[Date and place of birth unknown. Died at Athens. Aged 70.]
He is the founder of the Cynic philosophy and flourished about B.C. 375.
He taught the love of poverty and labour, the renunciation of all the
pleasures and conveniences of life, and contempt for everything but
virtue, in which only he allowed true happiness to consist. It is said
that Antisthenes left more books than scholars. But Socrates was his
friend and Diogenes his pupil. His countenance did credit to his creed:
it was severe, and looked the more terrible from his dishevelled hair
and hanging beard. He taught in the Gymnasium at Athens, called
Cynosarges; and hence the name of his school--the Cynic.
[From the marble in the Vatican. It was found in the ruins of
Hadrian’s Villa, and is of great beauty. It resembles another bust in
the Vatican, which was found in the villa of Cassius at Tivoli, but
which is of less merit, except that it bears his name. The portrait
agrees precisely with the descriptions given of Antisthenes by the
ancients.]