Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Indeed, it is said that he fell passionately in love with Demetrius who sailed to Cyrene, and also with Cleochares of Myrlea. In regard to Cleochares, it is related that when a company of revellers came carousing, Arcesilaus himself wished to open the door, but Cleochares prevented him. Moreover, Demochares the son of Laches and Pythocles the son of Bugelos also loved Cleochares; and finding them with him, Arcesilaus said that out of forbearance he would give way. For these reasons, then, the aforesaid opponents attacked him and mocked him as a seeker of popular favor and ambitious for praise; but those of the Peripatetic school around Hieronymus assaulted him most of all whenever he gathered his friends for the feast of Halcyoneus, the son of Antigonus, for which occasion Antigonus used to send ample funds for enjoyment.

​On those occasions, while declining each time to give discourses over the cups, he said to Arideikes, who put forward a theoretical problem and asked him to speak upon it: “Nay, this very thing is above all the distinctive mark of philosophy: to recognize the proper season for each pursuit.” With respect to this slandered trait of seeking popular favor, Timon also speaks of him in other passages, but particularly in this manner: “So speaking, he plunged into the midst of the surging crowd. And they gaped at him like sparrows round an owl, pointing him out as a vain show, because he was a pleaser of the mob. No great matter, wretched man! Why do you puff yourself up like a fool?” Nevertheless, he was so free from vanity that he recommended his pupils to listen to others as well. And when a young man from Chios was not satisfied with his school, but preferred that of the aforementioned Hieronymus, Arcesilaus himself led him away and introduced him to that philosopher, advising the youth to conduct himself with good order.

​Another witty saying of his is also recorded: when someone asked why it is that people change from other schools to the Epicurean, but never from the Epicureans to others, he said: “Because men may become eunuchs, but eunuchs never become men.” Finally, when he was near the end of his life, he left all his property to his brother Pylades, in return for Pylades having brought him secretly away to Chios unknown to Moireas, and having conducted him from there to Athens. Throughout his life he neither took a wife nor begot children. Having made three wills, he deposited one at Eretria with Amphicritus, another at Athens in the keeping of certain friends, and sent the third home to Thaumasias, one of his close relatives, requesting him to preserve it; to whom he also wrote as follows: “Arcesilaus to Thaumasias, greeting.

“I have given my will to Diogenes to carry to you; for because of my frequent illnesses and the bodily weakness that I suffer, I thought it best to make a testamentary disposition, so that if anything untoward should happen, I might not pass away having done any injustice to you, who have shown such devoted affection toward me. And you are of all people there the most trustworthy to keep it for me, on account of both your age and your intimacy with us. Strive, therefore, remembering that I am placing in your hands the most binding trust, to be just toward us, so that, as far as lies in your power, my affairs may be honorably arranged. Copies of this will are deposited at Athens with certain acquaintances and at Eretria with Amphicritus.” He died, as Hermippus relates, from drinking an excessive quantity of unmixed wine and losing his senses, when he was already seventy-five years old, having been held in the highest esteem by the Athenians beyond any other man.

​There is also an epigram of ours upon him: “Arcesilaus, why did you unsparingly swallow so much unmixed wine that you slipped outside of your own senses? I pity you not so much because you died, but because you outraged the Muses by indulging in an immoderate cup.” There have also been three other men named Arcesilaus: a poet of the Old Comedy, another of elegiac verse, and a third a sculptor, upon whom Simonides composed this epigram: “This is a statue of Artemis, and two hundred Parian drachmas was the wage, coins bearing the device of a goat; and it was fashioned by the skilled hands of Athena’s craft by worthy Arcesilas, the son of Aristodicus.” The aforementioned philosopher, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles, flourished around the hundred and twentieth Olympiad.