LIFE OF ARCESILAUS.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Diogenes Laertius and Yonge, Charles Duke
I. Arcesilaus was the son of Seuthes or Scythes, as Apollodorus states in the third book of his Chronicles, and a native of Pitane in Æolia.
II. He was the original founder of the Middle Academy, and the first man who professed to suspend the declaration of his judgment, because of the contrarieties of the reasons alleged on either side. He was likewise the first who attempted to argue on both sides of a question, and who also made the method of discussion, which had been handed down by Plato, by means of question and answer, more contentious than before.
III. He met with Crantor in the following manner. He was one of four brothers, two by the same father and two by the same mother. Of those who were by the same mother the eldest was Pylades, and of those by the same father the eldest was Mœreas, who was his guardian; and at first he was a pupil of Autolycus the mathematician, who happened to be a fellow citizen of his before he went to Athens; and with Autolycus he travelled as far as Sardis. After that he became a pupil of Xanthus the musician, and after that attended the lectures of Theophrastus, and subsequently came over to the Academy to Crantor. For Mœreas his brother, whom I have mentioned before, urged him to apply himself to rhetoric; but he himself had a preference for philosophy, and when he became much attached to him Crantor asked him, quoting a line out of the Andromeda of Euripides:—
O virgin, if I save you, will you thank me?
And he replied by quoting the next line to it:—
O take me to you, stranger, as your slave,
Or wife, or what you please.
And ever after that they became very intimate, so that they say Theophrastus was much annoyed, and said, “That a most ingenious and well-disposed young man had deserted his school.”
IV. For he was not only very impressive in his discourse, and displayed a great deal of learning in it, but he also tried his hand at poetry, and there is extant an epigram which is attributed to him, addressed to Attalus, which is as follows:—
Pergamus is not famed for arms alone,
But often hears its praise resound
For its fine horses, at the holy Pisa.
Yet, if a mortal may declare,
Its fate as hidden in the breast of Jove,
It will be famous for its woes.
There is another addressed to Menodorus the son of Eudamus, who was attached to one of his fellow pupils:—
Phrygia is a distant land, and so
Is sacred Thyatira, and Cadanade,
Your country Menodorus. But from all,
As the unvaried song of bards relates,
An equal road does lie to Acheron,
That dark unmentioned river; so you lie
Here far from home; and here Eudamus raises
This tomb above your bones, for he did love you,
Though you were poor, with an undying love.
But he admired Homer above all poets, and always used to read a portion of his works before going to sleep; and in the morning he would say that he was going to the object of his love, when he was going to read him. He said, too, that Pindar was a wonderful man for filling the voice, and pouring forth an abundant variety of words and expressions. He also, when he was a young man, wrote a criticism on Ion.
V. And he was a pupil likewise of Hipponicus, the geometrican whom he used to ridicule on other points as being lazy and gaping; but he admitted that in his own profession he was clear sighted enough, and said that geometry had flown into his mouth while he was yawning. And when he went out of his mind, he took him to his own house, and took care of him till he recovered his senses.
VI. And when Crates died, he succeeded him in the presidency of his schools, a man of the name of Socrates willingly yielding to him.
VII. And as he suspended his judgment on every point, he never, as it is said, wrote one single book. But others say that he was once detected correcting some passages in a work of his; and some assert that he published it, while others deny it, and affirm that he threw it into the fire.
VIII. He seems to have been a great admirer of Plato, and he possessed all his writings. He also, according to some authorities, had a very high opinion of Pyrrho.
IX. He also studied dialectics, and the discussions of the Eretrian school; on which account Ariston said of him:—
First Plato comes, and Pyrrho last,
And in the middle Diodorus.
And Timon speaks thus of him:—
For having on this side the heavy load
Of Menedemus plac’d beneath his breast,
He’ll to stout Pyrrho run, or Diodorus.
And presently afterwards he represents him as saying:—
I’ll swim to Pyrrho, or that crooked sophist
Called Diodorus.