The coin that kept circulating

By Diogenes the Cynic

They say I was expelled from Sinope for tampering with its coinage.

Some say it was my father. Others say it was me. Some accounts send us both into exile; others leave my father in prison while I flee.

The accounts disagree considerably about what happened. Yet many people seem to have no doubts about my reputation.

It is a curious advantage of an accusation: it can survive intact the contradictions of those who tell it.

I lit my lamp.

⸻

I imagine people working together. They talk, agree on responsibilities and develop projects. One of them prepares a document on an ageing computer. They print it. They sign it.

The contract remains.

There was no lengthy negotiation by correspondence, no succession of drafts. There were people in a room, an agreement put on paper and signatures.

The simplicity of the scene makes it no less real.

Later, a disagreement arises. With it comes a new explanation of the past: the document was supposedly fabricated, the date was false, the work was something other than what had been agreed.

The accusation is serious. I bring my lamp closer to examine its foundation.

On the table, I find the contract, the signatures and the material that allows the signatories to be verified. I would like to know what, precisely, supports the allegation of forgery.

The accusation has arrived. I await the evidence.

⸻

There is something peculiar about watching a document remain unchanged while the story told about it changes.

The signatures have not moved. The clauses are still in the same place. The work has left a record.

What changed was the relationship between the people.

That may explain the emergence of a dispute. It does not, by itself, explain how a forgery came into being.

But the story gathers momentum. Soon, the discussion is no longer merely about a document. It is about the character of the person presenting it.

That is usually when someone appears with another story to tell.

⸻

In my allegory, an old adversary arrives.

He brings episodes from other times, broken relationships and a remarkable certainty about other people’s intentions. His account seems to fit perfectly the portrait being assembled.

I reserve him a place at the table.

Beside him, I put the records from the period he describes. I would like to know what he approved, what he took part in and what he wrote before falling out with that man.

A witness deserves to be heard. His account also deserves to be examined.

Two accusations pointing in the same direction do not remove the need to verify each one.

⸻

Then the story takes a darker turn.

A threat emerges, and the man begins to worry about matters no contract should bring into his life: his routes, his home, his family’s safety.

He decides to leave the city.

Someone notices his absence and adds a sentence to the account:

He left.

The sentence describes a movement. It does not explain the reason.

Some leave a city because they wish to. Others leave because staying has begun to cost them too much peace of mind. Not every expulsion needs to be proclaimed in the public square.

Even so, the departure may be presented as confirmation of what someone already intended to say.

The threat creates the distance. The distance is offered to the public as grounds for suspicion.

⸻

I do not intend to settle the affair of Sinope’s coins in my own favour. There are gaps in my story, and the lamp must reach them too.

I merely observe how an accusation circulates.

One man utters it. Another writes it down. A third reports that it has been written. After changing hands a few times, its origin seems less important than the number of people repeating it.

Documents require more time. They must be opened, read and compared. An accusation fits into a sentence and can set off on its travels immediately.

Perhaps that is why it has crossed so many centuries.

But other stories have reached us too.

It is said that Alexander, after finding me in the sun, declared that, were he not Alexander, he would wish to be Diogenes.

I do not know what that man, who possessed so much, was looking for in me. At the time, I merely asked him to move aside a little and let the light through.

I continued on my way with what I could carry.

And if a man’s entire story could be contained in the accusation made against him, what would Alexander have seen in Diogenes?