Cebes

, the author of a well-known and beautiful allegory in Greek, entitled “A Picture of Human Life,” is supposed to have flourished about 400 B. C. The piece is mentioned by some of the ancient writers, by Lucian, Diogenes Laertius, Tertullian, and Suidas; but of Cebes himself we have no account, unless that he is once mentioned by Plato, and once by Xenophon. The former says of him, in his “Phaedo,” that he was a sagacious investigator of truth, and never assented without the most convincing reasons; the latter, in his “Memorabilia,” ranks him among the few intimates of Socrates, who excelled the rest in the innocency of their lives; but the abbe* Sevin and professor Meiners have endeavoured to prove that the “Picture” is the work of a more modern author. Brucker seems to be of a different opinion. It is evidently Socratic in its moral spirit and character, althongh not without some sentiments which appear to have been borrowed from the Pythagorean school. It was translated by the rev. Joseph Spence for Dodsley’s “Museum,” and was afterwards inserted in his “Preceptor,” and in other moral collections. There are many separate editions of the original, but for above a century, it has usually been printed with Epictetus’s “Enchiridium,” for the use of schools. 1

1

Fabrieii Bibl. Græc.—Moreri.—Brucker.