Conspiracy file · Died 323 BC

Diogenes

The Greek philosopher who lived in a jar, begged for a living, mocked everyone from Plato to Alexander the Great and called himself a citizen of the world. He founded no school and none of his writing survives, but he is still the patron saint of people who refuse to play along.

Also known as Diogenes of Sinope · Diogenes the Cynic · The Dog

On the record Timeline From the comics In Paranoid American comics Sources & further reading

From Secret Mystery School #2

The story

Diogenes came from Sinope, a Greek city on the Black Sea, and left it in disgrace after a scandal over adulterated coinage, which he later turned into a motto: deface the currency. In Athens he lived in a large storage jar, owned almost nothing and set out to live by nature instead of custom. People called him the dog, kyon, which is where the word Cynic comes from.

Nearly everything we know comes from anecdotes collected by Diogenes Laertius more than five centuries later: the lamp carried in daylight "looking for a man", the request that Alexander stand out of his light, eating and worse in the marketplace. Plato reportedly called him "Socrates gone mad". He died at Corinth, by tradition on the same day as Alexander, in 323 BC.

Cynicism fed straight into Stoicism, and Diogenes became the favorite of every later writer who wanted to puncture somebody. Medicine borrowed his name too: "Diogenes syndrome", for extreme self-neglect, was coined in The Lancet in 1975, which is unfair to a man who chose his jar on purpose. In Secret Mystery School he is an Empyrean who wants nothing to do with the other Empyreans.

Memorandum for the recordSubject: Diogenes

On the record

Diogenes was born in Sinope on the Black Sea and was exiled after a scandal over adulterated coinage; Diogenes Laertius gives several versions (Lives VI.20-21).
He made his home in a large jar (a pithos) in Athens (VI.23).
Asked where he came from, he said, "I am a citizen of the world", the root of the word cosmopolitan (VI.63).
Plato is said to have called him "Socrates gone mad" (VI.54).
When the Athenians urged him to be initiated into the Mysteries, he scoffed that heroes like Agesilaus and Epaminondas would then lie in the mire while nobodies who had been initiated lived in the Isles of the Blest (VI.39).
Captured by pirates and sold as a slave, he told the auctioneer to sell him to Xeniades of Corinth: "he needs a master" (VI.74).
He died at Corinth, nearly ninety by one account, traditionally on the same day as Alexander the Great in 323 BC (VI.76-79).

The theory

Diogenes, not Plato, was Socrates' true heir; the emperor Julian defended him in 362 as a genuine follower of Apollo's command to know thyself.
Cynicism is "a short cut to virtue" that skips the schools and rituals altogether (a saying recorded by Diogenes Laertius).
The lamp is an initiate's symbol: the Hermit of the tarot, lantern in hand, is often read as Diogenes searching for an honest man.
He did not simply die of old age: Diogenes Laertius records versions in which he ate a raw octopus, was bitten by a dog or held his breath until he died.

Timeline

c. 412-404 BCDiogenes is born in Sinope
399 BCSocrates is executed in Athens
336 BCAlexander becomes king of Macedon; tradition places their meeting at Corinth around this time
323 BCAlexander dies in Babylon; Diogenes dies at Corinth, by tradition the same day
c. 300 BCZeno, a student of the Cynic Crates, founds Stoicism in Athens
3rd century ADDiogenes Laertius collects the anecdotes in his Lives of Eminent Philosophers
AD 362The emperor Julian writes in defense of Diogenes
1975The Lancet names "Diogenes syndrome"

From the comics

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From Secret Mystery School #2 · Pages 10, 15-16

The Cynic

Lost in the ether, the group lands in Corinth instead of Delphi, in a temple guarded by dogs. Their host turns out to be Diogenes, who has no use for glowing eyes, titles or helping anyone: about as faithful to the historical Cynic as a comic can get.

Corinth is where Diogenes spent his last years and died, at the Craneum gymnasium outside the city. Corinth also had a real Temple of Apollo, built around 540 BC; seven of its columns still stand.
All in the ancient anecdotes. Diogenes Laertius says he ate in the marketplace and did "everything in public, the works of Demeter and of Aphrodite alike", and defended both as natural.
Kyon, "dog", was the insult that became the name: Cynic comes from kynikos, "dog-like". Diogenes took it as a compliment: "I fawn on those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse."

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