Dio Chrysostom, On Tyranny 1

When Diogenes of Sinope was exiled from that place, he came to Greece and used to divide his time between Corinth and Athens. And he said he was following the practice of the Persian king.⁠ For that monarch spent the winters in Babylon and Susa, or occasionally in Bactra,⁠ which are the warmest parts of Asia, and the summers in Median Ecbatana,⁠ where the air is always very cool and the summer is like the winter in the region of Babylon. So he too, he said, changed his residence according to the seasons of year. 

For Attica had no high mountains, nor rivers running through it as had the Peloponnese and Thessaly; its soil was thin and the air so dry that rain rarely fell, and what did fall was not retained. Besides, it was almost entirely surrounded by the sea; from which fact indeed it got its name, since Attica is a sort of beach-land.⁠ The city, moreover, was low-lying and faced to the south, as shown by the fact that those sailing from Sunium could not enter the Peiraeus⁠ except with a south wind. Naturally, therefore, the winters were mild. 

In Corinth, on the other hand, the summer was breezy, since currents of air always met there on account of the bays that dented the shore. The Acrocorinthus,⁠too, overshadows it, and the city itself rather inclines toward the Lechaeum⁠ and the north. 

Diogenes thought that these cities were far more beautiful than Ecbatana and Babylon, and that the Craneion,⁠ and the Athenian acropolis with the Propylaea⁠ were far more beautiful structures than those abodes of royalty, yielding to them only in size. And yet the circumference of Athens was two hundred stades,⁠ now that the Peiraeus and the connecting walls had been added to the compass of the city—for this whole area was not inhabited in ancient times—so that Athens was one-half as large as Babylon, if we could take as true what was said of things there. 

Moreover, in respect to the beauty of the harbors, and, further, to the statues, paintings, the works in gold, silver, and bronze, in respect to the coinage, the furnishings, the splendour of the houses, he thought that Athens was far superior; only he, for his part, did not care much about such things. 

Besides, the king had a very long distance to travel in changing residences; he had to spend pretty much the larger part of the winter and summer on the road. He himself, on the other hand, by spending the night near Megara, could very easily be in Athens on the following day—or else, if he preferred, at Eleusis; otherwise, he could take a shorter way through Salamis,⁠ without passing through any deserts. 

So he had an advantage over the king and enjoyed greater luxury, since his housing arrangements were better. This is what he was wont to say jestingly, and yet he meant to bring to the attention of those who admired the wealth of the Persian and his reputed happiness that there was nothing in his actual life such as they imagined. For some things were of no use at all and other things were within the reach of even the very poor. 

In fact, Diogenes was not neglect­ful of his body as certain foolish people thought; but when they saw him often shivering and living in the open and going thirsty, they imagined that he was careless of his health and life, whereas this rigorous regime gave him better health than fell to the lot of those who were ever gorging themselves, better than fell to the lot of those who stayed indoors and never experienced either cold or heat. 

And he got more pleasure, too, out of sunning himself and more pleasure in eating his food than they did. But the seasons were by far his greatest delight. On the one hand, he rejoiced as the summer approached and was already dissolving the cold air; and on the other, he felt no regret as it drew to its close, since this brought him relief from its excessive heat; and by keeping pace with the seasons and growing accustomed to them gradually, he met either extreme without discomfort. 

He rarely made use of heat, shade, or shelter in anticipation of the proper seasons for them, nor did he do as others do, who, because they may light a fire any time and are well supplied with clothes and own houses, run away at once from the open air at the least sensation of cold, thus enfeebling their bodies and making them incapable of enduring the winter's cold, or, on the other hand, because it is possible for them to enjoy abundant shade in the summer-time and drink all the wine they wish, on that account never expose themselves to the sun, never experience a natural thirst, keep to the house just as much as women do, are inactive and sluggish of body, and have their souls steeped in a drunken stupor. 

This is why they devise for themselves both unwholesome menus and baths to counteract the bad effects of these,⁠ and within the same twenty-four hours they often want both a breeze and heavy clothing; they want ice and fire at one and the same time, and—what is most absurd of all—they long for both hunger and thirst. And though they are incontinent, they find no delight in love because they do not wait till they desire it naturally; consequently the pleasures they seek are devoid of satisfaction and are joyless. 

Diogenes, however, always waited until he was hungry or thirsty before he partook of nourishment, and he thought that hunger was the most satisfactory and pungent of appetizers. And so he used to partake of a barley cake with greater pleasure than others did of the costliest of foods, and enjoyed a drink from a stream of running water more than others did their Thasian wine. 

He scorned those who would pass by a spring when thirsty and move heaven and earth to find where they could buy Chian or Lesbian wine; and he used to say that such persons were far sillier than cattle, since these creatures never pass by a spring or a clear brook when thirsty or, when hungry, disdain the tenderest leaves or grass enough to nourish them. 

He also said that the most beautiful and healthful houses were open to him in every city: to wit, the temples and the gymnasia. And one garment was all he needed for both summer and winter, for he endured the cold weather easily because he had become used to it. He never protected his feet, either, because they were no more sensitive, he claimed, than his eyes and face. For these parts, though by nature most delicate, endured the cold very well on account of their constant exposure; for men could not possibly walk after binding their eyes as they did their feet. He used to say, too, that rich men were like newborn babes; both were in constant need of swaddling-clothes. 

That for which men gave themselves the most trouble and spent the most money, which caused the razing of many cities and the piti­ful destruction of many nations—this he found the least laborious and most inexpensive of all things to procure. For he did not have to go anywhere for his sexual gratification but, as he humorously put it, he found Aphrodite everywhere, without expense; and the poets libeled the goddess, he maintained, on account of their own want of self-control, when they called her "the all-golden."⁠ 

And since many doubted this boast, he gave a public demonstration before the eyes of all, saying that if men were like himself, Troy would never have been taken, nor Priam, king of the Phrygians and a descendant of Zeus, been slain at the altar of Zeus. But the Achaeans had been such fools as to believe that even dead men found women indispensable and so slew Polyxena at the tomb of Achilles. Fish showed themselves more sensible than men almost; for whenever they needed to eject their sperm, they went out of doors and rubbed themselves against something rough. 

He marveled that while men were unwilling to pay out money to have a leg or arm or any other part of their body rubbed, that while not even the very rich would spend a single drachma for this purpose, yet on that one member they spent many talents time and again and some had even risked their lives in the bargain. 

In a joking way he would say that this sort of intercourse was a discovery made by Pan when he was in love with Echo and could not get hold of her, but roamed over the mountains night and day till Hermes in pity at his distress, since he was his son, taught him the trick. So Pan, when he had learned his lesson, was relieved of his great misery; and the shepherds learned the habit from him.