The figure of the Cynic philosopher Diogenes is not only a source of recurrent fascination for authors of classical Antiquity and modernism, but also - and especially - for the Middle Ages and the early modern era. Here the philosopher figures as a critical spirit inspiring a large number of apocryphal stories and above all a whole series of exempla . The various narrative forms taken by these latter and the poetological status of the exemplum genre are the central focus of the volume. It delineates and analyzes the various reception traditions by which the Diogenes narratives have come down to us and also functions as an edition of these narratives as a collection of sources. A further concern of the study is to understand the significance of Diogenes as an 'exemplary' figure for authors ranging from Erasmus to Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin and Foucault, the main focus here being on his role in the modernist context.