Greek Texts & Translations

At wine-parties he used to behave quietly, though he was unsteady on his legs ; which caused the woman-slave to say, "As for Chrysippus, only his legs get tipsy." His opinion of himself was so high that when some one inquired, "To whom shall I entrust my son ?" he replied, "To me : for, if I had dreamt of there being anyone better than myself, I should myself be studying with him." Hence, it is said, the application to him of the line ^note :

He alone has understanding ; the others flit shadow-like around ;

and

But for Chrysippus, there had been no Porch.

At last, however, - so we are told by Sotion in his eighth book, - he joined Arcesilaus and Lacydes and studied philosophy under them in the Academy. 7.7.184 And this explains his arguing at one time against, and at another in support of, ordinary experience, and his use of the method of the Academy when treating of magnitudes and numbers.

On one occasion, as Hermippus relates, when he had his school in the Odeum, he was invited by his pupils to a sacrificial feast. There after he had taken a draught of sweet wine unmixed with water, he was seized with dizziness and departed this life five days afterwards, having reached the age of seventy-three years, in the 143rd Olympiad. ^note This is the date given by Apollodorus in his Chronology. I have toyed with the subject in the following verses ^note :

Chrysippus turned giddy after gulping down a draught of Bacchus ; he spared not the Porch nor his country nor his own life, but fared straight to the house of Hades.

Another account is that his death was caused by a violent fit of laughter ; for after an ass had eaten up his figs, he cried out to the old woman, "Now give the ass a drink of pure wine to wash down the figs." And thereupon he laughed so heartily that he died. He appears to have been a very arrogant man. ^noteAt any rate, of all his many writings he dedicated none to any of the kings. And he was satisfied with one old woman's judgement, says Demetrius in his work called Men of the Same Name. When Ptolemy wrote to Cleanthes requesting him to come himself or else to send some one to his court, Sphaerus undertook the journey, while Chrysippus declined to go. On the other hand, he sent for his sister's sons, Aristocreon and Philocrates, and educated them. Demetrius above mentioned is also our authority for the statement that Chrysippus was the first who ventured to hold a lecture-class in the open air in the Lyceum.

There was another Chrysippus, a native of Cnidus, a physician, ^note to whom Erasistratus says that he was under great obligation. And another besides, a son ^note of the former, court-physician to Ptolemy, who on a false charge was dragged about and castigated with the lash. And yet another was a pupil of Erasistratus, and another the author of a work on Agriculture.

To return to the philosopher. He used to propound arguments such as the following : "He who divulges the mysteries to the uninitiated is guilty of impiety. Now the hierophant certainly does reveal the mysteries to the uninitiated, ergo he is guilty of impiety." ^note Or again : "What is not in the city is not in the house either : now there is no well in the city, ergo there is none in the house either." Yet another : "There is a certain head, and that head you have not. Now this being so, there is a head which you have not, therefore you are without a head." 7.7.187 Again : "If anyone is in Megara, he is not in Athens : now there is a man in Megara, therefore there is not a man in Athens." Again : "If you say something, it passes through your lips : now you say wagon, consequently a wagon passes through your lips." And further : "If you never lost something, you have it still ; but you never lost horns, ergo you have horns." Others attribute this to Eubulides.

There are people who run Chrysippus down as having written much in a tone that is gross and indecent. For in his work On the ancient Natural Philosophers at line 600 or thereabouts he interprets the story of Hera and Zeus coarsely, with details which no one would soil his lips by repeating. 7.7.188 Indeed, his interpretation of the story is condemned as most indecent. He may be commending physical doctrine ; but the language used is more appropriate to street-walkers than to deities ; and it is moreover not even mentioned by bibliographers, who wrote on the titles of books. What Chrysippus makes of it is not to be found in Polemo nor Hypsicrates, no, nor even in Antigonus. It is his own invention. Again, in his Republic he permits marriage with mothers and daughters and sons. He says the same in his work On Things for their own Sake not Desirable, right at the outset. In the third book of his treatise On Justice, at about line 1000, he permits eating of the corpses of the dead. And in the second book of his On the Means of Livelihood, where he professes to be considering a priori how the wise man is to get his living, occur the words :