Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

A compilation in ten books of the lives, sayings and doctrines of Greek philosophers from the earliest sages to Epicurus. Little is known about Diogenes himself, but his work is the main ancient source for the biographies of many thinkers. After a prologue on the origins of philosophy, he arranges his subjects in two lines of succession, the Ionian and the Italian. Book I covers Thales and the Seven Sages; Book II runs from the early Ionians to Socrates and his followers; Book III is devoted to Plato, Book IV to the Academy and Book V to Aristotle and his school. Book VI gives the Cynics, with a long section on Diogenes of Sinope, and Book VII the Stoics. Book VIII covers Pythagoras and Empedocles, Book IX figures such as Heraclitus, Parmenides, Democritus and Pyrrho, and Book X is given wholly to Epicurus, preserving three of his letters and the Principal Doctrines. The book mixes anecdotes, sayings, lists of writings, wills and summaries of doctrine.

Much of what we know about ancient philosophers' lives, and some of their own words, survives only here, and its anecdotes still make the Greek thinkers vivid.