Arete who, in turn, imparted it to her son, Aristippus the Younger, who is said to have reduced it to a system. Although his dubious reputation has survived into modern times, his philosophy of ethical hedonism, as its name implies, was not entirely amoral. He admonished his students to never harm others, and cautioned that the pursuit of pleasure ought to be moderated by moral self-restraint. Works None of Aristippus's works are extant. Diogenes Laërtius, on the authority of Sotion and Panaetius, gives a long list of books whose authorship is ascribed to Aristippus, though he also states that according to Sosicrates of Rhodes, Aristippus never wrote anything. Some letters attributed to him are forgeries. One work attributed to Aristippus in ancient times was a scandalous book entitled On Ancient Luxury (or On the Luxury of the Ancients; ); although it has long been realized that this work could not have been written by Aristippus of Cyrene, not least because the author mentions Theophrastus, who lived a generation after Aristippus. The name may have been adopted by the writer to suggest a connection with the hedonistic philosopher. This work, judging by the quotations preserved by Diogenes Laërtius, was filled with spicy anecdotes about philosophers and their supposed taste for courtesans or boys. Thus the author supports his claims for Plato's various erotic relationships through his quotation of epigrams attributed to the philosopher, and makes an extreme allegation that Periander committed incest with his own mother. Notes References Attribution Further reading Voula Tsouna, The Epistemology of the Cyrenaic School, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1998. Ugo Zilioli, The Cyrenaics, New York: Acumen / Routledge, 2012. External links Cyrenaics Resource Handbook of Cyrenaic resources, primary and secondary, includes Aristippus Aristippus of Cyrene on Ancient History Encyclopedia 430s BC births 360s BC deaths 4th-century BC philosophers Ancient Greek ethicists Cyrenaic philosophers Cyrenean Greeks Metic philosophers in Classical Athens Pupils of Socrates