Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Cynĭci

(Kunikoi). A name given to the followers of Antisthenes who founded a distinct school of philosophy at Athens about B.C. 380. Antisthenes had been a pupil of Socrates, and, like that philosopher, he taught that speculative philosophy was unprofitable, and should be supplanted by the practical ethical teaching whose end is a moral and tranquil life. In this respect the Cynic School was like the Stoic, but differed in defining virtue to be extreme simplicity in living. This simplicity the followers of Antisthenes pushed so far as to violate the most elementary notions of cleanliness and even decency, and to plunge into the most frantic excesses of austerity, wearing filthy clothing, eating raw meat, and treating all who approached them with insulting rudeness. Hence the name Kunikoi, “dog-like,” was applied to them in its literal meaning, from their snarling insolence, though the name probably originated from the Gymnasium Cynosarges (q.v.), in which Antisthenes first taught. The most famous of the Cynics, Diogenes of Sinopé, accepted the name Kuôn with a sort of pride, and was pleased to be styled “Diogenes the Dog,” saying, however, that he did not, like other dogs, bite his enemies, but only his friends and for their own good. Besides Antisthenes and Diogenes, the best known Cynics were Crates of Thebes ( Diog. Laert.vi. 86), Hipparchia and her brother Metrocles, Monimus of Syracuse, Menippus of Sinopé, whom Lucian describes as “one of the ancient dogs who barks a great deal” (Bis Accus. 33); and at Rome, Demetrius, the friend of Seneca, Oenomaüs of Gadara, and Demonax of Cyprus. Cynicism became ultimately merged in Stoicism.

See Ueberweg, Hist. of Philos. vol. i. pp. 92-94 (Eng. trans. N. Y. 1872); Mullach, Frag. Philosophorum Graecorum, vol. ii. pp. 261-395; Diog. Laert.vi.; and the articles Antisthenes; Demonax; Diogenes; Menippus.

This text is based on the following book(s):
Harry Thurston Peck. Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1898.