Carneades was born at Cyrene about b.c. 213. He went early to Athens, and at first attended the lectures of the Stoics; but subsequently attached himself to the Academy, and succeeded to the chair on the death of Hegesinus. In the year b.c. 155, he came to Rome on an embassy, but so offended Cato by speaking one day in praise of justice as a virtue, and the next day, in answer to all his previous arguments, [pg xxx] that he made a motion in the senate, that he should be ordered to depart from Rome. He died b.c. 129.
Philo of Larissa, who is often mentioned by Cicero, was his own master, having removed to Rome after the conquest of Athens by Mithridates, where he settled as a teacher of philosophy and rhetoric. He would not admit that there was any difference between the Old and New Academy, in which he differed from his pupil Antiochus. The exact time of his birth or death is not known; but he was not living when Cicero composed his Academics. (ii. 6.)
Antiochus of Ascalon has been called by some writers the founder of the Fifth Academy; he also was a teacher of Cicero during the time he studied at Athens; he had also a school at Alexandria, and another in Syria, where he died. He studied under Philo, but was so far from agreeing with him that he wrote a treatise on purpose to refute what he considered as the scepticism of the Academics. And undoubtedly the later philosophers of that school had exaggerated the teaching of Plato, that the senses were not in all cases trustworthy organs of perception, so as to infer from it a denial of the certainty of any knowledge whatever. Antiochus professed that his object was to revive the real doctrines of Plato in opposition to the modern scepticism of Carneades and Philo. He appears to have considered himself as an eclectic philosopher, combining the best parts of the doctrines of the Academic, Peripatetic, and Stoic schools.
Diodorus of Tyre flourished about b.c. 110. He lived at Athens, where he succeeded Critolaus as the head of the Peripatetic school. Cicero, however, denies that he was a genuine Peripatetic, and says that his doctrine that the summum bonum consisted in a combination of virtue with the absence of pain was an attempt to reconcile the theory of the Stoics with that of the Epicureans.
Panætius was a native of Rhodes; his exact age is not known, but he was a contemporary of Scipio Æmilianus, who died b.c. 129. He went to Athens at an early age, where he is said to have been a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon and Antipater of Tarsus, and also of Polemo Periegetes. He [pg xxxi] became associated with P. Scipio Æmilianus, who valued him highly. The latter part of his life he spent at Athens, where he had succeeded Antipater as head of the Stoic school. He was the author of a treatise on “What is Becoming,” which Cicero professes to have imitated, though carried rather further, in his De Officiis. He softened down the harsher features of the Stoic doctrines, approximating them in some degree to the opinions of Xenocrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and made them attractive by the elegance of his style; indeed, he modified the principles of the school so much, that some writers called him a Platonist. In natural philosophy he abandoned the Stoic doctrine of the conflagration of the world; endeavoured to simplify the division of the faculties of the soul; and doubted the reality of the science of divination. In ethics he followed the method of Aristotle; and, in direct opposition to the earlier Stoics, vindicated the claim of certain pleasurable sensations to be regarded as in accordance with nature.
Polemo was a pupil of Xenocrates, and succeeded him as the head of his school. There is a story that he had been a very dissolute young man, and that one day, at the head of a band of revellers, he burst into the school of Xenocrates, when his attention was so arrested by the discourse of the philosopher, which happened to be on the subject of temperance, that he tore off his festive garland, remained till the end of the lecture, and devoted himself to philosophy all the rest of his life. He does not appear to have varied at all from the doctrines of his master. He died b.c. 273.
Archytas was a native of Tarentum: his age is not quite certain, but he is believed to have been a contemporary of Plato, and he is even said to have saved his life by his interest with the tyrant Dionysius. He was a great general and statesman, as well as a philosopher. In philosophy he was a Pythagorean; and, like most of that school, a great mathematician; and applied his favourite science not only to music, but also to metaphysics. Aristotle is believed to have borrowed from him his System of Categories.
The limits of this volume forbid more than the preceding very brief sketch of the chiefs of the ancient philosophy. For a more detailed account the reader is referred to the Biographical Dictionary edited by Dr. Smith, from which valuable work much of this sketch has been derived. The account of Socrates has been principally derived from Mr. Grote's admirable history of Greece: in which attention has so successfully been devoted to the history of philosophy and the sophists, that a correct idea of the subject can hardly be acquired without a careful study of that work.
It was intended to subjoin a comparison of the systems of the different sects, but it would take more space than can be spared; and it is moreover unnecessary, as, the distinctive tenets of each having been explained, the reader is supplied with sufficient materials to institute such a comparison for himself. He will not wonder that men without the guidance of revelation should at times have lost their way in speculations beyond the reach of human faculties, but will the more admire that genius and virtue which manifested itself in such men as Socrates, Plato, and Cicero, for the perpetual enlightenment of the human race.