As regards the members of the school, the separate articles On Antisthenes, Crates, Diogenes and Demetrius contain all biographical information.
The leading earlier Cynics were Antisthenes, Diogenes of Sinope, Crates of Thebes, and Zeno; in the later Roman period, the chief names are Demetrius (the friend of Seneca), Oenomaus and Demonax.
All these men adhered steadfastly to the principles laid down by Antisthenes.
Antisthenes was a pupil of Socrates, from whom he imbibed the fundamental ethical precept that virtue, not pleasure, is the end of existence.
Antisthenes adopted this principle in its most literal sense, and proceeded to explain "knowledge" in the narrowest terms of practical action and decision, excluding from the conception everything except the problem of individual will realizing itself in the sphere of ordinary existence.
