He begged for a living and often slept in a large ceramic jar, or pithos, in the marketplace.
No authenticated writings of Diogenes survive, but there are some details of his life from anecdotes ( chreia), especially from Diogenes Laërtius' book Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers and some other sources. There he passed his philosophy of Cynicism to Crates, who taught it to Zeno of Citium, who fashioned it into the school of Stoicism, one of the most enduring schools of Greek philosophy. Diogenes was captured by pirates and sold into slavery, eventually settling in Corinth. There are many tales about him following Antisthenes and becoming his 'faithful hound'. After his hasty departure from Sinope he moved to Athens where he proceeded to criticize many conventions of Athens of that day. He was also the son of the mintmaster of Sinope, and there is some debate as to whether or not he alone had debased the Sinopian currency, whether his father had done this, or whether they had both done it. He was banished, or fled from, Sinope over debasement of currency. Diogenes ( / d aɪ ˈ ɒ dʒ ɪ n iː z/ dy- OJ-in-eez Greek: Διογένης, Diogénēs 412/404 BC – 323 BC ), also known as Diogenes the Cynic ( Διογένης ὁ Κυνικός, Diogénēs ho Kynikós) or Diogenes of Sinope, was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynicism.ĭiogenes was a controversial figure.
