Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists
C. D. Yonge, B.A., Ed.

---

Do I not then deservedly detest all you philosophers, since you are all haters of philology,—men whom not only did Lysimachus the king banish from his own dominions, as Carystius tells us in his Historic Reminiscenses, but the Athenians did so too. At all events, Alexis, in his Horse, says—

Is this the Academy; is this Xenocrates?
May the gods greatly bless Demetrius
And all the lawgivers; for, as men say,
They've driven out of Attica with disgrace
All those who do profess to teach the youth
Learning and science.

And a certain man named Sophocles, passed a decree to banish all the philosophers from Attica. And Philo, the friend of Aristotle, wrote an oration against him; and Demochares, on the other hand, who was the cousin of Demosthenes, composed a defence for Sophocles. And the Romans, who are in every respect the best of men, banished all the sophists from Rome, on the ground of their corrupting the youth of the city, though, at a subsequent time, somehow or other, they admitted them. And Anaxippus the comic poet declares your folly in his Man struck by Lightning, speaking thus—

Alas, you're a philosopher; but I
Do think philosophers are only wise
In quibbling about words; in deeds they are,
As far as I can see, completely foolish.

It is, therefore, with good reason that many cities, and especially the city of the Lacedæmonians, as Chamæleon says in his book on Simonides, will not admit either rhetoric or philosophy, on account of the jealousy, and strife, and profitless discussions to which they give rise; owing to which it was that, Socrates was put to death; he, who argued [p. 975] against the judges who were given him by lot, discoursing of justice to them when they were a pack of most corrupt men. And it is owing to this, too, that Theodorus the Atheist was put to death, and that Diagoras was banished; and this latter, sailing away when he was banished, was wrecked. But Theotimus, who wrote the books against Epicurus, was accused by Zeno the Epicurean, and put to death; as is related by Demetrius the Magnesian, in his treatise in People and Things which go by the same Name.