Endnotes

  1. “The religion of the ancient Persians was the worship of fire or of the elements, in which fire was symbolical of the Deity. At a later period, in the time of the Greeks, the ancient worship was changed into the adoration of the stars (Sabaeism), especially of the sun and of the morning star. This religion was distinguished by a simple and majestic character. Its priests were called Magi.” —⁠Tenneman’s Manual of the History of Philosophy, Introduction §70

  2. “The Chaldaeans were devoted to the worship of the stars and to astrology; the nature of their climate and country disposing them to it. The worship of the stars was revived by them and widely disseminated even subsequently to the Christian era.” —⁠Tenneman’s Manual of the History of Philosophy, Introduction §71

  3. “Cicero speaks of those who in India are accounted philosophers, living naked and enduring the greatest severity of winter without betraying any feeling of pain, and displaying the same insensibility when exposed to the flames.” —⁠Tusculan Disputations v 27

  4. “The religion of the Britons was one of the most considerable parts of their government, and the Druids who were their priests, possessed great authority among them. Besides ministering at the altar, and directing all religious duties, they presided over the education of youth; they possessed both the civil and criminal jurisdiction, they decided all controversies among states as well as among private persons, and whoever refused to submit to their decree was exposed to the most severe penalties. The sentence of excommunication was pronounced against him; he was forbidden access to the sacrifices of public worship; he was debarred all intercourse with his fellow citizens even in the common affairs of life: his company was universally shunned as profane and dangerous, he was refused the protection of law, and death itself became an acceptable relief from the misery and infamy to which he was exposed. Thus the bonds of government, which were naturally loose among that rude and turbulent people, were happily corroborated by the terrors of their superstition.

    “No species of superstition was ever more terrible than that of the Druids; besides the several penalties which it was in the power of the ecclesiastics to inflict in this world, they inculcated the eternal transmigration of souls, and thereby extended their authority as far as the fears of their timorous votaries. They practiced their rites in dark groves or other secret recesses, and in order to throw a greater mystery over their religion, they communicated their doctrines only to the initiated, and strictly forbade the committing of them to writing, lest they should at any time be exposed to the examination of the profane and vulgar. Human sacrifices were practiced among them; the spoils of war were often devoted to their divinities, and they punished with the severest tortures whoever dared to secrete any part of the consecrated offering. These treasures they kept secreted in woods and forests, secured by no other guard than the terrors of their religion; and their steady conquest over human avidity may be regarded as more signal than their prompting men to the most extraordinary and most violent efforts. No idolatrous worship ever attained such an ascendant over mankind as that of the ancient Gauls and Britons. And the Romans after their conquest, finding it impossible to reconcile those nations to the laws and institutions of their masters while it maintained its authority, were at last obliged to abolish it by penal statutes, a violence which had never in any other instance been resorted to by those tolerating conquerors.” —⁠Hume’s History of England, chapter 1 §1

  5. “Zamolxis, or Zalmoxis, so called from the bearskin (ζάλμος) in which he was wrapped as soon as he was born, was a Getan, and a slave of Pythagoras at Samos; having been emancipated by his master, he travelled into Egypt; and on his return to his own country he introduced the ideas which he had acquired in his travels on the subject of civilisation, religion, and the immortality of the soul. He was made priest of the chief deity among the Getae, and was afterwards himself worshipped as a divine person. He was said to have lived in a subterraneous cavern for three years, and after that to have reappeared among his countrymen.” Herodotus, however, who records these stories (iv 95), expresses his disbelief of them, placing him before the time of Pythagoras by many years, and seems to incline to the belief that he was an indigenous Getan deity.

  6. The real time of Zoroaster is, as may be supposed, very uncertain, but he is said by some eminent writers to have lived in the time of Darius Hystaspes; though others, apparently on better grounds, place him at a very far earlier date. He is not mentioned by Herodotus at all. His native country too is very uncertain. Some writers, among whom are Ctesias and Ammian, call him a Bactrian, while Porphyry speaks of him as a Chaldaean, and Pliny as a native of Proconnesus;⁠—Niebuhr considers him a purely mythical personage. The great and fundamental article of the system (of the Persian theology) was the celebrated doctrine of the two principles; a bold and injudicious attempt of Eastern philosophy to reconcile the existence of moral and physical evil with the attributes of a beneficent Creator and governor of the world. The first and original being, in whom, or by whom the universe exists, is denominated, in the writings of Zoroaster, “Time without bounds”.⁠ ⁠… From either the blind or the intelligent operation of this infinite Time, which bears but too near an affinity to the Chaos of the Greeks, the two secondary but active principles of the universe were from all eternity produced; Ormusd and Ahriman, each of them possessed of the powers of creation, but each disposed by his invariable nature to exercise them with different designs; the principle of good is eternally absorbed in light, the principle of evil is eternally buried in darkness. The wise benevolence of Ormusd formed man capable of virtue, and abundantly provided his fair habitation with the materials of happiness. By his vigilant providence the motion of the planets, the order of the seasons, and the temperate mixture of the elements are preserved. But the maker of Ahriman has long since pierced “Ormusd’s Egg,” or in other words, has violated the harmony of his works. Since that fatal irruption, the most minute articles of good and evil are intimately intermingled and agitated together; the rankest poisons spring up among the most salutary plants; deluges, earthquakes, and conflagrations attest the conflict of nature, and the little world of man is perpetually shaken by vice and misfortune. While the rest of mankind are led away captives in the chains of their infernal enemy, the faithful Persian alone reserves his religious adoration for his friend and protector Ormusd, and fights under his banner of light, in the full confidence that he shall, in the last day, share the glory of his triumph. At that decisive period, the enlightened wisdom of goodness will render the power of Ormusd superior to the furious malice of his rival; Ahriman and his followers, disarmed and subdued, will sink into their native darkness, and virtue will maintain the eternal peace and harmony of the universe.⁠ ⁠… As a legislator, Zoroaster “discovered a liberal concern for the public and private happiness seldom to be found among the visionary schemes of superstition. Fasting and celibacy, the common means of purchasing the divine favor, he condemns with abhorrence, as a criminal rejection of the best gifts of Providence.” —⁠Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 8

  7. This is the account given by Virgil:

    Spretæ Ciconum quo munere matres
    Inter sacra Deûm nocturnique orgia Bacchi,
    Discerptum latos juvenem sparsere per agros.

    —⁠Georgics iv 520

    Which Dryden translates⁠—

    The Thracian matrons who the youth accus’d,
    Of love disdain’d and marriage rites refus’d;
    With furies and nocturnal orgies fir’d,
    At length against his sacred life conspir’d;
    Whom ev’n the savage beasts had spar’d they kill’d,
    And strew’d his mangled limbs about the field.

  8. This was the temple of the national deity of the Ionians, Neptune Heliconius, on Mount Mycale. See Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities

  9. See Thirlwall, History of Greece, ii p. 34.

  10. One of the Sporades.

  11. An island near Crete.

  12. Homer Iliad 2, 671. Dryden’s Version.

  13. See Herodotus book 1, chapters 30⁠–⁠33.

  14. A drachma was something less than ten pence.

  15. Ἔνη καὶ νέα the last day of the month: elsewhere τριανιὰς. So called for this reason. The old Greek year was lunar; now the moon’s monthly orbit is twenty-nine and a half days. So that if the first month began with the sun and moon together at sunrise, at the month’s end it would be sunset; and the second month would begin at sunset. To prevent this irregularity, Solon made the latter half day belong to the first month; so that this thirtieth day consisted of two halves, one belonging to the old, the other to the new moon. And when the lunar month fell into disuse, the last day of the calendar month was still called Ἔνη καὶ νέα.” —⁠Liddle and Scott Greek Lexicon, in v, ἔνος

  16. Herodotus mentions the case of Periander’s children, iii 50, and the death of his wife, and his burning the clothes of all the Corinthian women, v 92.

  17. Some propose to read καρπὸν, “fruit,” instead of καπνὸν, “smoke,” here; others explain this saying as meaning that the Greeks avoided houses on the hills in order not to be annoyed with the smoke from the low cottage, and yet did not use coal, but wood, which would make more smoke.

  18. This refers to the result of the war which Antipater, who became regent of Macedonia on the death of Alexander the Great, carried on against the confederacy of Greek states, of which Athens was the head; and in which, after having defeated them at Cranon, he compelled the Athenians to abolish the democracy, and to admit a garrison into Munychia.

  19. Φρύγανα, sticks or faggots.

  20. After the battle of Arginusae.

  21. “This is not quite correct. Socrates believed that the daemon which attended him limited his warnings to his own conduct; preventing him from doing what was wrong, but not prompting him to do right.” —⁠See Grote’s admirable chapter on Socrates, History of Greece, volume v

  22. Grote gives good reasons for disbelieving this.

  23. The Greek is, ἐν τῷ πρὸς Ξενοφῶντα ἀποστασίου⁠—“ἀποστασίου δίκη, an action against a freedman for having forsaken or slighted his προστάτης.” —⁠Liddle and Scott, Greek Lexicon

  24. This is exactly the character that Horace gives of him:

    Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res;
    Tentantem majora, fere præsentibus æequum.

    —⁠Epistles i 23, 24.

  25. Plutarch, in his life of Pompey, attributes these lines to Sophocles, but does not mention the play in which they occurred.

  26. The French translator gives the following examples, to show what is meant by these several kinds of quibbling arguments:

    The lying one is this: Is the man a liar who says that he tells lies. If he is, then he does not tell lies; and if he does not tell lies, is he a liar?

    The concealed one: Do you know this man who is concealed? If you do not, you do not know your own father; for he it is who is concealed.

    The veiled one is much the same as the preceding.

    The electra is a quibble of the same kind as the two preceding ones: Electra sees Orestes: she knows that Orestes is her brother, but does not know that the man she sees is Orestes; therefore she does know, and does not know, her brother at the same time.

    The Sorites is universally known.

    The bald one is a kind of Sorites; pulling one hair out of a man’s head will not make him bald, nor two, nor three, and so on till every hair in his head is pulled out.

    The horned one: You have what you have not lost. You have not lost horns, therefore you have horns.

  27. From ἐλέγχω, to confute.

  28. Κρόνος, take away “Κρ,” leaves ὄνος, an ass.

  29. The quibble here is that θεὸς is properly only masculine, though it is sometimes used as feminine.

  30. The Greek is a parody on the descriptions of Tantalus and Sisyphus. Homer, Odyssey ii, 581, 592. See also, Dryden’s Version, B ii, 719.

  31. The Greek is τοῦ μιμογράφου. “A mime was a kind of prose drama, intended as a familiar representation of life and character, without any distinct plot. It was divided into μῖμιοι ἀνδρεῖοι and γυναικεῖοι, also into μῖμοι σπουδαίων and γελοίων.” —⁠Liddle and Scott in voc. μῖμος

  32. The Greek is, ὡς ἀνέπλαττε Πλάτων πεπλασμένα θαύματα εἰδώς.

  33. This figure was like a barbed arrow, according to Zevort.

  34. Herophilus was one of the most celebrated physicians of antiquity, who founded the Medical School at Alexandria, in the time of the first Ptolemy.

  35. Homer, Odyssey x, 387. Pope’s Version, 450.

  36. Perhaps there is a pun here; ἀστράγαλος means not only a knout composed of small bones strung together, but also a die.

  37. This is a quotation from some lost play of Euripides, slightly altered, the line, as printed in the Variorum Edition, volume vii, Mc. Tragoediis cxxx is:

    ἀκόλαστα πάντα γίνεται, δούλων τέκνα.

  38. There is a pun here which is untranslateable. The Greek is πλὴν ὅταν τόκος παρῇ, meaning usury, and also offspring or delivery.

  39. Homer Odyssey x, 335. Pope’s Version, 387.

  40. Homer Iliad vi, 211. Pope’s Version, 254.

  41. This is a quotation from the Hippolytus of Euripides, v. 424.

  42. I doubt if the wit of these parodies will be appreciated by the modern reader. The lines of Homer, which they are intended to parody, are:

    Ὦ μάκαρ Ατρεΐδη, μοιρηγενὲς, ὀλβιοδαίμων

    —⁠Iliad 3, 182.

    ἠέ συ Πηλεΐδη, πάντων ἐκπαγλότατ’ ἀνδρῶν

    —⁠Iliad v 146.

    The first of which is translated by Pope:

    Oh, blest Atrides, born of prosperous fate,
    Successful monarch of a mighty state!

    The Greek parody in the text is:

    Ὦ πέπον Ἀρχύτα, ψαλληγενὲς, ὀλβιότυφε
    Τῆς ὑπάτης ἔριδος πάντων ἐμπειρότατ’ ἀνδρῶν.

  43. From λύω, solvo, to relax or weaken the limbs.

  44. From περιπατέω, “to walk about.”

  45. Iliad 18, 95.

  46. This very spirited version I owe to the kindness of my brother, the Rev. J. E. Yonge, of Eton College.

  47. ἐντελέχεια, the actuality of a thing, as opposed to simple capability or potentiality (δύναμις); a philosophic word invented by Aristotle.⁠—⁠ ⁠… quite distinct from ἐνδελέχεια, though Cicero (Tusculan Disputations i, 10,) confounded them.” —⁠Liddle and Scott in voc.

  48. From θεῖος “divine,” and φράσις “diction.”

  49. This was a temple of the Muses which he had built for a school.

  50. So as to make it appear connected with γλυκὺς, sweet.

  51. στάμνος, means an earthenware jar for wine.

  52. The foregoing account hardly does justice to Demetrius, who was a man of real ability, and of a very different class to the generality of those whom the ancients dignified with the title of philosophers. He was called Phalereus, to distinguish him from his contemporary Demetrius Poliorcetes. His administration of the affairs of Athens was so successful, that Cicero gives him the praise of having reestablished the sinking and almost prostrate power of the republic. (Cicero, De Republica ii, 1.) As an orator, he is spoken of by the same great authority with the highest admiration. Cicero calls him “a subtle disputer, not vehement, but very sweet, as a pupil of Theophrastus might be expected to be.” (De Officiis i, 3.) In another place he praises him as possessed of great learning, and as one who “rather delighted than inflamed the Athenians.” (De Clav. Orat. §37.) And says, “that he was the first person who endeavored to soften eloquence, and who made it tender and gentle; preferring to appear sweet, as indeed he was, rather than vehement” (§38). In another place he says, “Demetrius Phalereus the most polished of all those orators” (he has been mentioning Demosthenes, Hyperides, Lycurgus, Aeschines, and Dinarchus) “in my opinion.” (De Oratore ii, 23.) And he praises him for not confining his learning to the schools, but for bringing it into daily use, and employing it as one of his ordinary weapons. (De Legibus iii, 14.) And asks who can be found besides him who excelled in both ways, so as to be preeminent at the same time as a scholar, and a governor of a state. (same source) He mentions his death in the oration for Rabirius Postumus, §9. He appears to have died about BC 282.

  53. From πομπὴ, a procession.

  54. There is a play on the similarity of the two sounds, κοινὴ, common, and ποίνη, punishment.

  55. The Greek is ἐς κόρακας, which was a proverb for utter destruction.

  56. The passage is not free from difficulty; but the thing which misled Diogenes appears to have been that νόμισμα, the word here used, meant both “a coin, or coinage,” and “a custom.”

  57. This line is from Euripides, Medea, 411.

  58. The saperda was the coracinus (a kind of fish) when salted.

  59. This is probably an allusion to a prosecution instituted by Demosthenes against Midias, which was afterwards compromised by Midias paying Demosthenes thirty minae, or three thousand drachmae. See Demosthenes Contra Midias.

  60. This is a pun upon the similarity of Athlias’s name to the Greek adjective ἄθλιος, which signifies miserable.

  61. The ἱερομνήμονες were the sacred secretaries or recorders sent by each Amphictyonic state to the council along with their πυλαγόρας, (the actual deputy or minister). —⁠Liddle and Scott, Greek and English Lexicon, in voc.

  62. There is a pun here. Χείρων is the word used for worse. Chiron was also the most celebrated of the Centaurs, the tutor of Achilles.

  63. There is a pun intended here; as Diogenes proposed Didymus a fate somewhat similar to that of the beaver.

    Cupiens evadere damno
    Testiculorum.

  64. This is taken from Homer, Iliad κ, 387. Pope’s Version, 455.

  65. This is also from Homer, Iliad θ, 95. Pope’s Version, 120.

  66. This is a parody on Homer, Iliad ξ, 95, where the line ends οἷ’ ἀγορεύεις⁠—“if such is your language,” which Diogenes here changes to οἷ’ ἀγοράζεις, if you buy such things.

  67. This is a line of the Phoenissae of Euripides, v 40.

  68. The pun here is on the similarity of the noun ἐλάαν, an olive, to the verb ἐλαᾶν, to drive; the words μάστιξεν δ’ ἐλαᾶν are of frequent occurrence in Homer.

  69. This line occurs, Homer, Iliad ε, 83.

  70. The Samothracian Gods were Gods of the sea, and it was customary for those who had been saved from shipwreck to make them an offering of some part of what they had saved; and of their hair, if they had saved nothing but their lives.

  71. Eurytion was another of the Centaurs, who was killed by Hercules.

  72. This is a pun on the similarity of the sound, Tegea, to τέγος, a brothel.

  73. The Greek is ἔρανον αἰτούμενος πρὸς τὸν ἐρανάρχην ἔφη⁠—ἔρανος was not only a subscription or contribution for the support of the poor, but also a club or society of subscribers to a common fund for any purpose, social, commercial, or charitable, or especially political.⁠ ⁠… On the various ἔρανοι, v Böckh, Public Economy i, 328. Att. Process. p. 540, s. 99. Liddle and Scott in voc. ἔρανος.

  74. Homer, Iliad Γ, 65.

  75. There is a pun here; κόρη means both “a girl” and “the pupil of the eye.” And φθείρω, “to destroy,” is also especially used for “to seduce.”

  76. This is a parody on Homer, Iliad, 591. Pope’s Version, 760.

  77. Homer, Iliad Σ, 395. Pope’s version, 460.

  78. This line is from the Bacchae of Euripides, v. 1228.

  79. From this last paragraph it is inferred by some critics that originally the preceding memoirs of Crates, Metrocles, and Hipparchia formed only one chapter or book.

  80. This a parody on two lines in the Antiope of Euripides:

    Γνώμῃ γὰρ ἀνδρὸς εὖ μὲν οἰκοῦνται πόλεις,
    Εὖ δ’ οἶκος εἴς τ’ αὖ πόλεμον ἰσχύει μέγα.

    Which may be translated:

    Wisdom it is which regulates both cities,
    And private citizens, and makes their lot
    Secure and happy; nor is her influence
    Of less account in war.

  81. A sort of guitar or violin.

  82. The Greek is, ἐν τῷ θερίζοντι λόγῳ, a species of argument so called, because he who used it mowed or knocked down his adversaries. —⁠Aldob.

  83. The Greek in the text is:

    Κεῖνος μὲν πανάριστος ὃς εὖ εἰπόντι πίθηται,
    Ἐσθλὸς δ’ αὖ κἀκεῖνος ὃς αὐτὸς πάντα νοήσῃ.

    The lines in Hesiod are:

    Κεῖνος μὲν πανάριστος ὃς αὐτὸς πάντα νοήσῃ
    Ἐσθλὸς δ’ αὖ κἀκεῖνος ὃς εὖ εἰπόντι πίθηται.

    —⁠Opera et Dies 293.

    That man is best, whose unassisted wit
    Perceives at once what in each case is fit.
    And next to him, he surely is most wise,
    Who willingly submits to good advice.

  84. Huerner thinks (as indeed is evident) that something is lost here; and proposes to read the sentence thus: Τῶν δὲ κατηγορημάτων τὰ μέν ἐστι συμβάματα ὡς τὸ πλεῖν, οἷον Σωκράτης πλεῖ, τὰ δὲ παρασυμβάματα ὡς τὸ διὰ πέτρας πλεῖν. With reference to which passage, Liddell and Scott, Greek and English Lexicon voc. σύμβαμα, thus speak: “σύμβαμα⁠ ⁠… as a philosophical term of the Stoics = κατηγόρημα, a complete predicament such as is an intransitive verb: e.g. Σωκράτης περιπατεῖ; while an imperfect verb was regarded as an incomplete predicament; e.g. Σωκράτει μέλει, and called παρασύμβαμα, or παρακατηγόρημα.”

  85. This line is from the Inachus of Sophocles (one of his lost plays).

  86. Homer, Iliad, II 484.

  87. This line is from the Citharista of Menander.

  88. It would appear that there is a considerable hiatus here; for the instance following is a sorites, and not a specimen of the veiled argument. And there is no instance given of the concealed, or of the horned one. Still, the mere fact of the text being unintelligible, is far from proving that we have not got it as Diogenes wrote it; as though in the language of the writer in Smith’s Biographical Dictionary, volume i pages 1022, 1023, “the work contains a rich store of living features, which serve to illustrate the private life of the Greeks,” it is equally clear that the author “was unequal to writing a history of Greek philosophy. His work in reality is nothing but a compilation of the most heterogeneous and often contradictory accounts.⁠ ⁠… The traces of carelessness and mistakes are very numerous; much in the work is confused, and there is also much 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.”

  89. The third point of view is wanting; and those that are given appear to be ill selected. The French translator, following the hint of Huebner, gives the following passage from Sextus Empiricus (a physician of the Skeptic school, about BC 250), in his work against the Philosophers, which he says may serve to rectify and complete the statement of Diogenes Laërtius. “Good is said in one sense of that which produces the useful, or from which the useful results; that is, the good par excellence, virtue. For virtue is as it were the source from which all utility naturally flows. In another sense it is said of that which is accidentally the cause of utility; under this point of view we call good not only virtue, but also those actions which are conformable to virtue, for they are accidentally useful. In the third and last place, we call good everything that possibly can be useful, comprehending under this definition virtue, virtuous actions, friends, good men, the Gods, etc., etc.

  90. Homer, Iliad I, 81. Pope’s Version, l 105.

  91. It is hardly necessary to remark that Ἀθηνᾶ is the name of Minerva, not of Jupiter; Ἥρα, of Juno; Ἥφαιστος, of Vulcan; Ποσειδῶν, of Neptune, and Δημήτηρ, of Ceres. Ἥφαιστος is properly derived from φαίνω, to shine; Ποσειδῶν has some affinity with πόω, to drink. Δημήτηρ is only a dialectic variation of Τῆ μητὴρ.

  92. There is a hiatus in the text here. Casaubon supplies the meaning by a reference to Plutarch’s Treatise on the opinions of the Philosophers, iii 7, “that the winds are a flowing of the air, and that they have various names with reference to the countries from which they flow.”

  93. Something is evidently wanting here; probably some mention of an earthquake.

  94. This is similar to Virgil’s description.

    Quinque tenent cœlum zonæ, quarum una corusco
    Semper Sole rubens, et torrida semper ab igni:
    Quam circum extremæ dextrà lævàque trahuntur.
    Cœruleâ glacie concretæ atque imbribus atris.
    Has inter mediamque duæ mortalibus ægris
    Munere concessæ Divûm, et via secta per ambas,
    Obliquus qua se signorum verteret ordo.

    —⁠Georgics I 233.

    There is no part of Dryden’s translation superior to that of this passage.

    Five girdles bind the skies; the torrid zone
    Glows with the passing and repassing sun;
    Far on the right and left, th’ extremes of heaven,
    To frosts, and snows, and bitter blasts are given;
    Betwixt the midst. And there the Gods assigned
    Four habitable seats for human kind,
    And, cross their limits cut a sloping way,
    Which the twelve signs in beauteous order sway.

    —⁠l. 322.

  95. Ὑποτελὶς, a name given by Herillus in Diogenes Laërtius to a man’s natural talents, etc., which ought all to be subordinate to the attainment of the chief good.” —⁠Liddle and Scott in voc.

  96. From φρέαρ, a well, and ἀντλέω to draw water.

  97. The Greek used is ἀποφορὰ; which was a term especially applied to the money which slaves let out to hire paid to their master.

  98. This is a parody on Homer, Iliad, iii, 196. Pope’s version, i 260. The word ὅλμος means the mouth piece of a flute.

  99. Taken from the Orestes of Euripides, i 140.

  100. This is parodied from Homer, Odyssey iv. 611. Pope’s version, l 831.

  101. This is referring to the Stoic doctrine ridiculed by Horace:

    Si dives qui sapiens est,
    Et sutor bonus, et solus formosus, et est Rex
    Cur optas quod habes?

    —⁠Horace, Satires i 130.

    Which may be translated:

    If every man is rich who’s wise,
    A cobbler too beyond all price;
    A handsome man, and eke a king;
    Why thus your vows at random fling?

  102. From κρύπτω, to hide, and ἵππος, a horse.

  103. These lines are from the Erestes of Euripides, v. 247.

  104. This is a quotation from Homer, Odyssey x. 495. Pope’s Version, 586. The Greek here is οἷος πέπνυται. The line in Homer stands:

    οἵῳ πέπνυσθαι⁠—sc: πόρε περσεφόνεια.

  105. The argument by progression is the sorites. “The arrest” is the method of encountering the sorites, by taking some particular point at which to stop the admissions required by the sorites.

  106. The remainder of the life of Chrysippus is lost.

  107. See Herodotus iv 93.

  108. This resembles the account which Ovid puts into the mouth of Pythagoras, in the last book of his Metamorphoses, where he makes him say:

    Morte carent animæ, semperque priore relicta
    Sede, novis domibus habitant vivuntque receptæ;
    Ipse ego, nam memini, Trojani tempora belli,
    Panthorides Euphorbus eram, cui pectore quondam
    Hæsit in adverso gravis hasta minoris Atridæ:
    Agnovi Clypeum lævæ gestamina nostræ
    Nuper Abanteïs templo Junonis in Argis.

    Which may be translated:

    Death has no pow’r th’ immortal soul to slay;
    That, when its present body turns to clay,
    Seeks a fresh home, and with unminish’d might
    Inspires another frame with life and light.
    So I myself, (well I the past recall)
    When the fierce Greeks begirt Troy’s holy wall,
    Was brave Euphorbus; and in conflict drear,
    Poured forth my blood beneath Atrides’ spear:
    The shield this arm did bear I lately saw
    In Juno’s shrine, a trophy of that war.

  109. This passage has been interpreted in more ways than one. Casaubon thinks with great probability that there is a hiatus in the text. I have endeavored to extract a meaning out of what remains. Compare 2 Samuel 16:23. “And the counsel of Ahitophel, which he counselled in those days, was as if a man had enquired at the oracle of God; so was all the counsel of Ahitophel both with David and with Absalom.”

  110. Zaleucus was the celebrated lawgiver of the Epizephyrian Locrians, and is said to have been originally a slave employed by a shepherd, and to have been set free and appointed lawgiver by the direction of an oracle, in consequence of his announcing some excellent laws, which he represented Minerva as having communicated to him in a dream. Diogenes, is wrong however, in calling him a disciple of Pythagoras (see Bentley on Phalaris), as he lived about a hundred years before his time; his true date being 660 BC. The code of Zaleucus is stated to have been the first collection of written laws that the Greeks possessed. Their character was that of great severity. They have not come down to us. His death is said to have occurred thus. Among his laws was one forbidding any citizen to enter the senate house in arms, under the penalty of death. But in a sudden emergency, Zaleucus himself, in a moment of forgetfulness, transgressed his own law: on which he slew himself, declaring that he would vindicate his law. (Eustathasius Ad Iliad i p. 60). Diodorus, however, tells the same story of Charondas.

  111. Charondas was a lawgiver of Catana, who legislated for his own city and the other towns of Chalcidian origin in Magna Grecia, such as Zancle, Naxos, Leontini, Euboea, Mylae, Himera, Callipolis, and Rhegium. His laws have not been preserved to us, with the exception of a few judgments. They were probably in verse, for Athenaeus says that they were sung in Athens at banquets. Aristotle tells us that they were adapted to an aristocracy. It is much doubted whether it is really true that he was a disciple of Pythagoras, though we are not sure of his exact time, so that we cannot pronounce it as impossible as in the preceding case. He must have lived before the time of Anaxilaus, tyrant of Rhegium, who reigned from BC 494 to BC 476, because he abolished the laws of Charondas, which had previously been in force in that city. Diodorus gives a code of laws which he states that Charondas gave to the city of Thurii, which was not founded till BC 443, when he must certainly have been dead a long time. There is one law of his preserved by Stobaeus, which is probably authentic, since it is found in a fragment of Theophrastus; enacting that all buying and selling shall be transacted by ready money only.

  112. This doctrine is alluded to doubtfully by Virgil, Georgics i247.

    Illic, ut perhibent, aut intempesta silet nox
    Semper, et obductâ densantur nocte tenebræ;
    Aut redit a nobis Aurora, diemque reducit;
    Nosque ubi primus equis oriens afflavit anhelis,
    Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper.

    Thus translated by Dryden, l 338:

    There, as they say, perpetual night is found,
    In silence brooding o’er th’ unhappy ground.
    Or when Aurora leaves our northern sphere,
    She lights the downward heav’n and rises there;
    And when on us she breathes the living light
    Red Vesper kindles there the tapers of the night.

  113. νοῦς appears, in a division like this, to be the deliberative part of the mind; φρὴν, the rational part of the intellect: θυμὸς, that part with which the passions are concerned.

  114. There is a great variety of suggestions as to the proper reading here. There is evidently some corruption in the text.

  115. From παύω, to cause to cease, ἀνία, sorrow.

  116. It is impossible to give the force of this epigram in any other language. It is a pun on Ἄκρων, Ἀκράγας, and ἄκρος. The last word meaning not only high, lofty, but also eminent, very skillful. The plain English would be: “The lofty height of a most eminent country conceals Acron, a skillful physician of Acragas, the son of a skillful father.” The variation would be: “A high tomb on a very high summit, conceals,” etc.

  117. This story is mentioned by Horace:

    Siculique poetæ,
    Narrabo interitum; deus immortalis haberi,
    Dum cupit Empedocles ardentem frigidus Ætnam,
    Insiluit.

    —⁠Ars Poetica, 466.

  118. This is slightly parodied from Homer, Odyssey xi. 278. Pope’s Version, 337.

  119. There were three festivals of Bacchus at Athens at which dramatic contests took place, the Διονύσια κατ’ ἄγρους, or, “in the fields;” the Ληναῖα or τὰ ἐν Λίμναις, or “the marshes,” a part of the city near the Acropolis, in which was situated the Λήναιον, an enclosure dedicated to Bacchus; and the τὰ ἐν ἄστει, “in the city,” or τὰ μέγαλα Διονύσια. The comic contests usually took place at the second or Lenaean festivals. Sometimes also at the Great Dionysia.

  120. ἔνδοξος, glorious.

  121. According to Strabo, the descendants of Androclus, the founder of Ephesus (of which family Heraclitus came), bore the title of king, and had certain prerogatives and privileges attached to the title.

  122. There is probably some corruption in the text here.

  123. There is great obscurity and uncertainty of the text here. The reading translated is that of Huebner, πεφωρᾶσθαι. Some read πεπρᾶσθαι, he seems to have abandoned the Pythagoreans. Others propose πεπρᾶχθαι. The French translator renders⁠—He had for enemies the Pythagoreans.

  124. See the account of Zeno of Citium.

  125. See the life of Parmenides.

  126. There is evidently a considerable gap in the text here.

  127. As there is no such passage in Herodotus, Valckenaer conjectures that we ought here to read Metrodorus.

  128. The Thesmophoria was a festival in honor of Ceres, celebrated in various parts of Greece; and only by married women; though girls might perform some of the ceremonies. Herodotus says, that it was introduced into Greece from Egypt, by the daughters of Danaus. The Attic Thesmophoria lasted probably three days, and began on the eleventh day of the month Pyanession; the first day was called ἄνοδος, or κάθοδος, from the women going in procession to Eleusis; the second νηστεία, or fasting; the third was called καλλιγένεια, as on that day Ceres was invoked under that name, and it was the day of merriment of the festival.

  129. Namely, reasoning well, expressing oneself well, and acting well.

  130. This is thus embodied by Lucretius:

    Nam nihil e nihilo, in nihilum nîl posse reverti.

  131. Homer, Iliad v, 340. Pope’s version, 422.

  132. Iliad vi, 146.

  133. Iliad xxi, 106. Pope’s version, 115.

  134. Homer, Iliad xx, 248. Pope’s version, 294.

  135. There is too remarkable a similarity in this to Campbell’s lines:

    ’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
    And robes the mountains in their azure hue:

    to allow one to pass it over without pointing it out.

  136. “Diogenes here appears (though he gives no intimation of his doing so) to be transcribing the reasonings of someone of the Skeptics.” —⁠French Translator

  137. That is to say, the harmony between intellect and the senses will not last long. Attagas and Numenius were two notorious brigands.

  138. That is, “trifler,” from κρίνω, to judge; and λῆρος, nonsensical talk.

  139. That is, flattering for gifts; from σαίνω, to wag the tail as a dog, to caress; and δῶρον, a gift.

  140. This sentence is a remark of Diogenes himself. There are several more of his observations in parentheses as we proceed.

  141. This is the argument in its completed form: “We can only form an idea of an atom by analogy, and analogy demonstrates to us that it is not of infinite littleness. In fact, let us compare it to the smallest particles recognisable by sense, and then let us endeavor to form an idea of these last. To do this we must take a term of comparison in complex objects, which are composed of various parts. Abstracting from these all other characteristics but that of extent, we see that these objects have dimensions, some greater and some less, measuring an extent which is greater or less as the case may be. The smallest sensible particle will then have its dimensions; it will measure the smallest possible sensible extent, that is to say, it will not be infinitely small. Applying this analogy to an atom, one comes to conceive it as measuring the smallest extent possible, but not as having no extent at all, which was what Epicurus wished to prove.” —⁠French Translator

  142. This is a quotation from Theognis.

  143. From the Trachiniae of Sophocles, 1784.

  144. There is some hopeless corruption in the text here. Nor has anyone succeeded in making it intelligible. The French translator divides it into two maxims.

  145. There in some great corruption here again. The French translator takes 19, 20, and 21 all as one.