ἱστορίαι Historiai
D.L. 2.62-64 Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Volume I (Books I-V), Diogenes Laertius; served verbatim
seeing how he was pinched by poverty, advised him to borrow from himself by reducing his rations. Aristippus among others had suspicions of the genuineness of his dialogues. At all events, as he was reading one at Megara, Aristippus rallied him by asking, “ Where did you get that, you thief?” Polycritus of Mende, in the first book of his History of Dionysius, says that he lived with the tyrant until his expulsion from Syracuse, and survived until the return of Dion, and that with him was Carcinus the tragic poet. There is also extant an epistle of Aeschines to Dionysius. That he had received a good rhetorical training is clear from his defence of the father of Phaeax the general, and from his defence of Dion. He is a close imitator of Gorgias of Leontini. Moreover, Lysias attacked him in a speech which he entitled “On dishonesty.” And from this too it is clear that he was a rhetorician. A single disciple of his is mentioned, Aristotle, whose nickname was “ Story.” Panaetius thinks that, of all the Socratic dialogues, those by Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes and Aeschines are genuine ; he is in doubt about those ascribed to Phaedo and Euclides ; but he rejects the others one and all. There are eight men who have borne the name of Aeschines: (1) our subject himself; (2) the author of handbooks of rhetoric; (3) the orator who opposed Demosthenes ; (4) an Arcadian, a pupil of Isocrates ; (5) a Mitylenean whom they used to call the “ scourge of rhetoricians”; (6) a Neapolitan, an Academic philosopher, a pupil and favourite of Melanthius of Rhodes; (7) a Milesian who wrote upon politics ; (8) a sculptor.

The Greek stands ready in the workroom; the English is served. Both faces will read together.

← D.L. 2.60-62 contents D.L. 2.65-66 →

Filed here — the addresses this episode attests; counted by the house’s first pass
Antisthenes — a candidate entry Aristippus — a candidate entry Demosthenes — a life Euclides — a candidate entry Isocrates — a candidate entry Lysias — a candidate entry Milesian — a candidate entry Plato — a life

Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Volume I (Books I-V), Diogenes Laertius — translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925
Apparatus shelf — Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, vol. I (R. D. Hicks translation, Loeb L184) · R. D. Hicks, Loeb Classical Library, London: William Heinemann / New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, MCMXXV (1925)
license: public-domain (US: published 1925, pre-1930 — the MCMXXV title page verified by the 2026-07-08 acquisition lane, pin in ops/sources/MANIFEST.md; only the English rectos are served, Hicks's translation)