42.
To come to the Gymnosophists of India, the opinion is authoritatively handed down that Budda, the founder of their religion, had his birth through the side of a virgin. And we need not wonder at this in the case of Barbarians when cultured Greece supposed that Minerva at her birth sprang from the head of Jove, and Father Bacchus from his thigh. 1 Speusippus also, Plato’s nephew, and 2 Clearchus in his eulogy of Plato, and 3 Anaxelides in the second book of his P. 381 philosophy, relates that Perictione, the mother of Plato, was violated by an apparition of Apollo, and they agree in thinking that the prince of wisdom was born of a virgin. 4 Timæus writes that the 5 virgin daughter of 6 Pythagoras was at the head of a band of virgins, and instructed them in chastity. 7 Diodorus, the disciple of Socrates, is said to have had five daughters skilled in dialectics and distinguished for chastity, of whom a full account is given by Philo the master of 8 Carneades. And mighty Rome cannot taunt us as though we had invented the story of the birth of our Lord and Saviour from a virgin; for the Romans believe that the founders of their city and race were the offspring of the virgin 9 Ilia and of Mars.
He succeeded Plato as president of the Academy ( b.c. 347–339). His works are all lost. ↩
One of Aristotle’s pupils, and author of a number of works, none of which are extant. ↩
Diogenes Laërtius (so named from Laërte in Cilicia), who probably lived in the 2nd century after Christ, in the Third Book of his “Lives of the Philosophers” refers to a treatise by Anaxelides on the same subject. It has therefore been conjectured that Jerome may have written Philosophica Historia for philosophiae. ↩
Timæus of Locri, in Italy, a Pythagorean philosopher, is said to have been a teacher of Plato. There is an extant work bearing his name; but its genuineness is considered doubtful, and it is in all probability only an abridgment of Plato’s dialogue of Timæus. ↩
Damo. Pythagoras is said to have entrusted his writings to her, and to have forbidden her to give them to any one. She strictly observed the command, although she was in extreme poverty, and received many requests to sell them. According to some accounts Pythagoras had another daughter, Myia. ↩
Flourished about b.c. 540–510. ↩
Clement of Alexandria (died about a.d. 220) in his Stromata ( i.e. literally, patchwork ) or Miscellanies, Bk. iv., relates the same story and gives the names of the daughters. The Diodorus referred to in the text lived at Alexandria in the reign of Ptolemy Sorer ( b.c. 323–285), by whom he was said to have been surnamed Cronos or Saturn , on account of his inability to solve at once some dialectic problem when dining with the king, perhaps with a play upon the word chronos (time), or with a sarcastic allusion to Cronos as the introducer of the arts of civilized life. The philosopher is said to have taken the disgrace so much to heart, that he wrote a treatise on the problem, and then died in despair. Another account derives his name from his teacher Apollonius Cronus. ↩
Born about b.c. 213, died b.c. 129. He was the determined opponent of the Stoics, and maintained that neither our senses nor our understanding gives us a safe criterion of truth. ↩
The poetical name of Rhea Silvia, daughter of Numitor and mother of Romulus and Remus. ↩
