For on whose account should
he embrace that method of life? Suppose however that he does, there will
then be nothing to hinder his marrying and rearing offspring. For his
wife will be even such another as himself, and likewise her father; and
in like manner will his children be brought up.

But in the present condition of things, which resembles an Army in
battle array, ought not the Cynic to be free from all distraction and
given wholly to the service of God, so that he can go in and out among
men, neither fettered by the duties nor entangled by the relations of
common life? For if he transgress them, he will forfeit the character of
a good man and true; whereas if he observe them, there is an end to him
as the Messenger, the Spy, the Herald of the Gods!

CXVII

Ask me if you choose if a Cynic shall engage in the administration of
the State. O fool, seek you a nobler administration that that in which
he is engaged? Ask you if a man shall come forward in the Athenian
assembly and talk about revenue and supplies, when his business is to
converse with all men, Athenians, Corinthians, and Romans alike, not
about supplies, not about revenue, nor yet peace and war, but about
Happiness and Misery, Prosperity and Adversity, Slavery and Freedom?

Ask you whether a man shall engage in the administration of the State
who has engaged in such an Administration as this? Ask me too if he
shall govern; and again I will answer, Fool, what greater government
shall he hold than he holds already?

CXVIII

Such a man needs also to have a certain habit of body. If he appears
consumptive, thin and pale, his testimony has no longer the same
authority. He must not only prove to the unlearned by showing them what
his Soul is that it is possible to be a good man apart from all that
they admire; but he must also show them, by his body, that a plain
and simple manner of life under the open sky does no harm to the body
either. "See, I am proof of this! and my body also." As Diogenes used to
do, who went about fresh of look and by the very appearance of his body
drew men's eyes. But if a Cynic is an object of pity, he seems a
mere beggar; all turn away, all are offended at him. Nor should he be
slovenly of look, so as not to scare men from him in this way either; on
the contrary, his very roughness should be clean and attractive.

CXIX

Kings and tyrants have armed guards wherewith to chastise certain
persons, though the