DIOGENES of Apollonia, in the island of Crete, held a considerable rank among the philosophers who taught in Ionia before Socrates appeared at Athens. He was the scholar and successor of Anaximenes, and in some measure rectified his master’s opinion concerning air being the cause of all things. It is said that he was the first who observed that air was capable of condensation and rarefaction. He passed for an excellent philosopher, and died about the 450th year before the Christian era.

Diogenes the Cynic, a famous philosopher, was the son of a banker of Sinope, in Pontus. Being banished with his father for coining false money, he retired to Athens, where he studied philosophy under Antisthenes. He added new austerity to the sect of the Cynics, and never did any philosopher carry so far a contempt for the conveniences of life. He was one of those men who push every thing to excess, without excepting even reason itself; and who confirm the saying, that there is no great genius without a tincture of madness. He lodged in a tub; and had no other moveables besides his staff', wallet, and wooden bowl, which last he threw away on seeing a boy*drink out of the hollow of his hand. He used to call himself a vagabond, who had neither house, home, nor country; he was obliged to beg, was ill clothed, and lived from hand to mouth, and yet, says Aelian, he took as much pride in these things as Alexander could in the conquest of the world. He was not indeed a jot more humble than those who are clothed in rich apparel, and fare sumptuously every day. He looked down on all the rest of the world with scorn; he magisterially censured all mankind, and thought himself unquestionably superior to all other philosophers. Alexander one day paid him a visit, and made him an offer of riches, or any thing else; but all that the philosopher requested of him was, to stand from betwixt him and the sun. The conqueror was so affected with the vigour and elevation of his soul, as to declare that, “if he were not Alexander, he would choose to be Diogenes ;” that is, if he were not in possession of all that was pompous and splendid in life, he would, like Diogenes, heroically despise it. Diogenes had great presence of mind, as appears from his sharp sayings and quick repartees; and Plato seems to have hit off his true character when he called him a Socrates run mad. He spent a great part of his life at Corinth. The reason of his living there was curious and characteristic. As he was going over to the island Aegina, he was taken by pirates, who carried him into Crete, and there exposed him to sale. He answered the crier, who asked him what he could do, that “he knew how to command men ;” and perceiving a Corinthian who was passing by, he showed him to the crier, and said, “Sell me to that gentleman, for he wants a master.” Xeniades, for that was the Corinthian’s name, bought Diogenes, and carried him to Corinth, where he appointed him tutor to his children, and intrusted him also with the management of his house. Diogenes’s friends being desirous to redeem him, “You are fools,” said he; “the lions are not the slaves of those who feed them, but they are the servants of the lions.” He therefore plainly told Xeniades that he ought to obey him, as people obey their governors and physicians. Some say that Diogenes spent the remainder of his life in Xeniades’s family; but Dion Chrysostom asserts that he passed the winter at Athens and the summer at Corinth. He died at Corinth when he was about ninety years old; but authors are not agreed either as to the time or the manner of his death. Tĥe following account, Jerome says, is the true one. As he was going to the Olympic games, a fever seized him by the way; upon which he lay down under a tree,· and refused the assistance of those who accompanied him, and who offered him either a horse or a chariot. “Go you to the games,” said he, “and leave me to contend with my illness. If I conquer, I will follow you; if I am conquered, I shall go to the shades below.” He dispatched himself that very night; saying, that “he did not so properly die, as get rid of his fever.” He had for his disciples Onesicritus, Phocion, Stilpo of Megara, and several other great men. His works are lost.

Diogenes Laertius, so called from Laertia, in Cilicia, where he was born, an ancient Greek author, who wrote ten books of the Lives of the Philosophers, still extant. In what year be flourished it is not easy to determine. The oldest writers who mention him are Sopater Alexandrinus, who lived in the time of Constantine the Great, and Hesychius Milesius, who lived under Justinian. Diogenes often speaks in terms of approbation of Plutarch and Phavorinus; and therefore, as Plutarch lived under Trajan, and Phavorinus under Hadrian, it is certain that he could not flourish before the reigns of those emperors. Ménage has fixed him as contemporary with Severus, that is, about the year of Christ 200. From certain expressions of his, some have fancied him to have been a Christian; but, as Menage observes, the immoderate praises he bestows upon Epicurus will not permit us to believe this, but must incline us rather to suppose that he was an Epicurean. He divided his Lives into books, and inscribed them to a learned lady of the Platonic school, as he himself intimates in his life of Plato. Montaigne was so fond of this author, that, instead of one Laertius, he wishes we had a dozen; and Vossius says that his work is as precious as gold. Without doubt, we are greatly obliged to him for what we know of the ancient philosophers; and if he had been as exact in writing as he was judicious in the choice of his subject, we should have been still more obliged to him. Bishop Burnet, in the preface to his life of Sir Matthew Hale, speaks of him in the following proper manner; “There is no book the ancients have left us, which might have informed us more than Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of the Philosophers, if he had had the art of writing equal to that great subject which he undertook; for if he had given the world such an account of them as [7:8:35]Gassendus has done of Peiresc, how great a stock of knowledge might we have had, which by his unskilfulness is in a great measure lost, since we must now depend only qn him, because we have no other and better author who has written on that subject.” There have been several editions of his Lives of the Philosophers; but the best is that printed in two volumes 4to, at Amsterdam, 1693. This contains the advantages of all the former, besides some which are peculiar to itself; such as the Greek text and the Latin version corrected and amended by Meibomius; the entire notes of Henry Stephens, of both the Casau-bons, and of Ménage; and twenty-four copperplates of philosophers, elegantly engraved; to which is added, The History of the Female Philosophers, written by Menage, and dedicated to Madame Dacier. Besides this, Laertius wrote a book of Epigrams upon illustrious Men, called Pammetrus, from its various kinds of metre; but this is not now extant.