Book 8
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The sun he calls a vast collection of fire and larger than the moon; the moon, he says, is of the shape of a quoit, and the heaven itself crystalline. The soul, again, assumes all the various forms of animals and plants. At any rate he saysFr. 117 D.: Before now I was born a boy and a maid, a bush and a bird, and a dumb fish leaping out of the sea.
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His poems On Nature and Purifications run to 5000 lines, his Discourse on Medicine to 600. Of the tragedies we have spoken above.
Chapter 3. EPICHARMUS (c. 550-460 B.C.)
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Epicharmus of Cos, son of Helothales, was another pupil of Pythagoras. When three months old he was sent to Megara in Sicily and thence to Syracuse, as he tells us in his own writings. On his statue this epigram is writtenAnth. Pal. vii. 78.: If the great sun outshines the other stars, If the great sea is mightier than the streams, So Epicharmus’ wisdom all excelled, Whom Syracuse his fatherland thus crowned. He has left memoirs containing his physical, ethical and medical doctrines, and he has made marginal notes in most of the memoirs, which clearly show that they were written by him. He died at the age of ninety.
Chapter 4. ARCHYTAS (fourth century B.C.)
