person
Xenocrates of Chalcedon
Xenocrates
also: Xenocrates, Xenocratem
Greek philosopher (c. 396--314 BC), head of the Academy after Speusippus, proverbial for integrity; at Att. 1.16.4 Cicero recalls that an Athenian court excused him from swearing the witness-oath, trusting his bare word, as a parallel to the honour shown himself.
Reading notes
- Tusculan Disputations §1.20 Xenocrates denied that the soul has any shape
Xenocrates of Chalcedon, head of the Academy after Speusippus, defined the soul as 'self-moving number,' developing a Pythagorean idea. His teacher Plato, by contrast, made the soul threefold.
- Tusculan Disputations §5.91 when envoys from Alexander had brought him fifty talents
An anecdote of Xenocrates, head of the Academy, who accepted only thirty minas (a fraction) of Alexander's fifty-talent gift, to show he had no need of money without scorning the king's generosity. A talent was a very large sum, especially at Athens.