Pythagoras about the goods of friends ; such a practice in his opinion implied mistrust, and without confidence there is no friendship. In his correspondence he himself mentions that he was content with plain bread and water. And again : " Send me a little pot of cheese, that, when I like, I may fare sumptuously." Such was the man who laid down that pleasure was the end of life. And here is the epigram a in which Athenaeus eulogizes him : Ye toil, O men, for paltry things and incessantly begin strife and war for gain ; but nature's wealth extends to a moderate bound, whereas vain judgements have a limitless range. This message Neocles* wise son heard from the Muses or from the sacred tripod at Delphi. 6 And, as we go on, we shall know this better from his doctrines and his sayings. Among the early philosophers, says Diocles, his favourite was Anaxagoras, although he occasionally disagreed with him, and Archelaus the teacher of Socrates. Diocles adds that he used to train his friends in committing his treatises to memory. Apollodorus in his Chronology tells us that our philosopher was a pupil of Nausiphanes and Praxiphanes d ; but in his letter to Eurylochus, Epicurus himself denies it and says that he was self-taught. Both Epicurus and Hermarchus deny the very existence of Leucippus the philosopher, though by some and by Apollodorus the Epicurean he is said to have been the teacher of Democritus. Demetrius the Magnesian affirms that Epicurus also attended the lectures of Xenocrates. e Cf. infra, §§36, 83. d If this Praxiphanes was the pupil of Theophrastus, considerations of age would make it highly improbable that he could have taught Epicurus ; cf. Usener, Fr. 123.