The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

II. And he was a pupil of Bryson, the son of Stilpon, as we are told by Alexander in his Chronicles. After that he attached himself to Anaxarchus, and attended him everywhere; so that he even went as far as the Gymnosophists, in India, and the Magi.

III. Owing to which circumstance, he seems to have taken a noble line in philosophy, introducing the doctrine of incomprehensibility, and of the necessity of suspending one’s judgment, as we learn from Ascanius, of Abdera. For he used to say that nothing was honourable, or disgraceful, or just, or unjust. And on the same principle he asserted that there was no such thing as downright truth; but that men did everything in consequence of custom and law. For that nothing was any more this than that. And his life corresponded to his principles; for he never shunned anything, and never guarded against anything; encountering everything, even waggons for instance, and precipices, and dogs, and everything of that sort; committing nothing whatever to his senses. So that he used to be saved, as Antigonus the Carystian tells us, by his friends who accompanied him. And Ænesidemus says that he studied philosophy on the principle of suspending his judgment on all points, without however, on any occasion acting in an imprudent manner, or doing anything without due consideration. And he lived to nearly ninety years of age.

IV. And Antigonus, of Carystus, in his account of Pyrrho, mentions the following circumstances respecting him; that he was originally a person of no reputation, but a poor man, and a painter; and that a picture of some camp-bearers, of very moderate execution, was preserved in the Gymnasium at Elis, which was his work; and that he used to walk out into the fields and seek solitary places, very rarely appearing to his family at home; and that he did this in consequence of having heard some Indian reproaching Anaxarchus for never teaching any one else any good, but for devoting all his time to paying court to princes in palaces. He relates of him too, that he always maintained the same demeanour, so that if any one left him in the middle of his delivery of a discourse, he remained and continued what he was saying; although, when a young man, he was of a very excitable temperament. Often too, says Antigonus, he would go away for a time, without telling any one beforehand, and taking any chance persons whom he chose for his companions. And once, when Anaxarchus had fallen into a pond, he passed by without assisting him; and when some one blamed him for this, Anaxarchus himself praised his indifference and absence of all emotion.

On one occasion he was detected talking to himself, and when he was asked the reason, he said that he was studying how to be good. In his investigations he was never despised by any one, because he always spoke explicitly and straight to the question that had been put to him. On which account Nausiphanes was charmed by him even when he was quite young. And he used to say that he should like to be endowed with the disposition of Pyrrho, without losing his own power of eloquence. And he said too, that Epicurus, who admired the conversation and manners of Pyrrho, was frequently asking him about him.

V. He was so greatly honoured by his country, that he was appointed a priest; and on his account all the philosophers were exempted from taxation. He had a great many imitators of his impassiveness; in reference to which Timon speaks thus of him in his Python, and in his Silli:—

VI. He also lived in a most blameless manner with his sister, who was a midwife, as Eratosthenes relates, in his treatise on Riches and Poverty; so that he himself used to carry poultry, and pigs too if he could get any, into the market-place and sell them. And he used to clean all the furniture of the house without expressing any annoyance. And it is said that he carried his indifference so far that he even washed a pig. And once, when he was very angry about something connected with his sister (and her name was Philista), and some one took him up, he said, “The display of my indifference does not depend on a woman.” On another occasion, when he was driven back by a dog which was attacking him, he said to some one who blamed him for being discomposed, “That it was a difficult thing entirely to put off humanity; but that a man ought to strive with all his power to counteract circumstances with his actions if possible, and at all events with his reason.” They also tell a story that once, when some medicines of a consuming tendency, and some cutting and cautery was applied to him for some wound, that he never even contracted his brow. And Timon intimates his disposition plainly enough in the letters which he wrote to Python. Moreover, Philo, the Athenian, who was a friend of his, said that he was especially fond of Democritus; and next to him of Homer; whom he admired greatly, and was continually saying:—

And so he would quote anything that bore on the uncertainty and emptiness and fickleness of the affairs of man. Posidonius tells the following anecdote about him: that when some people who were sailing with him were looking gloomy because of a storm, he kept a calm countenance, and comforted their minds, exhibiting himself on deck eating a pig, and saying that it became a wise man to preserve an untroubled spirit in that manner. Numenius is the only writer who asserts that he used to deliver positive dogmas.

VII. He had many eminent disciples, and among them Eurylochus, of whom the following defective characteristic is related; for, they say, that he was once worked up to such a pitch of rage that he took up a spit with the meat on it, and chased the cook as far as the market-place. And once in Elis he was so harassed by some people who put questions to him in the middle of his discourses, that he threw down his cloak and swam across the Alpheus. He was the greatest possible enemy to the Sophists, as Timon tells us. But Philo, on the contrary, was very fond of arguing; on which account Timon speaks of him thus:—

VIII. All these men were called Pyrrhoneans from their master; and also doubters, and sceptics, and ephectics, or suspenders of their judgment, and investigators, from their principles. And their philosophy was called investigatory, from their investigating or seeking the truth on all sides; and sceptical from their being always doubting (σκέπτομαι), and never finding; and ephectic, from the disposition which they encouraged after investigation, I mean the suspending of their judgment (ἐποχὴ); and doubting, because they asserted that the dogmatic philosophers only doubted, and that they did the same. [And they were called Pyrrhoneans from Pyrrho himself.]

But Theodosius, in his Chapters on Scepticism, contends, that we ought not to call the Pyrrhonean school sceptical; for since, says he, the motion and agitation of the mind in each individual is incomprehensible to others, we are unable to know what was the disposition of Pyrrho; and if we do not know it we ought not to be called Pyrrhoneans. He also adds that Pyrrho was not the original inventor of Scepticism, and that he had no particular dogma of any kind; and that, consequently, it can only be called Pyrrhonism from some similarity. Some say that Homer was the original founder of this school; since he at different times gives different accounts of the same circumstance, as much as any one else ever did; and since he never dogmatizes definitively respecting affirmation; they also say that the maxims of the seven wise men were sceptical; such as that, “Seek nothing in excess,” and that, “Suretyship is near calamity;” which shows that calamity follows a man who has given positive and certain surety; they also argue that Archilochus and Euripides were Sceptics; and Archilochus speaks thus:—