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Reading through this article it seems to present the various alleged events Diogenes' life as if they really happened. While we should certainly include them all in some format, perhaps we could cite the IEP article and other reliable sources to rephrase things so that it doesn't look like absurd tall tales from the Hellenistic era are being reported as historical facts? A lot of it is probably more appropriate for the legacy section. - car chasm (talk) 06:41, 13 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• We can obviously rework the aticle and Carchasm has made some edits themself. But we need specifics as generalities are too vague to be useful. What we don't need is a banner tag for the issue as the lead makes it clear in various ways that information about the subject is anecdotal, fragmentary and uncertain. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:37, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Carchasm and Andrew Davidson: I have rewritten the article using secondary scholarly sources. As Carchasm noted, the previous version relied almost solely on primary sources, without any textual criticism, which was problematic given that many anecdotes about Diogenes raise questions about their reliability. Regards, Alcaios (talk) 20:52, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Basic pieces of information (which anyone visiting this article might expect to find here) to add to this article: approximately how old Diogenes was when he died, and the etymology of his name. 173.88.246.138 (talk) 21:56, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The recounting of the story about Diogenes and Alexander the Great here doesn't have a direct source. Primary sources I found online do not contain the passage where Diogenes asks Alexander for the sun, only to step out of the light. Is there a better source which confirms this account? Rminow (talk) 23:39, 3 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, that was just a very bad edit. Someone chose to rewrite Plutarch's account and present their version as Plutarch's.[1] I've reverted it. NebY (talk) 22:20, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@DannyRogers800: I have no idea why you thought necessary to tag me in your edit summary, as I'm clearly not the editor who opposed the revision, but I will proceed anyway. I would like to point out that I already attempted the revision you just made, but I got reverted. The edit summary left by my opponent was, "The most prominent feature of this modern statue is a severely anachronistic lantern, the next a dog which doesn't figure in the history of Diogenes." So I reverted your edits due to previous disputes on this article, and I believe we should reach a consensus before proceeding further. GOLDIEM J (talk) 10:32, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fair, I won't attempt to change the image again. Most ancient accounts of Diogenes mention the episode of his carrying a lantern in broad daylight, but the presence of the dog is more symbolic, as "the dog" was a title conferred on him. For the sake of accuracy, I agree that we should keep the mosaic as the lead image. DannyRogers800 (talk) 10:41, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Diogenes spent his mild winters in Athens, taking shelter in a jar (pithos), and his summers outdoors in Corinth, cooled by breezes from the Isthmus. He compared his lifestyle to that of the Great King of Persia, who endured winter in the scorching cities of Babylon and Susa and enjoyed summer in the milder climate of Ecbatana." I see that the second half of this quote has now been removed. But the two parts of the quote come from the same source (the Roman cynic Dio Chrysostom) and it is just as likely that the "fact" of the dual reference was invented to justify the witty bon mot as that he actually did and said this. So, I think splitting the anecdote into a fact that we retain and something witty but extraneous that we don't is misguided. Furius (talk) 19:43, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the direct source of this info comes from a secondary source (Roubineau, The Dangerous Life and Ideas of Diogenes the Cynic, p. 24): "Winters he spent in Athens, where the weather was mild, and summers in Corinth, cooled by the breezes traversing the Isthmus. He compared his mode of life to that of the Great King of Persia, who passed the winter in Babylon and Susa, among the hottest places in southwest Asia, and the summer at Ecbatana, where the climate was more agreeable at that time of year."

Dio Chrysostom writes this in his Discourses: "When Diogenes of Sinope was exiled from that place, he came to Greece and used to divide his time between Corinth and Athens. And he said he was following the practice of the Persian king.⁠ For that monarch spent the winters in Babylon and Susa, or occasionally in Bactra,⁠ which are the warmest parts of Asia, and the summers in Median Ecbatana,⁠ where the air is always very cool and the summer is like the winter in the region of Babylon."

As with most ancient anecdotes, there's no easy way of discerning truth or falsity, fact or poetic/comedic remark. I didn't retain the info on Diogenes' residences because I think it to be true, rather, because I view it as essential in a biography of him. Diogenes uttered or is thought to have uttered so many witty or humorous remarks, such as his likening his lifestyle to that of the Persian king, that there isn't enough room in the article to contain even half of them. And space is very important for an article on a subject as significant as Diogenes. Therefore, the info which can be trimmed should be trimmed, lest we end up with an overly detailed portrait of the man. DannyRogers800 (talk) 20:00, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]