Theodorus of Cyrene

Persons of the Dialogue.

Theodorus.

Theitatus.

Socrates.

An Eliadic stranger, whom Theodorus and Theitatus bring with them.

The younger Socrates, who is a silent auditor.

Theodorus.

Here we are, Socrates, true to our agreement of yesterday, and we bring with us a stranger from Elia, who is a disciple of Parmenides and Zeno, and a true philosopher.

And what followed? THETATUS.

The lines or sides which have for their squares the equilateral plane numbers were called by us lengths or magnitudes, and the lines which are the roots of, or whose squares are equal to, the oblong numbers were called powers or roots, the reason of this latter name being that they are commensurable with the former, i. e., with the so-called lengths or magnitudes not in linear measurement but in the value of the superficial content of their squares and the same about solids soc excellent my boys i think that you fully justify the praises of theodorus and that he will not be found guilty of false witness theaet but i am unable socrates to give you a similar answer about knowledge which is what you appear to want and therefore Theodorus is a deceiver after all.

Socrates.

Well, but if someone were to praise you for running, and to say that he never met your equal among boys, and afterwards you were beaten in a race by a grown-up man, who was a great runner, would the praise be any the less true? Theaetetus.

Remember what has been already said, that to the sick man his food appears to be and is bitter, and to the man in health the opposite of bitter.

Now I cannot conceive that one of these men can be or ought to be made wiser than the other, nor can you assert that the sick man because he has one impression is foolish and the healthy man because he has another is wise but the one state requires to be changed into the other the worse into the better as in education a change of state has to be effected and the sophist accomplishes by words the change which the physician works by the aid of drugs not that any one ever made another think truly who previously thought falsely for no one can think what is not or think anything different from that which he feels and this is always true but as the inferior habit of mind has thoughts of a kindred nature so i conceive that a good mind causes men to have good thoughts and these which the inexperienced call true i maintain to be only better and not truer than others and oh my dear socrates i do not call wise men tadpoles far from it i say that they are the physicians of the human body and the husbandmen of plants for the husbandmen also take away the evil and disordered sensations of plants and infuse into them good and healthy sensations aye and true ones and the wise and good rhetoricians make the good instead of the evil to seem just to states for whatever appears to a state to be just and fair so long as it is regarded as such is just and fair to it but the teacher of wisdom causes the good to take the place of the evil both in appearance and in reality and in like manner the sophist who is able to train his pupils in the spirit is a wise man and deserves to be well paid by them and so one man is wiser than another and no one thinks falsely and you whether you will or not must endure to be a measure on these foundations the argument stands firm which you socrates may if you please overthrow by an opposite argument or if you like you may put questions to me a method to which no intelligent person will object quite the reverse but i must beg you to put fair questions for there is great inconsistency in saying that you have a zeal for virtue and then always behaving unfairly in argument the unfairness of which i complain is that you do not distinguish between mere disputation and dialectic the disputer may trip up his opponent as often as he likes and make fun but the dialectician will be in earnest and only correct his adversary when necessary telling him the errors into which he has fallen through his own fault or that of the company which he has previously kept if you do so your adversary will lay the blame of his own confusion and perplexity on himself and not on you he will follow and love you and will hate himself and escape from himself into philosophy in order that he may become different from what he was but the other mode of arguing which is practised by the many will have just the opposite effect upon him and as he grows older instead of turning philosopher he will come to hate philosophy i would recommend you therefore as i said before not to encourage yourself in this polemical and controversial temper but to find out in a friendly and congenial spirit what we really mean when we say that all things are in motion and that to every individual and state what appears is in this manner you will consider whether knowledge and sensation are the same or different but you will not argue as you were just now doing from the customary use of names and words which the vulgar pervert in all sorts of ways, causing infinite perplexity to one another.

Such, Theodorus, is the very slight help which I am able to offer to your old friend.

Had he been living, he would have helped himself in a far more glorious style.

Accordingly, since all peoples are firmly convinced that there are immortal gods, although their nature and origin are undecided, I cannot think there is anyone so audacious and so swollen with impious pretensions to wisdom as to endeavor to destroy or weaken so ancient, useful, and salutary a religion.

Certainly Theodorus of Cyrene, and previous to him Diagorus of Milos, called Atheos by the ancients, both asserted that there were no gods, a statement which, if believed, would have utterly destroyed the feeling of awe and veneration by which human actions are governed.

But they will never secure much influence for their impious doctrines under the name and authority of their sham philosophy.

Protagoras of Abdera, who discussed the question of the godhead rather as a philosopher than as an atheist, was banished by the Athenians and his writings publicly burnt.

The dialogues entitled Cephalion, the Icthias, the Jactov, the Leopard, the people of Athenians, the Republic.

one on moral art, one on wealth, one on love, the Theodorus, the Hypsias, the Aristarchus, one on death, a volume of letters, seven tragedies, the Helen, the Thistis, the Hercules, the Achilles, the Medea, the Chrysippus, and the Oedipus.

But Sosicratus, in the first book of his Successions, and Satyrus in the fourth book of his Lives, both assert that none of all these are the genuine compositions of Diogenes, and Satyrus affirms us that the tragedies are the work of Felicicus, the Argentian, a friend of Diogenes.

But Sotian, in his seventh book, says that these are the only genuine works of Diogenes, a dialogue on virtue, another on the good, another on love the beggar the solomius the leopard the cassander the cephalion and the aristarchus the cespius the ganymede a volume of apothegms and another of letters are all work of there were five persons of the name of diogenes the first a native of apollyona a natural philosopher and the beginning of his treatise on natural philosophy is as follows It appears to me to be well for everyone who commences any kind of philosophical treatise to lay down some undeniable principle to start with.

Consider these facts, for it will not be possible for you to become his partner, if you do not also apply yourself to the same studies, and conform to the same habits that he does.

But the girl chose him, and assuming the same dress that he wore, went about with him as her husband, and appeared with him in public everywhere, and went to all entertainments in his company.

and once when she went to serve with lysimachus she attacked theodorus who was surnamed the atheist proposing to him the following sophism what theodorus could not be called wrong for doing that same thing hypatia ought not to be called wrong for doing but theodorus does no wrong when he beats himself Therefore, Hipparchia does no wrong when she beats Theodorus.

He made no reply to what she said, but only pulled her clothes about.

During this time, Androcles, the popular leader, produced sundry aliens and slaves who accused Alcibiades and his friends of mutilating other sacred images, and of making a parody of the mysteries of Eleusis in a drunken revel.

They said that one Theodorus played the part of the herald, Pelusion that of the torchbearer, and Alcibiades that of the high priest, and that the rest of his companions were there in the role of initiates, and were dubbed mystae.

Such indeed was the purport of the impeachment which Thessalus, the son of Cimon, brought in to the assembly, impeaching Alcibiades for impiety towards the Eleusinian goddesses.

The people were exasperated and felt bitterly towards Alcibiades, and Androcles, who was his mortal enemy, egged them on.

There was a party there who were on the point of surrendering the city to the Athenians; but Alcibiades knew them, and gave the clearest information of their design to the friends of Syracuse in the city, and so brought the thing to nought.

Arrived at Thurii, he left his trireme and hid himself so as to escape all quest.

When someone recognized him and asked, "Can you not trust your country, Alcibiades?" "In all else," he said; "but in the matter of life I wouldn't trust even my own mother not to mistake a black for a white ballot when she cast her vote." And when he afterwards heard that the city had condemned him to death, "I'll show them," he said, "that I'm alive." His impeachment is on record, and runs as follows: "Thessalus son of Cimon, of the deme Laciadae, impeaches Alcibiades son of Cleinias, of the deme Scambonidae, for committing crime against the goddesses of Eleusis, Demeter and Cora, by mimicking the mysteries and showing them forth to his companions in his own house, wearing a robe such as the high priest wears when he shows forth the sacred secrets to the initiates, and calling himself high priest, Pylisian torch-bearer, and Theodorus of the deme Phlyacia herald, and hailing the rest of his companions as mystae and epoptae, contrary to the laws and institutions of the Eumolpidae, heralds, and priests of Eleusis." His case went by default, his property was confiscated, and besides that, it was also decreed that his name should be publicly cursed by all priests and priestesses.

Theano the daughter of Menon, of the deme Agraulae, they say, was the only one who refused to obey this decree; she declared that she was a praying, not a cursing, priestess.