Antisthenes

Greek philosopher, thought to be co-founder, with his pupil Diogenes, of the Cynic school. He was a rhetorician and a disciple of Gorgias, and later became a close friend of Socrates. Only fragments of his many works survive.

Antisthenes (c.

In his youth he studied rhetoric under Gorgias, perhaps also under Hippias and Prodicus.

So eager was he to hear the words of Socrates that he used to walk daily from Peiraeus to Athens, and persuaded his friends accompany him. Filled with enthusiasm for the Socratic idea virtue, he founded a school of his own in the Cynosarges. He wore a cloak and carried a staff and a wallet as the badge of philosophy. This costume became uniform of his followers, but so ostentatiously as to draw from Socrates the rebuke, "I see your pride looking out through the rent of your cloak, O Antisthenes."

Diogenes Laertius says that his works filled ten volumes, but of these, only fragments remain. His work represents one great aspect of Socratic philosophy, and should be compared with the Cyrenaic and Igarian doctrines.

Marcus Aurelius quotes him in his Meditations (late 2nd century): "It is royal to do good and be abused."