Chapter V. On the First Successors of Plato. From Numenius the Pythagorean

[NUMENIUS] ‘FOR the time then of Speusippus, sister’s son to Plato, and Xenocrates the successor of Speusippus, and Polemon who succeeded Xenocrates in the School, the character of the doctrine always continued nearly the same, so far as concerned this much belauded suspension of judgement which was not yet introduced, and some other things perchance of this kind. For in other respects they did not abide by the original tradition, but partly weakened it in many ways, and partly distorted it: and beginning from his time, sooner or later they diverged purposely or unconsciously, and partly from some other cause perhaps other than rivalry.

‘And though for the sake of Xenocrates I do not wish to say anything disparaging, nevertheless I am more anxious to defend Plato. For in fact it grieves me that they did not do and suffer everything to maintain in “every way an entire agreement with Plato on all points. Yet Plato deserved this at their hands, for though not superior to Pythagoras the Great, yet neither perhaps was he inferior to him; and it was by closely following and reverencing him that the friends of Pythagoras became the chief causes of his great reputation.

‘And the Epicureans, having observed this, though they were wrong, were never seen on any point to have opposed the doctrines of Epicurus in any way; but by acknowledging that they held the same opinions with a learned sage they naturally for this reason gained the title themselves: and with the later Epicureans it was for the most part a fixed rule never to express any opposition either to one another or to Epicurus on any point worth mentioning: but innovation is with them a transgression or rather an impiety, and is condemned. And for this reason no one even dares to differ, but from their constant agreement among themselves their doctrines are quietly held in perfect peace. Thus the School of Epicurus is like some true republic, perfectly free from sedition, with one mind in common and one consent; from which cause they were, and are, and seemingly will be zealous disciples.

‘But the Stoic sect is torn by factions, which began with their founders, and have not ceased even yet. They delight in refuting one another with angry arguments, one party among them having still remained steadfast, and others having changed. So their founders are like extreme oligarchs, who by quarrelling among themselves have caused those who came after to censure freely both their predecessors and each other, as still being more Stoical one party than the other, and especially those who showed themselves more captious in technicalities; for these were the very men who, surpassing the others in meddlesomeness and petty quibbles, were the more quick to find fault.

‘Long before these, however, there was the same feeling in those who drew their doctrines from Socrates in different directions, Aristippus in his own way, and Antisthenes in his, and elsewhere the Megarians and Eretrians in ways of their own, and others with them.

‘And the cause was, that as Socrates assumed three gods, and philosophized before them in the strains appropriate to each, his hearers did not understand this, but thought that he spoke all at random, and according to the breath of fortune which at any moment prevailed, sometimes one, sometimes another, as it chanced to blow.

‘But Plato had been a Pythagorean, and knew that Socrates for the same reason took such sayings from no other source than that, and had known what he was saying; and so he too wrapped up his subjects in a manner that was neither usual nor plain to understand; and after conducting them each in the way that he thought fit, and disguising them so as to be half seen and half unseen, he wrote in safety, but himself gave occasion to the subsequent dissension, and distraction of his doctrines, not indeed from jealousy nor yet from ill will----but I am unwilling to speak unfavourable words of men of earlier times.

‘But now that we have learned this, we ought rather to apply our judgement to a different point, and as we proposed at the commencement to distinguish Plato from Aristotle and Zeno, so now again separating him from the Academy, if God help us, we will allow him to be in and of himself a Pythagorean. Since now being torn in pieces more furiously than any Pentheus deserved, he suffers limb by limb, but is by no means transformed from his whole self and retransformed.

‘As a man therefore who stood midway between Pythagoras and Socrates he reduced the sternness of the former to benevolence, and the wit and playfulness of the latter he raised from irony to dignity and gravity, and by making just this mixture of Socrates and Pythagoras he showed himself more affable than the one and more grave than the other.

‘This, however, is not at all what I was going to discuss, my present inquiry having no concern herewith: but I will pass on to what I had intended, lest I should be thrown out of the way that leads thither, or else I seem likely to run away altogether.

‘Arcesilaus and Zeno became disciples of Polemon, for I am going to mention them again at last. Of Zeno I remember to have said that he attended Xenocrates and then Polemon, and afterwards became a Cynic in the School of Crates: but now let him be accounted to have also derived something from Stilpo and those Heracleitean discourses.

‘For since as fellow disciples of Polemon Arcesilaus and Zeno were emulous of each other, the one of them took as his allies in their mutual contest Heracleitus, and Stilpo, and also Crates, among whom he was made by Stilpo a disputant, by Heracleitus austere, and by Crates cynical: but the other, Arcesilaus, has Theophrastus, and Crantor the Piatonist, and Diodorus, and then Pyrrho, and of these Crantor made him persuasive, Diodorus sophistical, and Pyrrho versatile, and reckless, and nothing at all.

‘And this was the meaning of a certain hexameter verse often applied to him in an insulting parody:

“Plato before, and Pyrrho behind, in the midst Diodorus.” [1]

But Timon says that he was also taught and equipped by Menedemus in the art of disputation, if at least it is of him that he says:

“With Menedemus’ lead beneath his breast He runs apace to Pyrrho’s mass of flesh, Or Diodorus’ dialectic craft.” [2]

‘So by interweaving the reasonings and scepticism of Pyrrho with the subtleties of Diodorus, who was skilled in dialectics, he arrayed a kind of mouthy chatter in Plato’s forcible language, and would say and unsay, and roll over from this side and from that, and from either side, whichever it might chance, retracting his own words, obscure, and contradictory withal, and venturesome, and knowing nothing, as he said himself, so candid as he was: and then somehow he would turn out like those who did know, after having exhibited himself in all kinds of characters by the sketchiness of his discourses.’