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'Antisthenes one day entreated the Athenians to give orders that their asses might be employed in tilling the ground, to which it was answered, "that those animals were not destined to such a service."
For there was not one of them who would not rather have been thrice a leper than be not. And Antisthenes the Stoic, being very sick, and crying out, "Who will deliver me from these evils?" Diogenes, who had come to visit him, "This," said he, presenting him a knife, "soon enough, if thou wilt." "I do not mean from my life," he replied, "but from my sufferings."
"There is a wide difference," answered Nicomachides, "between commanding an army and giving orders concerning a comedy." "But," said Socrates, "though Antisthenes understands not music, nor the laws of the stage, yet he found out those who were skilful in both, and by their means succeeded extremely well."
Seemth this to thee a little thing?" God forbid! "Be content then therewith!" And so I pray the Gods. What saith Antisthenes? Hast thou never heard? It is a kingly thing, O Cyrus, to do well and to be evil spoken of. "Aye, but to debase myself thus were unworthy of me." "That," said Epictetus, "is for you to consider, not for me.
So when he saw a cynic, with threadbare cloak and wallet, but a braying-pestle instead of a staff, proclaiming himself loudly as a follower of Antisthenes, Crates, and Diogenes, he said: 'Tell us no lies; your master is the professor of braying.
Such men, therefore, are not the object of law; for they are themselves a law: and it would be ridiculous in any one to endeavour to include them in the penalties of a law: for probably they might say what Antisthenes tells us the lions did to the hares when they demanded to be admitted to an equal share with them in the government.
Starting precisely from a Socratic foundation they entered upon theological speculations which carried them away from the Socratic point of view. For the Cynics, who set up virtue as the only good, the popular notions of the gods would seem to have been just as convenient as for Socrates. And we know that Antisthenes, the founder of the school, made ample use of them in his ethical teaching.
While Astyochus was still at Rhodes they had received from Miletus, as their commander after the death of Pedaritus, a Spartan named Leon, who had come out with Antisthenes, and twelve vessels which had been on guard at Miletus, five of which were Thurian, four Syracusans, one from Anaia, one Milesian, and one Leon's own.
To these may be added the Cynical school, founded by Antisthenes, whose system is personal and ferocious: it is a battle of the mind against the body; it is a pursuit of pleasure of a mental kind, corporeal enjoyment being utterly unworthy of a man.
THE CYNIC SCHOOL; ANTISTHENES; DIOGENES. Much more important is the Cynic school, because a school, which was nothing less than Stoicism itself, emanated or appeared to emanate from it. As often happens, the vague commencements of Stoicism bore a close resemblance to its end.
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