(200-250 A. D.?)
It is curious how often we are dependent, for our knowledge of some
larger subject, upon a single ancient author, who would be hardly
worthy of notice but for the accidental loss of the books composed by
fitter and abler men. Thus, our only general description of Greece at
the close of the classical period is written by a man who describes
many objects that he certainly did not see, who leaves unmentioned
numberless things we wish explained, and who has a genius for so
misplacing an adverb as to bring confusion into the most commonplace
statement. But not even to Pausanias do we proffer such grudging
gratitude and such ungrateful objurgations as to Diogenes Laertius,
our chief--often our sole--authority for the 'Lives and Sayings of the
Philosophers.' His book is a fascinating one, and even amusing, if we
can forget what we so much wanted in its stead. At second or third
hand, from the compendiums of the schools rather than from the
original works of the great masters themselves, Diogenes does give us
a fairly intelligible sketch, as a rule, of the outward life lived by
each sage. This slight frame is crammed with anecdotes, evidently
culled with most eager and uncritical hand from miscellaneous
collections. Many of these stories are so fragmentary as to be
pointless. Others are unquestionably attached to the wrong person.
This method is at its maddest in the author's sketch of his namesake,
the Recluse of the Tub. (One of Ali Baba's _jars_, by the way, would
give a better notion of the real hermitage.) Since this "philosopher"
had himself little character and no doctrines, the loose string of
anecdotes, puns, and saucy answers suits all our needs. Throughout the
work are scattered, apocryphal letters, and feeble poetic epigrams
composed by the compiler himself. The leaning of our most
unphilosophic author was apparently toward Epicurus. The loss of that
teacher's own works causes us to prize doubly the extensive fragments
of them preserved in this relatively copious and serious study. The
lover of the great Epicurean poem of Lucretius on the 'Nature of
Things' will often be surprised to find here the source of many among
the Roman poet's most striking doctrines and images. The sketch of
Zeno is also an important authority on Stoicism. Instruction in these
particular chapters, then, and rich diversion elsewhere, await the
reader of this most gossipy, formless, and uncritical volume. The
English reader, by the way, ought to be provided with something
better than the "Bohn" version. This adds a goodly harvest of
ludicrous misprints and other errors of every kind to Diogenes's own
mixture of borrowed wisdom and native silliness. The classical student
will prefer the _Didot_ edition by Cobet, with the Latin version in
parallel columns.
It has been thought desirable to offer here a version, slightly
abridged, of Diogenes's chapter on Socrates. The original sources, in
Plato's and Xenophon's extant works, will almost always explain, or
correct, the statements of Diogenes. Such wild shots as the assertion
that the plague repeatedly visited Athens, striking down _every
inhabitant_ save the temperate Socrates, hardly need a serious
rejoinder. Diogenes cannot even speak with approximate accuracy of
Socrates's famous Daemon or Inward Monitor. We know, on the best
authority, that it prophesied nothing, even proposed nothing, but only
vetoed the rasher impulses of its human companion. But to apply the
tests of mere accuracy to Diogenes would be like criticizing Uncle
Remus for his sins against English syntax.
Of the author's life we know nothing. Our assignment of him to the
third century is based merely on the fact that he quotes writers of
the second, and is himself in turn cited by somewhat later authors.