(Accordingly we must go back to the divisions of the Cynic philosophy. For the Cynics also seem to have thought that there were two branches of philosophy, as did Aristotle and Plato, namely speculative and practical, evidently because they had observed and understood that man is by nature suited both to action and to the pursuit of knowledge. And though they avoided the study of natural philosophy, that does not affect the argument. For Socrates and many others also, as we know, devoted themselves to speculation, but it was solely for practical ends. For they thought that even self‐knowledge meant learning precisely what must be assigned to the soul, and what to the body. And to the soul they naturally assigned supremacy, and to the body subjection. This seems to be the reason why they practised virtue, self‐control, modesty and freedom, and why they shunned all forms of envy, cowardice and superstition. But this, you will say, is not the view that we hold about them, for we are to think that they were not in earnest, and that they hazarded what is most precious(62) in thus despising the body; as Socrates did when he declared, and rightly, that philosophy is a preparation for death.(63) And since this was the aim that the Cynics pursued daily, we need not emulate them any more than the others, but we are to think them miserable beings and altogether foolish. But why was it that they endured those hardships? Surely not from ostentation, as you declared. For how could they win applause from other men by eating raw meat? Certainly you yourself do not applaud them for this. At any rate, when you imitate one of those Cynics by carrying a staff and wearing your hair long, as it is shown in their pictures, do you think that you thereby gain a reputation with the crowd, though you do not yourself think those habits worthy of admiration? One or two, indeed, used to applaud him in his own day, but more than ten times ten thousand had their stomachs turned by nausea and loathing, and went fasting until their attendants revived them with perfumes and myrrh and cakes. So greatly did that renowned hero shock them by an act which seems absurd to men) Οἷοι νῦν βροτοί εἰσιν, (“of such sort as mortals now are,”(64)) οὐκ ἀγεννεῖ δέ, μὰ τοὺς θεούς, εἴ τις αὐτὸ κατὰ τὴν Διογένους ἐξηγήσαιτο σύνεσιν. ὅπερ γὰρ ὁ Σωκράτης ὑπὲρ αὑτοῦ φησιν, ὅτι τῷ θεῷ νομίζων λατρείαν ἐκτελεῖν ἐν τῷ τὸν δοθέντα χρησμὸν ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ κατὰ πάντα σκοπῶν ἐξετάζειν τὸν ἐλεγκτικὸν ἠσπάσατο βίον, τοῦτο καὶ Διογένης οἶμαι συνειδὼς ἑαυτῷ, πυθόχρηστον οὖσαν τὴν φιλοσοφίαν, ἔργοις ᾤετο δεῖν ἐξελέγχειν πάντα καὶ μὴ δόξαις ἄλλων, τυχὸν μὲν ἀληθέσι, τυχὸν δὲ ψευδέσι προσπεπονθέναι. οὔκουν οὐδὲ εἴ τι Πυθαγόρας ἔφη, οὐδὲ εἴ τις ἄλλος τῷ Πυθαγόρᾳ παραπλήσιος, ἀξιόπιστος ἐδόκει τῷ Διογένει. τὸν γὰρ θεόν, ἀνθρώπων δὲ(65) οὐδένα τῆς φιλοσοφίας ἀρχηγὸν ἐπεποίητο. [C] τί δῆτα τοῦτο, ἐρεῖς, πρὸς τὴν τοῦ πολύποδος ἐδωδήν; ἐγώ σοι φράσω.