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

in conjunction: instead of exploring a new country, we cut a geological section across it. Thus, Laertius deals with the Pre-Socratics in Books I, II, VIII, and IX, making the transition from Thales to Plato at express speed, with but four or five intermediate stages; while the Pythagoreans and Eleatics, Heraclitus and Empedocles, stand over, to be introduced much later in an entirely different setting.

The first book proper has, to be sure, little to do with philosophy. It treats of Thales, Solon, and those other shrewd men of affairs who lived in the sixth century B.C., and about whom a web of romance had been woven. With Book II, the Ionian succession which started with Thales advances from Anaximander through Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, and Archelaus to Socrates (ii. c. 5). Having carried philosophy to Athens, our author remains at Athens or in its immediate neighborhood throughout Books II (cc. 5-17), III (Plato), IV (The Academy), V (Peripatetics), VI (Cynics), and VII (Stoics). The Ionian succession having thus been traced into many divergent branches, the Italian succession is next unfolded in Book VIII, Empedocles and Eudoxus being included. There remain various thinkers, less successful as founders of schools but of undeniable importance, and these are taken in some sort of affiliation in Books IX and X. In Book IX, Heraclitus is followed by the Eleatics, the Atomists, and the Sceptics; Diogenes of Apollonia, “a belated Ionian,” and the sophist Protagoras being included. Lastly, to Epicurus, as to Plato, a whole book is devoted. A common name, “Sporadics” scattered ones, is given to the very dissimilar schools crowded into the two concluding books.