| Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers (English) (XML Header) [word count] [lemma count] [Diog. Laert.]. | ||
| <<Diog. Laert. 8.3.78 | Diog. Laert. 8.6.84 (Greek) | >>Diog. Laert. 8.8.90 |
Four men have borne the name of Archytas : (1) our subject ; (2) a musician, of Mytilene ; (3) the compiler of a work On Agriculture ; (4) a writer of epigrams. Some speak of a fifth, an architect, to whom is attributed a book On Mechanism which begins like this : "These things I learnt from Teucer of Carthage." A tale is told of the musician that, when it was cast in his teeth that he could not be heard, he replied, "Well, my instrument shall speak for me and win the day."
Aristoxenus says that our Pythagorean was never defeated during his whole generalship, though he once resigned it owing to bad feeling against him, whereupon the army at once fell into the hands of the enemy.
8.4.83He was the first to bring mechanics to a system by applying mathematical principles ; he also first employed mechanical motion in a geometrical construction, namely, when he tried, by means of a section of a half-cylinder, to find two mean proportionals in order to duplicate the cube. note In geometry, too, he was the first to discover the cube, as Plato says in the Republic. note
Alcmaeon of Croton, another disciple of Pythagoras, wrote chiefly on medicine, but now and again he touches on natural philosophy, as when he says, "Most human affairs go in pairs." He is thought to have been the first to compile a physical treatise, so we learn from Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History ; and he said that the moon [and] generally [the heavenly bodies] are in their nature eternal.
He was the son of Pirithous, as he himself tells us at the beginning of his treatise note : "These are the words of Alcmaeon of Croton, son of Pirithous, which he spake to Brotinus, Leon and Bathyllus : `Of things invisible, as of mortal things, only the gods have certain knowledge ; but to us, as men, only inference from evidence is possible,' and so on." He held also that the soul is immortal and that it is continuously in motion like the sun.
Hippasus of Metapontum was another Pythagorean, who held that there is a definite time which the changes in the universe take to complete and that the All is limited and ever in motion.
According to Demetrius in his work on Men of the Same Name, he left nothing in writing. There were two men named Hippasus, one being our subject, and the other a man who wrote The Laconian Constitution in five books ; and he himself was a Lacedaemonian.
Philolaus of Croton was a Pythagorean, and it was from him that Plato requests Dion to buy the Pythagorean treatises. note He (Dion) was put to death because he was thought to be aiming at a tyranny. note This is what we have written upon him note :
Fancies of all things are most flattering ; If you intend, but do not, you are lost. So Croton taught Philolaus to his cost,
Who fancied he would like to be their king. note
8.7.85His doctrine is that all things are brought about by necessity and in harmonious inter-relation. He was the first to declare that the earth moves in a circle, note though some say that it was Hicetas of Syracuse.
He wrote one book, and it was this work which, according to Hermippus, some writer said that Plato the philosopher, when he went to Sicily to Dionysius's court, bought from Philolaus's relatives for the sum of forty Alexandrine note minas of silver, from which also the Timaeus was transcribed. Others say that Plato received it as a present for having procured from Dionysius the release of a young disciple of Philolaus who had been cast into prison.
According to Demetrius in his work on Men of the Same Name, Philolaus was the first to publish the Pythagorean treatises, to which he gave the title On Nature, beginning as follows : "Nature in the ordered universe was composed of unlimited and limiting elements, and so was the whole universe and all that is therein."
Eudoxus of Cnidos, the son of Aeschines, was an astronomer, a geometer, a physician and a legislator. He learned geometry from Archytas and medicine from Philistion the Sicilian, as Callimachus tells us in his Tables. Sotion in his Successions of Philosophers says that he was also a pupil of Plato. When he was about twenty-three years old and in straitened circumstances, he was attracted by the reputation of the Socratics and set sail for Athens with Theomedon the physician, who provided for his wants. Some even say that he was Theomedon's favourite. Having disembarked at Piraeus he went up every day to Athens and, when he had attended the Sophists' lectures, returned again to the port.
| Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers (English) (XML Header) [word count] [lemma count] [Diog. Laert.]. | ||
| <<Diog. Laert. 8.3.78 | Diog. Laert. 8.6.84 (Greek) | >>Diog. Laert. 8.8.90 |
