The name of Sextus
is never known in Roman literature, but in the East, on the
contrary, literature speaks for centuries of Sextus and Pyrrho.
The _Hypotyposes_, especially, were well-known in the East, and
references to Sextus are found there in philosophical and
religious dogmatic writings. The Emperor Julian makes use of the
works of Sextus, and he is frequently quoted by the Church
Fathers of the Eastern Church.[4] Pappenheim accordingly
concludes that the seat of Pyrrhonism after the school was
removed from Alexandria, was in some unknown city of the East.
[1] Pappenheim _Sitz der Skeptischen Schule. Archiv fuer
Geschichte der Phil._ 1888.
[2] Cicero _De Orat._ III. 17, 62.
[3] Seneca _nat. qu._ VII. 32. 2.
[4] Fabricius _de Sexto Empirico Testimonia_.
In estimating the weight of these arguments, we must accept with
Pappenheim the close connection of Pyrrhonism with Alexandria,
and the subsequent influence which it exerted upon the
literature of the East. All historical relations tend to fix the
permanent seat of Pyrrhonism, after its separation from the
Academy, in Alexandria. There is nothing to point to its removal
from Alexandria before the time of Menodotus, who is the teacher
of Herodotus,[1] and for many reasons to be considered the real
teacher of Sextus. It was Menodotus who perfected the Empirical
doctrines, and who brought about an official union between
Scepticism and Empiricism, and who gave Pyrrhonism in great
measure, the _eclat_ that it enjoyed in Alexandria, and who
appears to have been the most powerful influence in the school,
from the time of Aenesidemus to that of Sextus.
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