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Plato answers Diogenes

by 348 BCE, Athens. As Diogenes Laertius tells it, centuries later.

Where and when

by 348 BCEAthens

about 2,373 years ago

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Plato

, AthensAs Diogenes Laertius tells it, centuries later
Answering Diogenes, as Diogenes Laertius tells it, centuries later, by 348 BCEAnd one day when Plato had invited to his house friends coming from Dionysius, Diogenes trampled upon his carpets and said, I trample upon Plato’s vainglory.

How we know they are linked: Same anecdote in Diogenes Laertius 6.26: given as Plato's reply to the carpet-trampling remark.

In plain words, ours

You show off a lot of pride, Diogenes, by acting like you have none.

Plato’s reply was, How much pride you expose to view, Diogenes, by seeming not to be proud.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 6.26Translated by R. D. Hicks (1925)Read the full passage (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 6.26, opens scaife.perseus.org)

What was going on, our summary

Diogenes Laertius, writing centuries later, collects stories of Diogenes the Cynic mocking Plato. In this one, Plato had invited friends who came from Dionysius, and Diogenes walked over his carpets, saying he was trampling on Plato's vanity.

Checked claim by claim against: the passage around the quote.

Related moments

In time order, with this one in its place. Each says why it is here.

  1. c. 371–354 BCEabout 14 years earlier Xenophon on Socrates and appetite Also about how to live well
  2. c. 353 BCEabout 5 years earlier Plato's Seventh Letter on entering public life More from Plato
  3. by 348 BCEThis momentPlato answers Diogenes
  4. by 348 BCEBy this year Diogenes and the plucked chicken Also in Athens
  5. by 348 BCEBy this year Diogenes tramples Plato's carpets Answering DiogenesSame passageAlso in AthensAlso about how to live well
  6. by 348 BCEBy this year Plato defines man as a featherless biped More from Plato
  7. by 348 BCEBy this year Plato's Second Letter on writing nothing down More from Plato
  8. c. 348/347 BCEBegins this year Plato dies, aged about eighty Also in Athens
  9. by 323 BCEabout 25 years later Diogenes makes a tub his home Same passage

Just before and after

The text around the quote, word for word from the same translation.

Show the passageHide the passage

Observing Plato one day at a costly banquet taking olives, How is it, he said, that you the philosopher who sailed to Sicily for the sake of these dishes, now when they are before you do not enjoy them? Nay, by the gods, Diogenes, replied Plato, there also for the most part I lived upon olives and such like. Why then, said Diogenes, did you need to go to Syracuse? Was it that Attica at that time did not grow olives? But Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History attributes this to Aristippus. Again, another time he was eating dried figs when he encountered Plato and offered him a share of them. When Plato took them and ate them, he said, I said you might share them, not that you might eat them all up. And one day when Plato had invited to his house friends coming from Dionysius, Diogenes trampled upon his carpets and said, I trample upon Plato’s vainglory.

The quote: Plato’s reply was, How much pride you expose to view, Diogenes, by seeming not to be proud.

Others tell us that what Diogenes said was, I trample upon the pride of Plato, who retorted, Yes, Diogenes, with pride of another sort. Sotion, however, in his fourth book makes the Cynic address this remark to Plato himself. Diogenes once asked him for wine, and after that also for some dried figs; and Plato sent him a whole jar full. Then the other said, If some one asks you how many two and two are, will you answer, Twenty? So, it seems, you neither give as you are asked nor answer as you are questioned. Thus he scoffed at him as one who talked without end.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 6.25–26Translated by R. D. Hicks (1925)Read the full passage (opens scaife.perseus.org)

When, and whose words

Date
by 348 BCE. Undated anecdote; it must fall before Plato's death (c. 348 BCE). Diogenes Laertius wrote around the 3rd century CE.
Whose words
As Diogenes Laertius tells it, centuries later. Who was Plato?
How this post was checked
  • The plain-words line was read against the quote alone by a second, independent pass, which found it adds no claim the quote does not make (2026-10-03).
  • Each claim in the summary was checked by an independent pass against only the material it cites.
  • The quote itself is checked by the build: word for word, once, at the cited section of the stored translation.

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