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He also wrote poems in elegiac metre, some 600 lines, and a prose work On Laws for the use of the citizens.
He was flourishing about the 42nd Olympiad. He died in the archonship of Aristomenes, in the third year of the 52nd Olympiad, note having lived more than seventy years, to a good old age. The inscription on his monument runs thus note:
Here holy Lesbos, with a mother's woe,
Bewails her Pittacus whom death laid low.
To him belongs the apophthegm, "Know thine opportunity."
There was another Pittacus, a legislator, as is stated by Favorinus in the first book of his Memorabilia, and by Demetrius in his work on Men of the Same Name. He was called the Less.
To return to the Sage: the story goes that a young man took counsel with him about marriage, and received this answer, as given by Callimachus in his Epigrams note:
1.4.80A stranger of Atarneus thus inquired of Pittacus, the son of Hyrrhadius:
Old sire, two offers of marriage are made to me; the one bride is in wealth and birth my equal;
The other is my superior. Which is the better? Come now and advise me which of the two I shall wed.
So spake he. But Pittacus, raising his staff, an old man's weapon, said, "See there, yonder boys will tell you the whole tale."
The boys were whipping their tops to make them go fast and spinning them in a wide open space.
"Follow in their track," said he. So he approached near, and the boys were saying, "Keep to your own sphere."
When he heard this, the stranger desisted from aiming at the lordlier match, assenting to the warning of the boys.
And, even as he led home the humble bride, so do you, Dion, keep to your own sphere.
1.4.81The advice seems to have been prompted by his situation. For he had married a wife superior in birth to himself: she was the sister of Draco, the son of Penthilus, and she treated him with great haughtiness.
Alcaeus nicknamed him σαράπους and σάραπος because he had flat feet and dragged them in walking; also "Chilblains," because he had chapped feet, for which their word was χειράς; and Braggadocio, because he was always swaggering; Paunch and Potbelly, because he was stout; a Diner-in-the-Dark, because he dispensed with a lamp; and the Sloven, because he was untidy and dirty. The exercise he took was grinding corn, as related by Clearchus the philosopher.
The following short letter is ascribed to him:
Pittacus to Croesus
"You bid me come to Lydia in order to see your prosperity: but without seeing it I can well believe that the son of Alyattes is the most opulent of kings. There will be no advantage to me in a journey to Sardis, for I am not in want of money, and my possessions are sufficient for my friends as well as myself. Nevertheless, I will come, to be entertained by you and to make your acquaintance."
Bias, the son of Teutames, was born at Priene, and by Satyrus is placed at the head of the Seven Sages. Some make him of a wealthy family, but Duris says he was a labourer living in the house. Phanodicus relates that he ransomed certain Messenian maidens captured in war and brought them up as his daughters, gave them dowries, and restored them to their fathers in Messenia. In course of time, as has been already related, the bronze tripod with the inscription "To him that is wise" having been found at Athens by the fishermen, the maidens according to Satyrus, or their father according to other accounts, including that of Phanodicus, came forward into the assembly and, after the recital of their own adventures, pronounced Bias to be wise. And thereupon the tripod was dispatched to him; but Bias, on seeing it, declared that Apollo was wise, and refused to take the tripod.
1.5.83 But others say that he dedicated it to Heracles in Thebes, since he was a descendant of the Thebans who had founded a colony at Priene; and this is the version of Phanodieus.A story is told that, while Alyattes was besieging Priene, Bias fattened two mules and drove them into the camp, and that the king, when he saw them, was amazed at the good condition of the citizens actually extending to their beasts of burden. And he decided to make terms and sent a messenger. But Bias piled up heaps of sand with a layer of corn on the top, and showed them to the man, and finally, on being informed of this, Alyattes made a treaty of peace with the people of Priene. Soon afterwards, when Alyattes sent to invite Bias to his court, he replied, "Tell Alyattes, from me, to make his diet of onions," that is, to weep.
1.5.84 It is also stated that he was a very effective pleader; but he was accustomed to use his powers of speech to a good end. Hence it is to this that Demodicus of Leros makes reference in the line:If you happen to be prosecuting a suit, plead as they do at Priene;
and Hipponax thus: "More powerful in pleading causes than Bias of Priene." note
This was the manner of his death. He had been pleading in defence of some client in spite of his great age. When he had finished speaking, he reclined his head on his grandson's bosom. The opposing counsel made a speech, the judges voted and gave their verdict in favour of the client of Bias, who, when the court rose, was found dead in his grandson's arms.
| Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers (English) (XML Header) [word count] [lemma count] [Diog. Laert.]. | ||
| <<Diog. Laert. 1.4.74 | Diog. Laert. 1.4.81 (Greek) | >>Diog. Laert. 1.5.87 |
