Vitae philosophorum

Menedemus was a pupil of Colotes of Lampsacus. According to Hippobotus he had attained such a

degree of audacity in wonder-working that he went about in the guise of a Fury, saying that he had come from Hades to take cognisance of sins committed, and was going to return and report them to the powers down below. This was his attire: a grey tunic reaching to the feet, about it a crimson girdle; an Arcadian hat on his head with the twelve signs of the zodiac inwrought in it; buskins of tragedy; and he wore a very long beard and carried an ashen staff in his hand.

Such are the lives of the several Cynics. But we will go on to append the doctrines which they held in common—if, that is, we decide that Cynicism is really a philosophy, and not, as some maintain, just a way of life. They are content then, like Ariston of Chios, to do away with the subjects of Logic and Physics and to devote their whole attention to Ethics. And what some assert of Socrates, Diocles records of Diogenes, representing him as saying: We must inquire into

Whate’er of good or ill within our halls is wrought.[*](Hom. Od. iv. 392.)

They also dispense with the ordinary subjects of instruction. At least Antisthenes used to say that those who had attained discretion had better not study literature, lest they should be perverted by alien influences.