SEXTUS EMPIRICUS. THE PYRRHONISTS. 273 



powers of reasoning which he displayed in his discourses, and the 

 remarkable composure which he evinced in the midst of danger and 

 suffering, attracted the notice and commanded the respect not merely 

 of the multitude, but of his philosophical opponents. 



Of his disciples, scarcely any facts of importance are related ; the Disciples of 

 most eminent among them was Timon the Phliasian, a philosopher ximon' 

 who joined to an indolent and unobtrusive disposition a keen and sar- 

 castic vein of humour, which manifested itself in numerous poems, 

 dramas, and dialogues against the Dogmatists. Fragments of his chief 

 work, entitled * Silli,' in which he attacked his adversaries with caustic 

 ridicule, are found interspersed in many subsequent writers. From 

 the saying of a Peripatetic philosopher, that " as the Scythians shot 

 flying, so Timon gained disciples bv shunning them," l we may infer 

 that he was not without followers ; yet no regular successor seems to 

 have transmitted the principles of the Pyrrhonic school, which, per- 

 haps, by being identified with the later Academics, was considered as 

 extinct in the time of Cicero. 2 It had been renewed, however, by 

 Ptolemy the CyrenaBan ; and was defended at Alexandria about the 

 very period when the Roman philosopher thought it no longer in 

 existence, by ^Enesidemus, who wrote eight books of Pyrrhonian 

 discourses. 



From this last author, the tenets of the Sceptics were taught by a 

 succession of masters, of whom little, but the name, is recorded, till 

 the age of Sextus Empiricus, a writer of considerable learning and 

 ingenuity, in whose works, replete with a curious variety of recondite 

 knowledge, which would otherwise have been totally lost, the method, 

 principles, and design of his sect are copiously detailed, and syste- 

 matically explained. Of his life scarcely any account is to be found 

 in succeeding writers, or to be extracted by inferential reasoning from 

 his extant treatises. Conjectures have been resorted to as substitutes 

 for facts, and have perplexed, rather than informed, the historical 

 examiner. 



Suidas identifies Sextus Empiricus with Sextus Chaeronensis, 3 a whether the 

 nephew of Plutarch, and one of the tutors of Marcus* Antoninus. f u f 

 This account is rejected by Salmasius, 4 Rualdus, 5 Jonsius, 6 Casaubon, 7 ch^ro- 



nensis ? 

 1 A6yos yovv etire?^ 'lepcavv/j-ov riv TrepnraTTjriKbv eV avrov, us irapa. TOIS 



Kal ol (pevyovres To|evoucrt Kal ol 8i(*>KovTfS' 6vTW TU>V fpi\oa"6<p(av oi 

 5i<&KOVTs O-npcaffi rovs /u.a07jras, ot Se Qevyovres, KaBdirep Kal 6 Tt/iwj/. Diog. 

 Laert. in Vit. Timon. 2 De Finib. lib. ii. 



3 2e|Tos Xcupcuj/et/s, a^\<pi5ovs Tl\ovrdp^ov, yeyovws Kara Map/coi/ Kvrwvlvov 

 r'bv Kai<rapa $i\6<To<pos, /j.aQrjr^]s 'Epo^6rov TOV 4>iA.aSeA(/>cuotr i\v Se TT?S Ilvppca- 

 vei6v ayvyris- KOI roffovrov irpbs TI^S T$ j8a<nA.e? ^j/, &ffT Kal crvvSiKa&iv 



eypa^ev 'HdiKa Kal 2/ceTTTt/ca jSijSAi'a Se/ca. Menage thinks the words 

 'HpoS^rou roO 4>tAoS6\(/)Oiov %v Se Tlvfipwyedu aywy^s and Kal S/cew- 

 5e/ca are interpolations. 



4 In Not. ad Capitolin. 5 In Plutarch. Vit. c. v. 



6 De Script. Hist. Phil. lib. iii. c. 12. 



7 In Not. ad Capitolin., though he adopts a different opinion in Not. ad Diog. 

 Laert. 



[G. R. P.] T 



