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Empedocles

This webpage reproduces one of the
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
by
Diogenes Laërtius
published in the Loeb Classical Library, 1925

The text is in the public domain.

This page has been carefully proofread
and I believe it to be free of errors.
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Archytas

(Vol. II) Diogenes Laërtius
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

Book VIII

 p391  Chapter 3
Epicharmus (c. 550‑460 B.C.)

[link to original Greek text] 78 Epicharmus of Cos, son of Helothales, was another pupil of Pythagoras. When three months old he was sent to Megara in Sicily and thence to Syracuse, as he tells us in his own writings. On his statue this epigram is written:1

p393 If the great sun outshines the other stars,

If the great sea is mightier than the streams,

So Epicharmus' wisdom all excelled,

Whom Syracuse his fatherland thus crowned.

He has left memoirs containing his physical, ethical and medical doctrines, and he has made marginal notes in most of the memoirs, which clearly show that they were written by him. He died at the age of ninety.

The Loeb Editor's Note:

1 Anth. Pal. VII.78.

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