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Updated: May 26, 2025
Plato likewise, being highly offended with one of his slaves, gave Speusippus order to chastise him, excusing himself from doing it because he was in anger. And Carillus, a Lacedaemonian, to a Helot, who carried himself insolently towards him: "By the gods," said he, "if I was not angry, I would immediately cause thee to be put to death." 'Tis a passion that is pleased with and flatters itself.
SPEUSIPPUS. Nay: talk rationally. CALLIDEMUS. Rationally! You audacious young sophist! I will talk rationally. Do you know that I am your father? What quibble can you make upon that? SPEUSIPPUS. Do I know that you are my father? Let us take the question to pieces, as Melesigenes would say. First, then, we must inquire what is knowledge? Secondly, what is a father? SPEUSIPPUS. All fiction!
The preparations are rather disagreeable to a novice. But as soon as the fighting begins, by Jupiter, it is a noble time; men trampling, shields clashing, spears breaking, and the poean roaring louder than all. CHARICLEA. But what if you are killed? CALLICLES. What indeed? You must ask Speusippus that question. He is a philosopher.
Well, I allow that will be striking; I did not think you capable of that idea. Why do you laugh? SPEUSIPPUS. Do you seriously suppose that one who has studied the plays of that great man, Euripides, would ever begin a tragedy in such a ranting style? CALLIDEMUS. What, does not your play open with the speech of Prometheus? SPEUSIPPUS. No doubt.
SPEUSIPPUS. You are deceived. My friends SPEUSIPPUS. There are other means of support. CALLIDEMUS. What! Well! that is a task for which your studies under the sophists may have fitted you. SPEUSIPPUS. You are wide of the mark. CALLIDEMUS. Then what, in the name of Juno, is your scheme?
This is too much. Here is an universal genius; sophist, orator, poet. To what a three-headed monster have I given birth! a perfect Cerberus of intellect! And pray what may your piece be about? Or will your tragedy, like your speech, serve equally for any subject? SPEUSIPPUS. I thought of several plots; Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, the war of Troy, the murder of Agamemnon.
Speusippus, Plato's successor in the Academy, was both philosopher and naturalist, and we may take it, if we please, that his leaning towards biology, and the biological trend which at this time became more and more marked in Athenian philosophy, were not unconnected with the great impulse which Aristotle had given.
"Speusippus, his sister's son, was such a careless, indecent, and boisterous youth, that his parents could not control him. They sent him to his uncle Plato, who received him in a friendly manner, and forbore to reproach him. Only in his own example he was always modest and placid. This so excited the admiration of Speusippus, that a love of philosophy was kindled within him.
CALLIDEMUS. Nicias, poor honest man, might just as well have sate still; his speaking did but little good. The loss of your oration is, doubtless, an irreparable public calamity. SPEUSIPPUS. Why, not so; I intend to introduce it at the next assembly; it will suit any subject. CALLIDEMUS. That is to say, it will suit none.
DEMOCRITUM: of Abdera, one of the originators of the theory of atoms; said to have lived from 460 to 361 or 357 B.C. XENOCRATEN after Plato, Speusippus was the first head of the Academic School; Xenocrates succeeded him. He lived from 397 to 315 or 313. ZENONEM: of Citium in Cyprus, founder of Stoicism, born about 357, is said to have lived to the age of 98.
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