INTRODUCTION

Although allusions to this work in later writers are but scanty, we can yet in some measure follow by their aid the fortunes of a literary venture which turned out a success. We learn from the omnivorous Photius that Sopater referred to this work. In the sixth century of our era, Stephanus of Byzantium cites it three times. Next comes the Lexicon of Suidas, which is also a Dictionary of Biography, containing certain articles generally attributed to Hesychius of Miletus, who wrote about A.D. 590. It would seem at first sight as if Hesychius were acquainted with the work. At any rate, he has repeatedly made all but identical extracts, presumably from the selfsame authors. Not only Photius in the ninth century, but Eustathius and Tzetzes in the twelfth, have heard of it.

The foregoing notices come from the Eastern Empire. When Constantinople fails us, the book has traveled to the West. In the thirteenth century, when scholasticism was at its height and rough Latin translations of Aristotle were being made, curiosity was roused concerning the other great philosophers mentioned by Aristotle. An Englishman, Walter de Burleigh (1275–1357), a disciple of Duns Scotus, endeavored to satisfy this curiosity by a Latin work, De vita et moribus philosophorum Original: "On the Life and Character of Philosophers.", drawing his materials principally from Diogenes Laertius. When the fifteenth century brought the revival of learning and the invention of printing, there appeared a Latin translation by Ambrosius; and, half a century later, the Greek text was printed at Basel. Our author became fashionable and usurped more authority than was his due. He was a prime favorite with Montaigne. Amongst others, Casaubon and Stephanus (Henri