Academic Scepticism 263
phrastus, a kindly man and no stranger to the affairs of love; and because
he still had his youthful beauty he became the beloved of Crantor, the
Academic, to whom he devoted himself-but since he was not without
natural gifts he employed them effortlessly as he went, and, enflamed with
ambition, he acquired from Diodorus those clever, all-purpose persuasive
arguments, while associating with Pyrrho too. (731b) (Pyrrho was inspired
by Democritus in one way or another.) Being equipped from one source
and another, Arcesilaus persisted in refuting everything, just like a Pyrr-
honian except for the name. At any rate, Mnaseas and Philomelus and
Timon, the Sceptics, called him a sceptic, just like themselves, since he
abolished truth, falsity, and plausibility.
Thus, because of his Pyrrhonian arguments, he was called a Pyrrhonian,
but out of deference to his lover he let himself continue to be called an
Academic. So, whereas he was a Pyrrhonist except in name, he was not
an Academic, except for being called one. For I am not persuaded of
what Diodes of Cnidus says in his work called Diatribes, namely, that
Arcesilaus, for fear of the disciples (731c) of Theodorus and Bion the
sophist, who attacked philosophers and would stop at nothing to refute
them, took precautions so that he would not have difficulties, never
appearing to endorse a dogma, but rather emitting the suspension of
judgement for his own protection, like the ink emitted by a squid. But
I am not persuaded of this.Diogenes Laertius 4.62-66 (selections) [III-3]- Carneades of Cyrene was the son of Epicomus or, according to
Alexander in his Successions, of Philocomus. He read carefully the books
of the Stoics, particularly those of Chrysippus. He countered these so
persuasively and acquired thereupon so much renown that he remarked,
"If there were no Chrysippus, I would not be." He was an industrious
man if anybody was, applying himself less to physical matters and more
to ethical. As a result of his occupation with his studies he let his hair
and nails grow. He was so powerful in philosophy that even rhetoricians
would dismiss their classes and go and listen to him ....
64 .... He seems to have faced death rather fearfully for at that time
he continually said "nature which has composed [me] will decompose
[me]." When he learned that Antipater died by drinking poison, he was
moved by his courageous demise and said, "Give it then to me too."
"What?" he was asked. "A sweet drink," he said. They say that when
he died there was an eclipse of the moon, a hint, one might say, of the
sympathy of the most beautiful of heavenly bodies after the sun. - Apollodorus in his Chronicles said that he died in the fourth year