Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Vol. 1 (Loeb)

The date of the work may be provisionally fixed in the earlier decades of the third century A.D. For the latest philosopher mentioned is the otherwise unknown Saturninus, a pupil of Sextus Empiricus (ix. 116); Sextus is supposed to have flourished towards the end of the second century A.D. Thus, Laertius would be a younger contemporary of, or at any rate not much later than, such authors as Lucian, Galen, Philostratus, and Clement of Alexandria, not far removed in time from Apuleius, even nearer to Athenaeus.

There are good grounds for not placing Laertius as late as the fourth century. He never alludes to the rise of Neo-Platonism; and, although not much dependence can be placed on his omissions, since he drew his materials very largely from authors who lived centuries before his time, yet, in this instance, had the revival of Platonism already begun, he might have been expected to notice it when writing his Life of Plato for one who was deeply interested in the Platonic philosophy Original: "and for you who are a lover of Plato... I thought it necessary to outline" (iii. 47)..

This was not his first work. He had already put forth a Medley of Metre (Πάμμετρος) in at least two books, since he quotes (i. 39) from the "First Book." This consisted of epitaphs on eminent men, many of which he cites with amusing complacency in the Lives. Truth to say, they are but sorry stuff. Yet, his own compositions apart, we cannot deny that he had taste. Eight lines of Callimachus which he has preserved (ix. 17) on the flimsiest pretext, obviously because he admired them, outweigh all the insipid or even flippant verses which he wrote himself, and which