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previous: Menippus This webpage reproduces one of the Lives of the Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius published in the Loeb Classical Library, 1925 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: Zeno

(Vol. II) Diogenes Laërtius
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

Book VI

 p105  Chapter 9
Menedemus

102 Menedemus was a pupil of Colotes of Lampsacus. According to Hippobotus he had attained such a  p107 degree of audacity in wonder-working that he went about in the guise of a Fury, saying that he had come from Hades to take cognisance of sins committed, and was going to return and report them to the powers down below. This was his attire: a grey tunic reaching to the feet, about it a crimson girdle; an Arcadian hat on his head with the twelve signs of the zodiac inwrought in it; buskins of tragedy; and he wore a very long beard and carried an ashed staff in his hand.

103 Such are the lives of the several Cynics. But we will go on to append the doctrines which they held in common — if, that is, we decide that Cynicism is really a philosophy, and not, as some maintain, just a way of life. They are content then, like Ariston of Chios, to do away with the subjects of Logic and Physics and to devote their whole attention to Ethics. And what some assert of Socrates, Diocles records of Diogenes, representing him as saying: "We must inquire into

They also dispense with the ordinary subjects of instruction. At least Antisthenes used to say that those who had attained discretion had better not study literature, lest they should be perverted by alien influences. 104 So they get rid of geometry and music and all such studies. Anyhow, when somebody showed Diogenes a clock, he pronounced it a serviceable instrument to save oneself from being late for dinner. Again, to a man who gave a musical recital before him he said:2

 p109  They hold further that "Life according to Virtue" is the End to be sought, as Antisthenes says in his Heracles: exactly like the Stoics. For indeed there is a certain close relation­ship between the two schools. Hence it has been said that Cynicism is a short cut to virtue; and after the same pattern did Zeno of Citium live his life.

They also hold that we should live frugally, eating food for nourishment only and wearing a single garment. Wealth and fame and high birth they despise. Some at all events are vegetarians and drink cold water only and are content with any kind of shelter or tubs, like Diogenes, who used to say that it was the privilege of the gods to need nothing and of god‑like men to want but little.

105 They hold, further, that virtue can be taught, as Antisthenes maintains in his Heracles, and when once acquired cannot be lost; and that the wise man is worthy to be loved, impeccable, and a friend to his like; and that we should entrust nothing to fortune. Whatever is intermediate between Virtue and Vice they, in agreement with Ariston of Chios, account indifferent.

So much, then, for the Cynics. We must now pass on to the Stoics, whose founder was Zeno, a disciple of Crates.

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The Loeb Editor's Notes:

1 Hom. Od. IV.392.

❦

2 Cf. Eur. Antiope, Frag. 205 Dind.

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