Diogenes Laërtius · fl. 3rd century CE
Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.164 — Diogenes Laërtius on Ariston
Translation by R. D. Hicks (1925)
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.164
Reported speech · Diogenes Laërtius on Ariston
The story goes that being bald he had a sunstroke and so came to his end. I have composed a trifling poem upon him in limping iambics as follows: Wherefore, Ariston, when old and bald did you let the sun roast your forehead? Thus seeking warmth more than was reasonable, you lit unwillingly upon the chill reality of Death. There was also another Ariston, a native of Iulis; a third, a musician of Athens; a fourth, a tragic poet; a fifth, of Halae, author of treatises on rhetoric; a sixth, a Peripatetic philosopher of Alexandria.
Cite this passage
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.164 (on Ariston), tr. R. D. Hicks (1925)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/lives-of-the-stoics/7.164
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 notesAriston is said to have died of sunstroke because he was bald, and the author adds a mocking poem. Several other men named Ariston are then distinguished from him.
Older wording
- “iambics”
- — a type of poetic metre
Themes and situations
- Death and mortality
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