Lives of Eminent Philosophers (2.8.79-2.8.83)

He made a request to Dionysius on behalf of a friend and, failing to obtain it, fell down at his feet. And when some one jeered at him, he made reply, It is not I who am to blame, but Dionysius who has his ears in his feet. He was once staying in Asia and was taken prisoner by Artaphernes, the satrap. Can you be cheerful under these circumstances?

some one asked. Yes, you simpleton, was the reply, for when should I be more cheerful than now that I am about to converse with Artaphernes? Those who went through the ordinary curriculum, but in their studies stopped short at philosophy, he used to compare to the suitors of Penelope. For the suitors won Melantho, Polydora and the rest of the handmaidens, but were anything but successful in their wooing of the mistress.

A similar remark is ascribed to Ariston. For, he said, when Odysseus went down into the under-world, he saw nearly all the dead and made their acquaintance, but he never set eyes upon their queen herself.

Again, when Aristippus was asked what are the subjects which handsome boys ought to learn, his reply was, Those which will be useful to them when they are grown up. To the critic who censured him for leaving Socrates to go to Dionysius, his rejoinder was, Yes, but I came to Socrates for education and to Dionysius for recreation. When he had made some money by teaching, Socrates asked him, Where did you get so much? to which he replied, Where you got so little.

A courtesan having told him that she was with child by him, he replied, You are no more sure of this than if, after running through coarse rushes, you were to say you had been pricked by one in particular. Someone accused him of exposing his son as if it was not his offspring Whereupon he replied, Phlegm, too, and vermin we know to be of our own begetting, but for all that, because they are useless, we cast them as far from us as possible. He received a sum of money from Dionysius at the same time that Plato carried off a book and, when

he was twitted with this, his reply was,, Well, I want money, Plato wants books. Some one asked him why he let himself be refuted by Dionysius. For the same reason, said he, as the others refute him.

Dionysius met a request of his for money with the words, Nay, but you told me that the wise man would never be in want. To which he retorted, Pay! Pay! and then let us discuss the question; and when he was paid, Now you see, do you not, said he, that I was not found wanting? Dionysius having repeated to him the lines:

Whoso betakes him to a prince’s court

Becomes his slave, albeit of free birth,[*]

he retorted:

If a free man he come, no slave is he.[*]

This is stated by Diocles in his work On the Lives of Philosophers; other writers refer the anecdotes to Plato. After getting in a rage with Aeschines, he presently addressed him thus: Are we not to make it up and desist from vapouring, or will you wait for some one to reconcile us over the wine-bowl? To which he replied, Agreed.

Then remember, Aristippus went on, that, though I am your senior, I made the first approaches. Thereupon Aeschines said, Well done, by Hera, you are quite right; you are a much better man than I am. For the quarrel was of my beginning, you make the first move to friendship. Such are the repartees which are attributed to him.

There have been four men called Aristippus, (1) our present subject, (2) the author of a book about

Arcadia, (3) the grandchild by a daughter of the first Aristippus, who was known as his mother’s pupil, (4) a philosopher of the New Academy.

The following books by the Cyrenaic philosopher are in circulation: a history of Libya in three Books, sent to Dionysius; one work containing twenty-five dialogues, some written in Attic, some in Doric, as follows: