Greek Texts & Translations

But he soared aloft with his lip tightly pressed against his teeth

And holding his breath withal. For in truth he was rightly named

Diogenes, a true-born son of Zeus, a hound of heaven.

Another version is that, while trying to divide an octopus amongst the dogs, he was so severely bitten on the sinew of the foot that it caused his death. His friends, however, according to Antisthenes in his Successions of Philosophers, conjectured that it was due to the retention of his breath. For he happened to be living in the Craneum, the gymnasium in front of Corinth. When his friends came according to custom and found him wrapped up in his cloak, they thought that he must be asleep, although he was by no means of a drowsy or somnolent habit. They therefore drew aside his cloak and found that he was dead. This they supposed to have been his deliberate act in order to escape thenceforward from life.

Hence, it is said, arose a quarrel among his disciples as to who should bury him : nay, they even came to blows ; but, when their fathers and men of influence arrived, under their direction he was buried beside the gate leading to the Isthmus. Over his grave they set up a pillar and a dog in Parian marble upon it. Subsequently his fellow-citizens honoured him with bronze statues, on which these verses were inscribed :

Time makes even bronze grow old : but thy glory, Diogenes, all eternity will never destroy. Since thou alone didst point out to mortals the lesson of self-sufficingness and the easiest path of life. ^note

We too have written on him in the proceleusmatic metre :

a. Diogenes, come tell me what fate took you to the world below ?

d. A dog's savage tooth. ^note

But some say that when dying he left instructions that they should throw him out unburied, that every wild beast might feed on him, or thrust him into a ditch and sprinkle a little dust over him. But according to others his instructions were that they should throw him into the Ilissus, in order that he might be useful to his brethren.

Demetrius in his work On Men of the Same Name asserts that on the same day on which Alexander died in Babylon Diogenes died in Corinth. He was an old man in the 113th Olympiad. ^note 6.2.80

The following writings are attributed to him. Dialogues : Cephalion.

Ichthyas.

Jackdaw.

Pordalus.

The Athenian Demos.

Republic.

Art of Ethics.

On Wealth.

On Love.

Theodorus.

Hypsias.

Aristarchus.

On Death.

Letters.

Seven Tragedies :

Helen.

Thyestes.

Heracles.

Achilles.

Medea.

Chrysippus.

Oedipus.

Sosicrates in the first book of his Successions, and Satyrus in the fourth book of his Lives, allege that Diogenes left nothing in writing, and Satyrus adds that the sorry tragedies are by his friend Philiscus, the Aeginetan. Sotion in his seventh book declares that only the following are genuine works of Diogenes : On Virtue, On Good, On Love, A Mendicant, Tolmaeus, Pordalus, Casandrus, Cephalion, Philiscus, Aristarchus, Sisyphus, Ganymedes, Anecdotes, Letters.

There have been five men who were named Diogenes. The first, of Apollonia, a natural philosopher. The beginning of his treatise runs thus : "At the outset of every discourse, methinks, one should see to it that the basis laid down is unquestionable." The second - of Sicyon - who wrote an "Account of Peloponnesus." The third, our present subject. The fourth, a Stoic born at Seleucia, who is also called the Babylonian, because Seleucia is near Babylon. The fifth, of Tarsus, author of a work on poetical problems, which he attempts to solve.

Now the philosopher is said by Athenodorus in the eighth book of his Walks to have always had a sleek appearance owing to his use of unguents. ^note