ANTISTHENES, a celebrated Athenian philoso pher, the founder of the Cynic sect, was born about the ninetieth olympiad, or the year 420 B. C. In his youth, he had been engaged in military exploits; till, captivat ed by the wisdom of Socrates, he prevailed upon many young men, who were his fellow-students, with the so phist Gorgias, to become disciples of that philosopher. So great was his ardour for moral wisdom, that, though lie lived at the distance of forty stadia from the city, he came daily to Athens to attend upon Socrates. He judged it more consonant to the spirit of his master, to adhere in practice to the precepts of his morality, than to prosecute the subtle disquisitions, in which many of his followers were engaged. But he seems to have carried to a faulty excess the practice of that temper ance, frugality, and abstinence, which the moral pre cepts of his master recommended. He frequently ap peared in a thread-bare and ragged cloke ; upon which Socrates, remarking that Antisthenes took more pains to expose, than to conceal, the tattered state of his dress, said to him, " Why so ostentatious ? Through your rags I see your vanity." Antisthenes chose for his school a public place of ex ercise, without the walls of the city, called the Cyno sargum, or temple of the white dog ; from which some have derived the name of the sect; while others deduce it from the appellation of Kvaiv, or Dog, given to An tisthenes, on account of his snarling manner. Here, despising the subtle speculations of philosophy, lie in culcated, both by precept and example, a rigorous dis cipline. His diet was of the most simple kind; lie wore no other garment than a coarse cloak ; suffered his beard to grow; and carried a wallet and staff, like a wander ing beggar. The harsh tenor of his doctrines, and the moroseness with which lie inculcated them, procured him but few followers : for he censured pleasure as the greatest evil ; saying, that he would rather be mad, than lead a voluptuous life. When the celebrated Dio
genes applied to him to be received as his pupil, he was in a peevish humour, mortified by neglect, and refused to receive him. Diogenes, still persisting to importune him for admission, Antisthenes lifted up his staff, to drive him away ; upon which Diogenes said, " Beat me as you please ; I will still be your scholar." Antisthenes, overcome by this perseverance, received him as his pupil ; and afterwards made him his intimate companion and friend. In his last illness, 4ethenes was fretful and impatient; wearied of life, yet unwilling to die. When Diogenes at that time asked him, whether he needed a friend, Antisthenes replied, " Where is the friend that can free me from pain ?" Diogenes present ed him with a dagger, saying, "Let this free you :" But Antisthenes answered, " I wish to be freed from pain, not from life." He wrote many treatises, amounting, according to Laertius, to 10 vols. None of them, how ever, are extant, except two declamations, under the names of Ajax and Ulysses. He was accused of irre ligion; but seems to have entertained just notions of the unity of the Deity. For Cicero informs NIS, that in his book, which treated on physics, he advanced, that "the gods of the people are many ; but the God of na ture is one." (De Nat. Dear. I. 1. c. 10.) Several of his maxims and apophthegms have been presermd by Laertius. See Suidas. :Man, 1.9. c. 36. Cie. dc Orat. Diog. 6. Plut. in Lyc. Fabr. Bibl. Grrc. 1. ii. c. 23. s. 32. Brucker's and Enfield's Hist. of Philosophy. (m)