Chapter 7. BION (third century B.C.)
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Bion was by birth a citizen of Borysthenes [Olbia];
who his parents were, and what his circumstances
before he took to philosophy, he himself told
Antigonus in plain terms. For, when Antigonus
inquired:
Who among men, and whence, are you? What is your
city and your parents?
1
he, knowing that he had already been maligned to
the king, replied, "My father was a freedman, who
wiped his nose on his sleeve"--meaning that he
was a dealer in salt fish--"a native of Borysthenes,
with no face to show, but only the writing on his
face, a token of his master's severity. My mother
was such as a man like my father would marry, from
a brothel. Afterwards my father, who had cheated
the revenue in some way, was sold with all his
family. And I, then a not ungraceful youngster,
was bought by a certain rhetorician, who on his
death left me all he had.
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And I burnt his books,
scraped everything together, came to Athens and
turned philosopher.
This is the stock and this the blood from which I boast
to have sprung.
2
Such is my story. It is high time, then, that Persaeus
and Philonides left off recounting it. Judge me by
myself."
In truth Bion was in other respects a shifty
character, a subtle sophist, and one who had given
the enemies of philosophy many an occasion to
blaspheme, while in certain respects he was even
pompous and able to indulge in arrogance. He left
very many memoirs, and also sayings of useful
application. For example, when he was reproached
for not paying court to a youth, his excuse was,
"You can't get hold of a soft cheese with a hook."
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Being once asked who suffers most from anxiety, he
replied, "He who is ambitious of the greatest prosperity." Being consulted by some one as to whether
he should marry--for this story is also told of Bion--
he made answer, "If the wife you marry be ugly,
she will be your bane; if beautiful, you will not
keep her to yourself."
3 He called old age the
harbour of all ills; at least they all take refuge
there. Renown he called the mother of virtues;
beauty another's good; wealth the sinews of success.
To some one who had devoured his patrimony he
said, "The earth swallowed Amphiaraus, but you
have swallowed your land." To be unable to bear
an ill is itself a great ill. He used to condemn those
who burnt men alive as if they could not feel, and
yet cauterized them as if they could.
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He used
repeatedly to say that to grant favours to another
was preferable to enjoying the favours of others.
For the latter means ruin to both body and soul.
He even abused Socrates, declaring that, if he felt
desire for Alcibiades and abstained, he was a fool; if he
did not, his conduct was in no way remarkable. The
road to Hades, he used to say, was easy to travel;
at any rate men passed away with their eyes shut.
He said in censure of Alcibiades that in his boyhood
he drew away the husbands from their wives, and as
a young man the wives from their husbands. When
the Athenians were absorbed in the practice of
rhetoric, he taught philosophy at Rhodes. To some
one who found fault with him for this he replied,
"How can I sell barley when what I brought to
market is wheat?"
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He used to say that those in Hades would be
more severely punished if the vessels in which they
drew water were whole instead of being pierced with
holes. To an importunate talker who wanted his
help he said, "I will satisfy your demand, if you will
only get others to plead your cause and stay away
yourself." On a voyage in bad company he fell in
with pirates. When his companions said, "We are
lost if we are discovered," "And I too," he replied,
"unless I am discovered." Conceit he styled a
hindrance to progress. Referring to a wealthy miser
he said, "He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune
has acquired him." Misers, he said, took care of
property as if it belonged to them, but derived no
more benefit from it than if it belonged to others.
"When we are young," said he, "we are courageous,
but it is only in old age that prudence is at its height."
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Prudence, he said, excels the other virtues as much
as sight excels the other senses. He used to say
that we ought not to heap reproaches on old age,
seeing that, as he said, we all hope to reach it. To
a slanderer who showed a grave face his words were,
"I don't know whether you have met with ill luck,
or your neighbour with good." He used to say that
low birth made a bad partner for free speech, for--
It cows a man, however bold his heart.Eur.
Hipp. 424.
We ought, he remarked, to watch our friends and
see what manner of men they are, in order that we
may not be thought to associate with the bad or to
decline the friendship of the good.
Bion at the outset used to deprecate the Academic
doctrines,
5 even at the time when he
was a pupil of
Crates. Then he adopted the Cynic discipline,
donning cloak and wallet.
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For little else was needed
to convert him to the doctrine of entire insensibility.
Next he went over to Theodorean views, after he
had heard the lectures of Theodorus the Atheist,
who used every kind of sophistical argument. And
after Theodorus he attended the lectures of Theophrastus the Peripatetic. He was fond of display
and great at cutting up anything with a jest, using
vulgar names for things. Because he employed every
style of speech in combination, Eratosthenes, we
hear, said of him that he was the first to deck
philosophy with bright-flowered robes. He was
clever also at parody. Here is a specimen of his
style:
O gentle Archytas, musician-born, blessed in thine own
conceit, most skilled of men to stir the bass of strife.
6
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And in general he made sport of music and geometry.
He lived extravagantly, and for this reason he
would move from one city to another, sometimes
contriving to make a great show. Thus at Rhodes
he persuaded the sailors to put on students' garb
and follow in his train. And when, attended by
them, he made his way into the gymnasium, all
eyes were fixed on him. It was his custom also to
adopt certain young men for the gratification of his
appetite and in order that he might be protected
by their goodwill.
7 He was extremely selfish and
insisted strongly on the maxim that "friends share in
common." And hence it came about that he is not
credited with a single disciple, out of all the crowds
who attended his lectures. And yet there were
some who followed his lead in shamelessness.
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For
instance, Betion, one of his intimates, is said once to
have addressed Menedemus in these words: "For
my part, Menedemus, I pass the night with Bion,
and I don't think I am any the worse for it." In
his familiar talk he would often vehemently assail
belief in the gods, a taste which he had derived from
Theodorus. Afterwards, when he fell ill (so it was
said by the people of Chalcis where he died), he was
persuaded to wear an amulet and to repent of his
offences against religion. And even for want of
nurses he was in a sad plight, until Antigonus sent
him two servants. And it is stated by Favorinus
in his
Miscellaneous History that the king himself
followed in a litter.
Even so he died, and in these lines
8 I have taken
him to task:
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We hear that Bion, to whom the Scythian land of Borysthenes gave birth, denied that the gods really exist. Had
he persisted in holding this opinion, it would have been right
to say, "He thinks as he pleases: wrongly, to be sure, but
still he does think so." But in fact, when he fell ill of a
lingering disease and feared death, he who denied the existence of the gods, and would not even look at a temple,
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who
often mocked at mortals for sacrificing to deities, not only over
hearth and high altars and table, with sweet savour and fat
and incense did he gladden the nostrils of the gods; nor
was he content to say "I have sinned, forgive the past,"
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but he cheerfully allowed an old woman to put a charm
round his neck, and in full faith bound his arms with leather
and placed the rhamnus and the laurel-branch over the
door, being ready to submit to anything sooner than die.
Fool for wishing that the divine favour might be purchased
at a certain price, as if the gods existed just when Bion chose
to recognize them! It was then with vain wisdom that,
when the driveller was all ashes, he stretched out his hand
and said "Hail, Pluto, hail!"
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Ten men have borne the name of Bion: (1) the
contemporary of Pherecydes of Syria, to whom are
assigned two books in the Ionic dialect; he was of
Proconnesus; (2) a Syracusan, who wrote rhetorical
handbooks; (3) our philosopher; (4) a follower of
Democritus and mathematician of Abdera, who
wrote both in Attic and in Ionic: he was the first
to affirm that there are places where the night lasts
for six months and the day for six months
9; (5) a
native of Soli, who wrote a work on Aethiopia;
(6) a rhetorician, the author of nine books called
after the Muses; (7) a lyric poet; (8) a Milesian
sculptor, mentioned by Polemo; (9) a tragic poet,
one of the poets of Tarsus, as they are called; (10)
a sculptor of Clazomenae or Chios, mentioned by
Hipponax.