338 BCEChaeronea
2,363 years ago
340–322 BCE, Athens and the Greek world. 36 posts and events, oldest first.
, Chaeronea
Philip II's army beats the allied Greeks. His son Alexander, then a young man, fights in the battle.
He was also present at Chaeroneia and took part in the battle against the Greeks, and he is said to have been the first to break the ranks of the Sacred Band of the Thebans.
Background: Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC), Wikipedia (opens en.wikipedia.org)
Before Philip, in one story
What was going on: Diogenes Laertius, writing centuries later, passes on a story from Dionysius the Stoic. In 338 BCE Philip of Macedon had just beaten Athens and Thebes at Chaeronea, and Diogenes the Cynic was brought before him as a captive.
Why it matters: The battle has been called one of the most decisive of the ancient world. In its wake the League of Corinth made the Greek states allies of Macedon and of each other, with Philip as guarantor of the peace.
One story, from Dionysius the Stoic: seized and brought to Philip, he was asked who he was. A spy on your endless greed, he said, and was set free.
Dionysius the Stoic says that after Chaeronea he was seized and dragged off to Philip, and being asked who he was, replied, A spy upon your insatiable greed. For this he was admired and set free.
, Macedon
After Philip II is killed, his son Alexander takes the throne at twenty, with neighbours and Greek cities restless.
Thus it was that at the age of twenty years Alexander received the kingdom, which was exposed to great jealousies, dire hatreds, and dangers on every hand.
Background: Alexander the Great, Wikipedia (opens en.wikipedia.org)
Visits Diogenes
What was going on: As Plutarch tells it, centuries later, the Greeks had just met at the Isthmus and named Alexander leader of a war against Persia. Statesmen and philosophers came to congratulate him, but Diogenes, staying in Corinth, ignored him, so Alexander went to see him in person.
Why it matters: Alexander's encounter with Diogenes, during his stay in Corinth, became famous.
Alexander came to see Diogenes, who was lying in the sun, greeted him, and asked if he wanted anything.
Alexander went in person to see him; and he found him lying in the sun. Diogenes raised himself up a little when he saw so many persons coming towards him, and fixed his eyes upon Alexander. And when that monarch addressed him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything,
Asks Alexander to step out of his sun
What was going on: As Plutarch tells it, centuries later, the Greeks had just voted Alexander leader of an expedition against Persia. Many came to congratulate him, but Diogenes kept lying in the sun near Corinth, so Alexander went to him and asked if he wanted anything.
Why it matters: Memorable encounters like this one with Alexander made Diogenes a lasting symbol of philosophical defiance of established authority.
Yes: move over a little, you're blocking my sun.
Yes, said Diogenes, stand a little out of my sun.
What was going on: As Plutarch tells it, centuries later, Alexander went to see Diogenes in Corinth when the philosopher did not come to congratulate him. He found him lying in the sun, asked if he wanted anything, and was told to stand out of his sun.
His men were laughing at the philosopher. Alexander said: if I weren't Alexander, I would be Diogenes.
…he said to his followers, who were laughing and jesting about the philosopher as they went away, But verily, if I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.
, Athens
Aristotle returns to Athens and teaches in the Lyceum for thirteen years, walking as he talks with his students.
His arrival at Athens was in the second year of the 111th Olympiad, and he lectured in the Lyceum for thirteen years
Background: Lyceum (classical), Wikipedia (opens en.wikipedia.org)
Meets Alexander
What was going on: Diogenes Laertius, writing centuries later, records this meeting among many sharp replies by the Cynic. Alexander had become king of Macedon at twenty, in 336 BCE.
Why it matters: In the reign that began here, Alexander had by the age of 30 created one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Greece to northwestern India.
Alexander walked up and said: I am Alexander, the great king. And I, he answered, am Diogenes the Cynic.
Alexander once came and stood opposite him and said, I am Alexander the great king. And I, said he, am Diogenes the Cynic.
Writes to Aristotle
What was going on: Plutarch, writing centuries later, copies a letter he says Alexander sent his old teacher Aristotle after crossing into Asia. Alexander had learned that Aristotle had published books on deep teachings that philosophers share with only a few pupils, and that Alexander had been taught.
You shouldn't have published your private teachings. How will I stand out if everyone knows them? I'd rather excel in knowing the best things than in power.
Thou hast not done well to publish thy acroamatic doctrines; for in what shall I surpass other men if those doctrines wherein I have been trained are to be all men’s common property? But I had rather excel in my acquaintance with the best things than in my power.
On one swallow and happiness
What was going on: Aristotle, teaching at the Lyceum in Athens, is sketching in his Ethics what the good is for a person. He calls this a rough outline, to be filled in with details later.
Why it matters: The Lyceum is best known for the Peripatetic school Aristotle founded there. It carried on under a series of leaders after his lifetime until Sulla destroyed it in 86 BC.
Happiness takes a whole life. One swallow doesn't make spring, and one good day or a short good spell doesn't make you truly happy.
Moreover, to be happy takes a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy.
On becoming just by just acts
What was going on: In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle is explaining where good character comes from. He argues that nature only gives us the ability, and that we gain virtues by practising them, the same way people learn a craft. Lawgivers, he adds, try to train citizens into good habits.
You become a builder by building and a harpist by playing. In the same way you become fair, self-controlled or brave by acting that way.
…men become builders by building houses, harpers by playing on the harp. Similarly we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.
On being angry the right way
What was going on: In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle has just argued that good character is a middle point between two faults, one of too much and one of too little. That, he says, is why being good is hard, like finding the center of a circle.
Anyone can get angry or spend money. Doing it with the right person, the right amount, at the right time, for the right reason, the right way: that's hard.
So also anybody can become angry—that is easy, and so it is to give and spend money; but to be angry with or give money to the right person, and to the right amount, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way—this is not within everybody’s power and is not easy;
On friendship
What was going on: In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle has just finished discussing pleasure, pain and self-control. This line opens his discussion of friendship, which he goes on to apply to the rich, to rulers and to the poor.
Friendship is a virtue, or comes with one, and life can't do without it. No one would pick a life with every other good thing but no friends.
For friendship is a virtue, or involves virtue; and also it is one of the most indispensable requirements of life. For no one would choose to live without friends, but possessing all other good things.
On friendship taking time
What was going on: In his Ethics, Aristotle is discussing friendship between good people, which he says is the fullest kind and rare, because such people are few. He adds that you cannot really be friends until each has shown the other he is worthy and won his trust.
They take time and closeness. As the saying goes, you can't know someone until you've eaten a lot of salt together.
Moreover they require time and intimacy: as the saying goes, you cannot get to know a man till you have consumed the proverbial amount of salt in his company;
On why amusement is not the goal
What was going on: In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle is asking what happiness really is. He has just argued that it is not found in amusements, and goes on to say that play is a kind of rest, which we need only so we can get back to work.
It would be strange if fun were the point of life, if we worked hard our whole lives just so we could be entertained.
Indeed it would be strange that amusement should be our End—that we should toil and moil all our life long in order that we may amuse ourselves.
Puts truth before friends
What was going on: In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle is searching for the highest good. He has set aside the life of money-making, and next takes on the Theory of Ideas, arguing there cannot be one single Idea of Good.
Why it matters: The line comes from a famous digression in which Aristotle appears to question his friends who introduced the forms, meaning Plato and his school.
Questioning this theory feels wrong, because its authors are our friends. But both friends and truth are dear to us, and our duty is to put truth first.
But perhaps it is desirable that we should examine the notion of a Universal Good, and review the difficulties that it involves, although such an inquiry goes against the grain because of our friendship for the authors of the Theory of Ideas. Still perhaps it would appear desirable, and indeed it would seem to be obligatory, especially for a philosopher, to sacrifice even one’s closest personal ties in defense of the truth. Both are dear to us, yet ’tis our duty to prefer the truth.
On man as a political animal
What was going on: In the Politics, Aristotle explains how villages join together to form a city. He argues a city is first founded so people can live, and continues so they can live happily.
Why it matters: Aristotle's statement that man is by nature a political animal is a famous one, made in the Politics, where he treated the city as a natural community.
The city grows out of nature, and humans are by nature political animals. Someone unfit for society by nature is either less or more than human.
Hence it is evident that a city is a natural production, and that man is naturally a political animal, and that whosoever is naturally and not accidentally unfit for society, must be either inferior or superior to man:
On the one who lives outside the city
What was going on: In his Politics, Aristotle is arguing that the city comes before the individual, the way a whole body comes before a hand or a foot. No single person, he says, is enough on their own to make a complete state.
Someone who can't live with others, or needs no one at all, is no part of a city. They're a beast or a god.
…but he that is incapable of society, or so complete in himself as not to want it, makes no part of a city, as a beast or a god.
On the wisdom of the many
What was going on: In the Politics, Aristotle is weighing who should hold supreme power in a state: the many, or the few best people. He argues that even if no single person among the many is fit to rule, together they may do better, just as a shared public supper can beat one paid for by a single host.
When many people come together, each brings some goodness and sense. Together they're like one person with many feet, hands and minds.
…for, as they are many, each person brings in his share of virtue and wisdom; and thus, coming together, they are like one man made up of a multitude, with many feet, many hands, and many intelligences:
On what is held in common
What was going on: In his Politics, Aristotle is arguing against a proposal that citizens should have wives and children in common. He says that if every child were everyone's child, all of them would be neglected.
What belongs to everyone gets looked after least. People care more about what's theirs than what they share, and neglect the shared things.
…for what is common to many is taken least care of; for all men regard more what is their own than what others share with them in, to which they pay less attention than is incumbent on every one:
Answers Plato's Republic
What was going on: In the Politics, Aristotle is weighing the plan in Plato's Republic, where Socrates says citizens should hold wives, children and goods in common. Aristotle doubts the plan is reasonable or could work.
I agree with Socrates that a city should be as united as it can be. But squeeze it too far and it stops being a city: it shrinks to a family, then one person.
Now I also am willing to agree with Socrates in the principle which he proceeds upon, and admit that the city ought to be one as much as possible; and yet it is evident that if it is contracted too much, it will be no longer a city, for that necessarily supposes a multitude; so that if we proceed in this manner, we shall reduce a city to a family, and a family to a single person:
Defines tragedy
What was going on: In the Poetics, Aristotle compares tragedy with epic poetry: tragedy tries to keep its story within about one day, while epic has no time limit. Here he gives his formal definition of tragedy, then explains its terms, such as song and spectacle.
Why it matters: The definition comes from the Poetics, the earliest surviving work of Greek dramatic theory and the first extant philosophical treatise to focus solely on literary theory.
One common reading: a tragedy acts out a serious, complete story in fine language, and through pity and fear it releases those very feelings.
Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.
On poetry and history
What was going on: In the Poetics, Aristotle is explaining how a poet differs from a historian. He says the difference is not verse or prose, since the work of Herodotus put into verse would still be history: history tells what has happened, poetry what may happen.
Why it matters: The contrast between poetry and history is a famous distinction of Aristotle's; he concluded that poetry was more philosophical than history in so far as it approximates a knowledge of universals.
Poetry is deeper and higher than history: poetry tends to say what's true in general, history what happened in one case.
Poetry, therefore, is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history: for poetry tends to express the universal, history the particular.
On Sophocles and Euripides
What was going on: In his Poetics, Aristotle is listing ways a poet can answer critics, for example when a description seems impossible or not true to fact.
If a poem isn't true to life, the poet might say it shows things as they should be. Sophocles said he drew people as they should be; Euripides, as they are.
Further, if it be objected that the description is not true to fact, the poet may perhaps reply,--'But the objects are as they ought to be': just as Sophocles said that he drew men as they ought to be; Euripides, as they are.
On metaphor
What was going on: In the Poetics, Aristotle is discussing how a poet chooses words: compound words, rare words and metaphors, and which kind suits which type of poetry.
The greatest gift by far is a talent for metaphor. No one can teach it; it marks genius, because good metaphors need an eye for likenesses.
But the greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor. This alone cannot be imparted by another; it is the mark of genius, for to make good metaphors implies an eye for resemblances.
, Babylon
Alexander falls ill with a fever and dies in Babylon about ten days later.
And on the twenty-eighth, towards evening, he died.
Background: Death of Alexander the Great, Wikipedia (opens en.wikipedia.org)
, Corinth
Diogenes dies at Corinth, nearly ninety by one account. One ancient writer says it was the same day Alexander died; modern scholars think that is likely legend.
Demetrius in his work On Men of the Same Name asserts that on the same day on which Alexander died in Babylon Diogenes died in Corinth.
What was going on: Diogenes Laertius, writing centuries later, describes how Diogenes the Cynic lived in Athens: sleeping in his folded cloak, carrying his food in a bag, and using any public place to eat, sleep or talk.
Why it matters: Living in a large jar is one of the unconventional habits Diogenes became famous for, and a family and genus of hermit crabs are named after his jar.
He asked someone to find him a small house. It was taking too long, so he moved into the tub at the Metroön instead.
He had written to some one to try and procure a cottage for him. When this man was a long time about it, he took for his abode the tub in the Metroön, as he himself explains in his letters.
Throws away his cup
What was going on: Diogenes Laertius, writing centuries later, collects stories about how simply Diogenes the Cynic lived. He also says Diogenes threw away his bowl after seeing a child eat lentils from a hollowed piece of bread.
Why it matters: Diogenes famously threw away his cup after watching a boy drink from his hands, one of the stories of a man who practiced asceticism and minimalism.
He saw a child drinking from his hands and threw away his own cup: a child has beaten me at living simply.
One day, observing a child drinking out of his hands, he cast away the cup from his wallet with the words, A child has beaten me in plainness of living.
Searches for a man with a lamp
What was going on: Diogenes Laertius, writing centuries later, strings together anecdotes about Diogenes the Cynic, such as plucking a chicken to mock Plato's definition of man and calling popular leaders the lackeys of the people. This is one more of those stories.
Why it matters: Walking about with a lit lamp in daylight, looking for a man, meaning a wise man, is one of the behaviours that made Diogenes famous for challenging social norms.
He walked around in broad daylight carrying a lit lamp, saying: I'm looking for a human being.
He lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, I am looking for a man.
Diogenes, citizen of the world
What was going on: Diogenes Laertius, writing centuries later, gives a long run of quick replies he credits to Diogenes. This one comes just after Diogenes says that philosophy taught him to be ready for every kind of fortune.
Why it matters: Diogenes invented an early form of cosmopolitanism, and probably the word itself, which was his one-word answer when asked where he came from.
Asked where he was from, he said: I'm a citizen of the world.
Asked where he came from, he said, I am a citizen of the world.
On his exile from Sinope
What was going on: Diogenes Laertius, writing centuries later, strings together sharp replies by Diogenes the Cynic, who mocked musicians, speakers and athletes, and begged for alms when he was poor.
Why it matters: His exile marked a turning point for Diogenes, a moment of profound spiritual conversion, and Plutarch too says its hardships made him a philosopher.
Mocked for being exiled, he said exile is what made him a philosopher. They banished me? I sentenced them to stay home.
When some one reproached him with his exile, his reply was, Nay, it was through that, you miserable fellow, that I came to be a philosopher. Again, when some one reminded him that the people of Sinope had sentenced him to exile, And I them, said he, to home-staying.
What was going on: Diogenes Laertius, writing centuries later, says Diogenes was captured by pirates on a voyage to Aegina, taken to Crete and put up for sale as a slave. His buyer, Xeniades, later put him in charge of his children and household in Corinth.
At the auction, asked what he was good at, he said: ruling people. Then he pointed at a man in a fine purple-bordered robe: sell me to him, he needs a master.
When the auctioneer asked in what he was proficient, he replied, In ruling men. Thereupon he pointed to a certain Corinthian with a fine purple border to his robe, the man named Xeniades above-mentioned, and said, Sell me to this man; he needs a master.
Refuses to slow down in old age
What was going on: Diogenes Laertius, writing centuries later, collects sayings of Diogenes the Cynic, and this reply comes from late in his life. Stories nearby have him walking barefoot on snow, trying to eat raw meat, and mocking the orator Demosthenes.
Told he was old and should rest, he said: if I were running a race, would I slow down near the finish? Shouldn't I speed up?
To those who said to him, You are an old man; take a rest, What? he replied, if I were running in the stadium, ought I to slacken my pace when approaching the goal? ought I not rather to put on speed?
Begs from a statue
What was going on: Diogenes Laertius, writing centuries later, collects one-line replies by Diogenes the Cynic. He says Diogenes at first begged for alms because he was poor.
He asked a statue for money. Why? To get practice at being turned down.
He once begged alms of a statue, and, when asked why he did so, replied, To get practice in being refused.
, Chalcis
Facing a charge of impiety, Aristotle leaves Athens for Chalcis and dies there the next year.
then he retired to Chalcis in the third year of the 114th Olympiad and died a natural death
