Diogenes and Alexander

Here are a few different images of the legendary meeting between Alexander the Great and Diogenes of Sinope.

The stories about their conversation may well be apocryphal, but they are nevertheless quite telling.

It is said Diogenes was relaxing one fine day, and Alexander approached him imperiously, asking, "What can Alexander do for Diogenes?"

"Stay out of my sunlight!" came the reply.

Perhaps Alexander was feeling especially noble that day, so instead of becoming angry at such impudence, he took it kindly. "If I was not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes!"

"And if I was not Diogenes," said the philosopher, "then I would still wish to be Diogenes!"

Another version has Alexander finding Diogenes picking through a pile of bones.

"What are you doing, Diogenes?"

"I am searching for the bones of your father, but I cannot seem to tell them apart from the bones of a slave."

Thomas Christian Wink (1782)
Bartholomeus Breenbergh (early 1600's)
Jacques Gamelin (1763)
Casper de Crayer (c. 1630)
School of Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (early 1600's)
Gaetano Gandolfi (1792)
Jan Thomas (1672)
Jean-Baptiste Regnault (1776)
Matvei Ivanovich Puchinov (1762)
Nicolas-Andre Monsiau (1818)
Pierre Paul Sevin (c. 1700)
Ivan Tupylev (1787)
Giovan Battista Langetti (c.1650)
Sebastiano Ricci (c. 1700)