The Great Conqueror expected that Diogenes would be excited to show up for the meeting. Many statesmen and philosophers also joined on the way to visit Alexander with their congratulations, souvenirs, and offerings. So, Alexander was curious to see how he was living in a tub and discoursing his honest yet peculiar thoughts. He had heard about Diogenes’s encounter with his father, King Philip II. The episode was mostly written notably in Plutarch’s Life of Alexander (at 14) and Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers (at 6.38).Īlexander the Great knew about Diogenes. The meeting of the great philosopher Diogenes and Great King Alexander is represented in an ancient marble sculpture found in the Villa Albani. But many of them are enchanted by the reminiscences of the famous encounter of Diogenes with Alexander the Great. One day, he saw a boy drinking water from his hands and realized one did not even need a cup to sustain oneself.Įccentric but still, the personality of Diogenes has appealed to great artists, painters, sculptors, writers. He owned only a simple cup which also served as a bowl for food.

He took up residence in a large wine cask (some sources claim it was an abandoned bathtub), and lived on the charity of others. It is written in Diogenes Laertius, Book 6, Chapter 23 that he got this inspiration after he watched a mouse adapting to the surroundings. When the person couldn’t find a particular home for him as per his budget and conditions, he discovered that there is no need for any conventional type of shelter. In Lives of Eminent Philosophers, it is documented that Diogenes had asked someone to find a small cottage for him to live in. They recognize their friends and receive them kindly, while those unfitted are driven away by barking.

Diogenes had high praise for the values of dogs and appreciated the fact that they could instinctively differentiate between who is a friend and who is a foe. Diogenes had roamed on the streets with a lighted lamp in his hand during the daytime to search for an honest man. His brutal honesty had got him in trouble many times. The philosopher urinated and did all types of cleansing acts in public to show his contempt for conventions. He was usually portrayed as naked, and unkempt with long hair and beard. It is clearly mentioned, Diogenes is a harsh critic of Plato, regularly disapproving of Plato’s metaphysical thoughts and theoretical ethics.

Like Antisthenes, Diogenes believed in Socrates’ philosophy and rejection of personal possessions and social status. Antisthenes had no liking for Diogenes but the pupil wouldn’t leave him and continued to believe his every word or preaching. Though Antisthenes had no liking for Diogenes, he continued to follow him and eventually forced him to accept him as his student. Diogenes was attracted by the ascetic teaching of Antisthenes, a student of Socrates, who had been present at Socrates’s death. We will never know the real truth but whatever reasons it had happened, the act had forced him to relocate to Athens.ĭiogenes was the antisocial philosopher with the guts to reject all the norms of standard society. Some believe, he was falsely embroiled in the currency scam. Mostly, it is said he had received an oracle to adulterate the coinage. The son of Hicesias, a banker it is still uncertain whether he or his father had to face the punishment of banishment for adulteration of the currencies of the country. He was born in Sinope (modern-day Sinop, Turkey), an Ionian colony on the Black Sea in 412 or 404 BCE. The exceptional nature of Diogenes’ life generates difficulty for determining the authenticity of the facts mentioned in references.

Diogenes and alexander