Chapter 4

chaps. 18 and 26.

_Tannonius Pudens_, an advocatus of the accusers and, presumably, a relative.

_Homer_, sc. Il. iii. 65.

_Pythagoras_, inventor of the term [Greek: philosophia]; cp. Diog. Laert. i, proem. 12. He was a native of Samos and migrated to Croton. See Florida, chap. 15. Floruit circa 530 B.C.

_Zeno_ of Velia or Elea in Lucania was the founder of dialectic. Floruit circa 450 B.C.

_self inconsistency._ The phrase _argumenta ambifariam dissolvere_ is very obscure. I am indebted to Professor Cook Wilson for the following note. 'A comparison of the passage with the captious argument of Protagoras (Florida, chap. 17, _ambifariam proposuit_), which is in the form of a dilemma, might suggest that _ambifariam_ in both places means "by dilemma". But this is not a natural way of describing the method of Zeno. The characteristic of his philosophy was, according to tradition, that he tried to prove the thesis of Parmenides negatively by disproving the hypothesis contradictory to it. The disproof consisted in showing that the hypothesis in question involved a contradiction. If, therefore, _ambifariam_ means "by dilemma" it would appear that Apuleius did not understand the true characteristic of Zeno's method; for _dissolvere_ should refer to Zeno's method of disproof, which is not properly called dilemma.

'But perhaps it is not necessary to assume such a mistake on the part of Apuleius. _Ambifariam_ may mean "ambiguously" in the sense of involving both sides of a contradiction (i.e. both of two contradictory propositions). This would suit the Protagoras passage well, for the argument, as the context shows, involves a contradiction. Zeno's argumentation also could be correctly described as _ambifariam dissolvere_, because he refuted the thesis opposed to that of Parmenides by showing that it involves a contradiction. Then the meaning of the passage would be that Zeno's cleverness (_sollertissimum artificium_) lay in the use of the _reductio ad absurdum_ argument. In that case the translation would be as given in the text.' I find a confirmation of Professor Cook Wilson's view in the following line, cited from Timon of Phlius by Diog. Laert. ix. v. 2, where the word [Greek: amphoteroglossos] is used with reference to Zeno's methods of argument, sc. [Greek: amphoteroglossou te mega sthenos ouk alapadnon].

_Plato_, sc. Parmenides, 127_b_.

_capital charge._ There is an untranslatable pun here, _capitalis_ bearing the double meaning 'capital' and 'pertaining to the head'.