DL 6. 96–8
Hipparchia came under the Cynics’ spell. She was captivated by Crates’ talk and behaviour. The wealth, birth and personal charm of conventional suitors had no appeal for her; Crates was her all in all. She even threatened her parents with suicide if they would not permit her to marry him. At their urging, Crates did everything he could to put the girl off but without success. He finally planted himself in front of her and disrobed. ‘Here is your husband,’ he said, ‘and here is all he owns. So consider carefully, because you cannot be my partner unless you are prepared to adopt my ways.’
The girl made her choice in his favour. Assuming Cynic attire, she went around with him in public, even accompanying him to private dinners. In fact, this is how she came to be present at a party given by one Lysimachus. Theodorus, the notorious atheist, was also present, and she posed the following sophism to him. ‘Anything Theodorus is allowed, Hipparchia should be allowed to do also. Now if Theodorus hits himself he commits no crime. Neither does Hipparchia do wrong, then, in hitting Theodorus.’ At a loss to refute the argument, Theodorus tried separating her from the source of her brashness, the Cynic double cloak. Hipparchia, however, showed no signs of a woman’s alarm or timidity. Later he quoted at her lines from The Bacchae of Euripides: ‘Is this she who abandoned the web and woman’s work?’ ‘Yes,’ Hipparchia promptly came back, ‘it is I. But don’t suppose for a moment that I regret the time I spend improving my mind instead of squatting by a loom.’
ANTIPATER OF SIDON, ANTH. PAL. 7. 413
Instead of the role of a fashionably dressed woman, I, Hipparchia, chose the Cynics’ uniquely demanding way of life. I don’t care for shawls secured with clasps, high-heeled leather shoes, or fancy fillets to hold my hair in place. Supplied with barley meal, supported by my staff, with my doubled cloak that serves for dress by day, as bedding on the rocky ground at night, I outdo Atalanta of Arcadia, in so far as wisdom outclasses a knack for nimbly negotiating mountain terrain.
BION
Reading Bion, we can see how, as a school of philosophy, Cynicism evolved, or devolved, into the modern, lower-case epithet ‘cynical’. What sentiments survive under his name give no hint of a reforming spirit; at times they call to the mind the world-weary epigrams of La Rochefoucauld or the Nietzsche of Human, All Too Human. But his literary talent and influence show that he was not a pessimist with nothing to contribute but a talent for churlish humour. He is one of the Cynics’ most gifted writers, especially in the creation of apposite metaphors, as evidenced in the fragments below and in the examples credited to him by Teles.
DL 4. 46–53
Bion was by birth a citizen of Borysthenes. Who his parents were, and what his circumstances were like before he turned philosopher, he personally described to Antigonus in plain and honest terms. For when Antigonus put to him the line from Homer: ‘Who among men are you, and from where? What is your city and who are your parents?’ Bion, knowing that the king had already heard unflattering things about him, replied, ‘My father was a freedman who wiped his nose on his sleeve — which is to say, he was a dealer in salt fish — and a native of Borysthenes. He was a man of no distinction unless you count the marks on his face, tokens of his master’s cruelty. As for my mother, she was exactly the sort of woman you would expect a man like my father to marry: they met in a whorehouse. Then the whole lot of us were sold into slavery when my father engaged in a bit of embezzling. My relative youth and good looks helped me find an owner in the form of an orator, who left me everything when he died.
‘I burnt his books, scratched together all I could, came to Athens and took up the study of philosophy. And now you know all about my glorious family background and social circumstances. So it’s time Persaeus and Philonides stopped telling stories about me and you judged me for yourself.’
To be frank, Bion was in many respects a shifty character and wily sophist. He provided the enemies of philosophy with plenty of ammunition. On occasion he could act superior and indulge in arrogant behaviour. But he left behind many memoirs and useful sayings. Being once asked who suffers most from anxiety, he replied, ‘Whoever is most ambitious to succeed.’ Asked if it was wise to marry, he answered, ‘If your wife is ugly you’ll be swearing, if she’s pretty you’ll be sharing.’
He called old age life’s harbour from troubles; everyone, after all, takes refuge there. Fame he called the mother of misery; beauty, he said, only benefited others; and money was the glue that held society together. A spendthrift had gone through his entire patrimony, his lands included. ‘The earth devoured Amphiaraus,’ Bion said to him, ‘but you have succeeded in devouring the earth.’ In his view, not being able to bear with misfortune was a misfortune in itself.
He often said that it was better to share one’s youth and beauty with others than to take pleasure in the charms of someone else, because the latter habit spelled the ruin of not just the body but the soul. He even criticized Socrates, saying that if he was drawn to Alcibiades but abstained from sex with him he was a fool; and if he was not attracted to him then there was nothing remarkable in his restraint.
The journey to Hades, he used to say, was an easy one; men did it with their eyes closed. He criticized Alcibiades because as a boy he drew husbands away from their wives, and as a young man stole wives away from their husbands. When the Athenians were absorbed in the practice of rhetoric, he taught philosophy at Rhodes. To someone who faulted him for this, he replied, ‘I have a supply of barley; am I then to try and trade in wheat?’
He would say that a worse punishment for the Danaids in Hades would have been to make their vessels sound instead of full of holes and leaky. To a chatty young man who pestered him for favours, he said, ‘I will oblige you but only if you send friends to plead your case so that I won’t have to deal with you face to face any more.’ Self-satisfaction he called an obstacle to progress. There was a rich man who worried over every penny. ‘He does not own a fortune,’ he observed, ‘his fortune owns him.’ Also: ‘Misers of this sort watch over their property as if it were their own, but it may as well belong to others for all the good it does them.’ And, ‘Young men have courage enough, but knowing when to pick one’s battles only comes with age.’
He said that good sense surpassed the other virtues as much as sight excels the other senses. And we should not malign old age considering we all hope to reach it. A notorious misanthrope had a particularly black look one day. ‘I don’t know whether you have met with bad luck,’ he said to him, ‘or a neighbour with good.’ According to him, low birth was inimical to free speech, ‘Because it humbles a man, however bold he is by nature.’
Know well the characters of your friends, he urged, to avoid the reputation of keeping company with lowlifes, or miss the chance to associate with people worthy of your time. When he first turned to philosophy, he studied the doctrines of the Academy, even while attending Crates’ lectures. Then he devoted himself to the Cynic discipline, putting on the cloak and satchel; for how better to achieve the ideal of serenity and self-possession? For a time he subscribed to the views of Theodorus the atheist, seduced by the mass of sophistic arguments that filled his lectures. After his Theodorean phase he attended the talks of Theophrastus the Peripatetic.
He had nothing but scorn for music and mathematics. He lived extravagantly, and for this reason he would move from one city to another, sometimes contriving to make a great show. Thus at Rhodes he persuaded the sailors to put on students’ garb and follow in his train. And when, attended by them, he made his way into the gymnasium, all eyes soon were on him. It was his custom also to adopt certain young men for the gratification of his appetite and in order to be protected by their goodwill. He was quite the egotist and attached great importance to the maxim that ‘friends share everything in common’.
Hence it happened that not a single pupil out of all who attended his lectures became his disciple. And yet there were some who followed his lead in shamelessness. Betion, for instance, one of his int
imates, is said to have once addressed Menedemus in these words: ‘For my part, Menedemus, I pass the night with Bion, and don’t think I am any the worse for it.’ In private conversation he would often promote fiercely atheistic views, the fruits of his association with Theodorus. Afterwards, when he fell ill (so it was said by the people of Chalcis, where he died), he was persuaded to wear an amulet and to repent of his blasphemies against religion. With no one to care for him, his suffering was appalling until Antigonus sent him two attendants. And Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History reports that the king himself joined his cortège carried in a litter.
Abbreviations
Ad Lucil. epist. Ad Lucilium epistulae
Anth. Pal. Anthologia Palatina or Palatine Anthology
Arist. Rh. Aristotle’s Rhetoric
Benef. De beneficiis
Cic. Cicero
Codex florent. of John Damasc. Codex Florentinus of St John of Damascus
col. column
comm. in Epict. enchir. In Epicteti enchiridion commentarium
De off. De officiis
DK Die Fragmente der Vorsakratiker, eds H. Diels and W. Kranz (Berlin 1954), 3 volumes
DL Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Ancient Philosophers
Gnom. Paris. Gnomologium Parisinum
Gnoml. Vat. Gnomologium Vaticanum
Hercher R. Hercher, Epistolographi Graeci (Paris 1873)
Il. Iliad
In Epist. I ad Corinth. homil. In Epistulam primam ad Corinthios homilia
Inst. epit. Institutionum epitome
Joann. Chrysost. Joannes Chrysostomus
Mem. Memorabilia
Mor. Moralia
Od. Odyssey
Orat. ad Graec. Oratio ad Graecos
Or. Oration
Pl. Plato
Plut. Plutarch
Prov. De Providentia
Sen. Seneca
Simplic. Simplicius
Smp. Symposium
Stob. Stobaeus
Suid. Suidas or The Suda
TD The Tusculan Disputations
Xen. Xenophon
Square brackets [ ] around a name indicate that the associated work is spurious, that is, probably not written by the accredited author but by someone whose identity is uncertain. Ellipses between square brackets indicate that the passage has been abridged in translation. Text between < > (less than and greater than symbols) indicates that a lacuna has been filled with a phrase or sentence supplied exempli gratia.
Chronology
BC
469–399 Socrates
c. 445–365 Antisthenes
c. 410–323 Diogenes of Sinope
c. 365–285 Crates of Thebes
c. 350–300 Hipparchia
336–323 Reign of Alexander the Great
c. 334–323 Onesicritus accompanies Alexander on his campaign, about which he subsequently wrote a history.
c. 325–250 Bion of Borysthenes
323 The death of Alexander
c. 235 fl. Teles of Megara
31 Octavian (later Augustus) defeats Cleopatra
AD
c. 4 BC–65 Seneca the Younger
37–71 fl. Demetrius, the first Cynic of note in the city of Rome
1st–3rd centuries age of the Second Sophistic
c.40–112 Dio Chrysostom, sophist and rhetorician
c. 55–135 Epictetus
c. 70–170 Demonax
c. 125–180 Lucian, sophist and satirist
c. 200 Diogenes Laertius, author of the Lives of the Ancient Philosophers, which includes a chapter (6) devoted to the Cynics
331–363 Roman emperor Julian the Apostate
c. 450–500 Sallustius of Emesa, last known Cynic philosopher
BOCCACCIO · Mrs Rosie and the Priest
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS · As king fishers catch fire
The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue
THOMAS DE QUINCEY · On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE · Aphorisms on Love and Hate
JOHN RUSKIN · Traffic
PU SONGLING · Wailing Ghosts
JONATHAN SWIFT · A Modest Proposal
Three Tang Dynasty Poets
WALT WHITMAN · On the Beach at Night Alone
KENKŌ · A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees
BALTASAR GRACIÁN · How to Use Your Enemies
JOHN KEATS · The Eve of St Agnes
THOMAS HARDY · Woman much missed
GUY DE MAUPASSANT · Femme Fatale
MARCO POLO · Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls
SUETONIUS · Caligula
APOLLONIUS OF RHODES · Jason and Medea
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON · Olalla
KARL MARX AND FRIEDRICH ENGELS · The Communist Manifesto
PETRONIUS · Trimalchio’s Feast
JOHANN PETER HEBEL · How a Ghastly Story Was Brought to Light by a Common or Garden Butcher’s Dog
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN · The T inder Box
RUDYARD KIPLING · The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows
DANTE · Circles of Hell
HENRY MAYHEW · Of Street Piemen
HAFEZ · The nightingales are drunk
GEOFFREY CHAUCER · The Wife of Bath
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE · How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing
THOMAS NASHE · The Terrors of the Night
EDGAR ALLAN POE · The Tell-Tale Heart
MARY KINGSLEY · A Hippo Banquet
JANE AUSTEN · The Beautifull Cassandra
ANTON CHEKHOV · Gooseberries
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE · Well, they are gone, and here must I remain
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE · Sketchy, Doubtful, Incomplete Jottings
CHARLES DICKENS · The Great W inglebury Duel
HERMAN MELVILLE · The Maldive Shark
ELIZABETH GASKELL · The Old Nurse’s Story
NIKOLAY LESKOV · The Steel Flea
HONORÉ DE BALZAC · The Atheist’s Mass
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN · The Yellow Wall-Paper
C. P. CAVAFY · Remember, Body …
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY · The Meek One
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT · A Simple Heart
NIKOLAI GOGOL · The Nose
SAMUEL PEPYS · The Great Fire of London
EDITH WHARTON · The Reckoning
HENRY JAMES · The Figure in the Carpet
WILFRED OWEN · Anthem For Doomed Youth
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART · My Dearest Father
PLATO · Socrates’ Defence
CHRISTINA ROSSETTI · Goblin Market
Sindbad the Sailor
SOPHOCLES · Antigone
RYŪNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA · The Life of a Stupid Man
LEO TOLSTOY · How Much Land Does A Man Need?
GIORGIO VASARI · Leonardo da Vinci
OSCAR WILDE · Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime
SHEN FU · The Old Man of the Moon
AESOP · The Dolphins, the Whales and the Gudgeon
MATSUO BASHŌ · Lips too Chilled
EMILY BRONTË · The Night is Darkening Round Me
JOSEPH CONRAD · To-morrow
RICHARD HAKLUYT · The Voyage of Sir Francis Drake Around the Whole Globe
KATE CHOPIN · A Pair of Silk Stockings
CHARLES DARWIN · It was snowing butterflies
BROTHERS GRIMM · The Robber Bridegroom
CATULLUS · I Hate and I Love
HOMER · Circe and the Cyclops
D. H. LAWRENCE · Il Duro
KATHERINE MANSFIELD · Miss Brill
OVID · The Fall of Icarus
SAPPHO · Come Close
IVAN TURGENEV · Kasyan from the Beautiful Lands
VIRGIL · O Cruel Alexis
H. G. WELLS · A Slip under the Microscope
HERODOTUS · The Madness of Cambyses
Speaking of Siva
The Dhammapada
JANE AUSTEN · Lady Susan
JEAN-JACQUES ROSSEAU · The Body Politic
JEAN DE LA FONT
AINE · The World is Full of Foolish Men
H. G. WELLS · The Sea Raiders
LIVY · Hannibal
CHARLES DICKENS · To Be Read at Dusk
LEO TOLSTOY · The Death of Ivan Ilyich
MARK TWAIN · The Stolen White Elephant
WILLIAM BLAKE · Tyger, Tyger
SHERIDAN LE FANU · Green Tea
The Yellow Book
OLAUDAH EQUIANO · Kidnapped
EDGAR ALLAN POE · A Modern Detective
The Suffragettes
MARGERY KEMPE · How To Be a Medieval Woman
JOSEPH CONRAD · Typhoon
GIACOMO CASANOVA · The Nun of Murano
W. B. YEATS · A terrible beauty is born
THOMAS HARDY · The Withered Arm
EDWARD LEAR · Nonsense
ARISTOPHANES · The Frogs
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE · Why I Am so Clever
RAINER MARIA RILKE · Letters to a Young Poet
LEONID ANDREYEV · Seven Hanged
APHRA BEHN · Oroonoko
LEWIS CARROLL · O frabjous day!
JOHN GAY · Trivia: or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London
E. T. A. HOFFMANN · The Sandman
DANTE · Love that moves the sun and other stars
ALEXANDER PUSHKIN · The Queen of Spades
ANTON CHEKHOV · A Nervous Breakdown
KAKUZO OKAKURA · The Book of Tea
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE · Is this a dagger which I see before me?
EMILY DICKINSON · My life had stood a loaded gun
LONGUS · Daphnis and Chloe
MARY SHELLEY · Matilda
GEORGE ELIOT · The Lifted Veil
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY · White Nights
OSCAR WILDE · Only Dull People Are Brilliant at Breakfast
VIRGINIA WOOLF · Flush