Fragments and Sayings — Zeno of Citium
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ΖΗΝΩΝΟΣ ΑΠΟΣΠΑΣΜΑΤΑ
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Everything that survives of Zeno of Citium (c. 334–262 BCE), founder of the Stoa: his division of philosophy into logic, physics and ethics, the kataleptic impression, fire and the Logos that runs through the cosmos, the end as living in agreement with nature, his Republic, and the sayings remembered of him. Each fragment is given with the ancient author who preserves it. Text of the fragments from A. C. Pearson, The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes (Cambridge, 1891), numbered as there; Pearson's commentary is not included. New English translation, with the Greek and Latin beside it; not yet reviewed by a scholar.

## Fragments

[1] Fragment 1. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.39
They say that philosophical discourse has three parts: one part of it is physics, another ethics, another logic. Zeno of Citium was the first to divide it in this way, in his work On Reason.
[2] Fragment 2. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.40
Others put logic first, physics second and ethics third; among these is Zeno, in his On Reason.¹
[3] Fragment 3. Arrian, Discourses of Epictetus 4.8.12
The principles of the philosopher … which Zeno states: to know the elements of reason, what sort of thing each of them is, how they fit together with one another, and whatever follows from them.²
[4] Fragment 4. Arrian, Discourses of Epictetus 1.17.10–11
“And logic is unfruitful” … well, we shall look into that. But even if one were to grant this, it is enough that logic is able to discriminate and examine everything else and, as one might say, to measure and weigh it. Who says this? Only Chrysippus, Zeno and Cleanthes?³
[5] Fragment 5. Stobaeus, Eclogues 2.2.12 (p. 22, 12 Wachsmuth)
Zeno likened the handbooks of the dialecticians to accurate measures that measure out not wheat or anything else of value, but chaff and dung.⁴
[6] Fragment 6. Plutarch, On Stoic Self-Contradictions 8.2
He (that is, Zeno) used to solve sophisms, and he told his pupils to take up dialectic, since it is able to do this.
[7] Fragment 7. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 7.228, 7.236; cf. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.45
An impression (phantasia) is an imprint in the soul.⁵
[8] Fragment 8. Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.50.21; Plutarch, Opinions of the Philosophers 4.8.9 (both to the Stoics generally); Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 8.355; Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 1.70; Cicero, Academica 1.41
Sense-perceptions are true; of impressions, some are true and some false. — Sextus: Democritus overthrew all sensible existence, Epicurus said that everything sensible is reliable, but Zeno the Stoic made a distinction. — Cicero: Arcesilas pressed Zeno hard, since he himself said that everything that appeared to the senses was false, while Zeno said that some impressions were false, but not all. — Cicero: He did not give credence to all impressions.⁶
[9] Fragment 9. Cicero, Academica 1.41
(Zeno) gave credence … only to those impressions which carried a certain distinctive manifestation of the things that appeared.⁷
[10] Fragment 10. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 7.253; 7.227
But the older Stoics say that the criterion of truth is the kataleptic impression. — [They say] that the kataleptic impression is the criterion of truth.⁸
[11] Fragment 11. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 7.248 (cf. 7.426; Outlines of Pyrrhonism 2.4); Cicero, Academica 2.18; Augustine, Against the Academics 3.9.18
A kataleptic impression is one that comes from what is, and is stamped and sealed in accordance with that very thing that is, of such a kind as could not come from what is not. — Cicero: …if it were, as Zeno defined it, an impression stamped and moulded from the thing it came from, such as could not come from a thing it did not come from. — Augustine: But let us see what Zeno says: that an impression can be grasped and perceived if it is such that it has no marks in common with a false one.⁹
[12] Fragment 12. Olympiodorus, Commentary on Plato’s Gorgias pp. 53–54 (ed. Jahn)
Zeno says that an art is a system made up of apprehensions (katalēpseis) exercised together towards some end useful for the business of life.
[13] Fragment 13. Scholia on Dionysius Thrax, Grammar (Bekker, Anecdota Graeca p. 663, 16)
As Zeno too makes clear when he says: “An art is a road-making disposition (hexis), that is, one that produces something by a way and a method.”¹⁰
[14] Fragment 14. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 7.372–373 (attribution inferred by Pearson)
Memory is a storehouse of impressions.¹¹
[15] Fragment 15. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 7.151; Cicero, Academica 1.41
Opinion is weak and false assent. — Cicero: from which (ignorance) there arose also opinion, which was weak and shared its nature with what is false and not apprehended.
[16] Fragment 16. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.23
He used to say that nothing is more foreign to the apprehension of knowledge than conceit.¹²
[17] Fragment 17. Cicero, Academica 1.41
If something had been grasped in such a way that it could not be shaken by argument, he (Zeno) called it knowledge; if otherwise, ignorance.
[18] Fragment 18. Cicero, Academica 1.42
Between knowledge and ignorance he placed apprehension (katalēpsis), and he counted it neither among right things nor among wrong ones.¹³
[19] Fragment 19. Cicero, Academica 1.41
To these impressions, received as it were by the senses, Zeno adds the assent of the mind, which he holds to lie in our power and to be voluntary.
[20] Fragment 20. Cicero, Academica 1.41
And what had been grasped by sense he called by the name “sense” itself.¹⁴
[21] Fragment 21. Cicero, Academica 1.42
Zeno also put trust in the senses, because an apprehension made by the senses seemed to him both true and reliable: not because it grasped everything that was in the thing, but because it left out nothing that could fall within its scope; and because nature had given it as a kind of standard of knowledge and a starting-point for itself, from which concepts of things were afterwards imprinted on minds; and from these not only first principles but certain broader roads to the discovery of reason are found.¹⁵
[22] Fragment 22. Cicero, Academica 1.42
Error, rashness, ignorance, opinion and surmise, and in a word everything foreign to firm and steady assent, he excluded from virtue and wisdom.
[23] Fragment 23. Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.12.3 (p. 136, 21 Wachsmuth)
From Zeno ⟨and his followers⟩. They say that concepts are neither somethings nor qualified things, but figments of the soul that are quasi-somethings and quasi-qualified; and that these were called Ideas by the ancients. For the Ideas are of the things that fall under the concepts, such as men and horses, or, to speak more generally, of all animals and of all the other things of which they say there are Ideas. [The Stoic philosophers say that these have no real existence: we participate in the concepts, but we hit upon the cases (ptōseis), which they call common nouns.]¹⁶
[24] Fragment 24. Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.13.1c (p. 138, 14 Wachsmuth; Arius Didymus fr. 18 Diels, Doxographi p. 457)
Zeno says that a cause is “that because of which”, while that of which it is the cause is an attribute (symbebēkos); the cause is a body, while that of which it is the cause is a predicate. It is impossible for the cause to be present and that of which it is the cause not to obtain. What is said has this force: a cause is that because of which something comes about, as because of prudence comes being prudent, because of soul comes living, and because of temperance comes being temperate. For it is impossible, when temperance is present in someone, for him not to be temperate, or when soul is present, not to live, or when prudence is present, not to be prudent.¹⁷
[25] Fragment 25. Anonymous, Art of Rhetoric, in Spengel, Rhetores Graeci 1.434, 23
Zeno puts it this way: the narrative is a setting out of the facts of the case, shaped to suit the character presented on the speaker’s behalf.¹⁸
[26] Fragment 26. Anonymous, Art of Rhetoric, in Spengel, Rhetores Graeci 1.447, 11; Maximus Planudes, in Walz, Rhetores Graeci 5.396
As Zeno puts it: an example is the recalling of something that has happened, for comparison with the matter now under inquiry. — Planudes: An example, as Zeno says, is the recalling of something that has happened, for comparison with the matter now under inquiry.¹⁹
[27] Fragment 27. Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria 4.2.117
Here the words will have to be vivid and, as Zeno would have it, steeped in sense.²⁰
[28] Fragment 28. Anonymous mathematical collections, in Hultsch’s edition of Hero’s Geometrica and Stereometrica p. 275
There is a commentary by Taurus of Sidon on Plato’s Republic, which contains the following: Plato defined geometry as … Aristotle as … and Zeno as a disposition in the reception of impressions that cannot be overturned by argument.²¹
[29] Fragment 29. Plutarch, On Stoic Self-Contradictions 8.1
Against the man who said
Judge no case till you have heard both sides
Zeno used to argue, employing some such reasoning as this: “Either the first speaker has proved his case, and then the second speaker need not be heard, for the question is settled; or he has not proved it, [and then the same holds,] for it is as if he had not answered when summoned, or had answered with mere twittering. But either he has proved it or he has not; therefore the second speaker need not be heard.”²²
[30] Fragment 30. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.18
He used to say that the speech of those who avoid solecisms and polish their style is like Alexandrian silver: pleasing to the eye and neatly rounded, just like the coin, but none the better for that. Speech of the opposite kind he likened to Attic tetradrachms: struck carelessly and ungrammatically, yet often outweighing the elegantly written phrases.²³
[31] Fragment 31. Zonaras, Lexicon, s.v. σολοικίζειν (col. 1662); Cyril, Lexicon (Cramer, Anecdota Parisiensia 4.190)
To commit a solecism is not only to be boorish in speech and language, but also in dress, when someone dresses like a rustic, or eats in a disorderly way, or walks about in an unseemly manner, as Zeno says. — Cyril: Solecism: when someone converses without skill. To commit a solecism is not only to be uncouth in diction and speech but also in what one wears, when someone is dressed like a rustic, or eats in a disorderly way, or walks about in an unseemly manner, as Zeno of Citium says.
[32] Fragment 32. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 2.7; Cicero, On Ends 2.17; Cicero, Orator 32.113; Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria 2.20.7
So it was that Zeno of Citium, asked how dialectic differs from rhetoric, closed his hand and opened it again and said, “Like this”: by the closing he marked the compact and concise character of dialectic, and by the opening and spreading of the fingers he hinted at the breadth of rhetoric’s power. — Cicero: This is a saying of Zeno the Stoic, I said: all the power of speech, as Aristotle had held before him, is divided into two parts; he used to say that rhetoric is like the open palm and dialectic like the fist, because rhetoricians speak more expansively and dialecticians more compactly. — Cicero: The famous Zeno, founder of the Stoic school, used to show with his hand the difference between these arts: when he had closed his fingers and made a fist, he said dialectic was like that; when he had opened them and spread out his hand, he said eloquence was like the open palm. — Quintilian: So, since there are two kinds of speech, one continuous, called rhetoric, the other concise, called dialectic, Zeno linked them so closely that he likened the latter to a hand clenched into a fist and the former to an open hand.
[33] Fragment 33. Cicero, Academica 2.145
But you say that no one knows anything except the wise man. Zeno used to demonstrate this with a gesture. He would show his open hand with the fingers stretched out and say, “An impression is like this.” Next he would close his fingers a little: “Assent is like this.” Then, when he had closed his hand completely and made a fist, he said that this was apprehension; and from this likeness he gave the thing a name it had not had before, katalēpsis (“grasping”). Then he would bring his left hand up and squeeze that fist tightly and hard, and say that knowledge was like this, and that no one but the wise man possessed it.
[34] Fragment 34. Cicero, Academica 1.39
(Zeno) held that nothing at all could be brought about by a nature that was without body, and that nothing which acts on something, or is acted on, could be anything other than body.
[35] Fragment 35. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.134; Plutarch, Opinions of the Philosophers 1.3.39; Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.10.14 (p. 126, 17 Wachsmuth); Achilles Tatius, Introduction to Aratus p. 124E; Philo, On Providence 1.22; Theodoret, Cure of Greek Maladies 4.12
They hold that there are two principles of the universe, the active and the passive. The passive is unqualified substance, that is, matter; the active is the reason (logos) in it, that is, God. For God, being eternal, fashions each thing throughout all matter. Zeno of Citium sets out this doctrine in his On Substance. — Plutarch: Zeno of Citium, son of Mnaseas, [held that] the principles are God and matter, the one being the cause of acting, the other of being acted upon, and that the elements are four. — Stobaeus: Zeno of Citium, son of Mnaseas, [held that] the principles are God and matter, and the elements four. — Achilles: Zeno of Citium says that the principles of the universe are God and matter: God the active, matter what is acted upon; and from them the four elements came into being. — Philo: Zeno, son of Mnaseas, [held] air, God, matter and four elements. — Theodoret: Zeno of Citium, son of Mnaseas, pupil of Crates and founder of the Stoic school, said that God and matter are the principles.²⁴
[36] Fragment 36. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies (Philosophumena) 21.1 (Diels, Doxographi p. 571); Galen, History of Philosophy 16 (Diels, Doxographi p. 608)
Chrysippus and Zeno, who themselves also laid it down that God is the principle of all things, being the purest body, and that his providence pervades all things. — Galen: Plato and Zeno the Stoic both discussed the substance of God but did not think alike about it: Plato held God to be incorporeal, Zeno held him to be a body; neither said anything about his shape.
[37] Fragment 37. Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 1.36; Epiphanius, Against Heresies 3.2.9 (Diels, Doxographi p. 592)
He [Zeno] thinks that a certain reason, extending through the whole nature of things, is endowed with divine power. — Epiphanius: He said that the divine pervades all things.²⁵
[38] Fragment 38. Tertullian, To the Nations 2.4
For look, Zeno too separates the matter of the world from God, and says that God has passed through it as honey passes through the honeycomb.
[39] Fragment 39. Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 1.36; Lactantius, Divine Institutes 1.5; Minucius Felix, Octavius 19.10
Zeno holds that the law of nature is divine, and that it has the power to command what is right and forbid the opposite. — Lactantius: Likewise Zeno (calls God) the divine and natural law. — Minucius Felix: Zeno [says] that the natural and divine law … is the principle of all things.
[40] Fragment 40. Philodemus, On Piety ch. 8
… must … the power, which binds the parts fittingly to one another, and … [from] … and the rising of the sun and its circuit or period.²⁶
[41] Fragment 41. Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 1.36; Tertullian, Against Marcion 1.13; Minucius Felix, Octavius 19.10; Cicero, Academica 2.126
He (Zeno) says that the aether is God. — Tertullian: They declared [these] to be gods … as Zeno did air and aether. — Minucius Felix: [Zeno says] sometimes that the aether is the principle of all things. — Cicero: To Zeno and nearly all the other Stoics the aether seems to be the supreme God.²⁷
[42] Fragment 42. Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.1.29b (p. 35, 9 Wachsmuth); Augustine, Against the Academics 3.17.38
Zeno the Stoic (declared God to be) the fiery mind of the world. — Augustine: For he (Zeno) thought that God himself was fire.
[43] Fragment 43. Themistius, Paraphrase of Aristotle’s On the Soul 72b (Spengel 2, p. 64, 25)
Perhaps the view also agrees with that of Zeno’s followers, who hold that God has passed through all substance, and is in some places mind, in others soul, in others nature, and in others cohesion (hexis).²⁸
[44] Fragment 44. Lactantius, Divine Institutes 4.9 (“On True Wisdom”); Tertullian, Apology 21; Minucius Felix, Octavius 19.10
Zeno proclaims the Logos as the arranger of the nature of things and the craftsman of the universe, and he calls it fate, the necessity of things, God, and the mind of Jupiter. — Tertullian: Among your own sages too it is agreed that the Logos, that is, word and reason, is regarded as the craftsman of the universe. For Zeno defines it as the maker who formed all things in their order, and says that it is also called fate, God, the mind of Jupiter, and the necessity of all things. — Minucius Felix: Zeno calls reason God. — Lactantius: … he calls it [the mind of Jupiter], following, of course, the custom by which they take “Jupiter” to mean God.
[45] Fragment 45. Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.5.15 (p. 78, 18 Wachsmuth); Theodoret, Cure of Greek Maladies 6.14
Zeno the Stoic, in his On Nature, [calls fate] a power that moves matter in the same respects and in the same way, which it makes no difference whether one calls providence or nature. — Theodoret: Zeno of Citium called fate a power that moves matter, and he named the same thing both providence and nature.
[45A] Fragment 45A. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.149
Chrysippus …, Posidonius … and Zeno say that all things come about by fate; but Boethus …²⁹
[46] Fragment 46. Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 2.57; Cicero, Academica 1.39; Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 3.27; Tertullian, To the Nations 2.2
Zeno, then, defines nature by saying that it is a craftsmanlike fire, proceeding methodically to generation. For he holds that it is above all the mark of an art to create and beget, and that what the hand achieves in the works of our arts, nature achieves far more skilfully; that is, as I said, it is a craftsmanlike fire, the teacher of all other arts. — Cicero: Zeno held that fire is nature itself. — Cicero: … of nature proceeding with craftsmanship, as Zeno says. — Tertullian: Zeno would have nature be like fire.³⁰
[47] Fragment 47. Tatian, Address to the Greeks 3
And according to him (Zeno), God will be shown to be the maker of evils, dwelling in sewers and worms and in those who commit unspeakable acts.³¹
[48] Fragment 48. Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 2.58
But the nature of the world itself, which confines and contains all things in its embrace, is said by the same Zeno to be not only craftsmanlike but actually a craftsman, planning and providing for every benefit and every need.
[49] Fragment 49. Chalcidius, Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus 290
Most, however, distinguish matter from substance, as Zeno and Chrysippus do. They say that matter is what underlies all things that have qualities, while substance is the primary matter of all things, their most ancient foundation, by its own nature without features and without form. So bronze, gold, iron and the like are the matter of the things made from them, but not their substance; whereas that which causes both these and everything else to exist is itself substance.³²
[50] Fragment 50. Chalcidius, Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus 292
Next, Zeno says that this substance is finite, and that it is the one common substance of all things that exist; that it is also divisible and changeable throughout: its parts change but do not perish in such a way as to be consumed from being into nothing. And just as with the countless different figures moulded even in wax, so he holds that the matter which is the foundation of all things has no form, no shape, and no quality at all of its own, yet is always joined to some quality and inseparably bound up with it. And since it is as much without beginning as without end — for it neither came from what does not exist nor will be consumed into nothing — it has never lacked, from all eternity, the breath (spiritus) and vigour that moves it rationally, sometimes as a whole and sometimes in part; and this is the cause of the frequent and violent transformation of the universe. This moving breath, he holds, is not nature but soul, and indeed rational soul, which, giving life to the sensible world, has adorned it to the beauty with which it now shines. This they call a blessed living being and a god.³³
[51] Fragment 51. Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.11.5a (p. 132, 26 Wachsmuth); Epiphanius, Against Heresies 1.5; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.150; Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics 7
From Zeno: Substance is the primary matter of all things that exist. It is all eternal and becomes neither more nor less; but its parts do not always remain the same, but are divided and blended together. Through it runs the Logos of the universe, which some call fate, just as the seed does in the generative fluid. — Epiphanius: So he (Zeno) too, like the other sects, calls matter coeval with God, and says that there is fate and a process of becoming by which all things are governed and acted upon. — Diogenes: They say that the substance of all existing things is primary matter, as Zeno … says. “Substance” and “matter” are used in two senses: of all things together and of particular things. The substance of the whole becomes neither more nor less, but that of particular things becomes both more and less. — Tertullian: And where matter is made equal with God, that is the teaching of Zeno.
[52] Fragment 52. Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.17.3 (p. 152, 19 Wachsmuth); Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.135–136; 7.142; Probus, Commentary on Virgil p. 10, 33 Keil
Zeno declares this explicitly: the ordering of the universe out of substance in each cycle will have to be of this kind. When the change from fire into water takes place by way of air, part of it settles and earth is formed; of the remainder, part stays as water, and from the part that evaporates air comes into being; and as the air is rarefied, fire is kindled. Mixture and blending come about through the change of the elements into one another, one body passing wholly through the whole of another. — Diogenes: God, mind, fate and Zeus are one, and he is called by many other names besides. In the beginning, being by himself, he turned the whole of substance through air into water; and just as the seed is contained in the generative fluid, so he, being the seminal reason (spermatic logos) of the world, remains behind in the moist element, making matter workable for himself for the generation of what follows. Then he first brings forth the four elements: fire, water, air, earth. Zeno speaks of them in his On the Whole. — Diogenes: The world comes into being when substance is turned from fire through air into moisture; then its thicker part, condensing, becomes earth, while its finer part turns to air, and this, rarefied still further, produces fire; then by mixture of these come plants, animals and the other kinds. Zeno speaks of the generation and destruction of the world in his On the Whole … — Probus: The Stoics Zeno of Citium, Chrysippus of Soli and Cleanthes of Assos teach that from these (the four elements) all things were afterwards formed.³⁴
[53] Fragment 53. Galen, Commentary on Hippocrates’ On Humours 1 (16.32 Kühn); Galen, On the Natural Faculties 1.2
And Zeno of Citium held that, just like qualities, substances too are blended through and through. — Galen: But if one must hold that substances, just like qualities, are blended through and through, as Zeno of Citium later declared …³⁵
[54] Fragment 54. Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.20.1e (p. 171, 2 Wachsmuth); Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 15.18.3; Arnobius, Against the Nations 2.9
Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus hold that substance changes into fire as into a seed, and that from this again the world-order is produced such as it was before. — Eusebius: The Stoic philosophers hold that the whole of substance changes into fire as into a seed, and that from this the world-order is produced again just as it was before; and this doctrine was accepted by the first and oldest members of the school, Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus. — Arnobius: Does not the man who threatens the world with fire, and says it will burn when the time comes, (believe) Panaetius, Chrysippus and Zeno?³⁶
[55] Fragment 55. Tatian, Address to the Greeks 5
Zeno, who declares that after the conflagration the same people will rise again to do the same things (I mean Anytus and Meletus to accuse, Busiris to murder strangers, and Heracles again to perform his labours), must be rejected.³⁷
[56] Fragment 56. [Philo], On the Eternity of the World, chs. 23–24 (p. 510 Mangey; p. 264 Bernays; Diels, Doxographi p. 486)
Theophrastus, however, says that those who ascribe coming-to-be and perishing to the world were misled by four very important things: the unevenness of the earth, the retreat of the sea, the dissolution of each of the parts of the whole, and the perishing of land animals by whole kinds. The first they establish as follows: ‘If the earth had not had a beginning of its coming-to-be, no part of it would still be seen standing up; all the mountains would long ago have been brought low and all the hills made level with the plain. For since so many rains have fallen each year from all eternity, it is likely that of the things raised up to a height some would have been torn away by torrents, while others would have subsided and been loosened, and that everything would by now have been smoothed down throughout. But as it is, the continual unevenness and the towering of very many mountains to an ethereal height are signs that the earth is not eternal; for long ago, as I said, in infinite time, the whole of it would have been made a highway from end to end by the downpours. For it is the nature of water, especially when it dashes down from the greatest heights, to hollow things out, partly from outside by its force, partly by pecking at them with the steady succession of its drops, and to work its way through hard-soiled and stony ground no less than diggers do.’ ‘And indeed the sea,’ they say, ‘has already diminished. Witness the most famous of islands, Rhodes and Delos: for these in ancient times had vanished and sunk beneath the sea, flooded over, but later, as the sea gradually diminished little by little, they emerged, as the histories written about them show. [And they named Delos also Anaphe, confirming the story by both names: for having appeared (anaphaneisa) it became manifest (dēlē), having formerly been hidden and invisible.] Besides this, great and deep gulfs of great seas have dried up and become mainland, and, sown and planted, have become no poor part of the adjacent country; in them certain signs of the ancient covering by the sea have been left behind, pebbles and shells and all such things as are usually cast up on beaches. [Hence Pindar too says of Delos:
Hail, god-built one, most lovely scion for the children of bright-haired Leto,
daughter of the Sea, unmoving wonder of the broad earth, whom mortals
call Delos, but the blessed ones in Olympus the far-seen star of the dark earth.
For he called Delos daughter of the Sea, hinting at what has been said.] If, then, the sea is diminishing, the earth too will diminish, and in long periods of years each of the two elements will be entirely used up; the whole air too will be spent, lessening little by little, and all things will be merged into one substance, that of fire.’ To establish the third head they use an argument of this sort: ‘That thing perishes entirely of which all the parts are perishable; but all the parts of the world are perishable; therefore the world is perishable.’ What we postponed must now be examined. What part of the earth, to begin with that, greater or smaller, will not be dissolved by time? Do not the strongest of stones grow damp and rot through the weakness of their holding-state (hexis) [this is a breath-tension (pneumatic tonos), a bond not unbreakable but only hard to dissolve], and, crumbling and flowing away, are they not first resolved into fine dust? [Then later, consumed, they are wholly dissolved.] What next? If water is not fanned by the winds, does it not die of stillness when left unmoved? At any rate it changes and becomes most foul-smelling, like an animal deprived of soul. And the corruptions of air are plain to everyone: it is its nature to fall sick, to waste away, and in a manner to die. For what could one say a pestilence is, aiming not at fine names but at the truth, except the death of air, pouring out its own affliction to the destruction of everything that has a share in soul? Why speak at length about fire? When it is unfed it is at once extinguished, becoming, as the poets say, lame of itself. That is why, when it is propped up, it stands upright according to the supply of the kindled fuel, but when this is consumed it vanishes. [Something similar, they say, happens to the serpents of India. They climb up on the largest of animals, the elephants, and coil themselves around the whole back and belly; then, cutting open whatever vein they happen upon, they drink the blood, sucking it in insatiably with violent breath and a strained hissing. For a time the elephants, as they are drained, hold out, leaping up in helplessness and striking their flanks with the trunk as if to get at the serpents; then, as the vital fluid is continually emptied, they can no longer leap but stand trembling, and a little later, when their legs too give way, they are shaken down by loss of blood and expire. In falling they destroy along with themselves the authors of their death, in this way: the serpents, having no more food, try to undo the bond they had put around them, now longing for release, but are crushed and pressed down by the weight of the elephants, and much more so when the ground happens to be hard and stony; for writhing and doing everything to free themselves, but fettered by the force of the weight upon them, after exerting themselves in every way amid helpless and hopeless straits they grow weak, and, like men stoned or caught unawares by a wall suddenly falling on them, unable even to lift their heads, they end by suffocation.] If, then, each of the parts of the world undergoes destruction, clearly the world compacted out of them will not be indestructible.’ The fourth and remaining argument, they say, must be set out precisely as follows: ‘If the world were eternal, the animals too would be eternal, and much more so the human race, inasmuch as it is better than the others. But it has also been shown to be late-born to those who wish to investigate the things of nature. For it is likely, or rather necessary, that the arts coexisted with human beings as being of the same age, not only because methodical order is proper to a rational nature, but also because it is impossible to live without them. Let us look at the dates of each, disregarding the myths told in tragic style about the gods * * * if man is not eternal, neither is any other animal, so that neither are the regions that have received them, earth, water and air. From this it is clear that the world is perishable.’³⁸
[57] Fragment 57. Philargyrius, Commentary on Virgil's Georgics 2.336
Zeno [held] that, although some things out of this world perish, the world itself nevertheless endures for ever, because the elements from which material things are generated inhere in it; as he said, it grows, but does not come to destruction, since the elements remain from which it regains its strength.³⁹
[58] Fragment 58. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.143; Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.22.3b (p. 199, 10)
Diogenes Laertius: That (the world) is one, Zeno says in his work On the Whole. — Stobaeus: Zeno [says] that the world is one.
[59] Fragment 59. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 9.101; Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 2.22
Sextus: Zeno of Citium, taking his starting point from Xenophon, argues as follows: That which emits the seed of something rational is itself rational; but the world emits the seed of something rational; therefore the world is rational. And with this its existence is also established. — Cicero: Nothing that is devoid of soul and reason can generate out of itself a living being possessed of reason. But the world generates living beings possessed of reason. Therefore the world is a living being possessed of reason.⁴⁰
[60] Fragment 60. Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 2.22
And he (Zeno) also argued in this way: “No part of anything that lacks sensation can be sentient. But parts of the world are sentient. Therefore the world does not lack sensation.”
[61] Fragment 61. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 9.104; Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 2.21
Sextus: And again Zeno says: “The rational is better than the non-rational; but nothing is better than the world; therefore the world is rational. And likewise with what is intelligent and what partakes of soul. For the intelligent is better than the non-intelligent, and the ensouled better than the soulless; but nothing is better than the world; therefore the world is intelligent and ensouled.” — Cicero: That which uses reason is better than that which does not use reason. But nothing is better than the world. Therefore the world uses reason.
[62] Fragment 62. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 9.107
In effect Plato set out the same argument as Zeno; for he too says that the universe is the most beautiful work wrought according to nature and, by the likely account, a living being, ensouled, intelligent and rational.⁴¹
[63] Fragment 63. Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 2.22
He also, as he often does, drew a conclusion from an analogy, in this way: ‘If flutes playing in tune grew out of an olive tree, would you doubt that there was some knowledge of flute-playing in the olive? What if plane trees bore lyres sounding in rhythm? You would of course likewise judge that there was music in the plane trees. Why then should the world not be judged to be living and wise, since it brings forth living and wise beings out of itself?’
[64] Fragment 64. Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.23.1 (p. 200, 21)
Zeno [says] that the heaven is fiery.
[65] Fragment 65. Achilles Tatius, Introduction to Aratus 5 (p. 129e)
Zeno of Citium defined it thus: ‘The heaven is the outermost part of the aether’, out of which and in which all things manifestly are; for it contains all things except itself, since nothing contains itself but is the container of something else.
[66] Fragment 66. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.148
Zeno says that the substance of God is the whole world and the heaven.
[67] Fragment 67. Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.19.4 (p. 166, 4)
Of Zeno. Of all the things in the world that are constituted by a holding-state (hexis) of their own, the parts move towards the middle of the whole, and so too do the parts of the world itself; hence it is rightly said that all the parts of the world move towards the middle of the world, and above all those that have weight. The same thing is the cause both of the world's remaining at rest in the infinite void, and of the earth's being similarly settled in the world about its centre in equilibrium. Not every body, however, has weight: air and fire are weightless. Yet these too somehow tend towards the middle of the whole sphere of the world, while forming their combination towards its circumference; for they naturally move upward, because they share in no weight. In the same way they say that the world itself has no weight, because its whole composition is made up both of elements that have weight and of weightless ones. The earth as a whole they hold to have weight in itself, but owing to its position, since it occupies the middle region (and the motion of such bodies is towards the middle), it remains in this place.
[68] Fragment 68. Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.15.6 (p. 146, 21)
Zeno used to say that fire moves in a straight line.
[69] Fragment 69. Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.18.1d (p. 156, 27)
Zeno and his followers [say] that within the world there is no void, but outside it there is infinite void. Void, place and room differ: void is the absence of body; place is what is occupied by body; room is what is partly occupied.
[70] Fragment 70. Themistius, Paraphrase of Aristotle's Physics 40b (Spengel 2.284, 10); Philoponus, Commentary on Aristotle's Physics 4.6 (213a31)
Themistius: (that the void) exists separately and all together by itself, surrounding the heaven, as some of the ancients formerly thought, and after them Zeno of Citium and his school. — Philoponus: They say that Zeno of Citium and his school also held this view (namely, that outside the heaven there is a void existing by itself).
[71] Fragment 71. Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.25.5 (p. 213, 15); Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.26.1 (p. 219, 12)
Stobaeus 1.25.5: Zeno says that the sun and the moon and each of the other stars is intelligent and wise, fiery with designing (craftsmanlike) fire. For there are two kinds of fire: one undesigning, which converts its fuel into itself; the other designing, which causes growth and preserves, such as is in plants and animals, and this is nature and soul. Of such fire is the substance of the stars. The sun and the moon are carried in two motions: one with the world, from rising to rising; the other contrary to the world, as they pass from sign to sign of the zodiac. Their eclipses occur differently: the sun's at the times of conjunction, the moon's at full moons; and in both cases the eclipses are greater and lesser. — Stobaeus 1.26.1: Zeno said that the moon is an intelligent and wise star, fiery with designing fire.⁴²
[72] Fragment 72. Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 1.36
He (Zeno) also attributes this same (divine power) to the stars, and again to the years, the months and the changes of the seasons.⁴³
[73] Fragment 73. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.145–146
The sun is eclipsed when the moon passes in front of it on the side towards us, as Zeno records in his work On the Whole. For the moon is seen coming under it at conjunctions, hiding it and passing on again; this can be observed by means of a basin containing water. The moon is eclipsed when it falls into the earth's shadow. Hence it is eclipsed only at full moons, although it stands diametrically opposite the sun every month; because, moving obliquely in relation to the sun, it deviates in latitude, becoming either more northerly or more southerly. But when its latitude coincides with the sun's path and with the middle circle (of the zodiac), and it is then diametrically opposite the sun, it is eclipsed.
[74] Fragment 74. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.153–154
Lightning is the kindling of clouds as they are rubbed together or burst by wind (pneuma), as Zeno says in his work On the Whole; thunder is the noise they make from the rubbing or bursting; a thunderbolt is a violent kindling that falls on the earth with great force when clouds are rubbed together or burst.
[75] Fragment 75. Seneca, Natural Questions 7.19.1
Our Zeno is of this opinion: he judges that stars come together and join their rays with one another, and that from this union of light there arises the appearance of an elongated star.⁴⁴
[76] Fragment 76. Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.8.40 (p. 104, 7); Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's Categories 80a4
Stobaeus: Zeno said that time is the extension (interval) of motion, and that it is also the measure and criterion of speed and slowness, of how each thing stands in that respect; and that in accordance with it all things that come to be and are completed come about, and the things that are, exist. — Simplicius: Of the Stoics, Zeno [said] that time is the extension of all motion without qualification.⁴⁵
[77] Fragment 77. Censorinus, On the Birthday 17.2
Therefore those who thought that a saeculum is thirty years seem to have been much mistaken. For Heraclitus is the authority for calling this period a genea (generation), because the cycle of life lies within that span; and he calls it the cycle of life while nature returns from human seed to seed again. This period of a generation, indeed, different people have defined differently: Herodicus writes twenty-five years, Zeno thirty.
[78] Fragment 78. Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.16.1 (p. 149, 8)
Zeno the Stoic [said] that colours are the first configurations of matter.
[79] Fragment 79. Epiphanius, Against Heresies 3.2.9 (3.36; Diels, Doxographi p. 592)
(Zeno said) that the causes of things are in some respects in our power and in others not in our power; that is, some things are in our power and others are not.
[80] Fragment 80. Censorinus, On the Birthday 4.10
Zeno of Citium, founder of the Stoic school, thought that the human race had its beginning when the world was new, and that the first human beings were born from the sole agency of divine fire, that is, by the providence of God.
[81] Fragment 81. Varro, On Agriculture 2.1.3
For whether there was some beginning of the generation of animals, as Thales of Miletus and Zeno of Citium thought, or on the contrary there was no beginning of them, as Pythagoras of Samos and Aristotle of Stagira believed …
[82] Fragment 82. Scholia on Plato, Alcibiades I 121e
‘Twice seven years’: for it is then that reason (logos) is shown to be complete in us, as Aristotle, Zeno and Alcmaeon the Pythagorean say.⁴⁶
[83] Fragment 83. Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 15.20.2 (Arius Didymus, physical fragment 39; Diels, Doxographi p. 470)
On the soul, Cleanthes, setting out Zeno's doctrines for comparison with the other natural philosophers, says that Zeno calls the soul a sentient exhalation, as Heraclitus does. For Heraclitus, wishing to show that souls, as they are exhaled, are always becoming intelligent, likened them to rivers, saying: ‘Upon those who step into the same rivers, different and again different waters flow’; and souls too are exhaled from moist things. Zeno, then, declares the soul to be an exhalation in the same way as Heraclitus, and he says it is sentient for this reason: that its leading part can be imprinted by things that are and exist, through the sense organs, and can receive the imprints; for these are properties of soul.⁴⁷
[84] Fragment 84. Rufus of Ephesus, On the Names of the Parts of Man p. 44 (ed. Clinch)
Zeno says that heat and breath (pneuma) are the same thing.
[85] Fragment 85. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.157
Zeno of Citium … [says] that the soul is warm breath (pneuma); for by it we are breathing beings, and by it we are moved.
[86] Fragment 86. Cicero, Academica 1.39; Cicero, On Ends 4.12; Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.19
Academica: (Zeno) held that fire is the very nature that generates each thing, and mind and the senses as well. — On Ends: When the very difficult question was being asked whether there seemed to be some fifth nature from which reason and intelligence arise (in which inquiry the question was also raised of what kind souls are), Zeno said that it was fire. — Tusculan Disputations: To Zeno the Stoic the soul seems to be fire.
[87] Fragment 87. Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato 2.8 (5.283 Kühn)
But if he (Diogenes of Babylon) were to follow Cleanthes, Chrysippus and Zeno, who said that the soul is nourished from the blood but that its substance is breath (pneuma) …
[88] Fragment 88. Longinus in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 15.21; Theodoret, Cure of the Greek Maladies (p. 934 Migne)
Longinus: One might justly be indignant with Zeno and Cleanthes for speaking so very insultingly about the soul, both of them alike declaring that the soul is an exhalation of the solid blood. — Theodoret: For both (Zeno and Cleanthes) [said] that the soul is an exhalation of the solid blood.⁴⁸
[89] Fragment 89. Tertullian, On the Soul 5; Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio 1.14.19
Tertullian: Zeno, defining the soul as a breath (spiritus) sown together with the body, argues thus: “That by whose departure a living being dies is a body. But when the breath sown together with it departs, the living being dies. Therefore the breath sown together with it is a body. But the breath sown together with it is the soul. Therefore the soul is a body.” — Macrobius: Zeno (said the soul is) breath grown together with the body.
[90] Fragment 90. Calcidius, Commentary on Plato's Timaeus 220
Zeno argues that the soul is breath (spiritus) in this way: That which, when it withdraws from the body, causes the living being to die is certainly the soul. But when the natural breath withdraws, the living being dies. Therefore the natural breath is the soul.
[91] Fragment 91. [Galen], History of Philosophy 24 (Diels, Doxographi p. 613)
As for the substance of the soul, some said it was incorporeal, like Plato; others that it moves bodies, like Zeno and his followers. For these too supposed it to be breath (pneuma).⁴⁹
[92] Fragment 92. Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.49.33 (p. 367, 18)
But the philosophers of the school of Chrysippus and Zeno, and all who think of the soul as a body, bring together its powers as qualities in a substrate, and posit the soul as a substance that underlies the powers beforehand; and from both of these they compose a composite nature out of unlike elements.
[93] Fragment 93. Nemesius, On the Nature of Man p. 96; Stobaeus, Eclogues 1.49.34 (p. 369, 6)
Nemesius: Zeno the Stoic says that the soul has eight parts, dividing it into the ruling part (hegemonikon), the five senses, the vocal part and the reproductive part. — Stobaeus: The followers of Zeno hold that the soul has eight parts, and that its powers are more numerous, as in the ruling part there are present impression (phantasia), assent, impulse (hormē) and reason.
[94] Fragment 94. Tertullian, On the Soul 14
The soul is divided into parts: now into two by Plato, now into three by Zeno.⁵⁰
[95] Fragment 95. Epiphanius, Against Heresies 3.2.9 (3.36); Augustine, Against the Academics 3.17.38
Epiphanius: Zeno of Citium the Stoic said … that one ought … to keep the divine in the mind alone, or rather to regard the mind as God; for it is immortal … He also said that after separation from the body * * * and he called the soul a long-lived breath (pneuma), yet he did not say that it was wholly imperishable; for it is used up by the length of time and passes into invisibility, as he says. — Augustine: Therefore, since Zeno took delight in a view of his own about the world, and above all about the soul (for whose sake true philosophy keeps watch), saying that it is mortal, that nothing exists besides this sensible world, and that nothing is done in it except by body; for he thought that God himself was fire …⁵¹
[96] Fragment 96. Themistius, Paraphrase of Aristotle's On the Soul 68a (Spengel 2.30, 24)
Nevertheless, some defence is left to Zeno, since he says that the soul is blended as a whole through the whole of the body, and does not make its departure take place without the destruction of the compound.⁵²
[97] Fragment 97. Lactantius, Divine Institutes 7.7.20
Zeno the Stoic taught that there is an underworld, and that the abodes of the pious are separated from those of the impious: the former dwell in peaceful and delightful regions, while the latter pay the penalty in dark places and in dreadful pits of mire.
[98] Fragment 98. [Plutarch], Opinions of the Philosophers 4.21.4
The vocal part, as Zeno named it, which they also call voice, is breath (pneuma) extending from the ruling part to the throat, the tongue and the appropriate organs.
[99] Fragment 99. Eustathius, Commentary on the Iliad 18.506 (p. 1158, 37)
Homer, in calling heralds ‘loud-voiced’ (literally ‘air-voiced’) here as well, anticipated Zeno's definition of voice, which says: ‘Voice is struck air.’
[100] Fragment 100. Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato 2.5 (5.241 Kühn)
Zeno's argument, so admired by the Stoics … runs as follows: ‘Voice passes through the throat. If it came from the brain, it would not pass through the throat. Where speech comes from, from there voice too comes. But speech comes from the mind; so the mind is not in the brain.’⁵³
[101] Fragment 101. Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato 2.5 (5.247 Kühn)
And this indeed is what Zeno and Chrysippus, together with their whole chorus, hold: that the movement produced in a part of the body by something striking it from outside is transmitted to the governing principle of the soul, so that the animal may perceive.
[102] Fragment 102. Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato 3.5 (5.322 Kühn)
And Zeno, to those who objected that he brings everything under inquiry to the mouth, replied: “But not everything is swallowed.” Neither the ‘swallowing’ nor the ‘going down’ of what has been said would be spoken of so fittingly unless our ruling part were in the chest, to which all these things are carried.⁵⁴
[103] Fragment 103. Cicero, On Divination 2.119
Zeno thinks that the soul contracts and, as it were, slips and sinks down, and that this itself is sleeping.
[104] Fragment 104. Stobaeus, Florilegium (Codex Monacensis) 198
The same (Zeno) said that sight takes its light from the air, and the soul from learning.
[105] Fragment 105. Varro, On the Latin Language 5.59
or, as Zeno of Citium [says], the seed of animals is that fire which is soul and mind.
[106] Fragment 106. Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 15.20.1 (Arius Didymus, physical fragment 39; Diels, Doxographi p. 470); Theodoret, Cure of the Greek Maladies 5.25; Plutarch, On the Control of Anger 15; [Plutarch], Opinions of the Philosophers 5.4.1; Galen, Medical Definitions 94 (19.370 Kühn); Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.158
Eusebius: Zeno says that seed is what a man emits: breath (pneuma) with moisture, a part and offshoot of the soul, and a blend and mixture of the seed of his ancestors, made up of all the parts of the soul combined. For since it has the same rational principles (logoi) as the whole, when it is released into the womb it is taken up by another breath, a part of the female's soul, and, hidden there, it grows, being moved and fanned into life by that breath, continually taking on moisture and increasing from it. — Theodoret: Zeno of Citium, the leader of this school, taught his own pupils to hold the following views about the soul: he said that human semen, being moist and sharing in breath, is a part and offshoot of the soul, and a blend and mixture of the seed of one's ancestors, gathered together from all the parts of the soul. — Plutarch, On the Control of Anger: And yet (just as Zeno said that seed is a mixture and blend drawn off from the powers of the soul), so … — [Plutarch], Opinions: Zeno (says that seed is) a body; for it is an offshoot of the soul. — Galen: A man's seed is what a man emits with moisture: a portion snatched from part of the soul and a commingling of the stock of his ancestors, such as it itself was, and it was itself secreted as a mixture. — Diogenes Laertius: Human seed, which a man emits, is (they say) blended with moisture with the parts of the soul, according to a mixing of the rational principle of his ancestors.⁵⁵
[107] Fragment 107. [Plutarch], Opinions of the Philosophers 5.5.2; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.159
[Plutarch]: Zeno (says that females) emit a moist matter, like sweat from their joint exertion, but not one that is seminal. — Diogenes Laertius: They declare the (seed) of the female to be infertile; for it lacks tension (tonos) and is scanty and watery, as Sphaerus says.
[108] Fragment 108. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 9.133
Zeno also put forward this argument: One may reasonably honour the gods. But one could not reasonably honour those who do not exist. Therefore the gods exist.
[109] Fragment 109. Lactantius, On the Anger of God 11; Philodemus, On Piety p. 84 Gomperz
Lactantius: Antisthenes … said that there is one God by nature, although peoples and cities have their own popular gods. Zeno and his Stoics [said] much the same. — Philodemus: So all the followers of Zeno, even if they left room for the divine …, say that God is one.
[110] Fragment 110. Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 1.36
But when he interprets Hesiod's Theogony, he does away altogether with the customary and accepted notions of the gods; for he does not count Jupiter or Juno or Vesta or anyone so called among the gods, but teaches that these names have been given, by a kind of symbolism, to lifeless and voiceless things.⁵⁶
[111] Fragment 111. Minucius Felix, Octavius 19.10
The same man (Zeno), by interpreting Juno as air, Jupiter as the heaven, Neptune as the sea, and Vulcan as fire, and by showing in the same way that the other gods of the common people are elements, severely censures and refutes the popular error.
[112] Fragment 112. Valerius Probus, Commentary on Virgil’s Eclogues 6.31 (p. 21.14 Keil)
There are some who have assigned the first principles to single elements… Thales of Miletus, his (Anaximenes’) teacher, assigned water. This opinion of Thales, indeed, they think derives from Hesiod, who said: ‘First of all Chaos came into being, and then…’ For Zeno of Citium interprets it thus: that water is called chaos from cheesthai (‘to be poured out’); although we can find the same opinion in Homer too, where he says: ‘Ocean, the begetter of the gods, and mother Tethys.’⁵⁷
[113] Fragment 113. Scholiast on Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 1.498
Zeno too says that the chaos in Hesiod is water; as it settles, mud is formed, and as the mud solidifies the earth becomes firm. And according to Hesiod Eros came into being third, so as to represent fire; for Eros is a rather fiery passion.
[114] Fragment 114. Scholiast on Hesiod, Theogony 117
Zeno the Stoic says that earth was produced as the sediment of the moist, and that Eros came into being third; for which reason the line that follows is rejected as spurious.⁵⁸
[115] Fragment 115. Scholiast on Hesiod, Theogony 134 (Gaisford, Poetae Graeci Minores 2.482)
Zeno says that by the Titans are meant, throughout, the elements of the world. For by Coeus he (Hesiod) means quality (poiotēs), by the Aeolic change of p into k; by Crius, the kingly and ruling element; by Hyperion, upward motion, from ‘going above’ (hyperanō ienai). And since all heavy things naturally fall from above when let go, he called this kind Iapetus.⁵⁹
[116] Fragment 116. Scholiast on Hesiod, Theogony 139 (Gaisford, Poetae Graeci Minores 2.484)
‘Cyclopes.’ Zeno, again interpreting more in terms of physics, says that the circular motions are meant; that is why he (Hesiod) gave them the names Brontes (‘Thunderer’) and Steropes (‘Lightener’); and Arges, because the thunderbolt is called ‘bright’ (argēs). And he says they are children of Uranus (Heaven) because all these phenomena occur about the heaven… [for at a certain time the circular revolutions of fire came into being out of the air].⁶⁰
[117] Fragment 117. Philodemus, On Piety, col. 8
…and that right reasonings (orthoi logoi) and virtuous dispositions are the Dioscuri.⁶¹
[118] Fragment 118. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.149
Moreover they say that divination in all its forms is real, if providence too is real; and they declare it to be even an art, on the evidence of certain outcomes, as Zeno says.
[119] Fragment 119. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.84
The ethical part of philosophy they divide into the following topics: impulse (hormē); good and bad things; the passions; virtue; the end (telos); primary value and actions; appropriate acts (kathēkonta); and exhortations and dissuasions. This is the subdivision adopted by Chrysippus, Archedemus, Zeno of Tarsus and their schools, etc. For Zeno of Citium and Cleanthes, being older, treated the subject more simply.
[120] Fragment 120. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.87; Lactantius, Divine Institutes 3.7 and 3.8; Stobaeus, Eclogues 2.7.6a; Plutarch, On Common Conceptions 23.1; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 2.21.129
Diogenes: That is why Zeno was the first, in his book On the Nature of Man, to say that the end (telos) is to live in agreement with nature (homologoumenōs tēi physei), which is to live according to virtue; for nature leads us to virtue. — Lactantius: Zeno’s (highest good) is to live in harmony with nature. — Again: Let us hear Zeno, then, for he sometimes dreams of virtue. ‘The highest good,’ he says, ‘is to live consistently with nature.’ — Stobaeus: Zeno defined the end thus: ‘to live in agreement’ (homologoumenōs); that is, to live according to one single and harmonious reason (logos), since those who live in conflict are unhappy. — Plutarch: Did not Zeno too follow these men (the Peripatetics), who lay down nature and what is according to nature as the elements of happiness? — Clement: And again, Zeno the Stoic holds that the end is to live according to virtue.⁶²
[121] Fragment 121. Plutarch, fragment On the Soul (ed. Wyttenbach, vol. 5, p. 899)
The followers of Zeno hold that sensation is the starting-point of all appropriation (oikeiōsis) and alienation.
[122] Fragment 122. Porphyry, On Abstinence 3.19
The followers of Zeno make appropriation (oikeiōsis) the starting-point of justice.
[123] Fragment 123. Epictetus, Discourses 1.20.14
And yet the leading doctrine of the philosophers is itself very short. If you want to know it, read Zeno’s writings and you will see. For what length is there in saying that the end (telos) is to follow the gods, and that the essence of the good is the right use of impressions (phantasiai)?
[124] Fragment 124. Stobaeus, Eclogues 2.7.6e (p. 77.20 Wachsmuth); Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 11.30
Stobaeus: Zeno defined happiness in this way: happiness is a smooth flow of life. — Sextus: Happiness, as Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus and their followers defined it, is a smooth flow of life.
[125] Fragment 125. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.127; Augustine, Against the Academics 3.7.16; Augustine, On the Trinity 13.5.8; Cicero, On Ends 5.79
Diogenes: that virtue is sufficient for happiness, as Zeno says. — Augustine: Zeno cries out, and that whole Porch clamours, that man is born for nothing else than moral goodness; that goodness draws souls to itself by its own splendour, without any advantage set before it from outside, any wage, as it were, to entice; and that the famous pleasure of Epicurus is something shared only by beasts among themselves, and that it is sinful for a man, still more for the wise man, to make his way into their fellowship. — Again: We said that each placed the happy life in what most delighted him… as virtue delighted Zeno. — Cicero: Zeno pronounces this magnificently, as if from an oracle: ‘virtue is sufficient of itself for living well.’
[126] Fragment 126. Cicero, On Ends 4.47 and 4.60
(Cicero argues) that Zeno is wrong in saying that in nothing except virtue or vice is there any inclination of even the slightest weight towards attaining the highest good, and in saying that, although the other things had no weight at all for the happy life, they nevertheless had weight with regard to our desire for things. — But Zeno calls good only that which, being worth seeking, has a distinctive character of its own, and calls happy only that life which is passed with virtue.
[127] Fragment 127. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 2.29 and 5.27
‘Nothing is bad,’ he (Zeno) says, ‘except what is shameful and vicious’… ‘It makes no difference at all’ (whether you feel pain or not), he says, ‘to living happily, which rests in virtue alone; but pain is nevertheless to be rejected.’ Why? ‘It is harsh, contrary to nature, hard to endure, gloomy, cruel.’ — …if the Stoic Zeno were to say it, who held nothing to be bad except what was shameful.⁶³
[128] Fragment 128. Stobaeus, Eclogues 2.7.5a (p. 57.18 Wachsmuth)
Zeno says that those things are (exist) which partake of being; and of the things that are, some are good, some bad, some indifferent. Good are such things as these: prudence, temperance, justice, courage, and everything that is virtue or partakes of virtue. Bad are such things as these: folly, licentiousness, injustice, cowardice, and everything that is vice or partakes of vice. Indifferent are such things as these: life and death, reputation and disrepute, toil and pleasure, wealth and poverty, sickness and health, and things like these.
[129] Fragment 129. Seneca, Letters 82.7
Our Zeno uses this syllogism: ‘No evil is glorious; but death is glorious; therefore death is not an evil.’
[130] Fragment 130. Cicero, Academica 1.36
As for other things, although they were neither good nor bad, he (Zeno) nevertheless said that some were in accordance with nature and others contrary to nature. Between these he counted still others as intermediate. Those in accordance with nature he said were to be taken and deemed worthy of a certain value, and the contrary ones the reverse; the neutral ones he left among the intermediates, and held that they had no weight whatever.
[131] Fragment 131. Stobaeus, Eclogues 2.7.7g (p. 84.21 Wachsmuth)
Of things that have value, some have much value and some little. Likewise of things that have disvalue, some have much disvalue and some little. Those that have much value are called preferred (proēgmena), and those that have much disvalue dispreferred (apoproēgmena), Zeno having been the first to give these names to the things. They say that the preferred is that which, though indifferent, we select on a principle of preference (kata proēgoumenon logon). The same account holds for the dispreferred, and the examples are the same by analogy. None of the goods is preferred, because they have the greatest value. The preferred, holding the second place and value, comes somehow close to the nature of the goods; for at a court the king is not among those ‘promoted’, but those ranked after him. Things are called preferred not because they contribute something to happiness and help to produce it, but because it is necessary to make the selection of them rather than of the dispreferred.⁶⁴
[132] Fragment 132. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.120; Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 7.422; Cicero, For Murena 61; Lactantius, Divine Institutes 3.23
Diogenes: They hold that all faults (hamartēmata) are equal, as Zeno says… — Sextus: Starting from this point, Zeno and his followers taught that faults are equal. — Cicero: that all wrongdoings are equal. — Lactantius: Who approves Zeno’s ‘equal wrongdoings’?
[133] Fragment 133. Cicero, For Murena 61
that every misdeed is an abominable crime, and that the man who strangles a farmyard cock without need does no less wrong than the man who strangles his father.⁶⁵
[134] Fragment 134. Plutarch, On Stoic Self-Contradictions 7.1–2; Plutarch, On Moral Virtue 2; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.161; Cicero, Academica 1.38
Plutarch (Self-Contradictions): Zeno, like Plato, admits a plurality of virtues according to their differences — prudence, courage, temperance, justice — as being inseparable, yet distinct and different from one another. But again, when defining each of them, he says that courage is prudence in matters to be acted upon, and justice prudence in matters of distribution — as though it were one virtue, appearing to differ in its relations to things according to its activities. — Plutarch (Moral Virtue): Zeno of Citium too seems to slip somehow into this view, when he defines prudence in matters of distribution as justice, in matters requiring discrimination (between things to choose and avoid) as temperance, and in matters to be endured as courage; and his defenders claim that in these definitions it is knowledge that Zeno has called ‘prudence’. — Diogenes: He (Aristo) did not introduce many virtues, as Zeno did. — Cicero: He (Zeno) placed all the virtues in reason… and argued that they could in no way be separated… and that not only the exercise of virtue but the very state of virtue was in itself admirable, and yet that no one possesses virtue without always exercising it.⁶⁶
[135] Fragment 135. Plutarch, On Moral Virtue 3
All these men (Menedemus, Aristo, Zeno, Chrysippus) alike suppose virtue to be a certain disposition and power of the ruling part of the soul (hegemonikon), produced by reason — or rather to be itself reason, consistent, firm and unchangeable. And they hold that the passionate and irrational part is not distinguished from the rational by any difference or by its nature, but that the same part of the soul (which they call thought and the ruling part) turns and changes wholly, in the passions and in alterations of state or disposition, and becomes vice or virtue, having nothing irrational in itself; it is called irrational whenever, through the excess of impulse (hormē) grown strong and prevailing, it is carried away towards something improper, contrary to the reason that should prevail. For passion, too, is a bad and intemperate reason, which has gained vehemence and strength from a base and erroneous judgement.
[136] Fragment 136. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.110; Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.11 and 4.47
Diogenes: According to Zeno, passion (pathos) itself is the irrational and unnatural movement of the soul, or excessive impulse (hormē). — Cicero: This, then, is Zeno’s definition: a disturbance, which he calls pathos, is a movement of the mind turned away from right reason and contrary to nature. Some put it more briefly: a disturbance is an over-vehement appetite. — Again: the definition of disturbance which I think Zeno rightly used; for he defines a disturbance as a movement of the mind turned away from reason and contrary to nature, or more briefly, as an over-vehement appetite.
[137] Fragment 137. Stobaeus, Eclogues 2.7.1 (p. 39.5 Wachsmuth)
As Zeno the Stoic defined it: passion is excessive impulse. He does not say ‘naturally apt to be excessive’, but already in excess; for it is so not potentially but actually. He also defined it in this way: passion is a fluttering (ptoia) of the soul, comparing the ready motion of the passionate element to the flight of winged creatures.
[138] Fragment 138. Cicero, Academica 1.38
Zeno wanted the wise man to be free of all these (disturbances), as of diseases… for he held that the disturbances are voluntary and are taken on through a judgement of opinion, and he considered that the mother of all disturbances is a kind of immoderate intemperance.
[139] Fragment 139. Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato 5.1 (Kühn 5.429); 4.3 (Kühn 5.377); 4.2 (Kühn 5.367)
Galen: Zeno held that the passions are not the judgements themselves but the contractions and dissolutions, the elations and sinkings of the soul that supervene upon them. — Again (Chrysippus contradicts Zeno and other Stoics), who suppose that the passions of the soul are not the judgements themselves but [also] the irrational contractions, humiliations and bitings, elations and expansions that follow upon them. — Again: Epicurus… and Zeno suppose the essence of the passions to be of this kind (namely, that the diminutions, elations, contractions and expansions… are affections of the irrational power, supervening upon opinions).⁶⁷
[140] Fragment 140. Themistius, On the Soul 90b (Spengel 2.197.24)
And the followers of Zeno do not do badly in holding that the passions of the human soul are distortions of reason and mistaken judgements of reason.
[141] Fragment 141. Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato 3.5 (Kühn 5.322)
Not only Chrysippus but also Cleanthes and Zeno readily posit them (namely, that fears and griefs and all such passions arise in the heart).
[142] Fragment 142. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.110
Of the passions, the highest genera (as Zeno says in his work On the Passions…) are four: grief, fear, desire and pleasure.
[143] Fragment 143. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 3.74–75; Galen, On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato 4.7 (p. 416)
Cicero: I think it has been sufficiently stated that distress is the opinion of a present evil, an opinion which includes the belief that one ought to feel distress. To this definition Zeno rightly adds that this opinion of a present evil must be recent. — Galen: ‘This definition of grief, at any rate,’ he [Posidonius] says, ‘like many other definitions of the passions stated by Zeno and written down by Chrysippus, clearly refutes his view. For he says (? they say) that grief is a fresh opinion that evil is present to oneself. And sometimes, putting it more concisely, they express it thus: grief is a fresh opinion of the presence of evil.’
[144] Fragment 144. Lactantius, Divine Institutes 3.23; Lactantius, Epitome (Letter to Pentadius) 38
Lactantius: He (Zeno) places pity among vices and diseases. — Again: Zeno, master of the Stoics, who praises virtue, judged pity… to be a disease of the mind.
[145] Fragment 145. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.107–108 and 7.25; Stobaeus, Eclogues 2.7.8 (p. 85.13 Wachsmuth); Cicero, On Ends 3.58
Diogenes: Further, they say that an appropriate act (kathēkon) is that which, when done, admits of a reasonable justification — for example, what is consistent in life; and this extends even to plants and animals, for appropriate acts are seen in them too. The appropriate act was first so named by Zeno, the term being taken from ‘coming upon (befitting) certain persons’ (kata tinas hēkein). — Again: They say he was the first to use the name ‘appropriate act’ and to write a treatise about it. — Stobaeus: The appropriate act is defined as what is consistent in life, which when done has a reasonable justification; and the inappropriate as the opposite. This extends even to irrational animals, for they too act in some way consistently with their own nature; but in the case of rational animals it is rendered thus: what is consistent in one’s way of life. — Cicero: An appropriate act (officium) is one so done that a probable reason can be given for doing it.⁶⁸
[146] Fragment 146. Stobaeus, Eclogues 2.7.1 (p. 38.15 Wachsmuth)
The followers of Zeno the Stoic define it figuratively: character (ēthos) is the spring of life, from which individual actions flow.
[147] Fragment 147. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.173
According to Zeno, character can be grasped (is kataleptic) from outward appearance.⁶⁹
[148] Fragment 148. Stobaeus, Eclogues 2.7.11g (p. 99.3 Wachsmuth)
For Zeno and the Stoic philosophers who followed him hold that there are two classes of men, the good (spoudaioi) and the bad (phauloi); and that the good use the virtues throughout their whole life, the bad the vices. Hence the one class always acts rightly in everything it undertakes, the other errs. And the good man, using his experience of life in what he does, does everything well — that is, prudently, temperately and in accordance with the other virtues — while the bad man, on the contrary, does everything badly. And the good man is great, robust, lofty and strong: great, because he is able to attain the things that lie within his purpose and that he has set before himself; robust, because he has grown to full stature on every side; lofty, because he has attained the height that befits a noble and wise man; and strong, because he has acquired the strength that befits him, being invincible and unconquerable. Therefore he is neither compelled by anyone nor compels anyone, neither hindered nor hindering, neither forced by anyone nor himself forcing anyone; he neither masters nor is mastered, neither harms anyone nor is himself harmed, neither falls into misfortunes <nor makes another fall into them>, is neither deceived nor deceives another, is never mistaken nor ignorant nor unaware of himself, nor in general holds any false belief. He is supremely happy, fortunate, blessed, prosperous, pious, dear to the gods and worthy of honour, fit to be king, general, statesman, manager of a household and maker of money. The bad have all the qualities opposite to these.
[149] Fragment 149. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.33; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 5.14.95
Diogenes: Again, in the Republic (Zeno) represents only the good as citizens, friends, kinsmen and free men. — Clement: And Zeno the Stoic, taking it from Plato, as Plato took it from the barbarian philosophy, says that all the good are friends of one another.⁷⁰
[150] Fragment 150. Cicero, For Murena 61
that only the wise are beautiful, even if they are utterly misshapen.
[151] Fragment 151. Cicero, On Ends 5.84; Cicero, For Murena 61
Cicero (On Ends): Zeno dared to call the wise man not only happy but also rich. — Cicero (For Murena): that only the wise are rich, even if they are utter beggars.
[152] Fragment 152. Cicero, For Murena 61
that the wise man is never moved by favour and never pardons anyone’s offence; that no one is merciful except a fool and a trifler; and that it is not a man’s part to be entreated or appeased.
[153] Fragment 153. Cicero, For Murena 61; Lactantius, Divine Institutes 3.4; Cicero, Academica 2.113; Augustine, Against the Academics 2.11
Cicero (For Murena): that the wise man never opines, never regrets anything, is never deceived in anything, and never changes his mind. — Lactantius: If, then, nothing can be known, as Socrates taught, and one ought not to opine, as Zeno taught, the whole of philosophy is done away with. — Cicero (Academica): that the wise man opines nothing… neither of these was strongly maintained before Zeno. — Augustine: …since they had learned from the same Zeno that nothing is more shameful than to opine.⁷¹
[154] Fragment 154. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.32
(They say that) he (Zeno) calls all who are not good foes, enemies, slaves and strangers to one another — parents to children, brothers to brothers, kinsmen to kinsmen.
[155] Fragment 155. Cicero, For Murena 61
that we, on the other hand, who are not wise, are runaway slaves, exiles, enemies — in short, madmen.
[156] Fragment 156. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 4.158B
It is a Stoic doctrine that the wise man will do everything well, and will even season lentil soup wisely. That is why Timon of Phlius said:
and one who has not learned to boil a [Zenonian] lentil soup wisely —
as though lentil soup could not be boiled except according to the instructions of Zeno, who said:
Into the lentil soup throw a twelfth part of coriander.⁷²
[157] Fragment 157. Philo, That Every Good Man Is Free, p. 880
It is fitting to add Zeno’s saying, that you could sooner sink a wineskin full of air than force any good man, against his will, to do anything he does not wish; for the soul which right reason has braced with firm doctrines is unyielding and invincible.
[158] Fragment 158. Seneca, On Anger 1.16.7
For, as Zeno said, even in the mind of the wise man a scar remains when the wound has healed. So he will feel certain hints and shadows of the passions, but he will be free of the passions themselves.
[159] Fragment 159. Seneca, Letters 83.8
No one entrusts a secret to a drunken man; but one does entrust it to a good man; therefore the good man will not be drunk.⁷³
[160] Fragment 160. Plutarch, How One May Become Aware of One’s Progress in Virtue 12
Consider, too, what Zeno’s saying amounts to. He held that each person can perceive from his dreams whether he is making progress: if in sleep he sees himself neither taking pleasure in anything shameful nor approving or doing anything terrible or unjust, but the imaginative and emotional part of the soul, dispersed by reason, shines clear as in the transparent depth of a calm sea untroubled by waves.
[161] Fragment 161. Seneca, Letters 104.21
And if you like to live with Greeks as well, spend your time with Socrates and with Zeno: the one will teach you to die if it becomes necessary, the other to die before it becomes necessary.⁷⁴
[162] Fragment 162. Plutarch, On the Fortune or Virtue of Alexander 1.6; Plutarch, On Stoic Self-Contradictions 2.1; John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 1.4
Plutarch (Alexander): Indeed, the much-admired Republic of Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, is directed to this one main point: that we should not live in cities or demes, each separated by its own rules of justice, but should regard all men as fellow-demesmen and fellow-citizens, and that there should be one life and one order (kosmos), like a herd grazing together and nourished in a common pasture. Zeno wrote this, shaping as it were a dream or image of a philosopher’s well-ordered society and constitution. — Plutarch (Self-Contradictions): Since, then, much has been written, in theory, by Zeno himself… about government, about ruling and being ruled, about judging and pleading. — Chrysostom: For not as Plato, who composed that ridiculous Republic, and Zeno, and anyone else who wrote a republic or framed laws…
[163] Fragment 163. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 13.561C; Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 31
Athenaeus: Pontianus said that Zeno of Citium held Eros to be the god who brings about friendship and freedom, and concord as well, and nothing else. That is why he said in his Republic that ‘Eros is a god who works together for the safety of the city.’ — Plutarch: (Lycurgus’ aim was not to leave Sparta ruling a large empire,) but, believing that the happiness of a whole city, as of a single man’s life, comes from virtue and from its concord with itself, he ordered and fitted everything to this end, that the citizens might become free-spirited, self-sufficient and temperate, and remain so for as long as possible. This is the principle that Plato adopted for his Republic, as did Diogenes and Zeno, etc.
[164] Fragment 164. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 5.11.76; Plutarch, On Stoic Self-Contradictions 6.1; Theodoret, Cure of Greek Maladies 3; Epiphanius, Against Heresies 3.36
Clement: Zeno too, the founder of the Stoic school, says in the book of his Republic that one should make neither temples nor statues, since no construction is worthy of the gods; and he does not shrink from writing these very words: ‘There will be no need to build temples; for nothing should be regarded as sacred that is not of great worth and holy; and no work of builders and craftsmen is of great worth or holy.’ — Plutarch: It is also a doctrine of Zeno’s not to build temples to the gods; for a temple not of great worth is not holy, and no work of builders and craftsmen is of great worth. — Theodoret: Seeing this, Zeno of Citium too, in the book of his Republic, forbids building temples and fashioning statues, for he says none of these is a construction worthy of the gods. — Epiphanius: Zeno of Citium, the Stoic, said that one should not build temples to the gods.
[165] Fragment 165. Stobaeus, Florilegium 43.88
Zeno said that cities should be adorned not with votive offerings but with the virtues of their inhabitants.
[166] Fragment 166. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.33
and (they say that he wrote), at about line 200, that neither temples nor law-courts nor gymnasia should be built in cities.⁷⁵
[167] Fragment 167. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.32
Some, however,… finding fault with Zeno on many points, say that at the beginning of his Republic he declares the ordinary course of education (enkyklios paideia) useless.
[168] Fragment 168. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.33
And about money (Zeno) writes thus: that he does not think coinage should be provided either for the purpose of exchange or for travel abroad.
[169] Fragment 169. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 6.233B–C
Zeno of the Stoa, holding that everything about them (gold and silver) was indifferent except using them lawfully and well, forbade both choosing and shunning them, but enjoined that one should, in the ordinary course (proēgoumenōs), use what is simple and unsuperfluous; so that people, keeping their soul in a disposition free from fear and from wonder towards everything else that is neither noble nor shameful, may for the most part use the things that are according to nature, and, fearing none of their opposites at all, may abstain from them by reason and not through fear.
[170] Fragment 170. Seneca, On Leisure 3.2; Seneca, On Tranquillity of Mind 1.7
Zeno says: the wise man will take part in public affairs unless something prevents him. — Ready and composed, I follow Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus — none of whom, however, entered public life, and none of whom failed to send others into it.
[171] Fragment 171. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.121
And (the wise man) will marry, as Zeno says in his Republic, and beget children.
[172] Fragment 172. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.129
And the wise man will love those young people who show by their outward appearance a natural aptitude for virtue, as Zeno says in his Republic.
[173] Fragment 173. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 13.563E
And in this you imitate the founder of your wisdom, Zeno the Phoenician, who never had to do with a woman but always with boys, as Antigonus of Carystus records in his Life of him. For you are forever repeating that ‘one should love not bodies but the soul.’⁷⁶
[174] Fragment 174. Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 3.11.74
Zeno of Citium seems to sketch the portrait of a young man, and sculpts him thus: ‘Let his face be clean, his brow not drooping, his eye neither wide open nor languishing; let his neck not be thrown back, nor the limbs of his body slack, but held up like those of a man braced with tension (tonos); let him have a mind upright towards reason, quickness and retention of what is rightly said, and postures and movements that give no hope to the licentious. Let modesty and manliness bloom upon him; and let him keep away from the idle loitering at perfumers’, goldsmiths’ and wool-sellers’ shops and other workshops, where men sit the whole day decked out like courtesans, as if sitting in a brothel.’
[175] Fragment 175. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.22
He said that young men should observe complete decorum in their gait, their bearing and their dress.
[176] Fragment 176. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.131 and 7.33
Diogenes: They also hold that among the wise wives should be in common, so that any man may have intercourse with any woman, as Zeno says in his Republic. — Again: and (they say) that in his Republic he lays down, like Plato, that wives are to be held in common.
[177] Fragment 177. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.33
And (Zeno) bids men and women wear the same clothing and keep no part of the body concealed.
[178] Fragment 178. Origen, Against Celsus 7.63
Those who follow the philosophy of Zeno of Citium avoid adultery… on account of the social bond, and because it is contrary to nature for a rational animal to seduce a woman whom the laws have already given to another, and to ruin another man’s household.
[179] Fragment 179. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 3.245; Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 11.190
Outlines: Thus Zeno, the founder of their school, in his Discourses (Diatribai), speaking of the upbringing of boys, says among other similar things the following: ‘Have intercrural intercourse no more and no less with a favourite than with one who is not a favourite, nor with females than with males; for different things do not befit or suit favourites and non-favourites, or females and males, but the same things befit and suit them all.’ — Against the Mathematicians: And indeed, on the upbringing of boys, Zeno the founder of the school sets out in his Discourses things of this kind.⁷⁷
[180] Fragment 180. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 3.246; Against the Mathematicians 11.191; Outlines of Pyrrhonism 3.205; Plutarch, Table Talk 3.6.1
Outlines 3.246: Concerning piety towards parents, the same man (Zeno), with reference to the story of Jocasta and Oedipus, says that it was not dreadful for him to rub his mother: if, when she was ill, he had helped her by rubbing some other part of her body with his hands, it would be nothing shameful; and if by rubbing other parts he gave her pleasure, putting an end to her distress, and begot noble children by his mother, was that shameful? — Against the Mathematicians: And Zeno, regarding the stories told about Jocasta and Oedipus, says that it was not dreadful to rub his mother. ‘If, when she was ill in body, he helped her by rubbing her with his hands, there was nothing shameful; and if he rubbed her with another part, and so ended her distress, and begot noble children by his mother, what was shameful in that?’ — Outlines 3.205: Zeno of Citium too says that it is not out of place to rub one’s mother’s private part with one’s own, just as no one would say it was wrong to rub any other part of her body with one’s hand. — Plutarch: ‘For my part, by the dog,’ he said, ‘I could have wished that Zeno’s passages on intercrural intercourse had been set down in some symposium or playful piece, rather than in so serious a work as his Republic.’⁷⁸
[181] Fragment 181. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 11.190
And again (Zeno): ‘Have you had intercrural intercourse with your beloved?’ ‘Not I.’ ‘Was it that you did not desire to?’ ‘No, I desired it very much.’ ‘But did you desire him to offer himself to you, or were you afraid to ask him?’ ‘No, by Zeus.’ ‘But you asked him?’ ‘Certainly.’ ‘And then he did not oblige you?’ ‘No, he did not.’⁷⁹
[182] Fragment 182. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 3.200
And what wonder is it, when even the Cynic philosophers and Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes, Chrysippus and their followers say that this (intercourse between males) is indifferent?
[183] Fragment 183. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism 3.206
And indecent conduct, which with us is held accursed, Zeno does not condemn.
[184] Fragment 184. Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus 3.5
What did you think of the writings of Zeno, or of Diogenes and Cleanthes — all that their books contain, teaching cannibalism: that fathers are to be cooked and eaten by their own children, and that if anyone should refuse, or throw away any part of the loathsome food, he who has not eaten is himself to be devoured?⁸⁰
[185] Fragment 185. Epiphanius, Against Heresies 3.36
(He said) that the dead should be thrown to animals or to fire; and that one may have intercourse with boys without restriction.
[186] Fragment 186. Cicero, Letters to Friends 9.22.1
Yet this (freedom of speech) was Zeno’s view… but, as I say, the Stoics hold that each thing should be called by its own name.
[187] Fragment 187. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 2.20.125
Zeno spoke well about the Indians when he said that he would rather see a single Indian being roasted alive than learn all the proofs about pain.⁸¹
[188] Fragment 188. Galen, On the Diagnosis and Cure of the Soul’s Passions (Kühn 5.13)
So Zeno too thought that we should do everything carefully, as people who will shortly have to give an account of themselves to their tutors (paidagōgoi); for that is what he called most men, who are ready to censure their neighbours even when no one invites them to.
[189] Fragment 189. Stobaeus, Florilegium 14.4 (= Antonius Melissa 1.52)
Examine yourself, whoever you are; do not listen
to what is said to please you, and strip flatterers of their freedom of speech.
[190] Fragment 190. Maximus the Confessor, Florilegium ch. 6 (ed. Mai)
The farmer makes himself useful to those plants from which he wishes to get abundant and fine fruit, and cares for and tends them in every way; and much more are men disposed by nature to show favour to those who are useful to them, and to take the greatest pains over such people; and there is nothing surprising in this. For of the parts of our body too we take more care of those we consider more useful to us for service. So likewise we must be useful, in deeds and not in words, to those from whom we expect to receive benefits. For the olive tree does not preen itself before the man who tends it, but by bearing abundant and fine fruit it persuades him to take more care of it.
[191] Fragment 191. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 13.565D
That wise Zeno, as Antigonus of Carystus says, foretelling, as was natural, your way of life and your affected manners, said that those who misheard his words and failed to understand them would become dirty and mean-spirited, just as those who went astray from the school of Aristippus became profligate and brazen.
[192] Fragment 192. Stobaeus, Florilegium 6.62
For Zeno’s saying, he said, is well put: that one should cut one’s hair for the same reason as one lets it grow, namely for the sake of what is according to nature, so that one may not be weighed down or hampered by one’s hair in any activity.⁸²
[193] Fragment 193. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 8.48
Moreover, he (Pythagoras) was the first to call the heaven a kosmos and the earth round — though according to Theophrastus it was Parmenides, and according to Zeno, Hesiod.
[194] Fragment 194. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 6.91
Zeno of Citium, in his Anecdotes (Chreiai), says that he (Crates) once sewed a sheepskin onto his threadbare cloak (tribōn), heedless of how it looked.⁸³
[195] Fragment 195. Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 53.4
Zeno the philosopher too has written on the Iliad and the Odyssey, and on the Margites as well; for this poem too seems to have been composed by Homer when he was younger and was testing his natural gift for poetry. Zeno finds fault with nothing in Homer, explaining and showing at the same time that he wrote some things according to opinion and others according to truth, so that he may not appear to contradict himself in certain passages that seem to be stated inconsistently. This principle — that some things are said by the poet according to opinion and others according to truth — belongs earlier to Antisthenes; but he did not work it out, whereas Zeno set it out in each particular case.
[196] Fragment 196. Plutarch, Commentary on Hesiod 9; Themistius, Orations 8.108c and 13.171d
Plutarch: Zeno the Stoic transposed the lines, saying:
That man is best of all who heeds one who speaks well;
and good, in turn, is he who himself perceives all things —
giving first place to ready obedience (to good advice), and second to wisdom. — Themistius: I too am very well pleased with Zeno of Citium, who declared ready obedience to be a more kingly virtue than sagacity, and reversed Hesiod’s order, etc. — Again: For Zeno of Citium rightly held ready obedience to be more kingly than sagacity.⁸⁴
[197] Fragment 197. Plutarch, How the Young Man Should Listen to Poetry 33E
And Zeno, correcting the lines of Sophocles,
Whoever goes to traffic with a tyrant
is his slave, even if he comes there free,
rewrote them:
is not his slave, if he comes there free,
meaning by ‘free’ here the man who is fearless, high-minded and unhumbled.
[198] Fragment 198. Strabo, Geography 7.3.6
(Homer never mentions Arabia) unless we are to heed Zeno the philosopher, who writes the line:
I came to the Ethiopians and the Sidonians and the Arabians.⁸⁵
[199] Fragment 199. Stobaeus, Florilegium 95.21
Zeno said that Crates, sitting in a shoemaker’s shop, was reading aloud the Protrepticus that Aristotle wrote to Themison, king of the Cypriots, saying that no one had greater advantages for the pursuit of philosophy, for he had very great wealth to spend on it, and reputation besides. And while he was reading, Zeno said, the shoemaker listened attentively as he went on with his stitching; and Crates said: ‘I think, Philiscus, that I shall write a Protrepticus to you; for I see that you have more advantages for the pursuit of philosophy than those Aristotle wrote of.’
[200] Fragment 200. Stobaeus, Florilegium 36.26
Zeno used to say that of his pupils some were lovers of reason (philologoi), others lovers of talk (logophiloi).⁸⁶
[201] Fragment 201. Stobaeus, Florilegium 6.34
Zeno used to reproach most people, saying that, when they could get their pleasures from toil, they take them from the cookshops.
[202] Fragment 202. Stobaeus, Florilegium 4.107
Zeno said it was absurd that each person pays no heed to the instructions (?) on how one ought to live, on the ground that those who give them do not know, yet admires praise from all and sundry as though it rested on judgement.⁸⁷

## Sayings (Apophthegmata)

[S1] Saying 1. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.2 (the same in the Suda, s.v. συγχρωτίζεσθαι)
When he (Zeno) consulted the oracle about what he should do to live the best life, the god answered: if he took on the complexion of the dead. Understanding what this meant, he read the works of the ancients.⁸⁸
[S2] Saying 2. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.3; Themistius, Orations 23.295d
Diogenes Laertius: He had been shipping purple dye from Phoenicia and was shipwrecked near the Piraeus. Going up to Athens, by then thirty years old, he sat down beside a bookseller; and as the bookseller was reading aloud the second book of Xenophon’s Memorabilia, he was delighted and asked where men of that sort were to be found. Just then, as it happened, Crates was passing by, and the bookseller pointed to him and said, “Follow this man.” — Themistius: The story about Zeno is well known and told by many: that the Apology of Socrates brought him from Phoenicia to the Painted Stoa.⁸⁹
[S3] Saying 3. Plutarch, How to Profit by One’s Enemies 2; Plutarch, On Tranquillity of Mind 6; Suda s.v. νῦν εὐπλόηκα; Seneca, On Tranquillity of Mind 14.2
Plutarch (On Enemies): Zeno, when his merchant ship was wrecked and he heard the news, said: “Well done, Fortune, driving us into the philosopher’s cloak!” — Plutarch (On Tranquillity): Zeno of Citium had one cargo ship left; and when he learned that it had gone down, cargo and all, swamped by the sea, he said: “Well done, Fortune, driving us into the philosopher’s cloak and the Stoa!” [On Exile: “into the cloak and the philosophic life”]. — Suda: “Now I have had a good voyage, since I have been shipwrecked”: said of those who have prospered beyond expectation. For Zeno of Citium said this, after leaving his former teachers and becoming a pupil of Crates the philosopher: having met with shipwreck, and saying, “Fortune does well, driving us towards philosophy” * * * thus to have turned to philosophy. — Seneca: When news of the shipwreck came, our Zeno, hearing that everything he owned had sunk, said: “Fortune bids me to philosophize with less baggage.”⁹⁰
[S4] Saying 4. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.19
To a man who said that Antisthenes mostly did not please him, he cited a maxim (chreia) of Sophocles and asked whether he thought Antisthenes had anything good in him too. When the man said he did not know, Zeno said: “Then are you not ashamed to pick out and remember whatever bad thing Antisthenes said, but not even to try to retain whatever good thing he said?”⁹¹
[S5] Saying 5. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.20
When someone told him that Polemon set out one subject and then talked about another, he scowled and said: “Well, how much were you paying for what was being given you?”⁹²
[S6] Saying 6. Plutarch, How One May Become Aware of One’s Progress in Virtue 6; Plutarch, On Praising Oneself Inoffensively 17
Plutarch (On Progress): Zeno, seeing Theophrastus admired for having many pupils, said: “His chorus is larger, but mine is more harmonious.” — Plutarch (On Self-Praise): Thus Zeno, with regard to the great number of Theophrastus’ pupils, said: “His chorus is larger, mine more harmonious.”⁹³
[S7] Saying 7. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.24
Apollonius of Tyre says that when Crates was dragging him by his cloak away from Stilpo, Zeno said: “Crates, the right way to take hold of philosophers is by the ears. So persuade me and drag me off that way. If you use force on me, my body will be with you, but my soul with Stilpo.”⁹⁴
[S8] Saying 8. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.21
He also used to say that most philosophers are unwise in most things, and ignorant of small and chance matters.
[S9] Saying 9. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.20
When someone said that the philosophers’ little arguments seemed to him too short, he said: “You are right. Indeed, even their syllables ought to be short, if possible.”
[S10] Saying 10. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.25
And when a dialectician showed him seven dialectical forms in the argument called the Reaper, he asked how much he charged for them; and on hearing “a hundred drachmas,” he gave him two hundred.⁹⁵
[S11] Saying 11. Suda s.v. δέλτος = Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.37; Plutarch, On Listening to Lectures 18
Diogenes Laertius: Cleanthes, whom Zeno likened to tablets of hard wax, which are written on with difficulty but keep what is written on them. — Plutarch: Just as Cleanthes and Xenocrates, who seemed slower than their fellow students, did not run away from learning or grow weary of it, but were the first to make fun of themselves, comparing themselves to narrow-mouthed jars and bronze tablets, since they took in the teachings with difficulty but kept them safely and firmly.
[S12] Saying 12. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.18
When his pupil Ariston was holding forth at length without talent, and in some things rashly and boldly, he said: “Impossible, unless your father begot you when he was drunk.” For this reason he called him a chatterbox, being himself a man of few words.⁹⁶
[S13] Saying 13. Stobaeus, Florilegium 36.23; Plutarch, Life of Phocion 5.2
Stobaeus: One of the young men in the Academy was talking foolishly about ways of life. Zeno said: “Unless you dip your tongue in mind before you speak, you will make many more mistakes still in your words.” — Plutarch: Zeno used to say that the philosopher should dip his words in mind before uttering them.
[S14] Saying 14. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.20
He said that one who argues should, like actors, have a loud voice and great power, but should not open his mouth wide; that is what people do who talk a great deal, but to no effect.
[S15] Saying 15. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.20
He said that things well said should not be left room to be admired, as the works of good craftsmen are; on the contrary, the listener should be so absorbed in what is being said that he has no time to remark on it.
[S16] Saying 16. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.22
He said one should not memorize the sounds and words, but occupy the mind with the arrangement of the maxim, not taking it in as one learns some recipe for boiling or preparing food.
[S17] Saying 17. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.23
He said that beauty is the flower of temperance.⁹⁷
[S18] Saying 18. Stobaeus, Florilegium Monacense 196
Zeno the philosopher, when some people said that what he said was contrary to opinion, replied: “But not contrary to law.”⁹⁸
[S19] Saying 19. Plutarch, On Moral Virtue 4
And yet they say that Zeno too, going up to the theatre when Amoebeus was singing to the lyre, said to his pupils: “Let us go, so that we may learn what harmony and what sound guts and sinews, wood and bones give forth when they partake of reason, number and order.”⁹⁹
[S20] Saying 20. Stobaeus, Florilegium 36.19; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.23
Stobaeus: Zeno, to one who wanted to talk more than to listen: “Young man,” he said, “nature has given us one tongue but two ears, so that we may hear twice as much as we speak.” — Diogenes Laertius: To a youth who was babbling, he said: “This is why we have two ears and one mouth: so that we may hear more and speak less.”
[S21] Saying 21. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.21
When a young man was talking a great deal, he said: “Your ears have run down into your tongue.”
[S22] Saying 22. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.26
He used to say that it is better to slip with the feet than with the tongue.
[S23] Saying 23. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.14
When a crowd stood around him, he pointed in the Stoa to the wooden rail at the top of the altar and said: “This once stood in the middle, but because it was in the way it was set apart by itself. So you too, if you take yourselves out of the middle, will bother us less.”
[S24] Saying 24. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.24
Asked how he felt about abuse, he said: “As if an ambassador were sent away without an answer.”¹⁰⁰
[S25] Saying 25. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.24; Stobaeus, Florilegium 33.10; Plutarch, On Talkativeness 4
Diogenes Laertius: Reclining in silence at a banquet, he was asked the reason. He told the man who reproached him to report to the king that there was someone present who knew how to keep silent. Those who asked were ambassadors who had come from Ptolemy and wanted to learn what message they should take from him to the king. — Stobaeus: Zeno, when Antigonus had sent ambassadors to Athens, was invited by them to dinner along with other philosophers; and while the others over the wine were eager to show off their attainments, he himself kept silent. When the ambassadors asked what they should report about him to Antigonus, he said: “Just this, which you see.” For speech is of all things the hardest to control. — Plutarch: At Athens a man entertaining the king’s ambassadors made it his ambition, since they were keen on it, to bring the philosophers together. While the others joined in the talk and contributed their share to it, Zeno kept quiet; so the strangers, greeting him kindly and drinking his health, said: “And what should we tell the king about you, Zeno?” He replied: “Nothing else than that there is an old man in Athens who can keep silent over his wine.”¹⁰¹
[S26] Saying 26. Aelian, Varia Historia 9.26
King Antigonus held Zeno of Citium in very great respect and esteem. Once, when he was overfull of wine, he burst in on Zeno like a reveller, kissing and embracing him, as drunk men do, and begged Zeno to give him some command, swearing with youthful bravado that he would not fail to grant the request. Zeno said to him: “Go and vomit.” With dignity and greatness of mind at once he rebuked his drunkenness, and spared him from bursting with excess.
[S27] Saying 27. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 2.55f; Galen, That the Faculties of the Soul Follow the Mixtures of the Body 3 (Kühn 4.777); Eustathius, Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey 21.293 (p. 1910.42)
Athenaeus: That is why Zeno of Citium too, who was harsh and very quick-tempered with his acquaintances, became pleasant and gentle when he had drunk rather freely of wine. To those who asked about this difference in his manner, he said that he was affected in the same way as lupins: for they too are very bitter before they are soaked, but when steeped become sweet and most agreeable. — Galen: And Zeno, they say, used to say that just as bitter lupins become sweet when soaked in water, so he too was affected by wine. — Eustathius: Zeno of Citium, they say, though otherwise harsh towards his companions, nevertheless became pleasant and gentle if he drank rather more wine, saying that he was affected in much the same way as lupins, which are rather bitter before being soaked, but when steeped become sweet and more agreeable.¹⁰²
[S28] Saying 28. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 8.345c (the same in Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.19)
Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoa, dealt thus with the glutton with whom he lived for a long time, as Antigonus of Carystus says in his Life of Zeno. When a large fish happened to be served and nothing else had been prepared, Zeno took it from the dish and made as if to eat it all himself. When the other stared at him, he said: “What then do you think your companions suffer, if you cannot put up with gluttony for a single day?”
[S29] Saying 29. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 5.186d
Zeno, when one of the gluttons present stripped off the upper side of a fish as soon as it was served, turned the fish over and stripped it himself, adding (Euripides, Bacchae 1129):
“And Ino worked away upon the other side.”¹⁰³
[S30] Saying 30. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.17 (see also the Suda s.v. σκιμαλίσω)
When two men were reclining below him at a drinking party, and the one next to him was nudging the one below himself with his foot, Zeno nudged him with his knee. When the man turned round, Zeno said: “Well then, what do you suppose the man below you suffers from you?”
[S31] Saying 31. Stobaeus, Florilegium 57.12
Zeno the Stoic philosopher, seeing one of his acquaintances distracted by the cares of his farm, said: “Unless you get rid of it, it will be the ruin of you.”
[S32] Saying 32. Boissonade, Anecdota Graeca 1, p. 450 (attributed to Zeno in Paris, Cod. Reg. 1168)
Live, O man, not only in order to eat and drink, but in order to use life for living well.¹⁰⁴
[S33] Saying 33. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.21
And he used to quote the saying of Caphesias: when one of his pupils was trying to blow loudly, Caphesias struck him and said that the good does not lie in the great, but the great in the good.¹⁰⁵
[S34] Saying 34. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.26
Well-being is attained by small steps, yet it is no small thing.
[S35] Saying 35. Plutarch, On Compliancy (De vitioso pudore) 13
There is Zeno’s story: he met a young man of his acquaintance walking quietly along by the wall, and learned that he was avoiding a friend who was asking him to give false testimony for him. “What are you saying, you fool?” he said. “He, unreasonable and unjust, does not fear you or feel ashamed before you; and you do not dare to stand up to him on behalf of what is just?”
[S36] Saying 36. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.16–17
As, for instance, what he once said of a dandy: when the man was stepping gingerly over a gutter, Zeno said: “He is right to be wary of the mud, for he cannot see his reflection in it.”
[S37] Saying 37. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.19
When a lad was asking a question too subtle for his age, Zeno led him to a mirror and told him to look into it. Then he asked him whether he thought such questions suited a face like that.
[S38] Saying 38. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.21
When a young man was arguing rather insolently, he said: “I would not say, my lad, what comes into my mind.”
[S39] Saying 39. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.21
To a handsome youth who said that he did not think the wise man would fall in love, he said: “Then nothing will be more wretched than you handsome ones (if we are not going to love you).”¹⁰⁶
[S40] Saying 40. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.22
He used to say that nothing is more unbecoming than conceit, and above all in the young.
[S41] Saying 41. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.23
To a man anointed with perfume he said: “Who is this that smells of a woman?”
[S42] Saying 42. Stobaeus, Eclogues 2.31.81 (p. 215.13 Wachsmuth) = Florilegium excerpts from the Florentine MS of John of Damascus 2.13.81
Zeno, asked how a young man might go least astray, said: “If he keeps before his eyes those whom he most honours and stands in awe of.”
[S43] Saying 43. Stobaeus, Florilegium 15.12
To those who excused their prodigality by saying that they spent out of great abundance, Zeno said: “Then I suppose you will also pardon cooks if they say they have made the dishes too salty because they had plenty of salt?”
[S44] Saying 44. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.17
Being in love with Chremonides, when Chremonides and Cleanthes sat down beside him, he got up. When Cleanthes was surprised, he said: “I hear from good physicians too that the best remedy for inflammation is rest.”¹⁰⁷
[S45] Saying 45. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.18
To a lover of boys he said: “Schoolmasters have no sense, spending all their time among boys; nor have the boys.”
[S46] Saying 46. Stobaeus, Florilegium 17.43
Zeno of Citium did not think he should take daintier food even when ill. When the physician treating him told him to eat a young pigeon, he would not put up with it: “Treat me,” he said, “as you would treat Manes.”¹⁰⁸
[S47] Saying 47. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.17
When a Cynic, saying he had no oil in his flask, asked him for some, Zeno said he would not give him any. But as the man went away, he told him to consider which of the two of them was the more shameless.
[S48] Saying 48. Athenaeus, Deipnosophists 9.370c (cf. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.32)
And it is no wonder that some people swore by the cabbage, since Zeno of Citium too, the founder of the Stoa, imitating Socrates’ oath “by the dog,” used himself to swear “by the caper,” as Empodus says in his Memoirs.
[S49] Saying 49. Stobaeus, Florilegium 98.68; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.23
Stobaeus: Zeno used to say that we are poor in nothing so much as in time. For life is truly short, but art is long, and most of all the art that can heal the diseases of the soul. — Diogenes Laertius: And that we are in want of nothing so much as of time.
[S50] Saying 50. Stobaeus, Florilegium Monacense 197; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.23
Stobaeus: The same (Zeno), asked what a friend is, said: “Another such as I.” — Diogenes Laertius: Asked who is a friend, he said: “Another I.”
[S51] Saying 51. Origen, Against Celsus 8.35
Zeno, to the man who said “May I perish if I do not punish you,” replied: “And may I, if I do not make you my friend.”
[S52] Saying 52. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.23
When Dionysius the Renegade asked him why he was the only one he did not correct, Zeno said: “Because I do not trust you.”¹⁰⁹
[S53] Saying 53. Seneca, On Benefits 4.39.1; Themistius, Orations 21.252b
Seneca: “Why then,” says he, “did your Zeno, when he had promised a loan of five hundred denarii to someone and had found him hardly a fit person, persist in lending it, though his friends urged him not to, because he had promised?” — Themistius: When did you let off your debtor, as Zeno of Citium did?¹¹⁰
[S54] Saying 54. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.23
They say he was flogging a slave for theft; and when the slave said, “It was fated that I should steal,” Zeno said: “And that you should be beaten.”¹¹¹
[S55] Saying 55. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.23
Seeing the slave-boy of one of his acquaintances covered with weals, he said to the master: “I see the traces of your anger.”
[S56] Saying 56. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.28–29; Stobaeus, Florilegium 7.45; Lucian, Long-Lived Men (Macrobii) 19
Diogenes Laertius: He died in this way. As he was leaving the school he tripped and broke his toe. Striking the ground with his hand, he spoke the line from the Niobe:
“I come; why do you call me?”
and died on the spot, by stopping his breath. — Stobaeus: Zeno, when he was already an old man and had tripped and fallen, said, “I come; why do you call me?” and going indoors, he took his own life. — Lucian: Zeno… who, they say, as he was entering the assembly, stumbled and cried out, “Why do you shout for me?”; and returning home and abstaining from food, he ended his life.¹¹²
[S57] Saying 57. Theodore Metochites, Miscellanea p. 812 Kiessling
And Zeno, philosophizing about the affairs of this world and about life, used to say: “It came, it passed; nothing at all to do with me.”

## Notes

[1] The order concerns teaching, not importance: Pearson argues that for Zeno ethics was the heart of the system.
[2] “Elements of reason” (logos) is ambiguous: perhaps the elements of thought, or (Pearson) the indefinable elements of a definition.
[3] Epictetus answering an objector; he goes on to say that Antisthenes and Socrates said the same.
[4] The methods are sound but put to base uses; Pearson thinks the target is the quibbling Megarian dialecticians.
[5] Sextus names Zeno as author. Cleanthes took “imprint” literally, like a seal in wax; Chrysippus took it as “alteration”.
[6] Pearson prints the doctrine itself as the fragment; the three testimonia show it is Zeno’s.
[7] Cicero’s declaratio renders the Greek enargeia, the vividness or self-evidence of a true impression.
[8] Kataleptic impression: one that “grasps” its object and so warrants assent. Pearson takes “the older Stoics” to include Zeno.
[9] According to Cicero, Zeno added the final clause under pressure from the Academic Arcesilas.
[10] Pearson doubts the attribution; Cleanthes defined art as “a disposition that accomplishes everything by a way”.
[11] Chrysippus cites it, with the definition of art (frag. 12), as an accepted school definition against Cleanthes; Pearson concludes it is Zeno’s.
[12] Conceit (oiēsis): the false belief that one knows.
[13] Apprehension is common to the sage and the inferior man; only the sage’s firm apprehension counts as knowledge.
[14] That is, perception (aisthēsis) also names the apprehension that comes through the senses; sensum might alternatively mean “the thing perceived”.
[15] Notiones renders the Greek ennoiai, concepts formed from repeated perceptions.
[16] “The ancients” are Plato and his school: Platonic Forms become mere concepts. Pearson notes the bracketed sentence is not expressly Zeno’s, and its last clause is obscure.
[17] Predicate (katēgorēma): an incorporeal state of affairs expressed by a verb, e.g. “being temperate”, as opposed to the bodily cause.
[18] Narrative (diēgēsis): the statement-of-facts section of a speech. Literally the exposition “flows towards” the speaker’s persona.
[19] Example (paradeigma): the orator’s argument from precedent.
[20] Quintilian is discussing the narrative of a speech; Pearson takes “sense” as the actual impressions of the senses, giving a vivid picture of the facts.
[21] Text emended by Wachsmuth; the formula is elsewhere a definition of knowledge, and Pearson doubts it really defined geometry.
[22] The verse is a proverbial line, ascribed to Phocylides or Hesiod. Zeno’s argument is a deliberately paradoxical dilemma.
[23] Old Attic tetradrachms were crudely struck but of full weight; “Alexandrian” coin is the handsome coinage of Alexander.
[24] Principles (archai) are ungenerated and indestructible; the elements perish in the conflagration. Philo’s “air” is a slip for “principles” (Diels).
[25] Reason (ratio) here is the Heraclitean Logos.
[26] A damaged papyrus text, ascribed to Zeno only tentatively (Diels). The “power” seems to be God holding the parts of the world together.
[27] The aether here is the fiery breath (pneuma) that is God’s substance, not the element air.
[28] One divine force takes different forms: cohesion in inorganic things, nature (physis) in plants, soul in animals, mind in rational beings.
[29] Boethus of Sidon, a later Stoic, dissented; the excerpt breaks off at his name.
[30] The Greek formula is “nature is a craftsmanlike fire proceeding methodically to generation” (pyr technikon hodōi badizon eis genesin).
[31] Christian polemic against the Stoic doctrine that God pervades all matter, even the basest.
[32] Silva renders hylē (matter), essentia renders ousia (substance): ousia is primary, unqualified matter; hylē is the stuff of a particular thing.
[33] Spiritus renders pneuma. Pearson notes that the final sentence is attributed to the school in general, not to Zeno.
[34] Each world-cycle runs from fire through air and water to earth and back; Stoic “blending” (krasis) means total interpenetration of bodies.
[35] Galen traces the theory back through Aristotle to Hippocrates.
[36] The doctrine of the periodic conflagration (ekpyrōsis) and the rebirth of the world.
[37] Anytus and Meletus prosecuted Socrates; Busiris was a mythical Egyptian king who killed strangers. The point is that each world-cycle repeats exactly.
[38] Zeller attributed these Stoic arguments, reported by a Peripatetic in Theophrastus' name, to Zeno; bracketed passages are later additions; * * * marks a gap in the text.
[39] Pearson thinks ‘world’ here means the universe (God as the whole of substance), not the visible cosmos, which Zeno held to be destructible.
[40] ‘Its existence’: Pearson reports Bekker's suggestion that the text should refer to God's existence.
[41] Sextus is comparing Plato's Timaeus (29–30) with Zeno's argument; the fragment shows Zeno called the world a living being.
[42] ‘Designing fire’ (pyr technikon) is the creative, life-sustaining fire, contrasted with ordinary destructive fire.
[43] Cicero's Epicurean speaker is listing Zeno's inconsistent views of the divine.
[44] Seneca, himself a Stoic, is explaining comets.
[45] Chrysippus later narrowed this to the extension of the world's motion.
[46] The scholiast is commenting on Plato's phrase ‘twice seven years’, i.e. age fourteen.
[47] ‘Exhalation’ (anathymiasis): the warm vapour rising from moisture; for Zeno the soul is fed from the blood. Pearson brackets τὸ μέγεθος as intrusive.
[48] ‘Blood’ is Stein's emendation, adopted by Pearson; the manuscripts read ‘body’.
[49] The Greek ‘moves bodies’ is probably corrupt; editors conjecture ‘a body that moves bodies’ or ‘a body moving itself’.
[50] Pearson notes this conflicts with the eightfold division in fragment 93, which he thinks more reliable.
[51] Pearson supposes words such as ‘the soul survives for some time’ have dropped out at * * *.
[52] Themistius is answering Aristotle's objection that a soul which moves the body could leave it and re-enter, raising the dead.
[53] The argument places the mind (the ruling part) in the chest rather than the head.
[54] Chrysippus is speaking; the inference after Zeno's reply is his. Pearson calls the passage obscure; the objection's sense is uncertain.
[55] Pearson reads φύει transitively (‘produces’); the text of κρυφθέν τε φύει is doubtful. Galen and Diogenes speak of the Stoics generally.
[56] The speaker is Cicero's Epicurean, criticising Zeno's allegorical reading of Hesiod.
[57] Zeno derives chaos from cheesthai, ‘to be poured, to flow’, so that Hesiod’s Chaos becomes the primal water.
[58] On Zeno’s reading Hesiod’s next line (Theog. 118) has to be rejected, since it would interpose another being before Eros.
[59] Iapetus is apparently connected with piptein, ‘to fall’.
[60] The Cyclopes (Kyklōpes) are read as the circular (enkyklioi) motions of the heavens.
[61] From Philodemus’ survey of Stoic theology; the twin gods Castor and Pollux are allegorised.
[62] Stobaeus’ version gives the bare ‘to live in agreement’ (with oneself); whether Zeno or Cleanthes added ‘with nature’ was disputed in antiquity.
[63] Pain is thus an indifferent to be rejected (dispreferred), not an evil.
[64] Proēgmenon literally means ‘promoted, advanced’, as a courtier ranks below the king; hence the court image.
[65] Cicero lists this, mockingly, among Zeno’s ‘maxims and precepts’ in his speech against Cato.
[66] Phronēsis (‘prudence, practical wisdom’) is the single virtue, which takes different names in different spheres. In the first passage ‘to be acted upon’ is the text as Pearson prints it.
[67] Galen contrasts Zeno, for whom passions follow judgements, with Chrysippus, for whom they are judgements.
[68] Kathēkon: an act fitting to one’s nature and circumstances, distinct from the perfectly virtuous act (katorthōma).
[69] Diogenes cites the doctrine in the story of a physiognomic test put to Cleanthes.
[70] Clement holds that Plato drew on Hebrew (‘barbarian’) wisdom.
[71] ‘Opine’ (opinari, doxazein): to assent weakly to what is not grasped with certainty, i.e. to hold mere opinion.
[72] Timon of Phlius, the Sceptic satirist, mocks the Stoic paradox that the sage does everything well.
[73] Seneca quotes this syllogism of Zeno’s in order to refute it.
[74] An allusion to the Stoic doctrine of the reasonable departure from life, and to Zeno’s own death.
[75] Line 200 of Zeno’s Republic; prose works were cited by line count.
[76] A hostile speaker in Athenaeus addresses the Stoics (‘you’).
[77] Sextus quotes these sayings to show that Stoic ethics clashes with common custom.
[78] Sextus adduces these as Stoic paradoxes against common morality. Pearson prints a full stop after the last αἰσχρόν of Outlines 3.246; the sense, as in the parallel, is a question.
[79] The dialogue makes the point that moral worth lies in the intention, not in the outward act.
[80] A hostile Christian apologist’s caricature.
[81] Indian sages were reputed to burn themselves alive unflinchingly.
[82] The speaker quoting Zeno is apparently Musonius Rufus, from his discourse on cutting the hair.
[83] Crates the Cynic was Zeno’s first teacher.
[84] In Hesiod (Works and Days 293–295) the man who thinks everything out for himself is ‘best of all’, and the one who heeds good advice comes second.
[85] Zeno’s reading of Odyssey 4.84, where the received text has ‘and the Erembi’.
[86] The logophilos gets no further than idle talk and does not confirm the doctrine of virtue by deeds.
[87] The text is corrupt at ‘instructions’ (Greek ‘things’); Pearson reports emendations meaning ‘precepts’ or ‘the precepts of the wise’.
[88] “Take on the complexion of the dead”: literally, rub skin with the dead, i.e. keep company with authors long dead.
[89] Crates of Thebes, the Cynic, became Zeno’s first teacher. The Painted Stoa (Stoa Poikilē) gave the school its name.
[90] The tribōn, a coarse worn cloak, was the badge of the philosopher.
[91] Antisthenes, pupil of Socrates, regarded as forerunner of the Cynics. A chreia is a pointed saying or anecdote.
[92] Polemon, head of the Academy, under whom Zeno studied. The retort implies free teaching should not be criticised like a purchase.
[93] Theophrastus succeeded Aristotle as head of the Peripatetic school.
[94] Stilpo of Megara, dialectician of the Megarian school, another of Zeno’s teachers.
[95] The Reaper: a fatalist argument (‘either you will reap or you will not; so “perhaps you will reap” is false’).
[96] Ariston of Chios, Zeno’s heterodox pupil. Plutarch (Education of Children 3) gives the saying to Diogenes.
[97] Text as emended by Cobet; the manuscripts speak of the voice instead.
[98] A pun: para-doxa (against received opinion) and para-noma (against law).
[99] Amoebeus: a famous lyre-singer of the time. The point: even lifeless materials, given rational order, produce harmony.
[100] I.e. he lets the insulter go unanswered.
[101] Ptolemy: king of Egypt; Antigonus Gonatas: king of Macedon, Zeno’s admirer.
[102] Lupin seeds (thermoi) are bitter until soaked in water.
[103] In the Bacchae Agave and Ino tear Pentheus apart, each taking one side of the body.
[104] A variant of Socrates’ saying: we live not to eat, but eat to live.
[105] Caphesias: a flute (aulos) teacher.
[106] The bracketed words were supplied by Menage from Hesychius of Miletus. For the Stoics the sage loves the young who show promise of virtue.
[107] Chremonides: Athenian statesman, later leader of the Chremonidean War against Macedon.
[108] Manes: a common slave name; i.e. ‘treat me like any slave’.
[109] Dionysius of Heraclea, Zeno’s pupil, who later abandoned Stoicism for the Cyrenaic doctrine of pleasure.
[110] In Seneca an objector is speaking to the Stoics.
[111] A jibe at the misuse of the Stoic doctrine of fate.
[112] The line is quoted from a tragedy, Niobe, of uncertain authorship; Zeno takes the fall as a summons from the earth.