OF DIOGENES

LAERTIUS ON THE LIFE

and opinions of those who have shone in philosophy,

BOOK I.

[cf. Casaubon in Manilius, on book 1, v. 1 & following.]

Most people maintain that philosophy had its beginnings among the barbarians. For Aristotle, in his Magicus, and Sotion, in the thirteenth book of his Succession, say that the Magi were the authors of this for the Persians, the Chaldeans for the Babylonians and Assyrians, the Gymnosophists for the Indians, and the Druids, or those who were called Semnothei, for the Celts or Gauls. Furthermore, they say that the Phoenician Ochus, and the Thracian Zalmoxis, and the Libyan Atlas were the ones who revealed the principles of philosophy to the Egyptians of the Nile, the son of Vulcan. Moreover, those who presided over this study were accustomed to be called priests and prophets. From him, 48,863 years flowed down to Alexander, the king of the Macedonians. During this entire time, 373 eclipses of the sun appeared, and 832 of the moon. Indeed, Hermodorus the Platonist, in his book On Disciplines, calculates 5,000 years from the Magi—whose prince, it is recorded in memory, was the Persian Zoroaster—up to the destruction of Troy. Xanthus of Lydia, however, counts 600 years from Zoroaster up to the crossing of Xerxes. After this, many Magi succeeded one another, Hosthanes, Astrapsycos, Gobryas, and Pazatas, until the kingdom of the Persians was overturned by Alexander. But these men, indeed, through...

Celts and Galatians? to be translated: Germans and Gauls, as the Germans [are]? Semnothei from the worship of gods, and understanding? religious? they are called? Galatians? [see] Cluver, book of Germanic Antiquities, ch. 23.?

Tertullian?
on orthography,?
p. 75.?

Pliny cites not Hermodorus, but Hermippus as the author.