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Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
  
  
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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


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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.”