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Letters of Diogenes (Cynic Epistles)

Diogenes of Sinope

A collection of letters addressed to pupils, to his mother, to Alexander, to Plato or to citizens of various cities, in which the literary Diogenes sets out Cynic doctrine: staff, wallet and cloak as his only property, the praise of toil, the mockery of the powerful. They survive in Byzantine manuscripts and were edited by Rudolf Hercher (Epistolographi Graeci, 1873) and, with an English translation, by Abraham J. Malherbe. They are a valuable record of imperial-age Cynicism, not of Diogenes.