But though this was the common character of the two, in a logical point of view, yet in Stilpon, as well as Menedêmus, other elements became blended with the logical. These persons combined, in part at least, the free censorial speech of Antisthenes with the subtlety of Eukleides. What we hear of Menedêmus is chiefly his bitter, stinging sarcasms, and clever repartees. He did not, like the Cynic Diogenes, live in contented poverty, but occupied a prominent place (seemingly under the patronage of Antigonus and Demetrius) in the government of his native city Eretria. Nevertheless he is hardly less celebrated than Diogenes for open speaking of his mind, and carelessness of giving offence to others.[83] [Footnote 83: Diog. L. ii. 129-142.] * * * * * ANTISTHENES. [Side-note: Antisthenes took up Ethics principally, but with negative Logic intermingled.] Antisthenes, the originator of the Cynic succession of philosophers, was one of those who took up principally the ethical element of the Sokratic discoursing, which the Megarics left out or passed lightly over. He did not indeed altogether leave out the logical element: all his doctrines respecting it, as far as we hear of them, appear to have been on the negative side. But respecting ethics, he laid down affirmative propositions,[84] and delivered peremptory precepts. His aversion to pleasure, by which he chiefly meant sexual pleasure, was declared in the most emphatic language. He had therefore, in the negative logic, a point of community with Eukleides and the Megarics: so that the coalescence of the two successions, in Stilpon and Menedêmus, is a fact not difficult to explain. [Footnote 84: Clemens Alexandr. Stromat. ii. 20, p. 485, Potter. [Greek: e)gô\ d' a)pode/chomai to\n A)phrodi/tên le/gonta ka)\|n katatoxeu/saimi, ei) la/boimi], &c. [Greek: Manei/ên ma=llon ê)\ ê)sthei/ên], Diog. L. vi. 3.] The life of Sokrates being passed in conversing with a great variety of persons and characters, his discourses were of course multifarious, and his ethical influence operated in different ways. His mode of life, too, exercised a certain influence of its own. [Side-note: He copied the manner of life of Sokrates, in plainness and rigour.]