PART II.. The Stoics.

THE STOICS.

CHAPTER III.

HISTORY OF THE STOICS UNTIL THE END OF THE SECOND CENTURY B.C.

A striking feature in the history of the post-Aristotelian philosophy, and one which at the same time brings forcibly home the thorough change in its surroundings, is the fact that so many of its representatives come from eastern countries in which Greek and Oriental modes of thought met and mingled. Although for centuries Athens still continued to have the reputation of being the chief seat of Greek philosophy, and did not cease to be one of the most important seminaries of philosophy, even when it had to share that reputation with other cities, such as Alexandria, Rome, Rhodes, and Tarsus, yet at Athens itself there were teachers not a few whose foreign extraction indicates the age of Hellenism. This remark applies primarily to the later Neoplatonic School: next to it it is of none more true than of the Stoic. With this fact may be also associated the world-citizenship of this School, though it would be unfair to attribute a general characteristic of the then state of the world to purely external circumstances. Nearly all the most important Stoics before the Christian era belong by birth to Asia Minor, to Syria, and to the islands of the Eastern Archipelago. Then follow a series of Roman Stoics, by the side of whom the Phrygian Epictetus occupies a prominent place; but Greece proper is represented only by men of third or fourth rate capacity.

The founder of the Stoic School, Zeno by name, was the son of Mnaseas, and a native of Citium in Cyprus. Leaving his home, he repaired to Athens, about the year 320 B.C., where he at first joined the Cynic Crates. He appears to have soon become disgusted with the extravagances of the Cynics’ mode of life, and his keen desire for knowledge could find no satisfaction in a teaching so meagre as theirs. To supply their defects he had recourse to Stilpo, who united to the moral teaching of the Cynics the logical acumen of the Megarians. He also studied under Polemo, and it is said under Xenocrates and Diodorus the logician, with whose pupil Philo he was on terms of intimacy. After a long course of intellectual preparation, he at last appeared as a teacher, soon after the beginning of the third, or perhaps during the last years of the fourth century B.C. From the Stoa ποικιλὴ, the place which he selected for delivering his lectures, his followers derived their name of Stoics, having first been called after their master Zenonians. Such was the universal respect inspired by his earnestness, moral strictness, and simplicity of life, and the dignity, modesty, and affability of his conduct, that Antigonus Gonatas vied with the city of Athens in showing appreciation of him. Although lacking smoothness of style and using a language far from pure, Zeno had nevertheless an extensive following. Leading a life of singular moderation, he reached an advanced age untouched by disease, although he naturally enjoyed neither robust health nor an attractive person. A slight injury having at length befallen him, which he regarded as a hint of destiny, he put an end to his own life. His not very numerous writings have been lost, with the exception of a few fragments, some no doubt dating from the time when, as a pupil of Crates, he adhered more strictly to Cynic ideas than was afterwards the case. This point ought not to be forgotten in sketching his teaching.

The successor to the chair of Zeno was Cleanthes, a native of Assos in the Troad, a man of strong and firm character, of unusual endurance, energy, and contentment, but also slow of apprehension, and somewhat heavy in intellect. Resembling Xenocrates in mind, Cleanthes was in every way adapted to uphold his master’s teaching, and to recommend it by the moral weight of his own character, but he was incapable of expanding it more completely, or of establishing it on a wider basis.

Besides Cleanthes, the best known among the pupils of Zeno are Aristo of Chios, and Herillus of Carthage, who diverged from his teaching in the most opposite directions, Aristo confining himself rigidly to Cynicism, Herillus approximating to the leading positions held by the Peripatetic School.

Other pupils of Zeno were Persæus, a countryman and companion of Zeno; Aratus, the well-known poet of Soli; Dionysius of Heraclea in Pontus, who afterwards joined the Cyrenaic or Epicurean School; and Sphærus from the Bosporus, who studied first in the School of Zeno, and afterwards in that of Cleanthes, and was the friend and adviser of Cleomenes, the unfortunate Spartan reformer. Of a few other pupils of Zeno the names are also known; but nothing beyond their names. No appreciable addition was made to the Stoic doctrine by any one of them.

It was therefore fortunate for Stoicism that Cleanthes was followed in the presidency of the School by a man of learning and argumentative power like Chrysippus. In the opinion of the ancients, Chrysippus was the second founder of Stoicism. Born in the year 280 B.C., at Soli in Cilicia, after being a pupil of Cleanthes and it is said even of Zeno himself, he succeeded, on the death of Cleanthes, to the conduct of his School. He is also said to have attended the lectures of Arcesilaus and Lacydes, philosophers of the Middle Academy; whose critical methods he so thoroughly appropriated, that later Stoics accused him of furnishing Carneades with the necessary weapons for attacking them, by the masterly manner in which he raised philosophical doubts without being able to answer them satisfactorily. This critical acuteness and skill, more than anything else, entitle him to be regarded as the second founder of Stoicism. In learning, too, he was far in advance of his predecessors, and passed for the most industrious and learned man of antiquity. Independent in tone, as his general conduct and intellectual self-reliance often proved, he deviated from the teaching of Zeno and Cleanthes, as might be expected, in many respects. Still, the fundamental principles of the system were not altered by him; only their intellectual treatment was perfected and deepened. In fact, the Stoic doctrine was expanded by him with such completeness in details, that hardly a gleaning was left for his successors to gather up. In multitude of writings he exceeded Epicurus; their titles, and a comparatively small number of fragments, being all that have come down to us. With such an extraordinary literary fertility, it will be easily understood that their artistic value is not very high. The ancients are unanimous in complaining of their careless and impure language, of their dry and often obscure style, of their prolixity, their endless repetitions, their frequent and lengthy citations, and their too frequent appeals to etymologies, authorities, and other irrelevant proofs. But by Chrysippus the Stoic teaching was brought to completeness; and when he died, in the year 206 B.C., the form was in every respect fixed in which Stoicism would be handed down for the next following centuries.

A cotemporary of Chrysippus, but probably somewhat his senior, was Teles, from whose writings a few extracts have been preserved by Stobæus, in the shape of popular moral considerations written from a Cynic or Stoical point of view. The same age also produced the Cyrenaic Eratosthenes, a man distinguished in every branch of knowledge, but particularly celebrated for his mathematical attainments, who was gained for Stoicism by Aristo. Another cotemporary of Chrysippus, and perhaps his fellow-student, who in many respects approximated to the teaching of the Peripatetics, was the Stoic Boëthus. The proper scholars of Chrysippus were without doubt numerous; but few of their names are known to us. The most important among them appear to have been Zeno of Tarsus, and Diogenes of Seleucia, who succeeded Chrysippus in the presidency of the School. The pupil and successor of Diogenes, in his turn, was Antipater of Tarsus, in connection with whom Archedemus his countryman is frequently mentioned. Under Panætius, Antipater’s scholar, Stoicism entered the Roman world, and there underwent internal changes, to which attention will be drawn in the sequel.