Book 6
2.59
When some one expressed astonishment at the votive offerings in Samothrace, his comment was, There would have been far more, if those who were not saved had set up offerings. But others attribute this remark to Diagoras of Melos. To a handsome youth, who was going out to dinner, he said, You will come back a worse man. When he came back and said next day, I went and am none the worse for it, Diogenes said, Not Worse-man (Chiron), but Lax-man (Eurytion).As Chiron was the wisest and best, so Eurytion was the most intemperate, of the Centaurs: Eurytion, ebriosus ille Centaurus (Menagius). He was asking alms of a bad-tempered man, who said, Yes, if you can persuade me. If I could have persuaded you, said Diogenes, I would have persuaded you to hang yourself. He was returning from Lacedaemon to Athens; and on some one asking, Whither and whence? he replied, From the men’s apartments to the women’s.
2.60
He was returning from Olympia, and when somebody inquired whether there was a great crowd, Yes, he said, a great crowd, but few who could be called men. Libertines he compared to figtrees growing upon a cliff: whose fruit is not enjoyed by any man, but is eaten by ravens and vultures. When Phryne set up a golden statue of Aphrodite in Delphi, Diogenes is said to have written upon it: From the licentiousness of Greece. Alexander once came and stood opposite him and said, I am Alexander the great king. And I, said he, am Diogenes the Cynic.Literally Diogenes the Hound;cf.ii. § 66. Being asked what he had done to be called a hound, he said, I fawn on those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse, and I set my teeth in rascals.
