Diogenes Laërtius · fl. 3rd century CE
Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.154 — Diogenes Laërtius on the Stoics
Translation by R. D. Hicks (1925)
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.154
Reported speech · Diogenes Laërtius on the Stoics
Thunderbolt is the term used when the fire is violently kindled and hurled to the ground with great force as the clouds grind against each other or are torn by the wind. Others say that it is a compression of fiery air descending with great force. A typhoon is a great and violent thunderstorm whirlwind-like, or a whirlwind of smoke from a cloud that has burst. A “prester” is a cloud rent all round by the force of fire and wind. Earthquakes, say they, happen when the wind finds its way into, or is imprisoned in, the hollow parts of the earth: so Posidonius in his eighth book; and some of them are tremblings, others openings of the earth, others again lateral displacements, and yet others vertical displacements.
Cite this passage
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.154 (on the Stoics), tr. R. D. Hicks (1925)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/lives-of-the-stoics/7.154
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book VII, tr. R. D. Hicks (Loeb, 1925). Text: Perseus Digital Library (CC BY-SA 4.0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesMore weather and earth science: thunderbolts, typhoons and whirlwinds are explained as fire or air bursting out of clouds, and earthquakes happen when wind is trapped in hollows under the earth, producing tremblings, openings or shifts of the ground.
Older wording
- “typhoon”
- — a violent whirlwind storm
- “prester”
- — a type of fiery whirlwind or storm cloud
- “lateral displacements”
- — sideways movements of the ground
Themes and situations
- Nature and the cosmos
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