Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Pyrrho of Elis was the son of Pleistarchus, as Diocles also records. As Apollodorus says in his Chronicles, he was formerly a painter, and heard Bryson, the son of Stilpo, as Alexander states in the Successions, and then Anaxarchus, accompanying him everywhere, so that he even met with the Gymnosophists in India and with the Magi. From this he seems to have philosophized most nobly, introducing the form of incomprehensibility and suspension of judgment, as Ascanius of Abdera says; for he used to say that nothing is either fine or base, or just or unjust; and similarly in all things, that nothing exists in truth, but that human beings do everything by convention and custom; for each thing is no more this than that.

​He was consistent also in his life, avoiding nothing and taking no precautions, facing everything—wagons, if it so happened, and precipices and dogs—and committing nothing at all to the senses. He was preserved, however, as the followers of Antigonus of Carystus say, by the acquaintances who accompanied him. But Aenesidemus says that while he philosophized according to the doctrine of suspension of judgment, he did not, however, act improvidently in individual matters. He lived to nearly ninety years of age. Antigonus of Carystus says the following about him in his work On Pyrrho: that at first he was obscure and poor, and a painter, and that there are preserved in Elis in the gymnasium torch-racers of his of moderate quality;

​and that he used to walk off by himself and live in solitude, rarely showing himself to those at home. He did this after hearing an Indian reproach Anaxarchus on the ground that he could not teach another any good, while he himself paid court to royal courts. And he was always in the same condition of mind, so that even if someone left him while he was speaking, he would finish the discourse to himself, although he had been excitable in his youth. Often, he says, he would also go abroad without telling anyone beforehand, and would wander about with whomever he pleased. And once, when Anaxarchus fell into a marsh, he passed by without helping him; and when some blamed him, Anaxarchus himself praised his indifference and lack of affection.

​Once, when caught talking to himself and asked the reason, he said he was practicing being a good man. And in inquiries he was looked down upon by no one because he spoke both thoroughly and in response to questions; whence even Nausiphanes, already being a young man, was captivated. He at least used to say that one ought to possess the disposition of Pyrrho, but the arguments of himself. He also often said that Epicurus, admiring the conduct of Pyrrho, constantly inquired of him about Pyrrho. And he was so honored by his native city that they appointed him high priest and voted tax exemption for all philosophers on his account. And indeed, he had many imitators of his detachment from public affairs; whence Timon also says of him thus in the Python, and in the Silli:

"O old man, O Pyrrho, how or whence did you find an escape from the slavery of opinions and the empty-mindedness of the sophists, and loosen the bonds of all deceit and persuasion? Nor was it a care to you to search out these things, what breezes hold Greece, and whence each thing comes and into what it falls." And again in the Images: "My heart longs to hear this, O Pyrrho, how you, still a man, live most easily with tranquility, alone among human beings leading the way in the manner of a god." And the Athenians honored him with citizenship, as Diocles says, for having done away with Cotys the Thracian.