The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers Diogenes Laërtius (first ebook reader .TXT) 📖

A purple death, and mighty fate overtook him.69

When Craterus entreated him to come and visit him, he said: “I would rather lick up salt at Athens than enjoy a luxurious table with Craterus.” On one occasion, he met Anaximenes the orator, who was a fat man, and thus accosted him: “Pray give us, who are poor, some of your belly; for by so doing you will be relieved yourself, and you will assist us.” And once, when he was discussing some point, Diogenes held up a piece of salt fish, and drew off the attention of his hearers; and as Anaximenes was indignant at this, he said: “See, one pennyworth of salt fish has put an end to the lecture of Anaximenes.” Being once reproached for eating in the marketplace, he made answer: “I did, for it was in the marketplace that I was hungry.” Some authors also attribute the following repartee to him. Plato saw him washing vegetables, and so, coming up to him, he quietly accosted him thus: “If you had paid court to Dionysius, you would not have been washing vegetables.”⁠—“And,” he replied, with equal quietness, “if you had washed vegetables, you would never have paid court to Dionysius.” When a man said to him once: “Most people laugh at you;”⁠—“And very likely,” he replied, “the asses laugh at them; but they do not regard the asses, neither do I regard them.” Once he saw a youth studying philosophy, and said to him: “Well done; inasmuch as you are leading those who admire your person to contemplate the beauty of your mind.”

A certain person was admiring the offerings in the temple at Samothrace,70 and he said to him: “They would have been much more numerous if those who were lost had offered them instead of those who were saved;” but some attribute this speech to Diagoras the Melian. Once he saw a handsome youth going to a banquet, and said to him: “You will come back worse (χείρων);” and when he the next day after the banquet said to him, “I have left the banquet, and was no worse for it;” he replied, “You were not Chiron, but Eurytion.”71 He was begging once of a very ill-tempered man, and as he said to him: “If you can persuade me, I will give you something;” he replied: “If I could persuade you, I would beg you to hang yourself.” He was on one occasion returning from Lacedaemon to Athens, and when someone asked him: “Whither are you going, and whence do you come?” he said: “I am going from the men’s apartments to the women’s.” Another time he was returning from the Olympic games, and when someone asked him whether there had been a great multitude there, he said: “A great multitude, but very few men.” He used to say that debauched men resembled figs growing on a precipice, the fruit of which is not tasted by men, but devoured by crows and vultures. When Phryne had dedicated a golden statue of Venus at Delphi, he wrote upon it: “From the profligacy of the Greeks.”

Once Alexander the Great came and stood by him, and said: “I am Alexander, the great king.”⁠—“And I,” said he, “am Diogenes the dog.” And when he was asked to what actions of his it was owing that he was called a dog, he said: “Because I fawn upon those who give me anything, and bark at those who give me nothing, and bite the rogues.” On one occasion he was gathering some of the fruit of a fig-tree, and when the man who was guarding it told him a man hung himself on this tree the other day: “I, then,” said he, “will now purify it.” Once he saw a man who had been a conqueror at the Olympic games looking very often at a courtesan: “Look,” said he, “at that warlike ram, who is taken prisoner by the first girl he meets.” One of his sayings was, that good-looking courtesans were like poisoned mead.

On one occasion he was eating his dinner in the marketplace, and the bystanders kept constantly calling out “Dog;” but he said: “It is you who are the dogs, who stand around me while I am at dinner.” When two effeminate fellows were getting out of his way, he said: “Do not be afraid, a dog does not eat beetroot.” Being once asked about a debauched boy, as to what country he came from, he said: “He is a Tegean.”72 Seeing an unskillful wrestler professing to heal a man he said: “What are you about, are you in hopes now to overthrow those who formerly conquered you?” On one occasion he saw the son of a courtesan throwing a stone at a crowd, and said to him: “Take care, lest you hit your father.” When a boy showed him a sword that he had received from one to whom he had done some discreditable service, he told him: “The sword is a good sword, but the handle is infamous.” And when some people were praising a man who had given him something, he said to them: “And do not you praise me who was worthy to receive it?” He was asked by someone to give him back his cloak, but he replied: “If you gave it me, it is mine; and if you only lent it me, I am using it.” A supposititious son (ὑποβολιμαῖος) of somebody once said to him that he had gold in his cloak: “No doubt,” said he, “that is the very reason why I sleep with it under my head (ὑποβεβλημένος).” When he was asked what advantage he had derived from philosophy, he replied: “If no other, at least this, that I am prepared for every kind of fortune.” The question was put to him what