Lives of Eminent Philosophers (2.8.104-2.10.108)

(5) An authority upon musical composers from Terpander onwards. (6) A Stoic. (7) A writer upon the Romans. (8) A Syracusan who wrote upon Tactics. (9) A Byzantine, famous for his political speeches. (10) Another, equally famous, mentioned by Aristotle in his Epitome of Orators. (11) A Theban sculptor. (12) A painter, mentioned by Polemo. (13) An Athenian painter, of whom Menodotus writes. (14) An Ephesian painter, who is mentioned by Theophanes in his work upon painting. (15) A poet who wrote epigrams. (16) A writer on poets. (17) A physician, pupil of Athenaeus. (18) A Stoic philosopher of Chios. (19) A Milesian, also a Stoic philosopher (20) A tragic poet.

Phaedo was a native of Elis, of noble family, who on the fall of that city was taken captive and forcibly consigned to a house of ill-fame. But he would close the door and so contrive to join Socrates’ circle, and in the end Socrates induced Alcibiades or Crito with their friends to ransom him; from that time onwards he studied philosophy as became a free man. Hieronymus in his work On Suspense of Judgement attacks him and calls him a slave. Of the dialogues which bear his name the Zopyrus and Simon are genuine; the Nicias is doubtful; the Medius is said by some to be the work of Aeschines, while

He was succeeded by Plistanus of Elis, and a generation later by Menedemus of Eretria and Asclepiades of Phlius, who came over from Stilpo’s school. Till then the school was known as that of Elis, but from Menedemus onward it was called the Eretrian school. Of Menedemus we shall have to speak hereafter, because he too started a new school.

Euclides was a native of Megara on the Isthmus,[*]or according to some of Gela, as Alexander states in his Successions of Philosophers. He applied himself to the writings of Parmenides, and his followers were called Megarians after him, then Eristics, and at a later date Dialecticians, that name having first been given to them by Dionysius of Chalcedon because they put their arguments into the form of question and answer. Hermodorus tells us that, after the death of Socrates, Plato and the rest of the philosophers came to him, being alarmed at the cruelty of the tyrants. He held the supreme good to be really one, though called by many names, sometimes wisdom, sometimes God, and again Mind, and so forth. But all that is contradictory of the good he used to reject, declaring that it had no existence.

When he impugned a demonstration, it was not the premisses but the conclusion that he attacked. He rejected the argument from analogy, declaring that it must be taken either from similars or from

But I care not for these babblers, nor for anyone besides, not for Phaedo whoever he be, nor wrangling Euclides, who inspired the Megarians with a frenzied love of controversy.

He wrote six dialogues, entitled Lamprias, Aeschines, Phoenix, Crito, Alcibiades, and a Discourse on Love. To the school of Euclides belongs Eubulides of Miletus, the author of many dialectical arguments in an interrogatory form, namely, The Liar, The Disguised, Electra, The Veiled Figure, The Sorites, The Horned One, and The Bald Head. Of him it is said by one of the Comic poets[*]:

Eubulides the Eristic, who propounded his quibbles about horns and confounded the orators with falsely pretentious arguments, is gone with all the braggadocio of a Demosthenes.