The Palace and Park by Phillips, Forbes, Latham, Owen, Scharf, and Shenton

[Born at Sinope, in Asia Minor, about B.C. 412. Died at Corinth, B.C. 323 or 324. Aged 90.] Having been detected with his father, a banker, in some dishonest transaction, Diogenes went to Athens, where he became the pupil of Antisthenes, and adopted the Cynic philosophy. He carried his contempt for riches and the usages of society to an extravagant excess. He subsisted on charity, and slept where he could. Some doubt is thrown upon the story of his living in a tub. He said that all the vicissitudes of fortune which constitute tragedy, had been realized in him, but that patience had raised him above them all. When advanced in years he was taken by pirates to Crete, and there sold as a slave. Regaining his freedom, he revisited Athens and Corinth, and in the last-named city had his memorable interview with Alexander the Great. He inculcated morality, but despised intellectual pursuits. His disposition was kind and humorous, though his statue has an acute and caustic countenance. [From the marble in the Sala delle Muse of the Vatican. It is verified by its close resemblance to the head of a little statue in the Villa Albani at Rome, representing the Cynic perfectly nude, and accompanied by his dog. It is said that he sometimes appeared in the streets in this state, after having anointed his body, a piece of eccentricity that gave rise to the joke of Juvenal, that the Stoics differed from the Cynics only in the shirt, “_tunicâ tantum_.” There is in the Villa Albani an antique bas-relief representing Alexander the Great standing before the Cynic in his tub.]