Antisthenes ( c. 445 – c. 365 BC)

Antisthenes ( c. 445 – c. 365 BC) was a Greek philosopher and a pupil of Socrates. Antisthenes first learned rhetoric under Gorgias before becoming an ardent disciple of Socrates. He adopted and developed the ethical side of Socrates' teachings, advocating an ascetic life lived in accordance with virtue. Later writers 

regarded him as the founder of Cynic philosophy.

Antisthenes was born c. 445 BC and was the son of Antisthenes, an Athenian. His mother was a Thracian. In his youth he fought at Tanagra (426 BC), and was a disciple first ofGorgias, and then of Socrates, at whose death he was present. He never forgave his master's persecutors, and is said to have been instrumental in procuring their punishment.^[4]He survived the Battle of Leuctra (371 BC), as he is reported to have compared the victory of the Thebans to a set of schoolboys beating their master. Although one source tells us that he died at the age of 70, he was apparently still alive in 366 BC, and he must have been nearer to 80 years old when he died at Athens, c. 365 BC. He is said to have lectured at the Cynosarges, a gymnasium for the use of Athenians born of foreign mothers, near the temple of Heracles. Diogenes Laërtius says that his works filled ten volumes, but of these, only fragments remain. His favourite style seems to have been dialogues, some of them being vehement attacks on his contemporaries, as on Alcibiades in the second of his two works entitled Cyrus, on Gorgias in his Archelaus and on Plato in his Satho. His style was pure and elegant, and Theopompus even said that Plato stole from him many of his thoughts. Cicero, after reading some works by Antisthenes, found his works pleasing and called him "a man more intelligent than learned".^[ He possessed considerable powers of wit and sarcasm, and was fond of playing upon words; saying, for instance, that he would rather fall among crows (korakes) than flatterers (kolakes), for the one devour the dead, but the other the living. Two declamations have survived, named Ajax and Odysseus, which are purely rhetorical.

Antisthenes' nickname was the (Absolute) Dog (ἁπλοκύων, Diog.Laert.6.13).

Antisthenes and the Cynics

Antisthenes, part of a fresco in theNational University of Athens.

In later times, Antisthenes came to be seen as the founder of the Cynics, but it is by no means certain that he would have recognized the term. Aristotle, writing a generation later refers several times to Antisthenes and his followers "the Antistheneans," but makes no reference to Cynicism. There are many later tales about the infamous Cynic Diogenes of Sinope dogging Antisthenes' footsteps and becoming his faithful hound, but it is by no means certain that the two men ever met. Some scholars, drawing on the discovery of defaced coins from Sinope dating from the period 350-340 BC, believe that Diogenes only moved to Athens after the death of Antisthenes, and it has been argued that the stories linking Antisthenes to Diogenes were invented by the Stoics in a later period in order to provide a succession linking Socrates to Zeno, via Antisthenes, Diogenes, and Crates. These tales were important to the Stoics for establishing a chain of teaching that ran from Socrates to Zeno. Others argue that the evidence from the coins is weak, and thus Diogenes could have moved to Athens well before 340 BC. It is also possible that Diogenes visited Athens and Antisthenes before his exile, and returned to Sinope.

Antisthenes certainly adopted a rigorous ascetic lifestyle, and he developed many of the principles of Cynic philosophy which became an inspiration for Diogenes and later Cynics. It was said that he had laid the foundations of the city which they afterwards built.
Antisthenes had a follower who became more famous than himself , a man called Diogenes (404 - 325 BC.Diogenes aggressively flouted all conventions , and deliberately shocked people.He lived lik a dogand for this reason people gave him the nickname "Cynic", meaning 'a dog'.