Book IV
The long account which I have given of Plato was compiled to the best of my power, and in it I collected with great zeal and industry all that was reported of the man.
And he was succeeded by Speusippus, the son of Eurymedon, and a citizen of Athens, of the Myrrhinusian burgh, and he was the son of Plato’s sister Potone.
He presided over his school for eight years, beginning to do so in the hundred and eighth olympiad. And he set up images of the Graces in the temple of the Muses, which had been built in the Academy by Plato.
And he always adhered to the doctrines which had been adopted by Plato, though he was not of the same disposition as he. For he was a passionate man, and a slave to pleasure. Accordingly, they say that he once in a rage threw a puppy into a well; and that for the sake of amusement, he went all the way to Macedonia to the marriage of Cassander.
The female pupils of Plato, Lasthenea of Mantinea and Axiothea of Phlius, are said to have become disciples of Speusippus also. And Dionysius, writing to him in a petulant manner, says: “And one may learn philosophy too from your female disciple from Arcadia; moreover, Plato used to take his pupils without exacting any fee from them, but you collect tribute from yours, whether willing or unwilling.”
He was the first man, as Diodorus relates in the first book of his Commentaries, who investigated in his school what was common to the several sciences, and who endeavored, as far as possible, to maintain their connection with each other. He was also the first who published those things which Isocrates called secrets, as Caeneus tells us. And the first too who found out how to make light baskets of bundles of twigs.
But he became afflicted with paralysis, and sent to Xenocrates inviting him to come to him, and to become his successor in his school.
And they say that once, when he was being borne in a carriage into the Academy, he met Diogenes, and said: “Hail;” and Diogenes replied: “I will not say hail to you, who, though in such a state as you are, endure to live.”
And at last in despair he put an end to his life, being a man of a great age. And we have written this epigram on him:
Had I not known Speusippus thus had died, No one would have persuaded me that he Was e’er akin to Plato; who would never Have died desponding for so slight a grief.
But Plutarch, in his Life of Lysander, and again in his Life of Sylla, says that he was kept in a state of constant inflammation by lice. For he was of a weak habit of body, as Timotheus relates in his treatise on Lives.
Speusippus said to a rich man who was in love with an ugly woman: “What do you want with her? I will find you a much prettier woman for ten talents.”
He left behind him a great number of commentaries, and many dialogues, among which was one on Aristippus; one on Riches; one on Pleasure; one on Justice; one on Philosophy; one on Friendship; one on the Gods; one called The Philosopher; one addressed to Cephalus; one called Cephalus; one called Clinomachus, or Lysias; one called The Citizen; one on the Soul; one addressed to Gryllus; one called Aristippus; one called The Test of Art. There were also Commentaries by way of dialogues; one on Art; and ten about those things which are alike in their treatment. There are also books of divisions and arguments directed to similar things; Essays on the Genera and Species of Examples; an Essay addressed to Amartyrus; a Panegyric on Plato; Letters to Dion, and Dionysius, and Philip; an Essay on Legislation. There is also, the Mathematician; the Mandrobulus; the Lysias; Definitions; and a series of Commentaries. There are in all, forty-three thousand four hundred and seventy-five lines.
Simonides dedicated to him the Histories, in which he had related the actions of Dion and Bion. And in the second book of his Commentaries, Phavorinus states that Aristotle purchased his books for three talents.
There was also another person of the name of Speusippus, a physician of the school of Herophilus, a native of Alexandria.
Xenocrates was the son of Agathenor, and a native of Chalcedon. From his early youth he was a pupil of Plato, and also accompanied him in his voyages to Sicily.
He was by nature of a lazy disposition, so that they say that Plato said once, when comparing him to Aristotle: “The one requires the spur, and the other the bridle.” And on another occasion, he said: “What a horse and what an ass am I dressing opposite to one another!”
In other respects Xenocrates was always of a solemn and grave character, so that Plato was continually saying to him: “Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces.” And he spent the greater part of his time in the Academy, and whenever he was about to go into the city, they say all the turbulent and quarrelsome rabble in the city used to make way for him to pass by. And once, Phryne the courtesan wished to try him and pretending that she was pursued by some people, she fled and took refuge in his house; and he admitted her indeed, because of what was due to humanity; and as there was but one bed in the room, he, at her entreaty, allowed her to share it with him; but at last, in spite of all her entreaties, she got up and went away, without having been able to succeed in her purpose; and told those who asked her that she had quitted a statue and not a man. But some say that the real story is that his pupils put Lais into his bed, and that he was so continent that he submitted to some severe operations of excision and cautery.
And he was a very trustworthy man; so that, though it was not lawful for men to give evidence except on oath, the Athenians made an exception in his favor alone.
He was also a man of the most contented disposition; accordingly they say that when Alexander sent him a large sum of money, he took three thousand Attic drachmas and sent back the rest, saying that Alexander wanted most, as he had the greatest number of mouths to feed. And when some was sent him by Antipater, he would not accept any of it, as Myronianus tells us in his Similitudes. And once, when he gained a golden crown in a contest as to who could drink most, which was offered in the yearly festival of the Choes by Dionysius, he went out and placed the crown at the feet of the statue of Mercury, which was at the gate, where he was also accustomed to deposit his garlands of flowers. It is said also that he was once sent with some colleagues as an ambassador to Philip; and that they were won over by gifts, and went to his banquets and conversed with Philip; but that he would do none of these things, nor could Philip propitiate him by these means; on which account, when the other ambassadors arrived in Athens, they said that Xenocrates had gone with them to no purpose; and the people were ready to punish him, but when they had learnt from him that they had now more need than ever to look to the welfare of their city, for that Philip had already bribed all their counsellors, but that he had been unable to win him over by any means, then they say that the people honored him with redoubled honor. They add also that Philip said afterwards that Xenocrates was the only one of those who had come to him who was incorruptible. And when he went as ambassador to Antipater on the subject of the Athenian captives at the time of the Samian war, and was invited by him to a banquet, he addressed him in the following lines:
I answer, Goddess human, is thy breast By justice sway’d, by tender pity prest? Ill fits it me, whose friends are sunk to beasts, To quaff thy bowls, or riot in thy feasts: Me would’st thou please, for them thy cares employ, And them to me restore, and me to joy?
And Antipater, admiring the appropriateness of the quotation, immediately released them.
On one occasion, when a sparrow was pursued by a hawk and flew into his bosom, he caressed it and let it go again, saying that we ought not to betray a suppliant. And being ridiculed by Bion, he said that he would not answer him, for that tragedy when ridiculed by comedy did not condescend to make a reply. To one who had never learnt music, or geometry, or astronomy, but who wished to become his disciple, he said: “Be gone, for you have not yet the handles of philosophy.” But some say that he said: “Be gone, for I do not card wool here.” And when Dionysius said to Plato that someone would cut off his head, he, being present, showed his own, and said: “Not before they have cut off mine.”
They say too that once, when Antipater had come to Athens and saluted him, he would not make him any reply before he had finished quietly the discourse which he was delivering.
Being exceedingly devoid of every kind of pride, he often used to meditate with himself several times a day; and always allotted one hour of each day, it is said, to silence.