CHAPTER IX
LEUKIPPOS OF MILETOS
171.Leukippos and Demokritos. We have seen (§§ 31, 122) that the school of Miletos did not come to an end with Anaximenes, and it is a striking fact that the man who gave the most complete answer to the question first asked by Thales was a Milesian.[1] It is true that the very existence of Leukippos has been called in question. Epicurus is reported to have said there never was such a philosopher, and the same thing has been maintained in quite recent times.[2] On the other hand, Aristotle and Theophrastos certainly made him the originator of the atomic theory, and they can hardly have been mistaken on such a point. Aristotle was specially interested in Demokritos, and his native Stageiros is not very far from Abdera, the seat of the Atomist school.
- ↑ Theophrastos said he was an Eleate or a Milesian (R. P. 185), while Diogenes (ix. 30) says he was an Eleate or, according to some, an Abderite. These statements are just like the discrepancies about the native cities of Pythagoreans already noted (Chap. VII. p. 283, n. 1). Diogenes adds that, according to others, Leukippos was a Melian, which is a common confusion. Aetios (i. 7. i) calls Diagoras of Melos a Milesian (cf. Dox. p. 14). Demokritos was called by some a Milesian (Diog. ix. 34; R. P. 186) for the same reason that Leukippos is called an Eleate. We may also compare the doubt as to whether Herodotos called himself a Halikarnassian or a Thourian.
- ↑ Diog. x. 13 (R. P. 185 b), ἀλλ' οὐδὲ Λεύκιππόν τινα γεγενῆσθαί φησι φιλόσοφον οὔτε αὐτὸς (SC. Ἐπίκουρος) οὔτε Ἕμαρχος. This led E. Rohde to maintain that Leukippos never existed (Kl. Schr. i. 205), but this is to make too much of a characteristic Epicurean sally. I suggest that Epicurus said something like Λεύκιππον οὐδ' εἰ γέγονεν οἶδα, which would be idiomatic Greek for "I (purposely) ignore him," "I decline to discuss him." (Cf. e.g. Dem. De cor. § 70 Σέρριον δὲ καὶ Δορίσκον καὶ τὴν Πεπαρήθου πόρθησιν . . . οὐδ' εἰ γέγονεν οἶδα.) That would be just like Epicurus.
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