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

Of the thirty-nine in the Palatine Anthology (vii. 56, 57, 85, 87, 88, 91, 92, 95, 98, 101, 102, 104-116, 118, 121-124, 126, 127, 129-133, 620, 706, 744), only three (56, 131, 132) are not to be found in the Lives of the Philosophers. The Planudean Appendix includes fourteen more, ii. 380, 381, iii. 128, 129, v. 34-42, vii. 19, which can also be found in the Lives. The epigram on Periander (i. 97) appears in both collections.

are duly enshrined in the Palatine Anthology or its Appendix. Many of them, by a singular error of judgment, are made to turn on the final scene, the circumstances in which a man died—a barren, unprofitable theme. For, with rare and splendid exceptions, his philosophers, unlike Plutarch’s heroes, were to outward seeming just ordinary mortals who lived uneventful lives and died in their beds. Their conflicts and triumphs, the discoveries they made and the revolutions they wrought, belong to the world of letters and of ideas.

From every author we expect some acquaintance with his subject. But this biographer of philosophers nowhere claims that he had himself studied philosophy, nor does he give any hint that he belonged to one of the recognized schools.

ix. 109 "Apollonides of Nicaea, of our school."

In one passage he has been thought by some to speak as if he belonged to the later Sceptics. Others argue that what has really happened is this: he has used an excerpt from a Sceptic’s work without clearly indicating that it is a citation. In modern parlance, we might call this leaving out quotation marks.

Neither can Laertius be pronounced an Epicurean on the strength of the praise of Epicurus (x. 9). For this is most likely not his own: he may again be merely quoting one of his sources. And even if it be his own, that does not prove him to be of the