On being asked why he had not framed any law against parricide, he replied that he hoped it was unnecessary. Asked how crime could most effectually be diminished, he replied, “If it caused as much resentment in those who are not its victims as in those who are,” adding, “Wealth breeds satiety, satiety outrage.”
His counsel to men in general is stated by Apollodorus in his work on the Philosophic Sects as follows:* Put more trust in nobility of character than in an oath. Never tell a lie. Pursue worthy aims. Do not be rash to make friends and, when once they are made, do not drop them. Learn to obey before you command. In giving advice seek to help, not to please, your friend. Be led by reason. Shun evil company. Honour the gods, reverence parents.
He flourished, according to Sosicrates, about the 46th Olympiad, in the third year of which he was archon at Athens;* it was then that he enacted his laws. He died in Cyprus at the age of eighty.
Abridged
From ‘Lives of the Eminent Philosophers’ by Diogenes Laertius (180-240).
* The Chronicle of Apollodorus of Athens (180-? BC) was a wide-ranging account of history and ideas from the Fall of Troy (dated to 1184 BC) to his own time.
* Sosicrates of Rhodes (fl. mid-2nd century BC) was an authority on whom Diogenes relied a good deal. An Olympiad is the period between each Olympic Games. The Olympic Games were held in high summer every four years from 776 BC, until they were abolished in AD 394 by Roman Emperor Theodosius during the 293rd Olympiad. The 46th Olympiad began in 596 BC.