LIFE OF ANTISTHENES.
I. Antisthenes was an Athenian, the son of Antisthenes. And he was
said not to be a legitimate Athenian; in reference to which he said to
some one who was reproaching him with the circumstance, “The mother of
the Gods too is a Phrygian;” for he was thought to have had a Thracian
mother. On which account, as he had borne himself bravely in the battle
of Tanagra, he gave occasion to Socrates to say that the son of two
Athenians could not have been so brave. And he himself, when disparaging
the Athenians who gave themselves great airs as having been born out of
the earth itself, said that they were not more noble as far as that went
than snails and locusts.
II. Originally he was a pupil of Gorgias the rhetorician; owing to
which circumstance he employs the rhetorical style of language in
his Dialogues, especially in his Truth and in his Exhortations. And
Hermippus says, that he had originally intended in his address at the
assembly, on account of the Isthmian games, to attack and also to praise
the Athenians, and Thebans, and Lacedæmonians; but that he afterwards
abandoned the design, when he saw that there were a great many spectators
come from those cities. Afterwards, he attached himself to Socrates, and
made such progress in philosophy while with him, that he advised all his
own pupils to become his fellow pupils in the school of Socrates. And
as he lived in the Piræus, he went up forty furlongs to the city every
day, in order to hear Socrates, from whom he learnt the art of enduring,
and of being indifferent to external circumstances, and so became the
original founder of the Cynic school.
III. And he used to argue that labour was a good thing, by adducing the
examples of the great Hercules, and of Cyrus, one of which he derived
from the Greeks and the other from the barbarians.
IV. He was also the first person who ever gave a definition of discourse,
saying, “Discourse is that which shows what anything is or was.” And
he used continually to say, “I would rather go mad than feel pleasure.”
And, “One ought to attach one’s self to such women as will thank one for
it.” He said once to a youth from Pontus, who was on the point of coming
to him to be his pupil, and was asking him what things he wanted, “You
want a new book, and a new pen, and a new tablet;”—meaning a new mind.
And to a person who asked him from what country he had better marry a
wife, he said, “If you marry a handsome woman, she will be common;[54]
if an ugly woman, she will be a punishment to you.” He was told once
that Plato spoke ill of him, and he replied, “It is a royal privilege
to do well, and to be evil spoken of.” When he was being initiated
into the mysteries of Orpheus, and the priest said that those who were
initiated enjoyed many good things in the shades below, “Why, then,” said
he “do not you die?” Being once reproached as not being the son of two
free citizens, he said, “And I am not the son of two people skilled in
wrestling; nevertheless, I am a skilful wrestler.” On one occasion he was
asked why he had but few disciples, and said, “Because I drove them away
with a silver rod.” When he was asked why he reproved his pupils with
bitter language, he said, “Physicians too use severe remedies for their
patients.” Once he saw an adulterer running away, and said, “O unhappy
man! how much danger could you have avoided for one obol!” He used to
say, as Hecaton tells us in his Apophthegms, “That it was better to fall
among crows,[55] than among flatterers; for that they only devour the
dead, but the others devour the living.” When he was asked what was the
most happy event that could take place in human life, he said, “To die
while prosperous.”
On one occasion one of his friends was lamenting to him that he had
lost his memoranda, and he said to him, “You ought to have written them
on your mind, and not on paper.” A favourite saying of his was, “That
envious people were devoured by their own disposition, just as iron is
by rust.” Another was, “That those who wish to be immortal ought to live
piously and justly.” He used to say too, “That cities were ruined when
they were unable to distinguish worthless citizens from virtuous ones.”
On one occasion he was being praised by some wicked men, and said, “I
am sadly afraid that I must have done some wicked thing.” One of his
favourite sayings was, “That the fellowship of brothers of one mind was
stronger than any fortified city.” He used to say, “That those things
were the best for a man to take on a journey, which would float with
him if he were shipwrecked.” He was once reproached for being intimate
with wicked men, and said, “Physicians also live with those who are
sick; and yet they do not catch fevers.” He used to say, “that it was
an absurd thing to clean a cornfield of tares, and in war to get rid
of bad soldiers, and yet not to rid one’s self in a city of the wicked
citizens.” When he was asked what advantage he had ever derived from
philosophy, he replied, “The advantage of being able to converse with
myself.” At a drinking party, a man once said to him, “Give us a song,”
and he replied, “Do you play us a tune on the flute.” When Diogenes asked
him for a tunic, he bade him fold his cloak. He was asked on one occasion
what learning was the most necessary, and he replied, “To unlearn one’s
bad habits.” And he used to exhort those who found themselves ill spoken
of, to endure it more than they would any one’s throwing stones at them.
He used to laugh at Plato as conceited; accordingly, once when there was
a fine procession, seeing a horse neighing, he said to Plato, “I think
you too would be a very frisky horse:” and he said this all the more,
because Plato kept continually praising the horse. At another time, he
had gone to see him when he was ill, and when he saw there a dish in
which Plato had been sick, he said, “I see your bile there, but I do not
see your conceit.” He used to advise the Athenians to pass a vote that
asses were horses; and, as they thought that irrational, he said, “Why,
those whom you make generals have never learnt to be really generals,
they have only been voted such.”
A man said to him one day, “Many people praise you.” “Why, what evil,”
said he, “have I done?” When he turned the rent in his cloak outside,
Socrates seeing it, said to him, “I see your vanity through the hole in
your cloak.” On another occasion, the question was put to him by some
one, as Phanias relates, in his treatise on the Philosophers of the
Socratic school, what a man could do to show himself an honourable and
a virtuous man; and he replied, “If you attend to those who understand
the subject, and learn from them that you ought to shun the bad habits
which you have.” Some one was praising luxury in his hearing, and he
said, “May the children of my enemies be luxurious.” Seeing a young man
place himself in a carefully studied attitude before a modeller, he said,
“Tell me, if the brass could speak, on what would it pride itself?” And
when the young man replied, “On its beauty.” “Are you not then,” said he,
“ashamed to rejoice in the same thing as an inanimate piece of brass?”
A young man from Pontus once promised to recollect him, if a vessel of
salt fish arrived; and so he took him with him, and also an empty bag,
and went to a woman who sold meal, and filled his sack and went away; and
when the woman asked him to pay for it, he said, “The young man will pay
you, when the vessel of salt fish comes home.”
He it was who appears to have been the cause of Anytus’s banishment, and
of Meletus’s death. For having met with some young men of Pontus, who
had come to Athens, on account of the reputation of Socrates, he took
them to Anytus, telling them, that in moral philosophy he was wiser than
Socrates; and they who stood by were indignant at this, and drove him
away. And whenever he saw a woman beautifully adorned, he would go off
to her house, and desire her husband to bring forth his horse and his
arms; and then if he had such things, he would give him leave to indulge
in luxury, for that he had the means of defending himself; but if he had
them not, then he would bid him strip his wife of her ornaments.
V. And the doctrines he adopted were these. He used to insist that
virtue was a thing which might be taught; also, that the nobly born and
virtuously disposed, were the same people; for that virtue was of itself
sufficient for happiness, and was in need of nothing, except the strength
of Socrates. He also looked upon virtue as a species of work, not wanting
many arguments, or much instruction; and he taught that the wise man was
sufficient for himself; for that everything that belonged to any one
else belonged to him. He considered obscurity of fame a good thing, and
equally good with labour. And he used to say that the wise man would
regulate his conduct as a citizen, not according to the established laws
of the state, but according to the law of virtue. And that he would marry
for the sake of having children, selecting the most beautiful woman for
his wife. And that he would love her; for that the wise man alone knew
what objects deserved love.
Diocles also attributes the following apophthegms to him. To the wise
man, nothing is strange and nothing remote. The virtuous man is worthy
to be loved. Good men are friends. It is right to make the brave and
just one’s allies. Virtue is a weapon of which a man cannot be deprived.
It is better to fight with a few good men against all the wicked, than
with many wicked men against a few good men. One should attend to one’s
enemies, for they are the first persons to detect one’s errors. One
should consider a just man as of more value than a relation. Virtue is
the same in a man as in a woman. What is good is honourable, and what is
bad is disgraceful. Think everything that is wicked, foreign. Prudence
is the safest fortification; for it can neither fall to pieces nor be
betrayed. One must prepare one’s self a fortress in one’s own impregnable
thoughts.
VI. He used to lecture in the Gymnasium called Cynosarges, not far from
the gates; and some people say that it is from that place that the sect
got the name of Cynics. And he himself was called Haplocyon (downright
dog).
VII. He was the first person to set the fashion of doubling his cloak,
as Diocles says, and he wore no other garment. And he used to carry a
stick and a wallet; but Neanthes says that he was the first person who
wore a cloak without folding it. But Sosicrates, in the third book of his
Successions, says that Diodorus, of Aspendos, let his beard grow, and
used to carry a stick and a wallet.
VIII. He is the only one of all the pupils of Socrates, whom Theopompus
praises and speaks of as clever, and able to persuade whomsoever he
pleased by the sweetness of his conversation. And this is plain, both
from his own writings, and from the Banquet of Xenophon. He appears to
have been the founder of the more manly Stoic school; on which account
Athenæus, the epigrammatist, speaks thus of them:—
O ye, who learned are in Stoic fables,
Ye who consign the wisest of all doctrines
To your most sacred books; you say that virtue
Is the sole good; for that alone can save
The life of man, and strongly fenced cities.
But if some fancy pleasure their best aim,
One of the Muses ’tis who has convinc’d them.
He was the original cause of the apathy of Diogenes, and the temperance
of Crates, and the patience of Zeno, having himself, as it were, laid the
foundations of the city which they afterwards built. And Xenophon says,
that in his conversation and society, he was the most delightful of men,
and in every respect the most temperate.
IX. There are ten volumes of his writings extant. The first volume is
that in which there is the essay on Style, or on Figures of Speech;
the Ajax, or speech of Ajax; the Defence, of Orestes or the treatise
on Lawyers; the Isographe, or the Lysias and Isocrates; the reply to
the work of Isocrates, entitled the Absence of Witnesses. The second
volume is that in which we have the treatise on the Nature of Animals;
on the Pro-creation of Children, or on Marriage, an essay of an amatory
character; on the Sophists, an essay of a physiognomical character; on
Justice and Manly Virtue, being three essays of an hortatory character;
two treatises on Theognis. The third volume contains a treatise on the
Good; on Manly Courage; on Law, or Political Constitutions; on Law, or
what is Honourable and Just; on Freedom and Slavery; on Good Faith;
on a Guardian, or on Persuasion; on Victory, an economical essay. The
fourth volume contains the Cyrus; the Greater Heracles, or a treatise on
Strength. The fifth volume contains the Cyrus, or a treatise on Kingly
Power; the Aspasia.
The sixth volume is that in which there is the treatise Truth; another (a
disputatious one) concerning Arguing; the Sathon, or on Contradiction,
in three parts; and an essay on Dialect. The seventh contains a treatise
on Education, or Names, in five books; one on the Use of Names, or
the Contentious Man; one on Questions and Answers; one on Opinion and
Knowledge, in four books; one on Dying; one on Life and Death; one on
those who are in the Shades below; one on Nature, in two books; two
books of Questions in Natural Philosophy; one essay, called Opinions on
the Contentious Man; one book of Problems, on the subject of Learning.
The eighth volume is that in which we find a treatise on Music; one on
Interpreters; one on Homer; one on Injustice and Impiety; one on Calchas;
one on a Spy; one on Pleasure. The ninth book contains an essay on the
Odyssey; one on the Magic Wand; the Minerva, or an essay on Telemachus;
an essay on Helen and Penelope; one on Proteus; the Cyclops, being an
essay on Ulysses; an essay on the Use of Wine, or on Drunkenness, or
on the Cyclops; one on Circe; one on Amphiaraus; one on Ulysses and
Penelope, and also on Ulysses’ Dog. The tenth volume is occupied by
the Heracles, or Medas; the Hercules, or an Essay on Prudence or
Strength; the Lord or the Lover; the Lord or the Spies; the Menexenus,
or an essay on Governing; the Alcibiades; the Archelaus, or an essay on
Kingly Power.
These then are the names of his works. And Timon, rebuking him because of
their great number, called him a universal chatterer.
X. He died of some disease; and while he was ill Diogenes came to visit
him, and said to him, “Have you no need of a friend?” Once too he came
to see him with a sword in his hand; and when Antisthenes said, “Who can
deliver me from this suffering?” he, pointing to the sword, said, “This
can;” But he rejoined, “I said from suffering, but not from life;” for
he seemed to bear his disease the more calmly from his love of life. And
there is an epigram on him written by ourselves, which runs thus:—
In life you were a bitter dog, Antisthenes,
Born to bite people’s minds with sayings sharp,
Not with your actual teeth. Now you are slain
By fell consumption, passers by may say,
Why should he not, one wants a guide to Hell.
There were also three other people of the name of Antisthenes. One, a
disciple of Heraclitus; the second, an Ephesian; the third, a historian
of Rhodes. And since we have spoken of those who proceeded from the
school of Aristippus and Phædon, we may now go on to the Cynics and
Stoics, who derived their origin from Antisthenes. And we will take them
in the following order.
LIFE OF DIOGENES.
I. Diogenes was a native of Sinope, the son of Hicesius, a money-changer.
And Diocles says that he was forced to flee from his native city, as his
father kept the public bank there, and had adulterated the coinage. But
Eubulides, in his essay on Diogenes, says, that it was Diogenes himself
who did this, and that he was banished with his father. And, indeed,
he himself, in his Pordalus, says of himself that he had adulterated
the public money. Others say that he was one of the curators, and was
persuaded by the artisans employed, and that he went to Delphi, or else
to the oracle at Delos, and there consulted Apollo as to whether he
should do what people were trying to persuade him to do; and that, as the
God gave him permission to do so, Diogenes, not comprehending that the
God meant that he might change the political customs[56] of his country
if he could, adulterated the coinage; and being detected, was banished,
as some people say, but as other accounts have it, took the alarm and
fled away of his own accord. Some again, say that he adulterated the
money which he had received from his father; and that his father was
thrown into prison and died there; but that Diogenes escaped and went
to Delphi, and asked, not whether he might tamper with the coinage, but
what he could do to become very celebrated, and that in consequence he
received the oracular answer which I have mentioned.
II. And when he came to Athens he attached himself to Antisthenes; but as
he repelled him, because he admitted no one; he at last forced his way
to him by his pertinacity. And once, when he raised his stick at him,
he put his head under it, and said, “Strike, for you will not find any
stick hard enough to drive me away as long as you continue to speak.” And
from this time forth he was one of his pupils; and being an exile, he
naturally betook himself to a simple mode of life.
III. And when, as Theophrastus tells us, in his Megaric Philosopher, he
saw a mouse running about and not seeking for a bed, nor taking care
to keep in the dark, nor looking for any of those things which appear
enjoyable to such an animal, he found a remedy for his own poverty.
He was, according to the account of some people, the first person who
doubled up his cloak out of necessity, and who slept in it; and who
carried a wallet, in which he kept his food; and who used whatever place
was near for all sorts of purposes, eating, and sleeping, and conversing
in it. In reference to which habit he used to say, pointing to the
Colonnade of Jupiter, and to the Public Magazine, “that the Athenians had
built him places to live in.” Being attacked with illness, he supported
himself with a staff; and after that he carried it continually, not
indeed in the city, but whenever he was walking in the roads, together
with his wallet, as Olympiodorus, the chief man of the Athenians tells
us; and Polyeuctus, the orator, and Lysanias, the son of Æschrion, tell
the same story.
When he had written to some one to look out and get ready a small house
for him, as he delayed to do it, he took a cask which he found in the
Temple of Cybele, for his house, as he himself tells us in his letters.
And during the summer he used to roll himself in the warm sand, but
in winter he would embrace statues all covered with snow, practising
himself, on every occasion, to endure anything.
IV. He was very violent in expressing his haughty disdain of others. He
said that the σχολὴ (school) of Euclides was χολὴ (gall). And he used
to call Plato’s διατριβὴ (discussions) κατατριβὴ (disguise). It was
also a saying of his that the Dionysian games were a great marvel to
fools; and that the demagogues were the ministers of the multitude. He
used likewise to say, “that when in the course of his life he beheld
pilots, and physicians, and philosophers, he thought man the wisest
of all animals; but when again he beheld interpreters of dreams, and
soothsayers, and those who listened to them, and men puffed up with glory
or riches, then he thought that there was not a more foolish animal than
man.” Another of his sayings was, “that he thought a man ought oftener to
provide himself with a reason than with a halter.” On one occasion, when
he noticed Plato at a very costly entertainment tasting some olives, he
said, “O you wise man! why, after having sailed to Sicily for the sake of
such a feast, do you not now enjoy what you have before you?” And Plato
replied, “By the Gods, Diogenes, while I was there I ate olives and all
such things a great deal.” Diogenes rejoined, “What then did you want to
sail to Syracuse for? Did not Attica at that time produce any olives?”
But Phavorinus, in his Universal History, tells this story of Aristippus.
At another time he was eating dried figs, when Plato met him, and he
said to him, “You may have a share of these;” and as he took some and
ate them, he said, “I said that you might have a share of them, not that
you might eat them all.” On one occasion Plato had invited some friends
who had come to him from Dionysius to a banquet, and Diogenes trampled
on his carpets, and said, “Thus I trample on the empty pride of Plato;”
and Plato made him answer, “How much arrogance are you displaying, O
Diogenes! when you think that you are not arrogant at all.” But, as
others tell the story, Diogenes said, “Thus I trample on the pride of
Plato;” and that Plato rejoined, “With quite as much pride yourself, O
Diogenes.” Sotion too, in his fourth book, states, that the Cynic made
the following speech to Plato: Diogenes once asked him for some wine,
and then for some dried figs; so he sent him an entire jar full; and
Diogenes said to him, “Will you, if you are asked how many two and two
make, answer twenty? In this way, you neither give with any reference to
what you are asked for, nor do you answer with reference to the question
put to you.” He used also to ridicule him as an interminable talker.
When he was asked where in Greece he saw virtuous men; “Men,” said he,
“nowhere; but I see good boys in Lacedæmon.” On one occasion, when no
one came to listen to him while he was discoursing seriously, he began
to whistle. And then when people flocked round him, he reproached them
for coming with eagerness to folly, but being lazy and indifferent about
good things. One of his frequent sayings was, “That men contended with
one another in punching and kicking, but that no one showed any emulation
in the pursuit of virtue.” He used to express his astonishment at the
grammarians for being desirous to learn everything about the misfortunes
of Ulysses, and being ignorant of their own. He used also to say, “That
the musicians fitted the strings to the lyre properly, but left all the
habits of their soul ill-arranged.” And, “That mathematicians kept their
eyes fixed on the sun and moon, and overlooked what was under their
feet.” “That orators were anxious to speak justly, but not at all about
acting so.” Also, “That misers blamed money, but were preposterously fond
of it.” He often condemned those who praise the just for being superior
to money, but who at the same time are eager themselves for great riches.
He was also very indignant at seeing men sacrifice to the Gods to procure
good health, and yet at the sacrifice eating in a manner injurious to
health. He often expressed his surprise at slaves, who, seeing their
masters eating in a gluttonous manner, still do not themselves lay hands
on any of the eatables. He would frequently praise those who were about
to marry, and yet did not marry; or who were about to take a voyage, and
yet did not take a voyage; or who were about to engage in affairs of
state, and did not do so; and those who were about to rear children, yet
did not rear any; and those who were preparing to take up their abode
with princes, and yet did not take it up. One of his sayings was, “That
one ought to hold out one’s hand to a friend without closing the fingers.”
Hermippus, in his Sale of Diogenes, says that he was taken prisoner and
put up to be sold, and asked what he could do; and he answered, “Govern
men.” And so he bade the crier “give notice that if any one wants to
purchase a master, there is one here for him.” When he was ordered not to
sit down; “It makes no difference,” said he, “for fish are sold, be where
they may.” He used to say, that he wondered at men always ringing a dish
or jar before buying it, but being content to judge of a man by his look
alone. When Xeniades bought him, he said to him that he ought to obey him
even though he was his slave; for that a physician or a pilot would find
men to obey them even though they might be slaves.
V. And Eubulus says, in his essay entitled, The Sale of Diogenes, that he
taught the children of Xeniades, after their other lessons, to ride, and
shoot, and sling, and dart. And then in the Gymnasium he did not permit
the trainer to exercise them after the fashion of athletes, but exercised
them himself to just the degree sufficient to give them a good colour
and good health. And the boys retained in their memory many sentences
of poets and prose writers, and of Diogenes himself; and he used to
give them a concise statement of everything in order to strengthen
their memory; and at home he used to teach them to wait upon themselves,
contenting themselves with plain food, and drinking water. And he
accustomed them to cut their hair close, and to eschew ornament, and to
go without tunics or shoes, and to keep silent, looking at nothing except
themselves as they walked along. He used, also to take them out hunting;
and they paid the greatest attention and respect to Diogenes himself, and
spoke well of him to their parents.
VI. And the same author affirms, that he grew old in the household of
Xeniades, and that when he died he was buried by his sons. And that while
he was living with him, Xeniades once asked him how he should bury him;
and he said, “On my face;” and when he was asked why, he said, “Because,
in a little while, everything will be turned upside down.” And he said
this because the Macedonians were already attaining power, and becoming
a mighty people from having been very inconsiderable. Once, when a man
had conducted him into a magnificent house, and had told him that he
must not spit, after hawking a little, he spit in his face, saying that
he could not find a worse place. But some tell this story of Aristippus.
Once, he called out, “Holloa, men.” And when some people gathered round
him in consequence, he drove them away with his stick, saying, “I called
men, and not dregs.” This anecdote I have derived from Hecaton, in the
first book of his Apophthegms. They also relate that Alexander said that
if he had not been Alexander, he should have liked to be Diogenes. He
used to call ἀνάπηροι (cripples), not those who were dumb and blind, but
those who had no wallet (πήρα). On one occasion he went half shaved into
an entertainment of young men, as Metrocles tells us in his Apophthegms,
and so was beaten by them. And afterwards he wrote the names of all those
who had beaten him, on a white tablet, and went about with the tablet
round his neck, so as to expose them to insult, as they were generally
condemned and reproached for their conduct.
He used to say that he was the hound of those who were praised; but that
none of those who praised them dared to go out hunting with him. A man
once said to him, “I conquered men at the Pythian games:” on which he
said, “I conquer men, but you only conquer slaves.” When some people
said to him, “You are an old man, and should rest for the remainder of
your life;” “Why so?” replied he, “suppose I had run a long distance,
ought I to stop when I was near the end, and not rather press on?” Once,
when he was invited to a banquet, he said that he would not come: for
that the day before no one had thanked him for coming. He used to go bare
foot through the snow, and to do a number of other things which have been
already mentioned. Once he attempted to eat raw meat, but he could not
digest it. On one occasion he found Demosthenes, the orator, dining in
an inn; and as he was slipping away, he said to him, “You will now be
ever so much more in an inn.”[57] Once, when some strangers wished to
see Demosthenes, he stretched out his middle finger, and said, “This is
the great demagogue of the Athenian people.” When some one had dropped
a loaf, and was ashamed to pick it up again, he, wishing to give him a
lesson, tied a cord round the neck of a bottle and dragged it all through
the Ceramicus. He used to say, that he imitated the teachers of choruses,
for that they spoke too loud, in order that the rest might catch the
proper tone. Another of his sayings, was that most men were within a
finger’s breadth of being mad. If, then, any one were to walk along,
stretching out his middle finger, he will seem to be mad; but if he puts
out his fore finger, he will not be thought so. Another of his sayings
was, that things of great value were often sold for nothing, and _vice
versâ_. Accordingly, that a statue would fetch three thousand drachmas,
and a bushel of meal only two obols; and when Xeniades had bought him, he
said to him, “Come, do what you are ordered to.” And when he said—
“The streams of sacred rivers now
Run backwards to their source!”
“Suppose,” rejoined Diogenes, “you had been sick, and had bought a
physician, could you refuse to be guided by him, and tell him—
“The streams of sacred rivers now
Run backwards to their source?”
Once a man came to him, and wished to study philosophy as his pupil; and
he gave him a saperda[58] and made him follow him. And as he from shame
threw it away and departed, he soon afterwards met him and, laughing,
said to him, “A saperda has dissolved your friendship for me.” But
Diocles tells this story in the following manner; that when some one said
to him, “Give me a commission, Diogenes,” he carried him off, and gave
him a halfpenny worth of cheese to carry. And as he refused to carry it,
“See,” said Diogenes, “a halfpenny worth of cheese has broken off our
friendship.”
On one occasion he saw a child drinking out of its hands, and so he threw
away the cup which belonged to his wallet, saying, “That child has beaten
me in simplicity.” He also threw away his spoon, after seeing a boy, when
he had broken his vessel, take up his lentils with a crust of bread. And
he used to argue thus,—“Everything belongs to the gods; and wise men
are the friends of the gods. All things are in common among friends;
therefore everything belongs to wise men.” Once he saw a woman falling
down before the Gods in an unbecoming attitude; he, wishing to cure her
of her superstition, as Zoilus of Perga tells us, came up to her, and
said, “Are you not afraid, O woman, to be in such an indecent attitude,
when some God may be behind you, for every place is full of him?” He
consecrated a man to Æsculapius, who was to run up and beat all these who
prostrated themselves with their faces to the ground; and he was in the
habit of saying that the tragic curse had come upon him, for that he was—
Houseless and citiless, a piteous exile
From his dear native land; a wandering beggar,
Scraping a pittance poor from day to day.
And another of his sayings was that he opposed confidence to fortune,
nature to law, and reason to suffering. Once, while he was sitting in
the sun in the Craneum, Alexander was standing by, and said to him, “Ask
any favour you choose of me.” And he replied, “Cease to shade me from
the sun.” On one occasion a man was reading some long passages, and when
he came to the end of the book and showed that there was nothing more
written, “Be of good cheer, my friends,” exclaimed Diogenes, “I see
land.” A man once proved to him syllogistically that he had horns, so
he put his hand to his forehead and said, “I do not see them.” And in a
similar manner he replied to one who had been asserting that there was
no such thing as motion, by getting up and walking away. When a man was
talking about the heavenly bodies and meteors, “Pray how many days,” said
he to him, “is it since you came down from heaven?”
A profligate eunuch had written on his house, “Let no evil thing enter
in.” “Where,” said Diogenes, “is the master of the house going?” After
having anointed his feet with perfume, he said that the ointment from his
head mounted up to heaven, and that from his feet up to his nose. When
the Athenians entreated him to be initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries,
and said that in the shades below the initiated had the best seats; “It
will,” he replied, “be an absurd thing if Agesilaus and Epaminondas are
to live in the mud, and some miserable wretches, who have been initiated,
are to be in the islands of the blest.” Some mice crept up to his table,
and he said, “See, even Diogenes maintains his favourites.” Once, when he
was leaving the bath, and a man asked him whether many men were bathing,
he said, “No;” but when a number of people came out, he confessed
that there were a great many. When Plato called him a dog, he said,
“Undoubtedly, for I have come back to those who sold me.”
Plato defined man thus: “Man is a two-footed, featherless animal,” and
was much praised for the definition; so Diogenes plucked a cock and
brought it into his school, and said, “This is Plato’s man.” On which
account this addition was made to the definition, “With broad flat
nails.” A man once asked him what was the proper time for supper, and he
made answer, “If you are a rich man, whenever you please; and if you are
a poor man, whenever you can.” When he was at Megara he saw some sheep
carefully covered over with skins, and the children running about naked;
and so he said, “It is better at Megara to be a man’s ram, than his son.”
A man once struck him with a beam, and then said, “Take care.” “What,”
said he, “are you going to strike me again?” He used to say that the
demagogues were the servants of the people; and garlands the blossoms of
glory. Having lighted a candle in the day time, he said, “I am looking
for a man.” On one occasion he stood under a fountain, and as the
bystanders were pitying him, Plato, who was present, said to them, “If
you wish really to show your pity for him, come away;” intimating that he
was only acting thus out of a desire for notoriety. Once, when a man had
struck him with his fist, he said, “O Hercules, what a strange thing that
I should be walking about with a helmet on without knowing it!”
When Midias struck him with his fist and said, “There are three thousand
drachmas for you;” the next day Diogenes took the cestus of a boxer
and beat him soundly, and said, “There are three thousand drachmas for
you.”[59] When Lysias, the drug-seller, asked him whether he thought
that there were any Gods: “How,” said he, “can I help thinking so, when
I consider you to be hated by them?” but some attribute this reply to
Theodorus. Once he saw a man purifying himself by washing, and said to
him, “Oh, wretched man, do not you know that as you cannot wash away
blunders in grammar by purification, so, too, you can no more efface the
errors of a life in that same manner?”
He used to say that men were wrong for complaining of fortune; for that
they ask of the Gods what appear to be good things, not what are really
so. And to those who were alarmed at dreams he said, that they did not
regard what they do while they are awake, but make a great fuss about
what they fancy they see while they are asleep. Once, at the Olympic
games, when the herald proclaimed, “Dioxippus is the conqueror of men;”
he said, “He is the conqueror of slaves, I am the conqueror of men.”
He was greatly beloved by the Athenians; accordingly, when a youth had
broken his cask they beat him, and gave Diogenes another. And Dionysius,
the Stoic, says that after the battle of Chæronea he was taken prisoner
and brought to Philip; and being asked who he was, replied, “A spy, to
spy upon your insatiability.” And Philip marvelled at him and let him
go. Once, when Alexander had sent a letter to Athens to Antipater, by
the hands of a man named Athlias, he, being present, said, “Athlias from
Athlius, by means of Athlias to Athlius.”[60] When Perdiccas threatened
that he would put him to death if he did not come to him, he replied,
“That is nothing strange, for a scorpion or a tarantula could do as
much: you had better threaten me that, if I kept away, you should be
very happy.” He used constantly to repeat with emphasis that an easy
life had been given to man by the Gods, but that it had been overlaid
by their seeking for honey, cheese-cakes, and unguents, and things of
that sort. On which account he said to a man, who had his shoes put on
by his servant, “You are not thoroughly happy, unless he also wipes
your nose for you; and he will do this, if you are crippled in your
hands.” On one occasion, when he had seen the hieromnemones[61] leading
off one of the stewards who had stolen a goblet, he said, “The great
thieves are carrying off the little thief.” At another time, seeing a
young man throwing stones at a cross, he said, “Well done, you will be
sure to reach the mark.” Once, too, some boys got round him and said,
“We are taking care that you do not bite us;” but he said, “Be of good
cheer, my boys, a dog does not eat beef.” He saw a man giving himself
airs because he was clad in a lion’s skin, and said to him, “Do not go
on disgracing the garb of nature.” When people were speaking of the
happiness of Callisthenes, and saying what splendid treatment he received
from Alexander, he replied, “The man then is wretched, for he is forced
to breakfast and dine whenever Alexander chooses.” When he was in want of
money, he said that be reclaimed it from his friends and did not beg for
it.
On one occasion he was working with his hands in the market-place, and
said, “I wish I could rub my stomach in the same way, and so avoid
hunger.” When he saw a young man going with some satraps to supper, he
dragged him away and led him off to his relations, and bade them take
care of him. He was once addressed by a youth beautifully adorned, who
asked him some question; and he refused to give him any answer, till
he satisfied him whether he was a man or a woman. And on one occasion,
when a youth was playing the cottabus in the bath, he said to him, “The
better you do it, the worse you do it.” Once at a banquet, some of the
guests threw him bones, as if he had been a dog; so he, as he went away,
put up his leg against them as if he had been a dog in reality. He used
to call the orators, and all those who speak for fame τρισάνθρωποι
(thrice men), instead of τρισάθλιοι (thrice miserable). He said that a
rich but ignorant man, was like a sheep with a golden fleece. When he
saw a notice on the house of a profligate man, “To be sold.” “I knew,”
said he, “that you who are so incessantly drunk, would soon vomit up
your owner.” To a young man, who was complaining of the number of people
who sought his acquaintance, he said, “Do not make such a parade of your
vanity.”
Having been in a very dirty bath, he said, “I wonder where the people,
who bathe here, clean themselves.” When all the company was blaming an
indifferent harp-player, he alone praised him, and being asked why he
did so, he said, “Because, though he is such as he is, he plays the harp
and does not steal.” He saluted a harp player who was always left alone
by his hearers, with, “Good morning, cock;” and when the man asked him,
“Why so?” he said, “Because you, when you sing, make every one get up.”
When a young man was one day making a display of himself, he, having
filled the bosom of his robe with lupins, began to eat them; and when the
multitude looked at him, he said, “that he marvelled at their leaving the
young man to look at him.” And when a man, who was very superstitious,
said to him, “With one blow I will break your head;” “And I,” he replied,
“with one sneeze will make you tremble.” When Hegesias entreated him to
lend him one of his books, he said, “You are a silly fellow, Hegesias,
for you will not take painted figs, but real ones; and yet you overlook
the genuine practice of virtue, and seek for what is merely written.”
A man once reproached him with his banishment, and his answer was,
“You wretched man, that is what made me a philosopher.” And when, on
another occasion, some one said to him, “The people of Sinope condemned
you to banishment,” he replied, “And I condemned them to remain where
they were.” Once he saw a man who had been victor at the Olympic games,
feeding (νέμοντα) sheep, and he said to him, “You have soon come across
my friend from the Olympic games, to the Nemean.” When he was asked why
athletes are insensible to pain, he said, “Because they are built up of
pork and beef.”
He once asked for a statue; and being questioned as to his reason for
doing so, he said, “I am practising disappointment.” Once he was begging
of some one (for he did this at first out of actual want), he said, “If
you have given to any one else, give also to me; and if you have never
given to any one, then begin with me.” On one occasion, he was asked
by the tyrant, “What sort of brass was the best for a statue?” and he
replied, “That of which the statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton are
made.” When he was asked how Dionysius treats his friends, he said,
“Like bags; those which are full he hangs up, and those which are empty
he throws away.” A man who was lately married put an inscription on his
house, “Hercules Callinicus, the son of Jupiter, lives here; let no evil
enter.” And so Diogenes wrote in addition, “An alliance is made after the
war is over.” He used to say that covetousness was the metropolis of all
evils. Seeing on one occasion a profligate man in an inn eating olives,
he said, “If you had dined thus, you would not have supped thus.” One of
his apophthegms was, that good men were the images of the Gods; another,
that love was the business of those who had nothing to do. When he was
asked what was miserable in life, he answered, “An indigent old man.” And
when the question was put to him, what beast inflicts the worst bite, he
said, “Of wild beasts the sycophant, and of tame animals the flatterer.”
On one occasion he saw two Centaurs very badly painted; he said, “Which
of the two is the worst?”[62] He used to say that a speech, the object of
which was solely to please, was a honeyed halter. He called the belly,
the Charybdis of life. Having heard once that Didymon the adulterer,
had been caught in the fact, he said, “He deserves to be hung by his
name.”[63] When the question was put to him, why gold is of a pale
colour, he said, “Because it has so many people plotting against it.”
When he saw a woman in a litter, he said, “The cage is not suited to the
animal.” And seeing a runaway slave sitting on a well, he said, “My boy,
take care you do not fall in.” Another time, he saw a little boy who
was a stealer of clothes from the baths, and said, “Are you going for
unguents, (ἐπ’ ἀλειμμάτιον), or for other garments (ἐπ’ ἄλλ’ ἱμάτιον).”
Seeing some women hanging on olive trees, he said, “I wish every tree
bore similar fruit.” At another time, he saw a clothes stealer, and
addressed him thus:—
“What moves thee, say, when sleep has clos’d the sight,
To roam the silent fields in dead of night?
Art thou some wretch by hopes of plunder led,
Through heaps of carnage to despoil the dead.”[64]
When he was asked whether he had any girl or boy to wait on him, he said,
“No.” And as his questioner asked further, “If then you die, who will
bury you?” He replied, “Whoever wants my house.” Seeing a handsome youth
sleeping without any protection, he nudged him, and said, “Wake up:—
“Mix’d with the vulgar shall thy fate be found,
Pierc’d in the back, a vile dishonest wound.”[65]
And he addressed a man who was buying delicacies at a great expense:—
“Not long, my son, will you on earth remain,
If such your dealings.”[66]
When Plato was discoursing about his “ideas,” and using the nouns
“tableness” and “cupness;” “I, O Plato!” interrupted Diogenes, “see a
table and a cup, but I see no tableness or cupness.” Plato made answer,
“That is natural enough, for you have eyes, by which a cup and a table
are contemplated; but you have not intellect, by which tableness and
cupness are seen.”
On one occasion, he was asked by a certain person, “What sort of a man, O
Diogenes, do you think Socrates?” and he said, “A madman.” Another time,
the question was put to him, when a man ought to marry? and his reply
was, “Young men ought not to marry yet, and old men never ought to marry
at all.” When asked what he would take to let a man give him a blow on
the head? he replied, “A helmet.” Seeing a youth smartening himself up
very carefully, he said to him, “If you are doing that for men, you are
miserable; and if for women, you are profligate.” Once he saw a youth
blushing, and addressed him, “Courage, my boy, that is the complexion of
virtue.” Having once listened to two lawyers, he condemned them both;
saying, “That the one had stolen the thing in question, and that the
other had not lost it.” When asked what wine he liked to drink, he said,
“That which belongs to another.” A man said to him one day, “Many people
laugh at you.” “But I,” he replied, “am not laughed down.” When a man
said to him, that it was a bad thing to live; “Not to live,” said he,
“but to live badly.” When some people were advising him to make search
for a slave who had run away, he said, “It would be a very absurd thing
for Manes to be able to live without Diogenes, but for Diogenes not to be
able to live without Manes.” When he was dining on olives, a cheese-cake
was brought in, on which he threw the olive away, saying:—
Keep well aloof, O stranger, from all tyrants.[67]
And presently he added:—
He drove the olive off (μαστίξεν δ’ ἐλάαν).[68]
When he was asked what sort of a dog he was, he replied, “When hungry,
I am a dog of Melita; when satisfied, a Molossian; a sort which most of
those who praise, do not like to take out hunting with them, because
of the labour of keeping up with them; and in like manner, you cannot
associate with me, from fear of the pain I give you.” The question was
put to him, whether wise men ate cheese-cakes, and he replied, “They eat
everything, just as the rest of mankind.” When asked why people give
to beggars and not to philosophers, he said, “Because they think it
possible that they themselves may become lame and blind, but they do not
expect ever to turn out philosophers.” He once begged of a covetous man,
and as he was slow to give, he said, “Man, I am asking you for something
to maintain me (εἰς τροφὴν) and not to bury me (εἰς ταφὴν).” When some
one reproached him for having tampered with the coinage, he said, “There
was a time when I was such a person as you are now; but there never was
when you were such as I am now, and never will be.” And to another person
who reproached him on the same grounds, he said, “There were times when I
did what I did not wish to, but that is not the case now.” When he went
to Myndus, he saw some very large gates, but the city was a small one,
and so he said, “Oh men of Myndus, shut your gates, lest your city should
steal out.” On one occasion, he saw a man who had been detected stealing
purple, and so he said:—
A purple death, and mighty fate overtook him.[69]
When Craterus entreated him to come and visit him, he said, “I would
rather lick up salt at Athens, than enjoy a luxurious table with
Craterus.” On one occasion, he met Anaximenes, the orator, who was a fat
man, and thus accosted him; “Pray give us, who are poor, some of your
belly; for by so doing you will be relieved yourself, and you will assist
us.” And once, when he was discussing some point, Diogenes held up a
piece of salt fish, and drew off the attention of his hearers; and as
Anaximenes was indignant at this, he said, “See, one pennyworth of salt
fish has put an end to the lecture of Anaximenes.” Being once reproached
for eating in the market-place, he made answer, “I did, for it was in
the market-place that I was hungry.” Some authors also attribute the
following repartee to him. Plato saw him washing vegetables, and so,
coming up to him, he quietly accosted him thus, “If you had paid court
to Dionysius, you would not have been washing vegetables.” “And,” he
replied, with equal quietness, “if you had washed vegetables, you would
never have paid court to Dionysius.” When a man said to him once, “Most
people laugh at you;” “And very likely,” he replied, “the asses laugh at
them; but they do not regard the asses, neither do I regard them.” Once
he saw a youth studying philosophy, and said to him, “Well done; inasmuch
as you are leading those who admire your person to contemplate the beauty
of your mind.”
A certain person was admiring the offerings in the temple at
Samothrace,[70] and he said to him, “They would have been much more
numerous, if those who were lost had offered them instead of those who
were saved;” but some attribute this speech to Diagoras the Melian. Once
he saw a handsome youth going to a banquet, and said to him, “You will
come back worse (χείρων);” and when he the next day after the banquet
said to him, “I have left the banquet, and was no worse for it;” he
replied, “You were not Chiron, but Eurytion.”[71] He was begging once
of a very ill-tempered man, and as he said to him, “If you can persuade
me, I will give you something;” he replied, “If I could persuade you, I
would beg you to hang yourself.” He was on one occasion returning from
Lacedæmon to Athens; and when some one asked him, “Whither are you going,
and whence do you come?” he said, “I am going from the men’s apartments
to the women’s.” Another time he was returning from the Olympic games,
and when some one asked him whether there had been a great multitude
there, he said, “A great multitude, but very few men.” He used to say
that debauched men resembled figs growing on a precipice; the fruit of
which is not tasted by men, but devoured by crows and vultures. When
Phryne had dedicated a golden statue of Venus at Delphi, he wrote upon
it, “From the profligacy of the Greeks.”
Once Alexander the Great came and stood by him, and said, “I am
Alexander, the great king.” “And I,” said he, “am Diogenes the dog.” And
when he was asked to what actions of his it was owing that he was called
a dog, he said, “Because I fawn upon those who give me anything, and bark
at those who give me nothing, and bite the rogues.” On one occasion he
was gathering some of the fruit of a fig-tree, and when the man who was
guarding it told him a man hung himself on this tree the other day. “I,
then,” said he, “will now purify it.” Once he saw a man who had been a
conqueror at the Olympic games looking very often at a courtesan; “Look,”
said he, “at that warlike ram, who is taken prisoner by the first girl he
meets.” One of his sayings was, that good-looking courtesans were like
poisoned mead.
On one occasion he was eating his dinner in the market-place, and the
bystanders kept constantly calling out “Dog;” but he said, “It is you
who are the dogs, who stand around me while I am at dinner.” When two
effeminate fellows were getting out of his way, he said, “Do not be
afraid, a dog does not eat beetroot.” Being once asked about a debauched
boy, as to what country he came from, he said, “He is a Tegean.”[72]
Seeing an unskilful wrestler professing to heal a man he said, “What
are you about, are you in hopes now to overthrow those who formerly
conquered you?” On one occasion he saw the son of a courtesan throwing
a stone at a crowd, and said to him, “Take care, lest you hit your
father.” When a boy showed him a sword that he had received from one to
whom he had done some discreditable service, he told him, “The sword is
a good sword, but the handle is infamous.” And when some people were
praising a man who had given him something, he said to them, “And do not
you praise me who was worthy to receive it?” He was asked by some one
to give him back his cloak; but he replied, “If you gave it me, it is
mine; and if you only lent it me, I am using it.” A supposititious son
(ὑποβολιμαῖος) of somebody once said to him, that he had gold in his
cloak; “No doubt,” said he, “that is the very reason why I sleep with
it under my head (ὑποβεβλημένος).” When he was asked what advantage he
had derived from philosophy, he replied, “If no other, at least this,
that I am prepared for every kind of fortune.” The question was put to
him what countryman he was, and he replied, “A Citizen of the world.”
Some men were sacrificing to the Gods to prevail on them to send them
sons, and he said, “And do you not sacrifice to procure sons of a
particular character?” Once he was asking the president of a society for
a contribution,[73] and said to him:—
“Spoil all the rest, but keep your hands from Hector.”
He used to say that courtesans were the queens of kings; for that they
asked them for whatever they chose. When the Athenians had voted that
Alexander was Bacchus, he said to them, “Vote, too, that I am Serapis.”
When a man reproached him for going into unclean places, he said, “The
sun too penetrates into privies, but is not polluted by them.” When
supping in a temple, as some dirty loaves were set before him, he took
them up and threw them away, saying that nothing dirty ought to come into
a temple; and when some one said to him, “You philosophize without being
possessed of any knowledge,” he said, “If I only pretend to wisdom, that
is philosophizing.” A man once brought him a boy, and said that he was
a very clever child, and one of an admirable disposition. “What, then,”
said Diogenes, “does he want of me?” He used to say, that those who utter
virtuous sentiments but do not do them, are no better than harps, for
that a harp has no hearing or feeling. Once he was going into a theatre
while every one else was coming out of it; and when asked why he did so,
“It is,” said he, “what I have been doing all my life.” Once when he saw
a young man putting on effeminate airs, he said to him, “Are you not
ashamed to have worse plans for yourself than nature had for you? for she
has made you a man, but you are trying to force yourself to be a woman.”
When he saw an ignorant man tuning a psaltery, he said to him, “Are you
not ashamed to be arranging proper sounds on a wooden instrument, and
not arranging your soul to a proper life?” When a man said to him, “I am
not calculated for philosophy,” he said, “Why then do you live, if you
have no desire to live properly?” To a man who treated his father with
contempt, he said, “Are you not ashamed to despise him to whom you owe
it that you have it in your power to give yourself airs at all?” Seeing
a handsome young man chattering in an unseemly manner, he said, “Are
you not ashamed to draw a sword cut of lead out of a scabbard of ivory?”
Being once reproached for drinking in a vintner’s shop, he said, “I have
my hair cut, too, in a barber’s.” At another time, he was attacked for
having accepted a cloak from Antipater, but he replied:—
“Refuse not thou to heed
The gifts which from the mighty Gods proceed.”[74]
A man once struck him with a broom, and said, “Take care,” so he struck
him in return with his staff, and said, “Take care.”
He once said to a man who was addressing anxious entreaties to a
courtesan, “What can you wish to obtain, you wretched man, that you
had not better be disappointed in?” Seeing a man reeking all over with
unguents, he said to him, “Have a care, lest the fragrance of your head
give a bad odour to your life.” One of his sayings was, that servants
serve their masters, and that wicked men are the slaves of their
appetites. Being asked why slaves were called ἀνδράποδα, he replied,
“Because they have the feet of men (τοὺς πόδας ἀνδρῶν), and a soul such
as you who are asking this question.” He once asked a profligate fellow
for a mina; and when he put the question to him, why he asked others for
an obol, and him for a mina, he said, “Because I hope to get something
from the others another time, but the Gods alone know whether I shall
ever extract anything from you again.” Once he was reproached for asking
favours, while Plato never asked for any; and he said:—
“He asks as well as I do, but he does it
Bending his head, that no one else may hear.”
One day he saw an unskilful archer shooting; so he went and sat down by
the target, saying, “Now I shall be out of harm’s way.” He used to say,
that those who were in love were disappointed in regard of the pleasure
they expected. When he was asked whether death was an evil, he replied,
“How can that be an evil which we do not feel when it is present?” When
Alexander was once standing by him, and saying, “Do not you fear me?” He
replied, “No; for what are you, a good or an evil?” And as he said that
he was good, “Who, then,” said Diogenes, “fears the good?” He used to
say, that education was, for the young sobriety, for the old comfort, for
the poor riches, and for the rich an ornament. When Didymus the adulterer
was once trying to cure the eye of a young girl (κόρης), he said, “Take
care, lest when you are curing the eye of the maiden, you do not hurt the
pupil.”[75] A man once said to him, that his friends laid plots against
him; “What then,” said he, “are you to do, if you must look upon both
your friends and enemies in the same light?”
On one occasion he was asked, what was the most excellent thing among
men; and he said, “Freedom of speech.” He went once into a school, and
saw many statues of the Muses, but very few pupils, and said, “Gods,
and all my good schoolmasters, you have plenty of pupils.” He was in
the habit of doing everything in public, whether in respect of Venus or
Ceres; and he used to put his conclusions in this way to people: “If
there is nothing absurd in dining, then it is not absurd to dine in the
market-place. But it is not absurd to dine, therefore it is not absurd to
dine in the market-place.” And as he was continually doing manual work in
public, he said one day, “Would that by rubbing my belly I could get rid
of hunger.” Other sayings also are attributed to him, which it would take
a long time to enumerate, there is such a multiplicity of them.
He used to say, that there were two kinds of exercise: that, namely, of
the mind and that of the body; and that the latter of these created in
the mind such quick and agile phantasies at the time of its performance,
as very much facilitated the practice of virtue; but that one was
imperfect without the other, since the health and vigour necessary for
the practice of what is good, depend equally on both mind and body. And
he used to allege as proofs of this, and of the ease which practice
imparts to acts of virtue, that people could see that in the case of
mere common working trades, and other employments of that kind, the
artisans arrived at no inconsiderable accuracy by constant practice;
and that any one may see how much one flute player, or one wrestler, is
superior to another, by his own continued practice. And that if these
men transferred the same training to their minds they would not labour
in a profitless or imperfect manner. He used to say also, that there was
nothing whatever in life which could be brought to perfection without
practice, and that that alone was able to overcome every obstacle; that,
therefore, as we ought to repudiate all useless toils, and to apply
ourselves to useful labours, and to live happily, we are only unhappy in
consequence of most exceeding folly. For the very contempt of pleasure,
if we only inure ourselves to it, is very pleasant; and just as they who
are accustomed to live luxuriously, are brought very unwillingly to adopt
the contrary system; so they who have been originally inured to that
opposite system, feel a sort of pleasure in the contempt of pleasure.
This used to be the language which he held, and he used to show in
practice, really altering men’s habits, and deferring in all things
rather to the principles of nature than to those of law; saying that he
was adopting the same fashion of life as Hercules had, preferring nothing
in the world to liberty; and saying that everything belonged to the wise,
and advancing arguments such as I mentioned just above. For instance:
every thing belongs to the Gods; and the Gods are friends to the wise;
and all the property of friends is held in common; therefore everything
belongs to the wise. He also argued about the law, that without it there
is no possibility of a constitution being maintained; for without a
city there can be nothing orderly, but a city is an orderly thing; and
without a city there can be no law; therefore law is order. And he played
in the same manner with the topics of noble birth, and reputation, and
all things of that kind, saying that they were all veils, as it were,
for wickedness; and that that was the only proper constitution which
consisted in order. Another of his doctrines was that all women ought
to be possessed in common; and he said that marriage was a nullity, and
that the proper way would be for every man to live with her whom he
could persuade to agree with him. And on the same principle he said,
that all people’s sons ought to belong to every one in common; and there
was nothing intolerable in the idea of taking anything out of a temple,
or eating any animal whatever, and that there was no impiety in tasting
even human flesh; as is plain from the habits of foreign nations; and he
said that this principle might be correctly extended to every case and
every people. For he said that in reality everything was a combination
of all things. For that in bread there was meat, and in vegetables there
was bread, and so there were some particles of all other bodies in
everything, communicating by invisible passages and evaporating.
VII. And he explains this theory of his clearly in the Thyestes, if
indeed the tragedies attributed to him are really his composition, and
not rather the work of Philiscus, of Ægina, his intimate friend, or
of Pasiphon, the son of Lucian, who is stated by Phavorinus, in his
Universal History, to have written them after Diogenes’ death.
VIII. Music and geometry, and astronomy, and all things of that kind, he
neglected, as useless and unnecessary. But he was a man very happy in
meeting arguments, as is plain from what we have already said.
IX. And he bore being sold with a most magnanimous spirit. For as he
was sailing to Ægina, and was taken prisoner by some pirates, under the
command of Scirpalus, he was carried off to Crete and sold; and when
the crier asked him what art he understood, he said, “That of governing
men.” And presently pointing out a Corinthian, very carefully dressed,
(the same Xeniades whom we have mentioned before), he said, “Sell me to
that man; for he wants a master.” Accordingly Xeniades bought him and
carried him away to Corinth; and then he made him tutor of his sons,
and committed to him the entire management of his house. And he behaved
himself in every affair in such a manner, that Xeniades, when looking
over his property, said, “A good genius has come into my house.” And
Cleomenes, in his book which is called the Schoolmaster, says, that he
wished to ransom all his relations, but that Diogenes told him that they
were all fools; for that lions did not become the slaves of those who
kept them, but, on the contrary, those who maintained lions were their
slaves. For that it was the part of a slave to fear, but that wild beasts
were formidable to men.
X. And the man had the gift of persuasion in a wonderful degree; so
that he could easily overcome any one by his arguments. Accordingly, it
is said that an Æginetan of the name of Onesicritus, having two sons,
sent to Athens one of them, whose name was Androsthenes, and that he,
after having heard Diogenes lecture, remained there; and that after
that, he sent the elder, Philiscus, who has been already mentioned,
and that Philiscus was charmed in the same manner. And last of all, he
came himself, and then he too remained, no less than his son, studying
philosophy at the feet of Diogenes. So great a charm was there in the
discourses of Diogenes. Another pupil of his was Phocion, who was
surnamed the Good; and Stilpon, the Megarian, and a great many other men
of eminence as statesmen.
XI. He is said to have died when he was nearly ninety years of age, but
there are different accounts given of his death. For some say that he ate
an ox’s foot raw, and was in consequence seized with a bilious attack,
of which he died; others, of whom Cercidas, a Megalopolitan or Cretan,
is one, say that he died of holding his breath for several days; and
Cercidas speaks thus of him in his Meliambics:—
He, that Sinopian who bore the stick,
Wore his cloak doubled, and in th’ open air
Dined without washing, would not bear with life
A moment longer: but he shut his teeth,
And held his breath. He truly was the son
Of Jove, and a most heavenly-minded dog,
The wise Diogenes.
Others say that he, while intending to distribute a polypus to his dogs,
was bitten by them through the tendon of his foot, and so died. But
his own greatest friends, as Antisthenes tells us in his Successions,
rather sanction the story of his having died from holding his breath.
For he used to live in the Craneum, which was a Gymnasium at the gates
of Corinth. And his friends came according to their custom, and found
him with his head covered; and as they did not suppose that he was
asleep, for he was not a man much subject to the influence of night or
sleep, they drew away his cloak from his face, and found him no longer
breathing; and they thought that he had done this on purpose, wishing to
escape the remaining portion of his life.
On this there was a quarrel, as they say, between his friends, as to who
should bury him, and they even came to blows; but when the elders and
chief men of the city came there, they say that he was buried by them at
the gate which leads to the Isthmus. And they placed over him a pillar,
and on that a dog in Parian marble. And at a later period his fellow
citizens honoured him with brazen statues, and put this inscription on
them:—
E’en brass by lapse of time doth old become,
But there is no such time as shall efface
Your lasting glory, wise Diogenes;
Since you alone did teach to men the art
Of a contented life: the surest path
To glory and a lasting happiness.
We ourselves have also written an epigram on him in the proceleusmatic
metre.
_A._ Tell me, Diogenes, tell me true, I pray,
How did you die; what fate to Pluto bore you?
_B._ The savage bite of an envious dog did kill me.
Some, however, say that when he was dying, he ordered his friends to
throw his corpse away without burying it, so that every beast might tear
it, or else to throw it into a ditch, and sprinkle a little dust over it.
And others say that his injunctions were, that he should be thrown into
the Ilissus; that so he might be useful to his brethren. But Demetrius,
in his treatise on Men of the Same Name, says that Diogenes died in
Corinth the same day that Alexander died in Babylon. And he was already
an old man, as early as the hundred and thirteenth olympiad.
XII. The following books are attributed to him. The dialogues entitled
the Cephalion; the Icthyas; the Jackdaw; the Leopard; the People of the
Athenians; the Republic; one called Moral Art; one on Wealth; one on
Love; the Theodorus; the Hypsias; the Aristarchus; one on Death; a volume
of Letters; seven Tragedies, the Helen, the Thyestes, the Hercules, the
Achilles, the Medea, the Chrysippus, and the Œdipus.
But Sosicrates, in the first book of his Successions, and Satyrus, in
the fourth book of his Lives, both assert that none of all these are the
genuine composition of Diogenes. And Satyrus affirms that the tragedies
are the work of Philiscus, the Æginetan, a friend of Diogenes. But
Sotion, in his seventh book, says that these are the only genuine works
of Diogenes: a dialogue on Virtue; another on the Good; another on Love;
the Beggar; the Tolmæus; the Leopard; the Cassander; the Cephalion;
and that the Aristarchus, the Sisyphus, the Ganymede, a volume of
Apophthegms, and another of Letters, are all the work of Philiscus.
XIII. There were five persons of the name of Diogenes. The first a native
of Apollonia, a natural philosopher; and the beginning of his treatise
on Natural Philosophy is as follows: “It appears to me to be well for
every one who commences any kind of philosophical treatise, to lay down
some undeniable principle to start with.” The second was a Sicyonian, who
wrote an account of Peloponnesus. The third was the man of whom we have
been speaking. The fourth was a Stoic, a native of Seleucia, but usually
called a Babylonian, from the proximity of Seleucia to Babylon. The
fifth was a native of Tarsus, who wrote on the subject of some questions
concerning poetry which he endeavours to solve.
XIV. Athenodorus, in the eighth book of his Conversations, says, that the
philosopher always had a shining appearance, from his habit of anointing
himself.
LIFE OF MONIMUS.
I. Monimus was a Syracusan, and a pupil of Diogenes, but also a slave
of some Corinthian money-changer, as Sosicrates tells us. Xeniades, who
bought Diogenes, used often to come to him, extolling the excellency of
Diogenes both in actions and words, till he excited a great affection
for the man in the mind of Monimus. For he immediately feigned madness,
and threw about all the money and all the coins that were on the table,
until his master discarded him, and then he straightway went to Diogenes
and became his pupil. He also followed Crates the Cynic a good deal, and
devoted himself to the same studies as he did; and the sight of this
conduct of his made his master all the more think him mad.
II. And he was a very eminent man, so that even Menander, the comic
poet, speaks of him; accordingly, in one of his plays, namely in the
Hippocomus, he mentions him thus:—
There is a man, O Philo, named Monimus,
A wise man, though but little known, and one
Who bears a wallet at his back, and is not
Content with one but three. He never spoke
A single sentence, by great Jove I swear,
Like this one, “Know thyself,” or any other
Of the oft-quoted proverbs: all such sayings
He scorned, as he did beg his way through dirt;
Teaching that all opinion is but vanity.
But he was a man of such gravity that he despised glory, and sought only
for truth.
III. He wrote some jests mingled with serious treatises, and two essays
on the Appetites, and an Exhortation.
LIFE OF ONESICRITUS.
I. Onesicritus is called by some authors an Æginetan, but Demetrius the
Magnesian affirms that he was a native of Astypalæa. He also was one of
the most eminent of the disciples of Diogenes.
II. And he appears in some points to resemble Xenophon. For Xenophon
joined in the expedition of Cyrus, and Onesicritus in that of Alexander;
and Xenophon wrote the Cyropædia, and Onesicritus wrote an account of the
education of Alexander. Xenophon, too, wrote a Panegyric on Cyrus, and
Onesicritus one on Alexander. They were also both similar to one another
in style, except that a copyist is naturally inferior to the original.
III. Menander, too, who was surnamed Drymus, was a pupil of Diogenes,
and a great admirer of Homer: and so was Hegesæus of Sinope, who was
nicknamed Clœus, and Philiscus the Æginetan, as we have said before.
LIFE OF CRATES.
I. Crates was a Theban by birth, and the son of Ascondus. He also was one
of the eminent disciples of the Cynic. But Hippobotus asserts that he was
not a pupil of Diogenes, but of Bryson the Achæan.
II. There are the following sportive lines of his quoted:—
The waves surround vain Peres’ fruitful soil,
And fertile acres crown the sea-born isle;
Land which no parasite e’er dares invade,
Or lewd seducer of a hapless maid;
It bears figs, bread, thyme, garlic’s savoury charms,
Gifts which ne’er tempt men to detested arms,
They’d rather fight for gold than glory’s dreams.
There is also an account-book of his much spoken of, which is drawn up in
such terms as these:—
Put down the cook for minas half a score,
Put down the doctor for a drachma more:
Five talents to the flatterer; some smoke
To the adviser, an obol and a cloak
For the philosopher; for the willing nymph,
A talent.
He was also nicknamed Door-opener, because he used to enter every house
and give the inmates advice. These lines, too, are his:—
All this I learnt and pondered in my mind,
Drawing deep wisdom from the Muses kind,
But all the rest is vanity.
There is a line, too, which tells us that he gained from philosophy:—
A peck of lupins, and to care for nobody.
This, too, is attributed to him:—
Hunger checks love; and should it not, time does.
If both should fail you, then a halter choose.
III. He flourished about the hundred and thirteenth olympiad.
IV. Antisthenes, in his Successions, says that he, having once, in a
certain tragedy, seen Telephus holding a date basket, and in a miserable
plight in other respects, betook himself to the Cynic philosophy; and
having turned his patrimony into money (for he was of illustrious
extraction), he collected three hundred talents by that means, and
divided them among the citizens. And after that he devoted himself
to philosophy with such eagerness, that even Philemon the comic poet
mentions him. Accordingly he says:—
And in the summer he’d a shaggy gown,
To inure himself to hardship: in the winter
He wore mere rags.
But Diocles says that it was Diogenes who persuaded him to discard all
his estate and his flocks, and to throw his money into the sea; and he
says further, that the house of Crates was destroyed by Alexander, and
that of Hipparchia under Philip. And he would very frequently drive away
with his staff those of his relations who came after him, and endeavoured
to dissuade him from his design; and he remained immoveable.
V. Demetrius, the Magnesian, relates that he deposited his money with
a banker, making an agreement with him, that if his sons turned out
ordinary ignorant people, he was then to restore it to them; but if they
became philosophers, then he was to divide it among the people, for that
they, if they were philosophers, would have no need of anything. And
Eratosthenes tells us that he had by Hipparchia, whom we shall mention
hereafter, a son whose name was Pasicles, and that when he grew up, he
took him to a brothel kept by a female slave, and told him that that was
all the marriage that his father designed for him; but that marriages
which resulted in adultery were themes for tragedians, and had exile and
bloodshed for their prizes; and the marriages of those who lived with
courtesans were subjects for the comic poets, and often produced madness
as the result of debauchery and drunkenness.
VI. He had also a brother named Pasicles, a pupil of Euclides.
VII. Phavorinus, in the second book of his Commentaries, relates a witty
saying of his; for he says, that once, when he was begging a favour of
the master of a gymnasium, on the behalf of some acquaintance, he touched
his thighs; and as he expressed his indignation at this, he said, “Why,
do they not belong to you as well as your knees?” He used to say that it
was impossible to find a man who had never done wrong, in the same way as
there was always some worthless seed in a pomegranate. On one occasion
he provoked Nicodromus, the harp-player, and received a black eye from
him; so he put a plaster on his forehead and wrote upon it, “Nicodromus
did this.” He used to abuse prostitutes designedly, for the purpose of
practising himself in enduring reproaches. When Demetrius Phalereus sent
him some loaves and wine, he attacked him for his present, saying, “I
wish that the fountains bore loaves;” and it is notorious that he was a
water drinker.
He was once reproved by the ædiles of the Athenians, for wearing fine
linen, and so he replied, “I will show you Theophrastus also clad in
fine linen.” And as they did not believe him, he took them to a barber’s
shop, and showed him to them as he was being shaved. At Thebes he was
once scourged by the master of the Gymnasium, (though some say it was by
Euthycrates, at Corinth), and dragged out by the feet; but he did not
care, and quoted the line:—
I feel, O mighty chief, your matchless might,
Dragged, foot first, downward from th’ ethereal height.[76]
But Diocles says that it was by Menedemus, of Eretria, that he was
dragged in this manner, for that as he was a handsome man, and supposed
to be very obsequious to Asclepiades, the Phliasian, Crates touched his
thighs and said, “Is Asclepiades within?” And Menedemus was very much
offended, and dragged him out, as has been already said; and then Crates
quoted the above-cited line.
VIII. Zeno, the Cittiæan, in his Apophthegms, says, that he once sewed
up a sheep’s fleece in his cloak, without thinking of it; and he was a
very ugly man, and one who excited laughter when he was taking exercise.
And he used to say, when he put up his hands, “Courage, Crates, as far as
your eyes and the rest of your body is concerned:—
IX. “For you shall see those who now ridicule you, convulsed with
disease, and envying your happiness, and accusing themselves of
slothfulness.” One of his sayings was, “That a man ought to study
philosophy, up to the point of looking on generals and donkey-drivers in
the same light.” Another was, that those who live with flatterers, are
as desolate as calves when in the company of wolves; for that neither
the one nor the other are with those whom they ought to be, or their own
kindred, but only with those who are plotting against them.
X. When he felt that he was dying, he made verses on himself, saying:—
You’re going, noble hunchback, you are going
To Pluto’s realms, bent double by old age.
For he was humpbacked from age.
XI. When Alexander asked him whether he wished to see the restoration
of his country, he said, “What would be the use of it? for perhaps some
other Alexander would come at some future time and destroy it again.
“But poverty and dear obscurity,
Are what a prudent man should think his country
For these e’en fortune can’t deprive him of.”
He also said that he was:—
A fellow countryman of wise Diogenes,
Whom even envy never had attacked.
Menander, in his Twin-sister, mentions him thus:—
For you will walk with me wrapped in your cloak,
As his wife used to with the Cynic Crates.
XII. He gave his daughter to his pupils, as he himself used to say:—
To have and keep on trial for a month.
LIFE OF METROCLES.
I. Metrocles was the brother of Hipparchia; and though he had formerly
been a pupil of Theophrastus, he had profited so little by his
instructions, that once, thinking that, while listening to a lecture
on philosophy, he had disgraced himself by his inattention, he fell
into despondency, and shut himself up in his house, intending to starve
himself to death. Accordingly, when Crates heard of it, he came to him,
having been sent for; and eating a number of lupins, on purpose, he
persuaded him by numbers of arguments, that he had done no harm; for
that it was not to be expected that a man should not indulge his natural
inclinations and habits; and he comforted him by showing him that he, in
a similar case, would certainly have behaved in a similar manner. And
after that, he became a pupil of Crates, and a man of great eminence as a
philosopher.
II. He burnt all his writings, as Hecaton tells us in the first book of
his Apophthegms, and said:—
These are the phantoms of infernal dreams;
As if he meant that they were all nonsense. But some say that it was the
notes which he had taken of the lectures of Theophrastus which he burnt,
quoting the following verse:—
Vulcan, draw near, ’tis Thetis asks your aid.[77]
III. He used to say that some things could be bought with money, as for
instance a house; and some with time and industry, as education; that
wealth was mischievous, if a man did not use it properly.
IV. He died at a great age, having suffocated himself.
V. His pupils were Theombrotus and Cleomenes, Demetrius of Alexandria,
the son of Theombrotus, Timarchus of Alexandria, the son of Cleomenes,
and Echecles, of Ephesus. Not but what Echecles was also a pupil of
Theombrotus; and Menedemus, of whom we shall speak hereafter, was his
pupil. Menippus, of Sinope, too, was a very eminent person in his school.
LIFE OF HIPPARCHIA.
I. Hipparchia, the sister of Metrocles, was charmed among others, by the
doctrines of this school.
II. Both she and Metrocles were natives of Maronea. She fell in love with
both the doctrines and manners of Crates, and could not be diverted from
her regard for him, by either the wealth, or high birth, or personal
beauty, of any of her suitors, but Crates was everything to her; and she
threatened her parents to make away with herself, if she were not given
in marriage to him. Crates accordingly, being entreated by her parents to
dissuade her from this resolution, did all he could; and at last, as he
could not persuade her, he rose up, and placing all his furniture before
her, he said, “This is the bridegroom whom you are choosing, and this
is the whole of his property; consider these facts, for it will not be
possible for you to become his partner, if you do not also apply yourself
to the same studies, and conform to the same habits that he does.” But
the girl chose him; and assuming the same dress that he wore, went about
with him as her husband, and appeared with him in public everywhere, and
went to all entertainments in his company.
III. And once when she went to sup with Lysimachus, she attacked
Theodorus, who was surnamed the Atheist; proposing to him the following
sophism; “What Theodorus could not be called wrong for doing, that same
thing Hipparchia ought not to be called wrong for doing. But Theodorus
does no wrong when he beats himself; therefore Hipparchia does no wrong
when she beats Theodorus.” He made no reply to what she said, but only
pulled her clothes about; but Hipparchia was neither offended nor
ashamed, as many a woman would have been; but when he said to her:—
“Who is the woman who has left the shuttle
So near the warp?”[78]
“I, Theodorus, am that person,” she replied; “but do I appear to you to
have come to a wrong decision, if I devote that time to philosophy, which
I otherwise should have spent at the loom?” And these and many other
sayings are reported of this female philosopher.
IV. There is also a volume of letters of Crates[79] extant, in which he
philosophizes most excellently; and in style is very little inferior to
Plato. He also wrote some tragedies, which are imbued with a very sublime
spirit of philosophy, of which the following lines are a specimen:—
’Tis not one town, nor one poor single house,
That is my country; but in every land
Each city and each dwelling seems to me,
A place for my reception ready made.
And he died at a great age, and was buried in Bœotia.
LIFE OF MENIPPUS.
I. Menippus was also a Cynic, and a Phœnician by descent, a slave by
birth, as Achaicus tells us in his Ethics; and Diocles informs us that
his master was a native of Pontus, of the name of Baton; but that
subsequently, in consequence of his importunities and miserly habits, he
became rich, and obtained the rights of citizenship at Corinth.
II. He never wrote anything serious; but his writings are full of
ridiculous matter; and in some respects similar to those of Meleager, who
was his contemporary. And Hermippus tells us that he was a man who lent
money at daily interest, and that he was called a usurer; for he used
to lend on nautical usury, and take security, so that he amassed a very
great amount of riches.
III. But at last he fell into a snare, and lost all his money, and in a
fit of despair he hung himself, and so he died. And we have written a
playful epigram on him:—
This man was a Syrian by birth,
And a Cretan usurious hound,
As the name he was known by sets forth,
You’ve heard of him oft I’ll be bound;
His name was Menippus—men entered his house,
And stole all his goods without leaving a louse,
When (from this the dog’s nature you plainly may tell)
He hung himself up, and so went off to hell.
IV. But some say that the books attributed to him are not really his
work, but are the composition of Dionysius and Zopyrus the Colophonians,
who wrote them out of joke, and then gave them to him as a man well able
to dispose of them.
V. There were six persons of the name of Menippus; the first was the man
who wrote a history of the Lydians, and made an abridgment of Xanthus;
the second was this man of whom we have been speaking; the third was a
sophist of Stratonice, a Carian by descent; the fourth was a statuary;
the fifth and the sixth were painters, and they are both mentioned by
Apollodorus.
VI. The writings left by the Cynic amount to thirteen volumes; a
Description of the Dead; a volume called Wills; a volume of Letters
in which the Gods are introduced; treatises addressed to the Natural
Philosophers, and Mathematicians, and Grammarians; one on the Generations
of Epicurus, and on the Observance of the Twentieth Day by the
philosophers of his school; and one or two other essays.
THE LIFE OF MENEDEMUS.
I. Menedemus was a disciple of Colotes of Lampsacus.
II. He proceeded, as Hippobotus tells, to such a great degree of
superstition, that he assumed the garb of a fury, and went about saying
that he had come from hell to take notice of all who did wrong, in order
that he might descend thither again and make his report to the deities
who abode in that country. And this was his dress: a tunic of a dark
colour reaching to his feet, and a purple girdle round his waist, an
Arcadian hat on his head with the twelve signs of the zodiac embroidered
on it, tragic buskins, a preposterously long beard, and an ashen staff in
his hand.
III. These then are the lives of each of the Cynics; and we shall also
subjoin some of the doctrines which they all held in common, if indeed
it is not an abuse of language to call that a sect of philosophy at all,
instead of, as some contend it should be termed, a mere system of life.
They wished to abolish the whole system of logic and natural philosophy,
like Aristo of Chios, and thought that men should study nothing but
ethics; and what some people assert of Socrates was described by Diocles
as a characteristic of Diogenes, for he said that his doctrine was, that
a man ought to investigate—
Only the good and ill that taketh place
Within our houses.
They also discard all liberal studies. Accordingly, Antisthenes said that
wise men only applied themselves to literature and learning for the sake
of perverting others; they also wish to abolish geometry and music, and
everything of that kind. Accordingly, Diogenes said once to a person who
was showing him a clock; “It is a very useful thing to save a man from
being too late for supper.” And once when a man made an exhibition of
musical skill before him, he said:—
“Cities are governed, so are houses too,
By wisdom, not by harp-playing and whistling.”[80]
Their doctrine is, that the chief good of mankind is to live according to
virtue, as Antisthenes says in his Hercules, in which they resemble the
Stoics. For those two sects have a good deal in common with one another,
on which account they themselves say that cynicism is a short road to
virtue; and Zeno, the Cittiæan lived in the same manner.
They also teach that men ought to live simply, using only plain food in
moderate quantities, wearing nothing but a cloak, and despising riches,
and glory, and nobleness of birth; accordingly some of them feed upon
nothing beyond herbs and cold water, living in any shelter that they can
find, or in tubs as Diogenes did; for he used to say that it was the
peculiar property of the Gods to want nothing, and that, therefore, when
a man wished for nothing he was like the Gods.
Another of their doctrines is, that virtue is a thing which may be
taught, as Antisthenes affirms in his Heraclides; and that when it has
once been attained it can never be lost. They also say that the wise
man deserves to be loved, and cannot commit error, and is a friend to
every one who resembles him, and that he leaves nothing to fortune. And
everything which is unconnected with either virtue or vice they call
indifferent, agreeing in this with Aristo, the Chian.
These then were the Cynics; and now we must pass on to the Stoics, of
which sect the founder was Zeno, who had been a disciple of Crates.