me lies; and secondly, to provide the most earnest of our rising
generation, who aspire to philosophy, with a contemporary pattern,
that they may not be forced back upon the ancients for worthy
models, but imitate this best--if I am any judge--of all
philosophers.

He came of a Cyprian family which enjoyed considerable property and
political influence. But his views soared above such things as
these; he claimed nothing less than the highest, and devoted
himself to philosophy. This was not due to any exhortations of
Agathobulus, his predecessor Demetrius, or Epictetus. He did indeed
enjoy the converse of all these, as well as of Timocrates of
Heraclea, that wise man whose gifts of expression and of
understanding were equal. It was not, however, to the exhortations
of any of these, but to a natural impulse towards the good, an
innate yearning for philosophy which manifested itself in childish
years, that he owed his superiority to all the things that ordinary
men pursue. He took independence and candour for his guiding
principles, lived himself an upright, wholesome, irreproachable
life, and exhibited to all who saw or heard him the model of his
own disposition and philosophic sincerity.

He was no half-baked enthusiast either; he had lived with the
poets, and knew most of them by heart; he was a practised speaker;
he had a knowledge of philosophic principles not of the superficial
skin-deep order; he had developed and hardened his body by exercise
and toil, and, in short, had been at the pains to make himself
every man's equal at every point. He was consistent enough, when he
found that he could no longer suffice to himself, to depart
voluntarily from life, leaving a great reputation behind him among