Oration 9

When the Isthmian games were being held, Diogenes went down to the Isthmus, since, it seems, he was staying at Corinth. And he attended the festal gatherings not for the reasons most do, wishing to behold the athletes and to gorge themselves, but, I think, to observe men and their folly. For he knew that they are most plainly seen in their feasts and festal gatherings, whereas in war and the camp they are more hidden, because of being in danger and afraid.

And indeed he thought that then they were more curable; for the diseases of the body too, when they are evident, are more easily treated by physicians than while they lurk hidden; but men who are neglected in such occupations perish most quickly.

For these reasons he frequented the festal gatherings. And he said in jest that the dog's part reproved them: for it was on account of his harshness and his reviling that they called him a dog; for the dogs follow into the festal gatherings, but wrong none of those gathered there, and bark at and fight the malefactors and robbers, and when men, drunk, are asleep, they themselves keep awake and watch.

And when he appeared at the festal gathering, none of the Corinthians gave heed to him, because they often saw him in the city and about the Craneum. For men do not much care for those whom they ever see and to whom they think they can come whenever they wish; but to those whom they see at intervals, or have never seen, to these they turn. Whence the Corinthians least of all benefited by Diogenes—just as if sick men, with a physician sojourning among them, should not come to him, but think it enough even to see him in the city.

But of the rest, those from far off most of all approached him—from Ionia and Sicily and Italy, as many as were present, and some of those from Libya, and from Massalia, and from the Borysthenes; all these, indeed, wishing rather to see him and to hear a little of his speaking, that they might have it to report to others, than to become better.

For he was thought competent to revile and to answer questioners to the point. So, just as the inexperienced try to taste of Pontic honey, and having tasted it at once spit it out in disgust, because it is bitter and unpleasant—so men wished to make trial of Diogenes too, out of busybodyishness, but, being refuted, turned away and fled.

And while they took pleasure when others were reviled, they themselves feared and withdrew. And if he jested and sported, as he sometimes was wont, they rejoiced exceedingly; but when he set himself to it in earnest, they could not endure his frank speech—just as, I think, children take pleasure in playing with the noble hounds, but when one grows fierce and barks louder, they are dismayed and die of fright. And then too he did the same, in no way turning aside nor caring whether someone of those present praised him or blamed him, nor whether one of the rich and renowned, a general or a man of power, came up and conversed with him, or one of the very mean and poor;

but such persons, when they prated, he sometimes despised, while those who wished to be august and prided themselves on wealth or birth or some other power—these above all he pressed and chastised in every way. Some, then, admired him as the wisest of all; to some he seemed mad; many despised him as a beggar and worth nothing; some reviled him, and others tried to insult him, throwing bones before his feet, as to the dogs; and others coming up laid hands on his cloak.

But many would not endure it, but were indignant—just as Homer says the suitors mocked Odysseus, and he bore their licentiousness and insolence for a few days; but Diogenes was the same in everything; for in truth he was like a king and master in a beggar's garb, and then moving among his slaves and servants who lived in luxury and knew not who he was, easily bearing with men drunk and mad through ignorance and want of learning.

Yet the presidents of the Isthmian games, and as many of the rest as were honored and powerful, were greatly at a loss and shrank into themselves whenever they came near him, and all these passed by in silence, glancing at him askance. And when he crowned himself with the pine, the Corinthians sent some of their officers and bade him lay aside the crown and do nothing unlawful.

But he asked them why it was unlawful for him to be crowned with the pine, but not unlawful for others. So one of them said, "Because you have not won, Diogenes." And he said, "Many indeed are the antagonists I have conquered, and great ones—not such as these slaves now here, wrestling and hurling the discus and running,

but altogether harder: poverty and exile and ill repute, and besides anger and grief and desire and fear, and the most invincible beast of all, treacherous and soft—pleasure; which no one, neither of the Greeks nor of the barbarians, thinks fit to fight and to surpass by mastering it in the soul, but all are vanquished and have given up this contest—Persians and Medes and Syrians and Macedonians and Athenians and Lacedaemonians—except me.

Do I, then, seem to you worthy of the pine, or, having taken it, will you give it to the one most full of meat? Report this, then, to those who sent you, and that they themselves are acting unlawfully; for without having won any contest they go about wearing crowns; and that I have made the Isthmian games more renowned by mastering the crown myself; and that it should be a thing fought for, not by men, but plainly by the goats."

After this, seeing a man walking from the stadium with a great throng, and not even setting foot on the ground, but borne aloft by the crowd, and some following and shouting, and others leaping for joy and raising their hands to heaven, and others casting crowns and ribbons upon him—when he was able to come near, he asked what was the uproar about the man, and what had happened.

And the man said, "We win, Diogenes, best of men, the foot-race." "And what is this?" he said; "for you have not become a whit more prudent because you outstripped your fellow runners, nor more temperate now than before, nor less cowardly, nor do you suffer less, nor will you need less in the future, nor will you live with less pain."

"By Zeus," he said, "but I am the swiftest of all the other Greeks." "But not of the hares," said Diogenes, "nor of the deer; and yet these beasts are the swiftest of all and the most cowardly, and they fear men and dogs and eagles, and live a wretched life. Do you not know," he said, "that swiftness is a sign of cowardice? For it has befallen the same animals to be both swiftest and most unmanly.

Heracles, at any rate, because he was slower than many and could not catch the malefactors on foot, for this reason carried a bow and used it against those who fled." And the man said, "But Achilles, who was swift, the poet says was most brave." "And how," he said, "do you know that Achilles was swift? For he could not catch Hector, though he pursued him a whole day."

"Are you not ashamed," he said, "to plume yourself on a thing in which you are by nature worse than the meanest beasts? For I think you could not even outstrip a fox. And by how much did you outstrip them?" "By a little, Diogenes," he said; "for indeed this very thing was the wonder of the victory." "So," he said, "by a single step you have become happy." "For we were all the strongest, we who ran." "But do not the larks pass through the stadium not a little swifter than you? For they are winged," he said.

"Then," said Diogenes, "if being swiftest is best, it is far better to be a lark, nearly, than a man; so that one need not pity the nightingales nor the hoopoes, that they became birds from men, as the myth has told." "But I," he said, "being a man, am swiftest of men." "What then? Among the ants too," he said, "is it not likely that one is swifter than another? Do they, then, admire it? Or does it not seem to you laughable,

if one should admire an ant for swiftness? And what? If all the runners were lame, ought you to think much of yourself because, being lame, you outstripped lame men?" Conversing thus with the man, he made many of those present despise the matter, and made the man himself go off grieved and much humbler.

And this he afforded men no small benefit, whenever he saw someone vainly puffed up, and out of his wits over a thing worth nothing, by contracting him a little and taking away some little of his folly—just as those who prick or shake things blown up and swollen.

Meanwhile, beholding horses tied up in the same place, and then fighting and kicking one another, and a great crowd standing round and watching, until the one, worn out, broke loose and fled—he came up and crowned the one that remained, and proclaimed it victor at the Isthmian games, because it had conquered by kicking. At this there was laughter and uproar from all, and many admired Diogenes and laughed at the athletes; and some, they say, went off without seeing the athletes—those who were poorly lodged, or who lacked even this.