Mary R.

Lefkowitz, Wellesley College

Visits to Egypt in the Biographical Tradition

According to the biographical tradition that has come down to us, Euripides,
Plato, and Eudoxus all traveled to Egypt. In this paper I shall argue that it is
most unlikely that any of these visits ever took place. But I shall also try to sug-
gest why biographers supposed that they went there. One reason is that they all
described visits to Egypt in their writings. Another reason that Egypt assumes
such importance in certain biographies is that some biographers were based in
Alexandria. As Susan Stephens shows in her recent book Seeing Double,1 Greek
writers living and working in Alexandria were interested in and influenced by
the Egyptian culture around them. But Greeks in general were eager to create
links to this impressive civilization so vastly older than their own. What better
way to connect their own great literary traditions with Egypt than to suppose
that famous Greek writers and philosophers traveled to Egypt and were inspi-
red by Egyptian learning?
I shall begin by discussing an anecdote about Plato and Euripides that ob-
viously can have no historical value, but that nonetheless gives us some insight
into the biographers’ methods and intentions. Then I shall describe how stories
about visits to Egypt by Plato and Eudoxus developed and ultimately became
the source of a myth that survives today, that philosophy originated not in
Greece, but in Egypt.

1. Euripides and Plato

According to Diogenes Laertius, shortly after his twenty-eighth birthday, Plato

went to Cyrene and to Italy. Then, along with Euripides, he went to Egypt:2
ΓЈ Κ΅Η΍ Ύ΅Ϡ ̈ЁΕ΍ΔϟΈ΋Α ΅ЁΘХ ΗΙΑ΅ΎΓΏΓΙΌϛΗ΅΍ Ύ΅Ϡ ΅ЁΘϟΌ΍ ΑΓΗφΗ΅ΑΘ΅ ΔΕϲΖ ΘЗΑ ϡΉΕνΝΑ
ΦΔΓΏΙΌϛΑ΅΍ ΘϜ Έ΍Τ Ό΅ΏΣΘΘ΋Ζ ΌΉΕ΅ΔΉϟθа ϵΌΉΑ ΔΓΙ Ύ΅Ϡ ΉϢΔΉϧΑа «ΌΣΏ΅ΗΗ΅ ΎΏϾΊΉ΍ ΔΣ-
ΑΘ΅ ΘΦΑΌΕЏΔΝΑ Ύ΅ΎΣа» ΦΏΏΤ Ύ΅Όд ͣΐ΋ΕΓΑ ΚΣΑ΅΍ ΔΣΑΘ΅Ζ ΦΑΌΕЏΔΓΙΖ ̄Ϣ·ΙΔΘϟΓΙΖ
Ϣ΅ΘΕΓϿΖ ΉϨΑ΅΍.

They say that Euripides, who was traveling with him, became sick there and was cured
by the high priests as a result of treatment with sea water. This is why he said in one of
his works: “the sea washes away all human ills.” He observed, however, that according
to Homer, all men say that the Egyptians are physicians. (3,6–7)

1 Stephens (2003).
2 Test. 20 Kovacs = Eur. test. 230 Kannicht.

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102 MARY R. LEFKOWITZ

This story must be fictional, because by the time Plato was twenty-eight (401–
400?), Euripides would have been dead for about five years.3
But even though it has no historical value, Diogenes’ account of Plato’s
travels is of interest for what it can tell us about the methods and intentions
of Hellenistic biographers. Whoever created this anecdote wanted to empha-
size that Egyptian wisdom was superior to that of the Greeks, and that even
the most learned and famous Athenians could profit from it. The line from
the Odyssey about Egyptian doctors that Euripides summarizes in the anec-
dote comes from the description of the famous Egyptian ΚΣΕΐ΅ΎΓΑ Α΋ΔΉΑΌνΖ
that makes people forget all their sorrows (4,220–221): in Egypt, says Homer,
“every physician is skilled beyond all men, for they are of the race of Paieon”
(4,231–232).4 Although the Greeks used both fresh and salt water for purifica-
tion,5 as in the line from the Iphigenia among the Taurians (1193) that Euripides
quotes, Greek doctors do not seem to have prescribed sea water as a medical
treatment. But for Egyptian doctors salt (hemat), probably obtained from sea
water, was a standard remedy.6 So the writer of this anecdote (or his source)
appears to have some first-hand knowledge of Egypt. We might also note that
(as Diogenes preserves the story) Plato goes to Egypt to consult not just the
priests (ϡΉΕΉϧΖ) but the ΔΕΓΚϛΘ΅΍, a term used for the highest echelon of Egyp-
tian priesthood.7
At the time when Diogenes or his source imagines that Plato went there
with Euripides (3,6–7), it would have been difficult for an Athenian to travel
to Egypt because the area was under Persian control. But a trip to Egypt has a
place in Plato’s journey because of the story in the Timaeus about Solon’s visit
to the priests at Saïs (21e–22b). In Diogenes’ narrative we can see a need phy-
sically to associate the subject of a biography with all the places he describes
in his works. It is as if biographers believed that extensive foreign travel could
help account for an author’s creativity.8 Diogenes adds that Plato would also
have gone to stay among the Magi, if wars in Asia had not prevented him from
doing so. Did biographers imagine that he would have wished to follow in the
3 Riginos (1976) 68–69; Brisson (1992) 3639–3640.
4 On how Homer’s line was summarized, see Wilamowitz (1962) 5. Herodotus, who had actually
been to Egypt, agrees that “everything in Egypt is full of doctors”, but says that each specializes
in a particular type of malady (2,84), a claim that has been corroborated in an inscription on the
Stele of Iri; Lloyd (1975) II 349.
5 Parker (1983) 227.
6 Nunn (1996) 147. 188.
7 LSJ s.v. ΔΕΓΚφΘ΋Ζ 2b; the ΔΕΓΚφΘ΋Ζ is the ΔΕΓΗΘΣΘ΋Ζ ΘΓІ ϡΉΕΓІ according to Clem. Alex. strom.
6,4,37,1–2. Although these priests would be interpreters of the will of the gods, they were not
independent like the Greek ΐΣΑΘΉ΍Ζ. Egyptian oracles came directly from the gods, as Herodotus
says (2,83); Lloyd (1975) II 346.
8 Travel appears in the mythology of the lives of wise men and philosophers far more frequently
than it does in the lives of poets, though of course in the Herodotean Life of Homer (26) Melesi-
genes/Homer has to go to Ithaca to encounter Mentor, who plays a prominent role in the Odyssey;
see also Graziosi (2002) 158–159.

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 Visits to Egypt in the Biographical Tradition 103

footsteps of Pythagoras? Pythagoras is supposed to have visited the Phoeni-

cians, Chaldaeans, and the Magi, though it is never made clear what he might
have learned from them.9 But travel was a useful means of accounting for the
originality of his ideas.10
Perhaps Plato did go to Italy; the author of the Seventh Epistle speaks of
a first visit by Plato to Italy and Sicily (326 b–d). But in the later biographical
tradition he has a more demanding itinerary, because travel is used as a means
of accounting for his interest in mathematics and in Pythagorean subjects, like
numbers and metempsychosis.11 Diogenes sends Plato first to Cyrene to study
with Theodorus the geometrician, the friend of Protagoras who debates with
Socrates in the Theaetetus (161b. 162b). Next he says that Plato went to Italy
to visit with the Pythagoreans Philolaus and Eurytus. Philolaus of Croton or
Tarentum was a contemporary of Socrates, who is mentioned briefly in the
Phaedo (61d).12 No contemporary evidence connects him to the Pythagorean
movement, but as Luc Brisson has shown, Philolaus may have been classi-
fied as a Pythagorean because he came from a region of Italy associated with
Pythagoras.13 Biographers would have known about him from the writings of
Aristoxenus, who mentions him along with Eurytus as the teacher of the last
(ΘΉΏΉΙΘ΅ϧΓ΍) Pythagoreans (Aristox. fr. 19 Wehrli = D. L. 8,46).14
To return to Diogenes’ anecdote about Plato traveling to Egypt in the
company of Euripides: why did anyone suppose that the two would have gone
together? Biographers would have known that Aristophanes and other comic
poets made jokes about Socrates’ influence on Euripides. Diogenes alludes to
some of these at the beginning of his life of Socrates.15 A couple of lines from
Teleclides are preserved even in the ancient Life of Euripides (test. 1 I A 3 Kan-
nicht) about Socrates putting the firewood (ΚΕϾ·΅Α΅) under a new drama that
Mnesilochus is cooking (ΚΕϾ·Ή΍) for Euripides (fr. 41 K.-A.).
But it is more likely that biographers brought Euripides on Plato’s journey
to Egypt so that they could be foils for one another. Several other anecdotes
survive which appear designed to contrast Socratic/Platonic absolutism with
Euripidean relativism. We can be pretty sure that stories about Euripides and
Plato together could not have come directly from comedy written during their
lifetimes, because their contemporaries would have had a sense of the relative
9 Burkert (1972) 112.
10 Lefkowitz (1981) 44.
11 Burkert (1972) 83–96.
12 Philolaus, DK 44A1a.
13 Brisson (2007).
14 Burkert (1972) 198.
15 Diogenes also includes several other quotations from comedy: “Euripideses Constructions of
Socrates” (̈ЁΕ΍ΔϟΈ΅Ζ ΗΝΎΕ΅ΘΓ·ϱΐΚΓΙΖ, Teleclides fr. 42 K.-A.); Sorates is responsible (΅ϥΘ΍ΓΖ)
for Euripides’ pomposity (Callias fr. 15 K.-A.); Socrates writes those clever talky tragedies for
Euripides (̈ЁΕ΍ΔϟΈϙ Έд ϳ ΘΤΖ ΘΕ΅·УΈϟ΅Ζ ΔΓ΍ЗΑ / ΘΤΖ ΔΉΕ΍Ώ΅ΏΓϾΗ΅Ζ ΓЈΘϱΖ πΗΘ΍, ΘΤΖ ΗΓΚΣΖ,
Aristoph. fr. 392 K.-A).

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104 MARY R. LEFKOWITZ

chronology. But in later times biographers could always follow the example of
Aristophanes in the Frogs, who made the poets Aeschylus and Euripides debate
each other in death, since they could not have done so in life, and using as a
libretto the lines from their plays.
Lines that Aristophanes used to illustrate Euripides’ supposed immorality
turn up again in anecdotes. One of these was Hippolytus’ remark: “my tongue
swore it but my mind is not bound by the oath” (ψ ·ΏЗΗΗд ϴΐЏΐΓΛд, ψ Έξ ΚΕχΑ
ΦΑЏΐΓΘΓΖ, Hipp. 612), which Aristophanes uses to enable Dionysus (Ran. 1471)
to justify not keeping his oath to bring Euripides back to life.16 A generation or
so later Hippolytus’ line was used in a lawsuit to demonstrate that the poet was
impious (ΦΗΉΆφΖ, Arist. Rhet. 1416a).17
Aristophanes also has Dionysus make devastating use of another famously
‘immoral’ line from Euripides’ Aeolus (fr. 19 Kannicht): “what is shameful if it
does not seem so to its practitioners?” (Ran. 1475). The same verse was later
used by Machon (410 Gow) as the punch line to an anecdote about Euripides
and the courtesan Lais. Lais asks Euripides why he wrote σΕΕд, ΅ϢΗΛΕΓΔΓ΍ν
(Med. 1346). He replies, “aren’t you an ΅ϢΗΛΕΓΔΓ΍ϱΖ?” She answers with the
famous line from the Aeolus: Θϟ Έд ΅ϢΗΛΕϲΑ ύΑ ΐχ ΘΓϧΗ΍ ΛΕΝΐνΑΓ΍Ζ ΈΓΎϜ;
The line from the Aeolus advocating moral relativism makes it an ideal
foil for the absolutist philosopher. In an anecdote preserved by Serenus, the
cataloguer of ·ΑЗΐ΅΍, Plato replies to Euripides with a line in iambic trimeter:
“shameful is shameful, whether or not it seems so” (΅ϢΗΛΕϲΑ Θϱ ·д ΅ϢΗΛΕϱΑ, ΎΪΑ
ΈΓΎϜ ΎΪΑ ΐχ ΈΓΎϜ, Stob. 3,5,36,1–5). Plutarch (quom. aud. poet. 33c) assigns the
same line to Socrates’ friend Antisthenes (SSR V A 195).18 In another story it is
Socrates himself who walks out of the theater because he objects to Euripides’
line (El. 379) about letting virtue “go wherever she chooses” (D. L. 2,33).19
So Diogenes’ anecdote about Euripides and Plato in Egypt provides some
useful information about Hellenistic biography. We can still see how the story
about their visit was built on a foundation of quotations. Considerable learning
and ingenuity went into the process of mining these quotations from the texts
and extracting biographical ‘information’ from them. We can see the process
in action in Satyrus’ Life of Euripides in the fanciful way in which interlocutor

16 See also Ran. 101, and again, to undercut Euripides’ own oath in Thesm. 275.
17 Barrett (1964) 274; Lefkowitz (1987) 158–159. Compton (2006) 136–137 thinks that because Aris-
totle tells it the story is historical, but other stories about poets in Aristotle come straight from
comedy; Lefkowitz (1984) 152–153.
18 Lefkowitz (1984) 145.
19 The quotation is attributed to the Auge in Diogenes’ text; TGF, p. 437; TGrF V 1, 335. Its relativis-
tic content seems appropriate for the Auge, a play that Aristophanes’ Aeschylus cites as an example
of the many “evils” for which Euripides is responsible, on the grounds that it describes “women
giving birth in shrines” (Ran. 1077). It is conceivable that Euripides could have used the line in
both the Electra and the Auge, since it appears to be proverbial; see Denniston (1939) 94–95. Hel.
780 = Phoen. 972 is another example of repetition between plays; Mastronarde (1994) 423. For
examples of repeated lines within plays, see Barrett (1964) 357–358.

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 Visits to Egypt in the Biographical Tradition 105

A suggests that lines from a choral song about “joining with Zeus” ([̉]΋ΑϠ
ΗΙΐΐΉϟΒ[Ν]Α, fr. 911 Kannicht = Satyr. F 6 fr. 39 col. xvii)20 were intended to
‘metaphorically’ to flatter Archelaus (Satyr. F 6 fr. 39 col. xviii). In much the
same way, an interlocutor in Satyrus’ dialogue cites the plot of the Thesmophori-
azousae as ‘evidence’ that women wanted to kill Euripides (fr. 39 col. x), but that
he was saved because of the lines he wrote in the Melanippe (fr. 494 Kannicht)
defending women.21
The characters in Satyrus’ Life of Euripides clearly enjoy the process of re-
constructing anecdotes about the poet’s life from his poetry, and are prepared
to argue if someone seems to go too far. Interlocutor B does not believe inter-
locutor A’s assertion that Euripides had Archelaus in mind when he was talking
about putting on golden wings and joining with Zeus: ΎΓΐΜϱ[Θ]Ή[Ε]΅ Κ΅ϟΑΉ[΍
ΐΓ΍] Ών·Ή΍Α όΔΉ[Ε] ΦΏ΋Ό΍ΑЏΘΉΕ΅ (“What you say seems to me to be more inge-
nious than true,” F 6 fr. 39 col. xviii).22 The objections raised by interlocutor B
show that Satyrus also has a sense of humor, and one can imagine how listeners
would have derived pleasure from hearing the dialogue recited. Athenaeus’ Dei-
pnosophistae is a distant descendant of the genre. But in the hands of writers like
Diogenes and the various compilers of the Life of Euripides in the manuscripts
Satyrus’ lively discussion was stripped of its inventiveness, and lost virtually all
of its original appeal.
Of course we do not know why Satyrus chose to present his biography of
the poet in dialogue form. But as Plato understood, the format had the distinct
advantage of engaging his listeners in the learning process. The responses of
the interlocutors mark stages in the argument, or raise occasional objections.
Dialogue allows for the possibility of more than one point of view. Greeks
were comfortable with presentations that allowed for dissent and were plura-
listic in nature. I do not believe that it is coincidental that the dialogue form
is employed in the treatises of the Hermetic corpus, which attempt to present
Egyptian ideas to Greeks. The speeches in the Book of Thoth, the Egyptian
counterpart of the ‘Books of Hermes’, take the form of monologues by the
god and his disciple.23 By choosing to write about the lives of poets in dialogue
form, Satyrus was re-creating for his audiences a particularly Greek mode of
discourse. The story about Euripides and Plato might well have derived from
such a dialogue.

20 All references to Satyrus are to the text of Schorn (2004).

21 A version of that incident survives in the Euripides Vita, test. 1 IV 2 Kannicht. Similarly in the
Vita lines about female infidelity from Euripides’ Electra (923–924) are used as ‘evidence’ that
Euripides’ own wife was unfaithful test. 1 III 2 Kannicht.
22 On Satyrus’ technique see Lefkowitz (1984a) 339–343; Schorn (2004) 46–49.
23 See Jasnow/Zauzich (2005) passim.

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106 MARY R. LEFKOWITZ

2. Plato and Eudoxus

Satyrus’ Life of Euripides also provides abundant evidence of another endur-

ing tradition in Greek biography, which is its tendency to mythologize, to turn
the facts of everyday lives into archetypal patterns. So, as Todd Compton has
reminded us in his new book, the lives of many poets end violently; they are
victims of envy and misunderstanding, none more than Euripides.24 Writers
sometimes make it explicit that they are passing along information that they
cannot verify. As Luc Brisson observes, Plato often puts such stories in the
mouths of old men and women.25 Satyrus includes in his biography a narra-
tive by “the story-telling26 and oldest men among the Macedonians”, taking
care to indicate that it is a mythos (БΖ Γϡ Ώϱ·΍Γϟ ΘΉ Ύ΅Ϡ ·ΉΕ΅ϟΘ΅ΘΓ΍ ΐΙΌΓΏΓ[·]ΓІΗ΍
̏΅ΎΉΈ[ϱ]ΑΝΑ): Euripides was killed by hunting dogs that belonged to Thracian
hunters who had reason to be hostile to Euripides’ patron, the Macedonian
king Archelaus (F 6 fr. 39 xxi).27 The story allows Euripides’ life to conform
to a recurrent pattern that can be found both in Greek biography and in Indo-
European mythology.28
The story of Plato’s sojourn in Egypt also derives from a myth, but this
time we can identify the author, who is Plato himself. According to Plato in
the Timaeus, Solon learned from an old Egyptian priest in Saïs about the cre-
ation of the world and the city of Atlantis.29 Solon told the story to Critias,
the grandfather of the Critias who was a contemporary and an associate of
Socrates, and the younger Critias heard it from his grandfather when he was an
old man.30 The biographers (and many other people ever since) have ignored
the clear signposts that Plato gives that the story of Atlantis is a myth, compo-
sed by himself, not least of which is that the account is third-hand. In any case,
as Alan Lloyd has observed, Herodotus’ account of Solon’s visit to Egypt is
“chronological nonsense”.31
Diogenes in his anecdote about Plato and Euripides says only that they went
to Egypt to visit the ΔΕΓΚϛΘ΅΍ (3,6), without saying exactly where Plato studied
or what he was supposed to have learned. Diogenes could not be more specific
because the only sources available to Hellenistic biographers were Plato’s own
works. We can see the anecdotes were invented in the letter supposedly written

24 Compton (2006) 137–142.

25 Brisson (1998) 56–57.
26 Ώϱ·΍ΓΖ here must mean ‘possessing Ώϱ·Γ΍’, or discourses, stories, in the sense described by Brisson
(1998) 67–69.
27 A version of the complete anecdote is preserved in the Euripides Vita, test. 1 II Kannicht, but
without the warning БΖ … ΐΙΌΓΏΓ[·]ΓІΗ΍.
28 Compton (2006) 266.
29 Brisson (1987) 160–161.
30 Brisson (1998) 14, and in general, Nesselrath (2002).
31 Lloyd (1975) I 56–57; Lefkowitz (1981) 44.

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 Visits to Egypt in the Biographical Tradition 107

by Phaedrus to Plato while he was in Egypt (Socr. Ep. 28 Hercher). The notion
that Phaedrus would be interested in Egypt derives from the Platonic dialogue
that bears his name, where Socrates tells him the story of Theuth and Thamus
(Phdr. 274d–275b).32
In the letter Phaedrus accounts for the lack of anything specifically Egyp-
tian in Plato’s philosophy by supposing that the Egyptian priests with whom he
studied were allowed to tell him only what they themselves had learned from
Pythagoras. Phaedrus learned about Plato’s studies from some “reliable” men
(Φ·΅ΌΓϟ) who had come to Athens from Egypt. They said that after travel-
ing around Egypt Plato had gone to Saïs to learn about the “all” and how the
universe came into being. The travelers then explained that since it was hard
for the Saïtic priests to communicate with the Greeks they relied on the infor-
mation about nature and geometry and numbers that in the past the priests in
Heliopolis had shared with Pythagoras. Phaedrus then needs to provide a rea-
son why the Heliopolitan priests had been willing to talk to Pythagoras: he had
become friends with them, because of what he revealed to them, “or perhaps
for some other reason”. Socrates and his circle would have known the stories
about Pythagoras because Timaeus and Theodorus of Cyrene had told them
about Egypt.
This contrived narrative reveals that the writer of the epistle from Phaed-
rus had no access to any Egyptian sources of information. If he had, he would
not have imagined that there was any real connection between Pythagorean and
Egyptian thought.33 Although Plato does not connect either Timaeus of Locri
or Theodorus of Cyrene directly with the Pythagoreans, later biographers sup-
posed that they were affiliated with them because of their interest in mathema-
tics.34 Like other writers who sought to come up with a plausible account of
Plato’s visit to Egypt, the writer of the epistle from Phaedrus had to find some
means of explaining why it was that in all the time he supposedly spent there
Plato did not seem to have learned very much about Egypt that was not already
known to Herodotus.35
When the geographer Strabo visited Heliopolis in the late first century BC,
he was told a similar story. Plato and Eudoxus had come there to learn about
the heavens, but the priests had concealed most of their knowledge. All they
taught the two Greeks was how to reckon the true number of days in the year.
That information comes from the passage in the Timaeus, where Solon says he
learned from the priest that philosophy derived from the reckoning of time and
then of numbers, and that the love of wisdom (Κ΍ΏΓΗΓΚϟ΅) was the greatest

32 Hopfner (1967) II 86.

33 Herodotus was mistaken in supposing that there was an actual connection between Egyptian ideas
of the afterlife and the Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration; Lloyd (1975) 57–59.
34 Brisson (2002) 31. 34–35.
35 Brisson (1987) 167.

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108 MARY R. LEFKOWITZ

gift the gods have given to mankind (47a).36 Strabo realized that in the fourth
century BC “the [true] year was unknown among the Greeks, as well as many
other things” which they later learned when Egyptian texts were translated
into Greek.37 Plato gives no details about Egyptian reckoning methods in his
dialogues.38
Strabo was also shown the priests’ houses and the haunts (Έ΍΅ΘΕ΍Ά΅ϟ) where
(as he was told) Plato and Eudoxus spent thirteen years (17,1,29 p. 806 C = Eu-
doxus test. 12 Lasserre). Surely some of Strabo’s informants were Egyptians,
who were eager to demonstrate the antiquity of their culture, like the priests
Herodotus encountered centuries earlier in Thebes (2,143). Egyptian priests
told visitors like Diodorus of Sicily that they had learned about the visits of
Greek sages from the records in their sacred books (πΎ ΘЗΑ ΦΑ΅·Ε΅ΚЗΑ ΘЗΑ
πΑ Θ΅ϧΖ ϡΉΕ΅ϧΖ ΆϟΆΏΓ΍Ζ, 1,96,1). As Alan Lloyd observes: “After several centu-
ries under the heel of Graeco-Macedonian rulers, it is not surprising that the
priests should assert such mistaken claims of cultural superiority over their
masters.” 39
What is remarkable is that the Greeks were ready to believe them. The
priests showed visitors the statues (ΉϢΎϱΑΉΖ) of the Greek sages, and the places
and buildings named for them, and they cited these as illustrations (ΦΔΓΈΉϟΒΉ΍Ζ)
of what the Greeks learned from the Egyptians (D. S. 1,96,3), even though the
statues had been installed by Greeks.40 Greeks appeared to have been eager to
take the Egyptians’ claims on faith. How many Greek visitors searching for
information about Plato and Eudoxus would be able to check the records writ-
ten in hieroglyphs in the sacred books in the temples? Perhaps local guides, like
their modern counterparts, were aware that travelers were less eager to read the
works of famous sages than to see the physical ‘evidence’ (however inauthen-
tic) of their presence. We may compare the way in which Pausanias was shown
Pindar’s house in Thebes and his iron chair at Delphi.41
As we have seen, local guides could not tell travelers to Egypt more about
what Plato learned in Egypt than what he himself tells us in his dialogues. They
had even less to say about Eudoxus. Egyptian guides told Strabo and Diodorus
that Plato and Eudoxus had been there at the same time, but according to Di-
ogenes Laertius, the two visited Egypt at different times.42 Diogenes says that
36 In context it is clear that Κ΍Ώ΍ΗΓΚϟ΅Ζ ·νΑΓΖ refers to the general pursuit of knowledge, not to
philosophy in its narrowest sense.
37 On the calendar see Blackburn/Holford-Strevens (1999) 708–709.
38 Eudoxus is quoted (inaccurately?) as saying that what is known to the Greeks as a year is called a
month by the Egyptians (fr. 302 Lasserre), probably in an attempt to make sense of the priests’
claims about the length of Egyptian chronology (see Lasserre [1966] 253). That piece of misinfor-
mation could hardly have come from the priests (who knew about the true length of the year).
39 Lloyd (1975) 51.
40 Burton (1972) 275–276.
41 Pausanias 9,25,3. 10,24,5; Lefkowitz (1981) 65.
42 On possible reasons for the variance in the evidence, see Centrone (1992) 4216 n. 153.

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 Visits to Egypt in the Biographical Tradition 109

Eudoxus spent only a year and four months with the priests, in the company
not of Plato, but of the doctor Chrysippus of Cnidus. Eudoxus came with
a letter of introduction to the Pharaoh Nectanebis II from Agesilaus, which
would date the visit to sometime after 361, some forty years after the anecdote
about Plato and Euripides. Diogenes brings Eudoxus and Plato together in
Athens only after this journey (8,87 = Eudoxus test. 7 Lasserre).
Thus either Strabo’s Egyptian informants had an independent source of
information (temple records?) about Eudoxus’ sojourn in Egypt, or (more like-
ly) they simply assumed that since he was a younger contemporary of Plato’s
they could both have been in Egypt at the same time. As in the case of Plato,
references to Eudoxus’ visit all occur in later sources, several hundred years
after he was said to have been there. Did those later biographers writing sup-
pose that Eudoxus had visited Egypt because (like Plato) Eudoxus mentioned
Egyptian customs in his writings? He is cited frequently by Plutarch in De Iside
et Osiride as an authority on Egyptian religion (Eudox. fr. 286–281 Lasserre).43
According to later Greek sources he had learned from Egyptian priests about
the origins of the Nile (fr. 288 Lasserre). None of this knowledge has to do
with mathematics or astronomy, or goes beyond what he or his biographers
could have learned from Herodotus. But that was enough to connect him with
Egypt.
As time went on Egypt assumes more importance in Eudoxus’ biography.
Eudoxus wrote a work called Dialogues of the Dogs, according to the third-cen-
tury BC polymath Eratosthenes of Cyrene, who was the successor of Apol-
lonius of Rhodes as head of the Alexandrian library. But a few centuries later,
Diogenes tells us, other writers claimed that he had translated the Dialogues of
the Dogs into Greek from an Egyptian original (8,89= Eudox. fr. 374 Lasser-
re). I would be inclined to believe Eratosthenes rather than the unnamed later
sources, especially since the dialogue is a characteristically Greek format.44 The
idea that Eudoxus translated the dialogues, rather than wrote them himself
may come from a later stage of the biographical tradition, after the writers
had begun to create new details about his time in Egypt. The story, also from
an unnamed source, that Eudoxus had his beard and eyebrows shaved, like an
Egyptian priest (8,87 = Eudox. test. 7 Lasserre) may also come from this later
phase of the tradition.
By the second century AD biographers were providing the names of the
priests with whom the visiting Greeks were supposed to have studied. Accord-
ing to Plutarch, Solon learned about Atlantis from the priests who knew the

43 Gwyn Griffiths (1970) 82–83. On Eudoxus’ ̓ΉΕϟΓΈΓΖ ·ϛΖ, see esp. Gisinger (1921) 35–58.
44 No close Egyptian analogue survives, though Gwyn Griffiths (1965) 77–78, suggests that there
may be a possible parallel in a narrative about gods in the form of dogs that survives in a theolo-
gical text preserved in a late Ptolemaic or early Roman papyrus. But cf. Lasserre (1966) 268–269,
who doubts that Eudoxus have known Egyptian well enough to translate such a text; ΎΙΑЗΑ could
mean ΎΙΑ΍ΎЗΑ, or be a corruption for ΎΙΑ΋·ΉΘЗΑ, etc.

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110 MARY R. LEFKOWITZ

most stories (ΏΓ·΍ΝΘΣΘΓ΍Ζ)45 among those connected with Psenophis of He-

liopolis and Sonchis of Saïs (ΘΓϧΖ ΔΉΕϠ ̚νΑΝΔ΍Α ΘϲΑ ̽Ώ΍ΓΔΓΏϟΘ΋Α Ύ΅Ϡ ̕З·Λ΍Α
ΘϲΑ ̕΅ϬΘ΋Α, ΏΓ·΍ΝΘΣΘΓ΍Ζ ΓЇΗ΍Α ΘЗΑ ϡΉΕνΝΑ, ΗΙΑΉΚ΍ΏΓΗϱΚ΋ΗΉ, Sol. 26,1,5). The
imprecise phrasing suggests that Plutarch had no direct knowledge about these
priests.46 In De Iside et Osiride Plutarch also observes that Pythagoras studied
with Oinouphis at Heliopolis, and Eudoxus with Konouphis of Memphis
(345e = Eudox. test. 17 Lasserre). In the third century AD Clement of Alexan-
dria lists not only Solon with Sonchis and Eudoxus with Konouphis, but also
Plato with Sechnuphis (Strom. 1,15,69 = Eudox. test. 18 Lasserre). Sechnuphis
(Se-Hennem) and Psenophis (Pe-sri-nfr) appear to be the Greek versions of
real Egyptian names.47 So does Konouphis; Sonchis is most likely a shortened
form of the Egyptian Sesonkhis; Oiouphis or Onnophris (a name of Osiris)
is also possible.48
Clement at least had some direct knowledge about the Egyptian priests
of his day. In his Stromata he describes a procession of various priests carry-
ing forty-two books of Hermes. The priests among themselves must know
the thirty-six books that contain all of Egyptian Κ΍ΏΓΗΓΚϟ΅ (̇ϾΓ ΐξΑ ΓЇΑ Ύ΅Ϡ
ΘΉΗΗ΅ΕΣΎΓΑΘ΅ ΅ϡ ΔΣΑΙ ΦΑ΅·Ύ΅ϧ΅΍ ΘХ ̴ΕΐϜ ·Ή·ϱΑ΅Η΍ ΆϟΆΏΓ΍а ЙΑ ΘΤΖ ΐξΑ ΘΕ΍-
ΣΎΓΑΘ΅ ςΒ ΘχΑ ΔκΗ΅Α ̄Ϣ·ΙΔΘϟΝΑ ΔΉΕ΍ΗΛΓϾΗ΅Ζ Κ΍ΏΓΗΓΚϟ΅Α Γϡ ΔΕΓΉ΍Ε΋ΐνΑΓ΍
πΎΐ΅ΑΌΣΑΓΙΗ΍, 6,4,37,3). Four of the books are about astrology and the move-
ments of the heavenly bodies; there are ten books about religious rituals, and
another ten about laws, gods and training. Six books dealing with medical sub-
jects are used by the pastophoroi who carry the sacred images. Here was indeed a
body of knowledge, Κ΍ΏΓΗΓΚϟ΅ in the broadest sense of the term, but nothing
like the dialogues of Plato or Aristotle.
Why did the Greeks living in Egypt in Hellenistic times seek to imagine
that famous Greek writers were disciples of Egyptian priests, even when no
one could name and probably few could read any Egyptian document which
might have instructed them or have served as a source of inspiration? In this
desire they were no different from Hecataeus of Miletus or Herodotus, who
admired the antiquity of Egypt and the piety of its inhabitants and sought to
derive their own culture from them.49 But unlike the Romans, who incorpora-
ted Greek myths and art and literature into their own culture, most Greeks in
Egypt never got far beneath the surface of the Egyptian world that they saw
around them, because most were unable to break through the barrier of the
Egyptians’ language, their formidable system of writing, and their complex me-
taphysical understanding of the universe.50 Greeks understood Egyptian rituals
45 On the term Ώϱ·΍ΓΖ see n. 26.
46 On the phrase Γϡ ΔΉΕϟ see Radt (2002) 362–365.
47 Hopfner (1967) II 86; Gwyn Griffiths (1985) 6.
48 Gwyn Griffiths (1970) 286–287.
49 Lloyd (1975) I 147–149; Lefkowitz (1997) 65–66; Stephens (2003) 14.
50 Momgliano (1975) 7; Most (2003) 385–387.

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 Visits to Egypt in the Biographical Tradition 111

only to the extent that they could find some approximate counterpart in their
own religious practices, and were attracted only to those Egyptian narratives
that appeared to have some similarities with their own mythology.51
Yet even though the specific information that the biographers give us about
Euripides or Plato in Egypt is unlikely to be historical, the anecdotes about
their visits provide striking testimony to the desire on the part of Hellenistic
Greeks to be associated with Egyptian learning.52 Far from wishing to impose
their own culture on the Egyptians during the time that they were politically
dominant,53 Greeks in Alexandria were only too eager to try to show that their
ideas derived from or were anticipated by those of the native inhabitants. They
sought to persuade Greek visitors that the connections were real, and their
ideas survive to this day, despite their evident lack of historicity.54 The traditi-
on that the Greek philosophers derived their philosophy from Egypt is even
taught as history in some schools in the USA.55 Since that influential fiction is
one of the more enduring legacies of the Hellenistic biographers, it is a pity
that it preserves, along with the biographers’ respect for Egypt, considerable
misinformation about the nature of a culture they so much admired.56

51 See esp. Burkert (2006) 152–172.

52 The curious story that Plato sold olive oil to pay for his visit to Egypt (Plu. Sol. 2,8) may have been
inspired by a desire for an Egyptian connection; Riginos (1976) 68 rather implausibly connects it
to a passage in the Gorgias (511d–e) about paying a pilot two drachmae to guide ashore a ship from
Egypt.
53 As suggested, e.g., by Vasunia (2001) 245–247.
54 On the Greek origins of many persistent fantasies about secret Egypt lore, see esp. Jordan (2005)
110–114.
55 See in general Lefkowitz (1997) and on Afrocentric curricula, esp. 239–241 and Howe (1998)
215–258.
56 My thanks to Luc Brisson and David Kovacs for helpful advice and criticism.

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112 MARY R. LEFKOWITZ

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