Any attempt to reconstruct [this fragmentary writer’s] thought requires fantasy and imagination. But fantasy must be responsible to the evidence, and imagination must acknowledge one sobering fact: we do not know much about [him].
Jonathan Barnes, on Antiochus of Ascalon, in Philosophia Togata (1989:52)
All Barnes is doing here, though, is reminding us of the sad fact . . . that we are dealing with hints and scraps of evidence. If one is not inclined to make the most of these, then one should probably leave the field alone.
John Dillon, The Middle Platonists 2nd ed. (1996:432)
This book is primarily a commentary on the edition of the surviving textual passages by and about Antisthenes of Athens, the famed disciple of Socrates (c. 445–360 BCE), published by Gabriele Giannantoni in 1983 in his Socraticorum Reliquiae and republished in 1990, with no changes to the relevant material, in his Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae (hereafter called SSR). Adaptations have been made in some textual readings, length of excerpts, and, in a few cases, the selection of passages; the numerous typographical errors that not only once but twice slipped through the publication process of Giannantoni’s collection have been corrected.1 The overall structure of Giannantoni’s edition, ordered roughly according to titles in the book catalog preserved by Diogenes Laertius, is hard to improve, and the small disadvantages presented by the ordering of SSR are not enough to introduce a whole new reference system.
Little or nothing that can be called “fragments” of Antisthenes’ own writing remains, although he reportedly wrote much: what we have are several dozen testimonia, including synthetic portraits by Xenophon and Diogenes Laertius, and two short fictional speeches attributed to Antisthenes that survive in full. The authors of these testimonia range in date from Antisthenes’ contemporaries to his fans eight centuries later and also include hostile critics, epitomizers, and fabricators. For those who stand by careful use of authentic “fragments” in Hermann Diels’ sense, Antisthenes has seemed of almost no value or interest. Certainty is possible on few topics. But the testimonia, one could wager, do carry a story; and Antisthenes was rarely so prestigious that his thoughts or authorship were forged fantastically, as might be true for figures such as Pythagoras, Socrates, or Diogenes of Sinope.
It is worth making the most we can of the hints and scraps of evidence about Antisthenes that survived antiquity, because he was one of, if not the most important among, Plato’s intellectual contemporaries in the world of post-Socratic Athens. However great Plato was and however great and powerful his philosophy became (particularly in comparison to that of his contemporaries) over the decades of his life and the phases of his literary production, Plato did not become great by himself. Nor is it likely that his star pupil Aristotle was the only person who stimulated Plato to become ever greater or that the materialist physicist Democritus was the only contemporary rival who was refuted, unnamed, behind the scenes and between the lines of Plato’s dialogues. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle do not form a linear and self-contained tradition in early Greek philosophy: rather, they lived in the well-populated intellectual world of classical Athens, where dozens of serious thinkers influenced each other every day through rivalry and mutual inspiration. Antisthenes must have been important among these.
The methodological principles of this edition follow from the beginning laid out by Giannantoni and the nature of the material he collected. First, given that almost everything we have from Antisthenes is testimonia, understanding the purposes of the preserving authors is fundamental to understanding everything said about Antisthenes. Simple excerpts can be read as such only when the proximate author was someone like Stobaeus (who, as it happens, probably did not read Antisthenes directly), and even then, Antisthenes’ position in a range of passages can illuminate the importance recognized in him. The boundaries of citation are rarely to be defined exactly, and the overall program of each text that cites Antisthenes must be considered. There are probably words and phrases in many testimonia that Antisthenes generated himself: these can be recognized by their oddity or emphasis, their consistency among themselves, and their difference from the normal practices of the citing authors. But it is rarely certain that any particular word or phrase can be attributed to Antisthenes, and discussion is required most of the time. This is the major reason that a commentary is the best form for basic treatment of Antisthenes’ literary remains.
Second, a holistic approach to Antisthenes is critical to making progress with this author and thinker. All the testimonia and both speeches must be accounted for in any convincing overview of Antisthenes. Real explanations must be made for the discounting of any evidence, beyond its post-contemporary date. Of course, the surviving evidence is partial, representing perhaps a few percentage points of what Antisthenes produced. But the set of evidence for Antisthenes is larger than it is for most of the other ancient thinkers known foremost by reputation, including many of the Pre-Socratics. It is unsound to reconstruct Antisthenes’ views on any topic by selecting a small set of passages that are considered the most genuine or most contemporary and omitting the rest. Every text that preserves information, from the contemporary fictions of Xenophon and the contemporary polemics of Aristotle to the traditional Stoicizing doxography in Diogenes Laertius and the Cynicizing novella of the pseudo-epistles, contains its prejudices, and these must be considered in the course of both counting and discounting any bit of the evidence. There might be compartments of thought for Antisthenes that he himself did not reconcile and that, in the end, justify the isolation of some evidence from other; but such segregations must be carefully considered, not assumed too quickly from our own academic traditions or prejudices. There might also be fallacious, unintended inconsistencies in Antisthenes’ thinking, insofar as Antisthenes was primitive or deficient. Finally, because the available evidence is so poor, there might be contradictions apparent particularly to us that we should not try to reconcile, because we have no access to any full or explicit account of Antisthenes’ views that could verify the kind of conjectural reconstruction necessary. But I propose that the declaration of deficiencies and inconsistencies should be the last resort, after we have made dedicated attempts to find the consistent strands in Antisthenes’ approach to the topics of his day. A richer modern discussion might compensate, to some extent, for the impossibility of real verification, as it has done for so many of the Pre-Socratics, Sophists, and Hellenistic philosophers.
Third, the selection and ordering of the testimonia is not the original contribution of this edition. The collection of “fragments” of Antisthenes has accumulated over time—from Winckelmann’s Antisthenis Fragmenta of 1842 (reprinted by Mullach in his broader Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum of 1867) to Humblé’s “Antisthenes’ Fragmenten” of 19322 to Decleva Caizzi’s Antisthenis Fragmenta of 19663 to Giannantoni’s Socraticorum Fragmenta of 1983 and Socratis et Socraticorum Fragmenta of 1990, each with the order rearranged and new numbers assigned—to the extent that the collection has now exceeded, by a small margin, the passages where Antisthenes is cited by name. There remain some unresolved questions about which Antisthenes is meant in some passages (esp. t. 72B, 159D). I have added a few passages to SSR (t. 38B, 51B, 52C, 72B, 84C, 136B, 136F, 159D, 179B, 185B, 192B), moved some into the Antisthenes corpus from elsewhere in SSR (t. 20B, 22B–C, 33A–B, 34A–H, 35B, 37B–C, 43B, 84B, 94B, 117B, 138B), moved some from different sub-positions within the Antisthenes corpus (t. 90B, 136E, 163B), printed some to which only SSR refers (t. 52A–B, 57B, 70B–C, 71B, 77B, 92B, 122GH, 149B–2, 149C–E, 152C–D, 153C, 173B, 181C, 207A–C), expanded many to give more of the context (t. 13A, 14B, 18, 44B–C, 48, 51A, 69, 49, 82, 115, 149A, 149B–1, 149F, 150A–B, 151B, 152A–B, 152C, 153A–B, 156, 157B–C, 170, 191, 194, 196, 197), changed the order or made important distinctions within some clusters (t. 1, 11, 87, 103, 112, 122, 131, 149, 188, 189), deleted two testimonia (t. 130, 144), and left in place about a dozen that are conjectural because they do not name Antisthenes. These could arguably be replaced by a dozen others that are equally conjectural but are discussed instead in the notes. Although I believe that Antisthenes is also in the background of further texts and passages where he is not named, argument on these points must depend on the testimonia securely accepted and is appropriate to a different setting. The conjectural passages retained from SSR are the Isocrates texts (t. 55, 66, 156, 170), several from Aristotle (t. 118A–B, 119, 157A–C, 158), two from Xenophon (t. 67, 103C), one from Plutarch on Aspasia (t. 143B) and another on Alcibiades (t. 202), and several from the Cynico-Stoic ethical tradition (t. 136, 140); t. 206–8 in Section 17, like all extracts from the Cynic epistles (also t. 20B, 84C, 94B, 136B), are somewhat different and must be labeled as imitations. Among my additions, about half (t. 38B, 72B, 84C, 136F, 159D, 192B) are also conjectural. Appropriate cautions and references are included. It seems futile, in fact, to attempt to set out definitively all the evidence that can be used to understand Antisthenes or reconstruct his lost texts, not only because conjecture is required, but because the boundaries of relevance can probably never be defined. The whole corpus of Plato, all of Xenophon, and all of Dio Chrysostom (to give the three most important examples) are potentially fruitful for understanding Antisthenes, and the boundaries move outward from there to contemporary authors such as Isocrates and Aristotle and later ones such as Plutarch and Themistius. As for ordering, there are disadvantages to retaining the order of SSR, including the uneven sizes of the sections; the separation of, for example, Alcibiades into two different sections and the clustering of Aspasia with one of these Alcibiades groupings in distinction from Cyrus and Heracles, with whom she is listed in the book catalog; the segmentation of Diogenes Laertius’ biography (which has parallels on the small scale of individual sentences but not on the large scale); and the waste of some testimonium numbers (31, 97, 114, 145, 146, 205) versus the necessity for three-level subdivision of others (t. 34, 149 and 189). Many passages seem hardly important enough to stand alone but could be clustered with others (e.g., t. 4, 6, 24, 25, 39, 40, 115). Whereas most of the apophthegmata and anecdotes reported by Diogenes Laertius are separately listed, sometimes even twice (t. 85 = 97, t. 114 = 172, t. 58 is really part of t. 134), t. 27 and 172 are compounds and t. 22, 134, and 135 are long accounts or doxographies. But this is a reference work, full of cross-references and supplied with indices, and the numbers are only markers. Readers will be able to devise the order of reading useful to them. Moreover, computerized searching tools make an editor’s ordering decisions less determining than they used to be. Foremost, I resisted the introduction of yet another new numbering system.
Changes to the text, beyond their length, are noted in the apparatus criticus for each text and sometimes discussed in the notes. The range of this collection entails that it cannot be considered an independent scholarly edition in all senses. I have consulted no manuscripts myself for this project but have used previous publications to establish each text, often beyond the edition cited for reference in each case. I have tried to standardize the style of my own apparatus criticus, as conventions vary widely. Where there is either a significant divergence in the manuscripts or variation in published texts, as well as in the few cases where I have conjectured a new reading or a lacuna myself (t. 44C, 92B-C, 122B, 141B, 152B.2), I have first reported the authority for the option I have chosen, whether it is a manuscript reading or a conjecture. I have then listed the alternatives in the order of manuscript authority, placing last any conjectures I have rejected but consider worth reporting because they have been influential. In some cases, standardizing and completing the apparatus criticus meant that I designated “codd. plur.” (most manuscripts) as authority where I have no information about exactly where a majority reading is attested. In general, the apparatus criticus is meant to be minimal, but for the most important texts, such as the speeches (t. 53–54), and for the Homeric scholia (esp. t. 187), which are least well known and understood, I thought it was important to include more than the minimal information about variant readings and conjectures. For details about all manuscript sigla, readers should consult the cited edition. In presenting papyri, I have eliminated the conventional underdot for conjectural readings: for this information also, readers should consult the cited edition.
Significant changes from SSR, beyond correction of the typographical errors, include the following: For Philodemus, the new editions sometimes differ radically from what SSR printed (t. 179B is added, and t. 184 is now quite different); the papyrus fragment in t. 175 is taken from a newer edition; t. 182, from Marcovich’s newer edition of Clement’s Protrepticus, now shows that Antisthenes is quite probably quoted in verse. I have also used Marcovich’s 1999 edition of Diogenes Laertius, together with Patzer’s edition of Antisthenes’ book catalog; the newer edition by Dorandi (2013) was published after this book went to press, but I have checked it at all relevant points during the copy editing process and cited it as a monograph. My own important decisions about the text include the retention of the proper name “Kyrsas” transmitted in a letter of Cicero (t. 84A), omission of the parentheses inserted by twentieth-century editors directly before the reference to Antisthenes in each of the passages in Aristotle’s Metaphysics where he is discussed (t. 150A, 152A), and the removal of some nineteenth- and twentieth-century conjectures from the two major texts on Odysseus (t. 54, 187).
Translations are intended both to reflect the Greek accurately, so that readers with little knowledge of Greek can by and large follow the passages and commentary, and to capture the thought of each passage in natural English. Favor has been given to literal, Greek-based translation. However, I have not tried to translate every Greek word in the same way every time: even though I do think Antisthenes had a view of language that would resist translation or paraphrase and would treat items of vocabulary as unique terms, most of the language translated here was crafted not by Antisthenes or any other single writer but by more than a hundred writers. A few words in the English text, such as logos, eros, tomos, and apophthegma, are transliterations rather than translations, because of their terminological status. Proper names are spelled in the Latinized form, like what is familiar in modern English, even when the Greek names are unfamiliar.
In the introductory comments and more detailed notes on each passage, the major goals are to explain the context in which various bits of evidence about Antisthenes are preserved; to identify, tentatively in most cases, what is likely to be the actual wording or voice of Antisthenes; to associate each testimonium with the others that are most comparable and to discuss overlaps and differences among the evidence; to identify, discuss, and contribute new insights to major topics that have emerged in the scholarship on Antisthenes over time, pinning these to the passages or words that serve as evidence for each scholarly discussion; and to bring out some topics that have not so far been discussed in the scholarship, for example, Antisthenes’ interest in being a human (which is used as an example of a name or definiendum in t. 149 and 150A and elsewhere, but has not, to my knowledge, been considered as anything more) or his apparently distinctive approach to lexical ambiguity in a text (t. 189: see esp. 189A-1.4 notes). I have often reported or generated multiple possible answers to a single problem in the Antisthenes testimonia, and sometimes I have declined to take a clear stand myself. Although some readers will find my presentations of these alternatives irritating in their failure to reach a definitive conclusion, I write in awareness of the controversies at stake and the possibility that there might yet be major progress to be made with Antisthenes. I have tried not to alienate those readers who will hold firm preconceptions about Antisthenes that I do not believe the evidence supports, and I allow that modern reconstruction from a basis of spotty ancient evidence will never be perfect or systematically efficient and will always need space for alternatives.
The number of cross-references I identify among passages, while ample, is incomplete; readers will find plenty that I have missed. References to passages outside Antisthenes’ testimonia, especially to texts of Plato and Xenophon, are all the more to be understood as only some, not all, of the possibilities worth considering. I have tried to cite the important bibliography at all points, but readers should not assume that omissions are significant: I have absorbed the bibliography on Antisthenes over a long period of time, and it is difficult to retrace the source of every idea without rereading the scholarship, which I have done in many cases, but not all. I have favored citation of scholarship that deals particularly with Antisthenes or with a given text of a preserving author, minimizing citation of more synthetic recent scholarship on the major issues with which Antisthenes intersects, for example, Homer, erotics, and all too many topics in Socratic ethics and dialectic. This solution is not ideal but mostly practical (the limits are hard to see) and reflects the fact that much modern scholarship on these topics has developed without considering Antisthenes: it seems sounder to work from Antisthenes’ testimonia outward to the big questions than to apply frameworks from the big questions to Antisthenes. There is more work to be done in this area. At some points, I have also discussed my textual decisions in the notes, but I tried to reserve such discussion to points that are significant for the meaning of the passage or for its contribution to what we can understand about Antisthenes.
A final point about conjectural interpretations is in order. There is a tendency in classical scholarship, as in other modes of thought and argument, to accept the most efficient possible explanation for a given phenomenon. One result in the history of interpreting Antisthenes is that he is written out of (almost) every story that can be told coherently without him. The lack of evidence for a given claim is regularly confused with the falsity of the claim itself. For two recent examples, see Slings 1999:96, on Hans von Arnim’s thesis that Antisthenes is a common source for the Platonic Clitophon and the “ancient discourse of some Socrates” told by Dio Chrysostom in Oration 13 (t. 208); and Huss 1999 (Xenophons Symposion):364, in his evaluation of Karl Joël’s thesis that a lost work by Antisthenes is a common source for both surviving Symposium texts, those of Plato and Xenophon. In each case, it is said, the thesis must be false because there is too little evidence in its favor. (After explaining that expansions on Clitophon could account for all of Dio’s text, Slings concludes, “Von Arnim’s thesis cannot be falsified any more and should therefore be abandoned.”) But the truth value of a historical hypothesis is not affected by the quantity of evidence now surviving in its favor (or opposed) or by the existence of a successful modern argument in its favor. Either there was or there was not a literary relationship between Xenophon and Antisthenes that a contemporary reader could see reflected in, for example, t. 14A, and the answer would matter if we knew it. The loss of evidence or inadequacy of proof cannot change the events of the fourth century BCE. Obviously, our account of the Greeks must be driven by the evidence, not every conjectural thesis is true, and we cannot assume we know something that is only plausible. But one reason to draw conclusions from obscure evidence, rather than trying to fit obscure evidence into the received story (or, all too often, ignoring such evidence), is that we might be able to enrich and improve the received story. The boundaries of this book do not allow for extensive inquiry into many such questions, but conjectural hypotheses must be entertained openly, not thrown out too fast, if we are going to make progress with Antisthenes. Sometimes we will not have an answer, but a question can stay on the table.
Modern knowledge of Antisthenes began from the images transmitted by Diogenes Laertius in his Lives and Opinions of Those Eminent in Philosophy (composed c. 200–230 CE) and by Xenophon in his Memorabilia and Symposium (composed probably in the late 360s BCE, near the time of Antisthenes’ death), both authors whose works were published in Europe in the early decades of the printing press.4 Through the career of Hegel, the serious history of philosophy took no note of Antisthenes, and early publications were mainly antiquarian embellishments on Diogenes Laertius.5 The German novelist Christoph Wieland, in his epistolary novel Aristipp (1800–1802), promulgated the image of a surly, somewhat misanthropic Antisthenes, interpreted from Xenophon’s Symposium together with later stereotypes of the Cynics, that has persisted in scholarship to the present day.6 This is not unlike the ancient image preserved in the Roman copies of the Pergamum sculpture, created around 200 BCE and first unearthed at Tivoli in 1772, in which Antisthenes seems to be fashioned after the Giants (see von den Hoff 1994:140–45). But in ancient literature more broadly, Antisthenes appears also as a funny and agreeable character (see esp. t. 22A.14, 110), and his “sayings,” or apophthegmata, are often wry (see, e.g., t. 8, 72A, 87). The interpretation of innuendo in Xenophon’s Symposium can be controversial, but Kurt von Fritz, at least, thought Antisthenes was sometimes colluding in Socrates’ jokes (t. 103B, 14A).
Antisthenes entered the history of philosophy in W. G. Tennemann’s Geschichte der Philosophie of 1799 and Friedrich Schleiermacher’s series of introductions to his translations of Plato’s individual works, published between 1804 and 1834. Tennemann proposed, on the basis of t. 152A, that Antisthenes was a Sophist; Schleiermacher, using Tennemann’s interpretation of Antisthenes’ views on language and adding the premise that in physics he was a Heraclitean (on the understanding that t. 159D refers to our Antisthenes), proposed that Antisthenes was meant behind the “mask” of Plato’s character Cratylus and that various of his theses were held up for examination or ridicule also in Theaetetus, Meno, Euthydemus, and the Sophist.7 Eduard Zeller, in his classic and comprehensive Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer Geschichtlichen Entwicklung of eventually five editions,8 portrayed Antisthenes as an innovative thinker in logic, a predecessor for the Stoics, and a banal moralist in ethics. Ferdinand Dümmler, in his 1882 dissertation and assorted short writings published in his Akademika of 1889, sharpened many of the questions in circulation by positing more precise theses about Plato’s relationship to Antisthenes, especially in the Republic and Theaetetus and especially with reference to the importance of Homer and poetry. Dümmler influenced Zeller’s fourth edition, which in turn had an enduring effect in the twentieth century. Karl Jöel, in his ambitious and often reckless three-volume work Der echte und der xenophontische Sokrates of 1893–1901, proposed that Antisthenes had had a profound effect on Xenophon, as well as all literature of the late fifth and early fourth centuries, and that Xenophon’s Socrates was in fact a “Cynic” Socrates and, for that reason, historically false. Although many in the German-speaking world were sympathetic to the basic insights of Tennemann and Schleiermacher and also to the promising agenda of Dümmler, who died of exhaustion in 1896 at age thirty-six,9 the excesses of Joël brought the trend in speculative inquiries on Antisthenes to a turning point. By the second decade of the twentieth century, scholars such as Eduard Schwarz (1902) and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1912, 1919) were declaring that academic energies should be spent on the texts that survive, not those that have been lost, and speculation on Antisthenes and his possible influences on Plato and the Cynics fell into bad repute.
The major landmarks in the history of Antisthenes’ reception since Zeller’s fourth edition of 1888 can be classified by ethics, logic, his relationship to Diogenes of Sinope and the Cynics, and his Socratic loyalty. Opinions on his ethics have varied little from Zeller’s impression of banality and simplistic reduction of Socraticism (see further discussion below). His logic, however, has been reconstructed into a seriously intended, positive philosophical position, of various kinds, by such scholars as Gillespie (1913–14), von Fritz (1927), Festugière (1932), Caizzi (1964), and Brancacci (1990), whereas Guthrie (1969) and Rankin (1986), among others, have classified him as a “sophist” or an “Eleatic.” Others still, such as Levi (1930) and Grube (1950), have minimized the intellectual ambitions of his statements and aligned his logic to the traditional view of his ethics, placing him in the ranks of “dolt.” His connections to Diogenes of Sinope and relationship to ancient Cynicism were fundamentally challenged by Donald Dudley in 1937, whose arguments remained persuasive through the twentieth century. The currently accepted explanation for the line of succession traced by Diogenes Laertius (argued by Mansfeld in 1986) postulates that Stoics of the second and first centuries BCE reinvented their lineage in order to attach it to Socrates and that Crates of Thebes, Diogenes of Sinope, and Antisthenes provided a convenient route back to Socrates. Although Dudley’s arguments are not compelling (see t. 22A and further bibliography cited there) and although Socraticism is evident in Diogenes and Crates as well as Antisthenes, new work on this question has yet to make impact. As for Antisthenes’ own Socraticism, Geffcken posited long ago (1934 v.2:29) that “sophistry” and Socraticism need not be mutually exclusive. Among recent scholars, C. W. Müller (1975, 1995, 1998) has been inclined to allow for such a combination; but most recent serious Antisthenes scholars, including Patzer (1970), Decleva Caizzi (1966), Brancacci (1990), and Giannantoni (1990, in SSR), even while they cite Geffcken’s comment, have insisted that Antisthenes was primarily a Socratic, and by equating this with an earnest and sober mission for truth and goodness, they have neutralized or minimized the importance of his mode of paradox and the claims in his paradoxes. More detailed synthetic discussions of the history of the Cynicized Antisthenes and the Socratic Antisthenes can be found, respectively, in Höistad 1948:5–12 and Patzer 1970:16–44. Giannantoni’s twenty long notes on Antisthenes (notes 21–40 in Giannantoni 1990 v.4:195–411) are largely historical bibliographies on their respective topics, somewhat uneven in the level of detail.
In light of the very odd history of this modern reception, which ran so hot in the nineteenth century and so cold in the twentieth, the present work has taken a skeptical attitude toward some of the inherited truths about Antisthenes and has entertained others that have been discarded long ago. Various interpretations, some still alive and some not, are discussed in connection with the passages on which they have been based. Future debates must be based not on isolated sentences but on all the information transmitted about Antisthenes.
If we are to believe the Hellenistic anecdotes, Antisthenes was the son of an Athenian father and a Thracian (non-citizen) mother (t. 1–2); and it is often said in modern discussion that his low birth was a liability for his whole life and the cause of his countercultural ideology. But the contemporary portrait of Antisthenes by Xenophon transmits no sign that Antisthenes is anything but a normal Athenian: in at least some scenes of the Symposium, he keeps seamless company with the gentlemen assembled at the home of Callias (t. 103A); and in the Memorabilia, he holds forth on the value of friendship, comparing its “price” to the price of slaves (t. 110). He allegedly studied with Gorgias (t. 11) and fought for Athens (t. 3), neither the marked activity of a bastard (nothos). For anecdotes preserved about his life, see t. 1–34; for his life span, see t. 35; and for his death, see t. 37.
In most areas of classical studies, biographical scholarship has long been discarded. Mary Lefkowitz, in her 1981 book The Lives of the Greek Poets, showed that biographical information about classical poets surviving in Hellenistic sources is largely fabricated from the works of the poets themselves and has little claim on historical truth. Janet Fairweather previously did the same for the ancient philosophers in her 1974 article “Fiction in the Biographies of Ancient Writers,” and one formative inspiration for this insight might go back to Kurt von Fritz’s 1926 dissertation on Diogenes of Sinope. But scholarship on Antisthenes and on the Cynics as well has churned so slowly that Antisthenes’ alleged origin as the son of a Thracian mother is still cited in explanation for his whole ideology, hostile as it is (at points) to Athens and its systems of ethics, politics, and education. In fact, we know little or nothing about Antisthenes’ parentage or his real material wealth, and it is unclear how much these issues mattered in the Socratic circle. (See discussion at t. 1 and 82.)
At the same time, we should be confident that a living human body called Antisthenes existed in Athens c. 445–360 BCE: this human being consorted with Socrates and others and wrote numerous texts that were received by contemporaries and transmitted to posterity. In other words, we cannot treat him only as the fiction of, for example, Xenophon or Diogenes; rather, in reading the fictions and polemics, at least the contemporary ones, we must remain aware that these were written about a person who really lived and who really wrote texts that had been and could be read by the authors of these fictions as well as by their own intended readers. This historical assumption implies that various events during the period of Antisthenes’ life in Athens must have shaped his ideology, his topics of interest, and the themes of his texts. Whoever Antisthenes’ mother and father were and whatever his official social status was, Antisthenes was educated in the major topics of the day, perhaps by the leading figures of the day. Socrates himself was countercultural, and Antisthenes might have been drawn to him for that reason; alternatively, Antisthenes’ countercultural tendencies might have been learned from Socrates. We do not know why he was attracted to Socrates or why he opposed Athens on many fronts, and neither question probably matters much for the importance of what he said. The Peloponnesian Wars of 431–404 and the oligarchic coups of 411 and 404 were a watershed for many residents of Athens who became intellectuals in the fourth century, and it is plausible that living through these events, as well as the execution of Socrates by the Athenians in 399, caused Antisthenes to reject various aspects of conventional Athenian culture or sharpened his hostility to it. That his response would be different from those of Thucydides, Plato, Lysias, Isocrates, Xenophon, or Aristophanes is hardly a problem, since the responses of those men are already so different from each other.
The Socratic movement was part of the Sophistic movement, differentiated to the extent that Socrates taught a special brand of wisdom marked out from what was taught by others.10 The precise nature of this difference is hard to define, in light of the poor evidence that survives to us and the fact that Plato, often polemical, is our source on Socraticism to such a high degree. Plato believed ardently that Socrates was different from the rest, and he located the difference in Socrates’ ethical certainty and ethical mission. Xenophon, for his part, emphasizes that Socrates associated with his pupils for reasons related to their potential virtue, not for the purpose of making money (Mem. 1.6; Sym. 4.44, in a speech attributed to Antisthenes, t. 82). It seems that Antisthenes, too, believed that Socrates was different from the others (see the conversion story in t. 12). But ancient evidence also associates Antisthenes with other figures in the intellectual enlightenment of the late fifth century, if not without antagonism or opposition. Insofar as he retained these influences in his intellectual profile, this probably does not match with Plato’s own inevitable appropriation of many non-Socratic intellectual influences. Possibly, then, through a kind of triangulation, Antisthenes can be useful for seeing how Socratic teaching was compatible or incompatible with other aspects of the Athenian enlightenment. Such a project is, of course, complicated by the problem that not everything anti-Platonic in Antisthenes is also non-Socratic: the value of reading Homer is the clearest case where it is likely that Antisthenes is more the Socratic than Plato. But progress can be made only once we explore Antisthenes seriously. We have particular references to Antisthenes’ studies with Gorgias and his first career as a rhetoric teacher, before his conversion to Socraticism (see t. 11; see also t. 203, 151A note on δηλῶν, 53–54, 67). He is reported to have rejected at least some teachings of Gorgias (t. 203), but insofar as he preferred a rhetorical or action-based notion of logos over a representational notion (see t. 53.7 note), this could be a Gorgianic influence or allegiance. As for other “Sophists,” Xenophon’s Socrates credits Antisthenes with having introduced the wealthy Callias to the many Sophists who taught him (t. 13A.62): Prodicus and Hippias are mentioned by name. This is likely to be a joke, and it is unclear that Antisthenes followed or respected these thinkers from all angles. (On Hippias, see t. 187.1; on Prodicus, t. 207C.) But he is also addressed by ὦ σοφιστά (Oh, Sophist) in Xenophon’s Symposium (t. 83A.5), which might be a polemical exaggeration of underlying facts. On Protagoras, finally, see t. 154, 41A title 6.1, and 38B.
For Xenophon, Antisthenes is overall a hero, to judge from his place at the center of the Symposium, where he delivers an ethical speech on values that Xenophon elsewhere endorses (t. 82). Xenophon also portrays Antisthenes as Socrates’ successor as teacher in Athens (t. 13A), his close companion (t. 14B), and, in a joke, his lover (t. 14A). In the Memorabilia, where Antisthenes is less present as a character (t. 110, 14B), he might be important as a source (see, e.g., t. 112 versus Mem. 2.1.31); this old question, contaminated by its associations with Joël, deserves a modern approach. Xenophon’s attention to Antisthenes, at least as a character, stands in contrast to his attention to Plato, whom he mentions only once in passing (Mem. 3.6.2), as well as all the other Socratics. His neglect of Plato’s theory of Forms, normally assumed as his own intellectual deficiency, could be deliberate (see t. 51B.10, 83), in which case Antisthenes could have earned his place as the Socratic hero. Aristippus appears only as a hostile interlocutor for Socrates (Mem. 2.1, 3.8); Aeschines, for all his possible influence on Xenophon’s style of Socratic writing (see Kahn 1996), is never mentioned by name, and the same goes for Phaedo and Euclides; Simmias and Cebes are mentioned in passing (Mem. 3.11.17 = t. 14B) and named also in Xenophon’s clearest list of Socratic disciples (Mem. 1.2.48), in the company of Chaerephon, Hermogenes, and Chaerecrates, all minor figures attributed no place in Socratic literature or the Socratic succession by Diogenes Laertius (2.60–125). Antisthenes’ prominence in Xenophon is, then, outstanding, and the explanation must lie either in some special sympathy that Xenophon had for Antisthenes’ account of Socraticism or in some timely coincidence between Antisthenes’ death and Xenophon’s entry into the field of Socratic literature. (This is plausible if Xenophon wrote his Socratic works in the late 360s, as argued in Huss 1999 (Xenophons Symposion):15–18, citing older scholarship.) For all his tribute to Antisthenes, however, Xenophon’s portrait in the Symposium is no panegyric: see especially his interactions with Socrates in t. 14A, 83A, and 186. Very likely for the Symposium and also perhaps for the Memorabilia, Antisthenes’ writings might have been less a source than an intertext, which contemporary readers were supposed to know when they weighed Xenophon’s considerable irony (in the Symposium) about Socrates’ benefactions to Athens and the challenges that Athens faced in the fourth century. On one kind of irony in Xenophon’s picture of the “good old days,” see Huss 1999 (“The Dancing Socrates”) and my introductory comments on t. 82 (see also Wohl 2004); and on Athens’ quest for good teachers in the fourth century, see t. 13A and notes.
The most important question about Antisthenes’ relations with his contemporaries, how he intersected with Plato, deserves further study than can be possible in this book. An intellectual opposition between Antisthenes and Plato—over Plato’s theory of Forms, the nature of definition, and the value of reading Homer—seems clear from the surviving evidence on Antisthenes’ views about logos, names, and thought (t. 149–60) and on his studies of Homer (t. 185–94, 41A titles 8.3–9.11) and other poets (t. 195–96, 41A titles 2.5 and 8.1–2; see also t. 137A). Anecdotes suggest also that there was personal hostility between these two heirs to the Socratic mission (t. 27–30, 148, 41A title 6.3). One could possibly add a disagreement or even hostility over the nature of eros or Socratic eros, although the surviving evidence is slight (t. 14A, 13A, 148, 41A title 2.2). For a study of Antisthenes’ “anti-Platonic polemic” as such, which is the earliest on record and seems to have given rise to a long tradition of anti-Platonism among the Cynics, see Brancacci 1990:173–97. The most fervent and optimistic period of research on Antisthenes, from Winckelmann’s first edition of the fragments in 1842 through Dümmler’s Antisthenica of 1882 to Maier’s Sokrates of 1913, was inspired by the proposition that Antisthenes was a thinker as interesting and productive as Plato, whose intellectual influence was suppressed through the success of that younger rival. This remains an intriguing proposition, and if it is true, the relationship must have been richer than mere opposition. Dümmler suggested that Antisthenes and Plato were on the same page regarding many ethical and political topics, even as their opposition on the theory of Forms and the value of reading Homer was far reaching. It seems plausible in many cases (not least the great Symposium, Republic, and Theaetetus) that Plato might have borrowed from and been positively inspired by Antisthenes, even if his main motivation was to beat him. See the allegation of plagiarism in t. 42. Kesters’ thesis (1935) that Phaedrus was written against Antisthenes, from a text partly preserved in Themistius, has been shunned in modern scholarship and will not be addressed in this book; but it should be revisited under a more modern understanding of intertextuality. The unmistakable intertextuality between Antisthenes’ t. 187 and Plato’s Hippias Minor (see discussion at t.187) might show that Plato, in the kind of ornery style attributable to a younger sibling, recycled Antisthenes’ own material to bring it to a more sophisticated or complex point, sometimes for the purpose of refuting or attacking Antisthenes himself and sometimes because it offered an irresistible opportunity to show off. Such speculation cannot be taken too far, but it is important to recognize that the relationship between the rival Socratics, as between their texts, was not necessarily simple. Above all, Plato’s talents in parody prevent us from ever trying to reconstruct Antisthenes’ views directly from Plato’s texts.
The book catalog preserved by Diogenes Laertius (6.17–19 = t. 41A) is the best surviving evidence for the overall range and structure of Antisthenes’ thought and literary production. This long catalog is outstanding not only amid the surviving evidence for Antisthenes but among the catalogs preserved by Diogenes: only those of Democritus, Aristotle, Heraclides of Pontus, and Chrysippus can compete. Although Winckelmann and Decleva Caizzi had organized their collections of Antisthenes’ literary remains around the likely attributions of testimonia and “fragments” to individual titles preserved in the record (on the model, perhaps, of editions of fragmentary tragedians and comic poets), Andreas Patzer was the first to recognize fully the importance of this catalog and analyze it in its own right. Details can be tracked in the notes to t. 41A and the bibliography for that passage.
Not only was Antisthenes admired in antiquity for his style (t. 45–52), but it seems likely that he was a literary innovator on the order of Plato and Xenophon and that he gave some impetus, through Diogenes of Sinope and Crates of Thebes, to the eventual flowering of Cynic literature in the third and second centuries BCE in the hands of Bion, Menippus, and others (see Dudley 1937:110–16). The texts listed in the fourth and fifth volumes of his catalog were probably very long, and they might have borne comparison to episodic novels, on the one hand, and ethical or philosophical fiction, on the other (see notes on those titles, and see t. 85–99 on the Cyrus and Heracles fictions). Julian’s statements (t. 44) imply that he had a special brand of “story” or “myth.” The Ajax and Odysseus speeches (t. 53–54), with their embedded rhythms not unlike trimeters, might show a conversion of tragedy into prose, and this might have had literary or philosophical purpose in a more sophisticated sense than just the theft of material. The parodies of verses from Homer and tragedy (exemplified or suggested in t. 6, 22B, 182, 195) might, likewise, have been delivered in a mixture of prose with poetry that eventually gave rise to what is called Menippean Satire. The odd report of Aelius Aristides (t. 197), if it is not hugely distorted, suggests literary devices such as framing dialogues and subtitles. Antisthenes’ readings of Homer seem to show recognition of complexity of voices (esp. t. 189), metaphor or allegory (t. 191), and lexical play (t. 187, 189).
Either Antisthenes did not argue or theorize about ethics, or later writers in the ancient traditions were unimpressed by his arguments and theories, for we receive little information about an ethical “philosophy” of Antisthenes, only dogma and jokes. His most famous ethical statement in antiquity was apparently the same one for which he is most famous today, “I would rather go mad than have pleasure” (t. 122); but this cannot be the whole story, since he also advocates for pleasure (t. 124, 126, 127, 82.39–44). It seems likely, too, that his ethics were embedded in the stories of characters for which he was most famous: the first ethical principle that Diogenes Laertius attributes to him is cited from Heracles and Cyrus, where it was reportedly “established” or shown, not said (t. 85 = 97).
Despite this absence of theoretical treatment and despite difficult or missing evidence, it seems that several central ethical concepts can be attributed to Antisthenes, all important and some possibly original. That they have become mainstream—through, roughly speaking, Socraticism, Stoicism, and Humanism—should not disguise their importance or the fact that they were once original contributions to mainstream discourse. (See also Long 1996 [“The Socratic Tradition”]:32.) One is the opposition between resources useful to a human, such as wealth or knowledge, and their use, which is the location of ethical value. See t. 187.4 for the consolidated discussion of this idea, which is not unique to Antisthenes but appears in Plato’s Euthydemus and in evidence related to Prodicus, in addition to less formal references in tragedy and older texts. This could be a background to the later Cynic and Stoic dispute about value and indifferents (see t. 110 notes). A second is the equation between aesthetic good and ethical good, whether this is to be considered an elevation or a reduction of the aesthetic (see t. 134s–t and further references). A third is the concept of moral or ethical strength, which might be a concept of will, and its related concept of ethical freedom (t. 134c, 106, 82). Related to ethical strength is the importance of toil or work for the realization of virtue (t. 113, 134f, 163). The positive reason for building strength seems never to be addressed, but this is implied to be a defensive process, achieving immunity against unknown future trouble (t. 106, 109, 113, 134u–v). Building strength is possibly also a normal process of human maturation. The rejection of pleasure as an ethical end might be related to the status of pleasure as an appearance only, nothing real. (See t. 82.38 notes, and compare t. 120.) Finally, the sublimation of eros might be related to the equation between aesthetic and ethical good or might better be considered an important concept all of its own. We do not have enough evidence to say whether this sublimation allowed Antisthenes to connect eros with all desire for achievement, including work and the development of ethical strength, but this is not impossible.
As in all other areas of thought about Antisthenes, simplifying his opposition to bodily eros in such a way that one can conclude a priori that he must have hated Aspasia and Alcibiades is probably unsound. See notes on t. 41A titles 5.2 and 10.6, with further references to t. 141–43 and 198–202. Alcibiades bears some comparison to Odysseus, who was, at least in many senses, a hero for Antisthenes (t. 187, 188, 190). Aspasia might have instantiated the virtue of a woman (t. 134r), not least in her escape from the normal passivity or objectification of the beautiful wife (t. 57–58; compare t. 123).
Antisthenes’ views on erotics were important enough for Xenophon to make fun of them (see esp. t. 14A), but their details remain unclear to us. In particular, we do not know whether Antisthenes wrote a proto-Symposium to which both Plato’s Symposium and Xenophon’s Symposium refer as a subtext, which would make a major difference to the interpretation of Antisthenes’ image, especially in Xenophon’s version. The most striking texts (t. 14A–B) seem to turn on the opposition between love for the body and love for the soul. In the evidence overall, love for the soul so far exceeds love for the body that it can apparently take hold even in the absence of the body, before acquaintance with the body: in two anecdotes, one about Heracles (t. 92A) and one about a would-be Socratic disciple Kyrsas (t. 84C; this testimonium’s attribution to Antisthenes is not fully certain, but its parallel in this regard with t. 92A is compelling), a young man conceives eros for a teacher he has never met but only heard of through words, possibly the master’s own words, to supplement from one story about Antisthenes’ conversion to Socrates (t. 12B, 17): the same motif might be seen in Zeno of Citium’s first love (literally “pleasure”) for Socrates from Xenophon’s books (Diog. Laert. 7.3) and in the Cynic Hipparchia’s love for Crates, presumably from reports about him or perhaps his own texts (Diog. Laert. 6.96). When it comes to love of the body, Antisthenes’ views might differ from the dominant ideology of his time by distinguishing between homoeroticism and heterosexual eroticism, rather than activity and passivity. At least, he speaks of his own sexual partners as women only (t. 82.38, 56), and he connects mating with producing children (t. 41A title 2.2). He opposes the homosexual behavior of Pericles’ son, but not for passivity (t. 142). One anecdote presents him courting a boy (t. 175), and this could be either hostile or compatible with sublimated philosophical pederasty, pursuit of a beautiful soul for the purpose of educating it. (Admittedly the discussion does not seem sublimated, but it is a tiny fragment, and the parallel with Socrates and Alcibiades suggests this sense. I see no evidence for Antisthenes’ framing of a choice between women and boys, as cited in Ogden 1996:203 with reference to Buffière 1980:459–60, unless this anecdote is supposed to be reconstructed into a story incorporating other evidence.) Heterosexual “love,” if it was favored because it was necessary for procreation, would not seem to be continuous with a real love of the soul. But Antisthenes does award the designation “erotic” to his text on marriage with procreation (t. 41A title 2.2), by contrast with “aphrodisia” elsewhere (t. 82.38, 123), and his recognition of equal virtue between women and men might have allowed him to assimilate a heterosexual marriage to the kind of relationship between men that is celebrated in Plato, in Stoicism, and throughout the Greek philosophical tradition. There is no evidence that Antisthenes married or had a long-term girlfriend, and his main object of love, if the surviving evidence gives any insight into his real life, must have been Socrates (t. 14A).
We can be sure that Antisthenes was sincerely interested in language, speaking, debate, thought, knowledge, and truth (that he was neither just a sophist nor just a dolt), because a long section of his book catalog consists in a series of at least nine texts, some with multiple parts, dedicated to such topics (t. 41A titles 6.1–5 and 7.1–4 and possibly 7.9–11). Depending on how long and complex these texts were, they could have been a match for Plato’s series Euthydemus, Cratylus, Theaetetus, and the Sophist, with which they share subtitles and terminology. Because the surviving evidence for what Antisthenes said in these texts is very poor, modern scholars have not reached consensus on his core insights or positions.
The commentary form of the present book is meant to address the sometimes intractable disagreements that run through the ancient evidence (t. 148–59) and the modern interpretations of this evidence. Rather than defending one position or another and rereading or emending the texts in support of said position, it seems better to show the ways in which the evidence has been read in modern times and further ways in which it could be read, should one decide to consider or give privilege to any particular testimonium. Traditional scholarly conclusions about some passages, notably t. 151A and 152A, need to be reconsidered in light of all the evidence. Most obviously, the late antique commentaries on Antisthenes’ famous οὐκ ἔστιν ἀντιλέγειν thesis have been commonly dismissed in recent scholarship as non-illuminating—for example, Decleva Caizzi (1966:104) prints t. 152B but dismisses 152C–D and 153B—even though Aristotle gives absolutely no explication of the thesis he twice reports and despite the work of Richard Sorabji and others that has established, in most areas of the history of ancient philosophy, that thinkers such as Alexander of Aphrodisias, Ammonius, and Simplicius had access to classical texts and also contributed to the intelligent interpretation of the texts from classical antiquity that they received. The speeches of Ajax and Odysseus, which are manifestly about language, truth, and rhetoric and use (or misuse) some of Antisthenes’ key terms and phrases, are rarely considered in reconstructions of Antisthenes’ views.
My own conclusion about Antisthenes’ thinking in the field of language, knowledge, and truth is that the evidence leads us to attribute to him three central positions. First, technical definition of the essence of the real beings at the base or center of our interests—namely, natural beings such as human beings—is impossible. True logos about them and about an array of other things is possible, and producing this is the compelling task of the wise person; however, Antisthenes did not develop a criterion of truth for logos to a philosophically serious level but merely asserted that true logos reveals being. See t. 150A.4, with its cross-references, and t. 151A. If definition, which is not identical to true logos, is impossible, then the practice of philosophy on a scientific model, as developed by Aristotle, is essentially closed off at its most basic level (see discussion under t. 150A.4). This conclusion runs counter to the central thesis of Brancacci 1990, that Antisthenes’ concept oikeios logos is precisely a unique definition for each thing, where a “thing” seems to be a general moral concept. (That said, Brancacci’s excellent work on Antisthenes has been fundamental for my own.) The denial of biological definitions is possibly compatible with the acceptance of moral definitions. The evidence for and against the possibility of definition is in t. 150A, 151A, and 152A, and various proposals for reconciling these three passages are discussed in the notes.
Second, the distinction between substance and accidental quality, which stands near the core of Aristotle’s own views about the intersection between language and being—that is, at the site of technical definition—is also impossible or irrelevant. See t. 152A, with its cross-references, and t. 149B. A plausible addendum is that in Antisthenes’ view, certain qualities that Aristotle considered accidental to human beings, such as being musical or being grammatical, were essential to particular humans, as essential as anything ever is. Such a view might go hand in hand with emphasis on the individual particular as the site of being and with the view that any universal concept, whether a substantial or a qualitative predicate on Aristotle’s terms, is, in some sense, a mental construction, whether constructed by a society and carried in its public language or constructed by an individual and carried in his or her personal vocabulary. See t. 149A.
Third, in cases of utterance in language by a sincere speaker, every utterance has three parts, including two objects: the linguistic string itself, whether in sound or script; a general object that can be aligned with the meaning of the utterance and that is carried by the semantic power of the linguistic medium to carry general meaning; and a particular object of extensional reference, that is, the object about which the speaker is speaking in the precise situation where he or she utters the meaningful words. When there is failure of communication or potential for misunderstanding of this utterance, the rupture occurs with the second object, the particular referent, which somehow goes missing from the scenario; the first object, the general meaning of the utterance, then takes precedence and operates. This seems to be the best overall interpretation of the views behind the οὐκ ἔστιν ἀντιλέγειν paradox attributed to Antisthenes. Clearest evidence for the three-part view of the speaker’s activity is in t. 153B.1. Discussion of possible motives for a thinker to take such a view of the priorities of object in a situation of speaking, which is not in agreement with the views of Plato, Aristotle, and their tradition, is in the notes to t. 152B.3. Attributing such a view to Antisthenes suggests that he makes a distinction between sense and reference, such as scholars tend not to see in Greek philosophers but tend to attribute to modern philosophy.
In addition to these three positions, which may be independent of one another and should not be reduced to one single “Antisthenes” thesis, it seems that Antisthenes might have been a scholar or exegete of Heraclitus, through reading his text, and that he believed change is real and that position in time is part of the particular identity of any particular thing. There is no evidence that he was a radical Heraclitean of the kind Plato describes or parodies in Theaetetus, and so he cannot be simply swapped in for any character in Plato’s dialogues, but it seems plausible that he considered time seriously and that, for him, being was always in time. For discussion, independent of the conjectural t. 159D, see t. 151A and 157. For attention to time elsewhere in the testimonia, see t. 18, 53, 54, and 208 and the discussions there. For apparent textual resonances with Heraclitus, see t. 164, 171, and 174; further study of this topic could yield more cases.
These positive conclusions depend generally on several negative conclusions I have reached concerning older interpretations of the evidence. First, Aristotle’s discussion of Antisthenes’ view that account and its object exist in a one-to-one relationship (t. 152A), where one item is logos (account) and the other is pragma (thing), is evasive about the exact nature of not only logos (this is an older insight) but also pragma: Aristotle neglects to fix either term, and in his discussion, he does not even use the term pragma but uses only pronouns and adjectives. Without an independent, prior status for the pragma relative to the logos, it is hard to count Antisthenes’ logos as either “objective” or “subjective” or to count his theory of language as either “realist” or “nominalist,” on the terms descending from Plato and Aristotle. This is not to dismiss the importance of Plato’s and Aristotle’s terms but to propose that they could be either anachronistic or inappropriate for Antisthenes and that Antisthenes’ interests in fiction and literature and possibly memory might have been integrated with his views at the core level. See the discussion at t. 152A and 187.11–12.
Second, Diogenes Laertius’ citation of Antisthenes’ definition of definition (t. 151A) need not presuppose ontological identity over time, as scholars have assumed since the arguments of Pierre Aubenque in 1962. It might even situate ontology in time and recognize the possibility of change, even as endurance of being across some amount of time also seems to be implied. See the discussion at t. 151A.
Finally, Antisthenes’ rejection of Plato’s theory of Forms need not be equated with some view by which only material being is real while items of the noetic realm do not exist. Plato’s theory of Forms is not a general theory of the universal or the noetic but a special theory positing the priority of a set of beings with three qualities: separability, changelessness, and immateriality. There is no reason to assume that Antisthenes tied these same three attributes into a bundle, and there is some (difficult) evidence, in t. 187.11–12, suggesting that Antisthenes recognized noetic as well as aesthetic particulars, that is, particular instants of thought or conception in the minds of particular persons. The temporal stability of these “things” is not clear from the evidence, nor is it clear what kind of substrate they require. But taken individually, the thoughts that the good rhetor communicates to the members of his audience are not likely to be material beings, especially since both t. 187 and Antisthenes’ statement about the wealth of his soul (t. 82) question the economy of the generation of thoughts: Socrates, who produces things that cannot be weighed or measured, loads Antisthenes down with as much as he can carry, having created something out of nothing. If the individual thoughts in t. 187.11–12 were really discerned by Antisthenes, they might count as examples of the noetic beings Aristotle could be attributing to the Antistheneans in t. 150A.5. See also the intuitions of Michael of Ephesus in t. 150B.6–8, whereby Aristotle is accommodating the Antisthenean views in that passage. Despite the difficulties in the evidence and the hypothetical status of Antisthenes’ recognition of noetic being, we cannot simply assume that Antisthenes’ rejection of the Forms amounts to pure materialism.
Because Antisthenes’ works are lost to us, tracking his reception in his own time and in later periods of antiquity is a complicated task. But it is certain that there was a reception. Epictetus (t. 160, 34E, 46), Dio Chrysostom (t. 34A, 194, maybe 208), Julian (t. 44A-C), and Themistius (t. 96) read him and cited him, five to eight centuries after his lifetime; Plutarch mentioned him in at least fourteen texts (t. 2B, 10, 13B, 34D-1, 77A, 81B, 94A, 100B, 102, 105, 109, 128, 195, 201); his Homeric criticism was important to Porphyry and became extremely prominent in the Odyssey scholia, where, amid mostly anonymous exegesis, it is attributed by name (t. 187–90); his speeches Ajax and Odysseus were included in a later imperial or Byzantine curriculum (t. 53–54); his apophthegmata might have been used in everyday education, although the evidence we have (t. 163B) does not use his name, and he is quite absent from the mainstream of the tradition in this kind of thing (see t. 7).
Beyond the near-contemporary receptions of Antisthenes in Xenophon and Aristotle and the intertextuality between his writings and Plato’s (t. 187, 150A), we know that Antisthenes was read by Theopompus (t. 22A, 42) and probably Isocrates (t. 55, 66, 156, 170). Antisthenes might have been a character in other Socratic literature beyond Xenophon, especially Aeschines (see t. 16 and comments on 13A and 14A), and in fourth-century comedy or other fiction, such as stories about the Sicilian tyrants (see t. 117, 128, 133). Timon of Phlius probably contributed to the generation of early anecdotes about Antisthenes (t. 41B notes; see t. 159A), whose statements about pleasure were apparently picked up by Pyrrho or other early skeptics (t. 122B, 122D–E). Antisthenes might have been a character in Cynic literature: t. 22B, as well as t. 6 and t. 133 might be counted as evidence for this, as well as his rare appearance on stage in Lucian (e.g., t. 52C), although it has been often noted that in this role, already for Teles, he is far overshadowed by both Diogenes of Sinope and Socrates. The Peripatetics Hermippus and Satyrus and other Hellenistic biographers covered him (t. 9, 12C), and he was read also by the Stoics, for ethical and literary critical points, from Zeno in the early third century BCE to Apollodorus in the mid-second (t. 135–37, 193–94; see also t. 59, 105) and possibly Posidonius (t. 137B); possibly his view of definition was also formative for them (t. 151B). One enticing papyrus scrap suggests that Epicurus read him (t. 184). Cicero certainly did (t. 84A).
In the tradition of apophthegmata and gnomic utterance, Antisthenes rates high for the compiler of the Gnomologium Vaticanum (see t. 5). In Stobaeus’ Anthology, especially his fourth book on politics, he is mentioned frequently, especially among the Socratics. His prominence in Diogenes Laertius has rarely been examined critically, familiar as this book has always been in every inquiry into Antisthenes, but the Socratic and Cynic tradition generally receive more emphasis than they might. Wilamowitz’s objection that Antisthenes is hardly noticed in antiquity (1912:131, cited in Höistad 1948:6) might be true if we judge from certain vantage points, such as Cicero’s ethical works (see t. 121), but evidence for both lasting importance and prominence within a synthetic conception of classical philosophy or thought is not lacking.
A portrait statue of Antisthenes, now in the Vatican (inv. no. 288), has been known since 1772. This is one of six surviving copies (the others without attribution) from a Hellenistic original, probably to be dated to c. 200–190 BCE and probably made for the library at Pergamum. See von den Hoff 1994:140–45; Zanker 1995:174–76; Döring 1998:268; t. 197.
Long as this book is, it is not intended as the final word on Antisthenes. To the contrary, I hope it can be the beginning of a more informed modern discussion in English-language scholarship about Antisthenes’ importance in the traditions of Socraticism and as a figure of his time. Should the reader find contradictions or unfinished business in various parts of the commentary when it comes to adding up the big picture, this might be an impetus toward further study of this important figure in the history of Greek thought.