Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes, Robert Gregg Bury (Translator), 3.24.230

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[230] And Heracleitus¹ states that both life and death exist both in our state of life and in our state of death; for when we live our souls are dead and buried within us, and when we die our souls revive and live. And some even suppose that dying is better for us than living. Thus Euripides says;²

Rather should we assemble to bewail

The babe new-born, such ills has he to face;

Whereas the dead, who has surcease from woe,

With joy and gladness we should bear from home.

Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes. Sextus Empiricus. Robert Gregg Bury (Translator). London. 1933.

Funding provided by Tisch Library, Tufts University.

Current edition First1KGreek

Outlines of Pyrrhonism (English) (Sextus Empiricus, Vol. 1. Bury, Robert Gregg, translator. London: William Heinemann Ltd.; New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1933.)

Editions (1)

Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes First1KGreek (Sextus Empiricus. Sexti Empiricii Opera, Volume 1. Mutschmann, Hermann, editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1912.) — 3.24.230 focus

[230] ὁ δὲ Ἡράκλειτός (cf. B 88 Diels) φησιν, ὅτι καὶ τὸ ζῆν καὶ τὸ ἀποθανεῖν καὶ ἐν τῷ ζῆν ἡμᾶς ἐστι καὶ ἐν τῷ τεθνάναι· ὅτε μὲν γὰρ ἡμεῖς ζῶμεν, τὰς ψυχὰς ἡμῶν τεθνάναι καὶ ἐν ἡμῖν τεθάφθαι, ὅτε δὲ ἡμεῖς ¹ ἀποθνῂσκοθεν, τὰς ψυχὰς ἀναβιοῦν καὶ ζῆν. ἔνιοι
δὲ καὶ βέλτιον εἶναι τὸ ἀποθανεῖν τοῦ ζῆν ἡμᾶς ὑπολαμβάνουσιν. ὁ γοῦν Εὐριπίδης φησὶν (fr. 449 Nauck)

ἐχρῆν γὰρ ἡμᾶς σύλλογον ποιουμένους

τὸν φύντα θρηνεῖν, εἰς ὅσ’ ἔρχεται κακά,

τὸν δ’ αὖ θανόντα καὶ κακῶν πεπαυμένον

χαίροντας εὐφημοῦντας ἐκπέμπειν δόμων.

ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς αὐτῆς ὑπολήψεως καὶ ταῦτα εἴρηται·

Notes on the current edition

Outlines of Pyrrhonism

1. Cf. Heracl. Frag. 67, 78 (b 88 Diels). Part of the ‟Upward and Downward Way” of H. (see Introd, p. viii) is the cycle of generation by which every creature is simultaneously both living and dying. The soul, which consists of ‟fire,” is continually passing into the other elements, and the other elements into it. But the second clause (‟for when we live” etc.) looks rather like a contamination of Heracleitus’s doctrine with the σῶμα—σῆμα (‟body a tomb”) theory of Pythagoreanism.

2. Frag. 449; cf. Cic. Tusc. i. 48, Lucr. v. 222 ff.

Sextus Empiricus Pyrrhoniae Hypotyposes 3.24.230

Robert Gregg Bury (Translator)

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