• smoothbrain coldtakes@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    133
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    He’s also the one who told the Emperor to move out of his sunlight.

    Man, what a guy.

    Alexander the Great comes up to you and says “if I was not me, I wish I were you” and your response is “If I wasn’t myself, I’d still wish to be myself”.

    Unfathomably based.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      126
      ·
      7 months ago

      Diogenes was captured by pirates while on voyage to Aegina and sold as a slave … Being asked his trade, he replied that he knew no trade but that of governing men, and that he wished to be sold to a man who needed a master.

      Fucking savage.

      • Cruxifux@feddit.nl
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        37
        arrow-down
        14
        ·
        7 months ago

        Alexander the Great was captured by pirates too. He forced them to increase his ransom because he was insulted that it was so small, and spent much of his time forcing them to listen to the poetry he wrote. Which is also hilarious IMO.

        • Nougat@fedia.io
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          97
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          Nope, that was Julius Caesar. Who also told the pirates that he would return and crucify every one of them. After his release, he assembled a posse, went to the city he’d been captured in - where the dumb pirates had returned to - captured them all and turned them over to authorities.

          When the authorities were not taking swift enough action, Caesar demanded the pirates be remanded to his custody, and because of his sociopolitical clout, they were - and summarily crucified.

      • 🔍🦘🛎@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        18
        ·
        7 months ago

        Greek philosophers had no chill apparently

        Zeno was killed while he was engaged in a plot to overthrow the tyrant Nearchus. This account tells that he was captured, and that he was killed after he refused to give the names of his co-conspirators.[3][8] Before his death, Zeno is said to have asked to whisper the names into Nearchus’s ear, only to bite the ear when Nearchus approached, holding on until he was killed.[3]

      • Gigan@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        7 months ago

        Goddamn. Is there a list of Diogenes quotes? I’ve heard a couple but this one was new to me.

        • gbuttersnaps@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          43
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          My favorite is when he got caught masturbating in public and responded with “If only it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly.” Or when Plato was teaching a class and defined a man as a featherless biped, and Diogenes brought a plucked chicken to the class and said “Behold, Plato’s man!”

    • Wild Bill@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      46
      ·
      7 months ago

      And the time this dialogue took place during that same meeting…

      In another account of the conversation, Alexander found the philosopher looking attentively at a pile of human bones. Diogenes explained, “I am searching for the bones of your father but cannot distinguish them from those of a slave.”

    • meep_launcher@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      He also would masturbate in the middle of the market, and when confronted said “if only hunger could be satisfied by rubbing your belly”

      He also lived in a bathtub.