A Brief Bion Bio

Bion, of Borysthenes, near the mouth of the Dneiper. A Scythian philosopher who flourished about 250 B.C. He was sold as a slave to a rhetorician, who afterwards gave him freedom and made him his heir. Upon this he went to Athens and applied himself to the study of philosophy. He had several teachers, but attached himself to Theodorus the Atheist. He was famous for his knowledge of music, poetry, and philosophy. Some shrewd sayings of his are preserved, as that “only the [44]votive tablets of the preserved are seen in the temples, not those of the drowned” and “it is useless to tear our hair when in grief since sorrow is not cured by baldness.”