The Life of Diogenes

Diogenes was a native of Sinope, son of Hicesius, a banker. Diocles relates that he went into exile because his father was entrusted with the money of the state and adulterated the coinage. But Eubulides in his book on Diogenes says that Diogenes himself did this and was forced to leave home along with his father....

On reaching Athens he fell in with Antisthenes. Being repulsed by him, because he never welcomed pupils, by sheer persistence Diogenes wore him out. Once when he stretched out his staff against him, the pupil offered his head with the words, " Strike, for you will find no wood hard enough to keep me away from you, so long as I think you've something to say." From that time forward he was his pupil, and, exile as he was, set out upon a simple life.

Through watching a mouse running about, says Theophrastus in the Megarian dialogue, not looking for a place to lie down in, not afraid of the dark, not seeking any of the things which are considered to be dainties, he discovered the means of adapting himself to circumstances. He was the first, say some, to fold his cloak because he was obliged to sleep in it as well, and he carried a wallet to hold his victuals, and he used any place for any purpose, for breakfasting, sleeping, or conversing. And then he would say, pointing to the portico of Zeus and the Hall of Processions, that the Athenians had provided him with places to live in. He did not lean upon a staff until he grew infirm; but afterwards he would carry it everywhere, not indeed in the city, but when walking along the road with it and with his wallet; so say Olympiodorus, once a magistrate at Athens, Polyeuctus the orator, and Lysanias the son of Aeschrio. He had written to some one to try and procure a cottage for him. When this man was a long time about it, he took for his abode the tub in the Metroon, as he himself explains in his letters. And in summer he used to roll in it over hot sand, while in winter he used to embrace statues covered with snow, using every means of inuring himself to hardship.

Further, when he was sold as a slave, he endured it most nobly. For on a voyage to Aegina he was captured by pirates under the command of Scirpalus, conveyed to Crete and exposed for sale. When the auctioneer asked in what he was proficient, he replied, " In ruling men." Thereupon he pointed to a certain Corinthian with a fine purple border to his robe, the man named Xeniades above-mentioned, and said, " Sell me to this man; he needs a master." Thus Xeniades came to buy him, and took him to Corinth and set him over his own children and entrusted his whole household to him. And he administered it in all respects in such a manner that Xeniades used to go about saying, " A good genius has entered my house."

[ Menippus in his Sale of Diogenes tells how, when he was captured and put up for sale, he was asked what he could do. He replied, "Govern men." And he told the crier to give notice in case anybody wanted to purchase a master for himself. Having been forbidden to sit down, " It makes no difference," said he, "for in whatever position fishes lie, they still find purchasers." And he said he marveled that before we buy a jar or dish we try whether it rings true, but if it is a man are content merely to look at him. To Xeniades who purchased him he said, " You must obey me, although I am a slave; for, if a physician or a steersman were in slavery, he would be obeyed."]

Eubulus in his book entitled The Sele of Diogenes tells us that this was how he trained the sons of Xeniades. After their other studies he taught them to ride, to shoot with the bow, to sling stones and to hurl javelins. Later, when they reached the wrestling-school, he would not permit the master to give them full athletic training, but only so much as to heighten their colour and keep them in good condition.

The boys used to get by heart many passages from poets, historians, and the writings of Diogenes himself; and he would practice them in every short cut to a good memory. In the house too he taught them to wait upon themselves, and to be content with plain fare and water to drink. He used to make them crop their hair close and to wear it unadorned, and to go lightly clad, barefoot, silent, and not looking about them in the streets. He would also take them out hunting. They on their part had a great regard for Diogenes and made requests of their parents for him. 

Cleomenes in his work entitled Concerning Pedagogues says that the friends of Diogenes wanted to ransom him, whereupon he called them simpletons; for, said he, lions are not the slaves of those who feed them, but rather those who feed them are at the mercy of the lions: for fear is the mark of the slave, whereas wild beasts make men afraid of them.

The same Eubulus relates that he grew old in the house of Xeniades, and when he died was buried by his sons. There Xeniades once asked him how he wished to be buried. To which he replied, " On my face." " Why ? " inquired the other. " Because," said he, " after a little time down will be converted into up." This because the Macedonians had now got the supremacy, that is, had risen high from a humble position.

Diogenes is said to have been nearly ninety years old when he died. Regarding his death there are several different accounts. One is that he was seized with colic after eating an octopus raw and so met his end. Another is that he died voluntarily by holding his breath.

Hence, it is said, arose a quarrel among his disciples as to who should bury him: nay, they even came to blows; but, when their fathers and men of influence arrived, under their direction he was buried beside the gate leading to the Isthmus. Over his grave they set up a pillar and a dog in Parian marble upon it. Subsequently his fellow-citizens honored him with bronze statues, on which these verses were inscribed:

Time makes even bronze grow old: but thy glory Diogenes. all eternity will never destroy. Since thou alone didst point out to mortals the lesson of self-sufficiency and the easiest path of life.

The Quest for a Good Man

He lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, "I am looking for a man."

Being asked where in Greece he saw good men, he replied, " Good men nowhere, but good boys at Lacedaemon." When one day he was gravely discoursing and nobody attended to him, he began whistling, and as people clustered about him, he reproached them with coming in all seriousness to hear nonsense, but slowly and contemptuously when the theme was serious. He would say that men strive in digging and kicking to outdo one another, but no one strives to become a good man and true. And he would wonder that the grammarians should investigate the ills of Odysseus, while they were ignorant of their own. Or that the musicians should tune the strings of the lyre, while leaving the dispositions of their own souls discordant; that the mathematicians should gaze at the sun and the moon, but overlook matters close at hand; that the orators should make a fuss about justice in their speeches, but never practice it; or that the avaricious should cry out against money, while inordinately fond of it. He used also to condemn those who praised honest men for being superior to money, while themselves envying the very rich. He was moved to anger that men should sacrifice to the gods to ensure health and in the midst of the sacrifice should feast to the detriment of health. He was astonished that when slaves saw their masters were gluttons, they did not steal some of the viands. He would praise those who were about to marry and refrained, those who intending to go a voyage never set sail, those who thinking to engage in politics do no such thing, those also who purposing to rear a family do not do so, and those who make ready to live with potentate, yet never come near them after all. 

One day he shouted out for men, and when people collected, hit out at them with his stick, saying, " It was men I called for, not scoundrels...."  

When some one boasted that at the Pythian games he had vanquished men, Diogenes replied, " Nay, I defeat men, you defeat slaves."

As he was leaving the public baths, somebody inquired if many men were bathing. He said, No. But to another who asked if there was a great crowd of bathers, he said, Yes.

He was returning from Olympia, and when somebody inquired whether there was a great crowd, " Yes," he said, " a great crowd, but few who could be called men."

A Socrates Gone Mad

On being asked by somebody, " What sort of a man do you consider Diogenes to be ? " " A Socrates gone mad," said he.

Being asked what he had done to be called a dog, he said, " I fawn on those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse, and I set my teeth in rascals".... He was breakfasting in the market~ place, and the bystanders gathered round him with cries of " dog." " It is you who are dogs," cried he, " when you stand round and watch me at my breakfast."

He used to say that he followed the example of the trainers of choruses; for they too set the note a little high, to ensure that the rest should hit the right note. Most people, he would say, are so nearly mad that a finger makes all the difference. For, if you go along with your middle finger stretched out, some one will think you mad, but, if it's the little finger, he will not think so. 

Some one took him into a magnificent house and warned him not to spit, whereupon having cleared his throat he discharged the phlegm into the man's face, being unable, he said, to find a meaner receptacle.

When some strangers expressed a wish to see Demosthenes, he stretched out his middle finger and said, " There goes the demagogue of Athens." 

Some one wanted to study philosophy under him. Diogenes gave him a tunafish to carry and told him to follow him. And when for shame the man threw it away and departed, some time after on meeting him he laughed and said, " The friendship between you and me was broken by a tuna." 

When some one hit him a blow with his fist, "Heracles," said he, "how came I to forget to put on a helmet when I walked out?" Further, when Meidias assaulted him and went on to say, "There are 3000 drachmas to your credit," the next day he took a pair of boxing-gauntlets, gave him a thrashing and said, "There are 3000 blows to your credit."

When behaving indecently in the marketplace, he wished it were as easy to relieve hunger by rubbing an empty stomach.

At a feast certain people kept throwing all the bones to him as they would have done to a dog. Thereupon he played a dog's trick and drenched them.

Living According to Nature

Very valuable things, said he, were bartered for things of no value, and vice versa. At all events a statue fetches three thousand drachmas, while a quart of barley-flour is sold for two copper coins.

One day, observing a child drinking out of his hands, he cast away the cup from his wallet with the words, " A child has beaten me in plainness of living." He also threw away his bowl when in like manner he saw a child who had broken his plate taking up his lentils with the hollow part of a morsel of bread. He used also to reason thus: " All things belong to the gods. The wise are friends of the gods, and friends hold things in common. Therefore all things belong to the wise." 

He would often insist loudly that the gods had given to men the means of living easily, but this had been put out of sight, because we require honeyed cakes, unguents and the like. Hence to a man whose shoes were being put on by his servant, he said, " You have not attained to full felicity, unless he wipes your nose as well; and that will come, when you have lost the use of your hands."

When he was advised to go in pursuit of his runaway slave, he replied, " It would be absurd, if Manes can live without Diogenes, but Diogenes cannot get on without Manes." 

When breakfasting on olives amongst which a cake had been inserted, he flung it away and addressed it thus: "Stranger, be gone from the princes' path." 

When Craterus wanted him to come and visit him, " No," he replied, " I would rather live on a few grains of salt at Athens than enjoy sumptuous fare at Craterus's table."

Being reproached for eating in the market-place " Well, it was in the market-place," he said, " that I felt hungry."

Nothing in life, however, he maintained, has any chance of succeeding without strenuous practice; and this is capable of overcoming anything. Accordingly, instead of useless toils men should choose such as nature recommends, whereby they might have lived happily. Yet such is their madness that they choose to be miserable. For even the despising of pleasure is itself most pleasurable, when we are habituated to it; and just as those accustomed to a life of pleasure feel disgust when they pass over to the opposite experience, so those whose training has been of the opposite kind derive more pleasure from despising pleasure than from the pleasures themselves. This was the gist of his conversation; and it was plain that he acted accordingly, adulterating currency in very truth, allowing convention no such authority as he allowed to natural right, and asserting that the manner of life he lived was the same as that of Heracles when he preferred liberty to everything.

And he saw no impropriety either in stealing anything from a temple or in eating the flesh of any animal; nor even anything impious in touching human flesh, this, he said, being clear from the custom of some foreign nations. Moreover, according to right reason, as he put it, all elements are contained in all things and pervade everything: since not only is meat a constituent of bread, but bread of vegetables; and all other bodies also, by means of certain invisible passages and particles, find their way in and unite with all substances in the form of vapor. 

The Scorn of a Cynic

He was great at pouring scorn on his contemporaries. The school of Euclides he called bilious, and Plato's lectures waste of time, the performances at the Dionysia great peep-shows for fools, and the demagogues the mob's lacqueys. He used also to say that when he saw physicians, philosophers and pilots at their work, he deemed man the most intelligent of all animals; but when again he saw interpreters of dreams and diviners and those who attended to them, or those who were puffed up with conceit of wealth, he thought no animal more silly. He would continually say that for the conduct of life we need right reason or a halter.

When Lysias the druggist asked him if he believed in the gods, " How can I help believing in them," said he, " when I see a god-forsaken wretch like you ? "

Still he was loved by the Athenians. At all events, when a youngster broke up his tub, they gave the boy a flogging and presented Diogenes with another.

Dionysius the Stoic says that after Chaeronea he was seized and dragged off to Philip, and being asked who he was, replied, " A spy upon your insatiable greed." For this he was admired and set free.

When a youth effeminate attired put a question to him, he declined to answer unless he pulled up his robe and showed whether he was man or woman.

Being asked what creature's bite is the worst, he said, " Of those that are wild a sycophant's; of those that are tame a flatterer's." 

When some one said, "Most people laugh at you," his reply was, "And so very likely do the asses at them; but as they don't care for the asses, so neither do I care for them."

He was asking alms of a bad-tempered man, who said, " Yes, if you can persuade me." " If I could have persuaded you," said Diogenes, " I would have persuaded you to hang yourself." 

Diogenes And Plato

When Plato styled him a dog, " Quite true," he said, " for I come back again and again to those who have sold me."

Again, another time he was eating dried figs when he encountered Plato and offered him a share of them. When Plato took them and ate them, he said, " I said you might share them, not that you might eat them all up."

And one day when Plato had invited to his house friends coming from Dionysius, Diogenes trampled upon his carpets and said, " I trample upon Plato's vainglory." Plato's reply was, " How much pride you expose to view, Diogenes, by seeming not to be proud." Others tell us that what Diogenes said was, " I trample upon the pride of Plato," who retorted, " Yes, Diogenes, with pride of another sort." 

Plato had defined Man as an animal, biped and featherless, and was applauded. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture-room with the words, "Here is Plato's man."

One day he got a thorough drenching where he stood, and, when the bystanders pitied hi, Plato said, if they really pitied him, they should move away, alluding to his vanity.

As Plato was conversing about Ideas and using the nouns " tablehood " and " cuphood," he said, " Table and cup I see; but your tablehood and cuphood, Plato, I can nowise see." " That's readily accounted for," said Plato, " for you have the eyes to see the visible table and cup; but not the understanding by which ideal tablehood and cuphood are discerned."

Some authors affirm that the following also belongs to him: that Plato saw him washing lettuces, came up to him and quietly said to him, " Had you paid court to Dionysius, you wouldn't now be washing lettuces," and that he with equal calmness made answer, " If you had washed lettuces, you wouldn't have paid court to Dionysius."

And Alexander the Great

When he was sunning himself in the Craneum, Alexander came and stood over him and said, " Ask of me any favor you like." To which he replied, "Stand out of my light." 

Alexander once came and stood opposite him and said, " I am Alexander the great king." " And I," said he, " am Diogenes the Cynic."

When Alexander stood opposite him and asked, " Are you not afraid of me ? " " Why, what are you?" said he, " a good thing or a bad ? " Upon Alexander replying " A good thing," " Who then," said Diogenes, " is afraid of the good ? "

Alexander is reported to have said, " Had I not been Alexander, I should have liked to be Diogenes."

Diogenes Laertius.  Lives of Eminent Philosophers.  Vol. 2.  Trans. R.D. Hicks.  London, William Heinemann, 1925.