CYNICISM
1. The Problem.
The problem of the origins or
sources of Cynicism has attracted the
interest of
scholars since Ferdinand Dümmler published his dis-
sertation
Antisthenica in 1882. Dümmler thought he
had found a whole series of polemical allusions to
Antisthenes in Plato's
works. Dümmler's thesis was
soon pushed to extremes by other
scholars, who gave
Antisthenes a central position in Greek philosophy.
Antisthenes' role as the founder of a philosophical
school was not called
in question. Diogenes of Sinope
was regarded as his immediate pupil in
accordance
with ancient tradition. Cynicism was regarded as an
ethical
and mainly partical philosophical movement
with later additions of certain
abstruse traits but still
essentially a bearer of a Socratic tradition.
Contrary to this conception of the problem we find
another radically
different view. In this view Antis-
thenes
was not an independent thinker or writer of
any particular importance and
had nothing at all to
do with Cynicism. The linking together of
Antisthenes
and Diogenes is then explained as a Stoic attempt to
derive the Stoa directly from Socrates. Cynicism is not
a philosophy, it is
an asocial, amoral, and anti-intellec-
tual way of living. Without Diogenes there would be
no Cynics. He is
the creator of the true Cynic type
with all its burlesque, asocial and
anticultural features,
described in an abundance of Cynic anecdotes.
The
picture of Diogenes as a type, conveyed by the anec-
dotes, is true in its main features, even though the
details
are invented.
The problem of Cynicism is essentially a problem
concerning the sources. No
original writings, with few
exceptions, have survived. Our knowledge of
Cynicism
rests largely on quotations from late authors, on a rich
profusion of anecdotes, and on late spurious letters.
The interpretation of
isolated sentences, torn from their
context, and of
résumés must therefore be conjectural
and need to be
viewed from the standpoint of the
history of the ideas associated with the
so-called
Cynics. The widely differing positions taken up in this
field of research are due to the conditions suggested
here. The account of
a few central themes in Cynicism
that will be given here rests solely on
doxographical
material or such material as can be related to the
doxographies.
2. Early Authors.
First we present a short survey
of persons and authors in the Cynic
tradition during
the fourth and third centuries B.C.
Antisthenes—dates unknown, but still living at an
advanced age in
Athens in 366—came from the
Sophists as a disciple of Gorgias.
According to the
practice of the Sophists he gave instruction for a
fee
in the gymnasium of Cynosarges outside the city-wall
of Athens,
offering lessons intended for the education
of young Athenians without full
citizenship. Antis-
thenes himself was not a
full citizen of Athens, his
mother being a Thracian woman. The
Cynosarges
contained a famous shrine of Heracles; the name
“Cynic,” it is usually believed was derived from
Cynosarges. Heracles as Cynic hero has his origin here.
Antisthenes was a
prolific writer. Diogenes Laërtius,
in his Lives
of Eminent Philosophers, gives us under
Antisthenes' name one of
the longest lists of books, 66
titles in all, divided into ten sections.
His literary out-
put belongs within the scope of
the problems which
were of interest to the Sophists. Of this immense liter-
ary output nothing remains except two
declamations
about Ajax and Odysseus, which betray the influence
of
Gorgias' rhetorical style but show manifest traces
of Cynic
“king-ideology” (which is discussed below).
Besides
the life in Diogenes Laërtius there are only
a few scattered
quotations, mostly in the writings of
late authors.
Diogenes of Sinope probably came to Athens as a
political exile in
connection with the Persian satrap
Datames' capture of the Athenian colony
of Sinope
on the south coast of the Black Sea in 370. He possibly
taught in Athens after the decade of 360-50. Among
his better known pupils
were Onesicritus, Alexander's
admiral, who took part in the expedition to
India and
wrote a novel on Alexander and descriptions of India;
furthermore, Anaximenes of Lampsacus, who carried
on an extensive literary activity, was the instructor of
Alexander and wrote a history of him. He is said to
have lived ca. 380-20.
The ancient testimonies are
unanimous in placing Diogenes' death towards
320.
There are no reasons for doubting the existence of
personal
contact between Antisthenes and Diogenes.
Besides direct teaching, Diogenes
also carried on a
rather extensive literary activity. Diogenes
Laërtius
gives a list of writings attributed to him that
comprises
thirteen dialogues, seven tragedies, and letters; in a
second, shorter list, with mostly other titles, Diogenes
Laërtius
enumerates thirteen works, besides letters.
With the letters are probably
those spurious letters that
under the names of various philosophers were
current
in the first centuries B.C. and A.D. No tragedies are
mentioned in this second list. That the teaching activity
presupposes some
kind of literary activity and literary
reputation can hardly be doubted,
but nothing remains.
Among Diogenes' personal pupils, besides the
above-mentioned Onesicritus and
Anaximenes, were a
number of Cynic authors, among others Monimus of
Syracuse, who wrote jocular poems with a serious
intent; Philiscus of
Aegina, who besides dialogues
wrote tragedies intended for reading, in
which Cynic
paradoxes were paraded; also, Crates of Thebes, who
likewise wrote jocular poems of which we get a fairly
good idea from
fragments that have been preserved.
Metrocles of Maroneia, Crates'
brother-in-law, origi-
nally a Peripatetic
but later a pupil of Crates, played
an important role, in the generation
immediately after
Diogenes, through his writings containing helpful
words for everyday use intended to strengthen the
philosophical attitude
towards life. He had a decisive
influence on the creation of the type of
Cynic philoso-
pher, and of the Diogenes
legend.
In the generation after Metrocles we find a number
of important writers.
Diogenes Laërtius mentions as
a pupil of Metrocles among others
Menippus of
Gadara, originally a slave at Sinope, who continued
in the
way which Monimus made vivid by putting forth
philosophical maxims in a
jocular form. His style, a
mixture of prose and poetry, was imitated by
Varro
in the latter's Saturae Menippeae, of
which about 600
fragments have been preserved. In addition, to this
generation of authors belongs Bion the Borysthenite,
also a freedman, and a
pupil of Theophrastus and
Xenocrates, but above all of Crates, the Cynic.
Bion
was already considered in antiquity to be the originator
of the
so-called diatribe style. Then we have Teles of
Megara, diatribist after
the manner of Bion (of whom
a considerable number of extracts have been
preserved
by Stobaeus), and Cercidas of Megalopolis. Cercidas
does not
at all conform to the vulgar conception of
a Cynic. He served his native
city as general, diplomat,
and lawgiver, but attained his greatest fame as Cynic
philosopher and poet. He was strongly influenced by
Diogenes as well as by
Bion, whose diatribic style he
developed.
In the latter half of the third century Menedemus
from Asia Minor was active
as a writer in a sternly
moralizing, polemical style. Finally, mention must
be
made of the satirist Meleager of Gadara, poet and
Cynic philosopher
in the Menippean style, who lived
at the end of the second century B.C.
3. Sophistic Background.
From the point of view
of the history of ideas Cynicism as a practical-philo-
sophical movement
begins with the Sophists. Most of
its theoretical motivation and
ideological substance is
derived from the Sophists' nominalistic theory
of
knowledge and materialism, the radical opposition to
society and
its conventions through the assertion of
natural law as against positive
law, and a ruthless and
unrestricted individualism. From the pedagogy of
the
Sophists came also the interest in practical ethical
questions and
educational problems. Antisthenes, who
began as a Sophist and in spite of
his attacks on his
former teacher Gorgias always remained a Sophist,
later on attached himself to Socrates, whom he admired
highly and to whom
he probably stood in a close
relationship. He was with Socrates in the
prison, when
Socrates drank the hemlock. In Socrates Antisthenes
met
with what was later associated with the Cynic type
in its serious form:
poverty, voluntary asceticism,
physical insensibility and hardiness,
psychical firmness,
and absolute personal integrity. Out of this
encounter
Cynicism was born. With Antisthenes' successor
Diogenes the
theoretical motivation receded to give
place to a practical demonstration
against established
social behavior for the benefit of an
individualism
pushed ad absurdum.
4. Political Ideas.
The Sophists, who almost without
exception were of non-Athenian
descent, wrote a
number of critical and comparative descriptions of
the
constitutions of various states. The points of view var-
ied considerably between conservative and radical
ideas, and various attempts were made at justifying
society's demands for
subordination. Protagoras put this
justification in a mythical form as
innate feelings of
right and wrong, thus giving society a foundation
in
irrational, religious conceptions. Law and nature are
not
contradictory notions; on the contrary, they are
complementary to each
other. The Sophist Antiphon,
on the other hand, equated nature and truth in
contrast
to law, which means a violation of nature. As an exam-
ple he cites the fictions difference between
social
classes and between Greeks and barbarians, differences
which
have no foundation in nature.
In this political literary activity Antisthenes took
part. According to Diogenes Laërtius he wrote a con-
siderable number of political pamphlets
under tradi-
tional titles. Our information
about this literary output
is scanty. Antisthenes criticized the tyrants
for their
excessive greed which led them to the greatest crimes.
He
also criticized Pericles and other politicians in
special pamphlets, and
appeared in public with his
political criticism. More important are the
conclusions
that can be drawn about Antisthenes' political writings
by
viewing the fragments in relation to the Sophistic
writings.
The Sophist Antiphon wrote a book about Concord.
The word has on one side a
political sense, concord
between warring groups of society, but on the
other
side it had undergone a development in an individ-
ualistic direction and acquired the sense of
harmony
with oneself. Plato defines the wicked man as one who
is not
in harmony with himself, and he says that what
is in opposition to itself,
can hardly be a friend of
anything else. The formula “to be in
harmony with
oneself” was familiar to Plato in his early
writings. In
the Stoa the concept of concord was defined as knowl-
edge about common advantages. Only the
wise pos-
sessed this knowledge. A number of
fragments from
Antisthenes' writings must be read in this connection:
criticism of the existing society with its demand for
political concord on
the basis of the law, in contrast
to this the concord that exists in
accordance with
nature above the law and in opposition to it, e.g.,
between brothers and above all between the wise. This
concord is based on
the philosopher's ability to hold
converse with himself, to be in harmony
with himself,
which is possible only for the wise.
Antisthenes, like Antiphon, took up the cudgels
against the traditional code
of morality and its laws,
and set up the antithesis: nomos versus physis (“cus-
tom” or
“convention” versus “nature”). In a
religious
fragment he makes use of this antithesis to show that
polytheism exists only according to law; according to
nature there is only
one god. In a political fragment
this antithesis recurs: the wise man must
not live in
accordance with the established laws but with the law
of
virtue. There are other utterances that seem to show
that Antisthenes used
this and similar expressions in
polemics against democracy.
The wise man's ethical superiority to other men leads
to another antithesis
with political consequences, the
contrast between the good and the bad. The
bad must
be separated from the state just as the weeds are sepa-
rated from the corn or the cowards from
the battle.
The good must unite, become friends and allies in the
ethical battle. Their weapon is virtue and this weapon
can never be lost.
This virtue, which is itself a law
in opposition to the laws of society, is
teachable. Still
it demands no great learning but practical training.
Family
ties and difference of sex do not count here.
Human fellowship can only be
based on equal spiritual
qualities, irrespective of all conventions. It can
as a
matter of fact exist only between the wise.
Politics and pedagogy were closely connected in the
Sophistic. The aim of
the Sophists was to create by
instruction conditions for success in
society. But the
content and value of this Sophistic instruction were
called in question. Antisthenes sought a solution of the
problem of
politics in opposition to Plato, whose theory
of ideas he polemized against
and rejected. We do not
know how far the state in Cynic writings
approximated
Plato's ideal of the state, but there were some striking
parallels: in both cases there was a question of an
ethical aristocracy
with justice and virtue as central
concepts, a philosopher state with no
possibility of
realization in practical life. As to the Cynics this
led
to the idea of a simple and remote life in harmony
with nature,
which education should aim at.
5. Cynic Pedagogy.
Diogenes Laërtius' account (VI
70f.) of Diogenes' maxims is
a summary of early Cynic
pedagogy. The theme is “the double
training,” the
necessary training of body and soul, and the
passage
is one of the few sources of information about early
Cynic
ideology of Heracles. Both forms of training are
equally necessary for him
who wants to learn how to
act rightly. More explicit information as to the
methods
of this pedagogy is given in Diog. L. VI 30f. Diogenes
Laërtius quotes a certain Eubulus who wrote a book
about how
Diogenes was sold as a slave and became
the teacher of Xeniades' two sons.
These he trained
in various sorts of athletics, not in an exaggerated
way
but only enough to keep them in good physical condi-
tion. The pupils also had to learn by heart
passages
from poets and historians, and the writings of Diogenes
himself. Part of the education also consisted in learning
a simple way of
living as to food, drink, and clothes,
and modest behavior. Thus Diogenes
appears here as
a representative of the traditional type of education,
which reminds one of Xenophon's Cyropaedia and
shows
a certain affinity to Prodicus' allegory on
Heracles. As a youth Heracles
chose the virtuous
woman Aretē instead of the woman of pleasure,
Kakia,
when he was confronted by both where paths crossed.
The
passages in Diog. L. VI 30 and 70 correspond to
each other. Diogenes
proclaimed a pedagogical doc-
trine which has
left traces in early Cynic literature.
The story of the sale of Diogenes
into slavery has been
treated by several Cynic writers in the next
generation.
The quotation from Eubulus (Diog. L. VI 30) represents
a
serious variant of the story. In this variant Diogenes
appears outwardly as
a slave but inwardly as free and
a master. Whether and how far the version
of the sale
into slavery given by Lucian, where Diogenes appears
in a
caricatured form, goes back to an early burlesque
variant (Menippus?) is
doubtful. The pedagogy of the
Eubulus version is of an idyllic character
which has
its counterpart in a hedonistic theme in the doxography
Diog. L. VI 71: the despising of pleasure is the greatest
pleasure. In
Lucian we meet a Cynic pedagogy of quite
another character in line with the
many Diogenes
anecdotes representing traits of rigorous asceticism and
abstruse shamelessness.
It is easy to relate the varying motifs in the Eubulus
pedagogy to ideas
generally known in the fourth cen-
tury B.C.:
the ruler-teacher motif, the slave-ruler motif,
the idyllic training in
hunting, archery, riding, and
other forms of athletics as a complement to
reading
and learning by heart select passages from the works
of poets
and other writers. Even the framework itself,
the sale of Diogenes into
slavery, had its model in
Euripides' play Syleus,
where Heracles is sold as a
slave. But while Eubulus' pedagogy with its
archaic,
Spartan education (paideia) was
disappearing from the
Cynic tradition, a burlesque variant was being
created
which left its most important traces in Lucian several
centuries later. Instead of Eubulus' mild, hedonistically
tinged asceticism
we find a coarse and vulgar asceticism
which was self-contained and was the
form of Cynicism
that Lucian criticized, and which furnished the mate-
rial for countless popular anecdotes.
The idyllic existence which Eubulus' pedagogy de-
scribes has to a certain extent its counterpart in some
fragments of an early Cynic poem (Crates' poem, Pera)
which describes in allegorical form an ideal society.
Crates' social background was different from that
of Antisthenes and
Diogenes. He was a full citizen of
Thebes but distributed his wealth, which
was consid-
erable, among his fellow
citizens. Teles describes him
as a sort of pre-Christian Saint Francis, who
derived
the highest ethical values from his voluntary poverty.
Apuleius provides an interesting example of Heracles
as an ethical model in
his description of Crates. Here
we find a picture of the Cynic saint,
reconciler and
adviser of men, punisher of all evil. In Crates we find
the dream of the far-off state, which no evil men or
evil conditions can
reach. Pera—the type of wallet
associated with the
Cynics—stands as name and symbol
of this state. Crates praises
self-sufficing simplicity,
isolation, and freedom. A simple way of life
brings
contentedness. The inhabitants of Pera are men who
are not the
slaves of pleasure, but who love freedom,
the eternal queen.
In Crates' new kingdom there is no war. Men do
not fight with each other for
food since where frugality
reigns there is enough for all. Crates embraces
Cynic
pacifism, which may well have been introduced by
Antisthenes. The poem is a mixture of fun and serious-
ness. What Crates describes in the
Pera is a never-never
land. There is no question
of a state in the usual sense:
Pera is a dream, which the Christian Fathers
compared
with the heavenly Jerusalem. It is the Cynic ideal
community,
without the difficulties of sustaining itself,
of war or wickedness, a
society in which dwell such
men as the Cynics endeavor to fashion by
education.
The doxography Diog. L. VI 70ff. contains in section
72 an account of
Diogenes' political views. It is possible
that the passage is a summary of
the content of
Diogenes' book, Politeia, which
described a philosopher
state and contained principles that were later
adopted
by the Stoa. The elements of this account can in any
case
easily be related to the political debate of the
fifth and fourth
centuries: the wise are god's friends,
hence everything belongs to them;
noble birth and
fame are valueless things; common possession of wives
and children should take the place of marriage; the
purpose of the state is
to afford its citizens protection
and help; this the state cannot do
without law, conse-
quently, law is
necessary for the state. Then the ques-
tion
arises, which state is the right one. The Sophist
Antiphon had shown in his
book Truth that the histori-
cal state was unable to provide the legal protection
that men
needed. The answer to the question about
the right state is also given: the
only right state is the
world state. The expression “the right
state” was a term
accepted in the political writings of the
fourth century.
What is new in the Diogenes doxography is that it is
applied to a “cosmos-state.”
6. Scientific Views of the Cynics.
The doxography
contains in section 73 a passage of scientific,
theoretical
character. Cynicism may have derived its view of
nature
via the Sophists from Anaxagoras (who had
considerable influence on
Athenian philosophical
views), from Diogenes of Apollonia, and from
the
Atomists. It is easy to find fragments which tie up with
the main
theme of this passage. The source quoted is
Diogenes' tragedy Thyestes, with the reservation that
the tragedies
may not be genuine. Diogenes
... saw no impropriety either in stealing anything from
a temple or
eating the flesh of any animal; nor even anything
impious in touching
human flesh, this, he said, being clear
from the custom of some foreign
nations. Moreover, accord-
ing to right
reason, as he put it, all elements are contained
in all things and
pervade everything: since not only is meat
a constituent of bread, but
bread of vegetables; and all other
bodies also, by means of certain
invisible passages and
particles, find their way and unite with all
substances in
the form of vapor.
It is quite possible to date this passage to the fourth
century B.C. The
idea that lies behind it is old; the
scientific terms are early technical
terms, and even if
the whole line of reasoning in this section is foreign
to the
traditional view of Diogenes, which ignores his
intellectual side, we must
still reckon with the possi-
bility that
Diogenes justified his radical views with
plausible and appropriate
scientific arguments. He was
not, however, interested in physical or
logical problems
for their own sake.
This part of Diogenes' doxography is the only place
in the whole Diogenes
tradition where we have a
reference to a really scientific theory as a
justification
of Diogenes' views. Elsewhere he adduces simple,
eristic
arguments to support a radical thesis or to
explain an objectionable
phenomenon. The passage
contains no word about the desirability of the
realiza-
tion of the theory in actual
society or in any ideal state.
7. Cynic Asceticism.
Lucian's version of Cynicism
represents the aspect of Cynicism that
has become best
known thanks to a profusion of anecdotes. The most
varied anecdotes, some strictly rigorous and coarsely
hedonistic, some
serious and burlesque, and both sym-
pathetic and hostile to civilization, have attached
themselves to
Diogenes of Sinope. Various scholars
have maintained that the rigorous type
of anecdotes
is primary and genuinely Diogenic, whereas the
hedonistic
type of anecdotes was introduced in the
Diogenes tradition by Crates and
especially his disci-
ples Bion and Menippus,
as a more human reaction.
A strict and rigorous movement also continued,
which
actually even attempted to outdo Diogenes himself.
Diogenes
appears as a misanthrope in the pessimistic
28th letter. Most words of
rebuke occur in the Cynic
texts of Roman imperial times. The creation of
the
legend began immediately after Diogenes' death and
took place
simultaneously along two lines—the strict
and rigorous, and the
hedonistic.
At a definite point we can see how a rigorous type
of asceticism evidently
influenced the Diogenes legend.
Onesicritus, Alexander's admiral, tells, in
Strabo, the
story of his encounter with an Indian ascetic sect, the
so-called Gymnosophists. Naked and motionless, in
various positions on the
rocks, they endured the heat
of the equatorial sun until the evening. The
motive
for their harsh asceticism is conveyed in the following
words:
Man trains the body for toil in order that his opinions may
be
strengthened, whereby he may put a stop to dissensions
and be ready to
give good advice to all, both in public and
in private.
Onesicritus is comparing oriental asceticism with the
form of asceticism he
had come to know at home in
Greece in the Cynicism of Diogenes. The
comparison
is to the disadvantage of Cynicism. In the Gymnosoph-
ists he found ascetics of a far
more radical type than
he had previously encountered. In this respect he puts
Pythagoras, Socrates, and Diogenes on the same plane:
they failed because
they put law before nature. This
rigorous type of asceticism is reflected
in the anecdotes
about Diogenes rolling in the hot sand or embracing
in winter statues covered with snow, and others.
Within the Cynic movement itself the increasing
oriental influence on Greek
religion, following the time
of Alexander, created a necessity to maintain
the
school's saint Diogenes as a thoroughgoing, rigorous
ascetic.
Onesicritus' comparison between Indian and
Greek ascetic philosophy was no
isolated phenomenon.
The story recurs as one of the sources in a
papyrus
from the second century B.C.
It remains an open question how much of the harsh,
rigorous asceticism goes
back as far as the historical
Diogenes. It may be assumed that it does, to
a certain
extent. The history of ideas shows clearly that the
eudaemonistic, Socratic asceticism, which is pedagog-
ically motivated and has its background in the peda-
gogical debate of the fifth and fourth
centuries, belongs
to Cynic philosophy from its beginning.
8. Cynic Hero and King Ideology.
The Heracles
mythology contained a great many features that let
themselves be easily applied to Cynic philosophy. The
suffering Heracles
appears as a benefactor in the
drama. In Euripides' Heracles the theme philanthropia
through
suffering is clearly delineated. But the drama
did not advance to the
position of Antisthenes in re-
garding pain as
something good. Antisthenes demon-
strated
that pain is a good thing by instancing the great
Heracles and Cyrus,
drawing the one example from
the Greek world and the other from the
barbarians.
An important step towards the possibility of using
Heracles for philosophical, ethical purposes had al-
ready been taken in the Ionian criticism of the myths.
In the
extensive Ionian literature about Heracles the
Sophist Herodorus of
Heraclea in Pontus was the cre-
ator of the
allegories of the philosophic Heracles. In
the Sophist Prodicus' allegory
of the Choice of
Heracles there appears a philanthropical as well as
an
ascetic theme, a hedonistic attraction towards a sim-
pler, more natural way of life as a reaction against
artificiality and excessive civilization. Antisthenes' view
of pain as
something good is fully consistent with
Prodicus' description of Heracles.
The myth of
Heracles offered a multitude of possibilities for a phil-
osophic sect which, because of its
origin in circles
without full political rights, was burdened by
social
and political discontent.
The fragments of Antisthenes' Heracles are not very
extensive. The main
points are: Heracles receives in-
struction
in virtue from the wise centaur Chiron, pain
is something good, the purpose
of life is to live accord
ing to virtue, virtue can be taught and when once
acquired
cannot be lost.
As to Diogenes the doxography Diog. L. VI 70 offers
an example of early
Heracles ideology. Heracles is the
prototype for the pedagogic ideas
propagated here.
The passage ends with a reference to Heracles:
... allowing [sc. Diogenes] convention no such authority
as he allowed
to natural right, and asserting that the manner
of life he lived was
the same as that of Heracles when he
preferred liberty to
everything.
The Heracles mythology had been dealt with at
great length and in various
aspects in the fifth century,
but Heracles declined rapidly in popularity
both in
Cynic and in extra-Cynic literature. The vogue he
enjoyed
during the whole fifth century in epic, lyric,
tragedy, and finally in the
allegorical and rationalistic
interpretation of myth did not continue into
the fourth
century. The only thing which survived apart from the
sterile references scattered throughout literature is the
allegory and the
ethical propaganda in Cynic circles.
In Dio Chrysostomus in the first century A.D. we find
relatively unequivocal
themes of Cynic Heracles prop-
aganda; there
is an attempt to achieve a refined picture
of Heracles along Cynic lines,
in which the divine
character of the hero is rationalized and his labors
are
given an allegorical interpretation. His virtues are
individual-ethical, but the philanthropia theme is pre-
served and a firm front maintained against intellectual-
ism and athleticism. This
use of Heracles by Dio was
due to Dio's becoming acquainted with a Cynic
way
of life and Cynic literature. Diogenes in Dio Chrysos-
tomus Or. 8 compares himself with Heracles. The
moral struggle against pleasure is designated by the
term labor, and
Heracles is held up as an example.
We find in Dio Chrysostomus a picture of
Heracles
which has nothing in common with the athletic, sensual
Heracles of satyrical drama and comedy. He is adapted
to the Cynic ideal of
behavior and appears in his new
guise as a Cynic saint, a portrait for
which Dio was
indebted to earlier Cynic sources.
The most important feature in Dio's characterization
of Heracles is the
education, the double paideia, the
“human” and the “divine”; the
“divine” paideia
repre-
sents the true Cynic pedagogics with
Heracles as a
model in opposition to Sophistic Rhetoric and vulgar
Cynicism. Dio's views on this subject, maybe through
early Stoic
intermediaries, were influenced by classical
Cynicism. In Dio we find the
ideas and problems of
the fourth century B.C. with its interest in the
rela-
tionship between education and
politics, its opposition
to the Sophists' unsuccessful efforts in this
field, and
the individual-ethical form given to educational and
political theories with the important central themes:
to govern oneself = to govern men; education =
authority;
philosopher = ruler. The Cynic educational
theory is a pedagogy for rulers.
From the point of view
of the history of ideas it belongs together with
Xeno-
phon's
Cyropaedia and the Aristippean polemic in
Xenophon's
Memorabilia II 1. A basic idea common
to these
texts is the part played by the paragon in their
pedagogic theory: the
ruler is a model and his position
is based on his moral supremacy.
Antisthenes described Cyrus' development according
to the scheme slave-king
(doulos-basileus), and used the
same theme in
his portrayal of Odysseus. The theme
recurs in the idealization of
Diogenes, and its main
point was to show the philosophical inner
freedom
which is founded on moral perfection and not on out-
ward circumstances. The application of the theme to
Diogenes has taken place among the authors of the
generation after
Diogenes. In Dio Chrysostomus we
find this Cynic theme elaborated in
detail, and there
is no doubt that Dio reflects early Cynic basileus-
ideology. In Dio's Cynic
speeches there occur a num-
ber of catalogues of
virtues and vices of a relatively
fixed form. The man who does not possess
the right
qualities, i.e., a character firmly formed along individ-
ual-ethical lines, is not a
basileus at all. Although
Xerxes is by external standards the most powerful
of
kings and by his external power can perform the most
unbelievable
things, he is weaker than those who do
not even possess an obol, if he does
not possess the
right, i.e., the Cynic character. The term
“basileus”
belongs properly only to the morally
perfect ruler, a
king with pronounced individual-ethical qualities,
with
simple, uncomplicated social functions illustrated by
comparison
to a herdsman, and by the father figure.
He is an idyllic type who belongs
historically to Xeno-
phon's portrait of
Cyrus.
But in his writings Dio presents a further portrait
of the king, namely the
basileus as a solitary, poor,
and suffering figure. This portrait is
modelled on
Diogenes, but probably originated in the works of
Antisthenes. The model for this type of basileus was
Heracles with his
solitariness, nakedness, poverty,
homelessness, suffering. Yet with all
this Heracles was
the son of Zeus and worthy of kingship. In Dio we
find that Diogenes plays the part of the suffering
basileus: in his
humiliation, exposed to men's abuse and
ill-treatment he resembled a real
king and ruler in his
garment of a poor man. The philosopher in his
simple
tribon (the philosopher's cloak) must submit to suffer-
ing and ignominy. This
“abuse” theme is an insep-
arable component of the Cynic type of behavior. The
Cynic is
reviled for his poverty, for consorting with
bad men, for his humble
origin, and for his appearance
and demeanor. We have in Dio veritable catalogues
of suffering and struggle. The philosopher must endure
hunger,
thirst, cold, ill-treatment, poverty, and igno-
miny, but he does so without complaining; on the con-
trary, he considers these burdens easy to carry. The
eudaemonistic motivation of the moral struggle, the
endurance, the absence
of effort and strain in this
struggle, in which, on the contrary, he
engages with
ease and joy, are all typical Cynic traits. The noble
man, who is also perfect, is identical with the true king,
the basileus
disguised as a slave.
The best known example of the use of the
doulos-
basileus
motif is the antithesis Diogenes-Alexander the
Great. This antithesis
belongs to the first half of the
third century B.C. Dio Chrysostomus
describes Alex-
ander as an unfree and unhappy
man full of erroneous
ideas about the true values of life. Diogenes' aim
is
to teach Alexander what true kingship is. Diogenes not
only gives
instruction about the true king, but he views
himself as the real king.
Alexander is unfree or a slave,
whereas Diogenes is the freest of men. In
order to
become a real king Alexander must exchange his royal
splendor
for the philosopher's ragged cloak and first
learn to master himself before
he can rule others. Still
more, he must put on the slave's garment and
serve
those who are superior to himself. He must deliberately
walk the
road of suffering and service and submit to
the philosopher's instruction
and way of life, in order
that in this way he may avoid false kingship.
The Cynic preaching contained, among other things,
a conception of kingship
of a unique character—the
solitary, poor, and suffering
basileus. The Cynic
Heraclean allegory has played a decisive role in
this
connection. Even Antisthenes' works on Odysseus and
Cyrus have
been influenced by the same and similar
motifs. After his death Diogenes is
described in the
role of the slave-king who is mocked and ridiculed,
but at last raised above all surrounding adversities.
The other side of this Cynic conception of kingship
is the purely ethical.
We are concerned with a question,
popular and much discussed in the fourth
century B.C.,
the question of the true king's ethical qualifications
and
their indispensability as conditions for the position of
basileus.
Xenophon and Plato have both given evi-
dence,
each one in his own way, of the central role
which this pedagogical motif
has played in the Socratic
circle. The Antisthenic-Diogenic theory of the double
paideia must be looked upon as emanating from the
same Socratic source. The stress falls on individual
ethics, the
“divine” paideia.
“Human” paideia,
al-
though hazardous and misleading, is allowed
to have
some value, but only in relation to “divine”
paideia.
The pedagogical theories of Dio
Chrysostomus,
brought forth in argument against the Sophists, are
directly influenced by the Socratic-Cynic pedagogy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. D. Caizzi, Antisthenis Fragmenta (Milan,
1966). D. R.
Dudley, A History of Cynicism. From
Diogenes to the 6th
Century A.D. (London, 1937). R.
Höistad, Cynic Hero and
Cynic King: Studies
in the Cynic Conception of Man
(Uppsala, 1948). A. O. Lovejoy
and G. Boas, Primitivism and
Related Ideas in
Antiquity. A Documentary History of
Primitivism and Related
Ideas (Baltimore, 1935). K.
Praechter, Die
Philosophie des Altertums (Berlin, 1926),
gives
exhaustive lists of text editions and literature. F. Sayre,
Diogenes of Sinope. A Study of Greek Cynicism
(Baltimore,
1938); idem, The Greek Cynics
(Baltimore, 1948). R. Vischer,
Das einfache Leben (Göttingen, 1965).
C. J. de Vogel, Greek
Philosophy: A Collection of
Texts (Leyden, 1950-59). K. von
Fritz, Quellenuntersuchungen zu Leben und Philosophie des
Diogenes von
Sinope, Philologus, Supplementband 18:2
(Leipzig, 1926).
RAGNAR HÜISTAD
[See also Law, Natural; Nature; Platonism; Pre-Platonic
Conceptions
of Human Nature; Rationality; Stoicism.]