It seems likely that Diogenes was also enrolled into the banking business aiding his father. Nothing is known about his early life except that his father Hicesias was a banker. All we have is a number of anecdotes concerning his life and sayings attributed to him in a number of scattered classical sources.ĭiogenes was born in the Greek colony of Sinope on the south coast of the Black Sea, in either 412 BC or 404 BCE. None of Diogenes' many writings has survived, but details of his life come in the form of anecdotes (chreia), especially from Diogenes Laërtius, in his book Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. There he passed his philosophy of Cynicism to Crates, who taught it to Zeno of Citium, who fashioned it into the school of Stoicism, one of the most enduring schools of Greek philosophy. Diogenes was also responsible for publicly mocking Alexander the Great.Īfter being captured by pirates and sold into slavery, Diogenes eventually settled in Corinth. He embarrassed Plato, disputed his interpretation of Socrates and sabotaged his lectures. He became notorious for his philosophical stunts such as carrying a lamp in the daytime, claiming to be looking for an honest man. He begged for a living and slept in a large ceramic jar in the marketplace. There are many tales about him dogging Antisthenes' footsteps and becoming his faithful hound. He used his simple lifestyle and behaviour to criticise the social values and institutions of what he saw as a corrupt society. He believed that virtue was better revealed in action than in theory. Diogenes modelled himself on the example of Hercules. After being exiled, he moved to Athens to debunk cultural conventions. His father minted coins for a living, and when Diogenes took to debasement of currency, he was banished from Sinope. Also known as Diogenes the Cynic (Ancient Greek: Διογένης ὁ Κυνικός, Diogenēs ho Kunikos), he was born in Sinope (modern-day Sinop, Turkey), an Ionian colony on the Black Sea, in 412 or 404 BCE and died at Corinth in 323 BCE.ĭiogenes of Sinope was a controversial figure. Aelian, Aesop, Aulus Gellius, Apuleius, Athenaeus, Augustine, Basil of Caesarea, Clement, Cicero, Dio Chrysostom, Diogenes Laertius, Epictetus, Greek Anthology, Julian, Lucian, Marcus Aurelius, Origen, Philostratus, Plutarch, Seneca, Socrates Scholasticus, Strabo, Tertullianĭiogenes of Sinope (Greek: Διογένης ὁ Σινωπεύς, Diogenēs ho Sinōpeus) was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynic philosophy. The objective is to provide as much background information on the excerpts as possible. The excerpts are a little longer than given in most similar books. Using actual primary sources, this book allows the student and the scholar to use open-source texts to reconstruct the personhood of Diogenes of Sinope. We possess a faint idea of who the man was, and this book is meant to provide the raw material for the study of Diogenes and how his life and legacy shifted throughout the centuries. Over time, Diogenes’ legacy became intermingled with legends about his life which makes it difficult for the scholar to reconstruct who exactly the “real” Diogenes was. We possess no direct writings from Diogenes himself, thus his legacy has been left for others to construct and discuss over the centuries. A MEETING BETWEEN ALEXANDER AND PHILOSOPHER DIOGENES In early fourth century BC was born, Antisthenes, – the founder of the School of Cynics He was a faithful disciple of Socrates.Diogenes of Sinope is undoubtedly the most well-known Cynic philosopher from antiquity.
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