Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​He used to say that absolutely nothing in life is achieved rightly without training, and that this training is capable of overcoming everything. Therefore, whereas people ought to choose the labors according to nature instead of useless toils and live happily, through their folly they live wretchedly. For even the contempt for pleasure itself becomes most pleasant when practiced beforehand; and just as those who have grown accustomed to living pleasantly pass over with displeasure to the opposite condition, so those who have trained in the opposite condition more pleasantly feel contempt for pleasures themselves. Such was the discourse he maintained and appeared in his actions to practice, truly "altering the currency," giving nothing to things established by convention (nomos) in comparison to what he gave to things according to nature (physis). He claimed that he led the very same character of life that Heracles did, preferring nothing to freedom.

​He maintained that all things belong to the wise, posing such arguments as we have mentioned above: "All things belong to the gods; the gods are friends to the wise; the possessions of friends are common; therefore all things belong to the wise." Concerning law, he argued that without it it is not possible to conduct a political life: "For," he says, "without a city there is no benefit in what is civilized (asteion); and the city is civilized; without a city there is no benefit in law; therefore law is civilized." Noble birth, repute, and all such things he ridiculed, calling them the preliminary ornaments of vice; and he said that the only correct constitution is that in the cosmos. He also said that women ought to be in common, recognizing no marriage, but that the man who persuades should consort with the woman who has been persuaded; and that for this reason children too should be in common.

​He said that it was nothing out of the way to take something from a temple or to taste any animal; nor was it unholy even to touch human flesh, as is clear from foreign customs; and by right reason he asserted that all things are in all things and through all things. For indeed in bread there is meat and in vegetables there is bread, and parts of the remaining bodies are inserted into all things and evaporate together through certain invisible pores and particles, as he makes clear in the *Thyestes*—if indeed the tragedies are his and not by Philiscus of Aegina, his acquaintance, or by Pasiphon the son of Lucianus, whom Favorinus in his *Miscellaneous History* says wrote them after his death. He also neglected music, geometry, astrology, and such subjects, regarding them as useless and not necessary.

​He was exceedingly shrewd in responding to arguments, as is clear from what we have said before. He also bore being sold as a slave most nobly: for when sailing to Aegina and captured by pirates whom Scirpalus commanded, he was carried off to Crete and put up for sale; and when the herald asked what he knew how to do, he said, "To rule men." At which time, pointing out a certain well-dressed Corinthian, the aforementioned Xeniades, he said, "Sell me to this man; this man needs a master." Xeniades accordingly bought him, and taking him away to Corinth, placed him in charge of his own children and entrusted him with the entire household. And he managed it in all respects in such a way that Xeniades went about saying, "A good daemon has entered my house."

​Cleomenes says in the work entitled *The Pedagogue* that his acquaintances wished to ransom him, but that he called them simpletons; for lions are not the slaves of those who feed them, but those who feed them are the slaves of the lions; for to fear is the mark of a slave, whereas wild beasts are fearsome to men. There was a certain wondrous persuasiveness about the man, so that he easily captivated anyone at all with his words. At any rate, it is said that a certain Onesicritus of Aegina sent one of his two sons, Androsthenes, to Athens, and that he, upon hearing Diogenes, stayed on there; and that the father sent the other son, the aforementioned Philiscus who was the elder, to fetch him, but that Philiscus was likewise detained in the same manner.