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

As literary portraits, the Lives of Polemo, Crantor, Crates, and Arcesilaus have high merit, and this also applies, to a lesser degree, to the articles on Lyco, Menedemus, Pyrrho, and Timon.

On the other hand, the earlier thinkers, whether Ionians or Eleatics, are treated in a perfunctory manner that is wholly unworthy of their great influence and reputation. The account of Heraclitus is a caricature; Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, and Diogenes of Apollonia receive the most meager of memoirs; and even of Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and Democritus, how little we are told!

Within certain arbitrary time limits, the successions traced are complete. There are few notable omissions, though Eudemus, Metrodorus of Chios, and Nausiphanes are barely mentioned. The Academy succession ends with Clitomachus, so that nothing is said of Philo of Larissa or Antiochus of Ascalon. The Peripatetics end with Lyco. For the later Sceptics, our author gives the line of succession from master to disciple without providing a life or a summary of their views. The catalog of Aristotle's writings follows that of the Alexandrian Library, ignoring the new edition of Aristotle prepared by Andronicus of Rhodes during the reign of Augustus.

Apart from omissions, some have found indications that the book, as it stands, does not represent the final form intended by its author. In x. 29, as well as in iii. 47, the reader is addressed in the singular. It is a natural inference that the lady deeply interested in Platonism was the patroness for whom not only the Life of Plato, but the entire work was intended. Accordingly, we should expect a dedication. But circumstances may have intervened: suppose, for instance, the lady had died before the work was...