Polemo
Diogenes Laertius, Book IV - Polemo
17. Antigonus of Carystus in his Biographies says that his father was foremost
among the citizens and kept horses to compete in the chariot-race; that Polemo
himself had been defendant in an action brought by his wife, who charged him
with cruelty owing to the irregularities of his life; but that, from the time
when he began to study philosophy, he acquired such strength of character as
always to maintain the same unruffled calm of demeanour. Nay more, he never lost
control of his voice. This in fact accounts for the fascination which he
exercised over Crantor.[15] Certain it is that, when a mad dog bit him in the
back of his thigh, he did not even turn pale, but remained undisturbed by all
the clamour which arose in the city at the news of what had happened. In the
theatre too he was singularly unmoved. 18. For instance, Nicostratus, who was
nicknamed Clytemnestra, was once reading to him and Crates something from Homer;
and, while Crates was deeply affected, he was no more moved than if he had not
heard him. Altogether he was a man such as Melanthius the painter describes in
his work On Painting. There he says that a certain wilfulness and stubbornness
should be stamped on works of art, and that the same holds good of character.
Polemo used to say that we should exercise ourselves with facts and not with
mere logical speculations, which leave us, like a man who has got by heart some
paltry handbook on harmony but never practised, able, indeed, to win admiration
for skill in asking questions, but utterly at variance with ourselves in the
ordering of our lives.
He was, then, refined and generous, and would beg to be excused, in the words of
Aristophanes about Euripides, the "acid, pungent style," 19. which, as the same
author says, is "strong seasoning for meat when it is high."[16] Further, he
would not, they say, even sit down to deal with the themes of his pupils, but
would argue walking up and down. It was, then, for his love of what is noble
that he was honoured in the state. Nevertheless would he withdraw from
society[17] and confine himself to the Garden of the Academy, while close by his
scholars made themselves little huts and lived not far from the shrine of the
Muses and the lecture-hall. It would seem that in all respects Polemo emulated
Xenocrates. And Aristippus in the fourth book of his work On the Luxury of the
Ancients affirms him to have been his favourite. Certainly he always kept his
predecessor before his mind and, like him, wore that simple austere dignity
which is proper to the Dorian mode.
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