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BION

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 956 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BION , of Borysthenes (See also:

Olbia), in Sarmatia, See also:Greek moralist and philosopher, flourished in the first See also:half of the 3rd See also:century B.C. He was of See also:low origin, his See also:mother being a courtesan and his See also:father a dealer in See also:salt See also:fish, with which he combined the occupation of See also:smuggling. Bion, when a See also:young See also:man, was sold as a slave to a rhetorician, who gave him his freedom and made him his See also:heir. After the See also:death of his See also:patron, Bion went to See also:Athens to study See also:philosophy. Here he attached himself in See also:succession to the See also:Academy, the See also:Cynics, the See also:Cyrenaics and the See also:Peripatetics. One of his teachers was the Cyrenaic See also:Theodorus, called " the atheist," whose See also:influence is clearly shown in Bion's attitude towards the gods. After the manner of the See also:sophists of the See also:period, Bion travelled through See also:Greece and See also:Macedonia, and was admitted to the See also:literary circle at the See also:court of Antigonus Gonatas. He subsequently taught philosophy at See also:Rhodes and died at See also:Chalcis in See also:Euboea. His See also:life was written by See also:Diogenes Laertius. Bion was essentially a popular writer, and in his Diatribae he satirized the follies of mankind in a manner calculated to See also:appeal to the sympathies of a low-class See also:audience. While eulogizing poverty and philosophy, he attacked the gods, musicians, geometricians, astrologers, and the wealthy, and denied the efficacy of See also:prayer. His influence is distinctly traceable in succeeding writers, e.g. in the satires of See also:Menippus.

See also:

Horace (Epistles, ii. 2. 6o) alludes to his satires and See also:caustic wit (sal nigrum). An See also:idea of his writings can be gathered from the fragments of Teles, a cynic philosopher who lived towards the end of the 3rd century, and who made See also:great use of them. Specimens of his apophthegms may be found in Diogenes Laertius and the florilegium of See also:Stobaeus, while there are traces of his influence in See also:Seneca. ,I See Hoogvliet, De Vita, Doctrina, et Scriptis Bionis (1821) ; See also:Ros-' signol, Fragmenta Bionis Borysthenitae (183o) ; Heinze, De Horatio Bionis Imitatore (1889).

End of Article: BION

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BIOT, JEAN BAPTISTE (1774-1862)

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