Diogenes Laertius is the author of Compendium of the Lives and Opinions of Philosophers, the only general book on philosophers and their philosophy that has been transmitted from classical antiquity. Diogenes is known from this work only—nothing is known about his life—and his date can only be fixed by the dates of the latest personalities mentioned in his text (second century CE), and because he seems to have written prior to the rise of Neoplatonism (c. 250 CE). His work was dedicated to a woman interested in Platonism (bk. 3 § 47).

Diogenes's work belongs to a type of ancient literature (often called Diadocha or Successions) in which accounts of the lives of philosophers were arranged as series of biographies so that teacher and student followed one another within each major philosophical school.

Diogenes's text is divided into ten sections, or "books":

1. Introduction and...