10. Dio Chrysostom, Orations, 6.1-6.7, 6.26, 8.36 (1st cent. CE - missingth cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •polis, the, diogenes and city-lessness Found in books: Wolfsdorf (2020) 653, 663 | 6.1. When Diogenes of Sinope was exiled from that place, he came to Greece and used to divide his time between Corinth and Athens. And he said he was following the practice of the Persian king. For that monarch spent the winters in Babylon and Susa, or occasionally in Bactra, which are the warmest parts of Asia, and the summers in Median Ecbatana, where the air is always very cool and the summer is like the winter in the region of Babylon. 6.2. So he too, he said, changed his residence according to the seasons of year. For Attica had no high mountains, nor rivers running through it as had the Peloponnese and Thessaly; its soil was thin and the air so dry that rain rarely fell, and what did fall was not retained. Besides, it was almost entirely surrounded by the sea; from which fact indeed it got its name, since Attica is a sort of beach-land. 6.3. The city, moreover, was low-lying and faced to the south, as shown by the fact that those sailing from Sunium could not enter the Peiraeus except with a south wind. Naturally, therefore, the winters were mild. In Corinth, on the other hand, the summer was breezy, since currents of air always met there on account of the bays that dented the shore. The Acrocorinthus, too, overshadows it, and the city itself rather inclines toward the Lechaeum and the north. 6.4. Diogenes thought that these cities were far more beautiful than Ecbatana and Babylon, and that the Craneion, and the Athenian acropolis with the Propylaea were far more beautiful structures than those abodes of royalty, yielding to them only in size. And yet the circumference of Athens was two hundred stades, now that the Peiraeus and the connecting walls had been added to the compass of the city â for this whole area was not inhabited in ancient times â so that Athens was one-half as large as Babylon, if we could take as true what was said of things there. 6.5. Moreover, in respect to the beauty of the harbours, and, further, to the statues, paintings, the works in gold, silver, and bronze, in respect to the coinage, the furnishings, the splendour of the houses, he thought that Athens was far superior; only he, for his part, did not care much about such things. 6.6. Besides, the king had a very long distance to travel in changing residences; he had to spend pretty much the larger part of the winter and summer on the road. He himself, on the other hand, by spending the night near Megara, could very easily be in Athens on the following day â or else, if he preferred, at Eleusis; otherwise, he could take a shorter way through Salamis, without passing through any deserts. So he had an advantage over the king and enjoyed greater luxury, since his housing arrangements were better. 6.7. This is what he was wont to say jestingly, and yet he meant to bring to the attention of those who admired the wealth of the Persian and his reputed happiness that there was nothing in his actual life such as they imagined. For some things were of no use at all and other things were within the reach of even the very poor. JavaScript must be enabled in order for you to use Google Maps. It seems, though, that JavaScript is either disabled or not supported by your browser. To view Google Maps, enable JavaScript by changing your browser options, and then try again. [and if you need it, , including my own symbols & added information.] -- 6.26. When some people urged that it is impossible for man to live like the animals owing to the tenderness of his flesh and because he is naked and unprotected either by hair, as the majority of beasts are, or by feathers and has no covering of tough skin, 8.36. While Diogenes thus spoke, many stood about and listened to his words with great pleasure. Then, possibly with this thought of Heracles in his mind, he ceased speaking and, squatting on the ground, performed an indecent act, whereat the crowd straightway scorned him and called him crazy, and again the sophists raised their din, like frogs in a pond when they do not see the water-snake. |
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13. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of The Philosophers, 5.43, 6.2, 6.4, 6.20-6.24, 6.27, 6.32-6.34, 6.36, 6.38, 6.41, 6.56, 6.63, 6.71-6.72, 6.85-6.86, 6.98, 6.104 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE) Tagged with subjects: •polis, the, diogenes and city-lessness Found in books: Wolfsdorf (2020) 653, 663, 670 | 5.43. of Old Age, one book.On the Astronomy of Democritus, one book.On Meteorology, one book.On Visual Images or Emanations, one book.On Flavours, Colours and Flesh, one book.of the Order of the World, one book.of Mankind, one book.Compendium of the Writings of Diogenes, one book.Three books of Definitions.Concerning Love, one book.Another Treatise on Love, one book.of Happiness, one book.On Species or Forms, two books.On Epilepsy, one book.On Frenzy, one book.Concerning Empedocles, one book.Eighteen books of Refutative Arguments.Three books of Polemical Objections.of the Voluntary, one book.Epitome of Plato's Republic, two books.On the Diversity of Sounds uttered by Animals of the same Species, one book.of Sudden Appearances, one book.of Animals which bite or gore, one book.of Animals reputed to be spiteful, one book.of the Animals which are confined to Dry Land, one book. 6.2. To begin with, he became a pupil of Gorgias the rhetorician, and hence the rhetorical style that he introduces in his dialogues, and especially in his Truth and in his Exhortations. According to Hermippus he intended at the public gathering for the Isthmian games to discourse on the faults and merits of Athenians, Thebans and Lacedaemonians, but begged to be excused when he saw throngs arriving from those cities.Later on, however, he came into touch with Socrates, and derived so much benefit from him that he used to advise his own disciples to become fellow-pupils with him of Socrates. He lived in the Peiraeus, and every day would tramp the five miles to Athens in order to hear Socrates. From Socrates he learned his hardihood, emulating his disregard of feeling, and thus he inaugurated the Cynic way of life. He demonstrated that pain is a good thing by instancing the great Heracles and Cyrus, drawing the one example from the Greek world and the other from the barbarians. 6.4. When he was being initiated into the Orphic mysteries, the priest said that those admitted into these rites would be partakers of many good things in Hades. Why then, said he, don't you die? Being reproached because his parents were not both free-born, Nor were they both wrestlers, quoth he, but yet I am a wrestler. To the question why he had but few disciples he replied, Because I use a silver rod to eject them. When he was asked why he was so bitter in reproving his pupils he replied, Physicians are just the same with their patients. One day upon seeing an adulterer running for his life he exclaimed, Poor wretch, what peril you might have escaped at the price of an obol. He used to say, as we learn from Hecato in his Anecdotes, that it is better to fall in with crows than with flatterers; for in the one case you are devoured when dead, in the other case while alive. 6.20. 2. DIOGENESDiogenes 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. Moreover Diogenes himself actually confesses in his Pordalus that he adulterated the coinage. Some say that having been appointed to superintend the workmen he was persuaded by them, and that he went to Delphi or to the Delian oracle in his own city and inquired of Apollo whether he should do what he was urged to do. When the god gave him permission to alter the political currency, not understanding what this meant, he adulterated the state coinage, and when he was detected, according to some he was banished, while according to others he voluntarily quitted the city for fear of consequences. 6.21. One version is that his father entrusted him with the money and that he debased it, in consequence of which the father was imprisoned and died, while the son fled, came to Delphi, and inquired, not whether he should falsify the coinage, but what he should do to gain the greatest reputation; and that then it was that he received the oracle.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. 6.22. 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 Stoa of Zeus and the Pompeion, that the Athenians had provided him with places to live in. 6.23. 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. 6.24. 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 lackeys. 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. 6.27. 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. 6.32. 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. Some one took him into a magnificent house and warned him not to expectorate, whereupon having cleared his throat he discharged the phlegm into the man's face, being unable, he said, to find a meaner receptacle. Others father this upon Aristippus. 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. This is told by Hecato in the first book of his Anecdotes. Alexander is reported to have said, Had I not been Alexander, I should have liked to be Diogenes. 6.33. The word disabled (ἀναπήρους), Diogenes held, ought to be applied not to the deaf or blind, but to those who have no wallet (πήρα). One day he made his way with head half shaven into a party of young revellers, as Metrocles relates in his Anecdotes, and was roughly handled by them. Afterwards he entered on a tablet the names of those who had struck him and went about with the tablet hung round his neck, till he had covered them with ridicule and brought universal blame and discredit upon them. He described himself as a hound of the sort which all men praise, but no one, he added, of his admirers dared go out hunting along with him. When some one boasted that at the Pythian games he had vanquished men, Diogenes replied, Nay, I defeat men, you defeat slaves. 6.34. To those who said to him, You are an old man; take a rest, What? he replied, if I were running in the stadium, ought I to slacken my pace when approaching the goal? ought I not rather to put on speed? Having been invited to a dinner, he declared that he wouldn't go; for, the last time he went, his host had not expressed a proper gratitude. He would walk upon snow barefoot and do the other things mentioned above. Not only so; he even attempted to eat meat raw, but could not manage to digest it. He once found Demosthenes the orator lunching at an inn, and, when he retired within, Diogenes said, All the more you will be inside the tavern. When some strangers expressed a wish to see Demosthenes, he stretched out his middle finger and said, There goes the demagogue of Athens. 6.36. To Xeniades, who purchased him, he said, Come, see that you obey orders. When he quoted the line,Backward the streams flow to their founts,Diogenes asked, If you had been ill and had purchased a doctor, would you then, instead of obeying him, have said 'Backward the streams flow to their founts'? Some one wanted to study philosophy under him. Diogenes gave him a tunny 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 tunny. The version given by Diocles, however, is as follows. Some one having said to him, Lay your commands upon us, Diogenes, he took him away and gave him a cheese to carry, which cost half an obol. The other declined; whereupon he remarked, The friendship between you and me is broken by a little cheese worth half an obol. 6.38. He dedicated to Asclepius a bruiser who, whenever people fell on their faces, used to run up to them and bruise them.All the curses of tragedy, he used to say, had lighted upon him. At all events he wasA homeless exile, to his country dead. A wanderer who begs his daily bread.But he claimed that to fortune he could oppose courage, to convention nature, to passion reason. When he was sunning himself in the Craneum, Alexander came and stood over him and said, Ask of me any boon you like. To which he replied, Stand out of my light. Some one had been reading aloud for a very long time, and when he was near the end of the roll pointed to a space with no writing on it. Cheer up, my men, cried Diogenes; there's land in sight. 6.41. At Megara he saw the sheep protected by leather jackets, while the children went bare. It's better, said he, to be a Megarian's ram than his son. To one who had brandished a beam at him and then cried, Look out, he replied, What, are you intending to strike me again? He used to call the demagogues the lackeys of the people and the crowns awarded to them the efflorescence of fame. He lit a lamp in broad daylight and said, as he went about, I am looking for a man. One day he got a thorough drenching where he stood, and, when the bystanders pitied him, Plato said, if they really pitied him, they should move away, alluding to his vanity. 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? 6.56. Being asked if the wise eat cakes, Yes, he said, cakes of all kinds, just like other men. Being asked why people give to beggars but not to philosophers, he said, Because they think they may one day be lame or blind, but never expect that they will turn to philosophy. He was begging of a miserly man who was slow to respond; so he said, My friend, it's for food that I'm asking, not for funeral expenses. Being reproached one day for having falsified the currency, he said, That was the time when I was such as you are now; but such as I am now, you will never be. To another who reproached him for the same offence he made a more scurrilous repartee. 6.63. On being asked what he had gained from philosophy, he replied, This at least, if nothing else – to be prepared for every fortune. Asked where he came from, he said, I am a citizen of the world. Certain parents were sacrificing to the gods, that a son might be born to them. But, said he, do you not sacrifice to ensure what manner of man he shall turn out to be? When asked for a subscription towards a club, he said to the president:Despoil the rest; off Hector keep thy hands.The mistresses of kings he designated queens; for, said he, they make the kings do their bidding. When the Athenians gave Alexander the title of Dionysus, he said, Me too you might make Sarapis. Some one having reproached him for going into dirty places, his reply was that the sun too visits cesspools without being defiled. 6.71. 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. 6.72. He maintained that all things are the property of the wise, and employed such arguments as those cited above. All things belong to the gods. The gods are friends to the wise, and friends share all property in common; therefore all things are the property of the wise. Again as to law: that it is impossible for society to exist without law; for without a city no benefit can be derived from that which is civilized. But the city is civilized, and there is no advantage in law without a city; therefore law is something civilized. He would ridicule good birth and fame and all such distinctions, calling them showy ornaments of vice. The only true commonwealth was, he said, that which is as wide as the universe. He advocated community of wives, recognizing no other marriage than a union of the man who persuades with the woman who consents. And for this reason he thought sons too should be held in common. 6.85. 5. CRATESCrates, son of Ascondas, was a Theban. He too was amongst the Cynic's famous pupils. Hippobotus, however, alleges that he was a pupil not of Diogenes, but of Bryson the Achaean. The following playful lines are attributed to him:There is a city Pera in the midst of wine-dark vapour,Fair, fruitful, passing squalid, owning nought,Into which sails nor fool nor parasiteNor glutton, slave of sensual appetite,But thyme it bears, garlic, and figs and loaves,For which things' sake men fight not each with other,Nor stand to arms for money or for fame. 6.86. There is also his widely circulated day-book, which runs as follows:Set down for the chef ten minas, for the doctorOne drachma, for a flatterer talents five,For counsel smoke, for mercenary beautyA talent, for a philosopher three obols.He was known as the Door-opener – the caller to whom all doors fly open – from his habit of entering every house and admonishing those within. Here is another specimen of his composition:That much I have which I have learnt and thought,The noble lessons taught me by the Muses:But wealth amassed is prey to vanity.And again he says that what he has gained from philosophy isA quart of lupins and to care for no one.This too is quoted as his:Hunger stops love, or, if not hunger, Time,Or, failing both these means of help, – a halter. 6.98. And when he said to her:Is this sheWho quitting woof and warp and comb and loom?she replied, It is I, Theodorus, – but do you suppose that I have been ill advised about myself, if instead of wasting further time upon the loom I spent it in education? These tales and countless others are told of the female philosopher.There is current a work of Crates entitled Epistles, containing excellent philosophy in a style which sometimes resembles that of Plato. He has also written tragedies, stamped with a very lofty kind of philosophy; as, for example, the following passage:Not one tower hath my country nor one roof,But wide as the whole earth its citadelAnd home prepared for us to dwell therein.He died in old age, and was buried in Boeotia. 6.104. So they get rid of geometry and music and all such studies. Anyhow, when somebody showed Diogenes a clock, he pronounced it a serviceable instrument to save one from being late for dinner. Again, to a man who gave a musical recital before him he said:By men's minds states are ordered well, and households,Not by the lyre's twanged strings or flute's trilled notes.They hold further that Life according to Virtue is the End to be sought, as Antisthenes says in his Heracles: exactly like the Stoics. For indeed there is a certain close relationship between the two schools. Hence it has been said that Cynicism is a short cut to virtue; and after the same pattern did Zeno of Citium live his life. |
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