535 Aristippos was born at Cyrene, but came to Athens, being drawn there, so Aeschines* reports, by the fame of Socrates. He taught as a sophist according to Phanias of Eresos,* the Peripatetic, and so became the first follower of Socrates to charge fees, and sent money to his master. One day, after he had sent him eighty minae, Socrates returned the money to him, saying that his divine sign* would not allow him to accept it; for he was in fact displeased by this course of action. Xenophon was ill-disposed toward him, and in consequence wrote the discourse on pleasure, placed in Socrates’ mouth, which is directed against him.* Theodoros* too speaks badly of him in his work On the Philosophical Schools, as does Plato too in his work On the Soul,* as I have mentioned elsewhere.
He was a man who was skilled in adapting himself to place, and to time, and to person, and played his role in the manner that befitted each circumstance; he thus enjoyed the favour of Dionysios* above all others, because he always made the best of any situation. He drew pleasure from what was presently available to him, and made no effort to procure the enjoyment of what was not present; and in consequence Diogenes used to call him the royal dog.* Timon sneered at him too on account of his luxurious ways, saying, ‘Such is the luxurious nature of Aristippos who fondled error.‘*…
The following works are ascribed to the Cyrenaic philosopher,* a history of Libya in three books, dedicated to Dionysios, and a single work containing twenty-five dialogues, some written in the Attic dialect and others in the Doric, namely: Artabazos; To the Shipwrecked; To the Exiles; To a Beggar; To Lais; To Poros; To Lais about her Mirror; Hermeias; A Dream; To the Master of the Cups; Philomelos; To his Friends; To those who Reproach him for having a Taste for Old Wine and Courtesans; To those who Reproach him for the Extravagance of his Table; Letter to his Daughter Arete; To One in Training for Olympia; Questionings; another book of Questionings; Treatise for Dionysos; another, On the Statue; another, On the Daughter of Dionysios; To One who Considered himself Dishonoured; To One who Undertook to Offer Advice.
Some say that he also wrote six books of diatribes, while others, including Sosicrates of Rhodes, say that he wrote nothing at all. According to Sotion in his second book, and Panaitios, he composed the following works:* On Education; On Virtue; Exhortation to Philosophy; Artabazos; The Shipwrecked; The Exiles; six books of Diatribes; three Treatises;* To Lais; To Poros; To Socrates; On Fortune.
He laid down that the final end is smooth movement resulting in sensation.*
(Diogenes Laertius 2.65–6 and 83–5)
536 Aristippos was a companion of Socrates who founded the so-called Cyrenaic doctrine from which Epicurus drew material* when expounding his own account of the ultimate end. Aristippos was very voluptuous in his way of life and a lover of pleasure, but he never lectured in public about the nature of the end.* He did say, however, that the foundation of happiness lies potentially in the enjoyment of pleasures. For by constantly speaking about pleasure, he led his followers to suppose that he was suggesting that living pleasurably is the ultimate end.
(Aristocles, cited in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 14.18.31, 763d–764a; G173)
537 Aristippos was thought to have made a very sound point when he urged people not to worry afterwards about things that have gone by, or worry in advance about those that are yet to come. For such an attitude is a sign of confidence and gives proof of a cheerful frame of mind. He recommended that one should concentrate on the present day, and indeed on the very part of it in which one is acting and thinking. For only the present, he said, truly belongs to us, and not what has passed by or what we are anticipating: for the one is gone and done with, and it is uncertain whether the other will come to be.
(Aelian, Historical Miscellany 14.6; G174)
538 All the philosophical schools have contended about the choice of enjoyment; and that which is known as the Cyrenaic school took its origin from Aristippos the Socratic, who taught that the enjoyment of pleasure is the end of life, and that happiness resides in that. And he taught also that pleasure is confined to the moment, thus assuming the same attitude as the debauched, who attach no value to the memory of past pleasures or hope of future ones, but judge that the good is to be found in the present alone, and that past or future enjoyment means nothing to us, the former because it no longer exists, and the latter because it does not yet exist and is moreover uncertain; just as those who live for luxury and pleasure are concerned only to fare well in the present moment. And his life was in full accord with his teachings, for he lived in the utmost luxury and extravagance, amidst perfume, fine clothing, and women. He consorted openly with the courtesan Lais,* and rejoiced in all the extravagances of Dionysios, even though he was often insulted by him.
(Athenaeus 12, 544ab; G174 and 53)
539 On meeting Isomachos* at the Olympic Games, Aristippos asked him what Socrates was saying in his discourses to draw young people to him as he did, and on picking up a few scraps and samples of his conversation, was so strongly affected that he virtually collapsed and became altogether pale and lean, until he finally sailed off to Athens and quenched his burning thirst at the spring, and came to know the man, and his discourses and his philosophy, the aim of which was to recognize one’s own faults and to free oneself from them.
(Plutarch, On Curiosity 2, 516c; G2)
540 To a lawyer who successfully pleaded a case on his behalf and then asked him, ‘What benefit did Socrates bring you?’,* he replied, ‘This at least, that what you said about me in your speech was true.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.71; G10)
541 When he was once reproached for having paid an orator to plead a case for him, he replied, ‘Yes, and when I want to give a dinner, I hire a cook.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.72; G12)
542 When asked how Socrates had died, he said, ‘As I would wish to die.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.76; G13)
543a When asked what he had gained from philosophy, he said, ‘To be able to associate with everyone with absolute confidence.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.68; G104)
543b When asked what he had gained from philosophy, he said, ‘To be able to associate without fear with all whom I encounter.’
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 36; G104)
544a When he was due to meet Pharnabazos,* satrap of the King, and someone said to him, ‘Have courage, Aristippos’, he replied, ‘If you have anything else to say, say it; for after having associated with Socrates, I’m not afraid of any man’s company.’
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 43; G108)
544b When he was once staying in Asia and was captured by the satrap Artaphernes,* and someone said to him, ‘You are cheerful even in the face of this?’, he replied, ‘Yes, you fool, how can I have greater reason to be cheerful than when I am about to converse with Artaphernes?’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.79; G107)
545 When asked what he had gained from philosophy, he said, ‘To be able to do without constraint what others only do through fear of the law.’*
(Excerpts from Manuscripts of Florilegia of John Damascene 2.13.146; G105)
546 When asked in what respect philosophers surpass other people, he replied, ‘If all the laws were repealed, we would continue to live in just the same way.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.68; G105)
547 When Plato once expressed himself in a manner that was rather too dogmatic, to his way of thinking, Aristippos said, ‘Our friend would never have spoken like that’,* meaning Socrates.
(Aristotle, Rhetoric 2.23, 1398b 29–31; G16)
548 Plato came to visit him one day while he was unwell, and when Plato asked how he was faring, Aristippos replied that a man of good character will fare well even when he has a fever, while one of bad character will fare badly even when he does not.
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 30; G18)
549 Since he had gained money from his teaching, Socrates asked him, ‘Where did you get so much money?’, to which he replied, ‘Where you got so little.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.80; G4)
550 To one who accused him of accepting money even though he was a pupil of Socrates, he replied, ‘To be sure, I do, for Socrates too, when someone sent him food and wine, would take a little and send the rest back. But he has the foremost men of Athens as his provisioners, while I have only Eutychides, a purchased slave.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.74; G3)
551 Someone brought him his son as a pupil, and he demanded five hundred drachmas as a fee; and when the man said, ‘Why, I could buy a slave for that’, Aristippos replied, ‘So go off and buy one, and then you’ll have two.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.72; G5)
552 He said that teachers deserve to receive handsome fees from their pupils, from the gifted ones because they learn so much, and from the incompetent ones because they cause so much bother.*
(Excerpts from Manuscripts of Florilegia of John Damascene, 2.13, 145; G6)
553a He said that he took money from his friends not for his own personal use, but so that they might come to know what money ought to be used for.
(Diogenes Laertius 2.72; G7)
553b He said that he demanded fees from his pupils, not so as to improve his own life, but to teach them to spend their money on the right things.
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 24; G7)
554a When Plato once reproached him for having bought a large amount of fish, he said that he had paid only two obols* for them; and when Plato then remarked that he too would have bought them at that price, Aristippos replied, ‘Then it looks, Plato, as if it is not I who am greedy, but you who are too fond of your money.’
(Athenaeus 8, 343cd; G17)
554b When someone reproached him for being extravagant in his food, he replied, ‘Wouldn’t you have bought this if you could have acquired it for three obols?’, and when the man agreed, he said, ‘It would seem, then, that it is not I who am over-fond of pleasure, but you who are over-fond of money.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.75; G69)
555a When Plato once reproached him for having bought a costly fish for twelve drachmas, he asked Plato whether he would have bought the same fish for a drachma; and when Plato agreed that he would, he said that this was a matter of no account, ‘for what is worth one drachma to Plato is worth a dozen to Aristippos’.
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 40; G17)
555b It is said that he once ordered a partridge to be bought for him at a cost of fifty drachmas; and when someone reproached him, he said, ‘Wouldn’t you have bought it for an obol?’, and when the man said yes, replied, ‘Well, fifty drachmas mean no more to me.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.66; G17)
556 Polyxenos the sophist* once paid him a visit, and on seeing that women were present and expensive food was laid out, he reproached him for this. Shortly afterwards, Aristippos asked him, ‘Can you join us today?’, and when Polyxenos accepted the invitation, he said, ‘Then why the reproaches? For it seems that it is not the food to which you object, but the expense.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.76–7; G17)
557 When he was once reproached for his extravagant way of life, he said, ‘If there were anything wrong with that, it wouldn’t be so much in evidence at the festivals of the gods.’*
(Diogenes Laertius 2.68; G68)
558a Taking delight one day in the scent of a perfume, Aristippos exclaimed, ‘A curse on those effeminates for having brought such a fine thing into disrepute!’
(Seneca, On Benefits 7.25; G65)
558b When Charondas, or, according to others, Phaedo,* asked, ‘Who is it that stinks of perfume?’, Aristippos said, ‘Why me, poor wretch that I am, and the still more wretched King of the Persians; but consider that, just as no other creature is any the worse for smelling good, the same is true of me too. So a curse on those catamites who have cast discredit on our lovely perfume!’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.76; G63)
559 Aristippos lived a soft and luxurious life. Through a series of questions, he once developed this sophistic argument: if a horse is anointed with perfume, that does not cause it to lose any of its distinctive excellence as a horse, or if a dog is perfumed, any of its distinctive excellence as a dog, so no more does it do so for a man, he concluded.
(Clement of Alexandria, Pedagogy 2.8.64.1; G66)
560 If a shoe is too big, it is unusable, but that is not at all the case with an excess of riches; for while the excessive size of the shoe impedes one’s movements when one tries to make use of it, it is possible to make use of any amount of riches either in whole or in part according to the circumstances.
(Stobaeus 4.31.128; G75)
561 When his servant was carrying some of his money on the road and was struggling under the load, he said, ‘Pour most of it away and carry only as much as you can manage.’*
(Diogenes Laertius 2.77; G79)
562a When he was once making a sea-voyage, he came to realize that he was on a pirate-vessel. So he took out his money and began to count it, and then, as if by accident, let it drop into the sea, making a show of sorrow at the loss. According to some accounts he added that it was ‘better for the money to be lost through Aristippos than Aristippos through the money’.
(Diogenes Laertius 2.77; G79)
562b He was given handsome sums of money by Dionysios, and took it with him when he sailed away. On realizing that the sailors were plotting against him because of it, he moved away from the middle of the ship to the side, and ordered that his money-jar should be emptied on to the deck, as though he were intending to count the money. As the ship tossed in the sea, however, he cast it over the side into the depths. When the sailors grew angry at this, he said, ‘Better that the money should be lost through me than that I should be lost through the money.’
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 39; G82)
563a While sailing to Athens, Aristippos the Cyrenaic philosopher suffered a shipwreck, and was taken in by the Athenians; when asked what he would say to his friends when he got back to Cyrene, he replied, ‘To take only such supplies with them as they could swim off with if they were shipwrecked.’*
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 23; G50)
563b After his ship went down while he was making a sea-voyage, Aristippos was washed up on the shores of Syracuse, but he was immediately reassured when he saw a geometrical diagram in the sand, concluding from this that he had arrived among Greeks and civilized people, rather than among barbarians. Subsequently, after arriving at the gymnasium of the Syracusans, he recited these verses, ‘Who will welcome the wandering Oedipus this day with even the meanest gifts?’,* and some people came up to him and, recognizing who he was, at once provided him with all that he needed. Some people who were about to sail off to Cyrene, his home-city, asked if he had any message to send to his fellow-citizens, and he said to tell them to equip themselves with such things as they could swim off with if they too should suffer a shipwreck.
(Galen, Protreptic 5; G50)
563c Aristippos the Socratic philosopher, after being cast up on the beach at Rhodes by a shipwreck, noticed that some geometrical figures had been inscribed there. ‘Be of good hope,’ he exclaimed to his companions, ‘I see signs of human presence!’; and he headed at once for the city of Rhodes, and arrived directly at the gymnasium, where he discussed philosophical matters and was offered gifts, sufficient not only to provide for himself, but also to furnish his companions with clothing and all the necessities of life. Subsequently, when his companions wanted to return to their homeland, they asked him what message he wanted to be carried home, and he instructed them to say: that their children ought to be provided with such objects and travel-supplies as it would be possible for them to swim away with in the case of a shipwreck.
(Vitruvius, On Architecture 6.1.1; G50)
563d Aristippos advised the young only to take such travel-supplies with them as they could swim off with if they were shipwrecked.
(Excerpts from Manuscripts of Florilegia of John Damascene 12.13.138; G50)
564 On meeting him after a shipwreck,* enveloped in a double cloak (that is to say, folded in two) and wretchedly dressed, Plato praised him, saying, ‘Every form of outward appearance and every circumstance suits Aristippos, full of wisdom as he is, who thus knows how to make use of small things as of great.’
(Pomponius Porphyrion on Horace, Letter 1.17.23; G45)
565a And yet people marvel at Aristippos the Socratic for the fact that, whether he was wearing a simple cloak or fine Milesian robes, he retained a dignified bearing.
(Plutarch, On the Fortune of Alexander 1.8, 330c; G56)
565b Straton,* or, according to some accounts, Plato, once said to him, ‘To you alone is it granted to be equally happy to appear in fine robes or in rags.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.67; G57)
566 When he was once asked how a wise man differs from one who is not, he replied, ‘Send the two out naked among strangers, and then you will know.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.73; G120)
567 He said that one should accustom oneself to living on little so as to do nothing shameful for the purpose of gaining wealth.
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 29; G76)
568 Most people pass over what is best and most agreeable in their circumstances to hasten to the things that are tiresome and unpleasant. Aristippos was not a man of that kind, however, but was capable, when balancing up what was good and bad in his present situation, of rising up toward the better side and so lightening his spirits. When he had once lost a fine piece of land, he thus asked one of those people who made a great show of sympathizing and condoling with him, ‘Isn’t it true that you have only one small piece of land while I have three farms left over?’, and when the man agreed, then said, ‘So isn’t it I who should be condoling with you?’
(Plutarch, On Tranquillity of Mind 8, 469c; G74)
569 He consorted with the courtesan Lais,* as Sotion relates in the second book of his Successions of the Philosophers. To those who reproached him for this, he replied, ‘I possess Lais but am not possessed by her.’* For the best thing is to master pleasures without becoming subjected by them, not to abstain from them.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.74–5; G96)
570 On seeing Aristippos dressed in sumptuous robes, Socrates smeared some dirt on the seat on which he was about to sit; and when Aristippos sat down on it without the least concern, he remarked, ‘I thought all along that you possess these clothes and are not possessed by them.’
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 493; G97)
571 The man who masters pleasure is not the one who abstains from it, but the one who enjoys it without allowing himself to be carried away by it; in just the same way as the master of a horse or ship is not the one who has nothing to do with it, but the one who guides it where he wants.
(Stobaeus 3.17.17; G98)
572 When he was once entering the house of a courtesan, and one of the lads who was with him blushed, he said, ‘It’s not going in that is bad, but being unable to get out again.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.69; G87)
573 When Dionysios once told him to choose out one courtesan from a group of three, he carried off all three of them, saying, ‘It did Paris no good* at all to choose out one from three!’ But when he had taken them as far as the doorway, he let them go.
(Diogenes Laertius 2.67; G86)
574 To someone who reproached him for living with a courtesan, he said, ‘Well then, if one is taking a house, does it make any difference whether many people have lived there before, or no one at all?’ ‘No difference.’ ‘Or if one is sailing in a ship, whether thousands have sailed in it before, or no one has?’ ‘Not the least difference.’ ‘Then it makes no difference at all’, Aristippos concluded, ‘whether the woman with whom one lives has lived with many men before or with none.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.74; G90)
575 When Diogenes said to him, ‘Aristippos, you’re living with a public whore; so either turn Cynic like me or leave off’, Aristippos replied by asking, ‘Does it by any chance seem improper to you, Diogenes, to live in a house where others have lived previously?’ ‘By no means.’ ‘Or to sail in a ship in which many others have sailed?’ ‘No again.’ ‘So neither is there anything improper in living with a woman with whom many others have previously slept.’
(Athenaeus 13, 588f; G92)
576 Each year Aristippos used to spend two months with her [Lais] in Aegina during the festival of Poseidon; and when his servant reproached him for this, saying, ‘You gave all this money to this woman, and she takes a tumble with Diogenes* for free’, he replied, ‘I reward Lais richly so that I may enjoy her, not to prevent anyone else from doing so.’
(Athenaeus 13, 588e; G92)
577 When someone spoke badly of Lais to him, saying that she did not love him, he replied that he did not suppose that wine or fish loved him either, but he happily took his pleasure in both of them.
(Plutarch, Amatorius 4, 750e; G93)
578 When Dionysios* once asked Aristippos why he had come to him, he said it was to hand over a share of what he had in return for a share of what he did not have. Or in some accounts, he offered this reply: ‘When I had need of wisdom, I went to Socrates, but now that I have need of money, I’ve come to you.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.77–8; G38)
579 To someone who criticized him for having left Socrates to go to Dionysios, he replied, ‘But I went to Socrates for education, and to Dionysios for diversion.’*
(Diogenes Laertius 2.80; G38)
580 Hegesandros* recounts further that the servants of Dionysios once spattered Aristippos with water, and when Antiphon* mocked him for putting up with this, he replied, ‘And if I had been out fishing, would I have gone away and abandoned my work?’
(Athenaeus 12, 544d; G36)
581 He bore it patiently when Dionysios spat at him, and when someone reproached him for this, he said, ‘If the fishermen put up with being spattered with seawater to catch a gudgeon, shouldn’t I put up with being sprinkled with wine to take a blenny?’*
(Diogenes Laertius 2.67; G36)
582a When he was once constrained by Dionysios to talk about some philosophical point, he said, ‘It would be absurd that you should learn from me how to speak, and yet venture to teach me when to speak.’ Dionysios was so annoyed by this that he made him take a place at the end of the table, to which Aristippos responded by saying, ‘You evidently wanted to make this a place of honour!’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.73; G36)
582b Hegesandros recounts that when he was once assigned a rather dishonourable place at table, he showed no sign of being disconcerted, and when Dionysios asked him what he thought of this place compared to the one that he had occupied the day before, he replied that it was much the same: ‘For the place up there’, he said, ‘has no value today without me, but yesterday was the most splendid of all because of me; while today this one has become a seat of honour because of my presence, and yesterday’s has lost its lustre because I am no longer there.’
(Athenaeus 12, 544c; G36)
583a One day, during a drinking-party, Dionysios ordered everyone to dress in purple and dance. Plato declined, saying,
‘Never could I put on women’s raiment’,
But Aristippos for his part put on the robes, and as he was about to dance responded wittily,
‘For even amidst the Bacchic revels
She who enters chaste will not be corrupted.’*
(Diogenes Laertius 2.78; G31)
583b Dionysios pressed Aristippos to take off his old cloak and dress in purple robes, and Aristippos complied; he then asked Plato to do the same, but Plato said,
‘Never could I put on women’s raiment’,
to which Aristippos responded, ‘But the same poet says,
Even amid the Bacchic revels
She who enters chaste will not be corrupted.’
(Stobaeus 3.5.38; G34)
584 He [Dionysios] regularly offered him [Plato] large gifts of money, but Plato would not accept them, and Aristippos, who was present to see this, said that Dionysios had adopted a safe form of magnanimity; for he offered little to people like him who needed more, but a great deal to Plato who would not take anything.
(Plutarch, Life of Dion 19.7; G28)
585 When Dionysios once said to him,
‘Whoever comes to a tyrant’s court
Becomes his slave though free he comes’,
he retorted,
‘No slave is he, if free he come.’*
So Diocles states in his work On the Lives of the Philosophers, though others attribute this story to Plato.
(Diogenes Laertius 2.82; G30)
586 When Dionysios asked him why philosophers come to rich men’s doors,* while the rich do not come to those of philosophers, he replied, ‘Because philosophers know what they have need of, while the rich do not.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.69; G106)
587 When someone said that he constantly saw philosophers at the doors of the rich, he replied, ‘Yes, just as doctors are always visiting the sick; but no one would prefer for that reason to be ill rather than to be a doctor.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.70; G106)
588 When someone asked him why he associated with people of bad character, he replied, ‘Just as doctors are always with the sick.’*
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 37; G106)
589 He asked Dionysios for some money, only to be told, ‘But didn’t you say that the wise man would never be at a loss?’ Aristippos replied, ‘Well, give me the money and then we’ll look into the question’, and once he had been given it, said, ‘So you see now that I was not at a loss?’*
(Diogenes Laertius 2.82; G40)
590 He once received some money from Dionysios while Plato took a book; and when someone criticized him for this, he said, ‘Well, it’s money that I have need of, while Plato has need of books.’*
(Diogenes Laertius 2.81; G39)
591 When he was asked by the tyrant Dionysios when he would stop asking him for money, he replied, ‘When you stop giving it; and that will come about when we no longer find pleasure in one another’s company.’
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 35; G40)
592 When he was once seeking a favour from Dionysios on behalf of a friend and met with no success, he fell down at the tyrant’s feet; and when someone mocked him for that, he retorted, ‘It’s not I who am to blame but Dionysios, for having his ears in his feet.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.79; G37)
593 When Dionysios once said to Aristippos, ‘I’ve gained no benefit from you’, he replied, ‘All too true, for if you had, you would have rid yourself of your tyranny as though of a sacred disease.’*
(Stobaeus 4.8.23; G41)
594 One day Simos, Dionysios’ steward, who was a Phrygian and a dreadful rogue, showed him some luxurious houses paved with mosaics; and as he was doing so, Aristippos coughed up some phlegm and spat it into his face, and when he grew angry at that, said, ‘I couldn’t see any more suitable place.’*
(Diogenes Laertius 2.75; G42)
595 When he was once reproached by Plato for his extravagant way of life, he replied, ‘Doesn’t Dionysios strike you as being a good man?’, and when Plato agreed, said, ‘Yet Dionysios lives more extravagantly than I do, so it seems that there is nothing to prevent a man from living both extravagantly and well.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.76; G70)
596a One day Aristippos saw Diogenes washing raw vegetables* at a spring and said, ‘If you attended the courts of princes, Diogenes, you wouldn’t be feeding on those’, to which he retorted, ‘And if you for your part fed on such food, Aristippos, you wouldn’t be haunting the courts of princes.’
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 192; G48)
596b As Diogenes was once washing vegetables, he saw him [Aristippos] walking by and said, ‘If you’d learned to make do with these, you wouldn’t be haunting the courts of princes’, to which Aristippos retorted, ‘And if you for your part knew how to associate with human beings, you wouldn’t be washing vegetables.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.68; G44)
597 It is said that Aristippos, after having invited Diogenes to the baths, made sure that everyone left before them, and then put on the shabby cloak of Diogenes, leaving him his own purple robes. When Diogenes then came out, being unwilling to put on the robes, and asked for his own cloak to be returned to him, Aristippos reproached the Cynic for being a slave to his own reputation, because he preferred to freeze rather than be seen in purple robes.*
(Acron, Scholium to Horace, Letter 1.17, 30; G45)
598a As he was once sailing to Corinth, he was caught by a storm and was thrown into great alarm; and when someone remarked to him, ‘We ordinary folk are not scared, and yet you philosophers are behaving like cowards’, he replied, ‘Yes, to be sure, since the lives that we are worrying about are not of equivalent value.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.71; G49)
598b When Aristippos was once on a sea-voyage, a storm blew up and he became greatly alarmed. One of his fellow-travellers remarked to him, ‘So you’re afraid too, Aristippos, just like anyone else?’, to which he replied, ‘Yes, of course; for in your case, during this present danger, you have only your wretched life to worry about, while for me it is a life of true happiness that is in peril.’
(Aelian, Historical Miscellany 9.20; G49)
599a Aristippos had once grown angry with Aeschines,* and when someone asked him, ‘What’s become of your friendship, Aristippos?’, he replied, ‘It’s gone to sleep, but now I’ll wake it up again’; and he went to Aeschines and said to him, ‘Do I strike you as being in such a thoroughly bad way, and so beyond cure, as to be inaccessible to your reproaches?’, to which Aeschines replied, ‘There’s nothing to wonder at in the fact that you, who surpass me by nature in every respect, should have been the first to recognize the right course of action.’
(Plutarch, On the Control of Anger 14, 462d; G24)
599b After once growing angry with Aeschines, he said to him shortly afterwards, ‘Shouldn’t we make up our quarrel and stop talking nonsense? Or are you waiting for someone to reconcile us over a bowl of wine?’, to which Aeschines replied, ‘I’m only too glad.’ ‘Remember then,’ said Aristippos, ‘that although I am the older, it was I who made the first approach’, and Aeschines replied, ‘Yes indeed, by Hera, you’re absolutely right, for you’re a much better man than I am—it was my part to start the quarrel, and yours to open the way back to friendship.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.82–3; G24)
600 On seeing someone who was in a temper and was growing the more angry the more he spoke, Aristippos the Cyrenaic philosopher said, ‘We should not allow our words to be guided by anger, but use our words to put a check on our anger.’
(Stobaeus 3.20.63; G109)
601 Aristippos was once outwitted in argument by a man who was very self-assured, but was otherwise devoid of sense and reason. On seeing him rejoicing and swelling with pride, Aristippos remarked, ‘And yet I, who have been defeated, am going off to enjoy a sweeter sleep than you who have defeated me.’
(Plutarch, On Progress in Virtue 9, 80c; G111)
602a When subjected to abuse one day, he moved away; and when the man chased after him and said, ‘Why are you fleeing?’, he replied, ‘Just as you have the freedom to insult me, I have the freedom not to listen.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.70; G112)
602b Moving away from a man who was abusing him, Aristippos said, ‘Just as you are master of your tongue, I am master of my ears.’
(Gnomologium Monacense Latinum 35.1; G112)
603 One day Aristippos ran across a man who had wronged him, and who now turned aside to avoid meeting him. ‘It is not you who should be fleeing from me’, cried Aristippos, ‘but I from you, since it is you who are the villain!’
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 27; G113)
604 Aristippos said that it is generally ridiculous to pray to the gods for benefits and ask them for any particular thing,* for it is not when patients ask their doctors for some food or drink that they give it to them, but when they judge that it will be of benefit to them.
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 32; G132)
605 When asked what is admirable in life, Aristippos said, ‘A man of sound and moderate character, because even when he falls in with many bad people, he will not be corrupted.’
(Stobaeus 3.37.24; G35)
606 It is better to be a beggar, he said, than to be uneducated; for beggars merely lack money while the uneducated are lacking in humanity.*
(Diogenes Laertius 2.70; G125)
607 To someone who asked him in what respect his son would be better for having an education, he said, ‘In this, if nothing else, that when he’s at the theatre he won’t just be one stone sitting on another.’*
(Diogenes Laertius 2.72; G128)
608 When he was reproached by his fellow-citizens for spending so much time with the young, talking to them about wisdom, he replied, ‘And yet I see that you, my dear fellow-citizens, never set out to break in old horses, but only the foals.’
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 45; G130)
609 To someone who boasted that he could drink large amounts without getting drunk, he said, ‘Yes, and so can a mule.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.73; G118)
610 When a courtesan said to him, ‘I’m expecting a child by you’, he replied, ‘You can no more be sure of that than, after passing through a clump of thistles,* you could say that you had been pricked by one particular thistle.’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.81; G88)
611 When someone reproached him for not having returned some money that he had borrowed, he said, ‘But shouldn’t you be reproaching yourself for not having rightly judged the man to whom you were giving the money?’
(Gnomologium Vaticanum 31; G85)
612 When someone presented him with a knotty riddle and said, ‘Untie that one!’, he replied, ‘Why do you want it untied, you silly man, when it provides us with quite enough of a problem even while it is still tied up!’
(Diogenes Laertius 2.70; G116)
613 [Socrates:] ‘If, then, we classify those who exercise self-control in all these respects as being fit to rule, should we not classify those who are incapable of doing so as being people who can have no claim to rule?’ He [Aristippos] agreed to this too.
‘Well now, since you know the category to which each of these two kinds of people deserves to be assigned, have you ever given any thought as to which of these categories you should properly assign yourself?’
‘I have indeed,’ said Aristippos, ‘and I would not dream of classing myself among those who aspire to rule. For when one considers what a business it is to provide for one’s own needs, it seems to me that one would have to be a complete idiot not to confine oneself to that, but also to saddle oneself with the further responsibility of having to provide for the needs of all one’s fellow-citizens as well. That one should deprive oneself of so many things that one desires in order to put oneself at the head of a state, and so expose oneself to the vagaries of the law if one should fail to fulfil every last wish of the community is surely the very height of folly. For states claim the right to treat their rulers just as I treat my domestic slaves. I expect my servants to provide me in full measure with all that I may need, but that they should not take any of it for themselves, whereas states regard it as the duty of their rulers to provide them with as many good things as possible, while they themselves touch none of it. So if anyone should want to incur no end of bother both for himself and others, I would educate him in the manner suggested, and allow him to take his place among those who are fit to rule; but for my own part I would class myself among those who want to live as easy and pleasant a life as possible.’
Socrates then asked, ‘So would you like us to examine whether those who rule or those who are ruled live a more pleasant life?’ ‘Yes indeed,’ said Aristippos. ‘Let us start, then, by considering the nations that we are familiar with. In Persia it is the Persians who rule, while the Syrians, Lydians, and Phrygians are ruled. In Europe the Scythians rule, while the Maeonians are ruled, and in Africa, it is the Carthaginians who rule while the Africans are ruled. Which of these two classes, do you suppose, lives the more pleasant life? Or among the Greeks, to whom you yourself belong, who seems to you to live a more pleasant life, those who rule or those who are ruled?’
‘But for my part,’ said Aristippos, ‘I wouldn’t class myself among the slaves either, but it seems to me that there is a middle path which I try to follow, which leads neither through rule nor through slavery, but through freedom; and this is the road that leads most surely to happiness.’
‘Now if this path of yours,’ replied Socrates, ‘which leads neither through rule nor through slavery, could also avoid passing through human society, there might perhaps be some sense in what you are saying. If, however, living among men as you do, you have it in mind neither to rule nor to be willing to cater to the wishes of the rulers, you can presumably see how the stronger know how to make the weaker lament their predicament both in public and in private, and treat them like slaves? Or has it escaped you that they gather in the harvest that others have sown, and cut the trees that others have planted, and that they lay siege to the weaker in every way if they are unwilling to serve them, until they are induced to accept slavery to avoid a hopeless struggle with those who are stronger? So too in private life, do you not see that those who are brave and powerful enslave and plunder those who are cowardly and weak?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but to escape those very evils, I do not shut myself up in a single community, but am a stranger everywhere’, to which Socrates replied, ‘That is certainly a clever move, since ever since the death of Sinis, Sceiron, and Procrustes,* no one ever causes harm to strangers.’
(Xenophon, Memorabilia 2.1.7–14)