Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3a.pdf/815

PYR effects which he produced in the history of opinion. We have very few well-attested facts with regard to him. He was born at Elis, about 380 ., and his life is said to have been prolonged for ninety years. The birth of Pyrrho was nearly contemporaneous with that of Aristotle. In his early life Plato died, and in his old age Epicurus and Zeno presided over schools at Athens. In his youth Pyrrho was by profession a painter, and his pictures are mentioned by some of his contemporaries. We are told that he was attracted to philosophy by the writings of Democritus, and his latest master and companion, Anaxandrus of Abdera, was a disciple of that school. Anaxandrus and Pyrrho accompanied Alexander the Great in his expedition to the East. It is said that when in the East with Alexander, he studied deeply the opinions of the Brahmins, Magi, Gymnosophists, and other oriental philosophers, who are supposed to have confirmed the sage of Elis in his favourite sceptical theory of indifference. His natural disposition to doubt, which Anaxandrus had fostered, was by this and other means developed into the governing principle of his life. It is said that Pyrrho was much disposed to solitude. Pain and danger he met with extraordinary fortitude. It was his aim to preserve a settled composure of countenance, undisturbed by joy or sorrow, and to found habitual mental tranquillity on a universal suspension of judgment. The vigour and subtilty of his reasonings are celebrated by his disciples. By his countrymen this calm and sagacious doubter was held in the highest esteem. After his return from the East he was invested with the office of chief priest at Elis, and it is said that out of respect to him a law was passed by his fellow-citizens which exempted philosophers from the public taxes. At Elis and Athens, monuments were raised to his memory after his death.

Pyrrho seems to have communicated his philosophy to the world orally, rather than by writing. We have no written account of his opinions from his own hand, and his doctrines are discovered chiefly through the statements of Diogenes Laertius and Sextus Empiricus. His apparently paradoxical teachings have produced an absurd popular misrepresentation of his opinions, from which at this time of day it is difficult to extract the truth. When he walked the streets we are told that he never turned aside to avoid danger, and by that indifference to his safety exposed himself to perils which he escaped only by the interference of his friends. Such traditions are the popular caricature of philosophical doctrines, which the vulgar intelligence is in all ages naturally apt to pervert. The scepticism of Pyrrho seems to have related to ontological questions, from which he sought to hold back human judgment, and not to matters of common life and action. Philosophy with Pyrrho is essentially practical, and its main end is happiness derived from the practice of our duties. His doubt is not to be confounded with negative dogmatism. It is a simple suspension of assent with regard to all speculative problems, and all practical inferences from attempted solutions of problems that are merely speculative, along with a repose in the purely moral or practical view of life. Warned by the disputes of the schools, and the contradictions of sectarian philosophy, he sought for rest, like Socrates whom he revered, in the love and practice of virtue. His ideal of a virtuous life implied suspension of judgment, with respect to transcendental questions. Life, he would say, is, as a matter of fact, grounded in mysteries, regarding which either affirmation or negation is beyond human understanding. We find, when we make the experiment, that what is real is ultimately unintelligible, and that it becomes contradictory when we try to subject it to speculative analysis; but present duty is not beyond our sphere, nor are the appearances of things, as they present themselves to us on the stream of time, to be neglected. From his , or suspension of the judgment, Pyrrho derives that mental peace which he describes as essential to a genuine human life. He who searches for a solution of the transcendental problems of science, and permits his happiness to depend on finding what he seeks for, allows his life to be haunted by vain dreams and fruitless aspirations. The philosophical doubter escapes from this suffering, as he recognizes how unpractical is any merely speculative science of the universe. The only true scientific method according to Pyrrho, is or inquiry, and the only genuine issue of such examination is the recognition, as a matter of fact, of the absolute incomprehensibility of things with the consequent limitation of the understanding to the facts of which we are conscious. A practical life within that sphere, in contented indifference to the metaphysics of its own origin and issue, is the duty of man, and Pyrrhonism is the knowledge and feeling that this is so. In short, the doctrine of the sage of Elis seems to have been only an exaggeration of that of Socrates in antiquity, or a one-sided anticipation of the great lesson of the "Thoughts" of Pascal, and of the negative reasonings of Kant and Hamilton. He was the first on record who habitually exhibited that aspect of the intellectual nature of man which has since been studied and represented by Ænesidemus, and Sextus Empiricus, and David Hume, but in Pyrrho, as it seems, with a more earnest aim and a higher aspiration.—A. C. F.  PYRRHUS, king of Epirus, was born about 318. He was brought up by Glaucias, king of the Illyrians, for his father Æacides had been dethroned, and a few friends had fled with the child from Epirus. At the age of twelve he was taken back to Epiras, and received as their king by the Epirotæ. But Cassander induced them to drive him away again. Accordingly Pyrrhus joined Demetrius, who had married his sister, and took part in the battle of Ipsus. He afterwards went to Egypt in favour of Demetrius, where he gained the esteem of Berenice, wife of Ptolemy, who gave him her daughter in marriage, and got a fleet and money for him from her husband. Returning to Epiras he consented to share the sovereignty with Neoptolemus, whom the Epirotæ had raised to the throne in his absence. But the two did not agree; and Pyrrhus put his rival to death—a man of cruel disposition, who had attempted his colleague's life—295. In the quarrel between Cassander's sons Antipater and Alexander, the latter applied to Pyrrhus for aid, which he granted on condition of all the Macedonian dominions on the western side of Greece being given up. After this he entered into alliance with the Ætolians. But his former friend Demetrius had murdered Alexander and become king of Macedonia; and it was evident that the two neighbours were jealous of each other's growing power. War soon broke out between them. Thebes revolted against Demetrius, but was obliged to surrender; and the conqueror invaded Ætolia, ravaged it, and entered Epirus with his army; while Pyrrhus had meanwhile marched into Ætolia. In this latter country the Macedonians were overthrown, and Pantauchus, Demetrius' general, was defeated in single combat. In 288 ., Pyrrhus invaded Macedonia, and advanced as far as Edessa. But his rival drove him out of the country and concluded a treaty with him, which Lysimachus and others who were leagued against Demetrius induced him to break. Lysimachus attacked Macedonia from Thrace; and when Pyrrhus advanced to Berœa the Macedonian army transferred their allegiance to him, so that Demetrius was obliged to flee into Asia. Macedonia was now divided between Lysimachus and Pyrrhus. The latter, however, was driven out of the kingdom, and Lysimachus ruled over it alone, 283. In 281, having been requested by the Tarentines to help them against the Romans he consented. He took with him a considerable army, besides a number of elephants. Most of the troops were lost in a storm before he arrived at the place of his destination. Here he found it necessary to assume the part of a dictator, and prepared vigorously for war. In consequence of the non-arrival of his Greek allies, he did not at once wish to risk a battle, but was obliged to do so by the conduct of Lævinus, the Roman general. At the river Siris, after a severe engagement, victory proved on the side of Pyrrhus. After this battle he advanced towards Rome, and sent Cineas with proposals of peace, which the Romans declined. Accordingly he approached nearer the city, ravaging the territories through which he passed, and took Præneste. Hearing that the enemy had concluded peace with the Etruscans, he withdrew into Campania, and thence to Tarentum. In 279. he began his new campaign, and met the Roman army near Asculum in Apulia, where he gained another victory, but one bought with the loss of the flower of his army. Soon after the Greeks in Sicily invited him to their aid against the Carthaginians. Having obtained a trace from the Romans, he crossed over to Sicily, where he drove the Carthaginians before him, and took the strong city of Eryx. He was repulsed at Lilybæum, where they had fortified themselves. The Sicilian Greeks now became discontented with him; plots were formed, and insurrections broke out. Hence he gladly accepted the invitation of his Italian allies to come and help them against the Romans. With great difficulty he reached Tarentum again; and soon after was defeated in a battle near Beneventum by the Roman consul Curius. Having applied in vain for troops and money to the kings of Macedonia and Syria, he finally took his departure from Italy, leaving Milo at Tarentum. He had been 