Xenocrates: Plato

¹ Xenocrates was:

• the son of Agathenor
• a native of Chalcedon

From his early youth he was a pupil of Plato, and also accompanied him in his voyages to Sicily.

² He was lazy. Plato compared him to Aristotle

Plato

You require the spur, just as Aristotle requires the bridle.

Xenocrates

What a horse and what an ass am I dressing opposite to one another!

³ Xenocrates was always of a solemn and grave character, so that Plato was continually saying to him,

“Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces.”

He spent the greater part of his time in the Academy, and whenever he was about to go into the city, they say all the turbulent and quarrelsome rabble in the city used to make way for him to pass by.

Phryne the courtesan wished to try him and pretending that she was pursued by some people, she fled and took refuge in his house; and he admitted her indeed, because of what was due to humanity; and as there was but one bed in the room, he, at her entreaty, allowed her to share it with him; but at last, in spite of all her entreaties, she got up and went away, without having been able to succeed in her purpose; and told those who asked her, that she had quitted a statue and not a man.

But some say that the real story is, that his pupils put Lais into his bed, and that he was so continent, that he submitted to some severe operations of excision and cautery.

⁴ He was a very trustworthy man; so that, though it was not lawful for men to give evidence except on oath, the Athenians made an exception in his favour alone.

⁵ He was also a man of the most contented disposition; accordingly they say that when Alexander sent him a large sum of money, he took three thousand Attic drachmas, and sent back the rest, saying, that Alexander wanted most, as he had the greatest number of mouths to feed.

When some was sent him by Antipater, he would not accept any of it, as Myronianus tells us in his Similitudes. And once, when he gained a golden crown, in a contest as to who could drink most, which was offered in the yearly festival of the Choes by Dionysius, he went out and placed the crown at the feet of the statue of Mercury, which was at the gate, where he was also accustomed to deposit his garlands of flowers.

He was once sent with some colleagues as an ambassador to Philip; and that they were won over by gifts, and went to his banquets and conversed with Philip; but that he would do none of these things, nor could Philip propitiate him by these means; on which account, when the other ambassadors arrived in Athens, they said that Xenocrates had gone with them to no purpose; and the people were ready to punish him; but when they had learnt from him that they had now more need than ever to look to the welfare of their city, for that Philip had already bribed all their counsellors, but that he had been unable to win him over by any means, then they say that the people honoured him with redoubled honour.

They add also, that Philip said afterwards, that Xenocrates was the only one of those who had come to him who was incorruptible. And when he went as ambassador to Antipater on the subject of the Athenian captives at the time of the Samian war, and was invited by him to a banquet, he addressed him in the following lines:

I answer, Goddess human, is thy breast By justice sway’d, by tender pity prest? Ill fits it me, whose friends are sunk to beasts, To quaff thy bowls, or riot in thy feasts: Me would’st thou please, for them thy cares employ, And them to me restore, and me to joy?[35]

Antipater, admiring the appropriateness of the quotation, immediately released them.

⁶ A sparrow was pursued by a hawk, and flew into his bosom.

He caressed it, and let it go again, saying that we should not betray a suppliant.

He was ridiculed by Bion, he said that he would not answer him, for that tragedy, when ridiculed by comedy, did not condescend to make a reply.

To one who had never learnt music, or geometry, or astronomy, but who wished to become his disciple, he said, “Be gone, for you have not yet the handles of philosophy.” But some say that he said, “Be gone, for I do not card wool here.”

When Dionysius said to Plato that some one would cut off his head, he, being present, showed his own, and said, “Not before they have cut off mine.”

⁷ When Antipater had come to Athens and saluted him, he would not make him any reply before he had finished quietly the discourse which he was delivering.

⁸ Being exceedingly devoid of every kind of pride, he often used to meditate with himself several times a day; and always allotted one hour of each day, it is said, to silence.

⁹ He left behind many writings:

• 6 books on Natural Philosophy
• 6 on Wisdom
• 1 on Riches
• the Arcadian
• 1 volume on the Indefinite
• 1 on a Child
• 1 on Temperance
• 1 on the Useful
• 1 on the Free
• 1 on Death
• 1 on the Voluntary
• 2 on Friendship
• 1 on Courtesy
• 2 on Contraries
• 2 on Happiness
• 1 on Writing
• 1 on Memory
• 1 on Falsehood
• the Callicles
• 2 on Prudence
• 1 on Œconomy
• 1 on Temperance
• 1 on the Power of Law
• 1 on Political Constitutions
• 1 on Piety
• 1 on how Virtue may be transmitted
• 1 about the Existent
• 1 on Fate
• 1 on the Passions
• 1 on Lives
• 1 on Unanimity
• 2 on Pupils
• 1 on Justice
• 2 on Virtue
• 1 on Species
• 2 on Pleasure
• 1 on Life
• 1 on Manly Courage
• 1 on The One
• 1 on Ideas
• 1 on Art
• 2 on the Gods
• 2 on the Soul
• 1 on Knowledge
• 1 on the Statesman
• 1 on Science
• 1 on Philosophy
• 1 on the School of Parmenides
• 1 the Archedemus or an essay on Justice
• 1 on the Good
• 8 of those things which concern the Intellect
• 10 essays in solution of the difficulties which occur respecting Orations
• 6 books on the study of Natural Philosophy
• the Principal
• 1 treatise on Genus and Species
• 1 on the doctrines of the Pythagoreans
• 2 books of Solutions
• 7 of Divisions
• several volumes of Propositions
• several about the method of conducting Discussions
• 1 set of 15 volumes and 1 set of 16 volumes on Speaking
• 9 books which treat of Ratiocination
• 6 books on Mathematics
• 2 books on subjects connected with the Intellect
• 5 books on Geometry
• 1 book of Reminiscences
• 1 of Contraries
• 1 on Arithmetic
• 1 on the Contemplation of Numbers
• 1 on Intervals
• 6 on Astronomy
• 4 of elementary suggestions to Alexander
• 1 on the subject of Royal Power addressed to Arybas
• 1 addressed to Hephæstion
• 2 on Geometry
• 7 books of Verses

¹⁰ Myronianus of Amastra in book 1 of his chapters of Historical Coincidences says though he was such a great man, the Athenians once sold him because he was unable to pay the tax to which the metics were liable.

Demetrius Phalereus purchased him, and so assisted both parties, Xenocrates by giving him his freedom, and the Athenians in respect of the tax upon metics.

¹¹ He succeeded Speusippus, and presided over the school for 25 years, beginning at the archonship of Lysimachides, in the second year of the hundred and tenth olympiad.

¹² He died by stumbling by night against a dish at 82 years old.

Our epigram of him:

He struck against a brazen pot, And cut his forehead deep, And crying cruel is my lot, In death he fell asleep. So thus Xenocrates did fall, The universal friend of all.

¹³ There were five other people named Xenocrates.

1. An ancient tactician, a fellow citizen, and very near relation of the philosopher of our Xenocrates

there is extant an oration of his which is scribed, On Arsinoe, and which was written on the death of[158] Arsinoe.

2. a philosopher who wrote very indifferent elegiac poetry; and that is not strange, for when poets take to writing in prose, they succeed pretty well; but when prose writers try their hand at poetry, they fail; from which it is plain, that the one is a gift of nature, and the other a work of art.

3. a statuary

4. a writer of songs, as we are told by Aristoxenus.