11. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of The Philosophers, 2.109-2.110, 2.113-2.120, 2.125, 3.66, 6.20-6.21, 7.1, 7.3-7.34, 7.36, 7.162-7.163, 7.174, 10.2 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 2.109. Eubulides kept up a controversy with Aristotle and said much to discredit him.Among other members the school of Eubulides included Alexinus of Elis, a man very fond of controversy, for which reason he was called Elenxinus. In particular he kept up a controversy with Zeno. Hermippus says of him that he left Elis and removed to Olympia, where he studied philosophy. His pupils inquired why he took up his abode here, and were told that it was his intention to found a school which should be called the Olympian school. But as their provisions ran short and they found the place unhealthy, they left it, and for the rest of his days Alexinus lived in solitude with a single servant. And some time afterwards, as he was swimming in the Alpheus, the point of a reed ran into him, and of this injury he died. 2.110. I have composed the following lines upon him:It was not then a vain tale that once an unfortunate man, while diving, pierced his foot somehow with a nail; since that great man Alexinus, before he could cross the Alpheus, was pricked by a reed and met his death.He has written not only a reply to Zeno but other works, including one against Ephorus the historian.To the school of Eubulides also belonged Euphantus of Olynthus, who wrote a history of his own times. He was besides a poet and wrote several tragedies, with which he made a great reputation at the festivals. He taught King Antigonus and dedicated to him a work On Kingship which was very popular. He died of old age. 2.113. 11. STILPOStilpo, a citizen of Megara in Greece, was a pupil of some of the followers of Euclides, although others make him a pupil of Euclides himself, and furthermore of Thrasymachus of Corinth, who was the friend of Ichthyas, according to Heraclides. And so far did he excel all the rest in inventiveness and sophistry that nearly the whole of Greece was attracted to him and joined the school of Megara. On this let me cite the exact words of Philippus the Megarian philosopher: for from Theophrastus he drew away the theorist Metrodorus and Timagoras of Gela, from Aristotle the Cyrenaic philosopher, Clitarchus, and Simmias; and as for the dialecticians themselves, he gained over Paeonius from Aristides; Diphilus of Bosphorus, the son of Euphantus, and Myrmex, the son of Exaenetus, who had both come to refute him, he made his devoted adherents. 2.114. And besides these he won over Phrasidemus the Peripatetic, an accomplished physicist, and Alcimus the rhetorician, the first orator in all Greece; Crates, too, and many others he got into his toils, and, what is more, along with these, he carried off Zeno the Phoenician.He was also an authority on politics.He married a wife, and had a mistress named Nicarete, as Onetor has somewhere stated. He had a profligate daughter, who was married to his friend Simmias of Syracuse. And, as she would not live by rule, some one told Stilpo that she was a disgrace to him. To this he replied, Not so, any more than I am an honour to her. 2.115. Ptolemy Soter, they say, made much of him, and when he had got possession of Megara, offered him a sum of money and invited him to return with him to Egypt. But Stilpo would only accept a very moderate sum, and he declined the proposed journey, and removed to Aegina until Ptolemy set sail. Again, when Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, had taken Megara, he took measures that Stilpo's house should be preserved and all his plundered property restored to him. But when he requested that a schedule of the lost property should be drawn up, Stilpo denied that he had lost anything which really belonged to him, for no one had taken away his learning, while he still had his eloquence and knowledge. 2.116. And conversing upon the duty of doing good to men he made such an impression on the king that he became eager to hear him. There is a story that he once used the following argument concerning the Athena of Phidias: Is it not Athena the daughter of Zeus who is a goddess? And when the other said Yes, he went on, But this at least is not by Zeus but by Phidias, and, this being granted, he concluded, This then is not a god. For this he was summoned before the Areopagus; he did not deny the charge, but contended that the reasoning was correct, for that Athena was no god but a goddess; it was the male divinities who were gods. However, the story goes that the Areopagites ordered him to quit the city, and that thereupon Theodorus, whose nickname was Θεός, said in derision, Whence did Stilpo learn this? and how could he tell whether she was a god or a goddess? But in truth Theodorus was most impudent, and Stilpo most ingenious. 2.117. When Crates asked him whether the gods take delight in prayers and adorations, he is said to have replied, Don't put such a question in the street, simpleton, but when we are alone! It is said that Bion, when he was asked the same question whether there are gods, replied:Will you not scatter the crowd from me, O much-enduring elder?In character Stilpo was simple and unaffected, and he could readily adapt himself to the plain man. For instance, when Crates the Cynic did not answer the question put to him and only insulted the questioner, I knew, said Stilpo, that you would utter anything rather than what you ought. 2.118. And once when Crates held out a fig to him when putting a question, he took the fig and ate it. Upon which the other exclaimed, O Heracles, I have lost the fig, and Stilpo remarked, Not only that but your question as well, for which the fig was payment in advance. Again, on seeing Crates shrivelled with cold in the winter, he said, You seem to me, Crates, to want a new coat, i.e. to be wanting in sense as well. And the other being annoyed replied with the following burlesque:And Stilpo I saw enduring toilsome woes in Megara, where men say that the bed of Typhos is. There he would ever be wrangling, and many comrades about him, wasting time in the verbal pursuit of virtue. 2.119. It is said that at Athens he so attracted the public that people would run together from the workshops to look at him. And when some one said, Stilpo, they stare at you as if you were some strange creature. No, indeed, said he, but as if I were a genuine man. And, being a consummate master of controversy, he used to demolish even the ideas, and say that he who asserted the existence of Man meant no individual; he did not mean this man or that. For why should he mean the one more than the other? Therefore neither does he mean this individual man. Again, vegetable is not what is shown to me, for vegetable existed ten thousand years ago. Therefore this is not vegetable. The story goes that while in the middle of an argument with Crates he hurried off to buy fish, and, when Crates tried to detain him and urged that he was leaving the argument, his answer was, Not I. I keep the argument though I am leaving you; for the argument will remain, but the fish will soon be sold. 2.120. Nine dialogues of his are extant written in frigid style, Moschus, Aristippus or Callias, Ptolemy, Chaerecrates, Metrocles, Anaximenes, Epigenes, To his Daughter, Aristotle. Heraclides relates that Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, was one of Stilpo's pupils; Hermippus that Stilpo died at a great age after taking wine to hasten his end.I have written an epitaph on him also:Surely you know Stilpo the Megarian; old age and then disease laid him low, a formidable pair. But he found in wine a charioteer too strong for that evil team; he quaffed it eagerly and was borne along.He was also ridiculed by Sophilus the Comic poet in his drama The Wedding:What Charinus says is just Stilpo's stoppers. 3.66. the dotted cross (⨰) denotes select passages and beauties of style; the dotted diple (⋗) editors' corrections of the text; the dotted obelus (÷) passages suspected without reason; the dotted antisigma (Ꜿ) repetitions and proposals for transpositions; the ceraunium the philosophical school; the asterisk (∗) an agreement of doctrine; the obelus (−) a spurious passage. So much for the critical marks and his writings in general. As Antigonus of Carystus says in his Life of Zeno, when the writings were first edited with critical marks, their possessors charged a certain fee to anyone who wished to consult them. 6.20. 2. DIOGENESDiogenes was a native of Sinope, son of Hicesius, a banker. Diocles relates that he went into exile because his father was entrusted with the money of the state and adulterated the coinage. But Eubulides in his book on Diogenes says that Diogenes himself did this and was forced to leave home along with his father. Moreover Diogenes himself actually confesses in his Pordalus that he adulterated the coinage. Some say that having been appointed to superintend the workmen he was persuaded by them, and that he went to Delphi or to the Delian oracle in his own city and inquired of Apollo whether he should do what he was urged to do. When the god gave him permission to alter the political currency, not understanding what this meant, he adulterated the state coinage, and when he was detected, according to some he was banished, while according to others he voluntarily quitted the city for fear of consequences. 6.21. One version is that his father entrusted him with the money and that he debased it, in consequence of which the father was imprisoned and died, while the son fled, came to Delphi, and inquired, not whether he should falsify the coinage, but what he should do to gain the greatest reputation; and that then it was that he received the oracle.On reaching Athens he fell in with Antisthenes. Being repulsed by him, because he never welcomed pupils, by sheer persistence Diogenes wore him out. Once when he stretched out his staff against him, the pupil offered his head with the words, Strike, for you will find no wood hard enough to keep me away from you, so long as I think you've something to say. From that time forward he was his pupil, and, exile as he was, set out upon a simple life. 7.1. BOOK 7: 1. ZENOZeno, the son of Mnaseas (or Demeas), was a native of Citium in Cyprus, a Greek city which had received Phoenician settlers. He had a wry neck, says Timotheus of Athens in his book On Lives. Moreover, Apollonius of Tyre says he was lean, fairly tall, and swarthy – hence some one called him an Egyptian vine-branch, according to Chrysippus in the first book of his Proverbs. He had thick legs; he was flabby and delicate. Hence Persaeus in his Convivial Reminiscences relates that he declined most invitations to dinner. They say he was fond of eating green figs and of basking in the sun. 7.3. As he went on reading the second book of Xenophon's Memorabilia, he was so pleased that he inquired where men like Socrates were to be found. Crates passed by in the nick of time, so the bookseller pointed to him and said, Follow yonder man. From that day he became Crates's pupil, showing in other respects a strong bent for philosophy, though with too much native modesty to assimilate Cynic shamelessness. Hence Crates, desirous of curing this defect in him, gave him a potful of lentil-soup to carry through the Ceramicus; and when he saw that he was ashamed and tried to keep it out of sight, with a blow of his staff he broke the pot. As Zeno took to flight with the lentil-soup flowing down his legs, Why run away, my little Phoenician? quoth Crates, nothing terrible has befallen you. 7.4. For a certain space, then, he was instructed by Crates, and when at this time he had written his Republic, some said in jest that he had written it on Cynosura, i.e. on the dog's tail. Besides the Republic he wrote the following works:of Life according to Nature.of Impulse, or Human Nature.of Emotions.of Duty.of Law.of Greek Education.of Vision.of the Whole World.of Signs.Pythagorean Questions.Universals.of Varieties of Style.Homeric Problems, in five books.of the Reading of Poetry.There are also by him:A Handbook of Rhetoric.Solutions.Two books of Refutations.Recollections of Crates.Ethics.This is a list of his writings. But at last he left Crates, and the men above mentioned were his masters for twenty years. Hence he is reported to have said, I made a prosperous voyage when I suffered shipwreck. But others attribute this saying of his to the time when he was under Crates. 7.5. A different version of the story is that he was staying at Athens when he heard his ship was wrecked and said, It is well done of thee, Fortune, thus to drive me to philosophy. But some say that he disposed of his cargo in Athens, before he turned his attention to philosophy.He used then to discourse, pacing up and down in the Stoa Poikile, which is also called the stoa or Portico of Pisianax, but which received its name from the painting of Polygnotus; his object being to keep the spot clear of a concourse of idlers. It was the spot where in the time of the Thirty 1400 Athenian citizens had been put to death. Hither, then, people came henceforth to hear Zeno, and this is why they were known as men of the Stoa, or Stoics; and the same name was given to his followers, who had formerly been known as Zenonians. So it is stated by Epicurus in his letters. According to Eratosthenes in his eighth book On the Old Comedy, the name of Stoic had formerly been applied to the poets who passed their time there, and they had made the name of Stoic still more famous. 7.6. The people of Athens held Zeno in high honour, as is proved by their depositing with him the keys of the city walls, and their honouring him with a golden crown and a bronze statue. This last mark of respect was also shown to him by citizens of his native town, who deemed his statue an ornament to their city, and the men of Citium living in Sidon were also proud to claim him for their own. Antigonus (Gonatas) also favoured him, and whenever he came to Athens would hear him lecture and often invited him to come to his court. This offer he declined but dispatched thither one of his friends, Persaeus, the son of Demetrius and a native of Citium, who flourished in the 130th Olympiad, at which time Zeno was already an old man. According to Apollonius of Tyre in his work upon Zeno, the letter of Antigonus was couched in the following terms: 7.7. King Antigonus to Zeno the philosopher, greeting.While in fortune and fame I deem myself your superior, in reason and education I own myself inferior, as well as in the perfect happiness which you have attained. Wherefore I have decided to ask you to pay me a visit, being persuaded that you will not refuse the request. By all means, then, do your best to hold conference with me, understanding clearly that you will not be the instructor of myself alone but of all the Macedonians taken together. For it is obvious that whoever instructs the ruler of Macedonia and guides him in the paths of virtue will also be training his subjects to be good men. As is the ruler, such for the most part it may be expected that his subjects will become.And Zeno's reply is as follows: 7.8. Zeno to King Antigonus, greeting.I welcome your love of learning in so far as you cleave to that true education which tends to advantage and not to that popular counterfeit of it which serves only to corrupt morals. But if anyone has yearned for philosophy, turning away from much-vaunted pleasure which renders effeminate the souls of some of the young, it is evident that not by nature only, but also by the bent of his will he is inclined to nobility of character. But if a noble nature be aided by moderate exercise and further receive ungrudging instruction, it easily comes to acquire virtue in perfection. 7.9. But I am constrained by bodily weakness, due to old age, for I am eighty years old; and for that reason I am unable to join you. But I send you certain companions of my studies whose mental powers are not inferior to mine, while their bodily strength is far greater, and if you associate with these you will in no way fall short of the conditions necessary to perfect happiness.So he sent Persaeus and Philonides the Theban; and Epicurus in his letter to his brother Aristobulus mentions them both as living with Antigonus. I have thought it well to append the decree also which the Athenians passed concerning him. It reads as follows: 7.10. In the archonship of Arrhenides, in the fifth prytany of the tribe Acamantis on the twenty-first day of Maemacterion, at the twenty-third plenary assembly of the prytany, one of the presidents, Hippo, the son of Cratistoteles, of the deme Xypetaeon, and his co-presidents put the question to the vote; Thraso, the son of Thraso of the deme Anacaea, moved:Whereas Zeno of Citium, son of Mnaseas, has for many years been devoted to philosophy in the city and has continued to be a man of worth in all other respects, exhorting to virtue and temperance those of the youth who come to him to be taught, directing them to what is best, affording to all in his own conduct a pattern for imitation in perfect consistency with his teaching, it has seemed good to the people – 7.11. and may it turn out well – to bestow praise upon Zeno of Citium, the son of Mnaseas, and to crown him with a golden crown according to the law, for his goodness and temperance, and to build him a tomb in the Ceramicus at the public cost. And that for the making of the crown and the building of the tomb, the people shall now elect five commissioners from all Athenians, and the Secretary of State shall inscribe this decree on two stone pillars and it shall be lawful for him to set up one in the Academy and the other in the Lyceum. And that the magistrate presiding over the administration shall apportion the expense incurred upon the pillars, that all may know that the Athenian people honour the good both in their life and after their death. 7.12. Thraso of the deme Anacaea, Philocles of Peiraeus, Phaedrus of Anaphlystus, Medon of Acharnae, Micythus of Sypalettus, and Dion of Paeania have been elected commissioners for the making of the crown and the building.These are the terms of the decree.Antigonus of Carystus tells us that he never denied that he was a citizen of Citium. For when he was one of those who contributed to the restoration of the baths and his name was inscribed upon the pillar as Zeno the philosopher, he requested that the words of Citium should be added. He made a hollow lid for a flask and used to carry about money in it, in order that there might be provision at hand for the necessities of his master Crates. 7.13. It is said that he had more than a thousand talents when he came to Greece, and that he lent this money on bottomry. He used to eat little loaves and honey and to drink a little wine of good bouquet. He rarely employed men-servants; once or twice indeed he might have a young girl to wait on him in order not to seem a misogynist. He shared the same house with Persaeus, and when the latter brought in a little flute-player he lost no time in leading her straight to Persaeus. They tell us he readily adapted himself to circumstances, so much so that King Antigonus often broke in on him with a noisy party, and once took him along with other revellers to Aristocles the musician; Zeno, however, in a little while gave them the slip. 7.14. He disliked, they say, to be brought too near to people, so that he would take the end seat of a couch, thus saving himself at any rate from one half of such inconvenience. Nor indeed would he walk about with more than two or three. He would occasionally ask the bystanders for coppers, in order that, for fear of being asked to give, people might desist from mobbing him, as Cleanthes says in his work On Bronze. When several persons stood about him in the Colonnade he pointed to the wooden railing at the top round the altar and said, This was once open to all, but because it was found to be a hindrance it was railed off. If you then will take yourselves off out of the way you will be the less annoyance to us.When Demochares, the son of Laches, greeted him and told him he had only to speak or write for anything he wanted to Antigonus, who would be sure to grant all his requests, Zeno after hearing this would have nothing more to do with him. 7.15. After Zeno's death Antigonus is reported to have said, What an audience I have lost. Hence too he employed Thraso as his agent to request the Athenians to bury Zeno in the Ceramicus. And when asked why he admired him, Because, said he, the many ample gifts I offered him never made him conceited nor yet appear poor-spirited.His bent was towards inquiry, and he was an exact reasoner on all subjects. Hence the words of Timon in his Silli:A Phoenician too I saw, a pampered old woman ensconced in gloomy pride, longing for all things; but the meshes of her subtle web have perished, and she had no more intelligence than a banjo. 7.16. He used to dispute very carefully with Philo the logician and study along with him. Hence Zeno, who was the junior, had as great an admiration for Philo as his master Diodorus. And he had about him certain ragged dirty fellows, as Timon says in these lines:The while he got together a crowd of ignorant serfs, who surpassed all men in beggary and were the emptiest of townsfolk.Zeno himself was sour and of a frowning countece. He was very niggardly too, clinging to meanness unworthy of a Greek, on the plea of economy, If he pitched into anyone he would do it concisely, and not effusively, keeping him rather at arm's length. I mean, for example, his remark upon the fop showing himself off. 7.17. When he was slowly picking his way across a watercourse, With good reason, quoth Zeno, he looks askance at the mud, for he can't see his face in it. When a certain Cynic declared he had no oil in his flask and begged some of him, Zeno refused to give him any. However, as the man went away, Zeno bade him consider which of the two was the more impudent. Being enamoured of Chremonides, as he and Cleanthes were sitting beside the youth, he got up, and upon Cleanthes expressing surprise, Good physicians tell us, said he, that the best cure for inflammation is repose. When of two reclining next to each other over the wine, the one who was neighbour to Zeno kicked the guest below him, Zeno himself nudged the man with his knee, and upon the man turning round, inquired, How do you think your neighbour liked what you did to him? 7.18. To a lover of boys he remarked, Just as schoolmasters lose their common-sense by spending all their time with boys, so it is with people like you. He used to say that the very exact expressions used by those who avoided solecisms were like the coins struck by Alexander: they were beautiful in appearance and well-rounded like the coins, but none the better on that account. Words of the opposite kind he would compare to the Attic tetradrachms, which, though struck carelessly and inartistically, nevertheless outweighed the ornate phrases. When his pupil Ariston discoursed at length in an uninspired manner, sometimes in a headstrong and over-confident way. Your father, said he, must have been drunk when he begat you. Hence he would call him a chatterbox, being himself concise in speech. 7.19. There was a gourmand so greedy that he left nothing for his table companions. A large fish having been served, Zeno took it up as if he were about to eat the whole. When the other looked at him, What do you suppose, said he, those who live with you feel every day, if you cannot put up with my gourmandise in this single instance? A youth was putting a question with more curiosity than became his years, whereupon Zeno led him to a mirror, and bade him look in it; after which he inquired if he thought it became anyone who looked like that to ask such questions. Some one said that he did not in general agree with Antisthenes, whereupon Zeno produced that author's essay on Sophocles, and asked him if he thought it had any excellence; to which the reply was that he did not know. Then are you not ashamed, quoth he, to pick out and mention anything wrong said by Antisthenes, while you suppress his good things without giving them a thought? 7.20. Some one having said that he thought the chain-arguments of the philosophers seemed brief and curt, Zeno replied, You are quite right; indeed, the very syllables ought, if possible, to be clipped. Some one remarked to him about Polemo, that his discourse was different from the subject he announced. He replied with a frown, Well, what value would you have set upon what was given out? He said that when conversing we ought to be earnest and, like actors, we should have a loud voice and great strength; but we ought not to open the mouth too wide, which is what your senseless chatterbox does. Telling periods, he said, unlike the works of good craftsmen, should need no pause for the contemplation of their excellences; on the contrary, the hearer should be so absorbed in the discourse itself as to have no leisure even to take notes. 7.21. Once when a young man was talking a good deal, he said, Your ears have slid down and merged in your tongue. To the fair youth, who gave it as his opinion that the wise man would not fall in love, his reply was: Then who can be more hapless than you fair youths? He used to say that even of philosophers the greater number were in most things unwise, while about small and casual things they were quite ignorant. And he used to cite the saying of Caphisius, who, when one of his pupils was endeavouring to blow the flute lustily, gave him a slap and told him that to play well does not depend on loudness, though playing loudly may follow upon playing well. And to a youth who was talking somewhat saucily his rejoinder was, I would rather not tell you what I am thinking, my lad. 7.22. A Rhodian, who was handsome and rich, but nothing more, insisted on joining his class; but so unwelcome was this pupil, that first of all Zeno made him sit on the benches that were dusty, that he might soil his cloak, and then he consigned him to the place where the beggars sat, that he might rub shoulders with their rags; so at last the young man went away. Nothing, he declared, was more unbecoming than arrogance, especially in the young. He used also to say that it was not the words and expressions that we ought to remember, but we should exercise our mind in disposing to advantage of what we hear, instead of, as it were, tasting a well-cooked dish or well-dressed meal. The young, he thought, should behave with perfect propriety in walk, gait and dress, and he used continually to quote the lines of Euripides about Capaneus:Large means had he, yet not the haughtinessThat springs from wealth, nor cherished prouder thoughtsof vain ambition than the poorest man. 7.23. Again he would say that if we want to master the sciences there is nothing so fatal as conceit, and again there is nothing we stand so much in need of as time. To the question Who is a friend? his answer was, A second self (alter ego). We are told that he was once chastising a slave for stealing, and when the latter pleaded that it was his fate to steal, Yes, and to be beaten too, said Zeno. Beauty he called the flower of chastity, while according to others it was chastity which he called the flower of beauty. Once when he saw the slave of one of his acquaintance marked with weals, I see, said he, the imprints of your anger. To one who had been drenched with unguent, Who is this, quoth he, who smells of woman? When Dionysius the Renegade asked, Why am I the only pupil you do not correct? the reply was, Because I mistrust you. To a stripling who was talking nonsense his words were, The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less. 7.24. One day at a banquet he was reclining in silence and was asked the reason: whereupon he bade his critic carry word to the king that there was one present who knew how to hold his tongue. Now those who inquired of him were ambassadors from King Ptolemy, and they wanted to know what message they should take back from him to the king. On being asked how he felt about abuse, he replied, As an envoy feels who is dismissed without an answer. Apollonius of Tyre tells us how, when Crates laid hold on him by the cloak to drag him from Stilpo, Zeno said, The right way to seize a philosopher, Crates, is by the ears: persuade me then and drag me off by them; but, if you use violence, my body will be with you, but my mind with Stilpo. 7.25. According to Hippobotus he forgathered with Diodorus, with whom he worked hard at dialectic. And when he was already making progress, he would enter Polemo's school: so far from all self-conceit was he. In consequence Polemo is said to have addressed him thus: You slip in, Zeno, by the garden door – I'm quite aware of it – you filch my doctrines and give them a Phoenician make-up. A dialectician once showed him seven logical forms concerned with the sophism known as The Reaper, and Zeno asked him how much he wanted for them. Being told a hundred drachmas, he promptly paid two hundred: to such lengths would he go in his love of learning. They say too that he first introduced the word Duty and wrote a treatise on the subject. It is said, moreover, that he corrected Hesiod's lines thus:He is best of all men who follows good advice: good too is he who finds out all things for himself. 7.26. The reason he gave for this was that the man capable of giving a proper hearing to what is said and profiting by it was superior to him who discovers everything himself. For the one had merely a right apprehension, the other in obeying good counsel superadded conduct.When he was asked why he, though so austere, relaxed at a drinking-party, he said, Lupins too are bitter, but when they are soaked become sweet. Hecato too in the second book of his Anecdotes says that he indulged freely at such gatherings. And he would say, Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue. Well-being is attained by little and little, and nevertheless it is no little thing itself. [Others attribute this to Socrates.] 7.27. He showed the utmost endurance, and the greatest frugality; the food he used required no fire to dress, and the cloak he wore was thin. Hence it was said of him:The cold of winter and the ceaseless rainCome powerless against him: weak the dartof the fierce summer sun or racking painTo bend that iron frame. He stands apartUnspoiled by public feast and jollity:Patient, unwearied night and day doth heCling to his studies of philosophy.Nay more: the comic poets by their very jests at his expense praised him without intending it. Thus Philemon says in a play, Philosophers:This man adopts a new philosophy.He teaches to go hungry: yet he getsDisciples. One sole loaf of bread his food;His best dessert dried figs; water his drink.Others attribute these lines to Poseidippus.By this time he had almost become a proverb. At all events, More temperate than Zeno the philosopher was a current saying about him. Poseidippus also writes in his Men Transported:So that for ten whole daysMore temperate than Zeno's self he seemed. 7.28. And in very truth in this species of virtue and in dignity he surpassed all mankind, ay, and in happiness; for he was ninety-eight when he died and had enjoyed good health without an ailment to the last. Persaeus, however, in his ethical lectures makes him die at the age of seventy-two, having come to Athens at the age of twenty-two. But Apollonius says that he presided over the school for fifty-eight years. The manner of his death was as follows. As he was leaving the school he tripped and fell, breaking a toe. Striking the ground with his fist, he quoted the line from the Niobe:I come, I come, why dost thou call for me?and died on the spot through holding his breath. 7.29. The Athenians buried him in the Ceramicus and honoured him in the decrees already cited above, adding their testimony of his goodness. Here is the epitaph composed for him by Antipater of Sidon:Here lies great Zeno, dear to Citium, who scaled high Olympus, though he piled not Pelion on Ossa, nor toiled at the labours of Heracles, but this was the path he found out to the stars – the way of temperance alone. 7.30. Here too is another by Zenodotus the Stoic, a pupil of Diogenes:Thou madest self-sufficiency thy rule,Eschewing haughty wealth, O godlike Zeno,With aspect grave and hoary brow serene.A manly doctrine thine: and by thy prudenceWith much toil thou didst found a great new school,Chaste parent of unfearing liberty.And if thy native country was Phoenicia,What need to slight thee? came not Cadmus thence,Who gave to Greece her books and art of writing?And Athenaeus the epigrammatist speaks of all the Stoics in common as follows:O ye who've learnt the doctrines of the StoaAnd have committed to your books divineThe best of human learning, teaching menThat the mind's virtue is the only good!She only it is who keeps the lives of menAnd cities, – safer than high gates and walls.But those who place their happiness in pleasureAre led by the least worthy of the Muses. 7.31. We have ourselves mentioned the manner of Zeno's death in the Pammetros (a collection of poems in various metres):The story goes that Zeno of Citium after enduring many hardships by reason of old age was set free, some say by ceasing to take food; others say that once when he had tripped he beat with his hand upon the earth and cried, I come of my own accord; why then call me?For there are some who hold this to have been the manner of his death.So much then concerning his death.Demetrius the Magnesian, in his work on Men of the Same Name, says of him: his father, Mnaseas, being a merchant often went to Athens and brought away many books about Socrates for Zeno while still a boy. 7.32. Hence he had been well trained even before he left his native place. And thus it came about that on his arrival at Athens he attached himself to Crates. And it seems, he adds, that, when the rest were at a loss how to express their views, Zeno framed a definition of the end. They say that he was in the habit of swearing by capers just as Socrates used to swear by the dog. Some there are, and among them Cassius the Sceptic and his disciples, who accuse Zeno at length. Their first count is that in the beginning of his Republic he pronounced the ordinary education useless: the next is that he applies to all men who are not virtuous the opprobrious epithets of foemen, enemies, slaves, and aliens to one another, parents to children, brothers to brothers, friends to friends. 7.33. Again, in the Republic, making an invidious contrast, he declares the good alone to be true citizens or friends or kindred or free men; and accordingly in the view of the Stoics parents and children are enemies, not being wise. Again, it is objected, in the Republic he lays down community of wives, and at line 200 prohibits the building of sanctuaries, law-courts and gymnasia in cities; while as regards a currency he writes that we should not think it need be introduced either for purposes of exchange or for travelling abroad. Further, he bids men and women wear the same dress and keep no part of the body entirely covered. 7.34. That the Republic is the work of Zeno is attested by Chrysippus in his De Republica. And he discussed amatory subjects in the beginning of that book of his which is entitled The Art of Love. Moreover, he writes much the same in his Interludes. So much for the criticisms to be found not only in Cassius but in Isidorus of Pergamum, the rhetorician. Isidorus likewise affirms that the passages disapproved by the school were expunged from his works by Athenodorus the Stoic, who was in charge of the Pergamene library; and that afterwards, when Athenodorus was detected and compromised, they were replaced. So much concerning the passages in his writings which are regarded as spurious. 7.36. of the many disciples of Zeno the following are the most famous: Persaeus, son of Demetrius, of Citium, whom some call a pupil and others one of the household, one of those sent him by Antigonus to act as secretary; he had been tutor to Antigonus's son Halcyoneus. 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 his countece fell, Do you see, said he, that wealth is not a matter of indifference?The following works are by Persaeus:of Kingship.The Spartan Constitution.of Marriage.of Impiety.Thyestes.of Love.Exhortations.Interludes.Four books of Anecdotes.Memorabilia.A Reply to Plato's Laws in seven books. 7.162. After meeting Polemo, says Diocles of Magnesia, while Zeno was suffering from a protracted illness, he recanted his views. The Stoic doctrine to which he attached most importance was the wise man's refusal to hold mere opinions. And against this doctrine Persaeus was contending when he induced one of a pair of twins to deposit a certain sum with Ariston and afterwards got the other to reclaim it. Ariston being thus reduced to perplexity was refuted. He was at variance with Arcesilaus; and one day when he saw an abortion in the shape of a bull with a uterus, he said, Alas, here Arcesilaus has had given into his hand an argument against the evidence of the senses. 7.163. When some Academic alleged that he had no certainty of anything, Ariston said, Do you not even see your neighbour sitting by you? and when the other answered No, he rejoined,Who can have blinded you? who robbed you of luminous eyesight?The books attributed to him are as follows:Exhortations, two books.of Zeno's Doctrines.Dialogues.Lectures, six books.Dissertations on Philosophy, seven books.Dissertations on Love.Commonplaces on Vainglory.Notebooks, twenty-five volumes.Memorabilia, three books.Anecdotes, eleven books.Against the Rhetoricians.An Answer to the Counter-pleas of Alexinus.Against the Dialecticians, three books.Letters to Cleanthes, four books.Panaetius and Sosicrates consider the Letters to be alone genuine; all the other works named they attribute to Ariston the Peripatetic. 7.174. To the solitary man who talked to himself he remarked, You are not talking to a bad man. When some one twitted him on his old age, his reply was, I too am ready to depart; but when again I consider that I am in all points in good health and that I can still write and read, I am content to wait. We are told that he wrote down Zeno's lectures on oyster-shells and the blade-bones of oxen through lack of money to buy paper. Such was he; and yet, although Zeno had many other eminent disciples, he was able to succeed him in the headship of the school.He has left some very fine writings, which are as follows:of Time.of Zeno's Natural Philosophy, two books.Interpretations of Heraclitus, four books.De Sensu.of Art.A Reply to Democritus.A Reply to Aristarchus.A Reply to Herillus.of Impulse, two books. 10.2. For some time he stayed there and gathered disciples, but returned to Athens in the archonship of Anaxicrates. And for a while, it is said, he prosecuted his studies in common with the other philosophers, but afterwards put forward independent views by the foundation of the school called after him. He says himself that he first came into contact with philosophy at the age of fourteen. Apollodorus the Epicurean, in the first book of his Life of Epicurus, says that he turned to philosophy in disgust at the schoolmasters who could not tell him the meaning of chaos in Hesiod. According to Hermippus, however, he started as a schoolmaster, but on coming across the works of Democritus turned eagerly to philosophy. |
|
