[From the very beautiful little bust in the Florence Gallery. He wears the “strophium” as a mark of his great honours. This bust possesses a great claim to authenticity, on account of the name being deeply cut upon it in Greek letters of the antique form. There is a similar bust in the Naples Museum, of the same size, and inscribed with the name of Plato.]
17. Antisthenes. Philosopher.
[Date and place of birth unknown. Died at Athens. Aged 70.]
He is the founder of the Cynic philosophy and flourished about B.C. 375. He taught the love of poverty and labour, the renunciation of all the pleasures and conveniences of life, and contempt for everything but virtue, in which only he allowed true happiness to consist. It is said that Antisthenes left more books than scholars. But Socrates was his friend and Diogenes his pupil. His countenance did credit to his creed: it was severe, and looked the more terrible from his dishevelled hair and hanging beard. He taught in the Gymnasium at Athens, called Cynosarges; and hence the name of his school—the Cynic.
[From the marble in the Vatican. It was found in the ruins of Hadrian’s Villa, and is of great beauty. It resembles another bust in the Vatican, which was found in the villa of Cassius at Tivoli, but which is of less merit, except that it bears his name. The portrait agrees precisely with the descriptions given of Antisthenes by the ancients.]
18. Diogenes. Philosopher.
[Born at Sinope, in Asia Minor, about B.C. 412. Died at Corinth, B.C. 323 or 324. Aged 90.]
Having been detected with his father, a banker, in some dishonest transaction, Diogenes went to Athens, where he became the pupil of Antisthenes, and adopted the Cynic philosophy. He carried his contempt for riches and the usages of society to an extravagant excess. He subsisted on charity, and slept where he could. Some doubt is thrown upon the story of his living in a tub. He said that all the vicissitudes of fortune which constitute tragedy, had been realized in him, but that patience had raised him above them all. When advanced in years he was taken by pirates to Crete, and there sold as a slave. Regaining his freedom, he revisited Athens and Corinth, and in the last-named city had his memorable interview with Alexander the Great. He inculcated morality, but despised intellectual pursuits. His disposition was kind and humorous, though his statue has an acute and caustic countenance.
[From the marble in the Sala delle Muse of the Vatican. It is verified by its close resemblance to the head of a little statue in the Villa Albani at Rome, representing the Cynic perfectly nude, and accompanied by his dog. It is said that he sometimes appeared in the streets in this state, after having anointed his body, a piece of eccentricity that gave rise to the joke of Juvenal, that the Stoics differed from the Cynics only in the shirt, “tunicâ tantum.” There is in the Villa Albani an antique bas-relief representing Alexander the Great standing before the Cynic in his tub.]
19. Demosthenes. Greek Orator.