Diogenes Laertius had read a powerfully written book of Theodôrus, controverting openly the received opinions respecting the Gods:--which few of the philosophers ventured to do. Cicero also mentions a composition of Hegesias.[220] Of Annikeris we know none; but he, too, probably, must have been an author. The doctrines which we find ascribed to these Kyrenaics evince how much affinity there was, at bottom, between them and the Cynics, in spite of the great apparent opposition. Hegesias received the surname of the Death-Persuader: he considered happiness to be quite unattainable, and death to be an object not of fear, but of welcome acceptance, in the eyes of a wise man. He started from the same basis as Aristippus: pleasure as the _expetendum_, pain as the _fugiendum_, to which all our personal friendships and aversions were ultimately referable. But he considered that the pains of life preponderated over the pleasures, even under the most favourable circumstances. For conferring pleasure, or for securing continuance of pleasure--wealth, high birth, freedom, glory, were of no greater avail than their contraries poverty, low birth, slavery, ignominy. There was nothing which was, by nature or universally, either pleasurable or painful. Novelty, rarity, satiety, rendered one thing pleasurable, another painful, to different persons and at different times. The wise man would show his wisdom, not in the fruitless struggle for pleasures, but in the avoidance or mitigation of pains: which he would accomplish more successfully by rendering himself indifferent to the causes of pleasure. He would act always for his own account, and would value himself higher than other persons: but he would at the same time reflect that the mistakes of these others were involuntary, and he would give them indulgent counsel, instead of hating them. He would not trust his senses as affording any real knowledge: but he would be satisfied to act upon the probable appearances of sense, or upon phenomenal knowledge.[221] [Footnote 220: Diog. L. ii. 97. [Greek: Theo/dôros--panta/pasin a)nairô=n ta\s peri\ theô=n do/xas]. Diog. L. ii. 86, 97. Cicero, Tusc. Disp. i. 34, 83-84. [Greek: Ê(gêsi/as o( peisitha/natos].] [Footnote 221: Diog. L. ii. 93, 94.] [Side-note: Hegesias--Low estimation of life--renunciation of pleasure--coincidence with the Cynics.]