Greece & Rome · c. 446–366 BCE
Antisthenes
Devoted follower of Socrates, later seen as the Cynics’ founder
Taught that virtue can be taught and is sufficient for happiness, needing nothing but “Socratic strength”. He prized toil and self-sufficiency over pleasure. His many writings are lost.
Life and thought
Antisthenes was an Athenian, son of a citizen father and a Thracian mother, who first studied rhetoric with Gorgias and then became one of Socrates’ most devoted companions; Plato names him among those present at Socrates’ death. He went on teaching in Athens, reportedly at the Cynosarges gymnasium, and wrote many works on ethics, language and Homer, all now lost.
What struck him in Socrates was less the questioning than the character: poverty, endurance and indifference to opinion. Antisthenes taught that virtue can be taught, that it is enough for happiness, and that it needs nothing beyond “Socratic strength”. Pleasure was suspect; toil (ponos) was good, because it trains the soul. Later Greeks made him the first Cynic and the teacher of Diogenes, but that lineage looks like a later construction; Plato and Xenophon never call him a “dog”. Through it, though, his ideas passed to the Stoics.
Teachers
c. 470–399 BCESocratesAthenian questioner, executed for impiety in 399 BCEStudents
c. 412–323 BCEDiogenes of SinopeAncient tradition makes Diogenes Antisthenes’ pupil; some scholars doubt they ever met.Meanwhile, in other traditions
c. 480–400 BCE (debated; an older dating is c. 563–483 BCE)The Buddha (Siddhārtha Gautama)Founder of Buddhism, who taught a middle way out of sufferingc. 470–391 BCEMoziFounder of Mohism and critic of Confucian partialityc. 390–338 BCEShang YangQin minister whose reforms built Qin’s powerc. 372–289 BCEMenciusConfucian who argued that human nature is goodc. 370–310 BCEHui ShiWei statesman, logician and Zhuangzi’s debating partnerc. 369–286 BCEZhuangziDaoist writer of parables, paradoxes and freedomOn the record
Ancient tradition makes Diogenes Antisthenes’ pupil.
The line Socrates → Antisthenes → Diogenes comes from Diogenes Laertius, who “controversially” names Antisthenes the first Cynic. Plato and Xenophon never call Antisthenes a “dog”, and modern scholars treat the succession as a later construction that tracks real intellectual kinship rather than a documented teacher–pupil bond.