Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/1040

1022 can stand out of the sunshine." Considering, however, that this must have happened soon after Alexander's accession, and before his Persian expedition, he could not have called himself the Great, which title was not conferred on him till he had gained his Eastern victories, after which he never returned to Greece. These considerations, with others, are sufficient to banish this anecdote, together with that of the tub, from the domain of history; and, considering what rich materials so peculiar a person as Diogenes must have afforded for amusing stories, we need not wonder if a few have come down to us of somewhat doubtful genuineness. We are told, however, that Alexander admired Diogenes so much that he said, "If I were not Alexander, I should wish to be Diogenes." (Plut. Alex, c. 14.) Some say, that after Diogenes became a resident at Corinth, he still spent every winter at Athens, and he is also accused of various scandalous offences, but of these there is no proof; and the whole beiiring of tradition about him shews that, though a strange fanatic, he was a m.in of great excellence of life, and probably of real kindness, since Xeniades compared his arrival to the entrance of a good genius into his house.

With regard to the philosophy of Diogenes there is little to say, as he was utterly without any scientific object whatever. His system, if it deserve the name, was purely practical, and consisted merely in teaching men to dispense with the simplest and most necessary wants (Diog. Laert. vi. 70); and his whole style of te.iching was a kind of caricature upon that of Socrates, whom he imitated in imparting instruction to persons whom he casuall}' met, and with a still more supreme contempt for time, place, and circumstances. Hence he was sometimes called "the mad Socrates." He did not commit his opinions to writing, and therefore those attributed to him cannot be certainly relied on. The most peculiar, if correctly stated, was, that all minds are air, exactly alike, and composed of similar particles, but that in the irrational animals and in idiots, they are hindered from properly developing themselves by the arrangement .and various humours of their bodies. ( Plut. I'lac. Phil. v. 20.) This resembles the Ionic doctrine, and has been referred by Brucker {Hist. Crit. Phil. ii. 2. 1. §21) to Diogenes of Apollonia. The statement in Suidas, that Diogenes was once called Cleon, is probably a false reading for Kvwv. He died at the age of nearly ninety, B. c. 323, in the same year that Epicurus came to Athens to circulate opinions the exact opposite to his. It was also the year of Alexander's death, and as Plutarch tells us {St/mpos. viii. 717), both died on the same day. If so, this was probably the 6th of Thargelion. (Clinton, F. H. vol. ii.; Ritter, Gesch. dcr Philosophies vii. 1,4.) [G. E. L. C]

DIO'GENES LAE'RTIUS (A107ij'7js dhaiprios or Aacfyricvs, sometimes also Aa4pTios Aioyevrjs), the author of a sort of history of philosophy, which alone has brought his name down to posterity. The surname, Laertius, was derived according to some from the Roman family Avhich bore the cognomen Laertius, and one of the members of which is supposed to have been the patron of an ancestor of Diogenes. But it is more probable that he received it from the town of Laerte in Cilicia, which seems to have been his native place. (Fabric. Bibl Graec. v. p. 564, note). A modern critic (Ranke, de Lex. Ilesycli. p. 59, &c. 61, &c.) supposes that his real name was Diogenianus, and that he was the same as the Diogenianus of Cyzicus, who is mentioned by Suidas. This supposition is founded on apassjige of Tzetzes, (CM.iii. 61,) in which Diogenes Laertius is mentioned under the name of Diogenianus. (Vossius, de Hist. Graec. p. 263, ed. Westermann.) We have no information whatever respecting his life, his studies, or his age. Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus and Saturninus are the latest writers he quotes, and he accordingly seems to have lived towards the close of the second century after Christ Others, however, assign to him a still later date, and place him in the time of Alexander Severus and his successors, or even as late as the time of Constantine. His work consists of ten books {,iao(poi filot, in Phot. Bill. Cod. cxxi; (piv fiioi in Eiistath) and is called in MSS. by the long title of irepl ,luf, hoffxcLTUv kou aTrocpBe'yfxdTwv twu iv ({Ho(To<pla (vSoKifjL-qa-avTwv, According to some allusions which occur in it, he wrote it for a lady of rank (iii. 47, x. 29), who occupied herself with philosophy, especially with the study of Plato. According to some this lady was Arria, the philosophical friend of Galen ( Theriac. ad Pison. 3), and according to others Julia Domna, the wife of the Emperor Sevenis. (Menage, I. c. ad Prooem. p. 1; Th. Reinesius, Var. Lect. ii. 12.) The dedication, however and the prooemium are lost, so that nothing can be said with certainty.

The plan of the work is as follows: He begins with an introduction concerning the origin and the earliest history of philosophy, in which he refutes the opinion of those who did not seek for the first beginnings of philosophy in Greece itself, but among the barbfirians. He then divides the philosophy of the Greeks into the Ionic—which commences with Anaxiniaiider and ends with Cleitomachus, Chrysippus, and Theophrastus—and the Italian, which was founded by Pythagoras, and ends with Epicurus. He reckons the Socratic school, with its various ramifications, as a part of the Ionic philosophy, of which he treats in the first seven books. The Eleatics, with Heracleitus and the Sceptics, are included in the Italian philosophy, which occupies the eighth and ninth books. Epicui-us and his philosophy, lastly, are treated of in the tenth book with particular minuteness, which has led some writers to the belief that Diogenes himself was an Epicurean. Considering the loss of all the numerous and comprehensive works of the ancients, in which the history of philosophers and of philosophy was treated of either as a whole or in separate portions, and a greatnumber of which Diogenes himself had before him, the compilation of Diogenes is of incalculable value to us as a source of information concerning the history of Greek philosophy. About forty writers on the lives and doctrines of the Greek philosophers are mentioned in his work, and in all two hundred and eleven authors are cited whose works he made use of. His work has for a long time been the foundation of most modern histories of ancient philosophy; and the works of Brucker and Stanley, as far as the early history of philosophy is concerned, are little more than translations, and sometimes amplifications, of Diogenes Laertius. The work of Diogenes contains a rich store of living features, which serve to illustrate the private life of the Greeks, and a considerable number of fragments of works which are