Zeno of Citium: Founder of Stoicism

²⁰ He used to devote a lot of time to Diodorus, as we learn from Hippobotus.

He studied dialectics under him.

When he had made a good deal of progress he attached himself to Polemo because of his freedom from arrogance, so that it is reported that he said to him, “I am not ignorant, O Zeno, that you slip into the garden-door and steal my doctrines, and then clothe them in a Phœnician dress.”

When a dialectician once showed him seven species of dialectic argument in the mowing argument,[82] he asked him how much he charged for them, and when he said “A hundred drachmas,” he gave him two hundred, so exceedingly devoted was he to learning.

XXI. They say too, that he was the first who ever employed[269] the word duty (καθῆκον), and who wrote a treatise on the subject. And that he altered the lines of Hesiod thus:— He is the best of all men who submits To follow good advice; he too is good, Who of himself perceives whate’er is fit.[83]

For he said that that man who had the capacity to give a proper hearing to what was said, and to avail himself of it, was superior to him who comprehended everything by his own intellect; for that the one had only comprehension, but the one who took good advice had action also.

XXII. When he was asked why he, who was generally austere, relaxed at a dinner party, he said, “Lupins too are bitter, but when they are soaked they become sweet.” And Hecaton, in the second book of his Apophthegms, says, that in entertainments of that kind, he used to indulge himself freely. And he used to say that it was better to trip with the feet, than with the tongue. And that goodness was attained by little and little, but was not itself a small thing. Some authors, however, attribute this saying to Socrates.

XXIII. He was a person of great powers of abstinence and endurance; and of very simple habits, living on food which required no fire to dress it, and wearing a thin cloak, so that it was said of him:— The cold of winter, and the ceaseless rain, Come powerless against him; weak is the dart Of the fierce summer sun, or fell disease, To bend that iron frame. He stands apart, In nought resembling the vast common crowd; But, patient and unwearied, night and day, Clings to his studies and philosophy.

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XXIV. And the comic poets, without intending it, praise him in their very attempts to turn him into ridicule. Philemon speaks thus of him in his play entitled the Philosophers:— This man adopts a new philosophy, He teaches to be hungry; nevertheless, He gets disciples. Bread his only food, His best desert dried figs; water his drink.

But some attribute these lines to Posidippus. And they have become almost a proverb. Accordingly it used to be said of him, “More temperate than Zeno the philosopher.” Posidippus also writes thus in his Men Transported:— So that for ten whole days he did appear More temperate than Zeno’s self.

XXV. For in reality he did surpass all men in this description of virtue, and in dignity of demeanour, and, by Jove, in happiness. For he lived ninety-eight years, and then died, without any disease, and continuing in good health to the last. But Persæus, in his Ethical School, states that he died at the age of seventy-two, and that he came to Athens when he was twenty-two years old. But Apollonius says that he presided over his school for forty-eight years.

XXVI. And he died in the following manner. When he was going out of his school, he tripped, and broke one of his toes; and striking the ground with his hand, he repeated the line out of the Niobe:— I come: why call me so?

And immediately he strangled himself, and so he died. But the Athenians buried him in the Ceramicus, and honoured him with the decrees which I have mentioned before, bearing witness to his virtue. And Antipater, the Sidonian, wrote an inscription for him, which runs thus:— Here Cittium’s pride, wise Zeno, lies, who climb’d The summits of Olympus; but unmoved By wicked thoughts ne’er strove to raise on Ossa The pine-clad Pelion; nor did he emulate Th’ immortal toils of Hercules; but found A new way for himself to th’ highest heaven, By virtue, temperance, and modesty.

And Zenodotus, the Stoic, a disciple of Diogenes, wrote another:—

[271] You made contentment the chief rule of life, Despising haughty wealth, O God-like Zeno. With solemn look, and hoary brow serene, You taught a manly doctrine; and didst found By your deep wisdom, a great novel school, Chaste parent of unfearing liberty. And if your country was Phœnicia, Why need we grieve, from that land Cadmus came, Who gave to Greece her written books of wisdom.

And Athenæus, the Epigrammatic poet, speaks thus of all the Stoics in common:— O, ye who’ve learnt the doctrines of the Porch, And have committed to your books divine The best of human learning; teaching men That the mind’s virtue is the only good. And she it is who keeps the lives of men, And cities, safer than high gates or walls. But those who place their happiness in pleasure, Are led by the least worthy of the Muses.

And we also have ourselves spoken of the manner of Zeno’s death, in our collection of poems in all metres, in the following terms:— Some say that Zeno, pride of Cittium, Died of old age, when weak and quite worn out; Some say that famine’s cruel tooth did slay him; Some that he fell, and striking hard the ground, Said, “See, I come, why call me thus impatiently?”

For some say that this was the way in which he died. And this is enough to say concerning his death.

XXVII. But Demetrius, the Magnesian, says, in his essay on People of the Same Name, that his father Mnaseas often came to Athens, as he was a merchant, and that he used to bring back many of the books of the Socratic philosophers, to Zeno, while he was still only a boy; and that, from this circumstance, Zeno had already become talked of in his own country; and that in consequence of this he went to Athens, where he attached himself to Crates. And it seems, he adds, that it was he who first recommended a clear enunciation of principles, as the best remedy for error. He is said, too, to have been in the habit of swearing “By Capers,” as Socrates swore “By the Dog.”

XXVIII. Some, indeed, among whom is Cassius the Sceptic, attack Zeno on many accounts, saying first of all that he denounced the general system of education in vogue at the[272] time, as useless, which he did in the beginning of his Republic. And in the second place, that he used to call all who were not virtuous, adversaries, and enemies, and slaves, and unfriendly to one another, parents to their children, brethren to brethren, and kinsmen to kinsmen; and again, that in his Republic, he speaks of the virtuous as the only citizens, and friends, and relations, and free men, so that in the doctrine of the Stoic, even parents and their children are enemies; for they are not wise. Also, that he lays down the principle of the community of women both in his Republic and in a poem of two hundred verses, and teaches that neither temples nor courts of law, nor gymnasia, ought to be erected in a city; moreover, that he writes thus about money, “That he does not think that men ought to coin money either for purposes of traffic, or of travelling.” Besides all this, he enjoins men and women to wear the same dress, and to leave no part of their person uncovered.

XXIX. And that this treatise on the Republic is his work we are assured by Chrysippus, in his Republic. He also discussed amatory subjects in the beginning of that book of his which is entitled the Art of Love. And in his Conversations he writes in a similar manner.

Such are the charges made against him by Cassius, and also by Isidorus, of Pergamus, the orator, who says that all the unbecoming doctrines and assertions of the Stoics were cut out of their books by Athenodorus, the Stoic, who was the curator of the library at Pergamus. And that subsequently they were replaced, as Athenodorus was detected, and placed in a situation of great danger; and this is sufficient to say about those doctrines of his which were impugned.

XXX. There were eight different persons of the name of Zeno. The first was the Eleatic, whom we shall mention hereafter; the second was this man of whom we are now speaking; the third was a Rhodian, who wrote a history of his country in one book; the fourth was a historian who wrote an account of the expedition of Pyrrhus into Italy and Sicily; and also an epitome of the transactions between the Romans and Carthaginians; the fifth was a disciple of Chrysippus, who wrote very few books, but who left a great number of disciples; the sixth was a physician of Herophila, a very shrewd man in intellect, but a very indifferent writer; the[273] seventh was a grammarian, who, besides other writings, has left some epigrams behind him; the eighth was a Sidonian by descent, a philosopher of the Epicurean school, a deep thinker, and very clear writer.

XXXI. The disciples of Zeno were very numerous. The most eminent were, first of all, Persæus, of Cittium, the son of Demetrius, whom some call a friend of his, but others describe him as a servant and one of the amanuenses who were sent to him by Antigonus, to whose son, Halcyoneus, he also acted as tutor. And Antigonus once, wishing to make trial of him, caused some false news to be brought to him that his estate had been ravaged by the enemy; and as he began to look gloomy at this news, he said to him, “You see that wealth is not a matter of indifference.”

The following works are attributed to him. One on Kingly Power; one entitled the Constitution of the Lacedæmonians; one on Marriage; one on Impiety; the Thyestes; an Essay on Love; a volume of Exhortations; one of Conversations; four of Apophthegms; one of Reminiscences; seven treatises, the Laws of Plato.

The next was Ariston, of Chios, the son of Miltiades, who was the first author of the doctrine of indifference; then Herillus, who called knowledge the chief good; then Dionysius, who transferred this description to pleasure; as, on account of the violent disease which he had in his eyes, he could not yet bring himself to call pain a thing indifferent. He was a native of Heraclea; there was also Sphærus, of the Bosphorus; and Cleanthes, of Assos, the son of Phanias, who succeeded him in his school, and whom he used to liken to tablets of hard wax, which are written upon with difficulty, but which retain what is written upon them. And after Zeno’s death, Sphærus became a pupil of Cleanthes. And we shall speak of him in our account of Cleanthes.

These also were all disciples of Zeno, as we are told by Hippobotus, namely:—Philonides, of Thebes; Callippus, of Corinth; Posidonius, of Alexandria; Athenodorus, of Soli; and Zeno, a Sidonian.