Book 9
11.71
Some call Homer the founder of this school, for to the same questions he more than anyone else is always giving different answers at different times, and is never definite or dogmatic about the answer. The maxims of the Seven Wise Men, too, they call sceptical; for instance, Observe the Golden Mean, and A pledge is a curse at one’s elbow, meaning that whoever plights his troth steadfastly and trustfully brings a curse on his own head. Sceptically minded, again, were Archilochus and Euripides, for Archilochus saysFr. 70 B.: Man’s soul, O Glaucus, son of Leptines, Is but as one short day that Zeus sends down. And EuripidesSupplices, 735-737.: Great God ! how can they say poor mortal men Have minds and think? Hang we not on thy will? Do we not what it pleaseth thee to wish?
11.72
Furthermore, they find Xenophanes, Zeno of Elea, and Democritus to be sceptics: Xenophanes because he says,Fr. 34 D. Clear truth hath no man seen nor e’er shall know; and Zeno because he would destroy motion, saying, A moving body moves neither where it is nor where it is not; Democritus because he rejects qualities, saying, Opinion says hot or cold, but the reality is atoms and empty space, and again, Of a truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well.This proverbial expression is inadequate; a more literal rendering of ἐν βύθῳ would be in an abyss. Plato, too, leaves the truth to gods and sons of gods, and seeks after the probable explanation.Tim. 40 d. Euripides saysNauck, T.G.F.2, Eur. 638; Polyid. Fr. 7.:
