III. Archelaos of Athens
Anaxagoreans[Anaxagoreans].
191. The last of the early cosmologists was Archelaos of Athens, who was a disciple of Anaxagoras.[[1018]] He is also said to have been the teacher of Sokrates, a statement by no means so improbable as is sometimes supposed.[[1019]] There is no reason to doubt the tradition that Archelaos succeeded Anaxagoras in the school at Lampsakos.[[1020]] We certainly hear of Anaxagoreans,[[1021]] though their fame was soon obscured by the rise of the Sophists, as we call them.
Cosmology.
192. On the cosmology of Archelaos, Hippolytos[[1022]] writes as follows:—
Archelaos was by birth an Athenian, and the son of Apollodoros. He spoke of the mixture of matter in a similar way to Anaxagoras, and of the first principles likewise. He held, however, that there was a certain mixture immanent even in Nous. And he held that there were two efficient causes which were separated off from one another, namely, the warm and the cold. The former was in motion, the latter at rest. When the water was liquefied it flowed to the centre, and there being burnt up it turned to earth and air, the latter of which was borne upwards, while the former took up its position below. These, then, are the reasons why the earth is at rest, and why it came into being. It lies in the centre, being practically no appreciable part of the universe. (But the air rules over all things),[[1023]] being produced by the burning of the fire, and from its original combustion comes the substance of the heavenly bodies. Of these the sun is the largest, and the moon second; the rest are of various sizes. He says that the heavens were inclined, and that then the sun made light upon the earth, made the air transparent, and the earth dry; for it was originally a pond, being high at the circumference and hollow in the centre. He adduces as a proof of this hollowness that the sun does not rise and set at the same time for all peoples, as it ought to do if the earth were level. As to animals, he says that when the earth was first being warmed in the lower part where the warm and the cold were mingled together, many living creatures appeared, and especially men, all having the same manner of life, and deriving their sustenance from the slime; they did not live long, and later on generation from one another began. And men were distinguished from the rest, and set up leaders, and laws, and arts, and cities, and so forth. And he says that Nous is implanted in all animals alike; for each of the animals, as well as man, makes use of Nous, but some quicker and some slower.
It is not necessary to say much with regard to this theory, which in many respects contrasts unfavourably with its predecessors. It is clear that, just as Diogenes had tried to introduce certain Anaxagorean ideas into the philosophy of Anaximenes, so Archelaos sought to bring Anaxagoreanism nearer to the old Ionic views by supplementing it with the opposition of warm and cold, rare and dense, and by stripping Nous of that simplicity which had marked it off from the other “things” in his master’s system. It was probably for this reason, too, that Nous was no longer regarded as the maker of the world.[[1024]] Leukippos had made such a force unnecessary. It may be added that this twofold relation of Archelaos to his predecessors makes it very credible that, as Aetios tells us,[[1025]] he believed in innumerable worlds; both Anaxagoras and the older Ionians upheld that doctrine.
Conclusion.
193. The cosmology of Archelaos, like that of Diogenes, has all the characteristics of the age to which it belonged—an age of reaction, eclecticism, and investigation of detail.[[1026]] Hippon of Samos and Idaios of Himera represent nothing more than the feeling that philosophy had run into a blind alley, from which it could only escape by trying back. The Herakleiteans at Ephesos, impenetrably wrapped up as they were in their own system, did little but exaggerate its paradoxes and develop its more fanciful side.[[1027]] It was not enough for Kratylos to say with Herakleitos (fr. 84) that you cannot step twice into the same river; you could not do so even once.[[1028]] But in nothing was the total bankruptcy of the early cosmology so clearly shown as in the work of Gorgias, entitled Substance or the Non-existent, in which an absolute nihilism was set forth and based upon the Eleatic dialectic.[[1029]] The fact is that philosophy, so long as it clung to its old presuppositions, had nothing more to say; for the answer of Leukippos to the question of Thales was really final. Fresh life must be given to the speculative impulse by the raising of new problems, those of knowledge and conduct, before any further progress was possible; and this was done by the “Sophists” and Sokrates. Then, in the hands of Demokritos and Plato, philosophy took a new form, and started on a fresh course.
[986]. Cf. what is said in Chap. IV. p. 167, [n. 383], of the Περὶ διαίτης. The Περὶ ἀνθρώπου φύσιος and the Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰατρικῆς are invaluable documents for the attitude of scientific men to cosmological theories at this date.
[987]. Cf. Chap. VIII. p. 379, [n. 919].
[988]. Aristoxenos said he was a Samian (R. P. 219 a). In Menon’s Iatrika he is called a Krotoniate, while others assign him to Rhegion or Metapontion. This probably means that he was affiliated to the Pythagorean medical school. The evidence of Aristoxenos is, in that case, all the more valuable. Hippon is mentioned along with Melissos in Iamblichos’s Catalogue of Pythagoreans (V. Pyth. 267).
[989]. Schol. on Clouds, 94 sqq.
[990]. Arist. Met. Α, 3. 984 a 3 (R. P. 219 a).
[991]. Alexander in Met. p. 26, 21 (R. P. 219).
[992]. Arist. de An. Α, 2. 405 b 2 (R. P. 220).
[993]. Hipp. Ref. i. 16 (R. P. 221).
[994]. Schol. Genav. p. 197, 19. Cf. Diels in Arch. iv. p. 653. The extract comes from the Ὁμηρικά of Krates of Mallos.
[995]. Sext. adv. Math. ix. 360.
[996]. On this passage see Diels, “Leukippos und Diogenes von Apollonia” (Rhein. Mus. xlii. pp. 1 sqq.). Natorp’s view that the words are merely those of Simplicius (ib. xli. pp. 349 sqq.) can hardly be maintained.
[997]. Diog. ix. 57 (R. P. 206). The statement of Antisthenes, the writer of Successions, that he had “heard” Anaximenes is due to the usual confusion. He was doubtless, like Anaxagoras, “an associate of the philosophy of Anaximenes.” Cf. Chap. VI. [§ 122].
[998]. Aristoph. Clouds, 227 sqq., where Sokrates speaks of “mixing his subtle thought with the kindred air,” and especially the words ἡ γῆ βίᾳ | ἕλκει πρὸς αὑτὴν τὴν ἱκμάδα τῆς φροντίδος. For the ἱκμάς, see Beare, p. 259. Cf. also Eur. Tro. 884, ὦ γῆς ὄχημα κἀπὶ γῆς ἕδραν ἔχων κ.τ.λ.
[999]. Diog. ix. 57 (R. P. 206).
[1000]. Cf. Chap. VII. pp. [327] sqq.
[1001]. Diog. ix. 57, τοῦτόν φησιν ὁ Φαληρεὺς Δημήτριος ἐν τῇ Σωκράτους ἀπολογίᾳ διὰ μέγαν φθόνον μικροῦ κινδυνεῦσαι Ἀθήνησιν. Diels follows Volkmann in holding that this is a note on Anaxagoras which has been inserted in the wrong place. I do not think this is necessary, though it is certainly possible.
[1002]. Simpl. Phys. p. 151, 24 (R. P. 207 a).
[1003]. Simplicius says Πρὸς φυσιολόγους, but he adds that Diogenes called them σοφισταί, which is the older word. This is, so far, in favour of the genuineness of the work.
[1004]. Diels gives this as fr. 6 (Vors. p. 350). I have omitted it, as it really belongs to the history of Medicine.
[1005]. The MSS. of Simplicius have ἔθος, not θεός; but I adopt Usener’s certain correction. It is confirmed by the statement of Theophrastos, that the air within us is “a small portion of the god” (de Sens. 42); and by Philodemos (Dox. p. 536), where we read that Diogenes praises Homer, τὸν ἀέρα γὰρ αὐτὸν Δία νομίζειν φησίν, ἐπειδὴ πᾶν εἰδέναι τὸν Δία λέγει (cf. Cic. Nat. D. i. 12, 29).
[1006]. The MSS. of Simplicius have τῷ δέ, but surely the Aldine τῶν δέ is right.
[1007]. Arist. Hist. An. Γ, 2. 511 b 30.
[1008]. See Weygoldt, “Zu Diogenes von Apollonia” (Arch. i. pp. 161 sqq.). Hippokrates himself represented just the opposite tendency to that of those writers. His great achievement was the separation of medicine from philosophy, a separation most beneficial to both (Celsus, i. pr.). This is why the Hippokratean corpus contains some works in which the “sophists” are denounced and others in which their writings are pillaged. To the latter class belong the Περὶ διαίτης and the Περὶ φυσῶν; to the former, especially the Περὶ ἀρχαίης ἰατρικῆς.
[1009]. See Chap. VI. p. 292, [n. 657].
[1010]. Censorinus, de die natali, 6, 1 (Dox. p. 190).
[1011]. On the “measures” see Chap. III. [§ 72].
[1012]. Theophr. ap. Alex. in Meteor. p. 67, 1 (Dox. p. 494).
[1013]. Diog. ix. 57 (R. P. 215).
[1014]. Aet. ii. 8, 1 (R. P. 215).
[1015]. Simpl. Phys. p. 1121, 12. See Chap. I. p. 83, [n. 123].
[1016]. See Censorinus, quoted in Dox. p. 191.
[1017]. Theophr. de Sens. 39 sqq. (R. P. 213, 214). For a full account, see Beare, pp. 41 sqq., 105, 140, 169, 209, 258. As Prof. Beare remarks, Diogenes “is one of the most interesting of the pre-Platonic psychologists” (p. 258).
[1018]. Diog. ii. 16 (R. P. 216).
[1019]. See Chiapelli in Arch. iv. pp. 369 sqq.
[1020]. Euseb. P. E. p. 504, c 3, ὁ δὲ Ἀρχέλαος ἐν Λαμψάκῳ διεδέξατο τὴν σχολὴν τοῦ Ἀναξαγόρου.
[1021]. Ἀναξαγόρειοι are mentioned by Plato (Crat. 409 b 6), and often by the Aristotelian commentators.
[1022]. Hipp. Ref. i. 9 (R. P. 218).
[1023]. Inserting τὸν δ’ ἀέρα κρατεῖν τοῦ παντός, as suggested by Roeper.
[1024]. Aet. i. 7, 4 = Stob. i. 56 (R. P. 217 a).
[1025]. Aet. ii. 1, 3.
[1026]. Windelband, § 25. The period is well described by Fredrich, Hippokratische Untersuchungen, pp. 130 sqq. It can only be treated fully in connexion with the Sophists.
[1027]. For an amusing picture of the Herakleiteans see Plato, Tht. 179 e. The new interest in language, which the study of rhetoric had called into life, took with them the form of fantastic and arbitrary etymologising, such as is satirised in Plato’s Cratylus.
[1028]. Arist. Met. Γ, 5. 1010 a 12. He refused even to speak, we are told, and only moved his finger.
[1029]. Sext. adv. Math. vii. 65 (R. P. 235); M.X.G. 979 a 13 (R. P. 236).
APPENDIX
THE SOURCES
A.—PHILOSOPHERS
Plato.
1. It is not very often that Plato allows himself to dwell upon the history of philosophy as it was before the rise of ethical and epistemological inquiry; but when he does, his guidance is simply invaluable. His artistic gift and his power of entering into the thoughts of other men enabled him to describe the views of early philosophers in a thoroughly objective manner, and he never, except in a playful and ironical way, sought to read unthought-of meanings into the words of his predecessors. Of special value for our purpose are his contrast between Empedokles and Herakleitos (Soph. 242 d), and his account of the relation between Zeno and Parmenides (Parm. 128 a).
See Zeller, “Plato’s Mittheilungen über frühere und gleichzeitige Philosophen” (Arch. v. pp. 165 sqq.); and Index, s.v. Plato.
Aristotle.
2. As a rule, Aristotle’s statements about early philosophers are less historical than Plato’s. Not that he failed to understand the facts, but he nearly always discusses them from the point of view of his own system. He is convinced that his own philosophy accomplishes what all previous philosophers had aimed at, and their systems are therefore regarded as “lisping” attempts to formulate it (Met. Α, 10. 993 a 15). It is also to be noted that Aristotle regards some systems in a much more sympathetic way than others. He is distinctly unfair to the Eleatics, for instance.
It is often forgotten that Aristotle derived much of his information from Plato, and we must specially observe that he more than once takes Plato’s irony too literally.
See Emminger, Die Vorsokratischen Philosophen nach den Berichten des Aristoteles, 1878. Index, s.v. Aristotle.
Stoics.
3. The Stoics, and especially Chrysippos, paid great attention to early philosophy, but their way of regarding it was simply an exaggeration of Aristotle’s. They did not content themselves with criticising their predecessors from their own point of view; they seem really to have believed that the early poets and thinkers held views hardly distinguishable from theirs. The word συνοικειοῦν, which Cicero renders by accommodare, was used by Philodemos to denote this method of interpretation,[[1030]] which has had serious results upon our tradition, especially in the case of Herakleitos (p. 157).
Skeptics.
4. The same remarks apply mutatis mutandis to the Skeptics. The interest of such a writer as Sextus Empiricus in early philosophy is to show that skepticism went back to an early date—as far as Xenophanes, in fact. But what he tells us is often of value; for he frequently quotes early views as to knowledge and sensation in support of his thesis.
Neoplatonists.
5. Under this head we have chiefly to consider the commentators on Aristotle in so far as they are independent of the Theophrastean tradition. Their chief characteristic is what Simplicius calls εὐγνωμοσύνη, that is, a liberal spirit of interpretation, which makes all early philosophers agree with one another in upholding the doctrine of a Sensible and an Intelligible World. It is, however, to Simplicius more than any one else that we owe the preservation of the fragments. He had, of course, the library of the Academy at his disposal.
B.—DOXOGRAPHERS
The Doxographi graeci.
6. The Doxographi graeci of Professor Hermann Diels (1879) threw an entirely new light upon the filiation of the later sources; and we can only estimate justly the value of statements derived from these if we bear constantly in mind the results of his investigation. Here it will only be possible to give an outline which may help the reader to find his way in the Doxographi graeci itself.
The “Opinions” of Theophrastos
7. By the term doxographers we understand all those writers who relate the opinions of the Greek philosophers, and who derive their material, directly or indirectly, from the great work of Theophrastos, Φυσικῶν δοξῶν ιηʹ (Diog. v. 46). Of this work, one considerable chapter, that entitled Περὶ αἰσθήσεων, has been preserved (Dox. pp. 499-527). And Usener, following Brandis, further showed that there were important fragments of it contained in the commentary of Simplicius (sixth cent. A.D.) on the First Book of Aristotle’s Φυσικὴ ἀκρόασις (Usener, Analecta Theophrastea, pp. 25 sqq.). These extracts Simplicius seems to have borrowed in turn from Alexander of Aphrodisias (c. 200 A.D.); cf. Dox. p. 112 sqq. We thus possess a very considerable portion of the First Book, which dealt with the ἀρχαί as well as practically the whole of the last Book.
From these remains it clearly appears that the method of Theophrastos was to discuss in separate books the leading topics which had engaged the attention of philosophers from Thales to Plato. The chronological order was not observed; the philosophers were grouped according to the affinity of their doctrine, the differences between those who appeared to agree most closely being carefully noted. The First Book, however, was in some degree exceptional; for in it the order was that of the successive schools, and short historical and chronological notices were inserted.
Doxographers.
8. A work of this kind was, of course, a godsend to the epitomators and compilers of handbooks, who flourished more and more as the Greek genius declined. These either followed Theophrastos in arranging the subject-matter under heads, or else they broke up his work, and rearranged his statements under the names of the various philosophers to whom they applied. This latter class form the natural transition between the doxographers proper and the biographers, so I have ventured to distinguish them by the name of biographical doxographers.
I. Doxographers Proper
The Placita and Stobaios.
9. These are now represented by two works, viz. the Placita Philosophorum, included among the writings ascribed to Plutarch, and the Eclogae Physicae of John Stobaios (c. 470 A.D.). The latter originally formed one work with the Florilegium of the same author, and includes a transcript of some epitome substantially identical with the pseudo-Plutarchean Placita. It is, however, demonstrable that neither the Placita nor the doxography of the Eclogae is the original of the other. The latter is usually the fuller of the two, and yet the former must be earlier; for it was used by Athenagoras for his defence of the Christians in 177 A.D. (Dox. p. 4). It was also the source of the notices in Eusebios and Cyril, and of the History of Philosophy ascribed to Galen. From these writers many important corrections of the text have been derived (Dox. pp. 5 sqq.).
Another writer who made use of the Placita is Achilles (not Achilles Tatius). Extracts from his Εἰσαγωγή to the Phaenomena of Aratos are included in the Uranologion of Petavius, pp. 121-164. His date is uncertain, but probably he belongs to the third century A.D. (Dox. p. 18).
Aetios.
10. What, then, was the common source of the Placita and the Eclogae? Diels has shown that Theodoret (c. 445 A.D.) had access to it; for in some cases he gives a fuller form of statements made in these two works. Not only so, but he also names that source; for he refers us (Gr. aff. cur. iv. 31) to Ἀετίου τὴν περὶ ἀρεσκόντων συναγωγήν. Diels has accordingly printed the Placita in parallel columns with the relevant parts of the Eclogae, under the title of Aetii Placita. The quotations from “Plutarch” by later writers, and the extracts of Theodoret from Aetios, are also given at the foot of each page.
The Vetusta Placita.
11. Diels has shown further, however, that Aetios did not draw directly from Theophrastos, but from an intermediate epitome which he calls the Vetusta Placita, traces of which may be found in Cicero (infra, § 12), and in Censorinus (De die natali), who follows Varro. The Vetusta Placita were composed in the school of Poseidonios, and Diels now calls them the Poseidonian Ἀρέσκοντα (Über das phys. System des Straton, p. 2). There are also traces of them in the “Homeric Allegorists.”
It is quite possible, by discounting the somewhat unintelligent additions which Aetios made from Epicurean and other sources, to form a pretty accurate table of the contents of the Vetusta Placita (Dox. pp. 181 sqq.), and this gives us a fair idea of the arrangement of the original work by Theophrastos.
Cicero.
12. So far as what he tells us of the earliest Greek philosophy goes, Cicero must be classed with the doxographers, and not with the philosophers; for he gives us nothing but extracts at second or third hand from the work of Theophrastos. Two passages in his writings fall to be considered under this head, namely, “Lucullus” (Acad. ii.), 118, and De natura Deorum, i. 25-41.
(a) Doxography of the “Lucullus.”—This contains a meagre and inaccurately-rendered summary of the various opinions held by philosophers with regard to the ἀρχή (Dox. pp. 119 sqq.), and would be quite useless if it did not in one case enable us to verify the exact words of Theophrastos (Chap. I. p. 52, [n. 2]). The doxography has come through the hands of Kleitomachos, who succeeded Karneades in the headship of the Academy (129 B.C.).
(b) Doxography of the “De natura Deorum.”—A fresh light was thrown upon this important passage by the discovery at Herculaneum of a roll containing fragments of an Epicurean treatise, so like it as to be at once regarded as its original. This treatise was at first ascribed to Phaidros, on the ground of the reference in Epp. ad Att. xiii. 39. 2; but the real title, Φιλοδήμου περὶ εὐσεβείας, was afterwards restored (Dox. p. 530). Diels, however, has shown (Dox. pp. 122 sqq.) that there is much to be said for the view that Cicero did not copy Philodemos, but that both drew from a common source (no doubt Phaidros, Περὶ θεῶν) which itself went back to a Stoic epitome of Theophrastos. The passage of Cicero and the relevant fragments of Philodemos are edited in parallel columns by Diels (Dox. pp. 531 sqq.).
II. Biographical Doxographers
Hippolytos.
13. Of the “biographical doxographies,” the most important is Book I. of the Refutation of all Heresies by Hippolytos. This had long been known as the Philosophoumena of Origen; but the discovery of the remaining books, which were first published at Oxford in 1854, showed finally that it could not belong to him. It is drawn mainly from some good epitome of Theophrastos, in which the matter was already rearranged under the names of the various philosophers. We must note, however, that the sections dealing with Thales, Pythagoras, Herakleitos, and Empedokles come from an inferior source, some merely biographical compendium full of apocryphal anecdotes and doubtful statements.
The Stromateis.
14. The fragments of the pseudo-Plutarchean Stromateis, quoted by Eusebios in his Praeparatio Evangelica, come from a source similar to that of the best portions of the Philosophoumena. So far as we can judge, they differ chiefly in two points. In the first place, they are mostly taken from the earliest sections of the work, and therefore most of them deal with the primary substance, the heavenly bodies and the earth. In the second place, the language is a much less faithful transcript of the original.
“Diogenes Laertios.”
15. The scrap-book which goes by the name of Diogenes Laertios, or Laertios Diogenes (cf. Usener, Epicurea, pp. 1 sqq.), contains large fragments of two distinct doxographies. One is of the merely biographical, anecdotic, and apophthegmatic kind used by Hippolytos in his first four chapters; the other is of a better class, more like the source of Hippolytos’ remaining chapters. An attempt is made to disguise this “contamination” by referring to the first doxography as a “summary” (κεφαλαιωδής) account, while the second is called “particular” (ἐπὶ μέρους).
Patristic doxographies.
16. Short doxographical summaries are to be found in Eusebios (P. E. x., xiv., xv.), Theodoret (Gr. aff. cur. ii. 9-11), Irenæus (C. haer. ii. 14), Arnobius (Adv. nat. ii. 9), Augustine (Civ. Dei, viii. 2). These depend mainly upon the writers of “Successions,” whom we shall have to consider in the next section.
C.—BIOGRAPHERS
Successions.
17. The first to write a work entitled Successions of the Philosophers was Sotion (Diog. ii. 12; R. P. 4 a), about 200 B.C. The arrangement of his work is explained in Dox. p. 147. It was epitomised by Herakleides Lembos. Other writers of Διαδοχαί were Antisthenes, Sosikrates, and Alexander. All these compositions were accompanied by a very meagre doxography, and made interesting by the addition of unauthentic apophthegms and apocryphal anecdotes.
Hermippos.
18. The peripatetic Hermippos of Smyrna, known as Καλλιμάχειος (c. 200 B.C.), wrote several biographical works which are frequently quoted. The biographical details are very untrustworthy indeed; but sometimes bibliographical information is added, which doubtless rests upon the Πίνακες of Kallimachos.
Satyros.
19. Another peripatetic, Satyros, the pupil of Aristarchos, wrote (c. 160 B.C.) Lives of Famous Men. The same remarks apply to him as to Hermippos. His work was epitomised by Herakleides Lembos.
“Diogenes Laertios.”
20. The work which goes by the name of Laertios Diogenes is, in its biographical parts, a mere patchwork of all earlier learning. It has not been digested or composed by any single mind at all. It is little more than a collection of extracts made at haphazard, possibly by more than one successive possessor of the MS. But, of course, it contains much that is of the greatest value.
D.—CHRONOLOGISTS
Eratosthenes and Apollodoros.
21. The founder of ancient chronology was Eratosthenes of Kyrene (275-194 B.C.); but his work was soon supplanted by the metrical version of Apollodoros (c. 140 B.C.), from which most of our information as to the dates of early philosophers is derived. See Diels’ paper on the Χρονικά of Apollodoros in Rhein. Mus. xxxi.; and Jacoby, Apollodors Chronik (1902).
The method adopted is as follows:—If the date of some striking event in a philosopher’s life is known, that is taken as his floruit (ἀκμή), and he is assumed to have been forty years old at that date. In default of this, some historical era is taken as the floruit. Of these the chief are the eclipse of Thales 586/5 B.C., the taking of Sardeis in 546/5 B.C., the accession of Polykrates in 532/1 B.C., and the foundation of Thourioi in 444/3 B.C. Further details will easily be found by reference to the Index, s.v. Apollodoros.
[1030]. Cf. Cic. De nat. D. i. 15, 41: “Et haec quidem (Chrysippus) in primo libro de natura deorum, in secundo autem vult Orphei, Musaei, Hesiodi Homerique fabellas accommodare ad ea quae ipse primo libro de deis immortalibus dixerat, ut etiam veterrimi poetae, qui haec ne suspicati quidem sunt, Stoici fuisse videantur.” Cf. Philod. de piet. fr. c. 13, ἐν δὲ τῷ δευτέρῳ τά τε εἰς Ὀρφέα καὶ Μουσαῖον ἀναφερόμενα καὶ τὰ παρ’ Ὁμήρῳ καὶ Ἡσιόδῳ καὶ Εὐριπίδῃ καὶ ποιηταῖς ἄλλοις, ὡς καὶ Κλεάνθης, πειρᾶται συνοικειοῦν ταῖς δόξαις αὐτῶν.