Diogenes seems to have really possessed--that which his teacher Antisthenes postulated as indispensable--the Sokratic physical strength and vigour. His ethical creed, obtained from Antisthenes, was adopted by many successors, and (in the main) by Zeno and the Stoics in the ensuing century. But the remarkable feature in Diogenes which attracts to him the admiration of Epiktêtus, is--that he set the example of acting out his creed, consistently and resolutely, in his manner of life:[109] an example followed by some of his immediate successors, but not by the Stoics, who confined themselves to writing and preaching. Contemporary both with Plato and Aristotle, Diogenes stands to both of them in much the same relation as Phokion to Demosthenes in politics and oratory: he exhibits strength of will, insensibility to applause as well as to reproach, and self-acting independence--in antithesis to their higher gifts and cultivation of intellect. He was undoubtedly, next to Sokrates, the most original and unparalleled manifestation of Hellenic philosophy. [Footnote 104: Diog. L. vi. 2, 68-73-24-27.] [Footnote 105: Diog. L. vi. 2, 30-31.] [Footnote 106: Diog. L. vi. 2, 80. Diogenes Laertius himself cites a fact from one of the dialogues--Pordalus (vi. 2, 20): and Epiktêtus alludes to the treatise on Ethics by Diogenes--[Greek: e)n tê=| Ê)thikê=|]--ii. 20, 14. It appears however that the works ascribed to Diogenes were not admitted by all authors as genuine (Diog. L. c.).] [Footnote 107: Dion Chrysost. Or. x.; De Servis, p. 295 E. Or. ix.; Isthmicus, p. 289 R. [Greek: ô(/sper i)atroi\ a)nakri/nousi tou\s a)sthenou=ntas, ou(/tôs Dioge/nês a)ne/krine to\n a)/nthrôpon], &c.] [Footnote 108: Epiktêtus, iii. 21, 19. [Greek: ô(s Sôkra/tei sunebou/leue tê\n e)legktikê\n chô/ran e)/chein, ô(s Dioge/nei tê\n basilikê\n kai\ e)piplêktikê/n, ô(s Zê/nôni tê\n didaskalikê\n kai\ dogmatikê/n]. About [Greek: to\ ê(/meron kai\ phila/nthrôpon] of Diogenes, see Epiktêtus, iii. 24, 64; who also tells us (iv. 11, 19), professing to follow the statements of contemporaries, that the bodies both of Sokrates and Diogenes were by nature so sweet and agreeable ([Greek: e)pi/chari kai\ ê(du/]) as to dispense with the necessity of washing. "Ego certé" (says Seneca, Epist. 108, 13-14, about the lectures of the eloquent Stoic Attalus) "cum Attalum audirem, in vitia, in errores, in mala vitæ perorantem, sæpé misertus sum generis humani, et illum sublimem altioremque humano fastigio credidi. Ipse regem se esse dicebat: sed plus quam regnare mihi videbatur, cui liceret censuram agere regnantium." See also his treatises De Beneficiis, v. 4-6, and De Tranquillitate Animi (c. 8), where, after lofty encomium on Diogenes, he exclaims--"Si quis de felicitate Diogenis dubitat, potest idem dubitare et de Deorum immortalium statu, an parum beaté degant," &c.]