BION, of Borysthenes (Olbia), in Sarmatia, Greek moralist and philosopher, flourished in the first half of the 3rd century B.c. He was of low origin and was sold as slave to a rhetorician, who gave him his freedom and made him his heir. After the death of his patron, Bion went to Athens to study philosophy. He was admitted to the literary circle at the court of Antigonus Gonatas. He subsequently taught philosophy at Rhodes and died at Chalcis in Euboea. His life was written by Diogenes Laertius. Bion's Diatribae was a satire of a popular character; while praising poverty and philosophy, he attacked the gods, musicians, geo metricians, astrologers, and the wealthy. His influence is distinctly traceable in succeeding writers, e.g., in the satires of Menippus. Horace (Epistles, ii. 2, 6o) alludes to his satires (sal nigrum). An idea of his writings can be gained from the fragments of Teles, a cynic philosopher of the 3rd century, who made great use of them. Specimens of his apophthegms may be found in Diogenes Laertius and Stobaeus, while there are traces of his influence in Seneca.
See Hoogvliet, De Vita, Doctrina, et Scriptis Bionis (1821) ; Ros signol, Fragmenta Bionis Borysthenitae (183o) ; Heinze, De Horatio Bionis Imitatore (1889) ; von Arnim's article in Pauly-Wissowa.