On the other hand, modern scholars have advised that we treat Diogenes' testimonia with care, especially when he fails to cite his sources: "Diogenes has acquired an importance out of all proportion to his merits because the loss of many primary sources and of the earlier secondary compilations has accidentally left him the chief continuous source for the history of Greek philosophy". The work by which he is known, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers ( Greek: Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Latin: Vitae Philosophorum), was written in Greek and professes to give an account of the lives and sayings of the Greek philosophers.Īlthough it is at best an uncritical and unphilosophical compilation, its value, as giving us an insight into the private lives of the Greek sages, led Montaigne to write that he wished that instead of one Laërtius there had been a dozen. Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers ĭionysiou monastery, codex 90, a 13th-century manuscript containing selections from Herodotus, Plutarch and (shown here) Diogenes Laertius In addition to the Lives, Diogenes refers to another work that he had written in verse on famous men, in various metres, which he called Epigrammata or Pammetros (Πάμμετρος). It is by no means certain that he adhered to any school, and he is usually more attentive to biographical details. At one point, he even seems to refer to the Pyrrhonists as "our school." On the other hand, most of these points can be explained by the way he uncritically copies from his sources. He is impartial to all schools, in the manner of the Pyrrhonists, and he carries the succession of Pyrrhonism further than that of the other schools. He passionately defends Epicurus in Book 10, which is of high quality and contains three long letters attributed to Epicurus explaining Epicurean doctrines. It has been suggested that Diogenes was an Epicurean or a Pyrrhonist. A disputed passage in his writings has been used to suggest that it was Nicaea in Bithynia. His home town is unknown (at best uncertain, even according to a hypothesis that Laertius refers to his origin). The prevailing modern theory is that "Laertius" is a nickname (derived from the Homeric epithet Diogenes Laertiade, used in addressing Odysseus) used to distinguish him from the many other people called Diogenes in the ancient world. Another suggestion is that one of his ancestors had for a patron a member of the Roman family of the Laërtii.
Stephanus of Byzantium refers to him as "Διογένης ὁ Λαερτιεύς" ( Diogenes ho Laertieus), implying that he was the native of some town, perhaps the Laerte in Caria (or another Laerte in Cilicia). The origin of the name "Laertius" is also uncertain. He is also referred to as "Laertes" or simply "Diogenes". The modern form "Diogenes Laertius" is much rarer, used by Stephanus of Byzantium, and in a lemma to the Greek Anthology. The ancient manuscripts invariably refer to a "Laertius Diogenes", and this form of the name is repeated by Sopater and the Suda. The precise form of his name is uncertain. Hence he is assumed to have flourished in the first half of the 3rd century, during the reign of Alexander Severus (222–235) and his successors. His work makes no mention of Neoplatonism, even though it is addressed to a woman who was "an enthusiastic Platonist". 200), whom he mentions, and before Stephanus of Byzantium and Sopater of Apamea (c. Laërtius must have lived after Sextus Empiricus (c. Due to the loss of so many of the primary sources on which Diogenes relied, his work has become the foremost surviving source on the history of Greek philosophy. However, unlike many other ancient secondary sources, Diogenes Laërtius generally reports philosophical teachings without attempting to reinterpret or expand on them, which means his accounts are often closer to the primary sources. He also frequently focuses on trivial or insignificant details of his subjects' lives while ignoring important details of their philosophical teachings and he sometimes fails to distinguish between earlier and later teachings of specific philosophical schools. His reputation is controversial among scholars because he often repeats information from his sources without critically evaluating it. Nothing is definitively known about his life, but his surviving Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is a principal source for the history of ancient Greek philosophy.
3rd century AD) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. For other people named Diogenes, see Diogenes (disambiguation).ĭiogenes Laërtius ( / d aɪ ˌ ɒ dʒ ɪ n iː z l eɪ ˈ ɜːr ʃ i ə s/ dy- OJ-in-eez lay- UR-shee-əs Greek: Διογένης Λαέρτιος, Laertios fl.
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