Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Aeschines was the son of Charinus the sausage-maker (or, according to others, of Lysanias), an Athenian, hardworking from his youth; wherefore he never left the side of Socrates. Hence Socrates used to say: "Only the sausage-maker's son knows how to honour us." Idomeneus stated that it was this man who advised Socrates in prison concerning flight, and not Crito; but that Plato, because Aeschines was more of a friend to Aristippus, assigned the speeches to Crito. Aeschines was also slandered, especially by Menedemus of Eretria, on the grounds that he was fraudulently putting forward as his own most of the dialogues which were really by Socrates, having received them from Xanthippe. Of these, those called "headless" are exceedingly loose and do not display the Socratic vigour; which dialogues Pisistratus of Ephesus also said were not by Aeschines.

​Moreover, Persaeus says that most of the seven dialogues are really by Pasiphon of Eretria, who inserted them among those of Aeschines. Furthermore, he concocted works from those of Antisthenes as well, namely the Lesser Cyrus, the Lesser Heracles, and the Alcibiades, and also from the works of others. At any rate, those among the dialogues of Aeschines which have caught the true stamp of the Socratic character are seven: first, the Miltiades, which is somewhat weak in tone; the Callias, Axiochus, Aspasia, Alcibiades, Telauges, and Rhinon. They say that through lack of means he went to Sicily to Dionysius, and while he was slighted by Plato, he was introduced by Aristippus; and having presented some of his dialogues, he received gifts.

​Afterwards, having returned to Athens, he did not dare to profess the sophist's craft, since Plato and Aristippus and their circles were then in high repute. Instead, he gave lectures for pay; and then he composed forensic speeches for those who had suffered wrong; wherefore Timon also said in reference to him: "or the not unpersuasive force of Aeschines to write...." And they say that Socrates told him, since he was pressed by poverty, to borrow from himself by reducing his rations. Aristippus too suspected his dialogues. At any rate, when Aeschines was reading them aloud in Megara, they say Aristippus mocked him, saying: "Whence, pirate, did you get these?"

​Polycritus of Mende says in the first book of his work On Dionysius that he lived with the tyrant until his expulsion and down to Dion's return to Syracuse, stating that Carcinus the tragic poet was also with him. There is also extant an epistle of Aeschines to Dionysius. He was also well practiced in rhetorical skills, as is clear both from the defense for the father of Phaiax the general, and that for Dion. He imitates Gorgias of Leontini above all. Moreover, Lysias wrote a speech against him, entitled On Slander; from which it is evident that he was also an orator of sorts. Only one acquaintance of his is recorded, Aristotle who was surnamed Myth.

​Of all the Socratic dialogues, however, Panaetius appears to consider genuine those of Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and Aeschines; he doubts concerning those of Phaedo and Euclides, and rejects all the others. There have been eight persons named Aeschines: the first is this man himself; the second the author of rhetorical treatises; the third the orator who was Demosthenes' opponent; the fourth an Arcadian, pupil of Isocrates; the fifth a Mytilenaean, whom they also called "the whip of orators"; the sixth a Neapolitan, an Academic philosopher, pupil and favourite of Melanthius of Rhodes; the seventh a Milesian, a writer on politics; the eighth a maker of statues.