It takes a very special kind of person to live their entire life without giving a single shit about anything at all – being a cynic can end up being extremely hard work indeed. Many of us know this first-hand. As the online home of some of the most cynical writers I know, it thus seems extremely fitting that this week’s featured figure is the father of cynicism himself – Diogenes of Sinope.

Diogenes of Sinope

Born: 412 BCE, Sinope, Turkey

Died: 323 BCE, Corinth, Greece

Occupation: Banker, philosopher, scholar, slave, wanderer

Unlike other Greek philosophers such as Socrates and Diogenes’ contemporary, Plato, much of what we know of Diogenes’ own life story is questionable and perhaps not reliable. Diogenes is believed to have written three books on philosophy, though none of his writings have ever been found. All the same, the man lived what we would consider to be a completely crazy life, even though just about every step of it was actually incredibly calculated. Here’s the breakdown of Diogenes’ life:

• Diogenes was born in Sinope in what is now Turkey, which was a Greek colony at the time; his father Hicesius was a banker and a coin-minter. At some point, the two were embroiled in a scandal that saw them defacing Sinopian coinage, and as a result, both were banished from the city and stripped of their possessions and citizenship. Diogenes left for Athens with a man-servant/slave named Manes, who abandoned him shortly after arriving.
• Alone in Athens, he sought to study philosophy with Antisthenes, who was a student of Socrates (the famous philosopher was Diogenes’ idol). Despite getting the shit beat out of him by Antisthenes, Diogenes was determined to study with him, and eventually wore him down.
• Diogenes took Socratic ideas to an extreme degree, living his entire life in complete poverty. Diogenes is said to have lived in a barrel (which is also often described as a tub or a wine cask) outside of the temple of Cybele, and had next to no worldly possessions at all. He ate almost exclusively onions, and completely disregarded almost every social convention of Athenian society.
• Central to Diogenes’ fledgling philosophy of cynicism is the idea that wealth and social convention corrupt society, and thus it is impossible to find true happiness or wisdom if one is involved with all of these burdens. And as such, Diogenes didn’t give a single shit about what anyone thought of him, and lived his entire life in proof of his strong beliefs in his philosophy. Case in point:
  • Diogenes urinated and masturbated in public, ate in the market (considered very taboo in this day and age), and shat in the theatre. He believed that if all of these things are acceptable in private, then they should also be acceptable in public, and that the rules and regulations of society prevented people from being truly happy and wise.
  • Diogenes once wandered through Athens with a lantern burning in the middle of day, shining into the faces of passersby. When asked what he was doing, he remarked, “I am looking for an honest man.”
  • When asked about his jerking off in public, he answered, “”If only it was as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly.”
  • Diogenes lived to mercilessly taunt Plato, who described him as “a Socrates gone mad”. Diogenes hated Plato’s long-winded pretentiousness and sought to disprove his ideas at every turn.
    • Once, Plato described men as “featherless bipeds”, to which Diogenes burst in on his lecture, holding a plucked chicken. “Behold – I have Plato’s man!” he exclaimed. Plato subsequently revised his definition to include “with broad flat nails.”
    • Another time, he took some strangers, who asked him to lead them to Plato, to the most deserted part of Athens, gestured at nothing, and said “Meet the great philosopher.”
    • Plato once said to Diogenes “If you had paid your respects to Dionysus, you would not be washing lettuces now,” to which, with equal calmness Diogenes replied, “If you had washed lettuces, Plato, you would not have had to pay your respects to Dionysus.”
  • Diogenes was constantly compared to a dog – in fact, the word cynic is derived from Greek kynikos, meaning dog. Anthisthenes’ philosophy school was at the Temple of the White Dog. To further this, Diogenes was once thrown some bones by nobles having a dinner party, which he pissed on in public. He himself once remarked, “I fawn upon those who give me anything, and bark at those who give me nothing, and bite the rogues.”
  • One of the most famous stories about Diogenes involved him meeting Alexander the Great. Alexander sought out the philosopher, who was lying in the sun. Upon meeting him, he introduced himself and asked if there was anything he could do for Diogenes. Diogenes responded, “Yes. Get out of my sunlight.” Alexander was so impressed at this, he stated, “Were I not Alexander, I should wish to be Diogenes.” Diogenes responded, “Were I not Diogenes, I should also wish to be Diogenes.” A separate account of their meeting also had Diogenes in a graveyard, where he stated to Alexander, “I am looking for the bones of your father (the legendary King Philip of Macedon), but cannot distinguish them from the bones of a slave.”

• Upon seeing a peasant boy drinking out of a water trough with his hands, Diogenes threw away one of his only possessions – a wooden bowl he had used for drinking. He exclaimed, distraught, “A child has beaten me in the plainness of living!”
• My own two personal favourite Diogenes stories:
  • When asked about his choice of beverage, he once stated, “What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.”
  • Diogenes once stood outside a brothel, shouting, “A beautiful whore is like poisoned honey! A beautiful whore is like poisoned honey! A beautiful whore . . . ” Men entering the house threw him a coin or two to shut him up. Eventually Diogenes had collected enough money and he too went into the brothel.

Diogenes was captured by pirates and taken to Corinth, on the island of Peloponnese. When asked about his abilities, he replied merely, “that of governing men.” He asked that he be sold “to a man who needed a master”, and ended up with a man named Xeniades, who was apparently quite taken with his philosophical ideas and had Diogenes tutor his two children.

A final amusing story from Diogenes’ life in Corinth: when the town was besieged by the Macedonians, everyone was busy building defences – fixing walls, carrying stones, and more. Not wanting to appear idle while everyone worked frantically, Diogenes simply took his barrel and rolled it up and down the city walls while the action unfolded around him.

Diogenes died in Corinth around the age of ninety; there are a few conflicting accounts of the cause of his death. Some accounts say it was severe food poisoning from eating raw octopus or an ox’s foot; others say it was from rabies from an infected dog bite; others say he simply got bored with living and held his breath until he died. He asked that his body be thrown that wild animals could feast on him, because he felt peoples’ obsession with burial customs and traditions to be ridiculous. All the same, the ancient Corinthians erected a marble statue of a dog on his gravesite, in honour of his namesake and ideas.

It takes a bold, independent man to not give a shit about anything at all – and another thing entirely to live your entire life completely true to your own nature and beliefs. Despite the apparent insanity of his behaviour, Diogenes was beloved in both Athens and Corinth, and his philosophical ideas, while not existing in their original form today, still inspire us today through the many zany anecdotes of his life. Without a doubt, this is a man who wouldn’t give a shit either way if we thought of him as a badass or not – and in doing so, makes him doubly more so. Cheers to you, Diogenes, you crazy old bastard.

Info from here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.