The Death of Seleucus & the Ugly Birth of Stoicism

A History of Mankind (148)

To check all previous newsletters in the History of Mankind, which is pretty long, you can click here.

Crates of Thebes (365 BC-285 BC) had the most direct connection to Diogenes of any philosopher in antiquity, having been his disciple after he fell into slavery. Crates later gave away a large fortune so he could live a life of Cynic poverty in Athens and become the next dominant cynic.

Said to have been deformed, with a lame leg and hunched shoulder, Crates promoted idiosyncratic theories of upbringing: he took his son to a brothel and, most remarkably, put her daughter through a one-month copulation trial with potential suitors, a slide from cynicism into decadent debauchery later to be often repeated.

Crates came to live under the yoke of Cassander, a son of Antipater who inherited control of Macedon and southern Greece from his father, not without some struggle. A ruthless man, he never appeared to have looked for advice from Crates or any of his ilk. Crates actually was in Thebes during a stay by the famous Demetrius of Phalerum (350-280 BC), a fellow philosopher and influential governor of Athens under Cassander, but he appears to have made zero impression.

Cynicism was a comfortable ideology for the powerful to contend with. Mostly based around the idea that the set of prohibitions and constraints inherited from earlier generations is a waste of time that can be perfectly skirted without any consequences, it did allow the likes of Cassander to purge enemies and Alexander’s entire bloodline – including Olympias, Alexander’s mother; Alexander IV, his son; Roxana, Alexander IV’s mother; and Heracles, an illegitimate son of Alexander – without compunction.