Back to "From Myth to Mind": The Presocratic Philosophers

From Diogenes Laertius

Lives of the Eminent Philosophers (Vol. I)

[trans. R.D. Hicks, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard, 1972]

I. On Cleobulus (c 600 B.C.):

"Cleobulus, the son of Euagoras, was born at Lindus, but according to Duris he was a Carian. Some say that he traced his descent back to Heracles, that he was distinguished for strength and beauty, and was acquainted with Egyptian philosophy. He had a daughter Cleobuline, who composed riddles in hexameters; she is mentioned by Cratinus, who gives one of his plays her name, in the plural form Cleobulinae. He is also said to have rebuilt the temple of Athena which was founded by Danaus. He was the author of songs and riddles, making some 3000 lines in all.

The inscription on the tomb of Midas is said by some to be his:

I am a maiden of bronze and I rest upon Midas's tomb. So long as water shall flow and tall trees grow, and the sun shall rise and shine, and the bright moon, and rivers shall run and the sea wash the shore, here abiding on his tear-sprinkled tomb I shall tell the passers-by --- Midas is buried here.

The evidence they adduce is a poem of Simonides in which he says:

Who, if he trusts his wits, will praise Cleobulus the dweller at Lindus for opposing the strength of a column to ever-flowing rivers, the flowers of spring, the flame of the sun, and the golden moon and the eddies of the sea? But all things fall short of the might of the gods; even mortal hands break marble in pieces; this is a fool's devising.

The inscription cannot be by Homer, because he lived, they say, long before Midas.

The following riddle of Cleobulus is preserved in Pamphila's collection:

One sire there is, he has twelve sons, and each of these has twice thirty daughters different in feature; some of the daughters are white, the others again are black; they are immortal, and yet they all die.

And the answer is, 'The year.'

Of his songs the most popular are: It is want of taste that reigns most widely among mortals and multitude of words; but due season will serve. Set your mind on something good. Do not become thoughtless or rude. He said that we ought to give our daughters to their husbands maidens in years but women in wisdom; thus signifying that girls need to be educated as well as boys. Further, that we should render a service to a friend to bind him closer to us, and to an enemy in order to make a friend of him. For we have to guard against the censure of friends and the intrigues of enemies. When anyone leaves his house, let him first inquire what he means to do; and on his return let him ask himself what he has effected. Moreover, he advised men to practise bodily exercise; to be listeners rather than talkers; to choose instruction rather than ignorance; to refrain from ill-omened words; to be friendly to virtue, hostile to vice; to shun injustice; to counsel the state for the best; not to be overcome by pleasure; to do nothing by violence; to educate their children; to put an end to enmity. Avoid being affectionate to your wife, or quarrelling with her, in the presence of strangers; for the one savours of folly, the other madness. Never correct a servant over your wine, for you will be thought to be the worse for wine. Mate with one of your own rank; for if you take a wife who is superior to you, her kinsfolk will become your masters. When men are being bantered, do not laugh at their expense, or you will incur their hatred. Do not be arrogant in prosperity; if you fall into poverty, do not humble yourself. Know how to bear the changes of fortune with nobility.

He died at the ripe age of seventy; and the inscription over him is:

Here the wise Rhodian, Cleobulus, sleeps, / And o'er his ashes sea-proud Lindus weeps.

His apophthegm was: Moderation is best. And he wrote to Solon the following letter:

'You have many friends and a home wherever you go; but the most suitable for Solon will, say I, be Lindus, which is governed by a democracy. The island lies on the high seas, and one who lives here has nothing to fear from Pisistratus. And friends from all parts will come to visit you.'" [pp.91-97]

II. On Myson (c 600 B.C.):

"Myson was the son of Strymon, according to Sosicrates, who quotes Hermippus as his authority, and a native of Chen, a village in the district of Oeta or Laconia; and he is reckoned one of the Seven Sages. They say that his father was a tyrant. We are told by some one that, when Anacharsis inquired if there were anyone wiser than himself, the Pythian priestess gave the response which has already been quoted in the Life of Thales as her reply to a question by Chilon:

Myson of Chen in Oeta; this is he / Who for wiseheartedness surpasseth thee.

His curiosity aroused, Anacharsis went to the village in summer time and found him fitting a share to a plough and said, 'Myson, this is not the season for the plough.' 'It is just the time to repair it,' was the reply. Others cite the first line of the oracle differently, 'Myson of Chen in Etis,' and inquire what 'Myson of Etis' means. Parmenides indeed explains that Etis is a district in Laconia to which Myson belonged. Sosicrates in his Successions of Philosophers makes him belong to Etis on the father's side and to Chen on the mother's. Euthyphro, the son of Heraclides of Pontus, declares that he was a Cretan, Eteia being a town in Crete. Anaxilaus makes him an Arcadian.

Myson is mentioned by Hipponax, the words being:

And Myson, whom Apollo's self proclaimed / Wisest of all men.

Aristoxenus in his Historical Gleanings says he was not unlike Timon and Apemantus, for he was a misanthrope. At any rate he was seen in Lacedaemon laughing to himself in a lonely spot; and when some one suddenly appeared and asked him why he laughed when no one was near, he replied, 'That is just the reason.' And Aristoxenus says that the reason why he remained obscure was that he belonged to no city but to a village and that an unimportant one. Hence because he was unknown, some writers, but not Plato the philosopher, attributed to Pisistratus the tyrant what properly belonged to Myson. For Plato mentions him in the Protagoras, reckoning him as one of the Seven instead of Periander.

He used to say we should not investigate facts by the light of arguments, but arguments by the light of facts; for the facts were not put together to fit the arguments, but the arguments to fit the facts.

He died at the age of ninety-seven.

III. On Philolaus (Perhaps late fifth century):

"Philolaus of Croton was a Pythagorean, and it was from him that Plato requested Dion to buy the Pythagorean treatises. He (Dion) was put to death because he was thought to be aiming at a tyranny. This is what we have written upon him:

Fancies of all things are most flattering; / If you intend, but do not, you are lost.

So Croton taught Philolaus to his cost, / Who fancied he would like to be their king.

His doctrine is that all things are brought about by necessity and in harmonious inter-relation. He was the first to declare that the earth moves in a circle, though some say that it was Hicetas of Syracuse.

He wrote one book, and it was this work which, according to Hermippus, some writer said that Plato the philosopher, when he went to Sicily to Dionysius's court, bought from Philolaus's relatives for the sum of forty Alexandrine minas of silver, from which also the Timaeus was transcribed. Others say that Plato received it as a present for having procured from Dionysius the release of a young disciple of Philolaus who had been cast into prison.

According to Demetrius in his work on Men of the Same Name, Philolaus was the first to publish the Pythagorean treatises, to which he gave the title On Nature, beginning as follows: 'Nature in the ordered universe was composed of unlimited and limiting elements, and so was the whole universe and all that is therein.'"