He sent Persaeus and Philonides the Theban, both mentioned by Epicurus, in his letter to his brother Aristobulus, as associating with Antigonus.16 I have decided to append the decree17 that the Athenians passed concerning him. It runs as follows:
10,11 In the archonship of Arrhenides, in the fifth prytany of the tribe Acamantis, on the twenty-first day of Maemacterion,18 at the twenty-third sovereign assembly of the prytany, one of the presidents, Hippon, son of Cratistoles, of the deme Xypetaeon, and his co-presidents put the question to the vote;
12 Thraso, son of Thraso, of the deme of Anacaea, moved: Whereas Zeno of Citium, son of Mnaseas, has for many years engaged in philosophy in the city, and in all other respects has continued to be an honorable man, exhorting to virtue and temperance the young who come to him for instruction, directing them toward what is best, and providing in his own way of life a pattern of conduct consistent with his doctrines, the people have seen fit—and may it turn out well—to praise Zeno of Citium, son of Mnaseas, and to crown him with a golden crown according to the law, for his virtue and temperance, and to build him a tomb in the Cerameicus at public expense.
Painted limestone funerary stele with a seated man and two standing figures, late fourth to early third century BC, Greek.
And for the making of the crown and the building of the tomb, it will now elect five citizens of Athens as commissioners; and the Clerk of the City will inscribe the decree on two pillars, and will be permitted to set up one in the Academy, the other in the Lyceum.19 And the magistrate who presides over the administration will apportion the expense incurred for the pillars, so that all may know that the people of Athens honor good men during their lives and after their death. For the building’s construction, Thraso of Anacaea, Philocles of the Piraeus, Phaedrus of Anaphlystus, Mendon of Acharnae, and Smicythus of Sypalettus have been elected commissioners.
Such is the decree.
13 Antigonus of Carystus says that the philosopher never denied that he was a citizen of Citium.20 For when he joined those who were contributing to the restoration of the bathhouse, and his name was being inscribed on the pillar as “Zeno the philosopher,” he requested that “of Citium” be added. He fashioned a hollow lid for an oil flask and used to carry money around in it, so that his teacher Crates might have a supply at hand for his necessities. They say that he had an estate of more than a thousand talents21 when he came to Greece, and that he invested this money in nautical ventures. He used to eat small loaves and honey, and drink a little fragrant wine. He procured young boys rarely; on one or two occasions he might have procured a young girl in order not to seem a misogynist. He shared the same house with Persaeus; and when the latter brought him a little flute girl, he brought her right back to Persaeus.22
14 He was so accommodating, they say, that Antigonus the king would often burst in on him with a party of revelers, and once took him along to Aristocles the kithara player for a drinking party, though Zeno soon slipped away. Antigonus of Carystus says that Zeno used to avoid being near people, and would therefore seat himself at the end of a bench, thus sparing himself one half, at any rate, of that annoyance.23 Nor would he walk about with more than two or three companions. Sometimes he would even demand a copper coin from bystanders, so that people who were reluctant to give would not crowd around him, as Cleanthes24 says in his work On Bronze. When several people stood about him in the Stoa, he would point up to the wooden fence around the altar and say, “That fence used to be located in the center, but because it was found to be a hindrance it was placed apart. Accordingly, by withdrawing from the center, you yourselves will be causing us less annoyance.”
15 Demochares, son of Laches, greeted him and bid him only to mention or write for anything he needed to Antigonus, since the king would grant Demochares’ every request;25 after hearing this, Zeno would no longer associate with him. After Zeno’s death Antigonus is reported to have said, “What an audience I have lost!” Hence he employed Thraso as an intermediary to request that the Athenians bury Zeno in the Cerameicus.26 And when asked why he admired the man he said, “Because despite the many large gifts he received from me, he was never vain, nor did he ever appear submissive.”
He was devoted to inquiry and reasoned with precision on all subjects. Hence the words of Timon in his Lampoons:
I saw as well an old Phoenician woman greedily longing,
In her darksome pride, for everything; but her basket, being small,
[overflowed with stuff,
And she had no more sense than a kindapsos.27
16 He used to debate very rigorously with Philo the dialectician28 and study with him. Hence Zeno, who was the younger man, admired Philo no less than he did his own teacher, Diodorus. He surrounded himself with ragamuffins,29 as Timon says in these lines:
Meanwhile he assembled a cloud of paupers,
The most beggarly and insignificant of townsmen.
17 Zeno himself was sullen and curt and of a shriveled countenance. He was also extremely frugal, his thrift cloaking a barbarous stinginess. If he rebuked anyone, he did so tersely, without elaborating, and keeping his distance. I allude, for example, to the remark he once made about a fop. When the man was taking great care as he stepped across a gutter, Zeno said, “He does right to look askance at the mud, since he can’t behold his reflection in it.” When a Cynic said he had no oil in his flask and asked him for some, Zeno turned him down. But as the man was going away Zeno asked, “Which of us is the more shameless?”
18 Infatuated with Chremonides,30 and sitting beside him with Cleanthes, he got up. When Cleanthes expressed surprise, Zeno said, “I hear from good doctors that the best remedy for a tumid inflammation is rest.” When he was sharing a couch at a dinner party, the man next to Zeno kicked one of the guests on the couch next to theirs. Zeno then nudged his partner with his knee; and when the man turned around, Zeno said, “How do you think your neighbor liked what you did to him?” Of a pederast he said, “Just as spending all their time with boys impairs the intelligence of schoolmasters, so it does with those people.”31
He used to say that the highly precise expressions used by purists resembled the coins minted by Alexander: these were pleasing and well rounded like the coins, but not more valuable on that account. Words of the opposite kind he likened to the Attic tetradrachms,32 which are struck crudely and without care; these discourses carried more weight than the more polished phrases. When his student Ariston33 discoursed at length and gracelessly, and in some instances rashly and recklessly, Zeno would say, “It could only mean that your father was drunk when he sired you.” Hence he called Ariston a chatterbox, he himself being concise in speech.
19 There was a glutton who left nothing for his tablemates. One day, when a large fish was served, Zeno raised it up as if he would devour it himself. When the man looked at him, he said, “What do you suppose your tablemates suffer every day, if you can’t put up with my gluttony just this once?” When a young fellow was posing a question more zealously than became his years, Zeno led him to a mirror and told him to look in it. He then asked whether the boy thought it suitable for someone who looked like that to ask such questions. Someone claimed not to agree with Antisthenes on many points,34 whereupon Zeno presented the man with a maxim of Sophocles’ and asked whether he thought it was any good. When the man said he did not know, Zeno said, “Aren’t you ashamed to pick out and cite something bad said by Antisthenes, but to make no effort to retain something good?”
20 When someone said he thought the maxims of the philosophers seemed brief, Zeno said, “You are right. And their syllables should be shortened as well, if possible.” When someone talking to him about Polemon35 said that the man announced one topic but spoke on another, Zeno frowned and said, “What of it? Do you not value what was offered?” He said that one who converses intelligently should possess, like actors, a powerful voice and great strength; but he should not open his mouth too wide; that’s what people do who cha
tter at length but say impossible things. He said that able speakers, like good artisans, need not pause to have their skills appreciated; on the contrary, the listener should be so caught up in the discourse that he has no time to take notes.
Left: A silver tetradrachm (four-drachma coin) with the head of Alexander, minted in Amphipolis, Thrace, late fourth or early third century BC. Right: An Attic tetradrachm from the mid-fifth century BC. Athenian “Owls,” as they were called, were minted in Athens for over four hundred years, beginning in 512 BC. Although the style evolved, the coins retained the same basic design of Athena on the obverse and the owl, her symbol, on the reverse.
21 When a young man was babbling at length, he said, “Your ears have merged with your tongue.” To the handsome fellow who said he thought the wise man would not fall in love, he said, “Then nothing will be more wretched than the condition of beauties like you.” He used to say of the philosophers that most were unwise about many matters, but about small and ordinary things quite learned. He used to cite the saying of Caphisius, who, when one of his music students was trying to blow loudly on the flute, cuffed him and said that playing well does not depend on playing loudly, whereas playing loudly should depend on playing well. When some young man was discoursing rather impudently, he said, “I would rather not say, lad, what comes into my head.”
22 A certain Rhodian, handsome and rich, but nothing more, became greatly attached to him; but Zeno’s reluctance to put up with him was such that he began by making him sit on the dusty benches, so that he might soil his cloak; then he placed him where the beggars sat, so that he would rub up against their rags; and finally the young man departed. He used to say that the most unbecoming of all things was arrogance, especially in the young. He said it was not the words and expressions we should remember, as if we were merely tasting some well-cooked dish or dressing; rather, we should apply our minds to making good use of what we hear. He used to say that the young should behave with perfect propriety in walk, demeanor, and attire, and he was constantly quoting Euripides’ verses about Capaneus:
23 Though his fortune was
He was by no means proud of his wealth; his ambition
Was no grander than that of a poor man.36
He used to say that for one who wishes to master the sciences, nothing is so detrimental as conceit, and there is nothing one needs more than time. When asked what is a friend, he replied, “A second self.” One day, they say, he was flogging a slave for stealing, and when the man said, “I am fated to steal,” Zeno replied, “And to be thrashed.” Beauty he called the flower of moderation (though others say that he called moderation the flower of beauty). One day, seeing the slave of one of his friends marked with bruises, he said, “I see the footprints of your anger.” To someone who had smeared himself with myrrh,37 he said, “Who gives off the scent of a woman?” When Dionysius the Turncoat38 asked him why he was the only student Zeno did not correct, he replied, “Because I cannot trust you.” To a lad talking nonsense, he said, “The reason we have two ears and one mouth is so that we may hear more and talk less.”
24 Reclining in silence at a drinking party, and asked the reason, he urged his critic to report to the king that there was someone present who knew how to keep silent. He was being questioned by some ambassadors from Ptolemy,39 and they wished to know what they should say about him to the king. When asked how he felt about abuse, he replied, “As an ambassador feels who is dismissed without an answer.” Apollonius of Tyre says that when Crates tried to drag him away from Stilpo by his cloak, Zeno remarked, “Crates, the clever way to seize a philosopher is by his ears.40 So persuade me and drag me away by them. For if you use violence, my body will be with you, but my mind with Stilpo.”
25 According to Hippobotus, he also studied with Diodorus, with whom he worked hard at dialectic. And when he had made some progress he would attend Polemon’s lectures, so free was he of arrogance.41 Consequently Polemon is reported to have said to him, “You do not escape me, Zeno, slipping in by the garden door, stealing my doctrines, and clothing them in a Phoenician style.” When a dialectician showed him seven dialectical patterns in the Reaper argument,42 he asked how much he would charge for them; on hearing “a hundred drachmas,” he gave the man two hundred, so devoted was he to learning. They say that he was the first to coin the word “duty”43 and to write a treatise about it. He is also said to have rewritten Hesiod’s lines as follows:44
He is best of all who follows good advice;
Noble too is the man who thinks up everything for himself.
26 For he said that the man capable of listening well to what is said and applying it himself is superior to him who finds everything out for himself. For the latter has merely gained proper understanding, while he who has learned to take advice has also added proper conduct.
When asked why, though austere, he relaxed at a drinking party, he said, “Lupines45 too are bitter, but when soaked they become sweet.” Hecaton too, in the second book of his Anecdotes, says that Zeno relaxed at such gatherings. He used to say it was better to trip with one’s feet than with one’s tongue. He said that well-being is attained little by little, yet it is no little thing itself. Some attribute this saying to Socrates.
His powers of endurance and the austerity of his way of life were unequaled; the food he ate was uncooked, and the cloak he wore was thin. Hence it was said of him:
27 Daunted not by winter’s cold, by endless rain,
By the heat of the sun, by sickness dire,
Shunning public feasts, never yielding,
He cleaves to his studies day and night.46
In fact the comic poets unwittingly praise him with their jokes. Philemon, for example, in his comedy Philosophers, says:
One loaf, dried figs, a cup of water.
For he propounds a novel philosophy:
He teaches hunger, and gets pupils.
Some attribute these lines to Posidippus.47
Before long he became almost proverbial. At any rate, a saying about him ran as follows:
More temperate than Zeno the philosopher.
Posidippus too, in Men Transported, says:
So that for ten days
He seemed more master of himself than Zeno.
28 For in truth he surpassed everyone in this aspect of virtue, and in dignity, and yes, by Zeus, in happiness. For he was ninety-eight years old when he died, and he had kept healthy and free of illness to the end. Persaeus, however, in his Ethical Discourses, says that he died at seventy-two and that he came to Athens at twenty-two. Apollonius says he led his school for fifty-eight years. He died in the following way. As he was leaving the school, he tripped and broke his finger. Smiting the ground with his hand, he uttered the line from the Niobe,
29
I am coming. Why do you call for me?48
and died instantly by stopping his breath.
The Athenians buried him in the Cerameicus and honored him in the decrees cited above, adding their testimony of his excellence. And Antiphon of Sidon49 composed this epitaph for him:
Here lies renowned Zeno, dear to Citium, who scaled Olympus,
Not by piling Pelion on Ossa,50
Nor by toiling at the labors of Heracles. To the stars
He found the path: that of temperance alone.
Gem of transparent blue glass paste, engraved with a bust of Zeno, Roman, first to third century.
Zenodotus the Stoic, a student of Diogenes,51 wrote another:
30 You invented self-sufficiency,52 casting aside
Haughty wealth, noble Zeno, gray of brow.
For you discovered a manly doctrine,
And founded a school, a mother of fearless liberty.
If Phoenicia was your native land, why should we bear a grudge?
Came not Cadmus thence, who gave Greece her books and writing?53
And Athenaeus the epigrammatist speaks thus about the Stoics in general:
You who are ad
epts in Stoic learning,
And have committed to your tablets the finest doctrines,
Teaching that the soul’s virtue is the only good.
For it alone protects the lives and cities of men.
But pleasure of the flesh, an end adored by other men,
Only one of the daughters of Memory attains.54
31 We have ourselves, in the Pammetros,55 discussed the manner of Zeno’s death:
They say that Zeno of Citium died; weary of an old man’s ills,
He sought release by fasting;
Others say that, stumbling one day, he beat the earth with his hand,
Crying, “I am coming of my own accord; why then do you call me?”
For there are some who give this account of his death. So much, then, concerning his death.
32 Demetrius of Magnesia, in Men of the Same Name, says that Zeno’s father, Mnaseas, being a trader, came often to Athens and brought home many books about Socrates for Zeno, who was still a boy. Thus even in his native place he got good training; and then, on reaching Athens, he attached himself to Crates. And it seems, he adds, that when the
33 There are some, however, including Cassius the Skeptic and his circle, who denounce Zeno on many grounds. They say, first of all, that he declared, at the beginning of his Republic, that general education is useless; and secondly, that all persons who are not good are enemies, foes, slaves, and alien to one another: parents to children, brothers to brothers, and kinsmen to kinsmen. Again, in the Republic, he claims that only the good are citizens, friends, kinsmen, and free, so that for the Stoics parents and children are enemies, since they are not wise.58 Also in the Republic he holds that wives should be held in common, and at
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers Page 39
