This tomb above your bones, for he did love you,
Though you were poor, with an undying love.
But he admired Homer above all poets, and always used to read a portion of his works before going to sleep; and in the morning he would say that he was going to the object of his love, when he was going to read him. He said, too, that Pindar was a wonderful man for filling the voice, and pouring forth an abundant variety of words and expressions. He also, when he was a young man, wrote a criticism on Ion.
V. And he was a pupil likewise of Hipponicus, the geometrican whom he used to ridicule on other points as being lazy and gaping; but he admitted that in his own profession he was clear sighted enough, and said that geometry had flown into his mouth while he was yawning. And when he went out of his mind, he took him to his own house, and took care of him till he recovered his senses.
VI. And when Crates died, he succeeded him in the presidency of his schools, a man of the name of Socrates willingly yielding to him.
VII. And as he suspended his judgment on every point, he never, as it is said, wrote one single book. But others say that he was once detected correcting some passages in a work of his; and some assert that he published it, while others deny it, and affirm that he threw it into the fire.
VIII. He seems to have been a great admirer of Plato, and he possessed all his writings. He also, according to some authorities, had a very high opinion of Pyrrho.
IX. He also studied dialectics, and the discussions of the Eretrian school; on which account Ariston said of him:—
First Plato comes, and Pyrrho last,
And in the middle Diodorus.