[Born at Sinope, in Asia Minor, about B.C. 412. Died at Corinth, B.C.
323 or 324. Aged 90.]
Having been detected with his father, a banker, in some dishonest
transaction, Diogenes went to Athens, where he became the pupil of
Antisthenes, and adopted the Cynic philosophy. He carried his contempt
for riches and the usages of society to an extravagant excess. He
subsisted on charity, and slept where he could. Some doubt is thrown
upon the story of his living in a tub. He said that all the vicissitudes
of fortune which constitute tragedy, had been realized in him, but that
patience had raised him above them all. When advanced in years he was
taken by pirates to Crete, and there sold as a slave. Regaining his
freedom, he revisited Athens and Corinth, and in the last-named city had
his memorable interview with Alexander the Great. He inculcated
morality, but despised intellectual pursuits. His disposition was kind
and humorous, though his statue has an acute and caustic countenance.
[From the marble in the Sala delle Muse of the Vatican. It is verified
by its close resemblance to the head of a little statue in the Villa
Albani at Rome, representing the Cynic perfectly nude, and accompanied
by his dog. It is said that he sometimes appeared in the streets in
this state, after having anointed his body, a piece of eccentricity
that gave rise to the joke of Juvenal, that the Stoics differed from
the Cynics only in the shirt, “_tunicâ tantum_.” There is in the Villa
Albani an antique bas-relief representing Alexander the Great standing
before the Cynic in his tub.]