ἱστορίαι Historiai
D.L. 8.78-80 Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Volume II (Books VI-X), Diogenes Laertius; served verbatim
If the great sun outshines the other stars, It' the great sea is mightier than the streams, So Epicharmus' wisdom all excelled, Whom Syracuse his fatherland thus crowned. He has left memoirs containing his physical, ethical and medical doctrines, and he has made marginal notes in most of the memoirs, which clearly show that they were written by him. He died at the age of ninety. Chapter i. ARCHYTAS (fourth century b.c.) Archytas of Tarentum. son of Mnesagoras or, if we may believe Aristoxenus, of Hestiaeus, was another of the Pythagoreans. He it was whose letter saved Plato when he was about to be put to death bv Dionvsius. He was generally admired for his excellence in all fields ; thus he Mas generalissimo of his city seven times, while the law excluded all others even from a second year of command. We have two letters written to him by Plato, he having first written to Plato in these terms : " Archytas wishes Plato good health. " You have done well to get rid of your ailment, as we learn both from your own message and through Lamiscus that you have : we attended to the matter of the memoirs and went up to Lucania where we found the true progeny of Ocellus [to wit, his writings]. We did get the works On Larv, On Kingship, Of Piety, and On the Origin of the Universe, all of which we have sent on to you ; but the rest are, at present, nowhere to be found ; if they should turn up, you shall have them."

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

← D.L. 8.76-78 contents D.L. 8.80-83 →

Filed here — the addresses this episode attests; counted by the house’s first pass
Aristoxenus — a candidate entry Plato — a life

Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Volume II (Books VI-X), Diogenes Laertius — translated by R. D. Hicks, 1925
Apparatus shelf — Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, vol. II (R. D. Hicks translation, Loeb L185) · 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 from the scan itself; only the English rectos are served, Hicks's translation)