Page:The lives and opinions of eminent philosophers - Laërtius, tr. Yonge - 1915.djvu/193



I. was the son of Nicomachus and Phaestias, a citizen of Stagira; and Isicomachus was descended from Nicomachus, the son of Machaon, the son of Æsculapius, as Hermippus tells us in his treatise on Aristotle; and he lived with Amyntas, the king of the Macedonians, as both a physician and a friend.

II. He was the most eminent of all the pupils of Plato; he had a lisping voice, as is asserted by Timotheus the Athenian, in his work on Lives. He had also very thin legs, they say, and small eyes; but he used to indulge in very conspicuous dress, and rings, and used to dress his hair carefully.

III. He had also a son named Nicomachus, by Herpyllis his concubine, as we are told by Timotheus.

IV. He seceded from Plato while he was still alive; so that they tell a story that he said, "Aristotle has kicked us off just as chickens do their mother after they have been hatched." But Hermippus says in his Lives, that while he was absent on an embassy to Philip, on behalf of the Athenians, Xenocrates became the president of the school in the Academy; and that when he returned and saw the school under the presidency of some one else, he selected a promenade in the Lyceum, in which he used to walk up and clown with his disciples, discussing subjects of philosophy till the time for anointing themselves came; on which account he was called a Peripatetic. But others say that he got this name because once when Alexander was walking about after recovering from a sickness, he accompanied him and kept conversing with him. But when his pupils became numerous, he then gave them seats, saying: It would be shame for me to hold my peace, And for Isocrates to keep on talking.