Demetrios (Cynic)

Demetrios ( Greek  Δημήτριος , Latin Demetrius ) was a Cynical philosopher from Corinth who lived in Rome during the reign of Caligula , Nero and Vespasian , i.e. in the 1st century.

He was a trusted, highly valued friend of Seneca , who mentions him frequently in his writings. In his De beneficiis (about beneficiaries ) Demetrios is characterized as follows:

“Nature brought him out, it seems to me, in our times, to show that he was too sane to be infected by us, and too corrupted to be mended by him - a man of probable wisdom although he is far from having this opinion of himself, of enduring firmness in his principles and resolutions, and of a masculine and unvarnished eloquence which, without worrying about delicate phrases and artificial wordings, always follows the flow of his feelings follows, and is the free, full outpouring of a soul inspired by the subject. I do not doubt for a moment that Providence gave this man the will and the pleasure to live like this, and the talent to speak like this, so that our century may not lack either a perfect example or an implacable blasphemer. "

His disregard for worldly wealth and his cynical wit are evident in a Seneca tradition embellished by Wieland:

"Cajus Caesar (Caligula) once offered him a gift of 8,000 thalers, either simply out of a most gracious nudge of imperial generosity against a poor devil of philosophers, whose singularity might have amused him for a moment - or to see what a sum, which would have to be very handsome in the eyes of such a poor son of earth, to have an effect on him. Demetrius seems to have suspected the latter. He turned down the gift, and was so far removed from wanting to be big with it that he felt rather humiliated to be considered small enough by the Emperor that such a gift should either honor or bribe him. If he wanted to tempt me, said Demetrius, he should have offered me his whole kingdom. "

Demetrios was also friends with Thrasea Paetus and was present at his suicide forced by Nero, as Tacitus reports in his annals. When many philosophers were expelled from Rome in AD 71, Demetrios also had to go into exile in Greece, says Cassius Dio .

Demetrios is sometimes confused with a Demetrios from Sounion mentioned in Lukian . But it is probably a somewhat later Cynic.

Source collections

• Margarethe Billerbeck : The Cynic Demetrius. A contribution to the history of early imperial popular philosophy (= Philosophia antiqua , Volume 36). Brill, Leiden 1979, ISBN 90-04-06032-4 (with translation)
• Georg Luck (ed.): The wisdom of dogs. Texts of the ancient Cynics in German translation with explanations (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 484). Kröner, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-520-48401-3 , pp. 301-309.

literature

Overview representations

• Hans von Arnim : Demetrios 91 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IV, 2, Stuttgart 1901, Col. 2843 f.
• Margarethe Billerbeck: Démétrios. In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Volume 2, CNRS Éditions, Paris 1994, ISBN 2-271-05195-9 , pp. 622-623
• Aldo Brancacci: Demetrios. In: Christoph Riedweg et al. (Hrsg.): Philosophy of the imperial era and late antiquity (= outline of the history of philosophy . The philosophy of antiquity. Volume 5/1). Schwabe, Basel 2018, ISBN 978-3-7965-3698-4 , p. 184 f.

Investigations

• Jan Fredrik Kindstrand: Demetrius the Cynic . In: Philologus 124, 1980, pp. 93-98.
• John Moles: Honestius Quam Ambitiosius? An Exploration of the Cynic's Attitude to Moral Corruption in His Fellow Men . In: The Journal of Hellenic Studies 103, 1983, pp. 103-123.

Remarks

1. ^ Translation by Christoph Martin Wieland