What is it that you are so ecstatic about?” Diogenes looked up at him and asked him a question that nobody would have ever dared to ask an emperor. You do not have a piece of cloth on your body. Alexander raised his voice and almost screamed at him, “You wretched animal. Only an utter idiot can fight for sixteen years like this.Īlexander came riding his big horse, in his emperor’s clothes and looked down at Diogenes who had his eyes closed and was rolling in the sand in great ecstasy. He died at the age thirty-two, in a most miserable condition because he had managed to conquer only one half of the world, the other half was still left. For another sixteen years he fought non-stop, killing thousands of people on his way. At the age of sixteen he started fighting. He wasted his life and other people’s lives. I would like to add a third name to him – Alexander the Great Idiot, because he was one person who wasted life. One day, he was lying down on the river bank in an ecstatic state, when Alexander came that way. On that day, he threw away his begging bowl and loincloth and lived totally naked. He just looked at this and thought “Oh my god, my life is worse than that of a dog.” He was already ecstatic, but he was saying his life was worse than that of a dog, because many times, he had felt like just jumping into the river, but was worried about getting his loincloth wet and about what could happen if he left the beautiful begging bowl there. One day, he finished his meal and was walking towards the river when a dog overtook him, ran into the river, swam around a little bit, came onto the sand and rolled around joyfully. He begged at the temple gates and ate whatever food he got. Somebody had given him a beautiful begging bowl and he wore only a loincloth. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.Sadhguru: Diogenes was a wonderful and ecstatic beggar who lived on a river bank in Greece. Alexander the Great: The Story of an Ancient Life by Thomas R.New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2011. Alexander the Great by Philip Freeman.The Campaigns of Alexander by Arrian, translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt. ‘Nothing,’ replied the philosopher ‘though I should be grateful if you and your friends would move to one side, and not keep the sun off me’ ( Anabasis, 7.2).įor more about Diogenes the Cynic, read our article HERE. “ was marching somewhere in the Isthmus with a contingent of Guards and infantry Companions, and chancing to see Diogenes lying in the sun, he stopped and asked him if there was anything he wanted. 90-173+), a Roman general and scholar who wrote a biography of Alexander’s life: Diogenes’ dismissive response to the king’s offer became legendary. According to legend, Alexander-an admirer of Diogenes and his philosophy-tried to strike up a conversation with the man and offered him anything the philosopher might desire. Alexander and Diogenes were said to have met each other in Athens or Corinth, where an odd encounter allegedly ensued. On the right, the annoyed-looking man with his arm outstretched, is Diogenes “the Cynic” of Sinope, one of the most peculiar philosophers to have graced this earth. 336 to 323 BCE), depicted at a time before he set out on his renowned campaign to conquer the Persian Achaemenid Empire and parts of India. On the left is Alexander the Great, the famous king of Macedonia (r. In the scene painted above, Nicolas-André Monsiau (1754–1837) displays an encounter between two famous figures from ancient Greece.
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