Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: 68. Dêmocritus of Abdêra

Eustathius: Democritus, like all Ionians, calls the letter Gamma 'Gemma'; he also calls the letter Mu 'Mô'.

tetralogies XII and XIII: On Medical Technique, Agriculture, etc.

28b. 'Tactics.' 1

28c. 'Fighting in Armour.' 1

(End of the Tetralogies of Thrasyllus)

genuine fragments from unspecified works

29. (Democritus called the rim of the shield) 'circuit'.

29a. (Democritus used contracted forms of the personal pronouns 'we, you, they').

30. Of the reasoning men, a few, raising their hands thither to what we Greeks call the Air nowadays, said: 'Zeus considers all things and he knows all and gives and takes away all and is King of all.'

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33. Nature and instruction are similar; for instruction transforms the man, and in transforming, creates his nature.

34. Man is a universe in little (Microcosm).

gnômae 2

35. If any man listens to my opinions, here recorded, with intelligence, he will achieve many things worthy of a good man, and avoid doing many unworthy things.

36. = 187.

37. He who chooses the advantages of the soul chooses things more divine, but he who chooses those of the body, chooses things human.

38. It is noble to prevent the criminal; but if one cannot, one should not join him in crime.

39. One must either be good, or imitate a good man.

40. Men find happiness neither by means of the body nor through possessions, but through uprightness and wisdom.

41. Refrain from crimes not through fear but through duty.

42. It is a great thing, when one is in adversity, to think of duty.

43. Repentance for shameful deeds is salvation in life.

44. = 225.

45. The wrongdoer is more unfortunate than the man wronged.

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65. One should practise much-sense, not much-learning. 1

66. It is better to deliberate before action than to repent afterwards.

67. Believe not everything, but only what is approved: the former is foolish, the latter the act of a sensible man.

68. The worthy and the unworthy man (are to be known) not only by their actions, but also their wishes.

69. For all men, good and true are the same; but pleasant differs for different men.

70. Immoderate desire is the mark of a child, not a man.

71. Untimely pleasures produce unpleasantnesses.

72. Violent desire for one thing blinds the soul to all others.

73. Virtuous love consists in decorous desire for the beautiful.

74. Accept no pleasure unless it is beneficial.

75. It is better for fools to be ruled than to rule.

76. For the foolish, not reason but advantage is the teacher.

77. Fame and wealth without intelligence are dangerous possessions.

78. To make money is not without use, but if it comes from wrong-doing, nothing is worse.

79. It is a bad thing to imitate the bad, and not even to wish to imitate the good.

80. It is shameful to be so busy over the affairs of others that one knows nothing of one's own.

81. Constant delay means work undone.

82. The false and the seeming-good are those who do all in word, not in fact.

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99. Life is not worth living for the man who has not even one good friend.

(End of the Gnomae)

128-141. (Unusual words quoted by grammarians)

1 what ought one to think of the surfaces resulting from the section: are they equal or unequal? If they are unequal, they will make the cone have many steplike indentations and unevennesses; but if they are equal, the sections will be equal, and the cone will appear to have the same property as a cylinder, being made up of equal, not unequal, circles, which is most absurd.

155a. (Aristotle: Democritus treats the sphere as a sort of angle when cutting it).

156. Naught exists just as much as Aught.

157. Learn thoroughly the art of statesmanship, which is the greatest, and pursue its toils, from which men win great and brilliant prizes.

158. Men thinking new thoughts with each day.

159. (Democritus said): If the body brought a suit against the soul, for all the pains it had endured throughout life, and the illtreatment, and I were to be the judge of the suit, I would gladly condemn the soul, in that it had partly ruined the body by its neglect and dissolved it with bouts of drunkenness, and partly destroyed it and torn it in pieces with its passion for pleasure—as if, when a tool or a vessel were in a bad condition, I blamed the man who was using it carelessly.

160. (To live badly is) not to live badly, but to spend a long time dying.

161. (Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius: Eclipses were called 'down-drawings' up to the time of Democritus, with reference to the ancient belief that sorceresses could draw down the sun and moon and so cause eclipses).

162. (Scholiast on Homer, Iliad, XIII. 137: Democritus uses the epic word for 'large boulder' for the cylinder).

Sextus: Democritus said that) certain images visit men (some beneficent, some harmful. He prayed) to meet with fortunate images.

173. For mankind, evil comes out of what is good, if one does not know how to guide and drive correctly. It is not right to place such things in the category of evil, but in that of good. It is possible also to use what is good for an evil end 1 if one wishes.

1 they cannot learn letters or music or gymnastic, nor that which above all things embraces virtue, (namely) reverence. For it is precisely from these studies that reverence usually grows.

180. Education is an ornament for the prosperous, a refuge for the unfortunate.

181. The man who employs exhortation and persuasion will turn out to be a more effective guide to virtue than he who employs law and compulsion. For the man who is prevented by law from wrongdoing will probably do wrong in secret, whereas the man who is led towards duty by persuasion will probably not do anything untoward either secretly or openly. Therefore the man who acts rightly through understanding and knowledge becomes at the same time brave and upright.

182. Beautiful objects are wrought by study through effort, but ugly things are reaped automatically without toil. For

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237. All bellicosity is foolish; for in studying the disadvantage of one's enemy, one loses sight of one's own advantage.

238. The man who strives against the stronger ends in disgrace.

239. Bad men, when they escape, do not keep the oaths which they make in time of stress.

240. Toils undertaken willingly make the endurance of those done unwillingly easier.

241. Continuous labour becomes easier through habit.

242. More men become good through practice than by nature.

243. All kinds of toil are pleasanter than rest, when men attain that for which they labour, or know that they will attain it. But whenever there is failure to attain, then labour is painful and hard.

244. Do not say or do what is base, even when you are alone. Learn to feel shame in your own eyes much more than before others.

245. The laws would not prevent each man from living according to his inclination, unless individuals harmed each other; for envy creates the beginning of strife.

246. Life in a foreign country teaches self-sufficiency; for bread and bed are the sweetest cures for hunger and fatigue.

247. To a wise man, the whole earth is open; for the native land of a good soul is the whole earth.

248. The law wishes to benefit men's life; and it is able to do so, when they themselves wish to receive benefit; for it shows to those who obey it their own particular virtue.

1 negligent and does wrong, he is liable not only to be ill-spoken of but also to suffer bodily harm. To make mistakes is inevitable, but men find it hard to forgive.

254. When base men enter upon office, the more unworthy they are, the more neglectful, and they are filled with folly and recklessness.

255. When the powerful prevail upon themselves to lend to the indigent, and help them, and benefit them, herein at last is pity, and an end to isolation, and friendship, and mutual aid, and harmony among the citizens; and other blessings such as no man could enumerate.

256. Justice is to do what should be done; injustice is to fail to do what should be done, and to put it aside.

257. With certain animals, the rule for killing them or not stands thus: any that do wrong and wish to do so may be killed with impunity, and it conduces to well-being to do so rather than not do so.

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259. As has been laid down (by me) regarding beasts and reptiles which are inimical (to man), so I think one should do with regard to human beings: one should, according to ancestral law, kill an enemy of the State in every ordered society, unless a law forbids it. But there are prohibitions in every State: sacred law, treaties and oaths.

260. Anyone killing any brigand or pirate shall be exempt from penalty, whether he do it by his own hand, or by instigation, or by vote.

261. One must punish wrong-doers to the best of one's ability, and not neglect it. Such conduct is just and good, but the neglect of it is unjust and bad.

262. Those who do what is deserving of exile or imprisonment or other punishment must be condemned and not let off. Whoever contrary to the law acquits a man, judging according to profit or pleasure, does wrong, and this is bound to be on his conscience.

263. He has the greatest share of justice and virtue who awards the greatest offices (honours?) (to the most deserving).

264. One must not respect the opinion of other men more than one's own; nor must one be more ready to do wrong if no one will know than if all will know. One must respect one's own opinion most, and this must stand as the law of one's soul, preventing one from doing anything improper.

265. Men remember one's mistakes rather than one's successes. This is just; for as those who return a deposit do not deserve praise, whereas those who do not do so deserve blame and punishment, so with the official: he was elected not to make mistakes but to do things well.

266. There is no means under the present constitution by which magistrates can be prevented from wrong-doing, however good they may be. For it is not likely for anyone else

1 But we must also make arrangements to see that if a magistrate does no wrong, and convicts wrong-doers, he shall not fall under the power of the latter; rather, a law or some other means must defend the magistrate who does what is just.

267. Rule belongs by nature to the stronger.

268. Fear engenders flattery, but it has no good will.

269. Courage is the beginning of action, but Fortune is the arbiter of the goal.

270. Use slaves as parts of the body: each to his own function.

271. A lover's reproach is dissolved by (? corrupt word).

272. The man who is fortunate in his choice of a son-in-law gains a son; the man unfortunate in his choice loses his daughter also.

273. A woman is far sharper than a man in malign thoughts.

274. An adornment for a woman is lack of garrulity. Paucity of adornment is also beautiful.

275. The rearing of children is full of pitfalls. Success is attended by strife and care, failure means grief beyond all others.

276. I do not think that one should have children. I observe in the acquisition of children many great risks and many griefs, whereas a harvest is rare, and even when it exists, it is thin and poor.

277. Whoever wants to have children should, in my opinion, choose them from the family of one of his friends. He will thus obtain a child such as he wishes, for he can select the kind he wants. And the one that seems fittest will be most likely to follow on his natural endowment. The difference is that in the latter way one can take one child out of many who is according to one's liking; but if one begets a child of one's own, the risks are many, for one is bound to accept him as he is.

Suidas: Democritus uses the word for 'one's own').

298a. Check carefully the passion accumulated in thy breast, and take care not to disturb thy soul, and do not allow all things always to the tongue. 1

Spurious fragments. 2

298b. (Title): 'On the Holy Scripts in Babylon.'

1 years on foreign soil.

(Titles)

299a. 'On the Sacred Writings in Meroê.'

299b. 'Circumnavigation of Ocean.'

299c. 'On Research.'

299d. 'Chaldean Theory.'

299e. 'Phrygian Theory.'

299f. 'On Fever and those who cough through illness.'

299g. 'Causes relating to Laws.'

299h. (Word meaning 'Problems'.)

300. 'The Things Wrought by Hand.'
'Potent Natural Products.'
'Sympathetic and Antipathetic Substances.' 2

308. 'Theogonia.'

302. Collection of Maxims. 3

302a. (Seneca) One for me is worth the whole populace and the populace worth one. 4

303. (Graeco-Syrian Maxims). Wise men when visiting a foreign land must silently and quietly reconnoitre while they look and listen to find out the reputation of the wise men there: what they are like, and if they can hold their own before them while they secretly weigh their words against their own in their minds. When they have weighed and seen which group is

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304. (ib., and Vatican Maxims) I alone know that I know nothing.

30S. (Reference to Democritus as philosopher in the Arabian writer Qifti).

306. (List of 14 titles of books by Democritus in the Arabian writer Masala, c. A.D. 800).

307. (Pseudoribasius, a Byzantine forgery: reference to Democritus as writer of aphorisms).

308. (Epigram attributed to Democritus; elsewhere to one Metrodorus).

309. (Albertus Magnus: Democritus said 'Man is the measure of all things that are'). 2

Footnotes

94:1 Some emend γνώμης to γνώμονος ('Gnômôn'); Heath prefers γωνὶης ('angle'). See Greek Mathematics, I, p. 178.

94:2 Diels: 'The Parapêgma was a bronze or marble indicator of the days of the solar year according to the Zodiac, together with the customary weather-signs. Beside the days were holes in which the days of the civil month could be inserted.

96:1 Bird-days are those on which migrant birds appear; bird-winds are those which bring migrant birds.

98:1 These are thought to be the work of another Democritus, who according to Suidas wrote two books on Tactics and one on the Jews: perhaps Democritus of Mende.

99:1 Pun on ἀποπληξίη and πληγή.

99:2 Given in a collection called 'Maxims of Democratês'. But Stobaeus quotes as 'Maxims of Democritus’ many of the sayings here recorded; it is therefore thought that 'Democrates' is a corruption of 'Democritus', or perhaps a later attribution by Byzantine scholars who had discovered the existence of one Democrates of Aphidna in Attica, a writer on agriculture of the fourth century B.C.

101:1 Cp. Heracleitus, Frg. 40.

102:1 Cp. Heracleitus, Frg. 49.

106:1 'By which is clearly meant a plane indefinitely near to the base.' Heath, Greek Mathematics, I, pp. 199-80.

107:1 The MS. reading ἀλκήν is emended by Diels-Kranz to ἀλκῇ and translated: 'It is possible to use what is good as a help against what is evil.'

108:1 It seems best to take μὴ πονεῖν, after the intrans. ἀνιέντες, as a consecutive infinitive: 'If children are left free so as not to work.' Kranz translates: 'If we do not leave children free to work.'

113:1 Cp. Heracleitus, Frg. 85.

114:1 Meineke inserted the negative μή which was accepted by Diels-Kranz.

115:1 For the doubtful words, the MSS. have εὐθυμίης and κτάσεως. Various emendations have been suggested, but none is satisfactory.

116:1 i.e. power may corrupt even the best. Diels took τοὺς ἄρχοντας as the object of άδικεῖν and translated: 'There is no means of protecting the magistrates from hurt.' He then could make nothing of the next sentence, and was obliged to assume a lacuna.

118:1 From a Herculanean MS. of Demetrius of Byzantium, who wrote 'On Poetry'. He quotes an unnamed author whom Wilamowitz took to be Democritus, because of the dialect.

118:2 For a discussion of these, see Companion, pp. 323-5.

119:1 Probably a scribe's mistake for 'five'.

119:2 The work of Bolus of Mende, Ch. 78 below.

119:3 From the Corpus Parisinum Profanum. Some of these are the same as genuine fragments of Democritus; but many come from other writers, and the collection must be regarded as unauthentic.

119:4 Cp. Heracleitus, Frg. 49.

120:1 Gomperz regarded this as genuine.

120:2 Protagoras, Frg. 1.