IV
The ancient skeptics evoked a variety of reactions.
Of the Hellenistic schools, the Stoics were the most
hostile (see, for example, Epictetus' Discourses, I.5, 27;
II.20). The Epicureans were less extreme. They rejected
skepticism, of course (see, for example, the Epicurean
Colotes' attack on Arcesilaus, reported and answered
by Plutarch in his Reply to Colotes, Moralia 1121-24).
But the Epicureans shared with Pyrrho a common
Democritean background, and in fact Pyrrho's pupil
Nausiphanes was one of Epicurus' teachers. Both
Epicurus and Pyrrho regarded
ataraxia, “peace of
mind,” as the end of human action (DL X.128;
PE
XIV.18.4; cf.
PH I.8). Later Epicureans and skeptics
were brought together to some extent by their common
enemies. Another point of contact may have been
medical empiricism. For example, a characteristic term
for empirical reasoning,
epilogismos, was used by
empirical physicians, Epicureans, and Sextus; see De
Lacy,
American Journal of Philology, 79 (1958),
179-83. Within the Academy, even after its return to
dogmatism, some sympathy remained for the skeptical
position. Plutarch is perhaps the best example. He
defended Arcesilaus against Colotes, and he even wrote
a work (now lost), “On the Unity of the Academy since
Plato” (No. 63 in the Catalogue of Lamprias; see fur-
ther De Lacy, “Plutarch and the Academic Sceptics,”
Classical Journal, 49 [1953-54], 79-85). A more
enigmatic figure is Favorinus of Arles, a contemporary
of Plutarch, whom Lucian and Galen considered an
Academic. His writings included a work on the ten
Pyrrhonic tropes and an attack on Stoic epistemology.
The evidence may be found in A. Barigazzi,
Favorino
di Arelate (Florence [1966], pp. 91, 172-74, 179, 190).
Another popular figure of the second century who
came under the influence of skepticism was the satirist
Lucian (see B. Schwarz,
Lukians Verhältnis zum
Skeptizismus, Tilsit [1914]).
There were two schools of medicine that exhibited
skeptical tendencies. According to L. Edelstein, the
Empirics came under the influence of Academic Skep-
ticism, the Methodists under the influence of the skep-
ticism of Aenesidemus (see Temkin, pp. 187, 197-98).
Sextus Empiricus, in spite of his name, argued that the
Methodist School was closer than the Empirical to
genuine skepticism (PH I.236-41). The prominence of
the skeptical tendency in medicine is evident from the
works of Galen, who wrote extensively about the
Empirics (see Deichgräber's Stellenregister and R.
Walzer, Galen on Medical Experience, London, 1944).
Galen found occasion also to denounce Pyrrhonism
(e.g., IV, 727; XIV, 628) and to warn against the dangers
of the sorites (VII, 372, 680, ed. Kühn).
Finally, skeptical material sometimes found its way
even into the writings of theologians. A prominent
example is Philo Judaeus' use of Aenesidemus' ten
tropes in his De ebrietate, 171-205.
