ABSTRACT

Numerous Greek and Latin authors narrate, or at least advert to, an encounter and exchange of remarks between Diogenes andAlexander.24 Some of the sources offer slightly differing accounts of the precise posture in whichAlexander found Diogenes and of exactly what was said between the two on this occasion (the only one on which they could have met, so far as we can tell from the chronologies of their respective personal histories). That stories about meetings between famous people generate alternate versions, or even that entire incidents can be invented, is of course a phenomenon as familiar in ancient literature as it is in modern celebrity gossip reporting. If the meeting between these two renowned figures actually took place, it would have occurred in 336BC, when Alexander, now King of Macedonia (ruled 336-323BC), made a visit to Corinth in southern Greece.25 He had come there to address his Greek allies and convince them to recognize him as their supreme leader against the Persian Empire on a military campaign eastward on which he would try to fight his way all the way to the end of the world.26Alexander the Great, as he was later called as a result of his victories on that epochal expedition, became the most written-about and debated king of classical antiquity.27 The meeting took place because, when he visited Corinth,Alexander took the initiative to seek out Diogenes, who by that time was already famous – or perhaps it is more accurate to say infamous – as the original Cynic (‘like a dog’) philosopher.28