39 Bion, Bucolic Poems

“Myrson, which delights you: spring, winter, autumn, or summer? Which do you most pray will come? Summer, when all we labor for comes to fulfillment? Sweet autumn, when hunger weighs lightly on people? Or even winter, when work is hard? For in winter many, keeping warm, delight in idleness and ease. Or has lovely spring pleased you more? Tell me what your heart chooses: our leisure lets us talk.”²⁷³

39 Bion, continued

“Mortals should not sit in judgment on divine works, for all these things are sacred and delightful. Yet for your sake, Cleodamus, I shall tell what I find sweeter than the others. I do not want summer, for then the sun scorches me; I do not want autumn, for its seasonal fruits breed sickness; I fear destructive winter, bringing snowfall and frost. May much-desired spring stay with me the whole year, when neither cold nor sun weighs upon us. In spring everything conceives; in spring all sweet things sprout, and for people night is equal to day.”²⁷⁴

40a Sayings

Asked what is wisest, Thales ⟨said,⟩ “Time, for it discovers everything.” Asked what is the cause of everything, Periander said, “Time.” Thales said that time is the clearest test of all things, ⟨for⟩ it makes the truth manifest. When Euryphon the physician was asked under which teacher he had been educated, he said, “Under time.”²⁷⁵

40b ⟨Aëtius, Opinions⟩

Pythagoras calls time the sphere of the surrounding heaven.

Eratosthenes calls it the sun’s course.

The Stoics identify the nature of time with motion itself.

Most thinkers hold that time is ungenerated.

Xenocrates calls it a measure of things that come to be, and everlasting motion.²⁷⁶

40b ⟨Aëtius⟩, continued

Chrysippus called it a measure of slowness or speed.

Hestiaeus of Perinthus, the natural philosopher, called it the movement of the stars relative to one another.

Strato called it the quantity in motion and rest.

Epicurus called it an accident ⟨of accidents⟩, that is, an accompaniment of motions.

Antiphan and Critolaus called time a conception or measure, not an independently subsisting reality.²⁷⁷

40c ⟨Arius Didymus⟩: Aristotle

Time is the number of motion in respect of before and after. It has neither beginning nor end, but always is and always comes to be. It is continuous and divisible, since one portion of it is taken as earlier and another as later. The now is the boundary of both: it is conceived as the end of what precedes and the beginning of what is to come.²⁷⁸

40d ⟨Arius Didymus⟩

The Aristotelians call time the number of motions delimited by the now, and the now a unit of rest within motion. Time is not motion, yet neither is it ⟨without⟩ motion. For motion is called slow or swift, whereas time is called long or short instead. Further, more and less are judged by number, while greater and lesser motion are judged by time. Time, then, is not motion, yet it is not separate from motion: it is a continuous number of motion in respect of before and after.²⁷⁹

40e ⟨Arius Didymus⟩: Zeno

Zeno said that time is an interval of motion, and that this is both a measure and a criterion of speed and slowness, according to how ⟨each thing⟩ stands. In accordance with it, everything that comes to be or reaches completion does so, and things that exist have their being.²⁸⁰

41 Hermes, from the writings to Tat

…

As one may also find concerning the three times: they neither exist separately nor are united; and again they are united and exist separately. If you suppose that the present is separate from the past, it cannot be present unless it has also become past; for the present comes from what is withdrawing, and the future comes from the present.²⁸¹

41 Continued

If we must examine it further, let us reason as follows. Past time has departed into no longer being [this time]; future time does not exist because it is not yet present; but present time too does not remain with us by staying still. For [time] does not stand still even for a moment, nor has it the stability of a point. How, then, can what cannot even stand still be said to be present?²⁸² Yet again the past, joining the present, and the present, joining the future, become one through identity, unity, and continuity, since they are not separate from one another. Thus time, being one and the same, is both continuous and divided.

42 ⟨Arius Didymus⟩: Apollodorus

Apollodorus, in his Treatise on Physics, defines time as follows. Time is the interval of the universe’s motion. It is infinite in the sense in which number as a whole is said to be infinite. One part of it is past, another present, another future. Time as a whole is present in the way we speak of the year as present, using a broader delimitation. And time as a whole is said to have actuality, although none of its parts has actuality in the strict sense.²⁸³

42 Posidonius

Some things are infinite in every respect, like time as a whole; others in a particular respect, like past and future time, since each is bounded only on the side of the present. He defines time as an interval of motion or a measure of speed and slowness, according to the condition of what is conceived. ⟨And⟩ with regard to when, some time is past, some future, and some present. The present consists of a portion of the past and the future around their dividing boundary; the boundary itself is like a point. The now and similar expressions are conceived as referring to an extent of time, not to an exact delimitation. The now also denotes [in respect of] the smallest perceptible time formed around the boundary of future and past.²⁸⁴

42 Chrysippus

Chrysippus holds that time is an interval of motion, in which respect it is sometimes called a measure of speed and slowness; or the interval accompanying the universe’s motion. Each thing moves and exists in accordance with time, unless, indeed, “time” is used in two senses, as are earth, sea, and void, for both their wholes and their parts. Just as void as a whole is infinite in every direction, so time as a whole is infinite in both directions: both past and future time are infinite.²⁸⁵

42 Chrysippus, continued

He states most explicitly that no time at all is present. For since continuous things can be divided without limit, every time likewise admits division without limit. Thus no time is present in the strict sense; it is called present only in an extended sense. Yet he says that only present time has actuality, while past and future time subsist but have no actuality at all. The qualification is like the statement that only predicates that actually apply have actuality: for example, walking is actual for me when I walk, but when I lie down or sit it is not actual …²⁸⁶