Diogenes Laërtius | |
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Διογένης Λαέρτιος | |
 1688 engraving of Diogenes Laërtius |
Diogenes Laërtius (/daɪˌɒdʒɪniːzleɪˈɜːrʃiəs/dy-OJ-in-eez lay-UR-shee-əs;[1]Ancient Greek:Διογένης Λαέρτιος,Laertios;fl. 3rd century CE) was a biographer of theGreekphilosophers. Little is definitively known about his life, but his surviving work,Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, remains a primary source for the history ofancient Greek philosophy. His reputation is controversial among scholars because he often repeats information from his sources without critically evaluating it. In many cases, he focuses on insignificant details of his subjects' lives while ignoring important details of their philosophical teachings and he sometimes fails to distinguish between earlier and later teachings of specific philosophical schools.[citation needed] However, unlike many other ancient secondary sources, Diogenes Laërtius tends to report philosophical teachings without trying to reinterpret or expand on them, and so his accounts are often closer to the primary sources. Due to the loss of so many of the primary sources on which Diogenes relied, his work has become the foremost surviving source on the history of Greek philosophy.
Laërtius must have lived afterSextus Empiricus (c. 200), whom he mentions, and beforeSopater of Apamea (c. 300), who quotes him. Hence he is assumed to have flourished in the first half of the 3rd century, during the reign ofAlexander Severus (222–235) and his successors.[2][3]
The precise form of his name is uncertain. The ancient manuscripts invariably refer to a "Laertius Diogenes", and this form of the name is repeated by Sopater[4] and theSuda.[5] The modern form "Diogenes Laertius" is much rarer, used by Stephanus of Byzantium,[6] and in alemma to theGreek Anthology.[7] He is also referred to as "Laertes"[8] or simply "Diogenes".[9]
The origin of the name "Laertius" is also uncertain. Stephanus of Byzantium refers to him as "Διογένης ὁ Λαερτιεύς" (Diogenes ho Laertieus),[10] implying that he was the native of some town, perhaps the Laerte inCaria (or another Laerte inCilicia). Another suggestion is that one of his ancestors had for a patron a member of theRoman family of theLaërtii.[11] The prevailing modern theory is that "Laertius" is a nickname (derived from theHomeric epithetDiogenes Laertiade, used in addressingOdysseus) used to distinguish him from the many other people called Diogenes in the ancient world.[12]
His home town is unknown (at best uncertain, even according to a hypothesis thatLaertius refers to his origin). He refers to "himself" as the member of several different schools, but this is because he uncritically copies from his sources. It is by no means certain that he adhered to any school, and he is usually more attentive to biographical details.[13]
In theLives, Diogenes frequently includesepigrams he had written about famous men.[3]
The work by which he is known,Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (Ancient Greek:Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων;Latin:Vitae Philosophorum), was written in Greek and professes to give an account of the lives and opinions of the Greek philosophers.
Although it is at best an uncritical and unphilosophical compilation, its value, as giving us an insight into the private lives of the Greek sages, ledMontaigne to write that he wished that instead of one Laërtius there had been a dozen.[14] On the other hand, modern scholars have advised that we treat Diogenes' testimonia with care, especially when he fails to cite his sources: "Diogenes has acquired an importance out of all proportion to his merits because the loss of many primary sources and of the earlier secondary compilations has accidentally left him the chief continuous source for the history of Greek philosophy".[15]
Diogenes divides his subjects into two "schools" which he describes as theIonian/Ionic and the Italian/Italic; the division is somewhat dubious and appears to be drawn from the lostdoxography ofSotion. The biographies of the "Ionian school" begin withAnaximander and end withClitomachus,Theophrastus andChrysippus; the "Italian" begins withPythagoras and ends withEpicurus. TheSocratic school, with its various branches, is classed with the Ionic; while theEleatics andPyrrhonists are treated under the Italian. He also includes his own poetic verse about the philosophers he discusses.
The following list shows the organization of philosophers discussed in the work:[16]
Book VII is incomplete and breaks off during the life ofChrysippus. From a table of contents in one of the manuscripts (manuscript P), this book is known to have continued withZeno of Tarsus,Diogenes,Apollodorus,Boethus,Mnesarchus,Mnasagoras,Nestor,Basilides,Dardanus,Antipater,Heraclides,Sosigenes,Panaetius,Hecato,Posidonius,Athenodorus, anotherAthenodorus,Antipater,Arius, andCornutus.
His chief authorities wereFavorinus andDiocles of Magnesia, but his work also draws (either directly or indirectly) on books byAntisthenes of Rhodes,Alexander Polyhistor, andDemetrius of Magnesia, as well as works byHippobotus,Aristippus,Panaetius,Apollodorus of Athens,Sosicrates,Satyrus,Sotion,Neanthes,Hermippus,Antigonus,Heraclides,Hieronymus, andPamphila.[17][18]
There are many extantmanuscripts of theLives, although none of them are especially old, and they all lack the end of Book VII.[19] The three most useful manuscripts are known as B, P, and F. Manuscript B (Codex Borbonicus) dates from the 12th century, and is in theNational Library of Naples.[b] Manuscript P (Paris) is dated to the 11th/12th century, and is in theBibliothèque nationale de France.[21] Manuscript F (Florence) is dated to the 13th century, and is in theLaurentian Library.[22] The titles for the individual biographies used in modern editions are absent from these earliest manuscripts, however they can be found inserted into the blank spaces and margins of manuscript P by a later hand.[23]
There seem to have been some earlyLatin translations, but they no longer survive. A 10th-century work entitledTractatus de dictis philosophorum shows some knowledge of Diogenes.[24]Henry Aristippus, in the 12th century, is known to have translated at least some of the work into Latin, and in the 14th century an unknown author made use of a Latin translation for hisDe vita et moribus philosophorum[24] (attributed erroneously toWalter Burley).
The first printed editions were Latin translations. The first,Laertii Diogenis Vitae et sententiae eorum qui in philosophia probati fuerunt (Romae: Giorgo Lauer, 1472), printed the translation ofAmbrogio Traversari (whose manuscript presentation copy toCosimo de' Medici was dated February 8, 1433[25]) and was edited by Elio Francesco Marchese.[26] TheGreek text of the lives of Aristotle and Theophrastus appeared in the third volume of theAldine Aristotle in 1497. Thefirst edition of the whole Greek text was that published byHieronymus Froben in 1533.[27] The first Greek/Latin edition was by Henri Estienne in 1570. The Greek/Latin edition of 1692 byMarcus Meibomius divided each of the ten books into paragraphs of equal length, and progressively numbered them, providing the system still in use today.[28]
The firstcritical edition of the entire text, by H.S. Long in theOxford Classical Texts, was not produced until 1964;[19] this edition was superseded byMiroslav Marcovich'sTeubner edition, published between 1999 and 2002. A new edition, byTiziano Dorandi, was published byCambridge University Press in 2013.[29]
Thomas Stanley's 1656History of Philosophy adapts the format and content of Laertius's work into English, but Stanley compiled his book from a number of classical biographies of philosophers.[30] The first complete English translation was a late 17th-century translation by ten different persons.[31] A better translation was made byCharles Duke Yonge (1853),[32] but although this was more literal, it still contained many inaccuracies.[33] The next translation was byRobert Drew Hicks (1925) for theLoeb Classical Library,[34] although it is slightlybowdlerized. A new translation byPamela Mensch was published byOxford University Press in 2018.[35] Another byStephen White was published byCambridge University Press in 2020.[36]
Henricus Aristippus, the archdeacon ofCatania, produced a Latin translation of Diogenes Laërtius's book in southern Italy in the late 1150s, which has since been lost or destroyed.[37]Geremia da Montagnone used this translation as a source for hisCompedium moralium notabilium (c. 1310) and an anonymous Italian author used it as a source for work entitledLiber de vita et moribus philosophorum (writtenc. 1317–1320), which reached international popularity in theLate Middle Ages.[37] The monkAmbrogio Traversari (1386–1439) produced another Latin translation inFlorence between 1424 and 1433, for which far better records have survived.[37] TheItalian Renaissance scholar, painter, philosopher, and architectLeon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) borrowed from Traversari's translation of theLives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers in Book 2 of hisLibri della famiglia[37] and modeled his own autobiography on Diogenes Laërtius'sLife of Thales.[37]
Diogenes Laërtius's work has had a complicated reception in modern times.[38] The value of hisLives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers as an insight into the private lives of the Greek sages led theFrench Renaissance philosopherMichel de Montaigne (1533–1592) to exclaim that he wished that, instead of one Laërtius, there had been a dozen.[39]Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) criticized Diogenes Laërtius for his lack of philosophical talent and categorized his work as nothing more than a compilation of previous writers' opinions.[37] Nonetheless, he admitted that Diogenes Laërtius's compilation was an important one given the information that it contained.[37]Hermann Usener (1834–1905) deplored Diogenes Laërtius as a "complete ass" (asinus germanus) in hisEpicurea (1887).[37]Werner Jaeger (1888–1961) damned him as "that great ignoramus".[40] In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, however, scholars have managed to partially redeem Diogenes Laertius's reputation as a writer by reading his book in a Hellenistic literary context.[38]
Nonetheless, modern scholars treat Diogenes's testimonia with caution, especially when he fails to cite his sources. Herbert S. Long warns: "Diogenes has acquired an importance out of all proportion to his merits because the loss of many primary sources and of the earlier secondary compilations has accidentally left him the chief continuous source for the history of Greek philosophy."[15]Robert M. Strozier offers a somewhat more positive assessment of Diogenes Laertius's reliability, noting that many other ancient writers attempt to reinterpret and expand on the philosophical teachings they describe, something which Diogenes Laërtius rarely does.[41] Strozier concludes, "Diogenes Laertius is, when he does not conflate hundreds of years of distinctions, reliable simply because he is a less competent thinker than those on whom he writes, is less liable to re-formulate statements and arguments, and especially in the case of Epicurus, less liable to interfere with the texts he quotes. He does, however, simplify."[41]
Despite his importance to the history of western philosophy and the controversy surrounding him, according to Gian Mario Cao, Diogenes Laërtius has still not received adequatephilological attention.[37] Both modern critical editions of his book, by H. S. Long (1964) and by M. Marcovich (1999) have received extensive criticism from scholars.[37]
He is criticized primarily for being overly concerned with superficial details of the philosophers' lives and lacking the intellectual capacity to explore their actual philosophical works with any penetration. However, according to statements of the 14th-century monkWalter Burley in hisDe vita et moribus philosophorum, the text of Diogenes seems to have been much fuller than that which we now possess.
Although Diogenes had a will to objectivity and fact-checking, Diogenes's works are today seen as generally unreliable from a historical perspective.[42][43][44] He is neither consistent nor reliable in some of his reports and some of the details he cites contain obvious errors.[43] Some of them were probably introduced bycopyists in the transmission of the text from antiquity, but some errors are undoubtedly due to Diogenes himself.[45] The reliability of Diogenes' sources have also been questioned, since he usescomic poets as sources.[45] Professor Brian Gregor suggests that readers will benefit from modern scholarly assistance while reading Diogenes' biographies, since they are "notoriously unreliable".[44] Some scholars (e.g. Delfim Leão) state that Diogenes' unreliability is not entirely his responsibility and blame his sources instead.[43]
"Index" .Lives of the Eminent Philosophers (Two volume ed.). Loeb Classical Library.
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Smith, William, ed. (1870)."Diogenes Laertius".Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.Attribution:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Diogenes Laërtius".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 282.
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