# Clitomachus — The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers character guide

> Clitomachus in The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0045-clitomachus

## Snapshot

A Carthaginian who rose to head the Platonic Academy, quoted here mostly through the Socratic voices — Aristophanes, Ameipsias, Xenophon — that swirl around his subject.

## Who they are

Clitomachus, a Carthaginian by birth, becomes head of the Academy, and Diogenes Laërtius places him in a dense web of Socratic anecdote: Socrates barefoot in a cloak, mocked by comic poets, praised by Xenophon as the most delightful of men in conversation. The passages around him dwell on Socrates' power to turn men — Euthyphron from prosecuting his father, Glaucon from politics, Charmidas toward it — and on his insistence that leisure is the most valuable possession. Clitomachus matters as the inheritor of a tradition whose founder's charisma is still being argued over centuries later.

## In the story

### [Carneades](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/chapters/carneades)

Most eminent disciple of Carneades, mentioned as the one to be discussed next.

### [Clitomachus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/chapters/clitomachus)

A Carthaginian philosopher, originally named Asdrubal, who came to Athens at forty, studied under Carneades, succeeded him, and wrote over four hundred books.

## Links

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