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 quoting Cleanthes ; quoted also by Seneca, Epistle 107.

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.

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.

The first two comprise entirely his Syntagma philosophicum ; the third contains his critical writings on Epicurus, Aristotle, Descartes, Robert Fludd and Herbert of Cherbury, with some occasional pieces on certain problems of physics ; the fourth, his Institutio astronomica, and his Commentarii de rebus celestibus ; the fifth, his commentary on the tenth book of Diogenes Laërtius, the biographies of Epicurus, Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, Tycho Brahe, Nicolaus Copernicus, Georg von Peuerbach, and Regiomontanus, with some tracts on the value of ancient money, on the Roman calendar, and on the theory of music, with an appended large and prolix piece entitled Notitia ecclesiae Diniensis ; the sixth volume contains his correspondence.

The main source for the life of Heraclitus is Diogenes Laërtius, although some have questioned the validity of his account as " a tissue of Hellenistic anecdotes, most of them obviously fabricated on the basis of statements in the preserved fragments.

Another ancient source is Diogenes of Oenoanda, who composed a large inscription at Oenoanda in Lycia.

On the other hand, modern scholars advise that we treat Diogenes ' testimonia with care, especially when he fails to cite his sources: " Diogenes has acquired an importance out of all proportion to his merits because the loss of many primary sources and of the earlier secondary compilations has accidentally left him the chief continuous source for the history of Greek philosophy.

According to Diogenes Laertius, he forged plays under the name of Thespis, and according to the same author, this time drawing from a different source, Dionysius the Deserter composed plays and forged them under the name of Sophocles.

Diogenes Laërtius tells of other stories involving Xanthippe's supposed abusiveness, but he does not cite any source for them.

Later writers, such as Diogenes Laërtius who cite Aristotle as the earliest source, say that Socrates had a second wife called Myrto.

Diogenes, like Anaximenes, believed air to be the one source of all being, and all other substances to be derived from it by condensation and rarefaction.

In addition, Athenaeus mentions works called Symposium and Arcesilaus, and Diogenes Laërtius mentions a Sale of Diogenes () written by Menippus which seems to be the main source of the story that Diogenes of Sinope was captured by pirates and sold into slavery.

The report about his sudden fits of anger, his greed, and his debauchery, are probably derived from a very impure source: Athenaeus and Diogenes Laërtius can adduce as authority for them scarcely anything more than the abuse in some spurious letters of Dionysius the Younger, who was banished by Dion, with the cooperation of Speusippus.

Our only source for the actual numbers of these votes is Diogenes Laertius, who says that 80 more voted for the death sentence than had voted for Socrates ' guilt in the first place ( 2. 42 ); but the details of this account have been disputed.

The main extant source on his views is the brief summary by Diogenes Laërtius.

Eventually a merchant named Diogenes reported that he had traveled inland from Rhapta in East Africa for twenty-five days and had found the source of Nile.

Today known as the Rwenzori Mountains, the peaks are the source of some of the Nile's waters, but only a small fraction, and Diogenes would have crossed the Victoria Nile to reach them.

Diogenes further describes this river as having its source near the Mountains of the Moon, near the swamp whence the Nile was said to also have its source.

On the other hand, modern scholars have advised that we treat Diogenes ' testimonia with care, especially when he fails to cite his sources: " Diogenes has acquired an importance out of all proportion to his merits because the loss of many primary sources and of the earlier secondary compilations has accidentally left him the chief continuous source for the history of Greek philosophy.

Graetz and others, using 5 Maccabees as their source, identified Diogenes as a Sadducee.

In modern literature, Cockney rhyming slang is used frequently in the novels and short stories of Kim Newman, for instance in the short story collections " The Man from the Diogenes Club " ( 2006 ) and " Secret Files of the Diogenes Club " ( 2007 ), where it is explained at the end of each book.

Mycroft is described as even more gifted than Sherlock in matters of observation and deduction, but he lacks Sherlock's drive and energy, preferring to spend his time at ease in the Diogenes Club, described as " a club for the most un-clubbable men in London ".

A plausible chronology for his life is as follows: He was born 334 / 3 BC, and came to Athens in 312 / 11 BC at the age of 22 ( Diogenes Laërtius, vii.

He studied philosophy for about 10 years ( Diogenes Laërtius, vii.

In 1067, he had been considered as a possible husband for the empress Eudokia Makrembolitissa, widowed wife of Constantine X, but she eventually set her heart on Romanos IV Diogenes.

" Diogenes in his barrel and Crates of Thebes who gives up wealth for virtue.

* Antonius Diogenes ( 2nd century BC ), A Greek romance writer, most notable for his work The Wonders of Thule

* Diogenes syndrome, a misnomer for a mental disorder

But for them, we should be without the most important fragments of the writings of the Eleatics, of Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Diogenes of Apollonia, and others, which were at that time already very scarce, as well as without many extracts from the lost books of Aristotle, Theophrastus and Eudemus: but for them we should hardly be able to unriddle the doctrine of the Categories, so important for the system of the Stoics.

While tending his father's sheep, he is said to have fallen asleep for fifty-seven years in a Cretan cave sacred to Zeus, after which he reportedly awoke with the gift of prophecy ( Diogenes Laertius i. 109 – 115 ).

Antisthenes certainly adopted a rigorous ascetic lifestyle, and he developed many of the principles of Cynic philosophy which became an inspiration for Diogenes and later Cynics.

Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for thirty-five years, and died at the age of eighty-five according to Diogenes.