In every instance, he must instantiate his Cynicism by means of physical gestures and acts. He insists on eating in the marketplace and in the temples, drinks out of his hand and eats scraps of food from the floor, and urinates in the presences of baffled witnesses. . . walks backwards through the streets, enters theaters only when people are leavng, embraces statues covered with snow . . . points to people whom he dislikes with his middle finger, clears the plegm from his throat on the face of someone he thinks is worthless, sleeps in a tub or in the porticos of the temples, accepts disciples only if they are willing to cary a large fish or a piece of cheese in public . . . plucks a chicken to demonstrate the senselessness of Plato's ideas . . . folds his ragged cloak to expose his nakedness, and so on.