Demetrius the Cynic c. 10 AD – c. 80 AD

Demetrius the Cynic was a Greek philosopher of the first century AD and one of the most admired Cynics of the Roman period. Active in Rome and Greece, he was a close friend of Seneca, who praised his austere life and his unyielding frankness, and was banished from Rome by both Nero and Vespasian for his outspoken criticism of imperial luxury and tyranny. He left no writings, but his sayings, preserved by Seneca, Epictetus, and the Christian apologists, made him a model of philosophical poverty, frankness of speech, and self-sufficiency in the long Cynic tradition that stretches from Diogenes of Sinope to late antiquity.