I
The historians of ancient skepticism agree on the
broad outline of its development. It began with Pyrrho
of Elis (ca. 365-275 B.C.), a pupil of the Democritean
Anaxarchus and of Bryson, a member of the Megaric
School. Pyrrho's followers included Nausiphanes of
Teos, a teacher of Epicurus, and Timon of Phlius, who
defended his master by attacking rival philosophers in
his Silloi (“Satires”) and other writings. After Timon
the Pyrrhonic School went into eclipse; but meanwhile
the Platonic Academy, under Arcesilaus of Pitane,
turned to skepticism. The greatest of the Academic
Skeptics was Carneades of Cyrene, whose discourses
were recorded by his pupil, Clitomachus of Carthage
(his name was originally Hasdrubal). In the first century
B.C. under Philo of Larissa and Antiochus of Ascalon,
the Academy first compromised, then abandoned the
skeptical tradition. Cicero belongs to this transitional
period; he studied under both Philo and Antiochus.
With the demise of Academic Skepticism, Pyr-
rhonism revived. The man chiefly responsible was
Aenesidemus of Crete, probably of the first century
B.C., who systematized skeptical arguments under ten
tropes on the problem of knowledge and eight tropes
on causes. Sometime later Agrippa (otherwise un-
known) reduced the tropes to five, and someone else
reduced them to two.
In its final phase Pyrrhonic Skepticism became
closely allied with empirical medicine, a connection
that may well have begun as early as the third century
B.C. Menodotus of Nicomedia, an empirical physician
of the early second century A.D., wrote a number of
works that restored to skepticism a certain standing.
Later in the century Sextus Empiricus wrote compre-
hensive accounts of skeptical arguments. His surviving
works are a major source for both Academic and
Pyrrhonic Skepticism. Sextus' student, Saturninus, is
the last known skeptic of antiquity.
