Diogenes of Babylon - Life

Life

Born in Seleucia on the Tigris in Babylonia, Diogenes was educated at Athens under the auspices of Chrysippus and succeeded Zeno of Tarsus as head (scholarch) of the Stoic school there in the 2nd century BC. Among his pupils were Panaetius and Antipater of Tarsus who succeeded him as scholarch. He seems to have closely followed the views of Chrysippus, especially on dialectic, in which he is said to have instructed Carneades.

Together with Carneades and Critolaus, he was sent to Rome to appeal a fine of hundred talents imposed on Athens in 155 BC for the sack of Oropus. They delivered their epideictic speeches first in numerous private assemblies, then in the Senate. Diogenes pleased his audience chiefly by his sober and temperate mode of speaking.

Cicero speaks of him as deceased by 150 BC, and since Lucian claims that he died at the age of 80, he must have been born around 230 BC. There is some evidence, however, that he may have lived to around 140 BC.

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