He stress his yearning for freedom in VI,71 Īnd asserting that the manner of life he lived was the same as that of Heracles when he preferred liberty to everything.
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According to Diogenes Laertius in his "Life and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers" in Book VI, 69:īeing asked what was the most beautiful thing in the world, he replied: “Freedom of speech That long and strange relationship produced some of the most famous anecdotes in antiquity and since then repeated infinitely.ĭiogenes was a kind of anarchist, because he does not admit another power than his own on himself and was also a libertarian because the freedom was for him the greatest value. Now at this time I want to comment on the special relationship that Diogenes had with the most powerful person in the moment, Alexander, called the Great, Μέγας Αλέξανδρος on Greek. The study about them in some detail deserves to be dealt further. The Cynics have been mistreated by history, since ancient times, no doubt because they are anti-system and represent the anarchist thinking, the libertarian thought of antiquity: no gods, no rulers, no laws, no society, no conventions. And this, receiving it, said: " The food is cynic, but the gift is not royal." King Alexander at once fill a tray of bones and sent to Diogenes the Cynic.
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#Alexander the great diogenes full#
Then the king sent a bowl full of bones, and as it is told in the Gnomologium Vaticanum (E Codice Vatican Graeco 743), n.96 (it also is told in the Florilegium Monacense, 155 and in Eustathius to Homer, Odyssey VI 148) London: William Heinemann, New York:Putnam’s son) When Alexander asked Diogenes of Sinope, the most famous of the cynics, whom I dedicate this article, why he was called " dog" " cynic", another Diognes, now Laertius tells us in his "Lives and opinions of the philosophers, VI, 60:Īlexander once came and stood opposite him and said, " I am Alexander the great king." " And I," said he, " am Diogenes the Cynic." Being asked what he had done to be called a hound, he said, " I fawn on those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse, and I set my teeth in rascals." (Translation by R.D. resenting barking, grateful to whom gives anything, etc.
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Like dogs, the cynics live in society, but on their own, without participating in social conventions, with their life according to the animal nature, reluctant to join the group, etc. There are some philosophers, the Cynics, the dogs, from κύων kyon ' dog', who may also receive the name from the place where he taught the first founder, Antisthenes, in the gym called Cinosargos, Kyon-Argos, agile dog, although certainly the name also came given by the peculiarities of their anti ideas, which failed to be translated into an elaborate theory, but consisted of simple maxims that define life in society freely and without prejudice.
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They came then all sorts of ideas and theories about the nature and the man himself and various schools, which are often identified by the place where they met and their teachers taught their doctrines : Academics because Plato taught in the land that was property of certain Academos (see ), Peripatetics (περιπατητικοί) from περι, peri, around, and πατειν, patein, to walk, because Aristotle taught walking in a garden near the temple of, Apollo Licius, ie the Lyceum Stoics from Στωϊκός, Stoikos because Zeno preached his own disciples in the " Poikile stoa" Ποικίλη Στοά, or Painted Porch. When the Greeks, applying reason, they began to wonder what is there ?, why they are?, to what do serve the real things, they gave beginning to Philosophy.