An Excess of Infamy

The book that I am blogging a couple paragraphs at a time is Diogenes of Sinope by Farrand Sayre. It is in the Public Domain. Sayre is not an unqualified supporter of the Cynics, as can be seen from these two paragraphs.

The Cynic freedom of speech extended to the character of language used. Philodemus says, "It pleases these dreadful men to adopt the life of dogs, and they make open and unrestrained use of all kinds of words" (On the Stoics). Clement of Alexandria says that a tragedy attributed to Diogenes was expressed in foul language (Stromata 2, 20). Julian writes; "Now as for the tragedies ascribed to Diogenes, which are, and are admitted to be, the composition of some Cynic ... what reader of these would not abhor them, and find in them an excess of infamy" (7, 210; cf. Apuleius, Apologia 9). "Melanthius, as it is said, being asked his opinion concerning a tragedy of Diogenes, made answer that the words intercepted his view of it" (Plutarch, Concerning Hearing).

Epictetus describes the ordinary conception of the Cynics of his time; "I will take a little bag and a staff and I will go about and begin to beg and to abuse those whom I meet; and if I see any man plucking the hair out of his body, I will rebuke him, or if he has dressed his hair, or if he walks about in purple… Their (Cynics') characteristic is the little wallet and staff and great jaws, the devouring all that you give them or storing it up or the abusing unseasonably all whom they meet" (Arrian 3, 22, 10-50). Lucian says of the Cynics, "They spoil the wine with unwelcome and untimely disquisitions" (The Fisher). Seneca says; "One must not talk to a man unless he is willing to listen. That is why it is often doubted whether Diogenes and the other Cynics, who employed an undiscriminating freedom of speech, ought to have pursued such a plan" (Epist. Mor. 19, 1).

Image: Clement of Alexandria by André Thévet, 16th Century
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

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