 The Cynics took their name from the Greek for “dog,” referring to the animal-like life indifferent to social conventions which they pursued, carrying out all their bodily functions in full public view. While this generally led them to advocate what might be considered more an anti-politics than a politics, a provocative statement by their founder Diogenes of Sinope (c.404–323 BCE) – answering a query about his birthplace by asserting himself to be a “citizen of the world” (Diogenes Laertius, VI. 63) – would resonate with later Stoics and others developing a political philosophy that has become known as cosmopolitanism (see the entry on  cosmopolitanism).  Diogenes’ indifference to political power was also reflected in his reported reply to the visiting world-conqueror Alexander the Great, asking him to request a boon: all the Cynic wanted was for the emperor to step out of his light (Diogenes Laertius, VI. 38). In a lineage stretching from Diogenes to his follower Crates, who became the teacher of Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, we can see the Cynic-Stoic kinship especially in the early Stoics’ rejection of many conventional political and moral opinions. Yet the Cynics also manifested some parallels with the Epicureans and even with the skeptics.