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Alexander Offered Him ANYTHING. He Said: Move #Shorts

Nov 4, 2026

Pack: 56 - Alexander Offered Him ANYTHING. He Said Move

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Alexander the Great, newly made general of the Greeks, went to see the philosopher Diogenes at Corinth and asked if he wanted anything. As Plutarch tells it, Diogenes asked him to step out of his sun. ▶ Full documentary on our channel: https://youtu.be/k3mrc7OCCNk

• The Greeks, meeting at the Isthmus of Corinth, proclaimed the young Alexander their general against Persia; philosophers came from everywhere to congratulate him, but Diogenes of Sinope never left the Cranium suburb (Plutarch, Alexander 14, tr. Dryden/Clough).
• Diogenes lived in deliberate poverty and made his home in a tub (Diogenes Laertius, Lives 6.23).
• Alexander found him "lying along in the sun" and asked whether he wanted anything: "Yes, said he, I would have you stand from between me and the sun." (Plutarch, Alexander 14)
• As his followers laughed, Alexander said that if he were not Alexander, he would choose to be Diogenes. Plutarch wrote centuries later; Diogenes Laertius gives the shorter "Stand out of my light" (6.38), so treat it as the story the ancients told.

So who was really the more powerful man? Tell us in the comments. Full story in our documentary, The Full History of Greece.

Sources

• Plutarch, Life of Alexander 14 (tr. Dryden, rev. A. H. Clough), Project Gutenberg
• Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, Book 6 (tr. R. D. Hicks), Wikisource

Images

• The Meeting of Alexander the Great and Diogenes (as imagined) — Gaspar de Crayer, The Met — CC0 —
• Portrait of Alexander the Great, Roman copy, Altes Museum, Berlin — Gary Todd — CC0 —
• Diogenes (1860, as imagined) — Jean-Léon Gérôme, Walters Art Museum — Public domain —
• The Temple of Apollo at Corinth — George E. Koronaios — CC0 —
• The Alexander Mosaic, House of the Faun, Pompeii, c. 100 BCE — Naples National Archaeological Museum — Public domain —

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