Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/1041

Rh lost. Montaigne (Essais, ii, 10) therefore justly wislicd, that we had a dozen Lai-rtiuses, or that his work were more complete and better arranged. One must indeed confess, that he made bad use of the enormous quantity of materials which he had at his connnand in writing his work, and that he was unequal to the task of writing a history of Greek philosophy. His work is in reality nothing but a compilation of the most heterogeneous, and often directly contradictory, accounts, put together without plan, criticism, or connexion. Even some early scholars, such as H. Stephens, considered these biographies of the philosophers to be anything but worthy of the philosophers. His object evidently was to furnish a book which was to amuse its readers by piquant anecdotes, for he had no conception of the value and dignity of philosophy, or of the greatness of the men whose lives he described. The traces of carelessness and mistakes are very numerous; much in the work is confused, and there is much also that is quite absurd; and as far as philosophy itself is concerned, Diogenes very frequently did not know what he was talking about, when he abridged the theories of the philosophers. The love of scandal and anecdotes, which had arisen from petty views of men and things, at a time when all political freedom was gone, and among a people which had become demoralized, had crept into literature also, and such compilations as those of Phlcgon, Ptolemaeus Chennus, Athenaeus, Aelian, and Diogenes Laertius display this taste of a decaying literature. All the defects of such a period, however, are so glaring in the work of Diogenes, that in order to rescue the common sense of the writer, critics have had recourse to the hypothesis, that the present work is a mutilated abridgment of the original production of Diogenes. (J. G. Schneider in F. A. Wolfs Lit. Anal. iii. p. 227.) Gualtenis Burlaeus, who lived at the close of the 13th century, wrote a work " De Vita et Moribus Philosophorum," in which he principally used Diogenes. Now Burlaeus makes many statements, and quotes sayings of the philosophers, which seem to be derived from no other source than Diogenes, and yet are not to be found in our present text. Burlaeus, moreover, gives us several valuable various readings, a better order and plan, and several accounts which in his work are minute and complete, but which are abridged in Diogenes in a manner which renders them unintelligible. From these circumstances Schneider infers, that Burlaeus had a more complete copy of Diogenes. But the hope of discovering a more complete MS. has not been realized as j'et. The work of Diogenes became first known in western Europe through a Latin translation made by Ambrosius, a pupil of Chrysoloras, which, however, is rather a free paraphrase than a translation. It was printed after Ambrosius's death. (Rome, before A. d. 1475; reprinted Venice, 1475; Brixen, 1485; Venice, 1493; and Antwerp, 1566.) Of the Greek text only some portions were then printed in the editions of Aristotle, Theophrastus, Plato, and Xenophon. The first complete edition is that of Basel, 1533, 4to., ap. Frobenium. It was followed by that of H. Stephens, with notes, which, however, extend only to the ninth book, Paris, 1570, and of Isaac Casaubon, with notes, 1594. Stephens's edition, with the addition of Hesychius Milesius, de Vila Illiistr. Philos. appeared again at Colon. Allobrog. 1515. Then followed the editions of Th. Aldobrandinus (Rome, 1594, fol.), corrected by a collation of new MSS., and of J. Pearson with a new Latin translation (London, 1664, fol,), which contains the valuable commentary of Menage, and the notes of the earlier commentators. All these editions were surpassed in some respects by that of Meibom (Amsterd. 1692, 2 vols.4to.), but the text is here treated carelessly, and altered by conjectures. This edition was badly reprinted in the editions of Longolius (1739 and 1759), in which only the preface of Longolius is of value. The best modern edition is that of H. G. Hubner, Leipzig, 2 vols. 8vo. 1828 — 1831. The text is here greatly improved, and accompanied by short critical notes. In 1831, the commentaries of Menage, Casaubon, and others, were printed in 2 vols. 8vo. uniformly with Hubner's edition. (Comp. P. Gassendi, Animadv. in X lihrum Diog. Latrt., Lugdun. 1649, 3 vols, fol. 3rd edition, Lugdun. 1675; I. Bossius, Cominentationes La'crtianae, Rome, 1788, 4to.; S. Battier, Observat. in Diog. La'trt. in the Mas. Helvet. XV. p. 32, &c.; Fabric. Bibl. Graec. v. p. 564.) Diogenes seems to have taken the lists of the writings of his philosophers from Hermippus and Alexandrian authors. (Stahr, Aristot. ii. p. 68; Brandis, in the Rhein. Mus. i. 3, p. 249; Trendelenburg, ad Aristot. de Anim. p. 123.) Besides the work on Greek philosophers, Diogenes Laertius also composed other works, to which he himself (ii. Qb) refers with the words ws in <5tXois elpifiKafj.ev. The epigrams, many of which are interspersed in his biographies, and with reference to which Tzetzes {Chil. iii. 61) calls him an epigrammatic poet, were collected in a separate work, and divided into several books. (Diog. Laert. i. 39, 63, where the first book is quoted.) It bore the title t) irdixfieTpos, but, unfortunately, these poetical attempts, so far as they are extant, shew the same deficiencies as the history of philosophy, and the vanity with which he quotes them, does not give us a favourable notion of his taste. (G. H. Klippel, de Diogenis La'trfii Vita, Scriptis atque Auctoritaie, Gbttingen, 1831, 4to.) [A. S.]

DIO'GENES OENO'MAUS, a tragic poet, who is said to have begun to exhibit at Athens in 404. Of his tragedies only a few titles remain, namely, ©uc'o-ttjs, 'Ax'AAeus, 'EAevtj, 'HpaKr)s, MrjSeia, OlSivovs, Xpvaiinros, 2€/xej; and it is remarkable that all of these, except the last, are ascribed by Diogenes Laertius to Diogenes the Cynic, (vi. 80, or 73.) Others ascribe them to Philiscus of Aegina, a friend of Diogenes the Cjmic (Menagius, ''ad Diog. Laërt. Z. c), and others to Pasiphaon. Melanthius in Plutarch ((de Aud. Poet.'' 4, p. 41, d.) complains of the obscurity of a certain Diogenes. Aelian /(V. H. iii. 30, N. A. vi. 1) mentions a tragic poet Diogenes, who seems, however, to be a different person from either Diogenes the Cynic or Diogenes Oenomaiis. (Suid. s. v.; Ath. xiv. p. 636, a.; Fabric. Bilb. Graec. ii. p. 295.) [P. S.]

DIO'GENES (AioyevTts), a Greek physician who must have lived in or before the first century after Christ, as he is quoted by Celsus. (De Medic, V. 19, 27, pp. 90, 104.) Some of his medical formulae are preserved by Celsus (I.e.), Galen {de Compos. iMedicam. sec. Locos, iii. 3, vol. xii. p. 686; ix. 7, vol. xiii. p. 313), and Aetius (i. 3. 109, p. 1 35 ). He is probably not the same person with any of the other individujils of this name. [ W. A. G.]