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The CYNICS were most closely allied to Sokrates; they, in fact, carried out to the full his chosen mode of life. His favourite maxim that the gods had no wants, and that the most godlike man was he that approached to the same state was the Cynic Ideal.
Sokrates clearly indicated the difference between an unscientific and a scientific art; the one is an incommunicable knack or dexterity, the other is founded on theoretical principles. II. Notwithstanding his professing ignorance of what virtue is, Sokrates had a definite doctrine with reference to Ethics, which we may call his PSYCHOLOGY of the subject.
Sokrates not only condemns the unmeasured, exorbitant, maleficent desires, but also depreciates and degrades all the actualities of life all the recreative and elegant arts, including music and poetry, tragic as well as dithyrambic all provision for the most essential wants, all protection against particular sufferings and dangers, even all service rendered to another person in the way of relief or of rescue all the effective maintenance of public organized force, such as ships, docks, walls, arms, &c.
Demetrius of Phalerum says, in his book about Sokrates, that he knew one Lysimachus, a very poor man, who dwelt near the Temple of Iacchus and made his living by the interpretation of dreams. Demetrius further states that he carried a bill before the Assembly by which this man's mother and sister were provided with a pension of three obols daily at the public expense.
Kallisthenes also tells us that this Lysimachus leaving a daughter named Polykrite, she was assigned by the Athenians the same daily allowance of food as is bestowed upon the victors in the Olympian games. These authors are sufficiently confuted by Panætius in his writings on Sokrates.
While yet a lad he served in the campaign of Potidaea, where he shared the tent of Sokrates, and took his place next him in the ranks. In an obstinate engagement they both showed great courage, and when Alkibiades was wounded and fell to the ground, Sokrates stood in front of him, defending him, and so saved his life and arms from the enemy.
Indeed, Demetrius evidently tries to redeem both Aristeides and Sokrates from the reproach of poverty, as though he imagined it to be a great misfortune, for he tells us that Sokrates not only possessed a house, but also seventy minæ which were borrowed by Krito.
For he of whom I speak is a perfect guardian, a singular prefect, a domestic speculator, a proper curator, an intimate inspector, an assiduous observer, an inseparable arbiter, a reprobator of what is evil, an approver of what is good; and if he is legitimately attended to, sedulously known, and religiously worshipped, in the way in which he was reverenced by Sokrates with justice and innocence, will be a predicter of things uncertain, a premonitor in things dubious, a defender in things dangerous, and an assistant in want.
The vast intellectual power of Plato and Sokrates did not prevent them from sharing this universal enthusiasm. Poets like Sophokles, and statesmen like Alexander, thought it not beneath their dignity to engage publicly in gymnastic sports. Their conceptions of divinity were framed in accordance with these general habits.
The Cynic succession of philosophers were, ANTISTHENES, one of the most constant friends and companions of Sokrates; DIOGENES of Sinope, the pupil of Antisthenes, and the best known type of the sect. The two first heads of the Ethical scheme, so meagrely filled up by the ancient systems generally, are almost a total blank as regards both Cynics and Cyrenaics.
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