Note 671 — Chapter VI · ANAXAGORAS OF KLAZOMENAI

These accounts are repeated by Diog. ii. 12-14. It is worth while to put the statements of Satyros and Sotion side by side in order to show the unsatisfactory character of the biographical tradition:—

Sotion. Satyros.

Accuser. Kleon. Thoukydides s. of Melesias.

Charge. Calling the sun a red-hot mass. Impiety and Medism.

Sentence. Fined five talents. Sentenced to death in absence.

Hermippos represents Anaxagoras as already in prison under sentence of death when Perikles shamed the people into letting him off. Lastly, Hieronymos says he never was condemned at all. Perikles brought him into court thin and wasted by disease, and the judges acquitted him out of compassion! The Medism alleged by Satyros no doubt comes from Stesimbrotos, who made Anaxagoras the friend of Themistokles instead of Perikles. This, too, explains the accuser’s name (Busolt, Gr. Gesch. p. 306, n. 3).