Vitae philosophorum

There is also his widely circulated day-book, which runs as follows:

1. Set down for the chef ten minas, for the doctor
2. One drachma, for a flatterer talents five,
3. For counsel smoke, for mercenary beauty
4. A talent, for a philosopher three obols.

He was known as the Door-opener—the caller to whom all doors fly open—from his habit of entering every house and admonishing those within. Here is another specimen of his composition[*](Anth. Pal. vii. 326.):

That much I have which I have learnt and thought,
1. The noble lessons taught me by the Muses:
2. But wealth amassed is prey to vanity.

And again he says that what he has gained from philosophy is

A quart of lupins and to care for no one.

This too is quoted as his[*](Anth. Pal. ix. 497.):

Hunger stops love, or, if not hunger, Time,
1. Or, failing both these means of help,—a halter.

He flourished in the 113th Olympiad.[*](328-324 B.C.)

According to Antisthenes in his Successions, the first impulse to the Cynic philosophy was given to him when he saw Telephus in a certain tragedy carrying a little basket and altogether in a wretched plight. So he turned his property into money,—for he belonged to a distinguished family,—and having thus collected about 200 talents, distributed that sum among his fellow-citizens. And (it is added) so sturdy a philosopher did he become that he is mentioned by the comic poet Philemon. At all events the latter says:

In summer-time a thick cloak he would wear
1. To be like Crates, and in winter rags.

Diocles relates how Diogenes persuaded Crates to give up his fields to sheep pasture, and throw into the sea any money he had.