Eudoxus: Plato

¹ Eudoxus was:

• the son of Æschines
• a native of Cnidus
• an astronomer, a geometrician, a physician, and a lawgiver.

In geometry

Callimachus says in his Tablets that he was a pupil of:

• Archytas in geometry
• Philistion the Sicilian in medicine

Sotion, in his Successions, asserts that he was also a pupil of Plato.

When he was 23 years old and poor, he came to Athens with Theomedon the physician, by whom he was chiefly supported, being attracted by the reputation of the Socratic school.

His attachment to Theomedon was cemented by nearer ties.

When he had arrived at Piræus, he went up to the city every day, and when he had heard the Sophists lecture he returned. And having spent two months there, he returned home again; and being again aided by the contributions of his friends, he set sail for Egypt, with Chrysippus the physician, bearing letters of introduction from Agesilaus to Nectanabis, and that he recommended him to the priests.

² And having remained there a year and four months, he shaved his eyebrows after the manner of the Egyptian priests, and composed, as it is said, the treatise called the Octaeteris. From thence he went to Cyzicus, and to the Propontis, in both of which places he lived as a Sophist; he also went to the court of Mausolus.

He returned again to Athens, having many disciples with him to annoy Plato, because he had originally discarded him from his school.

Some say, that when Plato gave an entertainment on one occasion, Eudoxus, as the guests were very numerous, introduced the fashion of sitting in a semicircle.

Nicomachus, the son of Aristotle, affirms that he used to say, that pleasure was the good.

³ He was received in his own country with great honours, as the decree that was passed respecting him shows.

He was also accounted very illustrious among the Greeks, having given laws to his own fellow citizens, as Hermippus tells us in the fourth book of his account of the Seven Wise Men; and having also written treatises on Astronomy and Geometry, and several other considerable works.

He had 3 daughters, Actis, Philtis, and Delphis.

Eratosthenes asserts, in his books addressed to Baton, that he also composed dialogues entitled Dialogues of Dogs.

Others say that these were written by some Egyptians, in their own[374] language, and that Eudoxus translated them, and published them in Greece.

One of his pupils was Chrysippus, of Cnidos, son of Erineus, who learnt of him all that he knew about the Gods, and the world, and the heavenly bodies; and who learnt medicine from Philistion the Sicilian. He also left some very admirable Reminiscences.

⁴ He had a son of the name of Aristagoras, who was the teacher of Chrysippus, the son of Aëthlius; he was the author of a work on Remedies for the Eyes, as speculations on natural philosophy had come very much under his notice.

⁵ There were 3 other people named Eudoxus.

1. a Rhodian, who wrote histories
2. a Siciliot, a son of Agathocles, a comic poet, who gained 3 victories at the Dionysia in the city, and 5 at the Lenæa, as Apollodorus tells us in his Chronicles.
3. a physician of Cnidos, who is mentioned by this Eudoxus, in his Circuit of the World, where he says that he used to warn people to keep constantly exercising their limbs in every kind of exercise, and their senses too.

⁶ The same author says, that the Cnidean Eudoxus flourished about the hundred and third olympiad; and that he was the inventor of the theory of crooked lines.

He died at 53 years old. But when he was in Egypt with Conuphis, of Heliopolis, Apis licked his garment.

And so the priests said that he would be short-lived, but very illustrious, as it is reported by Phavorinus in his Commentaries.

Our epigram on him is:

’Tis said, that while at Memphis wise Eudoxus Learnt his own fate from th’ holy fair-horned bull; He said indeed no word, bulls do not speak Nor had kind nature e’er calf Apis gifted With an articulately speaking mouth. But standing on one side he lick’d his cloak, Showing by this most plainly—in brief time You shall put off your life. So death came soon, When he had just seen three and fifty times The Pleiads rise to warn the mariners.

Instead of Eudoxus, they used to call him Endoxus because of his brilliance.