The first nine probably date from the 3rd century BC, they are usually included among the Cynic epistles, and reflect how the Cynic philosophers viewed him as prefiguring many of their ideas ; the tenth letter is quoted by Diogenes Laertius, it is addressed to Croesus, the proverbially rich king of Lydia, it too is fictitious:

:" He marvelled that among the Greeks, those who were skillful in a thing vie in competition ; those who have no skill, judge " — Diogenes Laertius, of Anacharsis.

v. 32 ; Diogenes Laertius i. 101-5 ; Athenaeus, iv.

According to Diogenes Laertius and Plutarch he fled to Lampsacus due to a backlash against his pupil Pericles.

Diogenes Laertius reports the story that he was prosecuted by Cleon for impiety, but Plutarch says that Pericles sent his former tutor, Anaxagoras, to Lampsacus for his own safety after the Athenians began to blame him for the Peloponnesian war.

According to Diogenes Laertius, in response to Alexander's claim to have been the son of Zeus-Ammon, Anaxarchus pointed to his bleeding wound and remarked, " See the blood of a mortal, not ichor, such as flows from the veins of the immortal gods.

" Diogenes Laertius also says that Nicocreon, the tyrant of Cyprus, commanded him to be pounded to death in a mortar, and that he endured this torture with fortitude and Cicero relates the same story.

The only surviving complete works by Epicurus are three letters, which are to be found in book X of Diogenes Laertius ' Lives of Eminent Philosophers, and two groups of quotes: the Principal Doctrines, reported as well in Diogenes ' book X, and the Vatican Sayings, preserved in a manuscript from the Vatican Library.

Epicurus ' cheerful demeanor, as he continued to work despite dying from a painful stone blockage of his urinary tract lasting a fortnight, according to his successor Hermarchus and reported by his biographer Diogenes Laertius, further enhanced his status among his followers.

Diogenes Laertius states that Xenophon was sometimes known as the " Attic Muse " for the sweetness of his diction ; very few poets wrote in the Attic dialect.

Diogenes Laertius, a fourth source for information about Zeno and his teachings, citing Favorinus, says that Zeno's teacher Parmenides was the first to introduce the Achilles and the Tortoise Argument.

By the 16th century, the works of Diogenes Laertius were being printed in Europe.

Epicurus ' philosophy of the physical world is found in his Letter to Herodotus: Diogenes Laertius 10. 34-83.

The subject of this type evidently refers to a story related by Diogenes Laertius that the Selinuntines were afflicted with a pestilence from the marshy character of the lands adjoining the neighboring river, but that this was cured by works of drainage, suggested by Empedocles.

In comparison, Socrates accepted no fee, instead professed a self-effacing posture, which he exemplified by Socratic questioning ( i. e. the Socratic method, although Diogenes Laertius wrote that Protagoras — a sophist — invented the " Socratic " method ).

According to Diogenes Laertius, he had a brother named Dropidas and was an ancestor ( six generations removed ) of Plato.

The passage in which the above occurs has been described as " elaborately ironical ", making it unclear which of its aspects may be taken seriously, although Diogenes Laertius later confirms that there were indeed seven such individuals who were held in high esteem for their wisdom well before Plato's time.

Diogenes Laertius further states that Dicaearchus gave ten possible names, Hippobotus suggested twelve names, and Hermippus enumerated seventeen possible sages from which different people made different selections of seven.

Unlike with Aristotle, we have no complete works by the Megarians or the early Stoics, and have to rely mostly on accounts ( sometimes hostile ) by later sources, including prominently Diogenes Laertius, Sextus Empiricus, Galen, Aulus Gellius, Alexander of Aphrodisias and Cicero.

Diogenes Laertius says Pythagoras died in a fire in Milo's house, but Dicaearchus says Pythagoras died in the temple of the Muses at Metapontum of self-imposed starvation.

Diogenes Laertius, after quoting a famous epigram by Cleobulus ( one of ancient Greece's ' seven sages ') in which a maiden sculptured on a tomb is imagined to proclaim her eternal vigilance, quotes Simonides commenting on it in a poem of his own: Stone is broken even by mortal hands.

The biographical notices, the author avers, are condensed from the Onomatologion or Pinax of Hesychius of Miletus ; other sources were the excerpts of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the chronicle of Georgius Monachus, the biographies of Diogenes Laertius and the works of Athenaeus and Philostratus.

Diogenes Laertius (;, Diogenēs Laertios ; fl.

Diogenes Laertius, quoting from Apollodorus of Athens, says that Pyrrho was at first a painter, and that pictures by him were exhibited in the gymnasium at Elis.

Some other examples of his bitter sarcasms are recorded by Diogenes ; one of which is worth quoting as a maxim in criticism: being asked by Aratus how to obtain the pure text of Homer, he replied, " If we could find the old copies, and not those with modern emendations.

Diogenes Laërtius says that, like his successor Lacydes, he died of excessive drinking, but the testimony of others ( e. g. Cleanthes ) and his own precepts discredit the story, and he is known to have been much respected by the Athenians.

He must have resided at some time in Athens, since Diogenes Laërtius tells us ( vii. 5, 4 ) that he attacked the Stoic Cleanthes on the stage, and was hissed off by the audience.

Between 1424 and 1433 he worked on the translation of the Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius, which came to be widely circulated in manuscript form and was published at Rome in 1472 ( the first printed edition of the Lives ; the Greek text was printed only in 1533 ).

About the spiritual theology of Austin Farrer ; includes chapter on " Farrer's Spirituality " by Diogenes Allen.

On Diogenes ' first list of seven, which he introduces with the words " These men are acknowledged wise ," Periander appears instead of Myson ; the same substitution appears in The Masque of the Seven Sages by Ausonius.

He was struck with horror, along with many other Romans of the graver stamp, at the licence of the Bacchanalian mysteries, which he attributed to the influence of Greek manners ; and he vehemently urged the dismissal of the philosophers ( Carneades, Diogenes, and Critolaus ), who came as ambassadors from Athens, on account of the dangerous nature of the views expressed by them.

Diogenes Laërtius preserves several different accounts of this story ; one of them has Crates giving his money away to the citizens of Thebes, apparently after seeing the beggar king Telephus in a tragedy ; whereas another account has him placing his money in the hands of a banker, with the agreement that he should deliver it to his sons, unless they too became philosophers, in which case he should distribute it among the poor.

He moved to Athens where tradition says he became a pupil of Diogenes of Sinope ; the precise relationship between Crates and Diogenes is uncertain, but there is one apparent reference to Crates referring to himself as " a fellow-citizen of Diogenes, who defied all the plots of envy.

Crates wrote a book of letters on philosophical subjects, the style of which is compared by Diogenes Laërtius to that of Plato ; but these no longer survive.

Diogenes treats his subject in two divisions which he describes as the Ionian and the Italian schools ; the division is somewhat dubious and appears to be drawn from the lost doxography of Sotion.

Likewise we find mention of monographs of Theophrastus on the early Greek philosophers Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Archelaus, Diogenes of Apollonia, Democritus, which were made use of by Simplicius ; and also on Xenocrates, against the Academics, and a sketch of the political doctrine of Plato.

He played a decisive political role in the transition of power from Michael VI to Isaac I Komnenos in 1057 ; then from Isaac Komnenos to Constantine X Doukas ( 1059 ); and then again from Romanos IV Diogenes to Michael VII Doukas ( 1071 ).

In an episode of In our time broadcast on Thu, 20 Oct 2005, 21: 30 on BBC Radio 4, Angie Hobbs, Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Warwick ; Miriam Griffin, Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford ; and John Moles, Professor of Latin, University of Newcastle discussed with Melvyn Bragg the idea that Antisthenes and Diogenes in ancient Greece practiced a form of performance art and that they acquired the epithet of cynic which means " dog " due to Diogenes behaving repeatedly like a dog in his performances.

* Diocles of Magnesia, Greek writer on ancient philosophers quoted many times by Diogenes Laertius

A saying by Diogenes of Sinope as quoted by Diogenes Laertius, indicates the high level of votive offering in Ancient Greece:

The letter quoted by Diogenes Laertius, in which Cleobulus invites Solon to Lindus as a democratic place of refuge from the tyrant Peisistratus in Athens, is undoubtably a later forgery.

A fairly full account of Timon's life was given by Diogenes Laërtius, from the first book of a work on the Silloi by Apollonides of Nicaea ; and some particulars are quoted by Diogenes from Antigonus of Carystus, and from Sotion.