Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​Diogenes, the son of the banker Hicesias, was a native of Sinope. Diocles says that he went into exile because his father held the public bank and adulterated the coinage. But Eubulides in his work On Diogenes says that Diogenes himself did this and wandered about with his father. Moreover, he himself also says concerning himself in the Pordalus that he adulterated the coinage. Some say that having become overseer he was persuaded by the workmen, and went to Delphi or to the Delion in his native city to inquire of Apollo whether he should do the things he was being urged to do; and when the god granted permission to alter the political currency (custom), he, failing to understand, counterfeited the coin, and being caught, as some say, was banished, but as others say, fled voluntarily out of fear.

​Others say that he received the money from his father and destroyed it; and that the father died in prison, while he fled, went to Delphi, and inquiring not whether he should adulterate the coin, but what he should do to become most famous, thus received this oracle. Having arrived in Athens, he attached himself to Antisthenes. When Antisthenes tried to repel him because he admitted no one, Diogenes wore him out by his persistence. And once, when Antisthenes raised his staff against him, Diogenes offered his head and said, "Strike," he said; "for you will not find a piece of wood so hard that with it you will keep me away as long as you appear to be saying something." From that time on he was his pupil, and being an exile, he set out upon the frugal life.

​Having observed a mouse running about, as Theophrastus says in the Megarian dialogue, neither seeking a bed nor fearing the dark nor desiring any of the things thought to be enjoyable, he discovered a way out of his plight. He was the first, according to some, to double his cloak because of the necessity of sleeping in it as well; he procured a wallet, in which his provisions were kept, and used every place for every purpose, eating, sleeping, and conversing. At which time he used to say, pointing to the Stoa of Zeus and the Pompeion, that the Athenians had constructed them for him to dwell in.

​Having fallen ill, he leaned on a staff; thereafter, however, he carried it continuously—not in the city, but on journeys, along with the wallet, as Athenodorus who was leader of the Athenians, Polyeuctus the orator, and Lysanias the son of Aeschrion say. Having commissioned someone to procure a small dwelling for him, when the man delayed, he took up residence in the tub in the Metroön, as he himself also explains in his letters. And in summer he would roll on the hot sand, while in winter he embraced statues covered with snow, training himself by every means.

​He was clever at treating others with arrogant disdain. He called the school (schole) of Euclides gall (chole), Plato's discussion (diatribe) a waste of time (katatribe), the Dionysian contests great wonders for fools, and the demagogues servants of the mob. He used to say also that whenever in life he saw helmsmen, physicians, and philosophers, he considered man to be the most intelligent of living creatures; but whenever, on the other hand, he saw interpreters of dreams, soothsayers, and those who attend to them, or those puffed up with fame and wealth, he considered nothing to be more foolish than man. And he constantly said that one must prepare for life either reason (logos) or a halter (brochos).

​And once, observing Plato at an expensive dinner touching olives, he said, "Why," he said, "does the wise man, who sailed to Sicily for the sake of these tables, now that they are set before him, not enjoy them?" And Plato said, "Nay, by the gods," he said, "Diogenes, even there I mostly occupied myself with olives and the like." And Diogenes replied, "Why then was there any need to sail to Syracuse? Or did Attica at that time not bear olives?" Favorinus, however, in his Miscellaneous History says that Aristippus said this. And at another time, while eating dried figs, he met Plato and said, "You may take a share." And when Plato took some and ate them all, Diogenes said, "I said take a share, not eat them all up."