Dio Chrysostom

At first he lived in Prusa, where he held important offices, composed speeches and other rhetorical and sophistical essays, and studied philosophy.

[3] He claims that, on the advice of the Delphic oracle,[4] he put on the clothes of a beggar,[5] and with nothing in his pocket but a copy of Plato's Phaedo and Demosthenes's On the False Embassy, he lived the life of a Cynic philosopher, undertaking a journey to the countries in the north and east of the Roman empire.

Dio addressed his four Orations on Kingship to Nerva's successor, Trajan, and appears to have known the Emperor personally, claiming "I am perhaps as well acquainted with your character as anyone.

In his later life Dio had considerable status in Prusa, and Pliny the Younger reports that he was involved in a lawsuit about a civic building project around 111.

Dio Chrysostom was part of the Second Sophistic school of Greek philosophers which reached its peak in the early 2nd century during the Antonine period.