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.

" 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.

His dates of birth and death are based on a life span of 60 years, the age at which Diogenes says he died, with the floruit in the middle.

Diogenes says that he abdicated the kingship ( basileia ) in favor of his brother and Strabo confirms that there was a ruling family in Ephesus descended from the Ionian founder, Androclus, which still kept the title and could sit in the chief seat at the games, as well as a few other privileges.

Diogenes says that Heraclitus used to play knucklebones with the youths in the temple of Artemis and when asked to start making laws he refused saying that the constitution ( politeia ) was ponêra, which can mean either that it was fundamentally wrong or that he considered it toilsome.

With regard to education, Diogenes says that Heraclitus was " wondrous " ( thaumasios, which, as Plato explains in the Theaetetus and elsewhere, is the beginning of philosophy ) from childhood.

Diogenes relates that Sotion said he was a " hearer " of Xenophanes, which contradicts Heraclitus ' statement ( so says Diogenes ) that he had taught himself by questioning himself.

" Theophrastus says ( in Diogenes ) "... some parts of his work are half-finished, while other parts make a strange medley.

" Diogenes says: " the book acquired such fame that it produced partisans of his philosophy who were called Heracliteans.

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.

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.

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.

Diogenes Laërtius says that his works filled ten volumes, but of these, only fragments remain.

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.

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.

Diogenes Laërtius says that he left behind Commentaries, which consisted of 30, 000 lines ; but of these only fragments have been preserved.

Diogenes Laërtius says that he declined to identify the Good with the Useful, and that he denied the value of the negative proposition on the ground that affirmation alone can express truth.

Diogenes Laërtius says the following works were written by Menippus:

Diogenes Laërtius, on the authority of Sotion and Panaetius, gives a long list of books whose authorship is ascribed to Aristippus, though he also says that Sosicrates of Rhodes states that he wrote nothing.

Diogenes Laërtius, on the authority of Sotion and Panaetius, provides a long list of books said to have been written by Aristippus, though he also says that Sosicrates stated that he wrote nothing.

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.

Before starting on his second expedition he had published a historical romance, The History of Robert, Second Duke of Normandy, surnamed Robert the Devil ; and he left behind him for publication Catharos Diogenes in his Singularity, a discourse on the immorality of Athens ( London ).

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.

According to Diogenes Laërtius, he wrote very few books, but left a great number of disciples.

:" 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.

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 ).

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.

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.

no: Diogenes Laertios

There are many later tales about the infamous Cynic Diogenes of Sinope dogging Antisthenes ' footsteps and becoming his faithful hound, but it is no means certain that the two men ever met.

Diogenes responds, " Strike, for you will find no wood hard enough to keep me away from you, so long as I think you've something to say.

Diogenes having nothing to do – of course no one thought of giving him a job – was moved by the sight to gather up his philosopher's cloak and begin rolling his tub energetically up and down the Craneum ; an acquaintance asked for, and got, the explanation: " I do not want to be thought the only idler in such a busy multitude ; I am rolling my tub to be like the rest.

An exile and an outcast, a man with no social identity, Diogenes made a mark on his contemporaries.

no: Diogenes fra Sinope

The anecdotes which are told of him ( there are many in Diogenes Laërtius ,) by no means give us the notion of a person who was the mere slave of his passions, but rather of one who took a pride in extracting enjoyment from all circumstances of every kind, and in controlling adversity and prosperity alike.

Although there is no hint in the original Sherlock Holmes canon that the Diogenes Club is anything but what it seems to be, several later writers have developed and made use of the idea that the club was founded as a front for the British secret service.

These works were no doubt on philosophical subjects, and Diogenes mentions On Sensations, On Inquiries, and Towards Wisdom.

According to Diogenes, Hecato divided the virtues into two kinds, those founded on scientific intellectual principles ( i. e. wisdom and justice ), and those with no such basis ( e. g., temperance and the resultant health and vigour ).

The principal object of the ambassadors, however, was to support the accusation which was brought against the deposed king Ariarathes V ; and Diogenes and his coadjutor, Miltiades, succeeded in their plan, and lies and calumnies gained the victory, as there was no one to undertake the defence of Ariarathes.

Diogenes relates a legend that Zeno was a merchant and that after surviving a shipwreck, Zeno wandered into a bookshop in Athens and was attracted to some writings about Socrates.

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.

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.

None of Diogenes ’ many writings has survived, but details of his life come in the form of anecdotes ( chreia ), especially from Diogenes Laërtius, in his book Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers.

No writings of Diogenes survived even though he is reported to have authored over ten books, a volume of letters and seven tragedies.

His numerous writings, the greater part of which he probably composed during his residence in Egypt, embraced a wide range of subjects, and the list of them given by Diogenes Laërtius shows that he was a man of the most extensive acquirements.

Most of the information we have about Epicharmus comes from the writings of Athenaeus, Suda and Diogenes Laertius, but fragments and comments come up in a host of other ancient authors as well.

Very little survives of his writings, but he is important as one of the first Cynics to adopt the practice of writing moral anecdotes ( chreiai ) about Diogenes and other Cynics.

The Cynics Diogenes of Sinope and Crates of Thebes are both supposed to have advocated anarchistic forms of society, although little remains of their writings.