person
Bias of Priene
Bias
also: Biantem, Bias
One of the Seven Sages of Greece (6th century BC). Cicero (Paradoxa 8) tells how, when Priene fell, Bias declined to carry off his property, saying 'I carry all that is mine with me' — a maxim that the good are the only true goods.
Reading notes
- Stoic Paradoxes §8 I carry all that is mine with me
The maxim of Bias of Priene (omnia mecum porto mea), spoken as his city fell: the wise man's only true goods are within him and cannot be plundered. Cicero makes it the emblem of the first paradox.