Greek Texts & Translations

Theophrastus was a native of Eresus, the son of Melantes, a fuller, as stated by Athenodorus in the eighth book of his Walks. He first heard his countryman Alcippus lecture in his native town and afterwards he heard Plato, whom he left for Aristotle. And when the latter withdrew to Chalcis he took over the school himself in the 114th Olympiad. ^note A slave of his named Pompylus is also said to have been a philosopher, according to Myronianus of Amastris in the first book of his Historical Parallels. Theophrastus was a man of remarkable intelligence and industry and, as Pamphila says in the thirtysecond book of her Memorabilia, he taught Menander the comic poet. 5.2.37 Furthermore, he was ever ready to do a kindness and fond of discussion. Casander certainly granted him audience and Ptolemy made overtures to him. And so highly was he valued at Athens that, when Agnonides ventured to prosecute him for impiety, the prosecutor himself narrowly escaped punishment. About 2000 pupils used to attend his lectures. In a letter to Phanias the Peripatetic, among other topics, he speaks of a tribunal as follows ^note: "To get a public or even a select circle such as one desires is not easy. If an author reads his work, he must re-write it. Always to shirk revision and ignore criticism is a course which the present generation of pupils will no longer tolerate." And in this letter he has called some one "pedant."

Although his reputation stood so high, nevertheless for a short time he had to leave the country with all the other philosophers, when Sophocles the son of Amphiclides proposed a law that no philosopher should preside over a school except by permission of the Senate and the people, under penalty of death. The next year, however, the philosophers returned, as Philo had prosecuted Sophocles for making an illegal proposal. Whereupon the Athenians repealed the law, fined Sophocles five talents, and voted the recall of the philosophers, in order that Theophrastus also might return and live there as before. He bore the name of Tyrtamus, and it was Aristotle who re-named him Theophrastus on account of his graceful style. 5.2.39 And Aristippus, in his fourth book On the Luxury of the Ancients, asserts that he was enamoured of Aristotle's son Nicomachus, although he was his teacher. It is said that Aristotle applied to him and Callisthenes what Plato had said of Xenocrates and himself (as already related), namely, that the one needed a bridle and the other a goad; for Theophrastus interpreted all his meaning with an excess of cleverness, whereas the other was naturally backward. He is said to have become the owner of a garden of his own after Aristotle's death, through the intervention of his friend Demetrius of Phalerum. There are pithy sayings of his in circulation as follows: "An unbridled horse," he said, "ought to be trusted sooner than a badly-arranged discourse." 5.2.40 To some one who never opened his lips at a banquet he remarked: "Yours is a wise course for an ignoramus, but in an educated man it is sheer folly." He used constantly to say that in our expenditure the item that costs most is time.

He died at the age of eighty-five, not long after he had relinquished his labours. My verses upon him are these ^note:

Not in vain was the word spoken to one of human kind, "Slacken the bow of wisdom and it breaks." Of a truth, so long as Theophrastus laboured he was sound of limb, but when released from toil his limbs failed him and he died.

It is said that his disciples asked him if he had any last message for them, to which he replied: "Nothing else but this, that many of the pleasures which life boasts are but in the seeming. 5.2.41 For when we are just beginning to live, lo! we die. Nothing then is so unprofitable as the love of glory. Farewell, and may you be happy. Either drop my doctrine, which involves a world of labour, or stand forth its worthy champions, for you will win great glory. Life holds more disappointment than advantage. But, as I can no longer discuss what we ought to do, do you go on with the inquiry into right conduct."

With these words, they say, he breathed his last. And according to the story all the Athenians, out of respect for the man, escorted his bier on foot. And Favorinus tells that he had in his old age to be carried about in a litter ^note; and this he says on the authority of Hermippus, whose account is taken from a remark of Arcesilaus of Pitane to Lacydes of Cyrene.

He too has left a very large number of writings. I think it right to catalogue them also because they abound in excellence of every kind. They are as follows:

Three books of Prior Analytics.

Seven books of Posterior Analytics.

On the Analysis of Syllogisms, one book.

Epitome of Analytics, one book.

Two books of Classified Topics.

Polemical discussion on the Theory of Eristic Argument.

Of the Senses, one book.

A Reply to Anaxagoras, one book.

On the Writings of Anaxagoras, one book.

On the Writings of Anaximenes, one book.

On the Writings of Archelaus, one book.

Of Salt, Nitre and Alum, one book.

Of Petrifactions, two books.

On Indivisible Lines, one book.

Two books of Lectures.

Of the Winds, one book.

Characteristics of Virtues, one book.

Of Kingship, one book.

Of the Education of Kings, one book.

Of Various Schemes of Life, three books.