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23 chapters
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
It has been no easy task to revise this volume in such a way as to make it more worthy of the favour with which it has been received. Most of it has had to be rewritten in the light of certain discoveries made since the publication of the first edition, above all, that of the extracts from Menon’s Ἰατρικά, which have furnished, as I believe, a clue to the history of Pythagoreanism. I trust that all other obligations are duly acknowledged in the proper place. It did not seem worth while to elimin
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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
No apology is needed for the appearance of a work dealing with Early Greek Philosophy. The want of one has long been felt; for there are few branches of philology in which more progress has been made in the last twenty years, and the results of that progress have not yet been made accessible to the English reader. My original intention was simply to report these results; but I soon found that I was obliged to dissent from some of them, and it seemed best to say so distinctly. Very likely I am wr
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
I. It was not till the primitive view of the world and the customary rules of life had broken down, that the Greeks, began to feel the needs which philosophies of nature and of conduct seek to satisfy. Nor were those needs felt all at once. The traditional maxims of conduct were not seriously questioned till the old view of nature had passed away; and, for this reason, the earliest philosophers busied themselves mainly with speculations about the world around them. In due season, Logic was calle
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I. Thales
I. Thales
2. There can be no doubt that the founder of the Milesian school, and therefore the first of the cosmologists, was Thales; [55] but all we can really be said to know of him comes from Herodotos, and the romance of the Seven Wise Men was already in existence when he wrote. He tells us, in the first place, that Thales was of Phoenician descent, a statement which other writers explained by saying he belonged to the Thelidai, a noble house descended from Kadmos and Agenor. [56] This is clearly conne
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II. Anaximander
II. Anaximander
12. The next name that has come down to us is that of Anaximander, son of Praxiades. He too was a citizen of Miletos, and Theophrastos described him as an “associate” of Thales. [93] We have seen how that expression is to be understood (§ XIV.). According to Apollodoros, Anaximander was sixty-four years old in Ol. LVIII. 2 (547/6 B.C. ); and this is confirmed by Hippolytos, who says he was born in Ol. XLII. 3 (610/9 B.C. ), and by Pliny, who assigns his discovery of the obliquity of the zodiac t
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III. Anaximenes
III. Anaximenes
23. Anaximenes of Miletos, son of Eurystratos, was, according to Theophrastos Theophrastos , an “associate” of Anaximander. [145] Apollodoros said, it appears, that he “flourished” about the time of the fall of Sardeis (546/5 B.C. ), and died in Ol. LXIII. (528/524 B.C. ). [146] In other words, he was born when Thales “flourished,” and “flourished” when Thales died, and this means that Apollodoros had no definite information about his date at all. He most probably made him die in the sixty-third
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I. Pythagoras of Samos
I. Pythagoras of Samos
37. It is no easy task to give an account of Pythagoras that can claim to be regarded as history. Our principal sources of information [185] are the Lives composed by Iamblichos, Porphyry, and Laertios Diogenes. That of Iamblichos is a wretched compilation, based chiefly on the work of the arithmetician Nikomachos of Gerasa in Judaea, and the romance of Apollonios of Tyana, who regarded himself as a second Pythagoras, and accordingly took great liberties with his materials. [186] Porphyry stands
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II. Xenophanes of Kolophon
II. Xenophanes of Kolophon
55. We have seen how Pythagoras identified himself with the religious movement of his time; we have now to consider a very different manifestation of the reaction against that view of the gods which the poets had made familiar to every one. Xenophanes denied the anthropomorphic gods altogether, but was quite unaffected by the revival of more primitive ideas that was going on all round him. We still have a fragment of an elegy in which he ridiculed Pythagoras and the doctrine of transmigration. “
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CHAPTER III HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS
CHAPTER III HERAKLEITOS OF EPHESOS
63. Herakleitos of Ephesos, son of Blyson, is said to have “flourished” in Ol. LXIX. (504/3-501/0 B.C. ); [319] that is to say, just in the middle of the reign of Dareios, with whom several traditions connected him. [320] We shall see that Parmenides was assigned to the same Olympiad, though for another reason ( § 84 ). It is more important, however, for our purpose to notice that, while Herakleitos refers to Pythagoras and Xenophanes by name and in the past tense (fr. 16 ), he is in turn referr
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CHAPTER IV PARMENIDES OF ELEA
CHAPTER IV PARMENIDES OF ELEA
84. Parmenides, son of Pyres, was a citizen of Hyele, Elea, or Velia, a colony founded in Oinotria by refugees from Phokaia in 540-39 B.C. [422] Diogenes tells us that he “flourished” in Ol. LXIX. (504-500 B.C. ), and this was doubtless the date given by Apollodoros. [423] On the other hand, Plato says that Parmenides came to Athens in his sixty-fifth year, accompanied by Zeno, and conversed with Sokrates, who was then quite young. Now Sokrates was just over seventy when he was put to death in 3
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CHAPTER V EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS
CHAPTER V EMPEDOKLES OF AKRAGAS
97. The belief that all things are one was common to the philosophers we have hitherto studied; but now Parmenides has shown that, if this one thing really is , we must give up the idea that it can take different forms. The senses, which present to us a world of change and multiplicity, are deceitful. From this there was no escape; the time was still to come when men would seek the unity of the world in something which, from its very nature, the senses could never perceive. We find, accordingly,
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CHAPTER VI ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI
CHAPTER VI ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI
120. All that Apollodoros tells us with regard to the date of Anaxagoras seems to rest upon the authority of Demetrios Phalereus, who said of him, in the Register of Archons , that he began to study philosophy, at the age of twenty, in the archonship of Kallias or Kalliades at Athens (480-79 B.C. ). [647] This date was probably derived from a calculation based upon the philosopher’s age at the time of his trial, which Demetrios had every opportunity of learning from sources no longer extant. Apo
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CHAPTER VII THE PYTHAGOREANS
CHAPTER VII THE PYTHAGOREANS
138. We have seen ( § 40 ) how the Pythagoreans, after losing their supremacy at Kroton, concentrated themselves at Rhegion; but the school founded there was soon broken up. Archippos stayed behind in Italy; but Philolaos and Lysis, the latter of whom had escaped as a young man from the massacre of Kroton, betook themselves to continental Hellas, settling finally at Thebes. We know from Plato that Philolaos was there some time during the latter part of the fifth century, and Lysis was afterwards
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I. Zeno of Elea
I. Zeno of Elea
155. According to Apollodoros, [851] Zeno flourished in Ol. LXXIX. (464-460 B.C. ). This date is arrived at by making him forty years younger than his master Parmenides. We have seen already ( § 84 ) that the meeting of Parmenides and Zeno with the young Sokrates cannot well have occurred before 449 B.C. , and Plato tells us that Zeno was at that time “nearly forty years old.” [852] He must, then, have been born about 489 B.C. , some twenty-five years after Parmenides. He was the son of Teleutag
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II. Melissos of Samos
II. Melissos of Samos
164. In his Life of Perikles, Plutarch tells us, on the authority of Aristotle, that the philosopher Melissos, son of Ithagenes, was the Samian general who defeated the Athenian fleet in 441/0 B.C. : [896] and it was no doubt for this reason that Apollodoros fixed his floruit in Ol. LXXXIV. (444-41 B.C. ). [897] Beyond this, we really know nothing about his life. He is said to have been, like Zeno, a disciple of Parmenides; [898] but, as he was a Samian, it is possible that he was originally a m
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CHAPTER IX LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS
CHAPTER IX LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS
171. We have seen (§§ 31, 122) that the school of Miletos did not come to an end with Anaximenes, and it is a striking fact that the man who gave the most complete answer to the question first asked by Thales was a Milesian. [921] It is true that the very existence of Leukippos has been called in question. Epicurus said there never was such a philosopher, and the same thing has been maintained in quite recent times. [922] On the other hand, Aristotle and Theophrastos certainly made him the origi
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I. Hippon of Samos
I. Hippon of Samos
185. Hippon of Samos or Kroton belonged to the Italian school of medicine. [988] We know very little indeed of him except that he was a contemporary of Perikles. From a scholiast on Aristophanes [989] we learn that Kratinos satirised him in his Panoptai ; and Aristotle mentions him in the enumeration of early philosophers given in the First Book of the Metaphysics , [990] though only to say that the inferiority of his intellect deprives him of all claim to be reckoned among them. With regard to
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II. Diogenes of Apollonia
II. Diogenes of Apollonia
186. After discussing the three great representatives of the Milesian school, Theophrastos went on to say: And Diogenes of Apollonia, too, who was almost the latest of those who gave themselves up to these studies, wrote most of his work in an eclectic fashion, agreeing in some points with Anaxagoras and in others with Leukippos. He, too, says that the primary substance of the universe is Air infinite and eternal, from which by condensation, rarefaction, and change of state, the form of everythi
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III. Archelaos of Athens
III. Archelaos of Athens
191. The last of the early cosmologists was Archelaos of Athens, who was a disciple of Anaxagoras. [1018] He is also said to have been the teacher of Sokrates, a statement by no means so improbable as is sometimes supposed. [1019] There is no reason to doubt the tradition that Archelaos succeeded Anaxagoras in the school at Lampsakos. [1020] We certainly hear of Anaxagoreans, [1021] though their fame was soon obscured by the rise of the Sophists, as we call them. 192. On the cosmology of Archela
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A.—PHILOSOPHERS
A.—PHILOSOPHERS
1. It is not very often that Plato allows himself to dwell upon the history of philosophy as it was before the rise of ethical and epistemological inquiry; but when he does, his guidance is simply invaluable. His artistic gift and his power of entering into the thoughts of other men enabled him to describe the views of early philosophers in a thoroughly objective manner, and he never, except in a playful and ironical way, sought to read unthought-of meanings into the words of his predecessors. O
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B.—DOXOGRAPHERS
B.—DOXOGRAPHERS
6. The Doxographi graeci of Professor Hermann Diels (1879) threw an entirely new light upon the filiation of the later sources; and we can only estimate justly the value of statements derived from these if we bear constantly in mind the results of his investigation. Here it will only be possible to give an outline which may help the reader to find his way in the Doxographi graeci itself. 7. By the term doxographers we understand all those writers who relate the opinions of the Greek philosophers
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C.—BIOGRAPHERS
C.—BIOGRAPHERS
17. The first to write a work entitled Successions of the Philosophers was Sotion (Diog. ii. 12; R. P. 4 a), about 200 B.C. The arrangement of his work is explained in Dox. p. 147. It was epitomised by Herakleides Lembos. Other writers of Διαδοχαί were Antisthenes, Sosikrates, and Alexander. All these compositions were accompanied by a very meagre doxography, and made interesting by the addition of unauthentic apophthegms and apocryphal anecdotes. 18. The peripatetic Hermippos of Smyrna, known a
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D.—CHRONOLOGISTS
D.—CHRONOLOGISTS
21. The founder of ancient chronology was Eratosthenes of Kyrene (275-194 B.C. ); but his work was soon supplanted by the metrical version of Apollodoros ( c. 140 B.C. ), from which most of our information as to the dates of early philosophers is derived. See Diels’ paper on the Χρονικά of Apollodoros in Rhein. Mus. xxxi.; and Jacoby, Apollodors Chronik (1902). The method adopted is as follows:—If the date of some striking event in a philosopher’s life is known, that is taken as his floruit (ἀκμ
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