Of the many works of this first Cynic philosopher, scarcely anything is left. They were probably steeped in gall, for his powers of sarcasm were unsurpassed; he dealt trenchant blows at what he considered folly, wherever he found it. He ridiculed the want of judgment displayed at Athens in the selection of generals, by counselling the Athenians to vote their asses horses. “That is absurd,” was the reply. “No more so,” he retorted, “than to think you have made ignoramuses generals, by simply lifting up the hand. “Once when annoyed at a speaker’s dilating on the joys of the future state, he abruptly demanded, “Why don’t you die, then?” His successor, DIOGENES, carried out the rôle. Soured by the disgraceful failure of his father, he turned to the ascetic philosophy of the Cynics, and took a morbid pleasure in outraging society by his infringements on decency. His satirical remarks, which cut to the quick, earned him the title of “the Dog” by way of eminence. He slept wherever he happened to be, on stoops or in a tub; and eschewing artificial wants, he felt so rebuked when he saw a boy drinking through his hands and receiving his pottage in a hollowed loaf, that he threw away his cup and platter. Into such snarling, insolent, and offensive misanthropes did the Cynics degenerate, that the name of their sect was popularly traced to the _dogs_ (in Greek _cynes_) they so much resembled.—To this complexion did the noble philosophy of Socrates come at last. ORATORY. =Political Eloquence=, like the drama, history, and philosophy, attained perfection in the golden age. Public speaking was a natural accomplishment of the Greeks; and from the days of Homer down, soldiers, legislators, and statesmen, had been distinguished as orators. In Pericles, who made eloquence a study, we are introduced to one of the world’s most polished speakers. (_Consult Jebb’s “Attic Orators.”_) But the cultivation of rhetoric and oratory as an art was first popularized by Gorgias of Leonti´ni (see Map, p. 304), who about 427 B.C. transplanted it from Sicily and saw it flourish in Athenian soil as it had never flourished before. Gorgias founded a school of eloquence at Athens, which was thronged by the great men of the time, eager to acquire the persuasive arts of the Sicilian teacher. Thus rhetoric became a fashionable accomplishment; and to such account was it turned by the taste and genius of the Attic Greeks that they soon produced the greatest orators of history.