[5] After the manner of the sophists of the period, Bion travelled through Greece and Macedonia, and was admitted to the literary circle at the court of Antigonus II Gonatas.
[6] Because of his early association with the Academy, Diogenes Laërtius placed Bion among the Academics, but there is nothing in his life or thought suggesting an affinity with Platonism and modern scholars regard him as a Cynic, albeit an atypical one with strong Hedonistic or Cyrenaic leanings.
Laërtius claims Bion was an atheist (which he allegedly renounced at the time of his death)[12] but the surviving fragments reveal only a religious skepticism concerning mystery religions, oracles, etc.
[11] The quotations of Bion recorded by Teles, and preserved by Stobaeus reveal a man who "treats of ordinary human problems in a common-sense spirit, though for emphasis employing all the devices of contemporary prose style.
The situations dealt with are those that may confront any person, from the universalia of old age, poverty, exile, slavery, the fear of death, down to the more particular case of a nagging wife.