A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

DIOGENES.
DI0 GENES APOLLONIA'TES (AitoY*vs d6
AiroAAWVcoiLdr), an eminent natural philosopher,
who lived in the fifth century B. c. He was a
native of Apollonia in Crete, his father's name was
Apollothemis, and he was a pupil of Anaximenes.
Nothing is known of the events of his life, except
that he was once at Athens, and there got into
trouble from some unknown cause, which is conjectured to have been the supposition that his philosophical opinions were dangerous to the religion of
the state. (Diog. Laert. ix. ~ 57.) He wrote a
work in the Ionic dialect, entitled UIepl 4dorecs,
" On Nature," which consisted of at least two
books, and in which he appears to have treated of
physical science in the largest sense of the words.
Of this work only a few short fragments remain,
preserved by Aristotle, Diogenes Laertius, and
Simplicius. The longest of these is that which is
inserted by Aristotle in the third book of his History of Animals, and which contains an interesting
description of the origin and distribution of the
veins. The following is the account of his philosophical opinions given by Diogenes Laertius:-" He
maintained that air was the primal element of all
things; that there was an infinite number of
worlds, and an infinite void; that air, densified
and rarified, produced the different members of the
universe; that nothing was produced from nothing,
or was reduced to nothing; that the earth was
round, supported in the middle, and had received
its shape from the whirling round of the warm
vapours, and its concretion and hardening from
cold." The last paragraph, which is extremely obscure in the original, has been translated according
to Panzerbeiter's explanation, not as being entirely
satisfactory, but as being the best that has hitherto
been proposed. Diogenes also imputed to air an
intellectual energy, though without recognizing any
distinction between mind and matter. The fragments of Diogenes have been collected and published, with those of Anaxagoras, by Schorn, Bonn,
1829, 8vo; and alone by Panzerbeiter, Lips. 1830,
8vo, with a copious dissertation on his philosophy.
Further information concerning him may be found
in Harles's edition of Fabricii, Biblioth. Graeca, vol.
ii.; Bayle'sDict. Hist. et Grit.; Schleiermacher, in
the Memoirs of the Berlin Academy for 1815; and
in the different Histories of Philosophy. Somenotices
of his date by Mr. Clinton are given in an article
"On the Early Ionic Philosophers," in the first volume of the Philological Museum. [W. A. G.]
DIO'GENES (AtoyedVns), a CYNIC of Sinope in
Poiitus, born about B. c. 412. His father was a
banker named Icesias or Icetas, who was convicted
of some swindling transaction, in consequence of
which Diogenes quitted Sinope and went to Athens.
IHis youth is said to have been spent in dissolute
extravagance; but at Athens his attention was
arrested by the character of Antisthenes, who at
first drove him away, as he did all others who
offered themselves as his pupils. [ANTISTHENES.]
Diogenes, however, could not be prevented from
attending him even by blows, but told him that
he would find no stick hard enough to keep him
away. Antisthenes at last relented, and his pupil
soon plunged into the most frantic excesses of
austerity and moroseness, and into practices not
unlike those of the modern Trappists, or Indian
gymnosophists. In summer he used to roll in hot
sand, and in winter to embrace statues covered
with snow; he wore coarse clothing, lived on the

DIOGENES. 1021

plainest food, and sometimes on raw meat (comp.
Julian, Orat. vi.), slept in porticoes or in the street,
and finally, according to the common story, took
up his residence in a tub belonging to the Metroum,
or temple of the Mother of the Gods. The truth
of this latter tale has, however, been reasonably
disputed. The chief direct authorities for it are
Seneca (Ep. 99), Lucian (Quomodo Conscr. Hlist.
ii. p. 364), Diogenes La'rtius (vi. 23), and the
incidental allusion to it in Juvenal (xiv. 308, &c.),
who says, Alexander testa vidit in illa magnum
habitatorem, and Dolia nudi non ardent Cynici.
Besides these, Aristophanes (Equit. 789), speaks
of the Athenian poor as living, during the stress of
the Peloponnesian war, in cellars, tubs (rnOdmic'cats),
and similar dwellings. To these arguments is opposed the fact, that Plutarch, Arrian, Cicero, and
Valerius Maximus, though they speak of Diogenes
basking in the sun, do not allude at all to the
tub; but more particularly that Epictetus (ap.
Arrian. iii. 24), in giving a long and careful account
of his mode of life, says nothing about it. The
great combatants on this subject in modern times
are, against the tub, Heumann (Act. Philosoph. vol.
ii. p. 58), and for it, Hase, whose dissertation do
Doliari H-abitatione Diogenis Cynici, was published
by his rival. (Paecil. vol. i. lib. iv. p. 586.) The
story of the tub goes on to say that the Athenians
voted the repair of this earthenware habitation
when it was broken by a mischievous urchin.
Lucian, in telling this anecdote, appeals to certain
spurious epistles, falsely attributed to Diogenes.
In spite of his strange eccentricities, Diogenes appears to have been much respected at Athens, and
to have been privileged to rebuke anything of
which he disapproved with the utmost possible
licence of expression. He seems to have ridiculed
and despised all intellectual pursuits which did
not directly and obviously tend to some immediate
practical good. He abused literary men for reading about the evils of Ulysses, and neglecting their
own; musicians for stringing the lyre harmoniously
while they left their minds discordant; men of
science for troubling themselves about the moon
and stars, while they neglected what lay immediately before them; orators for learning to say
what was right, but not to practise it. Various
sarcastic sayings of the same kind are handed
down as his, generally shewing that unwise contempt for the common opinions and pursuits of
men, which is so unlikely to reform them.
The removal of Diogenes from Athens was the
result of a voyage to Aegina, in the course of
which the ship was taken by pirates, and Diogenes
carried to Crete to be sold as a slave. Here when
he was asked what business he understood, he
answered " How to command men," and he begged
to be sold to some one who needed a ruler. Such
a purchaser was found in the person of Xeniades
of Corinth, over whom he acquired such unbounded
influence, that lie soon received from him his freedom, was entrusted with the care of his children,
and passed his old age in his house. During his
residence among them his celebrated interview
with Alexander the Great is said to have taken
place. The conversation between them is reported
to have begun by the king's saying, " I am Alexander the Great," to which the philosopher replied,
"And I am Diogenes the Cynic." Alexander
then asked whether he could oblige him in any
way, and received no answer except " Yes, you