Empiricus

Perhaps the earliest expression of the trilemma appears in the writings of the sceptic Sextus Empiricus (160–210 AD), who wrote in his Outlines of Pyrrhonism: Further, this too should be said.

Sextus Empiricus argued that it was absurd to link human attributes with myths about the signs of the zodiac.

There is disagreement among the biographers as to whether Pythagoras forbade all animal food, as Empedocles did afterwards, Aristotle, Rhet. i. 14. § 2; Sextus Empiricus, ix. 127. This was also one of the Orphic precepts, Aristoph.