ANTISTHENES (c. 444–365 B.C.)  , the founder of the Cynic school of philosophy, was born at Athens of a Thracian mother, a fact which may account for the extreme boldness of his attack on conventional thought . In his youth he studied rhetoric under Gorgias, perhaps also under Hippias and Prodicus . Gomperz suggests that he was originally in good circumstances, but was reduced to poverty . However this may be, he came under the influence of Socrates, and became a devoted pupil . So eager was he to hear the words of Socrates that he used to walk daily from Peiraeus to Athens, and persuaded his friends to'accompany him . Filled with enthusiasm for the Socratic idea of virtue, he founded a school of his own in the Cynosarges, the hall of the bastards (voOot) . Thither he attracted the poorer classes by the simplicity of his life and teaching . He wore a cloak and carried a staff and a wallet, and this costume became the uniform of his followers . Diogenes Laertius says that his works filled ten volumes, but of these fragments only remain . His favourite style seems to have been the dialogue, wherein we see the effect of his early rhetorical training . Aristotle speaks of him as uneducated and simple-minded, and Plato describes him as struggling in vain with the difficulties of dialectic . His work. represents one great aspect of Socratic philosophy, and should be compared with the Cyrenaic and Megarian doctrines .

BIsLIoGRAPHY.—Charles Chappuis, Antisthene (

Paris, 1854); A . Muller, De Antisthenis cynici vita et scriptis (Dresden, 1860 ; T . Gomperz, Greek Thinkers (Eng. trans., 1905), vol. ii. pp . 142 if., 150 if . For his philosophy see CYNICS, and for his pupils, Diogenes and Crates, see articles under these headings .