athens, in whose time also the seven wise men had that title given to them, as Demetrius Phalereus records in his Catalog 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.

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:

And, he, ’tis said, did first compute the stars
Which beam in Charles’s wain, and guide the bark
Of the Phoenician sailor o’er the sea.

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.

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 Pamphile 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 honor 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 Euphebus 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.

Some assert that he was married, and that he had a son named Cibissus; 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.”

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.

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.

Now it is known to everyone 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 net 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:

You ask about the tripod, to whom you shall present it;
’Tis for the wisest, I reply, that fortune surely meant it.

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 Iambics, 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:

Thales, who’s twice received me as a prize,
Gives me to him who rules the race of Neleus.

And the prose inscription runs thus:

Thales the son of Examius, a Milesian, offers this to Apollo Didymaeus, having twice received it from the Greeks as the reward for virtue.

And the name of the son of Bathycles who carried 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 Evanthes 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 Chilo, 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:

I say that Myson, the Oetaean sage,
The citizen of Chen, is wiser far
In his deep mind than you.

The person who went to the temple to ask the question was Anacharsis; but again Daedacus, 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 Chilo; and Alcaeus mentions Aristodemus in these lines:

And so they say Aristodemus once
Uttered a truthful speech in noble Sparta:
’Tis money makes the man; and he who’s none,
Is counted neither good nor honorable.

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:

The war between the brave Ionian race
And the proud Meropes will never cease,
Till the rich golden tripod which the God,
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.

And the reply given to the Milesians was—

You ask about the tripod:

and so on, as I have related it before. And now we have said enough on this subject.

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.

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 Silloi he praises him, saying:

Like Thales, wisest of the seven sages,
That great astronomer.

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:

Miletus, fairest of Ionian cities,
Gave birth to Thales, great astronomer,
Wisest of mortals in all kinds of knowledge.

And these are quoted as some of his lines:

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.”

He said also that there was no difference between life and death. “Why, then,” said someone 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 oneself.” 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 anyone 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.

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.

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.

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:

You see this tomb is small—but recollect,
The fame of Thales reaches to the skies.

I have also myself composed this epigram on him in the first book of my epigrams or poems in various meters:

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.

The apothegm, “know yourself,” is his; though Antisthenes in his Successions says that it belongs to Phemonoe, but that Chilo appropriated it as his own.

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,8 and at Corinth, and at Delphi. There is a good deal of disagreement between different writers with respect to their apothegms, as the same one is attributed by them to various authors. For instance there is the epigram:

Chilo, the Spartan sage, this sentence said:
Seek no excess—all timely things are good.

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, Chilo 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, Chilo, 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.

The following letters are preserved as having been written by Thales:

Thales to Pherecydes

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.

Thales to Solon

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.

Solon

Solon the son of Execestides, a native of Salamis, was the first person who introduced among the Athenians an ordinance for the lowering9 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 σεισάχθεια; 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.

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 anyone 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:

Would that I were a man of Pholegandros,10
Or small Sicinna,11 rather than of Athens:
For soon this will a common proverb be,
That’s an Athenian who won’t fight for Salamis.

And another was:

Let’s go and fight for lovely Salamis,
And wipe off this our present infamy.

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 catalog of Homer, after the lines:

With these appear the Salaminian bands,
Whom Telamon’s gigantic son commands—

These other verses:

In twelve black ships to Troy they steer their course,
And with the great Athenians join their force.12

And ever after this time the people were willingly obedient to him, and were 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:

A short time will to all my madness prove,
When stern reality presents itself.

And these elegiac verses were written by him about the tyranny of Pisistratus, which he foretold,

Fierce snow and hail are from the clouds borne down,
And thunder after brilliant lightning roars;
And by its own great men a city falls,
The ignorant mob becoming slaves to kings.

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?”13 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 colors, 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.

And when he learnt that Pisistratus continued to rule in Athens as a tyrant, he wrote these verses on the Athenians:

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.

This, then, he said to them.

But Pisistratus, when he was leaving Athens, wrote him a letter in the following terms:

Pisistratus to Solon

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 honor, being content with the fixed honors 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.

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.

Thus wrote Pisistratus.

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 anyone 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 anyone 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 honors paid to Athletes who were victorious in the games, fixing the prize for a victor at Olympia at five hundred drachmae,14 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 honors 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.

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:

They’re like old cloaks worn to the very woof.

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:

Full fifty more from Athens stem the main.

And the rest of that passage—“And Solon was the first person who called the thirtieth day of the month ἔνη καὶ νέα.”15 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 seacoast.

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 apothegm of his was that satiety was generated by wealth, and insolence by satiety.

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.

He gave the following advice, as is recorded by Apollodorus in his Treatise on the Sects of Philosophers: “Consider your honor, 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.—Honor the gods; respect your parents.”

They say also that when Mimnermus had written:

Happy’s the man who ’scapes disease and care,
And dies contented in his sixtieth year

Solon rebuked him, and said:

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.

The following are some lines out of his poems:

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.

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.

And on his statue is the following inscription—

Salamis that checked the Persian insolence,
Brought forth this holy lawgiver, wise Solon.

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:

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 meters, in which I have made a collection of notices of all the illustrious men that have ever died, in every kind of meter and rhythm, in epigrams and odes. And it runs thus:

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.

He also, as some say, was the author of the apothegm—“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 someone 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.”

The following letters also are attributed to him:

Solon to Periander

You send me word that many people are plotting against you; but if you were to think of putting every one of them out of the way, you would do no good; but someone 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 anyone out of the way.

Solon to Epimenides

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 give this power, who, from time to time, can lead the people in 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 or 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 usurping 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 council-house, 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.

Solon to Pisistratus

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 anyone 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.

Solon to Croesus

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.

Chilo

Chilo was a Lacedaemonian, the son of Damagetus. He composed verses in elegiac meter 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. Chilo 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.

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 neighbors; 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 honor old age.—To keep a watch upon oneself.—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 neighbors 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.”

And of all his songs this one was the most approved:

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.

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.

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.

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. Chilo 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 honors. And we have written the following epigram on him:

I thank you, brightest Pollux, that the son
Of Chilo wears the wreath of victory;
Nor need we grieve if at the glorious sight
His father died. May such my last end be!

And the following inscription is engraved on his statue:

The warlike Sparta called this Chilo son,
The wisest man of all the seven sages.

One of his sayings was, “Suretyship, and then destruction.” The following letter of his is also extant:

Chilo to Periander

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.

Pittacus

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 favor of the Athenians.

In consequence of this victory the Mitylenaeans held Pittacus in the greatest honor, 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.

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 lawgiver; 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.

It was a saying of his that it was a hard thing to be good, and this apothegm 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 beforehand 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.” “Practice piety, with temperance.” “Cultivate truth, good faith, experience, cleverness, sociability, and industry.”

He wrote also some songs, of which the following is the most celebrated one:

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 also composed six hundred verses in elegiac meter; and he wrote a treatise in prose, on Laws, addressed to his countrymen.

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:

Lesbos who bore him here, with tears doth bury
Hyrradius’ worthy son, wise Pittacus.

Another saying of his was: “Watch your opportunity.”

There was also another Pittacus, a lawgiver, as Phavorinus 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.

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.

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.

Alcaeus calls Pittacus σαράπους and σάραπος, because he was splayfooted, and used to drag his feet in walking, he also called him χειροπόδης, because he had scars on his feet which were called χειράδες. And γαύρηξ, implying that he gave himself airs without reason. And φύσκων and γάστρων, because he was fat. He also called him ζοφοδορπίδας, because he had weak eyes, and ἀγάσυρτος, because he was lazy and dirty. He used to grind corn for the sake of exercise, as Clearchus, the philosopher, relates.

There is a letter of his extant, which runs thus:

Pittacus to Croesus

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.

Bias

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.

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.”

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:

Having pleaded a cause for someone 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 favor 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—

Beneath this stone lies Bias, who was born
In the illustrious Prienian land,
The glory of the whole Ionian race.

And we ourselves have also written an epigram on him—

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.

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:

Seek to please all the citizens, even though
Your house may be in an ungracious city.
For such a course will favor win from all:
But haughty manners oft produce destruction.

And this one too:

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.

Another is:

Great riches come to many men by chance.

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.”

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.”

Cleobulus

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.

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 sun’s 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.

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.”

Of his apothegms, 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 oneself.—To marry from among one’s equals, for if one takes a wife of a higher rank than oneself, one will have one’s connections 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.

And he died at a great age, having lived seventy years, and this inscription was put over him:

His country, Lindus, this fair seagirt city
Bewails wise Cleobulus here entombed.

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.

Periander

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 clever boy, but the elder was deficient in intellect. At a subsequent period he in a rage either kicked or threw his wife downstairs 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.

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.

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.

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 apothegms 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 him: Tranquillity is a good thing.—Rashness is dangerous.—Gain is disgraceful.—Democracy is better than tyranny.—Pleasures are transitory, but honor 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.

This prince was the first who had bodyguards, and who changed a legitimate power into a tyranny; and he would not allow anyone who chose to live in his city, as Euphorus and Aristotle tell us.

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.

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.

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.16

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.

Anacharsis, the Scythian

Anacharsis the Scythian was the son of Gnurus, and the brother of Caduides the king of the Scythians; but his mother was a Grecian woman, owing to which circumstance he understood both languages.

He wrote about the laws existing among the Scythians, and also about those in force among the Greeks, urging men to adopt a temperate course of life; and he wrote also about war, his works being in verse and amounting to eight hundred lines. He gave occasion for a proverb, because he used great freedom of speech, so that people called such freedom the Scythian conversation.

But Sosicrates says that he came to Athens in the forty-seventh Olympiad, in the archonship of Eucrates. And Hermippus asserts that he came to Solon’s house, and ordered one of the servants to go and tell his master that Anacharsis was come to visit him, and was desirous to see him, and, if possible, to enter into relations of hospitality with him. But when the servant had given the message, he was ordered by Solon to reply him that, “Men generally limited such alliances to their own countrymen.” In reply to this Anacharsis entered the house and told the servant that now he was in Solon’s country, and that it was quite consistent for them to become connected with one another in this way. On this, Solon admired the readiness of the man, and admitted him, and made him one of his greatest friends.

But after some time, when he had returned to Scythia, and shown a purpose to abrogate the existing institutions of his country, being exceedingly earnest in his fondness for Grecian customs, he was shot by his brother while he was out hunting, and so he died, saying “That he was saved on account of the sense and eloquence which he had brought from Greece, but slain in consequence of envy in his own family.” Some, however, relate that he was slain while performing some Grecian sacrificatory rites. And we have written this epigram on him:

When Anacharsis to his land returned,
His mind was turn’d, so that he wished to make
His countrymen all live in Grecian fashion—
So, ere his words had well escaped his lips,
A winged arrow bore him to the Gods.

He said that a vine bore three bunches of grapes. The first the bunch of pleasure; the second, that of drunkenness; the third, that of disgust. He also said that he marvelled that among the Greeks, those who were skillful in a thing contend together, but those who have no such skill act as judges of the contest. Being once asked how a person might be made not fond of drinking, he said: “If he always keeps in view the indecorous actions of drunken men.” He used also to say that he marvelled how the Greeks, who make laws against those who behave with insolence, honor Athletae because of their beating one another. When he had been informed that the sides of a ship were four fingers thick, he said, “That those who sailed in one were removed by just that distance from death.” He used to say that oil was a provocative of madness, “because Athletae, when anointed in the oil, attacked one another with mad fury.”

“How is it,” he used to say, “that those who forbid men to speak falsely, tell lies openly in their vintners’ shops?” It was a saying of his, that he “marvelled why the Greeks at the beginning of a banquet drink out of small cups, but when they have drunk a good deal then they turn to large goblets.” And this inscription is on his statues—“Restrain your tongues, your appetites, and your passions.” He was once asked if the flute was known among the Scythians, and he said: “No, nor the vine either.” At another time the question was put to him: which was the safest kind of vessel? and he said: “That which is brought into dock.” He said, too, that the strangest things that he had seen among the Greeks was that “They left the smoke17 in the mountains, and carried the wood down to their cities.” Once, when he was asked which were the more numerous, the living or the dead, he said: “Under which head do you class those who are at sea.” Being reproached by an Athenian for being a Scythian, he said: “Well, my country is a disgrace to me, but you are a disgrace to your country.” When he was asked what there was among men which was both good and bad, he replied: “The tongue.” He used to say: “That it was better to have one friend of great value, than many friends who were good for nothing.” Another saying of his was, that: “The forum was an established place for men to cheat one another, and behave covetously.” Being once insulted by a young man at a drinking party, he said, “O, young man, if now that you are young you cannot bear wine, when you are old you will have to bear water.”

Of things which are of use in life, he is said to have been the inventor of the anchor, and of the potter’s wheel.

The following letter of his is extant:

Anacharsis to Croesus

O king of the Lydians, I am come to the country of the Greeks, in order to become acquainted with their customs and institutions; but I have no need of gold, and shall be quite contented if I return to Scythia a better man than I left it. However I will come to Sardis, as I think it very desirable to become a friend of yours.

Myson

Myson, the son of Strymon, as Sosicrates states, quoting Hermippus as his authority, a Chenean by birth, of some Oetaean 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 anyone was wiser than he, the priestess at Delphi gave the answer which has been already quoted in the life of Thales in reference to Chilo:

I say that Myson the Oetaean sage,
The citizen of Chen, is wiser far
In his deep mind than you.

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 Euthyphron, the son of Heraclides Ponticus, says that he was a Cretan, for that Etea was a city of Crete.

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 someone 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.

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 died when he had lived ninety-seven years.

Epimenides

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 Gnossus, but because he let his hair grow long he did not look like a Cretan.

He once, when he was sent by his father into the fields to look for a sheep, turned out of the road at midday 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.

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 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 Ctesibius, and that thus the pestilence was put an end to.

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 Gnossians and Athenians.

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 Xenophones 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

But I have also discovered another letter of his which runs thus:

Epimenides to Solon

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 forever, 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 today, 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.

He then wrote thus:

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.

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,18 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.

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 Sosibius the Lacedaemonian says.

There were also two other Epimenides: one the genealogist; the other, the man who wrote a history of Rhodes in the Doric dialect.

Pherecydes

Pherecydes was a Syrian, the son of Babys, and, as Alexander says in his Successions, he had been a pupil of Pittacus.

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 seashore 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.

And he is said to have told the Lacedaemonians to honor 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.

And Hermippus relates that when there was a war between the Ephesians and Magnesians, he, wishing the Ephesians to conquer, asked someone 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 honors.

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 θυωρὸς.

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 sundial is also preserved, in the island of Syra, of his making.

But Duris, in the second book of his Boundaries, says that this epigram was written upon him:

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 a falsehood, saying this.

And Ion, the Chian, says of him:

Adorned with valor 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.

And I myself have composed an epigram on him in the Pherecratean meter:

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.

And he flourished about the fifty-ninth Olympiad. There is a letter of his extant in the following terms:

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 anyone 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 tomorrow 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.