And the lines come out of the Oenomaus of Sophocles. He once reminded a certain dialectician, a pupil of Alexinus, who was unable to explain correctly some saying of his master, of what had been done by Philoxenus to some brick-makers. For when they were singing some of his songs very badly he came upon them, and trampled their bricks under foot, saying: “As you spoil my works so will I spoil yours.”
And he used to be very indignant with those who neglected proper opportunities of applying themselves to learning; and he had a peculiar habit, while conversing, of using the expression, “I think,” and “So-and-so,” naming the person, “will not agree to this.” And this was imitated by several of his pupils, who copied also his style of expression and everything about him. He was a man very ready at inventing new words, and very quick at meeting objections, and at bringing round the conversation to the subject before him, and at adapting it to every occasion, and he was the most convincing speaker that could be found, on which account numbers of people flocked to his school, in spite of being somewhat alarmed at his severity, which however they bore with complacency, for he was a very kind man, and one who inspired his hearers with abundant hope, and in his manner of life he was very affable and liberal, always ready to do anyone a service without any parade, and shrinking from any expression of gratitude on the part of those whom he had obliged. Accordingly once, when he had gone to visit Ctesibius who was ill, seeing him in great distress from want, he secretly slipped his purse under his pillow; and when Ctesibius found it: “This,” said he, “is the amusement of Arcesilaus.” And at another time he sent him a thousand drachmas. He it was also who introduced Archias the Arcadian to Eumenes, and who procured him many favors from him.
And being a very liberal man and utterly regardless of money, he made the most splendid display of silver plate, and in his exhibition of gold plate he vied with that of Archecrates and Callicrates; and he was constantly assisting and contributing to the wants of others with money; and once, when someone had borrowed from him some articles of silver plate to help him entertain his friends, and did not offer to return them, he never asked for them back or reclaimed them; but some say that he lent them with the purpose that they should be kept, and that when the man returned them, he made him a present of them as he was a poor man. He had also property in Pitana, the revenues from which were transmitted to him by his brother Pylades.
Moreover, Eumenes, the son of Philetaerus, supplied him with many things, on which account he was the only king to whom he addressed any of his discourses. And when many philosophers paid court to Antigonus and went out to meet him when he arrived, he himself kept quiet, not wishing to make his acquaintance. But he was a great friend of Hierocles, the governor of the harbours of Munychia and the Piraeus; and at festivals he always paid him a visit. And when he constantly endeavored to persuade him to pay his respects to Antigonus, he would not; but though he accompanied him as far as his gates, he turned back himself. And after the sea-fight of Antigonus, when many people went to him and wrote him letters to comfort him for his defeat, he neither went nor wrote; but still in the service of his country, he went to Demetrias as ambassador to Antigonus, and succeeded in the object of his mission.
And he spent all his time in the Academy, and avoided meddling with public affairs, but at times he would spend some days in the Piraeus of Athens, discoursing on philosophical subjects, from his friendship for Hierocles, which conduct of his gave rise to unfavorable reports being raised against him by some people.
Being a man of very expensive habits, for he was in this respect a sort of second Aristippus, he often went to dine with his friends. He also lived openly with Theodote and Philaete, two courtesans of Elis; and to those who reproached him for this conduct, he used to quote the opinions of Aristippus. He was also very fond of the society of young men, and of a very affectionate disposition, on which account Aristo, the Chian, a Stoic philosopher, used to accuse him of being a corrupter of the youth of the city, and a profligate man. He is said also to have been greatly attached to Demetrius, who sailed to Cyrene, and to Cleochares of Myrlea, of whom he said to his messmates that he wished to open the door to him, but that he prevented him.
Demochares the son of Laches and Pythocles the son of Bugelus were also among his friends, and he said that he humored them in all their wishes because of his great patience. And, on this account, those people to whom I have before alluded used to attack him and ridicule him as a popularity hunter and vainglorious man. And they set upon him very violently at an entertainment given by Hieronymus, the Peripatetic, when he invited his friends on the birthday of Alcyoneus, the son of Antigonus, on which occasion Antigonus sent him a large sum of money to promote the conviviality. On this occasion, as he avoided all discussion during the continuance of the banquet, when Aridelus proposed to him a question which required some deliberation, and entreated him to discourse upon it, it is said that he replied: “But this is more especially the business of philosophy, to know the proper time for everything.” With reference to the charge that was brought against him of being a popularity hunter, Timon speaks, among other matters, mentioning it in the following manner:
He spoke and glided quick among the crowd, They gazed on him as finches who behold An owl among them. You then please the people! Alas, poor fool, ’tis no great matter that; Why give yourself such airs for such a trifle?
However, in all other respects he was so free from vanity that he used to advise his pupils to become the disciples of other men; and once, when a young man from Chios was not satisfied with his school, but preferred that of Hieronymus, whom I have mentioned before, he himself took him and introduced him to that philosopher, recommending him to preserve his regularity of conduct. And there is a very witty saying of his recorded: For when someone asked him once, why people left other schools to go to the Epicureans, but no one left the Epicureans to join other sects, he replied, “People sometimes make eunuchs of men, but no one can ever make a man out of an eunuch.”
At last, when he was near his end, he left all his property to his brother Pylades, because he, without the knowledge of Maereas, had taken him to Chios and had brought him from thence to Athens. He never married a wife, and never had any children. He made three copies of his will, and deposited one in Eretria with Amphicritus, and one at Athens with some of his friends, and the third he sent to his own home to Thaumasias, one of his relations, entreating him to keep it. And he also wrote him the following letter:
Arcesilaus to Thaumasias
I have given Diogenes a copy of my will to convey to you. For, because I am frequently unwell and have got very infirm, I have thought it right to make a will, that, if anything should happen to me I might not depart with the feelings of having done you any injury, who have been so constantly affectionate to me. And as you have been at all times the most faithful to me of all my friends, I entreat you to preserve this for me out of regard for my old age and your regard for me. Take care then to behave justly towards me, remembering how much I entrust to your integrity, so that I may appear to have managed my affairs well, as far as depends on you; and there is another copy of this will at Athens, in the care of some of my friends, and another at Eretria, in the hands of Amphicritus.
He died, as Hermippus relates, after having drunk an excessive quantity of wine, and then became delirious, when he was seventy-five years old; and he was more beloved by the Athenians than anyone else had ever been. And we have written the following epigram on him:
O wise Arcesilaus, why didst thou drink So vast a quantity of unmixed wine, As to lose all your senses, and then die? I pity you not so much for your death, As for the insult that you thus did offer The Muses, by your sad excess in wine.
There were also three other persons of the name of Arcesilaus: one a poet of the old Comedy; another an elegiac poet; the third a sculptor, on whom Simonides wrote the following epigram:
This is a statue of chaste Dian’s self The price two hundred Parian drachmas fine, Stamp’d with the image of the wanton goat. It is the work of wise Arcesilaus, The son of Aristodicus: a man, Whose hands Minerva guided in his art.
The philosopher of whom we have been speaking flourished, as Apollodorus tells us in his Chronicles, about the hundred and twentieth olympiad.
Bion was a native of the country around the Borysthenes; but as to who his parents were, and to what circumstances it was owing that he applied himself to the study of philosophy, we know no more than what he himself told Antigonus. For when Antigonus asked him:
What art thou, say! from whence, from whom you came, Who are your parents? tell thy race, thy name;
He, knowing that he had been misrepresented to the king, said to him, “My father was a freedman, who used to wipe his mouth with his sleeve,” (by which he meant that he used to sell salt fish). “As to his race, he was a native of the district of the Borysthenes; having no countenance, but only a brand in his face, a token of the bitter cruelty of his master. My mother was such a woman as a man of that condition might marry, taken out of a brothel. Then, my father being in arrears to the tax-gatherers, was sold with all his family, and with me among them; and as I was young and good looking, a certain orator purchased me, and when he died he left me everything. And I, having burnt all his books, and torn up all his papers, came to Athens and applied myself to the study of Philosophy:
Such was my father, and from him I came, The honored author of my birth and name.
This is all that I can tell you of myself: so that Persaeus and Philonides may give up telling these stories about me: and you may judge of me on my own merits.”
And Bion was truly a man of great versatility, and a very subtle philosopher, and a man who gave all who chose great opportunities of practising philosophy. In some respects he was of a gentle disposition, and very much inclined to indulge in vanity.
And he left behind him many memorials of himself in the way of writings, and also many apothegms full of useful sentiments. As for instance, once when he was reproved for having failed to charm a young man, he replied: “You cannot possibly draw up cheese with a hook before it has got hard.” On another occasion he was asked who was the most miserable of men, and replied: “He who has set his heart on the greatest prosperity.” When he was asked whether it was advisable to marry (for this answer also is attributed to him), he replied: “If you marry an ugly woman you will have a punishment (ποινὴ), and if a handsome woman you will have one who is common (κοινή).” He called old age a port to shelter one from misfortune; and accordingly, he said that everyone fled to it. He said that glory was the mother of years; that beauty was a good which concerned others rather than oneself; that riches were the sinews of business. To a man who had squandered his estate he said: “The earth swallowed up Amphiaraus, but you have swallowed up the earth.” Another saying of his was that it was a great evil not to be able to bear evil. And he condemned those who burnt the dead as though they felt nothing, and then mocked them as though they did feel. And he was always saying that it was better to put one’s own beauty at the disposal of another than to covet the beauty of others; for that one who did so was injuring both his body and his soul. And he used to blame Socrates, saying that if he derived no advantage from Alcibiades he was foolish, and if he never derived any advantage from him he then deserved no credit. He used to say that the way to the shades below was easy; and accordingly, that people went there with their eyes shut. He used to blame Alcibiades, saying that while he was a boy he seduced husbands from their wives, and when he had become a young man he seduced the wives from their husbands. While most of the Athenians at Rhodes practiced rhetoric, he himself used to give lectures on philosophical subjects; and to one who blamed him for this he said: “I have bought wheat, and I sell barley.”
It was a saying of his that the inhabitants of the shades below would be more punished if they carried water in buckets that were whole, than in such as were bored. To a chattering fellow who was soliciting him for aid, he said: “I will do what is sufficient for you, if you will send deputies to me, and forbear to come yourself.” Once when he was at sea in the company of some wicked men, he fell into the hands of pirates; and when the rest said: “We are undone, if we are known.”—“But I,” said he, “am undone if we are not known.” He used to say that self-conceit was the enemy of progress. Of a rich man who was mean and niggardly, he said: “That man does not possess his estate, but his estate possesses him.” He used to say that stingy men took care of their property as if it was their own, but derived no advantage from it as if it belonged to other people. Another of his sayings was that young men ought to display courage, but that old men ought to be distinguished for prudence. And that prudence was as much superior to the other virtues as sight was to the other senses. And that it was not right to speak of old age, at which everyone is desirous to arrive. To an envious man who was looking gloomy, he said: “I know not whether it is because some misfortune has happened to you, or some good fortune to someone else.” One thing that he used to say was that a mean extraction was a bad companion to freedom of speech, for: