Book 5
3.64
As soon as Arcesilaus has arrived, Iraeus shall, with Olympichus, Epicrates, and the other executors, prepare an account of the money expended upon the funeral and the other customary charges. Whatever money remains over, Arcesilaus shall take over from Olympichus, without however pressing him as to times and seasons. Arcesilaus shall also cancel the agreement made by Strato with Olympichus and Ameinias and deposited with Philocrates the son of Tisamenus. With regard to my monument they shall make it as Arcesilaus, Olympichus and Lyco shall approve.
3.64
Such are the terms of his extant will, according to the Collection of Ariston of Ceos. Strato himself, however, was, as stated above, a man entitled to full approbation,πολλῆς τῆς ἀποδοχῆς ἄξιος. This phrase might be taken as Diogenes Laertius’s defence for his inclusion of the Life of Strato. According to the scheme of i. 14, 15, the Peripatetics ended with Theophrastus, whose successors were often held to be vastly inferior, and unworthy to rank beside him; see Cicero, De Fin.v. §§ 12, 13; Strabo xiii. 609. The latter alleges as the reason for this decline the well-known story that the school was deprived of Aristotle’s library, which had been carried away to Scepsis. since he excelled in every branch of learning, and most of all in that which is styled physics, a branch of philosophy more ancient and important than the others.
Chapter 4. LYCO (299-225 B.C.)
