Eudoxus also left some excellent commentaries. He had a son Aristagoras, who had a son Chrysippus, the pupil of Athlius. To this Chrysippus we owe a medical work on the treatment of the eye, speculations upon nature having occupied his mind.
90. Three men have borne the name of Eudoxus: (1) our present subject; (2) a historian, of Rhodes; (3) a Sicilian Greek, the son of Agathocles, a comic poet, who three times won the prize in the city Dionysia and five times at the Lenaea, so we are told by Apollodorus in his Chronology. We also find another physician of Cnidos mentioned by Eudoxus[89] in his Geography as advising people to be always exercising their limbs by every form of gymnastics, and their sense-organs in the same way.
The same authority, Apollodorus, states that Eudoxus of Cnidos flourished about the 103rd Olympiad,[90] and that he discovered the properties of curves. He died in his fifty-third year. When he was in Egypt with Chonuphis of Heliopolis, the sacred bull Apis licked his cloak. From this the priests foretold that he would be famous but short-lived, so we are informed by Favorinus in his Memorabilia.
91. There is a poem of our own upon him, which runs thus:[91]
It is said that at Memphis Eudoxus learned his coming fate from the bull with beautiful horns. No words did it utter; for whence comes speech to a bull? Nature did not provide the young bull Apis with a chattering tongue. But, standing sideways by him, it licked his robe, by which it plainly prophesied "you shall soon die." Whereupon, soon after, this fate overtook him, when he had seen fifty-three risings of the Pleiades.
Eudoxus used to be called Endoxos (illustrious) instead of Eudoxus by reason of his brilliant reputation.
Having now dealt with the famous Pythagoreans, let us next discuss the so-called "sporadic" philosophers. And first we must speak of Heraclitus.
Footnotes
↑ Compare Clement Alex. Strom. i. 62 Πυθαγόρας μὲν οὖν Μνησάρχου Σάμιος, ὥς φησιν Ἱππόβοτος, ὡς δὲ Ἀριστόξενος ἐν τῷ Πυθαγόρου βίῳ, καὶ Ἀρίσταρχος καὶ Θεόπομπος, Τυρρηνὸς ἦν, ὡς δὲ Νεάνθης, Σύριος ἢ Τύριος, ὥστε εἷναι κατὰ τοὺς πλείστους τὸν Πυθαγόραν βάρβαρον τὸ γένος. Porphyry also (V. Pyth. i.) favours the connexion with Phoenicia, so that the boy Pythagoras was instructed there by Chaldaeans before, on his return to Samos, he enjoyed the instruction of Pherecydes of Syros and of Hermodamas of Samos.
↑ iv. 93 sq.
↑ Compare Clement Alex. Strom. i. 66
Θαλῆς . . . τοῖς Αἱγυπτίων προφήταις συμβεβληκέναι εἴρηται, καθάπερ καὶ ὁ Πυθαγόρας αὐτοῖς γε τούτοις δι' οὓς καὶ περιετέμνετο, ἵνα δὴ καὶ εἰς τὰ ἄδυτα κατελθὼν τὴν μνστικὴν παρὰ Αλγυπτίων ἐκμάθοι φιλοσοφίαν. Cf. also Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth. 18 sq.
↑ Fr. 129 D., 17 B.
↑ 6-7 ἔνιοι μὲν καθηγησαμένου. Hesychius in Suidas (s.v.), an authority older than Schol. Plat. 600 B, proves that this passage is a coherent whole. The fragment of Heraclitus (B 129 Diels, 17 Byw.) is certainly genuine. There may be, in ἱστορίην, an allusion to the study of mensuration in Egypt. The pretended explanation, "he spoke thus because . . ." introduces an extract from a work which, like all those attributed to Pythagoras, must have been a late forgery.
↑ F.H.G. Fr. 12, ii. p. 49. The same fragment is found in Clem. Alex. Strom. i. 131 Ἴων δὲ ὁ Χῖος ἐν τοῖς Τριαγμοῖς καὶ Πυθαγόραν εἰς Ὀρφέα ἀνενεγκεῖν τινα ἱστορεῖ. The verbal agreement, except for τινα ἱστορεῖ, is exact.
↑ Cf. i. 12, whence it would seem that Sosicrates used Heraclides of Pontus as his authority for this anecdote.
↑ Because he lectured at night; cf. 15; νυκτερινὴ ἀκρόασις.
↑ The allusion is to the Nymphs and the heavenly pair, mother and daughter (Demeter and Persephone).
↑ Scriptorum Alex. ill. fr. p. 147.
↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 119.
↑ The story of Eurymenes was known to Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 18. We can still see how these quotations made by D. L. himself from Favorinus disturb the context.
↑ Or rather "soft cheese"; cf. supra, i. 7, note.
↑ Cf. Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth. 25, and Porphyry, De abstinentia, i. 26.
↑ Cf. inf. ix. 23.
↑ See, however, Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 4, who cites as his authority Timaeus the Sicilian historian (F.H.G. i. p. 211, Fr. 78), who was not improbably the source used by Favorinus.
↑ The χοῖνιξ was about a quart, in dry measure.
↑ The word Πυθαγόρας being taken to be a compound from Πύθιος and ἀγορεύειν.
↑ For the doctrines of Pythagoras (25-35) Alexander is taken as D. L.'s authority (see Introd. pp. xxvi, xxvii) This indefatigable pedant is known to have written a special work on the Pythagorean system. Our author may not have possessed this work by Alexander, but he probably had access to a public library containing it. In any case he deserves praise for the selection. Between Alexander Polyhistor in the first century B.C. and the threshold of the third century A.D. there had been an enormous increase in neo-Pythagorean literature, mostly dealing with mystical properties of numbers and with ethics based upon theology. All this D. L. ignores, going back to a Hellenistic document long forgotten.
↑ Cf. Soph. El. 87 γῆς ἰσόμοιρ' ἀήρ.
↑ The word λόγους is translated above by "ratios," i.e. proportionalities. With ἀνέμους compare the Stoic air-currents.
↑ The Greek daemons (δαίμονες) are, according to Hesiod, W. and D. 121-126, superhuman beings, guardians and benefactors of mankind, watching over the earth whereon once they lived.
↑ if it be bad
↑ Meineke, C.G.F. ii. 1070.
↑ This may have some hidden sense: but it is tempting to adopt τόπου for τούτου with the Borbonicus.
↑ Alexander is cited above(24). εὑρηκέναι comes in both sections. This means that, in the Lives of Pythagoras which D. L. consulted, the extract from Alexander has displaced a passage which came from a spurious Aristotelian treatise Περὶ Πυθαγορείων.
↑ Fr. 58 D.
↑ Fr. 7 D.
↑ Cratin. minor, Meineke, C.G.F. iii. 376.
↑ Meineke, C.G.F. iii. 567.
↑ Meineke, C.G.F. iii. 362.
↑ In the account which follows two passages should be distinguished: (1) συνεδρεύοντος συνέβη, and (2) οὔτω δὲ καὶ(40) ἀσιτήσαντα. A similar combination of Neanthes and Dicaearchus is found in Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 55 sqq., Neanthes apparently insisting on the absence, and Dicaearchus on the presence, of the master at the time when the brotherhood were attacked and scattered. Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth. 251 sq., cites Nicomachus, whose version agrees with that of Neanthes.
↑ This passage, partly in direct (γενόμενος, ἔστη, εἰπών) and partly in reported speech (καταληφθῆναι. ἀποσφαγῆναι), receives some light from the story of Myllias and his wife Timycha as given by Iamblichus, Vit. Pyth. 189-194, on the authority of Hippobotus and Neanthes (cf. also Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 61, where the story of Damon and Phintias is said to have been transferred by Hippobotus and Neanthes to the same trusty pair, Myllias and Timycha). The story in Iamblichus represents a band of Pythagoreans pursued by a tyrant's myrmidons and caught in a plain where beans were growing, all of them preferring to die where they stood rather than trample on the beans; but this story might be located anywhere. It has nothing inherently to do with the end of Pythagoras. What remains, τὸν δὲ Π. καταληφθῆναι διεξιόντα, may be compared with Porphyry, Vit. Pyth. 57, where we are told that the disciples made a bridge of their own bodies over the fire and thus the master escaped from the burning house but, in despair at the extinction of his school, chose a voluntary dealth. The words οὕτω δέ which follow come in awkwardly, as they are separated from the sentence about the fire.
↑ Fr. 155 D.
↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 121.
↑ Anth. Plan. v. 34.
↑ Anth. Plan. v. 35.
↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 122.
↑ 540-536 B.C. Cf. Clem. Alex. Strom. i. 65 "in the 62nd Olympiad" [532-528 B.C.], eight years later, and contemporary with Polycrates of Samos.
↑ and taught them
↑ 588-584 B.C.
↑ Anth. Plan. iii. 35.
↑ As Favorinus seems to have paid special attention to discoveries and the invention of names (cf. ii. 1, 20, viii. 12, 47, ix. 23, 34), it seems likely that he is our author's authority here; so probably a different book of Favorinus is cited.
↑ Apelt suggests Antiphon, comparing Xen. Mem. i. 6.
↑ Anth. Plan. iii. 16.
↑ v. 67.
↑ 496 B.C.
↑ 445-444 B.C.
↑ i.e. Heraclides Lembus.
↑ Cf. Introd. p. xiv.
↑ Fr. 112 D.
↑ Fr. 129 D.
↑ Fr. 111 D.
↑ According to Beloch this should be the twelfth book; cf. inf. 66.
↑ v. 67.
↑ Fr. 1 D.
↑ Fr. 156 D.
↑ Fr. 112 D.
↑ According to the vulgate, an unknown writer Potamilla is the authority cited by Diogenes. Diels, however (Frag der Vorsokr. ii.3 p. 196), prefers the reading of two mss. ποταμὸν ἄλλα (sc. ὑπομνήματα or ἀντίγραφα λέγει), regarding this as derived from a marginal note which was afterwards put in the text. In the Palatine ms. the gloss is ποταμὸν ἄλλοι. Apelt, however, suggests ποτ' ἀμέλει, not as a scholium, but as part of the text.
↑ Cf. Athenaeus xiv. 620 d, whence it appears that the ultimate authority is Dicaearchus; ἐν τῷ Ὀλυμπικῷ, F.H.G. ii. p. 249, fr. 47. Here again a citation from Favorinus seems to disturb the context.
↑ Anth. Plan. v. 4.
↑ This emphasis on the political leanings of Empedocles, backed by the authority of Timaeus, looks strange after the anecdote, also from Timaeus, of 64, 65, nor is it clear that the attack on the close oligarchical corporation of the Thousand really took place at a later date (ὕστερον). That D. L. is working in two passages of Timaeus, in the second of which the first is not pre-supposed, is an obvious suggestion.
↑ Fr. 112. 4 D.
↑ Fr. 42 D.
↑ In the list of the writings of Heraclides of Pontus (see v. 86 sqq.) occurs Περὶ τῶν ἐν ᾅδου, a dialogue on a similar subject, if not actually identical, with Περὶ τῆς ἄπνου. In the latter Pausanias was one of the characters; see next note.
↑ ἀντέλεγε. The imperfect tense is convincing proof that D. L. (or his source) is drawing upon the dialogue, and not narrating facts as a historian; D. L. must be giving a large extract from the dialogue Περὶ τῆς ἄπνου, beginning in the second paragraph of 67. Only D. L. has inserted, in 69, (1) a note from Hermippus and (2) a resume from Hippobotus of the very passage in the dialogue Περὶ τῆς ἄπνου with which D. L. has been dealing in 67-69.
↑ 444-441 B.C.
↑ Od. xi. 278.
↑ viii. 53.
↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 123.
↑ i.e. the craters of Etna.
↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 124.
↑ Fr. 6 D.
↑ Fr. 17. 6 D.
↑ Fr. 17. 7 D.
↑ Fr. 117 D.
↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 78.
↑ Cf. T. L. Heath, History of Greek Mathematics, i. 246-249.
↑ 528 b.
↑ Fr. 1 Diels
↑ Cf. iii. 9.
↑ The subject of ἐτελεύτα would naturally be Philolaus, and so D. L. understood it; but the original reference was clearly to Dion.
↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 126.
↑ Or in prose: "My chief advice to all men is: to lull suspicion to rest. For even if you don't do something, and people fancy you do, it is ill for you. So Croton, his native land, once put Philolaus to death, fancying he wished to have a tyrant's house."
↑ i.e. round the central fire. See T. L. Heath, Aristarchus. 187 sqq.
↑ Hermippus (F.H.G. iii. 42, fr. 25) seems to forget that Alexander was not born until after Plato's death. Cf. vii. 18.
↑ The suggestion of hostile relations is held to be without foundation both by Tannery, Astronomie ancienne, p. 296, note 4, and T. L. Heath, Aristarchus, p. 192.
↑ The reference is to the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle (i. 12, 1101 b 27; x. 2, 1172 b 9 sq.). That Nicomachus wrote the treatise called after him was a common error into which Cicero also fell (De fin. v. 12).
↑ The wording suggests that this physician's name was not Eudoxus, but rather Chrysippus. He may have been the Chrysippus of Cnidos mentioned supra, vii. 186 (cf. Wilamowitz, Antig. v. Kar. 324-326); see, however, Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Chrysippos, 15 and 16.
↑ 368-364 B.C.
↑ Anth. Pal. vii. 744.
Hidden categories: