CYNICISM IN THE IMPERIAL AGE. — During the imperial age, Cynicism, in revival, looked back to the Diogenean model. The beggar’s cloak again came into honour, and the roads of the Empire were traversed by wandering preachers. One of these, the only one whose works have been preserved and which, by their retrospective value, constitute the chief source for reconstructing Cynic thought, is DIO of Prusa in Bithynia (b. c. AD 40), surnamed for his eloquence Chrysostom or Golden-Mouth. Of him there survive 80 orations, usually divided into sophistic, political and moral. In the political and moral orations the Cynic motifs are contemporary and fused with Stoic ones. Entirely on the side of the Stoics he is as regards the religious problem, and with them he affirms not only the existence of God but His providential government of the world and the kinship of men with Him. Particularly important for the history of Cynicism are Oration XIII, in which a modern anti-Semite is portrayed, and the orations relating to Diogenes. In sharp polemic against divination and historical fatalism and against the forms of traditional religion stand instead ENNOMUS of Gadara and his contemporary Demonax of Cyprus, who lived in the 2nd century. Of the former we possess a series of extracts in Eusebius, of the latter an idealized life in Lucian.
Enciclopedia Cattolica