Sotion

Sotion of Alexandria (Ancient Greek: Σωτίων, gen.: Σωτίωνος; fl. c. 200 – 170 BC) was a Greek doxographer and biographer, and an important source for Diogenes Laërtius. None of his works survive; they are known only indirectly. His principal work, the Διαδοχή or Διαδοχαί (the Successions), was one of the first history books to have organized philosophers into schools of successive influence: e.g., the so-called Ionian School of Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes. It is quoted very frequently by Diogenes Laërtius,¹ and Athenaeus.² Sotion's Successions likely consisted of 23 books,³ and at least partly drew on the doxography of Theophrastus. The Successions was influential enough to be abridged by Heraclides Lembus in the mid-2nd century BC, and works by the same title were subsequently written by Sosicrates of Rhodes and Antisthenes of Rhodes.

He was also, apparently, the author of a work, On Timon's Silloi,⁴ and of a work entitled Refutations of Diocles.⁵

Notes

Footnotes

1. Diogenes Laërtius, ii. 12, 26. v. 86, etc. ↩

2. Athenaeus, iv. 162e, etc. ↩

3. Diogenes Laërtius, prooem. 1, 7 ↩

4. Athenaeus, viii. 336d ↩

5. Diogenes Laërtius, x. 4 ↩