Greek Texts & Translations

Diogenes of Apollonia, son of Apollothemis, was a natural philosopher and a most famous man. Antisthenes calls him a pupil of Anaximenes ; but he lived in Anaxagoras's time. This man, ^note so great was his unpopularity at Athens, almost lost his life, as Demetrius of Phalerum states in his Defence of Socrates.

The doctrines of Diogenes were as follows. ^note Air is the universal element. There are worlds unlimited in number, and unlimited empty space. Air by condensation and rarefaction generates the worlds. Nothing comes into being from what is not or passes away into what is not. The earth is spherical, firmly supported in the centre, having its construction determined by the revolution which comes from heat and by the congealment caused by cold.

The words with which his treatise begins are these : "At the beginning of every discourse I consider that one ought to make the starting-point unmistakably clear and the exposition simple and dignified."

Anaxarchus, a native of Abdera, studied under Diogenes of Smyrna, ^note and the latter under Metrodorus of Chios, who used to declare that he knew nothing, not even the fact that he knew nothing ; while Metrodorus was a pupil of Nessas of Chios, though some say that he was taught by Democritus. Now Anaxarchus accompanied Alexander and flourished in the 110th Olympiad. ^note He made an enemy of Nicocreon, tyrant of Cyprus. Once at a banquet, when asked by Alexander how he liked the feast, he is said to have answered, "Everything, O king, is magnificent ; there is only one thing lacking, that the head of some satrap should be served up at table." This was a hit at Nicocreon, 9.10.59 who never forgot it, and when after the king's death Anaxarchus was forced against his will to land in Cyprus, he seized him and, putting him in a mortar, ordered him to be pounded to death with iron pestles. But he, making light of the punishment, made that well-known speech, "Pound, pound the pouch containing Anaxarchus ; ye pound not Anaxarchus." And when Nicocreon commanded his tongue to be cut out, they say he bit it off and spat it at him. This is what I have written upon him ^note :

Pound, Nicocreon, as hard as you like : it is but a pouch. Pound on ; Anaxarchus's self long since is housed with Zeus. And after she has drawn you upon her carding-combs a little while, Persephone will utter words like these: "Out upon thee, villainous miller !"

For his fortitude and contentment in life he was called the Happy Man. He had, too, the capacity of bringing anyone to reason in the easiest possible way. At all events he succeeded in diverting Alexander when he had begun to think himself a god ; for, seeing blood running from a wound he had sustained, he pointed to him with his finger and said, "See, there is blood and not

Ichor which courses in the veins of the blessed gods." ^note

Plutarch reports this as spoken by Alexander to his friends. ^note Moreover, on another occasion, when Anaxarchus was drinking Alexander's health, he held up his goblet and said :

One of the gods shall fall by the stroke of mortal man. ^note

Pyrrho of Elis was the son of Pleistarchus, as Diocles relates. According to Apollodorus in his Chronology, he was first a painter ; then he studied under Stilpo's son Bryson ^note: thus Alexander in his Successions of Philosophers. Afterwards he joined Anaxarchus, whom he accompanied on his travels everywhere so that he even forgathered with the Indian Gymnosophists and with the Magi. This led him to adopt a most noble philosophy, to quote Ascanius of Abdera, taking the form of agnosticism and suspension of judgement. He denied that anything was honourable or dishonourable, just or unjust. ^note And so, universally, he held that there is nothing really existent, but custom and convention govern human action ; for no single thing is in itself any more this than that.