Diógenes de Sínope

Diogenes of Sinope (412/403–324/321 bc)

Diogenes of Sinope was considered, along with Antisthenes, the founder of Cynicism. His nickname ‘Cynic’, literally ‘doglike’, reflects the highly unconventional lifestyle he lived and advocated. Radically re-evaluating mankind’s relation to both nature and civilization, Diogenes redefined the individual’s freedom and self-sufficiency, advocating a training (askēsis) for achieving both.

Although a historical figure, Diogenes quickly became a literary character – probably in his own lost works, certainly in those of others. Hence his life, lost writings and oral teachings are intertwined in a complex tradition comprising: (1) a biographical strand transmitted by Diogenes Laertius – itself a collage of literary and oral traditions about Diogenes; (2) the more overtly literary representations by writers such as Lucian and Dio Chrysostom ( Discourses ). Contemporary evidence for Diogenes is virtually nil.

Critical assessment of the biographical tradition is more than usually important in Diogenes’ case, since his thought is transmitted to us primarily in the form of pointed anecdotes and aphorisms (chreiai). Diogenes was exiled from Sinope (on the southern coast of the Black Sea) for defacing the city’s coins. ‘Defacing the currency’ was to become a central metaphor for the Cynics’ critique of the tradition – driving out the counterfeit coin of conventional wisdom to make room for the authentic Cynic life lived ‘according to nature’. Surprisingly, numismatic evidence discovered in the twentieth century appears to confirm the story of Diogenes’ exile, but that may be the only trustworthy part of the biography. The tradition also claims that Diogenes (1) studied with Antisthenes , (2) discovered his vocation (‘defacing the currency’) by consulting an oracle and (3) was sold into slavery and spent the rest of his life as a private tutor to his master’s children. Claim (1) may be chronologically impossible, and was perhaps fabricated by Stoics eager to give their school a Socratic pedigree via the Cynics. Claim (2) is suspiciously reminiscent of stories told of Socrates and of Zeno of Citium. Claim (3) conflicts with the tradition that Diogenes grew old spending his summers in Corinth and winters in Athens living in his pithos, a large wine-jar. In all probability, both (2) and (3) are based on literary works by or about Diogenes that were later treated biographically.

Similarly, there are several conflicting versions of Diogenes’ literary activity. Two authorities denied that Diogenes had left anything in writing, yet we have two lists of works attributed to him. The first consists of thirteen dialogues (including a Republic), some epistles and seven tragedies. A second list, probably of Stoic origin, consists of twelve dialogues (eight of which are absent from the first list) and some letters and sayings (chreiai), thus implicitly denying the authenticity of Diogenes’ Republic and of his tragedies.

Diogenes’ philosophical significance was a product of the manifold traditions purporting to represent him as much as it was of the facts of his life, of which we know few. Diogenes’ unconditional pursuit of happiness in the face of exile and poverty led him to challenge the most fundamental ideas and taboos of Greek civilization and to valorize nature as a source of moral insight greater than that of custom or of the existing philosophical schools. The consequences of his experiment were remarkable and lasting, not only for philosophy – Stoicism and Epicureanism emerge in the philosophical context Diogenes helped to create – but for the literary and social traditions that antiquity transmitted to Europe.