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The primary source for the following text is

Book 6 of Diogenes Laertius’ Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers.

All section numbers are part of Book 6. For example, section 2, or [2], is 6.2.

This reading comes from the Cave’s

The Best of the Cynics: The Lives, Writings & Teachings of the Ancient Cynics.

__________

Diogenes Laertius writes:

ANTISTHENES, THE SON OF ANTISTHENES, was an Athenian. It was said, however, that he was not legitimately an Athenian. When someone taunted him because of this, he said, “The mother of the gods is also a Phrygian.” He said this because his mother was supposedly from Thrace.[i]

So it was that when he had distinguished himself in the battle of Tanagra,[ii]he presented Socrates with the occasion to say that if both of Antisthenes’ parents had been Athenians, he would not have been so noble and brave.

Antisthenes himself mocked the Athenians who bragged about being sprung from the earth. He said that being “earth-born” made them no more well-born than spiral-shelled snails or wingless locusts.

Antisthenes’ Education, School & Manner

Antisthenes first listened to the lectures of Gorgias the rhetorician.[iii] This explains the rhetorical style that Antisthenes employs in his dialogues—particularly in his Truthand in his Exhortations.

[2] According to Hermippus,[iv] Antisthenes originally hoped to speak to the public gathering at the Isthmian games.[v] His plan was both to criticize and praise the Athenians, the Thebans, and the Lacedaemonians for their flaws and virtues. Upon seeing the great crowds of spectators arriving from those cities, however, he abandoned his plan.

Sometime later, he encountered Socrates. He used to benefit so much from him that he counseled his own students to become fellow-students of Socrates. Making his home in the Piraeus,[vi]Antisthenes used to walk about five miles to Athens every day in order to hear Socrates. He learned the art of endurance from him, imitating his indifference to suffering. So it was that he began the Cynic philosophy and the Cynic way of life.

[13] Antisthenes used to lecture in the gymnasium of the White Dog (Cynosarges). He did so not far from the gymnasium’s gates. Some people say that the Cynic school received its name from the White Dog. And Antisthenes himself was simply called “dog.”

According to Diocles,[vii] Antisthenes wore only one garment. He was the first to fold or double over his cloak, which was rather threadbare. He carried a staff and a leather bag. Neanthes[viii]also affirms that Antisthenes was the first to fold over his cloak. Sosicrates,[ix]however, in the third book of his Philosophers’ Successors, declares that Diodorus of Aspendos was the first one to let his beard grow long and to use a staff and leather bag.[x]

[14] Of all the Socratic philosophers, Theopompus[xi] praises Antisthenes alone both for his cleverness and his ability to win over everyone by means of his witty conversation. Both are evident in his own writings and in Xenophon’s Symposium.[xii]

Antisthenes’ Influence

It seems that the manliest section of the Stoic school of philosophy originated with Antisthenes. Athenaeus the epigrammatist[xiii] writes the following about the Stoics:

You experts in Stoic counsel, you who inscribe the best teachings of all upon sacred pages—that virtue alone is the good of the soul, that virtue alone preserves the lives and cities of men. It is not so with the enjoyment of the flesh. This is the favorite goal of other men, accomplished by one of the daughters of Memory.

[15] Antisthenes led the way in terms of Diogenes’ indifference to suffering, Crates’ self-control, and Zeno’s patient endurance. He himself proposed the principles that served as the foundations for the Stoic commonwealth.

Referring to his conversations, Xenophon[xiv]declares that Antisthenes was the most delightful of men. Otherwise, he was firm and self-controlled.

Antisthenes’ Writings

Antisthenes’ writings exist in ten volumes. The first volume includes: On Expression, or Styles of Speaking; Ajax, or The Speech of Ajax; Odysseus, or On Odysseus; A Defense of Orestes, or On Forensic Writers; Similar Writing, or the Lysias and Isocrates; a reply to Isocrates speech called, Without Witnesses.

The second volume includes: [16] On the Nature of Animals; On the Procreation of Children, or On the Amatory Affairs of Marriage; On the Physiognomy of the Sophists; On Justice and Courage—an exhortation in three books; On Theognis—parts four and five.

The third volume includes: On the Good; On Courage; On Law, or On the Constitution of a Republic; On Law, or On the Noble and Justice; On Freedom and Slavery; On Trust and Good Faith; On the Guardian, or On Obedience; On Victory—an economic work.

The fourth volume includes: Cyrus; The Greater Heracles, or On Strength.

The fifth volume includes: Cyrus, or On Kingship; Aspasia.

The sixth volume includes: Truth; On Discussion—a debate handbook; Satho, or On Debating—in three books; On Discourse.

[17] The seventh volume includes: On Education, or On Names—in five books; On the Use of Names—a controversy; On Questioning and Answering; On Opinion and Knowledge—in four books; On Dying; On Life and Death; On Those in Hades; On Nature—in two books; A Question about Nature—two books; Opinions, or The Controversialist; Problems Relative to Learning.

The eighth volume includes: On Music; On Commentators; On Homer; On Injustice and Impiety; On Calchas; On the One Who Reconnoiters; On Pleasure.

The ninth volume includes: On the Odyssey; On the Magic Wand; Athena, or On Telemachus; On Helen and Penelope; On Proteus; Cyclops, or On Odysseus; [18] On the Use of Wine, or On Strong Wine and Drunkenness, or On the Cyclops; On Circe; On Amphiaraus; On Odysseus and Penelope and the Dog.

The tenth volume includes: Heracles, or Midas; Heracles, or On Practical Wisdom, or On Strength; Cyrus, or The Beloved; Cyrus, or The Scouts and Spies; Menexenus, or On Ruling; Alcibiades; Archelaus, or On Kingship.

And so, this is the list of his writings. Timon[xv] criticizes Antisthenes for writing so much and calls him a “prolific babbler.”

Antisthenes’ Death

Antisthenes died of disease. And when he was ill, Diogenes came to visit him, and said, “Don’t you require a friend?”

He was carrying a dagger. Antisthenes replied, “Who will release me from this suffering?”

And Diogenes, showing him the dagger, said, “This will.”

But the other countered, “From this suffering, I said, not from life!”

[19] In this way, Antisthenes seemed to bear the illness in a cowardly fashion thanks to his love of life. Here are my verses on him:

You were a dog in life, Antisthenes, born to bite the heart with words, if not with teeth. You perished by means of the wasting disease. Perhaps someone will inquire, “What difference does it make? We must all have some guide to Hades.”

So ends Reading 2. See you in the next reading.

Notes

[i] The ancient Greeks identified the non-Greek goddess Cybele (Kybele), the Phrygian mother of the gods (Phrygia was in western Asia Minor, present-day Turkey). During Antisthenes’ life, Thrace would have been counted as a non-Greek land (mostly in present-day Bulgaria and Turkey, though a small portion covers the north-eastern portion of Greece). Antisthenes is simply making the point that even if his mother is non-Greek (i.e., from Thrace), it is not so bad.

[ii] The battle of Tanagra (in Boeotia) was part of the Peloponnesian War (between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies). It took place in 426 BC. See Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 3.91.

[iii] Gorgias the rhetorician (c. 483-c. 375 BC) was a Presocratic sophist from Leontini in Sicily. He is known for his rhetorical exercise arguing that nothings is.

[iv] Hermippus of Smyrna (today, Izmir, Turkey) was a third century BC biographer who wrote about the lives and sayings of eminent men.

[v] The Isthmian games were held at Corinth every two years in honor of the god Poseidon.

[vi] The Piraeus was Athens’ chief harbor. The walk from the Piraeus to Athens, as Diogenes Laertius indicates, was forty stadia (the pl. of stadion)—about five miles.

[vii] Diocles of Magnesia (second or first century BC) was an ancient historian and writer of biography and summaries. He concentrated on the views, sayings, and lives of the earliest philosophers.

[viii] Neanthes of Cyzicus was a third century BC historian and biographer.

[ix] Sosicrates was a second century BC writer who concentrated on the various schools of philosophy, their founders, and the founders’ successors.

[x] Diodorus of Aspendos was a fourth century BC Pythagorean who, according to Sosicrates and contrary to other ancient sources (Diocles of Magnesia and Neanthes of Cyzicus), was the first to dress and equip himself as a Cynic (long beard, staff, and leather bag).

[xi] Theopompus of Chios was a fourth century BC Greek historian and rhetorician.

[xii] For example, see Antisthenes’ response to Socrates in Xenophon’s Symposium 3.8; 4.34-4.44—Chapter 9 in this present volume. For Xenophon, see the note below.

[xiii] Aside from the few citations made by Diogenes Laertius (6.14 and 7.30), we know nothing else about Athenaeus the epigrammatopoios (literally, the epigram- or inscription-maker).

[xiv] Xenophon (c. 430-354 BC) was an Athenian historian and statesman. He was slightly younger than Antisthenes. Aside from the Anabasis, or The Expedition Up (the account of the harrowing escape of the Ten Thousand, a Greek mercenary force, after the battle of Cunaxa), Xenophon is known for a number of writings centered on Socrates.

[xv] Timon of Phlius was a mostly third century BCPyrrhonist (skeptic) philosopher and writer. He wrote the collection of satirical poems, called the Silloi.