Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Bion was by birth a Borysthenite; but as to who his parents were and from what circumstances he came to philosophy, he himself makes clear to Antigonus. For when the king asked him: “Who of men are you, and whence? Where are your city and your parents?” Bion, perceiving that he had already been slandered, said to him: “My father was a freedman, one who wiped his nose on his elbow—meaning thereby a dealer in salt fish—a Borysthenite by birth, having no face, but an inscription upon his face, a token of his master’s harshness; and my mother was the kind of woman such a man would marry, from a brothel. Afterwards my father, having committed some fraud against the revenue, was sold into slavery with all his household, along with us. And a certain rhetorician bought me when I was rather young and graceful; and he, upon dying, left me everything.

​And I, having burned his writings and scraped together all the property, came to Athens and devoted myself to philosophy. ‘Of this stock and blood do I boast that I am.’ Such is my background. Let Persaeus and Philonides therefore cease recounting these matters; and judge me from myself.” And in truth Bion was in other respects a man of versatile character and a subtle sophist, having given very many pretexts to those who wished to scoff at philosophy; in certain matters he was also showy and able to enjoy vanity. He has left behind a great many memoirs, but also apothegms containing practical utility. For example, when reproached for not having caught a young lad, he said: “It is not possible to draw soft cheese with a fishhook.”

​Being asked once who is in greater anguish, he said: “He who desires to enjoy the greatest prosperity.” When asked whether one should marry—for this saying too is attributed to him—he said: “If you marry an ugly woman, you will have a torment; but if a fair one, you will have one shared by others.” Old age, he used to say, is the harbor of evils; at any rate, all evils flee to it. Reputation is the mother of virtues; beauty is an alien good; wealth is the sinews of affairs. To a man who had devoured his lands, he said: “Amphiaraus the earth swallowed up, but you swallowed up the earth.” He said that it is a great evil not to be able to bear evil. He also condemned those who burn the bodies of men as being without sensation, yet burn fires alongside them as though they could feel.

​He kept saying that it is more desirable to bestow one’s own youthful bloom upon another than to crop that of another; for one is harmed both in body and in soul. He also slandered Socrates, saying that if he had need of Alcibiades and abstained, he was a fool; but if he had no need, he was doing nothing extraordinary. He asserted that the road to Hades is easy; at any rate, people depart with their eyes shut. Finding fault with Alcibiades, he said that when he was a boy he drew husbands away from their wives, and when he became a youth he drew wives away from their husbands. While the Athenians were practicing rhetoric in Rhodes, he taught philosophical doctrines; when someone reproached him for this, he said: “Did I bring wheat here to sell barley?”

​He also used to say that those in Hades would be punished more if they carried water in sound jars rather than in pierced ones. To a chatterbox who was begging him to take up his cause, he said: “I will do what satisfies you if you send advocates and do not come yourself.” Sailing with wicked men, he fell among pirates; and when they said, “We are undone if we are recognized,” he said, “And I indeed am undone if I am not recognized.” He used to say that conceit is a hindrance to progress. To a stingy rich man, he said: “It is not this man who possesses the property, but the property this man.” He said that stingy men take care of their possessions as if they were their own, but derive no benefit from them as if they belonged to others. He said that men ought to employ courage while they are young, but reach their prime in prudence as they grow old.

​Prudence differs from the other virtues as much as sight differs from the other senses. He used to say that one ought not to revile old age, into which, he said, we all pray that we may come. To a malicious man who was looking gloomy, he said: “I do not know whether an evil has happened to you, or a good to another.” He used to say that ignoble birth is an unpleasant companion for freedom of speech: “For it enslaves a man, even if he be bold of heart.” He said that one must keep one’s friends whatever sort they may be, lest we should seem to have associated with base men or to have rejected worthy ones. At first, during the time he was a hearer of Crates, he declined the doctrines of the Academy; then he took up the Cynic way of life, adopting the cloak and wallet.