Diogenes, the author of the following work, was a native (as is generally believed) of Laërte, in Cilicia, from which circumstance he derived the cognomen of Laërtius. Little is known of him personall...

Some say that the study of philosophy originated with the barbarians. In that among the Persians there existed the Magi,1 and among the Babylonians or Assyrians the Chaldaei,2 among the Indians the Gy...

Some say that the study of philosophy originated with the barbarians. In that among the Persians there existed the Magi,1 and among the Babylonians or Assyrians the Chaldaei,2 among the Indians the Gy...

Thales, then, as Herodotus and Duris and Democritus say, was the son of Euxamius and Cleobule; of the family of the Thelidae, who are Phoenicians by descent, among the most noble of all the descendant...

Solon the son of Execestides, a native of Salamis, was the first person who introduced among the Athenians an ordinance for the lowering9 of debts; for this was the name given to the release of the bo...

Chilo was a Lacedaemonian, the son of Damagetus. He composed verses in elegiac meter to the number of two hundred: and it was a saying of his that a foresight of future events, such as could be arrive...

Pittacus was a native of Mitylene, and son of Hyrradius. But Duris says that his father was a Thracian. He, in union with the brothers of Alcaeus, put down Melanchrus the tyrant of Lesbos. And in the ...

Bias was a citizen of Priene, and the son of Teutamus, and by Satyrus he is put at the head of the seven wise men. Some writers affirm that he was one of the richest men of the city, but others say th...

Cleobulus was a native of Lindus, and the son of Evagoras; but according to Duris he was a Carian; others again trace his family back to Hercules. He is reported to have been eminent for personal stre...

Periander was a Corinthian, the son of Cypselus, of the family of the Heraclidae. He married Lyside (whom he himself called Melissa), the daughter of Procles the tyrant of Epidaurus, and of Eristhenea...

Anacharsis the Scythian was the son of Gnurus, and the brother of Caduides the king of the Scythians; but his mother was a Grecian woman, owing to which circumstance he understood both languages. He w...

Myson, the son of Strymon, as Sosicrates states, quoting Hermippus as his authority, a Chenean by birth, of some Oetaean or Laconian village, is reckoned one of the seven wise men, and they say that h...

Epimenides, as Theopompus and many other writers tell us, was the son of a man named Phaedrus, but some call him the son of Dosiadas; and others of Agesarchus. He was a Cretan by birth, of the city of...

Pherecydes was a Syrian, the son of Babys, and, as Alexander says in his Successions, he had been a pupil of Pittacus. Theopompus says that he was the first person who ever wrote among the Greeks on t...

Anaximander, the son of Praxiadas, was a citizen of Miletus. He used to assert that the principle and primary element of all things was the Infinity, giving no exact definition as to whether he meant ...

Anaximander, the son of Praxiadas, was a citizen of Miletus. He used to assert that the principle and primary element of all things was the Infinity, giving no exact definition as to whether he meant ...

Anaximenes, the son of Eurystratus, a Milesian, was a pupil of Anaximander; but some say that he was also a pupil of Parmenides. He said that the principles of everything were the air and the Infinite...

Anaxagoras, the son of Hegesibulus, or Eubulus, was a citizen of Clazomenae. He was a pupil of Anaximenes, and was the first philosopher who attributed mind to matter, beginning his treatise on the su...

Archelaus was a citizen of either Athens or Miletus, and his father’s name was Apollodorus; but, as some say, Mydon. He was a pupil of Anaxagoras, and the master of Socrates. He was the first person w...

Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a statuary, and of Phaenarete, a midwife; as Plato records in his Theaetetus, he was a citizen of Athens, of the borough of Alopece. Some people believed that he ...

Xenophon, the son of Gryllus, a citizen of Athens, was of the borough of Erchia; and he was a man of great modesty, and as handsome as can be imagined. They say that Socrates met him in a narrow lane,...

Aeschines was the son of Charinus, the sausage-maker, but as some writers say of Lysanias; he was a citizen of Athens, of an industrious disposition from his boyhood upwards, on which account he never...

Aristippus was by birth a Cyrenean, but he came to Athens, as Aeschines says, having been attracted thither by the fame of Socrates. He, having professed himself a Sophist, as Phanias of Eresus the Pe...

Phaedo the Elean, one of the Eupatridae, was taken prisoner at the time of the subjugation of his country, and was compelled to submit to the vilest treatment. But while he was standing in the street,...

Euclides was a native of Megara on the Isthmus, or of Gela according to some writers, whose statement is mentioned by Alexander in his Successions. He devoted himself to the study of the writings of P...

Stilpo, a native of Megara in Greece, was a pupil of some of Euclides’s school. But some say that he was a pupil of Euclides himself. And also of Thrasymachus, the Corinthian, who was a friend of Icth...

Crito was an Athenian. He looked upon Socrates with the greatest affection, and paid such great attention to him that he took care that he should never be in want of anything. His sons also were all c...

Simon was an Athenian, a leather-cutter. He, whenever Socrates came into his workshop and conversed, used to make memorandums of all his sayings that he recollected. And from this circumstance, people...

Glauco was an Athenian; and there are nine dialogues of his extant, which are all contained in one volume: The Phidylus; the Euripides; the Amyntichias; the Euthias; the Lysithides; the Aristophanes; ...

Simias was a Theban; and there are twenty-three dialogues of his extant, contained in one single volume: On Wisdom; on Ratiocination; on Music; on Verses; on Fortitude; on Philosophy; on Truth; on Let...

Cebes was a Theban, and there are three dialogues of his extant: The Tablet; the Seventh; and the Phrynichus....

This Menedemus was one of those who belonged to the school of Phaedo; and he was one of those who are called Theopropidae, being the son of Clisthenes, a man of noble family but a poor man and a build...

Plato was the son of Ariston and Perictione or Potone, and a citizen of Athens; and his mother traced her family back to Solon, for Solon had a brother named Dropidas, who had a son named Critias, who...

Plato was the son of Ariston and Perictione or Potone, and a citizen of Athens; and his mother traced her family back to Solon, for Solon had a brother named Dropidas, who had a son named Critias, who...

The long account which I have given of Plato was compiled to the best of my power, and in it I collected with great zeal and industry all that was reported of the man. And he was succeeded by Speusipp...

The long account which I have given of Plato was compiled to the best of my power, and in it I collected with great zeal and industry all that was reported of the man. And he was succeeded by Speusipp...

Xenocrates was the son of Agathenor, and a native of Chalcedon. From his early youth he was a pupil of Plato, and also accompanied him in his voyages to Sicily. He was by nature of a lazy disposition,...

Polemo was the son of Philostratus, an Athenian, of the burgh of Oea. And when he was young, he was so very intemperate and profligate, that he used always to carry money about with him, to procure th...

Crates was the son of Antigenes, and of the Thriasian burgh, and a pupil and attached friend of Polemo. He was also his successor as president of his school. And they benefited one another so much tha...

Crantor, a native of Soli, being admired very greatly in his own country, came to Athens and became a pupil of Xenocrates at the same time with Polemo. And he left behind him memorials, in the shape o...

Arcesilaus was the son of Seuthes or Scythes, as Apollodorus states in the third book of his Chronicles, and a native of Pitane in Aeolia. He was the original founder of the Middle Academy, and the fi...

Bion was a native of the country around the Borysthenes; but as to who his parents were, and to what circumstances it was owing that he applied himself to the study of philosophy, we know no more than...

Lacydes, the son of Alexander, was a native of Cyrene. He it is who was the founder of the New Academy, having succeeded Arcesilaus; and he was a man of great gravity of character and demeanour, and o...

Carneades was the son of Epicomus⁠—or Philocomus, as Alexander states in his Successions⁠—and a native of Cyrene. He read all the books of the Stoics with great care, and especially those of Chrysippu...

Clitomachus was a Carthaginian. He was called Asdrubal, and used to lecture on philosophy in his own country in his native language. But when he came to Athens at the age of forty years, he became a p...

Aristotle was the son of Nicomachus and Phaestias, a citizen of Stagira; and Nicomachus was descended from Nicomachus, the son of Machaon, the son of Aesculapius, as Hermippus tells us in his treatise...

Aristotle was the son of Nicomachus and Phaestias, a citizen of Stagira; and Nicomachus was descended from Nicomachus, the son of Machaon, the son of Aesculapius, as Hermippus tells us in his treatise...

Theophrastus was a native of Eresus, the son of Melantas, a fuller, as we are told by Athenodorus in the eighth book of his Philosophical Conversations. He was originally a pupil of Leucippus, his fel...

Theophrastus was succeeded in the presidency of his school by Strato of Lampsacus, the son of Arcesilaus, of whom he had made mention in his will. He was a man of great eminence, surnamed the Natural ...

He was succeeded by Lycon, a native of the Troas, the son of Astyanax, a man of great eloquence and of especial ability in the education of youth. For he used to say that it was fit for boys to be har...

Demetrius was a native of Phalerus, and the son of Phanostratus. He was a pupil of Theophrastus. And as a leader of the people at Athens he governed the city for ten years, and was honored with three ...

Heraclides was the son of Euthyphron, and was born at Heraclea, in Pontus; he was also a wealthy man. After he came to Athens, he was at first a disciple of Speusippus, but he also attended the school...

Antisthenes was an Athenian, the son of Antisthenes. And he was said not to be a legitimate Athenian, in reference to which he said to someone who was reproaching him with the circumstance: “The mothe...

Antisthenes was an Athenian, the son of Antisthenes. And he was said not to be a legitimate Athenian, in reference to which he said to someone who was reproaching him with the circumstance: “The mothe...

Diogenes was a native of Sinope, the son of Hicesius, a money-changer. And Diocles says that he was forced to flee from his native city, as his father kept the public bank there, and had adulterated t...

Monimus was a Syracusan and a pupil of Diogenes, but also a slave of some Corinthian money-changer, as Sosicrates tells us. Xeniades, who bought Diogenes, used often to come to him, extolling the exce...

Onesicritus is called by some authors an Aeginetan, but Demetrius the Magnesian affirms that he was a native of Astypalaea. He also was one of the most eminent of the disciples of Diogenes. And he app...

Crates was a Theban by birth, and the son of Ascondus. He also was one of the eminent disciples of the Cynic. But Hippobotus asserts that he was not a pupil of Diogenes, but of Bryson the Achaean. The...

Metrocles was the brother of Hipparchia; and though he had formerly been a pupil of Theophrastus, he had profited so little by his instructions that once, thinking that while listening to a lecture on...

Hipparchia, the sister of Metrocles, was charmed among others by the doctrines of this school. Both she and Metrocles were natives of Maronea. She fell in love with both the doctrines and manners of C...

Menippus was also a Cynic, and a Phoenician by descent, a slave by birth, as Achaicus tells us in his Ethics; and Diocles informs us that his master was a native of Pontus, of the name of Baton; but t...

Menedemus was a disciple of Colotes of Lampsacus. He proceeded, as Hippobotus tells, to such a great degree of superstition that he assumed the garb of a fury, and went about saying that he had come f...

Zeno was the son of Mnaseas, or Demeas, and a native of Citium, in Cyprus, which is a Grecian city, partly occupied by a Phoenician colony. He had his head naturally bent on one side, as Timotheus the...

Zeno was the son of Mnaseas, or Demeas, and a native of Citium, in Cyprus, which is a Grecian city, partly occupied by a Phoenician colony. He had his head naturally bent on one side, as Timotheus the...

Ariston the Bald, a native of Chios, surnamed the Siren, said that the chief good was to live in perfect indifference to all those things which are of an intermediate character between virtue and vice...

Herillus, a native of Carthage, said that the chief good was knowledge; that is to say, the always conducting oneself in such a way as to refer everything to the principle of living according to knowl...

Dionysius, the Deserter, as he was called, asserted that pleasure was the chief good, from the circumstance of his being afflicted with a complaint in his eyes. For, as he suffered severely, he could ...

Cleanthes was a native of Assos, and the son of Phanias. He was originally a boxer, as we learn from Antisthenes in his Successions. And he came to Athens, having but four drachmas, as some people say...

Sphaerus, a native of the Bosphorus, was, as we have said before, a pupil of Cleanthes after the death of Zeno. And when he made a considerable advance in philosophy he went to Alexandria, to the cour...

Chrysippus was the son of Apollonius, and a native of either Soli or Tarsus, as Alexander tells us in his Successions; and he was a pupil of Cleanthes. Previously he used to practice running as a publ...

Since we have now gone through the Ionian philosophy, which was derived from Thales, and the lives of the several illustrious men who were the chief ornaments of that school; we will now proceed to tr...

Since we have now gone through the Ionian philosophy, which was derived from Thales, and the lives of the several illustrious men who were the chief ornaments of that school; we will now proceed to tr...

Empedocles, as Hippobotus relates, was the son of Meton the son of Empedocles, and a citizen of Agrigentum. And Timaeus, in the fifteenth book of his Histories, gives the same account, adding that Emp...

Epicharmus was a native of Cos, the son of Helothales; he also was a pupil of Pythagoras. When he was three months old he was brought to Megara, in Sicily, and from thence he came to Syracuse, as he h...

Archytas was a native of Tarentum, and the son of Mnesagoras; or, as Aristoxenus relates, of Histiaeus. He also was a Pythagorean; and he it was who saved Plato’s life by means of a letter, when he wa...

Alcmaeon was a citizen of Crotona; he also was a pupil of Pythagoras. And the chief part of his writings are on medical subjects; but he also at times discusses points of natural philosophy, and asser...

Hippasus was a citizen of Metapontum, and a pupil of Pythagoras. He used to say that the time of the changes of the world was definite, and that the universe also was finite, and in a state of perpetu...

Philolaus was a native of Crotona, and a pupil of Pythagoras; it was from him that Plato wrote to Dion to take care and purchase the books of Pythagoras. And he died under suspicion of having designed...

Eudoxus was the son of Aeschines, and a native of Cnidus. He was an astronomer, a geometrician, a physician, and a lawgiver. In geometry he was a pupil of Archytas, and in medicine of Philistion the S...

Heraclitus was the son of Blyson, or as some say, of Heracion, and a citizen of Ephesus. He flourished about the sixty-ninth olympiad. He was above all men of a lofty and arrogant spirit, as is plain ...

Heraclitus was the son of Blyson, or as some say, of Heracion, and a citizen of Ephesus. He flourished about the sixty-ninth olympiad. He was above all men of a lofty and arrogant spirit, as is plain ...

Xenophanes was the son of Dexius, or, as Apollodorus says, of Orthomenes. He was a citizen of Colophon; and is praised by Timon. Accordingly, he says: Xenophanes, not much a slave to vanity, The wise ...

Parmenides, the son of Pyres and a citizen of Velia, was a pupil of Xenophanes. And Theophrastus, in his Abridgment, says that he was also a pupil of Anaximander. However, though he was a pupil of Xen...

Melissus was a Samian, and the son of Ithagenes. He was a pupil of Parmenides; but he also had conversed with Heraclitus, when he recommended him to the Ephesians, who were unacquainted with him, as H...

Zeno was a native of Velia. Apollodorus, in his Chronicles, says that he was by nature the son of Teleutagoras, but by adoption the son of Parmenides. Timon speaks thus of him and Melissus: Great is t...

Leucippus was a native of Velia; but as some say, of Abdera, and as others report, of Melos. He was a pupil of Zeno. And his principal doctrines were that all things were infinite, and were interchang...

Democritus was the son of Hegesistratus, but as some say of Athenocrites, and according to other accounts of Damasippus. He was a native of Abdera, or as it is stated by some authors a citizen of Mile...

Protagoras was the son of Artemon, or as Apollodorus says (which account is corroborated by Deinon, in his History of Persia) of Maeander. He was a native of Abdera, as Heraclides Ponticus tell us, in...

Diogenes was a native of Apollonia, and the son of Apollothemis, a natural philosopher of high reputation; and he was, as Antisthenes reports, a pupil of Anaximenes. He was also a contemporary of Anax...

Anaxarchus was a native of Abdera. He was a pupil of Diogenes of Smyrna; but, as some say, of Metrodorus of Chios; who said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing; and Metrodorus was a pupil o...

Pyrrho was a citizen of Elis, and the son of Pleistarchus, as Diocles informs us, and, as Apollodorus in his Chronicles asserts, he was originally a painter. And he was a pupil of Bryson, the son of S...

Apollonides, of Nicaea, a philosopher of our school, in the first book of his Commentaries on the Silloi, which he dedicated to Tiberius Caesar, says that Timon was the son of Timarchus, and a Phliasi...

Epicurus was an Athenian, and the son of Neocles and Chaerestrate, of the burgh of Gargettus, and of the family of the Philaidae, as Metrodorus tells us in his treatise on Nobility of Birth. Some writ...

Epicurus was an Athenian, and the son of Neocles and Chaerestrate, of the burgh of Gargettus, and of the family of the Philaidae, as Metrodorus tells us in his treatise on Nobility of Birth. Some writ...

“The religion of the ancient Persians was the worship of fire or of the elements, in which fire was symbolical of the Deity. At a later period, in the time of the Greeks, the ancient worship was chang...