According to Hippobotus, he forgathered with Diodorus, with whom he worked hard at dialectic. And when he was already making progress, he would enter Polemo's school: so far from all self-conceit was he.
In consequence Polemo is said to have addressed him thus: "You slip in, Zeno, by the garden door—I'm quite aware of it—you filch my doctrines and give them a Phoenician make-up."
A dialectician once showed him seven logical forms concerned with the sophism known as "The Reaper," and Zeno asked him how much he wanted for them. Being told a hundred drachmas, he promptly paid two hundred: to such lengths would he go in his love of learning.
They say too that he first introduced the word Duty and wrote a treatise on the subject. It is said, moreover, that he corrected Hesiod's lines thus:
He is best of all men who follows good advice; good too is he who finds out all things for himself.
[Zeno has reversed Hesiod's order]
—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.25
IMAGE: Polemon, or Polemo, one of Zeno's teachers, as depicted in a Renaissance manuscript
No comments:
Post a Comment