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TEXT: Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book 7: The Stoics (tr C.D. Yonge)

Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
Book 7: The Stoics (tr C.D. Yonge, 1895)
LIFE OF ZENO.

I. Zeno was the son of Mnaseas, or Demeas, and a native of Citium, in
Cyprus, which is a Grecian city, partly occupied by a Phœnician colony.

II. He had his head naturally bent on one side, as Timotheus, the
Athenian, tells us, in his work on Lives. And Apollonius, the Tyrian,
says that he was thin, very tall, of a dark complexion; in reference
to which some one once called him an Egyptian Clematis, as Chrysippus
relates in the first volume of his Proverbs: he had fat, flabby, weak
legs, on which account Persæus, in his Convivial Reminiscences, says that
he used to refuse many invitations to supper; and he was very fond, as it
is said, of figs both fresh and dried in the sun.

III. He was a pupil, as has been already stated, of Crates. After that,
they say that he became a pupil of Stilpon and of Xenocrates, for ten
years, as Timocrates relates in his Life of Dion. He is also said to have
been a pupil of Polemo. But Hecaton, and Apollonius, of Tyre, in the
first book of his essay on Zeno, say that when he consulted the oracle,
as to what he ought to do to live in the most excellent manner, the God
answered him that he ought to become of the same complexion as the dead,
on which he inferred that he ought to apply himself to the reading of the
books of the ancients. Accordingly, he attached himself to Crates in the
following manner. Having purchased a quantity of purple from Phœnicia,
he was shipwrecked close to the Piræus; and when he had made his way
from the coast as far as Athens, he sat down by a bookseller’s stall,
being now about thirty years of age. And as he took up the second book
of Xenophon’s Memorabilia and began to read it, he was delighted with
it, and asked where such men as were described in that book lived; and
as Crates happened very seasonably to pass at the moment, the bookseller
pointed him out, and said, “Follow that man.” From that time forth
he became a pupil of Crates; but though he was in other respects very
energetic in his application to philosophy, still he was too modest for
the shamelessness of the Cynics. On which account, Crates, wishing to
cure him of this false shame, gave him a jar of lentil porridge to carry
through the Ceramicus; and when he saw that he was ashamed, and that he
endeavoured to hide it, he struck the jar with his staff, and broke it;
and, as Zeno fled away, and the lentil porridge ran all down his legs,
Crates called after him, “Why do you run away, my little Phœnician,
you have done no harm?” For some time then he continued a pupil of
Crates, and when he wrote his treatise entitled the Republic, some said,
jokingly, that he had written it upon the tail of the dog.

IV. And besides his Republic, he was the author also of the following
works:—a treatise on a Life according to Nature; one on Appetite, or the
Nature of Man; one on Passions; one on the Becoming; one on Law; one on
the usual Education of the Greeks; one on Sight; one on the Whole; one
on Signs; one on the Doctrines of the Pythagoreans; one on Things in
General; one on Styles; five essays on Problems relating to Homer; one
on the Bearing of the Poets. There is also an essay on Art by him, and
two books of Solutions and Jests, and Reminiscences, and one called the
Ethics of Crates. These are the books of which he was the author.

V. But at last he left Crates, and became the pupil of the philosophers
whom I have mentioned before, and continued with them for twenty years.
So that it is related that he said, “I now find that I made a prosperous
voyage when I was wrecked.” But some affirm that he made this speech in
reference to Crates. Others say, that while he was staying at Athens he
heard of a shipwreck, and said, “Fortune does well in having driven us on
philosophy.” But as some relate the affair, he was not wrecked at all,
but sold all his cargo at Athens, and then turned to philosophy.

VI. And he used to walk up and down in the beautiful colonnade which is
called the Peisianactium, and which is also called ποικίλη, from the
paintings of Polygnotus, and there he delivered his discourses, wishing
to make that spot tranquil; for in the time of the thirty, nearly
fourteen hundred of the citizens had been murdered there by them.

VII. Accordingly, for the future, men came thither to hear him, and from
this his pupils were called Stoics, and so were his successors also, who
had been at first called Zenonians, as Epicurus tells us in his Epistles.
And before this time, the poets who frequented this colonnade (στοὰ) had
been called Stoics, as we are informed by Eratosthenes, in the eighth
book of his treatise on the Old Comedy; but now Zeno’s pupils made the
name more notorious. Now the Athenians had a great respect for Zeno, so
that they gave him the keys of their walls, and they also honoured him
with a golden crown, and a brazen statue; and this was also done by his
own countrymen, who thought the statue of such a man an honour to their
city. And the Cittiæans, in the district of Sidon, also claimed him as
their countryman.

VIII. He was also much respected by Antigonus, who, whenever he came to
Athens, used to attend his lectures, and was constantly inviting him to
come to him. But he begged off himself, and sent Persæus, one of his
intimate friends, who was the son of Demetrius, and a Cittiæan by birth,
and who flourished about the hundred and thirtieth olympiad, when Zeno
was an old man. The letter of Antigonus to Zeno was as follows, and it is
reported by Apollonius, the Syrian, in his essay on Zeno.

KING ANTIGONUS TO ZENO THE PHILOSOPHER, GREETING.

“I think that in good fortune and glory I have the advantage of you; but
in reason and education I am inferior to you, and also in that perfect
happiness which you have attained to. On which account I have thought
it good to address you, and invite you to come to me, being convinced
that you will not refuse what is asked of you. Endeavour, therefore, by
all means to come to me, considering this fact, that you will not be the
instructor of me alone, but of all the Macedonians together. For he who
instructs the ruler of the Macedonians, and who leads him in the path of
virtue, evidently marshals all his subjects on the road to happiness. For
as the ruler is, so is it natural that his subjects for the most part
should be also.”

And Zeno wrote him back the following answer.

ZENO TO KING ANTIGONUS, GREETING.

“I admire your desire for learning, as being a true object for the wishes
of mankind, and one too that tends to their advantage. And the man who
aims at the study of philosophy has a proper disregard for the popular
kind of instruction which tends only to the corruption of the morals.
And you, passing by the pleasure which is so much spoken of, which
makes the minds of some young men effeminate, show plainly that you are
inclined to noble pursuits, not merely by your nature, but also by your
own deliberate choice. And a noble nature, when it has received even a
slight degree of training, and which also meets with those who will teach
it abundantly, proceeds without difficulty to a perfect attainment of
virtue. But I now find my bodily health impaired by old age, for I am
eighty years old: on which account I am unable to come to you. But I send
you some of those who have studied with me, who in that learning which
has reference to the soul, are in no respect inferior to me, and in their
bodily vigour are greatly my superiors. And if you associate with them
you will want nothing that can bear upon perfect happiness.”

So he sent him Persæus and Philonides, the Theban, both of whom are
mentioned by Epicurus, in his letter to his brother Aristobulus, as being
companions of Antigonus.

IX. And I have thought it worth while also to set down the decree of the
Athenians concerning him; and it is couched in the following language.

“In the archonship of Arrhenides, in the fifth presidency of the tribe
Acamantis, on the twenty-first day of the month Maimacterion, on the
twenty-third day of the aforesaid presidency, in a duly convened
assembly, Hippo, the son of Cratistoteles, of the borough of Xypetion,
being one of the presidents, and the rest of the presidents, his
colleagues, put the following decree to the vote. And the decree was
proposed by Thrason, of Anacæa, the son of Thrason.

“Since Zeno the son of Mnaseas, the Cittiæan, has passed many years
in the city, in the study of philosophy, being in all other respects
a good man, and also exhorting all the young men who have sought his
company to the practice of virtue, and encouraging them in the practice
of temperance; making his own life a model to all men of the greatest
excellence, since it has in every respect corresponded to the doctrines
which he has taught; it has been determined by the people (and may the
determination be fortunate), to praise Zeno, the son of Mnaseas, the
Cittiæan, and to present him with a golden crown in accordance with the
law, on account of his virtue and temperance, and to build him a tomb in
the Ceramicus, at the public expense. And the people has appointed by
its vote five men from among the citizens of Athens, who shall see to
the making of the crown and the building of the tomb. And the scribe of
the borough shall enrol the decree and engrave it on two pillars, and he
shall be permitted to place one pillar in the Academy, and one in the
Lyceum. And he who is appointed to superintend the work shall divide the
expense that the pillars amount to, in such a way that every one may
understand that the whole people of Athens honours good men both while
they are living and after they are dead. And Thrason of Anacæa, Philocles
of the Piræus, Phædrus of Anaphlystos, Medon of Acharnæ, Micythus of
Sypalettus, and Dion of Pæania, are hereby appointed to superintend the
building of the tomb.”

These then are the terms of the decree.

X. But Antigonus, of Carystos, says, that Zeno himself never denied that
he was a native of Cittium. For that when on one occasion, there was a
citizen of that town who had contributed to the building of some baths,
and was having his name engraved on the pillar, as the countryman of Zeno
the philosopher, he bade them add, “Of Cittium.”

XI. And at another time, when he had had a hollow covering made for some
vessel, he carried it about for some money, in order to procure present
relief for some difficulties which were distressing Crates his master.
And they say that he, when he first arrived in Greece, had more than a
thousand talents, which he lent out at nautical usury.

XII. And he used to eat little loaves and honey, and to drink a small
quantity of sweet smelling wine.

XIII. He had very few youthful acquaintances of the male sex, and he did
not cultivate them much, lest he should be thought to be a misogynist.
And he dwelt in the same house with Persæus; and once, when he brought in
a female flute-player to him, he hastened to bring her back to him.

XIV. And he was, it is said, of a very accommodating temper; so much so,
that Antigonus, the king, often came to dine with him, and often carried
him off to dine with him, at the house of Aristocles the harp-player; but
when he was there, he would presently steal away.

XV. It is also said that he avoided a crowd with great care, so that he
used to sit at the end of a bench, in order at all events to avoid being
incommoded on one side. And he never used to walk with more than two or
three companions. And he used at times to exact a piece of money from all
who came to hear him, with a view of not being distressed by numbers; and
this story is told by Cleanthes, in his treatise on Brazen Money. And
when he was surrounded by any great crowd, he would point to a balustrade
of wood at the end of the colonnade which surrounded an altar, and say,
“That was once in the middle of this place, but it was placed apart
because it was in people’s way; and now, if you will only withdraw from
the middle here, you too will incommode me much less.”

XVI. And when Demochares, the son of Laches, embraced him once, and said
that he would tell Antigonus, or write to him of everything which he
wanted, as he always did everything for him, Zeno, when he had heard him
say this, avoided his company for the future. And it is said, that after
the death of Zeno, Antigonus said, “What a spectacle have I lost.” On
which account he employed Thrason, their ambassador, to entreat of the
Athenians to allow him to be buried in the Ceramicus. And when he was
asked why he had such an admiration for him, he replied, “Because, though
I gave him a great many important presents, he was never elated, and
never humbled.”

XVII. He was a man of a very investigating spirit, and one who inquired
very minutely into everything; in reference to which, Timon, in his
Silli, speaks thus:—

    I saw an aged woman of Phœnicia,
    Hungry and covetous, in a proud obscurity,
    Longing for everything. She had a basket
    So full of holes that it retained nothing.
    Likewise her mind was less than a skindapsus.[81]

He used to study very carefully with Philo, the dialectician, and to
argue with him at their mutual leisure; on which account he excited the
wonder of the younger Zeno, no less than Diodorus his master.

XVIII. There were also a lot of dirty beggars always about him, as Timon
tells us, where he says:—

    Till he collected a vast cloud of beggars,
    Who were of all men in the world the poorest,
    And the most worthless citizens of Athens.

And he himself was a man of a morose and bitter countenance, with a
constantly frowning expression. He was very economical, and descended
even to the meanness of the barbarians, under the pretence of economy.

XIX. If he reproved any one, he did it with brevity and without
exaggeration, and as it were, at a distance. I allude, for instance, to
the way in which he spoke of a man who took exceeding pains in setting
himself off, for as he was crossing a gutter with great hesitation, he
said, “He is right to look down upon the mud, for he cannot see himself
in it.” And when some Cynic one day said that he had no oil in his
cruise, and asked him for some, he refused to give him any, but bade him
go away and consider which of the two was the more impudent. He was very
much in love with Chremonides; and once, when he and Cleanthes were both
sitting by him, he got up; and as Cleanthes wondered at this, he said,
“I hear from skilful physicians that the best thing for some tumours
is rest.” Once, when two people were sitting above him at table at a
banquet, and the one next him kept kicking the other with his foot, he
himself kicked him with his knee; and when he turned round upon him for
doing so, he said, “Why then do you think that your other neighbour is to
be treated in this way by you?”

On one occasion he said to a man who was very fond of young boys,
that “Schoolmasters who were always associating with boys had no more
intellect than the boys themselves.” He used also to say that the
discourses of those men who were careful to avoid solecisms, and to
adhere to the strictest rules of composition, were like Alexandrine
money, they were pleasing to the eye and well-formed like the coin, but
were nothing the better for that; but those who were not so particular
he likened to the Attic tetradrachmas, which were struck at random and
without any great nicety, and so he said that their discourses often
outweighed the more polished styles of the others. And when Ariston, his
disciple, had been holding forth a good deal without much wit, but still
in some points with a good deal of readiness and confidence, he said to
him, “It would be impossible for you to speak thus, if your father had
not been drunk when he begat you;” and for the same reason he nicknamed
him the chatterer, as he himself was very concise in his speeches. Once,
when he was in company with an epicure who usually left nothing for his
messmates, and when a large fish was set before him, he took it all as
if he could eat the whole of it; and when the others looked at him with
astonishment, he said, “What then do you think that your companions feel
every day, if you cannot bear with my gluttony for one day?”

On one occasion, when a youth was asking him questions with a pertinacity
unsuited to his age, he led him to a looking-glass and bade him look at
himself, and then asked him whether such questions appeared suitable to
the face he saw there. And when a man said before him once, that in most
points he did not agree with the doctrines of Antisthenes, he quoted to
him an apophthegm of Sophocles, and asked him whether he thought there
was much sense in that, and when he said that he did not know, “Are you
not then ashamed,” said he, “to pick out and recollect anything bad
which may have been said by Antisthenes, but not to regard or remember
whatever is said that is good?” A man once said, that the sayings of the
philosophers appeared to him very trivial; “You say true,” replied Zeno,
“and their syllables too ought to be short, if that is possible.” When
some one spoke to him of Polemo, and said that he proposed one question
for discussion and then argued another, he became angry, and said, “At
what value did he estimate the subject that had been proposed?” And he
said that a man who was to discuss a question ought to have a loud voice
and great energy, like the actors, but not to open his mouth too wide,
which those who speak a great deal but only talk nonsense usually do. And
he used to say that there was no need for those who argued well to leave
their hearers room to look about them, as good workmen do who want to
have their work seen; but that, on the contrary, those who are listening
to them ought to be so attentive to all that is said as to have no
leisure to take notes.

Once when a young man was talking a great deal, he said, “Your ears have
run down into your tongue.” On one occasion a very handsome man was
saying that a wise man did not appear to him likely to fall in love;
“Then,” said he, “I cannot imagine anything that will be more miserable
than you good-looking fellows.” He also used often to say that most
philosophers were wise in great things, but ignorant of petty subjects
and chance details; and he used to cite the saying of Caphesius, who,
when one of his pupils was labouring hard to be able to blow very
powerfully, gave him a slap, and said, that excellence did not depend
upon greatness, but greatness on excellence. Once, when a young man was
arguing very confidently, he said, “I should not like to say, O youth,
all that occurs to me.” And once, when a handsome and wealthy Rhodian,
but one who had no other qualification, was pressing him to take him as
a pupil, he, as he was not inclined to receive him, first of all made
him sit on the dusty seats that he might dirt his cloak, then he put him
down in the place of the poor that he might rub against their rags, and
at last the young man went away. One of his sayings used to be, that
vanity was the most unbecoming of all things, and especially so in the
young. Another was, that one ought not to try and recollect the exact
words and expressions of a discourse, but to fix all one’s attention on
the arrangement of the arguments, instead of treating it as if it were a
piece of boiled meat, or some delicate eatable. He used also to say that
young men ought to maintain the most scrupulous reserve in their walking,
their gait, and their dress; and he was constantly quoting the lines of
Euripides on Capaneus, that—

                      His wealth was ample.
    But yet no pride did mingle with his state,
    Nor had he haughty thought, or arrogance
    More than the poorest man.

And one of his sayings used to be, that nothing was more unfriendly to
the comprehension of the accurate sciences than poetry; and that there
was nothing that we stood in so much need of as time. When he was asked
what a friend was, he replied, “Another I.” They say that he was once
scourging a slave whom he had detected in theft; and when he said to
him, “It was fated that I should steal;” he rejoined, “Yes, and that
you should be beaten.” He used to call beauty the flower of the voice;
but some report this as if he had said that the voice is the flower of
beauty. On one occasion, when he saw a slave belonging to one of his
friends severely bruised, he said to his friend, “I see the footsteps
of your anger.” He once accosted a man who was all over unguents
and perfumes, “Who is this who smells like a woman?” When Dionysius
Metathemenus asked him why he was the only person whom he did not
correct, he replied, “Because I have no confidence in you.” A young man
was talking a great deal of nonsense, and he said to him, “This is the
reason why we have two ears and only one mouth, that we may hear more and
speak less.”

Once, when he was at an entertainment and remained wholly silent, he was
asked what the reason was; and so he bade the person who found fault with
him tell the king that there was a man in the room who knew how to hold
his tongue; now the people who asked him this were ambassadors who had
come from Ptolemy, and who wished to know what report they were to make
of him to the king. He was once asked how he felt when people abused him,
and he said, “As an ambassador feels when he is sent away without an
answer.” Apollonius of Tyre tells us, that when Crates dragged him by the
cloak away from Stilpo, he said, “O Crates, the proper way to take hold
of philosophers is by the ears; so now do you convince me and drag me by
them; but if you use force towards me, my body may be with you, but my
mind with Stilpo.”

XX. He used to devote a good deal of time to Diodorus, as we learn from
Hippobotus; and he studied dialectics under him. And when he had made
a good deal of progress he attached himself to Polemo because of his
freedom from arrogance, so that it is reported that he said to him,
“I am not ignorant, O Zeno, that you slip into the garden-door and
steal my doctrines, and then clothe them in a Phœnician dress.” When a
dialectician once showed him seven species of dialectic argument in the
mowing argument,[82] he asked him how much he charged for them, and when
he said “A hundred drachmas,” he gave him two hundred, so exceedingly
devoted was he to learning.

XXI. They say too, that he was the first who ever employed the word duty
(καθῆκον), and who wrote a treatise on the subject. And that he altered
the lines of Hesiod thus:—

    He is the best of all men who submits
    To follow good advice; he too is good,
    Who of himself perceives whate’er is fit.[83]

For he said that that man who had the capacity to give a proper hearing
to what was said, and to avail himself of it, was superior to him who
comprehended everything by his own intellect; for that the one had only
comprehension, but the one who took good advice had action also.

XXII. When he was asked why he, who was generally austere, relaxed at a
dinner party, he said, “Lupins too are bitter, but when they are soaked
they become sweet.” And Hecaton, in the second book of his Apophthegms,
says, that in entertainments of that kind, he used to indulge himself
freely. And he used to say that it was better to trip with the feet, than
with the tongue. And that goodness was attained by little and little,
but was not itself a small thing. Some authors, however, attribute this
saying to Socrates.

XXIII. He was a person of great powers of abstinence and endurance; and
of very simple habits, living on food which required no fire to dress it,
and wearing a thin cloak, so that it was said of him:—

    The cold of winter, and the ceaseless rain,
    Come powerless against him; weak is the dart
    Of the fierce summer sun, or fell disease,
    To bend that iron frame. He stands apart,
    In nought resembling the vast common crowd;
    But, patient and unwearied, night and day,
    Clings to his studies and philosophy.

XXIV. And the comic poets, without intending it, praise him in their very
attempts to turn him into ridicule. Philemon speaks thus of him in his
play entitled the Philosophers:—

    This man adopts a new philosophy,
    He teaches to be hungry; nevertheless,
    He gets disciples. Bread his only food,
    His best desert dried figs; water his drink.

But some attribute these lines to Posidippus. And they have become
almost a proverb. Accordingly it used to be said of him, “More temperate
than Zeno the philosopher.” Posidippus also writes thus in his Men
Transported:—

    So that for ten whole days he did appear
    More temperate than Zeno’s self.

XXV. For in reality he did surpass all men in this description of virtue,
and in dignity of demeanour, and, by Jove, in happiness. For he lived
ninety-eight years, and then died, without any disease, and continuing in
good health to the last. But Persæus, in his Ethical School, states that
he died at the age of seventy-two, and that he came to Athens when he
was twenty-two years old. But Apollonius says that he presided over his
school for forty-eight years.

XXVI. And he died in the following manner. When he was going out of his
school, he tripped, and broke one of his toes; and striking the ground
with his hand, he repeated the line out of the Niobe:—

    I come: why call me so?

And immediately he strangled himself, and so he died. But the Athenians
buried him in the Ceramicus, and honoured him with the decrees which I
have mentioned before, bearing witness to his virtue. And Antipater, the
Sidonian, wrote an inscription for him, which runs thus:—

    Here Cittium’s pride, wise Zeno, lies, who climb’d
    The summits of Olympus; but unmoved
    By wicked thoughts ne’er strove to raise on Ossa
    The pine-clad Pelion; nor did he emulate
    Th’ immortal toils of Hercules; but found
    A new way for himself to th’ highest heaven,
    By virtue, temperance, and modesty.

And Zenodotus, the Stoic, a disciple of Diogenes, wrote another:—

    You made contentment the chief rule of life,
    Despising haughty wealth, O God-like Zeno.
    With solemn look, and hoary brow serene,
    You taught a manly doctrine; and didst found
    By your deep wisdom, a great novel school,
    Chaste parent of unfearing liberty.
    And if your country was Phœnicia,
    Why need we grieve, from that land Cadmus came,
    Who gave to Greece her written books of wisdom.

And Athenæus, the Epigrammatic poet, speaks thus of all the Stoics in
common:—

    O, ye who’ve learnt the doctrines of the Porch,
    And have committed to your books divine
    The best of human learning; teaching men
    That the mind’s virtue is the only good.
    And she it is who keeps the lives of men,
    And cities, safer than high gates or walls.
    But those who place their happiness in pleasure,
    Are led by the least worthy of the Muses.

And we also have ourselves spoken of the manner of Zeno’s death, in our
collection of poems in all metres, in the following terms:—

    Some say that Zeno, pride of Cittium,
    Died of old age, when weak and quite worn out;
    Some say that famine’s cruel tooth did slay him;
    Some that he fell, and striking hard the ground,
    Said, “See, I come, why call me thus impatiently?”

For some say that this was the way in which he died. And this is enough
to say concerning his death.

XXVII. But Demetrius, the Magnesian, says, in his essay on People of
the Same Name, that his father Mnaseas often came to Athens, as he was
a merchant, and that he used to bring back many of the books of the
Socratic philosophers, to Zeno, while he was still only a boy; and that,
from this circumstance, Zeno had already become talked of in his own
country; and that in consequence of this he went to Athens, where he
attached himself to Crates. And it seems, he adds, that it was he who
first recommended a clear enunciation of principles, as the best remedy
for error. He is said, too, to have been in the habit of swearing “By
Capers,” as Socrates swore “By the Dog.”

XXVIII. Some, indeed, among whom is Cassius the Sceptic, attack Zeno
on many accounts, saying first of all that he denounced the general
system of education in vogue at the time, as useless, which he did in
the beginning of his Republic. And in the second place, that he used to
call all who were not virtuous, adversaries, and enemies, and slaves,
and unfriendly to one another, parents to their children, brethren to
brethren, and kinsmen to kinsmen; and again, that in his Republic, he
speaks of the virtuous as the only citizens, and friends, and relations,
and free men, so that in the doctrine of the Stoic, even parents and
their children are enemies; for they are not wise. Also, that he lays
down the principle of the community of women both in his Republic and in
a poem of two hundred verses, and teaches that neither temples nor courts
of law, nor gymnasia, ought to be erected in a city; moreover, that he
writes thus about money, “That he does not think that men ought to coin
money either for purposes of traffic, or of travelling.” Besides all
this, he enjoins men and women to wear the same dress, and to leave no
part of their person uncovered.

XXIX. And that this treatise on the Republic is his work we are assured
by Chrysippus, in his Republic. He also discussed amatory subjects in the
beginning of that book of his which is entitled the Art of Love. And in
his Conversations he writes in a similar manner.

Such are the charges made against him by Cassius, and also by Isidorus,
of Pergamus, the orator, who says that all the unbecoming doctrines and
assertions of the Stoics were cut out of their books by Athenodorus,
the Stoic, who was the curator of the library at Pergamus. And that
subsequently they were replaced, as Athenodorus was detected, and placed
in a situation of great danger; and this is sufficient to say about those
doctrines of his which were impugned.

XXX. There were eight different persons of the name of Zeno. The first
was the Eleatic, whom we shall mention hereafter; the second was this
man of whom we are now speaking; the third was a Rhodian, who wrote a
history of his country in one book; the fourth was a historian who wrote
an account of the expedition of Pyrrhus into Italy and Sicily; and also
an epitome of the transactions between the Romans and Carthaginians; the
fifth was a disciple of Chrysippus, who wrote very few books, but who
left a great number of disciples; the sixth was a physician of Herophila,
a very shrewd man in intellect, but a very indifferent writer; the
seventh was a grammarian, who, besides other writings, has left some
epigrams behind him; the eighth was a Sidonian by descent, a philosopher
of the Epicurean school, a deep thinker, and very clear writer.

XXXI. The disciples of Zeno were very numerous. The most eminent were,
first of all, Persæus, of Cittium, the son of Demetrius, whom some call
a friend of his, but others describe him as a servant and one of the
amanuenses who were sent to him by Antigonus, to whose son, Halcyoneus,
he also acted as tutor. And Antigonus once, wishing to make trial of him,
caused some false news to be brought to him that his estate had been
ravaged by the enemy; and as he began to look gloomy at this news, he
said to him, “You see that wealth is not a matter of indifference.”

The following works are attributed to him. One on Kingly Power; one
entitled the Constitution of the Lacedæmonians; one on Marriage; one
on Impiety; the Thyestes; an Essay on Love; a volume of Exhortations;
one of Conversations; four of Apophthegms; one of Reminiscences; seven
treatises, the Laws of Plato.

The next was Ariston, of Chios, the son of Miltiades, who was the
first author of the doctrine of indifference; then Herillus, who
called knowledge the chief good; then Dionysius, who transferred this
description to pleasure; as, on account of the violent disease which he
had in his eyes, he could not yet bring himself to call pain a thing
indifferent. He was a native of Heraclea; there was also Sphærus, of the
Bosphorus; and Cleanthes, of Assos, the son of Phanias, who succeeded him
in his school, and whom he used to liken to tablets of hard wax, which
are written upon with difficulty, but which retain what is written upon
them. And after Zeno’s death, Sphærus became a pupil of Cleanthes. And we
shall speak of him in our account of Cleanthes.

These also were all disciples of Zeno, as we are told by Hippobotus,
namely:—Philonides, of Thebes; Callippus, of Corinth; Posidonius, of
Alexandria; Athenodorus, of Soli; and Zeno, a Sidonian.

XXXII. And I have thought it best to give a general account of all the
Stoic doctrines in the life of Zeno, because he it was who was the
founder of the sect.

He has written a great many books, of which I have already given a list,
in which he has spoken as no other of the Stoics has. And his doctrines
in general are these. But we will enumerate them briefly, as we have been
in the habit of doing in the case of the other philosophers.

XXXIII. The Stoics divide reason according to philosophy, into three
parts; and say that one part relates to natural philosophy, one to
ethics, and one to logic. And Zeno, the Cittiæan, was the first who made
this division, in his treatise on Reason; and he was followed in it by
Chrysippus, in the first book of his treatise on Reason, and in the first
book of his treatise on Natural Philosophy; and also by Apollodorus; and
by Syllus, in the first book of his Introduction to the Doctrines of the
Stoics; and by Eudromus, in his Ethical Elements; and by Diogenes, the
Babylonian; and Posidonius. Now these divisions are called _topics_ by
Apollodorus, _species_ by Chrysippus and Eudromus, and _genera_ by all
the rest. And they compare philosophy to an animal, likening logic to the
bones and sinews, natural philosophy to the fleshy parts, and ethical
philosophy to the soul. Again, they compare it to an egg; calling logic
the shell, and ethics the white, and natural philosophy the yolk. Also to
a fertile field; in which logic is the fence which goes round it, ethics
are the fruit, and natural philosophy the soil, or the fruit-trees.
Again, they compare it to a city fortified by walls, and regulated by
reason; and then, as some of them say, no one part is preferred to
another, but they are all combined and united inseparably; and so they
treat of them all in combination. But others class logic first, natural
philosophy second, and ethics third; as Zeno does in his treatise on
Reason, and in this he is followed by Chrysippus, and Archedemus, and
Eudromus.

For Diogenes of Ptolemais begins with ethics; but Apollodorus places
ethics second; and Panætius and Posidonius begin with natural philosophy,
as Phanias, the friend of Posidonius asserts, in the first book of his
treatise on the School of Posidonius.

But Cleanthes says, that there are six divisions of reason according
to philosophy: dialectics, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics, and
theology; but others assert that these are not divisions of reason,
but of philosophy itself; and this is the opinion advanced by Zeno, of
Tarsus, among others.

XXXIV. Some again say, that the logical division is properly subdivided
into two sciences, namely, rhetoric and dialectics; and some divide
it also into definitive species, which is conversant with rules and
tests; while others deny the propriety of this last division altogether,
and argue that the object of rules and tests is the discovery of the
truth; for it is in this division that they explain the differences of
representations. They also argue that, on the other side, the science of
definitions has equally for its object the discovery of truth, since we
only know things by the intervention of ideas. They also call rhetoric
a science conversant about speaking well concerning matters which admit
of a detailed narrative; and dialectics they call the science of arguing
correctly in discussions which can be carried on by question and answer;
on which account they define it thus: a knowledge of what is true, and
false, and neither one thing nor the other.

Again, rhetoric itself they divide into three kinds; for one description
they say is concerning about giving advice, another is forensic, and
the third encomiastic; and it is also divided into several parts,
one relating to the discovery of arguments, one to style, one to the
arrangement of arguments, and the other to the delivery of the speech.
And a rhetorical oration they divide into the exordium, the narration,
the reply to the statements of the adverse party, and the peroration.

XXXV. Dialectics, they say, is divided into two parts; one of which has
reference to the things signified, the other to the expression. That
which has reference to the things signified or spoken of, they divide
again into the topic of things conceived in the fancy, and into those
of axioms, of perfect determinations, of predicaments, of things alike,
whether upright or prostrate, of tropes, of syllogisms, and of sophisms,
which are derived either from the voice or from the things. And these
sophisms are of various kinds; there is the false one, the one which
states facts, the negative, the sorites, and others like these; the
imperfect one, the inexplicable one, the conclusive one, the veiled one,
the horned one, the nobody, and the mower.

In the second part of dialectics, that which has for its object the
expression, they treat of written language, of the different parts of a
discourse, of solecism and barbarism, of poetical forms of expression, of
ambiguity, of a melodious voice, of music; and some even add definitions,
divisions, and diction.

They say that the most useful of these parts is the consideration of
syllogisms; for that they show us what are the things which are capable
of demonstration, and that contributes much to the formation of our
judgment, and their arrangement and memory give a scientific character
to our knowledge. They define reasoning to be a system composed of
assumptions and conclusions: and syllogism is a syllogistic argument
proceeding on them. Demonstration they define to be a method by which
one proceeds from that which is more known to that which is less.
Perception, again, is an impression produced on the mind, its name
being appropriately borrowed from impressions on wax made by a seal;
and perception they divide into comprehensible and incomprehensible:
Comprehensible, which they call the criterion of facts, and which
is produced by a real object, and is, therefore, at the same time
conformable to that object; Incomprehensible, which has no relation
to any real object, or else, if it has any such relation, does not
correspond to it, being but a vague and indistinct representation.

Dialectics itself they pronounce to be a necessary science, and a virtue
which comprehends several other virtues under its species. And the
disposition not to take up one side of an argument hastily, they defined
to be a knowledge by which we are taught when we ought to agree to a
statement, and when we ought to withhold our agreement. Discretion they
consider to be a powerful reason, having reference to what is becoming,
so as to prevent our yielding to an irrelevant argument. Irrefutability
they define to be a power in an argument, which prevents one from being
drawn from it to its opposite. Freedom from vanity, according to them, is
a habit which refers the perceptions back to right reason.

Again, they define knowledge itself as an assertion or safe
comprehension, or habit, which, in the perception of what is seen, never
deviates from the truth. And they say further, that without dialectic
speculation, the wise man cannot be free from all error in his reasoning.
For that that is what distinguishes what is true from what is false, and
which easily detects those arguments which are only plausible, and those
which depend upon an ambiguity of language. And without dialectics they
say it is not possible to ask or answer questions correctly. They also
add, that precipitation in denials extends to those things which are
done, so that those who have not properly exercised their perceptions
fall into irregularity and thoughtlessness. Again, without dialectics,
the wise man cannot be acute, and ingenious, and wary, and altogether
dangerous as an arguer. For that it belongs to the same man to speak
correctly and to reason correctly, and to discuss properly those subjects
which are proposed to him, and to answer readily whatever questions
are put to him, all which qualities belong to a man who is skilful in
dialectics. This then is a brief summary of their opinions on logic.

XXXVI. And, that we may also enter into some more minute details
respecting them, we will subjoin what refers to what they call their
introductory science, as it is stated by Diocles, of Magnesia, in his
Excursion of Philosophers, where he speaks as follows, and we will give
his account word for word.

The Stoics have chosen to treat, in the first place, of perception
and sensation, because the criterion by which the truth of facts is
ascertained is a kind of perception, and because the judgment which
expresses the belief, and the comprehension, and the understanding of
a thing, a judgment which precedes all others, cannot exist without
perception. For perception leads the way; and then thought, finding vent
in expressions, explains in words the feelings which it derives from
perception. But there is a difference between φαντασία and φάντασμα. For
φάντασμα is a conception of the intellect, such as takes place in sleep;
but φαντασία is an impression, τύπωσις, produced on the mind, that is
to say, an alteration, ἀλλοίωσις, as Chrysippus states in the twelfth
book of his treatise on the Soul. For we must not take this impression
to resemble that made by a seal, since it is impossible to conceive that
there should be many impressions made at the same time on the same thing.
But φαντασία is understood to be that which is impressed, and formed,
and imprinted by a real object, according to a real object, in such a
way as it could not be by any other than a real object; and, according
to their ideas of the φαντασίαι, some are sensible, and some are not.
Those they call sensible, which are derived by us from some one or more
senses; and those they call not sensible, which emanate directly from the
thought, as for instance, those which relate to incorporeal objects, or
any others which are embraced by reason. Again, those which are sensible,
are produced by a real object, which imposes itself on the intelligence,
and compels its acquiescence; and there are also some others, which are
simply apparent, mere shadows, which resemble those which are produced by
real objects.

Again, these φαντασίαι are divided into rational and irrational; those
which are rational belong to animals capable of reason; those which are
irrational to animals destitute of reason. Those which are rational
are thoughts; those which are irrational have no name; but are again
subdivided into artificial and not artificial. At all events, an image is
contemplated in a different light by a man skilful in art, from that in
which it is viewed by a man ignorant of art.

By sensation, the Stoics understand a species of breath which proceeds
from the dominant portion of the soul to the senses, whether it be a
sensible perception, or an organic disposition, which, according to
the notions of some of them, is crippled and vicious. They also call
sensation the energy, or active exercise, of the sense. According to
them, it is to sensation that we owe our comprehension of white and
black, and rough and smooth: from reason, that we derive the notions
which result from a demonstration, those for instance which have for
their object the existence of Gods, and of Divine Providence. For all
our thoughts are formed either by indirect perception, or by similarity,
or analogy, or transposition, or combination, or opposition. By a direct
perception, we perceive those things which are the objects of sense; by
similarity, those which start from some point present to our senses; as,
for instance, we form an idea of Socrates from his likeness. We draw our
conclusions by analogy, adopting either an increased idea of the thing,
as of Tityus, or the Cyclops; or a diminished idea, as of a pigmy. So,
too, the idea of the centre of the world was one derived by analogy
from what we perceived to be the case of the smaller spheres. We use
transposition when we fancy eyes in a man’s breast; combination, when we
take in the idea of a Centaur; opposition, when we turn our thoughts to
death. Some ideas we also derive from comparison, for instance, from a
comparison of words and places.

There is also nature; as by nature we comprehend what is just and
good. And privation, when for instance, we form a notion of a man
without hands. Such are the doctrines of the Stoics, on the subject of
phantasia, and sensation, and thought.

XXXVII. They say that the proper criterion of truth is the comprehension,
φαντασία; that is to say, one which is derived from a real object, as
Chrysippus asserts in the twelfth book of his Physics; and he is followed
by Antipater and Apollodorus. For Boethus leaves a great many criteria,
such as intellect, sensation, appetite, and knowledge; but Chrysippus
dissents from his view, and in the first book of his treatise on Reason,
says, that sensation and preconception are the only criteria. And
preconception is, according to him, a comprehensive physical notion of
general principles. But others of the earlier Stoics admit right reason
as one criterion of the truth; for instance, this is the opinion of
Posidonius, and is advanced by him in his essay on Criteria.

XXXVIII. On the subject of logical speculation, there appears to be
a great unanimity among the greater part of the Stoics, in beginning
with the topic of the voice. Now voice is a percussion of the air; or,
as Diogenes, the Babylonian, defines it, in his essay on the Voice,
a sensation peculiar to the hearing. The voice of a beast is a mere
percussion of the air by some impetus: but the voice of a man is
articulate, and is emitted by intellect, as Diogenes lays it down, and is
not brought to perfection in a shorter period than fourteen years. And
the voice is a body according to the Stoics; for so it is laid down by
Archedemus, in his book on the Voice, and by Diogenes, and Antipater, and
also by Chrysippus, in the second volume of his Physics. For everything
which makes anything, is a body; and the voice makes something when it
proceeds to those who hear from those who speak.

A word (λέξις), again, is, according to Diogenes, a voice consisting of
letters, as “Day.” A sentence (λόγος) is a significant voice, sent out by
the intellect, as for instance, “It is day;” but dialect is a peculiar
style imprinted on the utterance of nations, according to their race;
and causes varieties in the Greek language, being a sort of local habit,
as for instance, the Attics say θάλαττα, and the Ionians say ἡμέρη.
The elements of words are the twenty-four letters; and the word letter
is used in a triple division of sense, meaning the element itself, the
graphical sign of the element, and the name, as Alpha. There are seven
vowels, α, ε, η, ι, ο, υ, ω; six mutes, β, γ, δ, κ, π, τ. But voice
is different from a word, because voice is a sound; but a word is an
articulate sound. And a word differs from a sentence, because a sentence
is always significative of something, but a word by itself has no
signification, as for instance, βλίτρι. But this is not the case with a
sentence. Again, there is a difference between speaking and pronouncing;
the sounds are pronounced, but what are spoken are things which are
capable of being spoken of.

XXXIX. Now of sentences there are five parts, as Diogenes tells us in his
treatise on Voice; and he is followed by Chrysippus. There is the noun,
the common noun, the verb, the conjunction, and the article. Antipater
adds also quality, in his treatise upon Words and the things expressed
by them. And a common noun (προσηγορία) is, according to Diogenes, a
part of a sentence signifying a common quality, as for instance, man,
horse. But a noun is a part of a sentence signifying a peculiar quality,
such as Diogenes, Socrates. A verb is a part of a sentence signifying
an uncombined categorem, as Diogenes (ὁ Διογένης) or, as others define
it, an element of a sentence, devoid of case, signifying something
compound in reference to some person or persons, as, “I write,” “I say.”
A conjunction is a part of a sentence destitute of case, uniting the
divisions of the sentence. An article is an element of a sentence, having
cases, defining the genders of nouns and their numbers, as ὁ, ἡ, τὸ, οἱ,
αἱ, τὰ.

XL. The excellences of a sentence are five,—good Greek, clearness,
conciseness, suitableness, elegance. Good Greek (Ἑλληνισμὸς) is a
correct style, according to art, keeping aloof from any vulgar form of
expression; clearness is a style which states that which is conceived in
the mind in such a way that it is easily known; conciseness is a style
which embraces all that is necessary to the clear explanation of the
subject under discussion; suitableness is a style suited to the subject;
elegance is a style which avoids all peculiarity of expression. Of the
vices of a sentence, on the other hand, barbarism is a use of words
contrary to that in vogue among the well-educated Greeks; solecism is a
sentence incongruously put together.

XLI. A poetical expression is, as Posidonius defines it in his
introduction on Style, “A metrical or rhythmical diction, proceeding
in preparation, and avoiding all resemblance to prose.” For instance,
“The vast and boundless earth,” “Th’ expanse of heaven,” are rhythmical
expressions; and poetry is a collection of poetical expressions
signifying something, containing an imitation of divine and human beings.

XLII. A definition is, as Antipater explains it in the first book of his
treatise on Definitions, a sentence proceeding by analysis enunciated
in such a way as to give a complete idea; or, as Chrysippus says in his
treatise on Definitions, it is the explanation of an idea. Description is
a sentence which, in a figurative manner, brings one to a knowledge of
the subject, or it may be called a simpler kind of definition, expressing
the power of a definition in plainer language. Genus is a comprehending
of many ideas indissolubly connected, as animal; for this one expression
comprehends all particular kinds of animals. An idea is an imagination of
the mind which does not express actually anything real, or any quality,
but only a _quasi_ reality and a _quasi_ quality; such, for instance, is
the idea of a horse when a horse is not present. Species is that which is
comprehended under genus, as man is comprehended under animal.

Again, that is the most general genus which, being a genus itself, has no
other genus, as the existent. And that is the most special species, which
being a species has no other species, as, for instance, Socrates.

XLIII. The division of genus is a dissection of it into the proximate
species; as, for instance, “Of animals, some are rational, others
irrational.” Contrary division is the dissection of genus into species on
the principle of the contrary; so as to be by a sort of negation; as, for
instance, “Of existent things, some are good and some not good;” and, “Of
things which are not good, some are bad and some indifferent.” Partition
is an arrangement of a genus with reference to place, as Crinis says,
for instance, “Of goods, some have reference to the mind and some to the
body.”

XLIV. Ambiguity (ἀμφιβολία) is an expression signifying two or more
things having an ordinary or a peculiar meaning, according to the
pronunciation, in such a way that more things than one may be understood
by the very same expression. Take, for instance, the words αὐλητρὶς
πέπτωκε. For you may understand by them, a house has fallen down three
times (αὐλὴ τρὶς πέπτωκε), or, a female flute-player has fallen, taking
αὐλητρὶς as synonymous with αὐλητρία.

LV. Dialectics are, as Posidonius explains them, the science of what is
true and false, and neither one or the other, and it is, as Chrysippus
explains it, conversant about words that signify and things that are
signified; these then are the doctrines asserted by the Stoics in their
speculations on the subject of the voice.

XLVI. But in that part of dialectics which concerns things and ideas
signified, they treat of propositions, of perfect enunciations, of
judgments, of syllogisms, of imperfect enunciations, of attributes and
deficiencies, and of both direct and indirect categorems or predicaments.

XLVII. And they say that enunciation is the manifestation of the ideal
perception; and these enunciations the Stoics pronounce some to be
perfect in themselves, and some to be defective; now those are defective,
which furnish an incomplete sense, as for instance, “He writes.” For
then we ask further, “Who writes?” But those are perfect in themselves,
which give a sense entirely complete, as for instance, “Socrates writes.”
Accordingly, in the defective enunciations, categorems are applied; but
in those which are perfect in themselves, axioms, and syllogisms, and
questions, and interrogations, are brought into play. Now a categorem is
something which is predicated of something else, being either a thing
which is added to one or more objects, according to the definition of
Apollodorus, or else a defective enunciation added to the nominative
case, for the purpose of forming a proposition.

Now of categorems, some are accidents …[84] as for instance, “The sailing
through a rock.” … And of categorems, some are direct, some indirect,
and some neither one nor the other. Now those are correct, which are
construed with one of the oblique cases, in such a manner as to produce
a categorem, as for instance, “He hears, he sees, he converses.” And
those are indirect, which are construed with the passive voice, as for
instance, “I am heard, I am seen.” And those which are neither one nor
the other, are those which are construed in a neutral kind of manner, as
for instance, “To think, to walk.” And those are reciprocal, which are
among the indirect ones, without being indirect themselves. Those are
effects, ἐνεργήματα, which are such words as, “He is shaved;” for then,
the man who is shaved, implies himself.

The oblique cases, are the genitive, the dative, and the accusative.

XLVIII. An axiom, is that thing which is true, or false, or perfect
in itself, being asserted, or denied positively, as far as depends
upon itself; as Chrysippus explains it in his Dialectic Definitions;
as for instance, “It is day,” “Dion is walking.” And it has received
the name of axiom, ἀξίωμα, because it is either maintained, ἀξιοῦται,
or repudiated. For the man who says, “It is day,” appears to maintain
the fact of its being day. If then it is day, the axiom put before one
is true; but if it is not day, the axiom is false. And an axiom, a
question, and an interrogation, differ from one another, and so does an
imperative proposition from one which is adjurative, or imprecatory,
or hypothetical, or appellative, or false. For that is an axiom which
we utter, when we affirm anything positively, which is either true or
false. And a question is a thing complete in itself, as also is an axiom,
but which requires an answer, as for instance, “Is it day?” Now this
is neither true nor false; but, as “It is day” is an axiom; so is, “Is
it day?” a question. But an interrogation, πύσμα, is a thing to which
it is not possible to make an answer symbolically, as in the case of a
question, ἐρώτημα, saying merely “Yes,” but we must reply, “He does live
in this place.”

The imperative proposition is a thing which we utter when we give an
order, as for instance this:—

    Do you now go to the sweet stream of Inachus.[85]
    …

The appellative proposition is one which is used in the case in which,
when a man says anything, he must address somebody, as for instance:—

    Atrides, glorious king of men,
    Most mighty Agamemnon.[86]

A false judgment is a proposition, which, while it has at the same time
the appearance of a real judgment, loses this character by the addition,
and under the influence of, some particle, as for instance:

    The Parthenon at least is beautiful.
    How like the herdsman is to Priam’s sons.

There is also the dubitative proposition, which differs from the
judgment, inasmuch as it is always uttered in the form of a doubt; as for
instance:—

    Are not, then, grief and life two kindred states?[87]

But questions, and interrogations, and things like these, are neither
true nor false, while judgments and propositions are necessarily one or
the other.

Now of axioms, some are simple, and others are not simple; as
Chrysippus, and Archedemus, and Athenodorus, and Antipater, and Crinis,
agree in dividing them. Those are simple, which consist of an axiom
or proposition, which is not ambiguous, (or of several axioms, or
propositions of the same character,) as for instance the sentence, “It is
day.” And those are not simple, which consist of an axiom or proposition
which is ambiguous, or of several axioms or propositions of that
character. Of an axiom, or proposition, which is ambiguous, as “If it is
day;” of several axioms, or propositions of that character, as, “If it is
day, it is light.”

And simple propositions are divided into the affirmative, the negative,
the privative, the categorical, the definite, and the indefinite; those
which are not simple, are divided into the combined, and the adjunctive,
the connected and the disjunctive, and the causal and the augmentative,
and the diminutive. That is an affirmative proposition, “It is not day.”
And the species of this is doubly affirmative. That again is doubly
affirmative, which is affirmative of an affirmative, as for instance, “It
is not not day;” for this amounts to, “It is day.” That is a negative
proposition, which consists of a negative particle and a categorem, as
for instance, “No one is walking.” That is a privative proposition which
consists of a privative particle and an axiom according to power, as
“This man is inhuman.” That is a categorical proposition, which consists
of a nominative case and a categorem, as for instance, “Dion is walking.”
That is a definite proposition, which consists of a demonstrative
nominative case and a categorem, as for instance, “This man is walking.”
That is an indefinite one which consists of an indefinite particle, or
of indefinite particles, as for instance, “Somebody is walking,” “He is
moving.”

Of propositions which are not simple, the combined proposition is, as
Chrysippus states, in his Dialectics, and Diogenes, too, in his Dialectic
Art; that which is held together by the copulative conjunction “if.”
And this conjunction professes that the second member of the sentence
follows the first, as for instance, “If it is day, it is light.” That
which is adjunctive is, as Crinis states in his Dialectic Art, an axiom
which is made to depend on the conjunction “since” (ἐπεὶ), beginning
with an axiom and ending in an axiom, as for instance, “Since it is
day, it is light.” And this conjunction professes both that the second
portion of the proposition follows the first, and the first is true.
That is a connected proposition which is connected by some copulative
conjunctions, as for instance, “It both is day, and it is light.” That
is a disjunctive proposition which is disconnected by the disjunctive
conjunction, “or” (ἤτοι), as for instance, “It is either day or night.”
And this proposition professes that one or other of these propositions
is false. That is a causal proposition which is connected by the word,
“because;” as for instance, “Because it is day, it is light.” For the
first is, as it were, the cause of the second. That is an augmentative
proposition, which explains the greater, which is construed with an
augmentative particle, and which is placed between the two members of
the proposition, as for instance, “It is rather day than night.” The
diminutive proposition is, in every respect, the exact contrary of the
preceding one; as for instance, “It is less night than day.” Again, at
times, axioms or propositions are opposed to one another in respect of
their truth and falsehood, when one is an express denial of the other; as
for instance, “It is day,” and, “It is not day.”

Again, a conjunctive proposition is correct, when it is such that the
opposite of the conclusion is contradictory of the premiss; as for
instance, the proposition, “If it is day, it is light,” is true; for,
“It is not light,” which is the opposite to the conclusion expressed, is
contradictory to the premiss, “It is day.” And a conjunctive proposition
is incorrect, when it is such that the opposite of the conclusion is not
inconsistent with the premiss, as for instance, “If it is day, Dion is
walking.” For the fact that Dion is not walking, is not contradictory of
the premiss, “It is day.”

An adjunctive proposition is correct, which begins with a true premiss,
and ends in a consequence which follows of necessity, as for instance,
“Since it is day, the sun is above the earth.” But it is incorrect when
it either begins with a false premiss, or ends with a consequence which
does not follow properly; as for instance, “Since it is night, Dion is
walking,” for this may be said in the day-time.

A causal proposition is correct, when it begins with a true premiss, and
ends in a consequence which necessarily follows from it, but yet does
not have its premiss reciprocally consequent upon its conclusion; as for
instance, “Because it is day, it is light.” For the fact of its being
light, is a necessary consequence of its being day; but the fact of its
being day, is not necessarily a consequence of its being light. A causal
proposition is incorrect, which either begins with a false premiss, or
ends with a conclusion that does not follow from it, or which has a
premiss which does not correspond to the conclusion; as for instance,
“Because it is night, Dion is walking.”

A proposition is persuasive, which leads to the assent of the mind, as
for instance, “If she brought him forth, she is his mother.” But still
this is a falsehood, for a hen is not the mother of an egg. Again, there
are some propositions which are possible, and some which are impossible;
and some which are necessary, and some which are not necessary. That is
possible, which is capable of being true, since external circumstances
are no hindrance to its being true; as for instance, “Diocles lives.” And
that is impossible which is not capable of being true; as for instance,
“The earth flies.” That is necessary which, being true, is not capable
of being false; or perhaps is intrinsically capable of being false,
but still has external circumstances which hinder its being false, as
for instance, “Virtue profits a man.” That again, is not necessary,
which is true, but which has a capacity of being false, though external
circumstances offer no hindrance to either alternative; as for instance,
“Dion walks.”

That is a reasonable or probable proposition, which has a great
preponderance of opportunities in favour of its being true; as for
instance, “I shall be alive to-morrow.” And there are other different
kinds of propositions and conversions of them, from true to false, and
re-conversions again; concerning which we must speak at some length.

XLIX. An argument, as Crinis says, is that which is composed of a lemma
or major premiss, an assumption or minor premiss, and a conclusion; as
for instance this, “If it is day, it is light;” “But it is day, therefore
it is light.” For the lemma, or major premiss, is, “If it is day, it is
light.” The assumption, or minor premiss, is, “It is day.” The conclusion
follows, “Therefore it is light.” The mode of a proposition is, as it
were, a figure of an argument, as for instance, such as this, “If it is
the first, it is the second; but it is the first, therefore it is the
second.”

A conditional syllogism is that which is composed of both the preceding
arguments; as for instance, “If Plato is alive, Plato breathes; but the
first fact is so, therefore so is the second.” And this conditional
syllogism has been introduced for the sake, in long and complex
sentences, of not being forced to repeat the assumption, as it was a long
one, and also the conclusion; but of being able, instead, to content
one’s self with summing it up briefly thus, “The first case put is true,
therefore so is the second.”

Of arguments, some are conclusive, others are inconclusive. Those are
inconclusive which are such, that the opposite of the conclusion drawn
in them is not necessarily incompatible with the connection of the
premisses. As for instance, such arguments as these, “If it is day, it
is light; but it is day, therefore, Dion is walking.” But of conclusive
arguments, some are called properly by the kindred name conclusions,
and some are called syllogistic arguments. Those then are syllogistic
which are either such as do not admit of demonstration, or such as are
brought to an indemonstrable conclusion, according to some one or more
propositions; such for instance as the following: “If Dion walks, then
Dion is in motion.” Those are conclusive, which infer their conclusion
specially, and not syllogistically; such for instance, as this, “The
proposition it is both day and night is false. Now it is day; therefore,
it is not night.”

Those again, are unsyllogistic arguments which have an air of
probability about them, and a resemblance to syllogistic ones, but
which still do not lead to the deduction of proper conclusions. As for
instance, “If Dion is a horse, Dion is an animal; but Dion is not a
horse, therefore, Dion is not an animal.”

Again, of arguments, some are true, and some are false. Those are true
which deduce a conclusion from true premisses, as, for instance, “If
virtue profits, then vice injures.” And those are false which have
some falsehood in their premisses, or which are inconclusive; as, for
instance, “If it is day, it is light; but it is day, therefore, Dion is
alive.”

There are also arguments which are possible, and others which are
impossible; some likewise which are necessary, and others which are not
necessary. There are too, some which are not demonstrated from their not
standing in need of demonstration, and these are laid down differently
by different people; but Chrysippus enumerates five kinds, which serve
as the foundation for every kind of argument; and which are assumed in
conclusive arguments properly so called, and in syllogisms, and in modes.

The first kind that is not demonstrated, is that in which the whole
argument consists of a conjunctive and an antecedent; and in which
the first term repeats itself so as to form a sort of conjunctive
proposition, and to bring forward as the conclusion the last term. As,
for instance, “If the first be true, so is the second; but the first
is true, therefore, so is the second.” The second kind that is not
demonstrated, is that which, by means of the conjunctive and the opposite
of the conclusion, has a conclusion opposite to the first premiss. As,
for instance, “If it be day, it is light; but it is night, therefore it
is not day.” For here the assumption arises from the opposite of the
conclusion, and the conclusion from the opposite of the first term.
The third kind that is not demonstrative, is that which, by a negative
combination, and by one of the terms in the proposition, produces the
contradictory of the remainder; as, for instance, “Plato is not dead and
alive at the same time but Plato is dead; therefore, Plato is not alive.”
The fourth kind that is not demonstrative, is that which, by means of a
disjunctive, and one of those terms which are in the disjunctive, has
a conclusion opposite to what remains; as, for instance, “It is either
the first, or the second; but it is the first; therefore, it is not the
second.” The fifth kind that is not demonstrative, is that in which the
whole argument consists of a disjunctive proposition, and the opposite of
one of the terms, and then one makes the conclusion identical with the
remainder; as, for instance, “It is either day or night; but it is not
night; therefore it is day.”

According to the Stoics, truth follows upon truth, as “It is light,”
follows upon “It is day.” And falsehood follows upon falsehood; as,
“If it is false that it is night, it is also false that it is dark.”
Sometimes too, truth follows from falsehood; for instance, though it is
false that “the earth flies,” it is true that “there is the earth.” But
falsehood does never follow from truth; for, from the fact that “there is
the earth,” it does not follow “that the earth flies.”

There are also some arguments which are perplexed, being veiled and
escaping notice; or such as are called sorites, the horned one, or the
nobody. That is a veiled argument[88] which resembles the following one;
“two are not a few, nor three, nor those, nor four, and so on to ten; but
two are few; therefore, so are ten few.”

The nobody is a conjunctive argument, and one that consists of the
indefinite and the definite, and which has a minor premiss and a
conclusion; as, for instance, “If any one is here, he is not in Rhodes.”

L. Such then are the doctrines which the Stoics maintain on the subject
of logic, in order as far as possible to establish their point that the
logician is the only wise man. For they assert that all affairs are
looked at by means of that speculation which proceeds by argument,
including under this assertion both those that belong to natural and also
those which belong to moral philosophy: for, say they, how else could one
determine the exact value of nouns, or how else could one explain what
laws are imposed upon such and such actions? Moreover, as there are two
habits both incidental to virtue, the one considers what each existing
thing is, and the other inquires what it is called. These then are the
notions of the Stoics on the subject of logic.

LI. The ethical part of philosophy they divide into the topic of
inclination, the topic of good and bad, the topic of the passions, the
topic of virtue, the topic of the chief good, and of primary estimation,
and of actions; the topic of what things are becoming, and of exhortation
and dissuasion. And this division is the one laid down by Chrysippus,
and Archedemus, and Zeno, of Tarsus, and Apollodorus, and Diogenes, and
Antipater, and Posidonius. For Zeno, of Cittium, and Cleanthes, have, as
being more ancient they were likely to, adopted a more simple method of
treating these subjects. But these men divided logical and the natural
philosophy.

LII. They say that the first inclination which an animal has is to
protect itself, as nature brings herself to take an interest in it from
the beginning, as Chrysippus affirms in the first book of his treatise on
Ends; where he says, that the first and dearest object to every animal
is its own existence, and its consciousness of that existence. For that
it is not natural for any animal to be alienated from itself, or even
to be brought into such a state as to be indifferent to itself, being
neither alienated from nor interested in itself. It remains, therefore,
that we must assert that nature has bound the animal to itself by the
greatest unanimity and affection; for by that means it repels all that
is injurious, and attracts all that is akin to it and desirable. But as
for what some people say, that the first inclination of animals is to
pleasure, they say what is false. For they say that pleasure, if there
be any such thing at all, is an accessory only, which, nature, having
sought it out by itself, as well as those things which are adapted to its
constitution, receives incidentally in the same manner as animals are
pleased, and plants made to flourish.

Moreover, say they, nature makes no difference between animals and
plants, when she regulates them so as to leave them without voluntary
motion or sense; and some things too take place in ourselves in the same
manner as in plants. But, as inclination in animals tends chiefly to the
point of making them pursue what is appropriate to them, we may say that
their inclinations are regulated by nature. And as reason is given to
rational animals according to a more perfect principle, it follows, that
to live correctly according to reason, is properly predicated of those
who live according to nature. For nature is as it were the artist who
produces the inclination.

LIII. On which account Zeno was the first writer who, in his treatise
on the Nature of Man, said, that the chief good was confessedly to live
according to nature; which is to live according to virtue, for nature
leads us to this point. And in like manner Cleanthes speaks in his
treatise on Pleasure, and so do Posidonius and Hecaton in their essays
on Ends as the Chief Good. And again, to live according to virtue is
the same thing as living according to one’s experience of those things
which happen by nature; as Chrysippus explains it in the first book of
his treatise on the Chief Good. For our individual natures are all parts
of universal nature; on which account the chief good is to live in a
manner corresponding to nature, and that means corresponding to one’s
own nature and to universal nature; doing none of those things which the
common law of mankind is in the habit of forbidding, and that common law
is identical with that right reason which pervades everything, being the
same with Jupiter, who is the regulator and chief manager of all existing
things.

Again, this very thing is the virtue of the happy man and the perfect
happiness of life when everything is done according to a harmony
with the genius of each individual with reference to the will of the
universal governor and manager of all things. Diogenes, accordingly, says
expressly that the chief good is to act according to sound reason in our
selection of things according to our nature. And Archedemus defines it
to be living in the discharge of all becoming duties. Chrysippus again
understands that the nature, in a manner corresponding to which we ought
to live, is both the common nature, and also human nature in particular;
but Cleanthes will not admit of any other nature than the common one
alone, as that to which people ought to live in a manner corresponding;
and repudiates all mention of a particular nature. And he asserts
that virtue is a disposition of the mind always consistent and always
harmonious; that one ought to seek it out for its own sake, without being
influenced by fear or hope by any external influence. Moreover, that it
is in it that happiness consists, as producing in the soul the harmony
of a life always consistent with itself; and that if a rational animal
goes the wrong way, it is because it allows itself to be misled by the
deceitful appearances of exterior things, or perhaps by the instigation
of those who surround it; for nature herself never gives us any but good
inclinations.

LIV. Now virtue is, to speak generally, a perfection in everything, as
in the case of a statue; whether it is invisible as good health, or
speculative as prudence. For Hecaton says, in the first book of his
treatise on Virtues, that the scientific and speculative virtues are
those which have a constitution arising from speculation and study,
as, for instance, prudence and justice; and that those which are not
speculative are those which are generally viewed in their extension as a
practical result or effect of the former; such for instance, as health
and strength. Accordingly, temperance is one of the speculative virtues,
and it happens that good health usually follows it, and is marshalled
as it were beside it; in the same way as strength follows the proper
structure of an arch.—And the unspeculative virtues derive their name
from the fact of their not proceeding from any acquiescence reflected by
intelligence; but they are derived from others, are only accessories,
and are found even in worthless people, as in the case of good health,
or courage. And Posidonius, in the first book of his treaties on Ethics,
says that the great proof of the reality of virtue is that Socrates, and
Diogenes, and Antisthenes, made great improvement; and the great proof
of the reality of vice may be found in the fact of its being opposed to
virtue.

Again, Chrysippus, in the first book of his treatise on the Chief Good,
and Cleanthes, and also Posidonius in his Exhortations, and Hecaton, all
agree that virtue may be taught. And that they are right, and that it
may be taught, is plain from men becoming good after having been bad. On
this account Panætius teaches that there are two virtues, one speculative
and the other practical; but others make three kinds, the logical, the
natural, and the ethical. Posidonius divides virtue into four divisions;
and Cleanthes, Chrysippus, and Antipater make the divisions more numerous
still; for Apollophanes asserts that there is but one virtue, namely,
prudence.

Among the virtues some are primitive and some are derived. The
primitive ones are prudence, manly courage, justice, and temperance.
And subordinate to these, as a kind of species contained in them, are
magnanimity, continence, endurance, presence of mind, wisdom in council.
And the Stoics define prudence as a knowledge of what is good, and bad,
and indifferent; justice as a knowledge of what ought to be chosen, what
ought to be avoided, and what is indifferent; magnanimity as a knowledge
of engendering a lofty habit, superior to all such accidents as happen
to all men indifferently, whether they be good or bad; continence they
consider a disposition which never abandons right reason, or a habit
which never yields to pleasure; endurance they call a knowledge or habit
by which we understand what we ought to endure, what we ought not, and
what is indifferent; presence of mind they define as a habit which is
prompt at finding out what is suitable on a sudden emergency; and wisdom
in counsel they think a knowledge which leads us to judge what we are to
do, and how we are to do it, in order to act becomingly. And analogously,
of vices too there are some which are primary, and some which are
subordinate; as, for instance, folly, and cowardice, and injustice, and
intemperance, are among the primary vices; incontinence, slowness, and
folly in counsel among the subordinate ones. And the vices are ignorance
of those things of which the virtues are the knowledge.

LV. Good, looked at in a general way, is some advantage, with the more
particular distinction, being partly what is actually useful, partly
what is not contrary to utility. On which account virtue itself, and the
good which partakes of virtue are spoken of in a threefold view of the
subject. First, as to what kind of good it is, and from what it ensues;
as, for instance, in an action done according to virtue. Secondly, as to
the agent, in the case of a good man who partakes of virtue.…[89]

At another time, they define the good in a peculiar manner, as being what
is perfect according to the nature of a rational being as rational being.
And, secondly, they say that it is conformity to virtue, so that all
actions which partake of virtue, and all good men, are themselves in some
sense the good. And in the third place, they speak of its accessories,
joy, and mirth, and things of that kind. In the same manner they speak of
vices, which they divide into folly, cowardice, injustice, and things of
that kind. And they consider that those things which partake of vices,
and actions done according to vice, and bad men, are themselves in some
sense the evil; and its accessories are despondency, and melancholy, and
other things of that kind.

LVI. Again, of goods, some have reference to the mind, and some are
external; and some neither have reference to the mind, nor are external.
The goods having reference to the mind are virtues, and actions according
to the virtues. The external goods are the having a virtuous country, a
virtuous friend, and the happiness of one’s country and friend. And those
which are not external, and which have no reference to the mind, are
such as a man’s being virtuous and happy to himself. And reciprocally,
of evils, some have reference to the mind, such as the vices and actions
according to them; some are external, such as having a foolish country,
or a foolish friend, or one’s country or one’s friend being unhappy. And
those evils which are not external, and which have no reference to the
mind, are such as a man’s being worthless and unhappy to himself.

LVII. Again, of goods, some are final, some are efficient, and some are
both final and efficient. For instance, a friend, and the services
done by him to one, are efficient goods; but courage, and prudence, and
liberty, and delight, and mirth, and freedom from pain, and all kinds of
actions done according to virtue, are final goods. There are too, as I
said before, some goods which are both efficient and final; for inasmuch
as they produce perfect happiness they are efficient, and inasmuch as
they complete it by being themselves parts of it, they are final. And
in the same way, of evils, some are final, and some efficient, and some
partake of both natures. For instance, an enemy and the injuries done to
one by him, are efficient evils; fear, meanness of condition, slavery,
want of delight, depression of spirits, excessive grief, and all actions
done according to vice, are final evils; and some partake of both
characters, since, inasmuch as they produce perfect unhappiness, they are
efficient; and inasmuch as they complete it in such a way as to become
parts of it, they are final.

LVIII. Again, of the goods which have reference to the mind, some
are habits, some are dispositions, and some are neither habits nor
dispositions. Dispositions are virtues, habits are practices, and those
which are neither habits nor dispositions are energies. And, speaking
generally, the following may be called mixed goods: happiness in one’s
children, and a happy old age. But knowledge is a pure good. And some
goods are continually present, such as virtue; and some are not always
present, as joy, or taking a walk.

LIX. But every good is expedient, and necessary, and profitable, and
useful, and serviceable, and beautiful, and advantageous, and eligible,
and just. Expedient, inasmuch as it brings us things, which by their
happening to us do us good; necessary, inasmuch as it assists us in
what we have need to be assisted; profitable, inasmuch as it repays all
the care that is expended on it, and makes a return with interest to
our great advantage; useful, inasmuch as it supplies us with what is of
utility; serviceable, because it does us service which is much praised;
beautiful, because it is in accurate proportion to the need we have of
it, and to the service it does. Advantageous, inasmuch as it is of such a
character as to confer advantage on us; eligible, because it is such that
we may rationally choose it; and just, because it is in accordance with
law, and is an efficient cause of union.

And they call the honourable the perfect good, because it has naturally
all the numbers which are required by nature, and because it discloses
a perfect harmony. Now, the species of this perfect good are four in
number: justice, manly courage, temperance, and knowledge; for in these
goods all beautiful actions have their accomplishment. And analogously,
there are also four species of the disgraceful: injustice, and cowardice,
and intemperance, and folly. And the honourable is predicated in one
sense, as making those who are possessed of it worthy of all praise; and
in a second sense, it is used of what is well adapted by nature for its
proper work; and in another sense, when it expresses that which adorns a
man, as when we say that the wise man alone is good and honourable.

The Stoics also say, that the beautiful is the only good, as Hecaton
says, in the third book of his treatise on Goods, and Chrysippus asserts
the same principle in his essays on the Beautiful. And they say that this
is virtue, and that which partakes of virtue; and this assertion is equal
to the other, that everything good is beautiful, and that the good is an
equivalent term to the beautiful, inasmuch as the one thing is exactly
equal to the other. For since it is good, it is beautiful; and it is
beautiful, therefore, it is good.

LX. But it seems that all goods are equal, and that every good is to be
desired in the highest degree, and that it admits of no relaxation, and
of no extension. Moreover, they divide all existing things into good,
bad, and indifferent. The good are the virtues, prudence, justice, manly
courage, temperance, and the rest of the like qualities. The bad are the
contraries, folly, injustice, and the like. Those are indifferent which
are neither beneficial nor injurious, such as life, health, pleasure,
beauty, strength, riches, a good reputation, nobility of birth; and their
contraries, death, disease, labour, disgrace, weakness, poverty, a bad
reputation, baseness of birth, and the like; as Hecaton lays it down in
the seventh book of his treatise on the Chief Good; and he is followed by
Apollodorus, in his Ethics, and by Chrysippus. For they affirm that those
things are not good but indifferent, though perhaps a little more near to
one species than to the other.

For, as it is the property of the hot to warm and not to chill one, so
it is the property of the good to benefit and not to injure one. Now,
wealth and good health cannot be said to benefit any more than to injure
any one: therefore, neither wealth nor good health are goods. Again,
they say that that thing is not good which it is possible to use both
well and ill. But it is possible to make either a good or a bad use of
wealth, or of health; therefore, wealth and good health are not goods.
Posidonius, however, affirms that these things do come under the head of
goods. But Hecaton, in the nineteenth book of his treatise on Goods, and
Chrysippus, in his treatises on Pleasure, both deny that pleasure is a
good. For they say that there are disgraceful pleasures, and that nothing
disgraceful is good. And that to benefit a person is to move him or to
keep him according to virtue, but to injure him is to move him or to keep
him according to vice.

They also assert, that things indifferent are so spoken of in a twofold
manner; firstly, those things are called so, which have no influence in
producing either happiness or unhappiness; such for instance, as riches,
glory, health, strength, and the like; for it is possible for a man to
be happy without any of these things; and also, it is upon the character
of the use that is made of them, that happiness or unhappiness depends.
In another sense, those things are called indifferent, which do not
excite any inclination or aversion, as for instance, the fact of a man’s
having an odd or an even number of hairs on his head, or his putting
out or drawing back his finger; for it is not in this sense that the
things previously mentioned are called indifferent, for they do excite
inclination or aversion. On which account some of them are chosen, though
there is equal reason for preferring or shunning all the others.

LXI. Again, of things indifferent, they call some preferred (προηγμένα),
and others rejected (ἀποπροηγμένα). Those are preferred, which have some
proper value (ἀξίαν), and those are rejected, which have no value at all
(ἀπαξίαν ἔχοντα). And by the term proper value, they mean that quality
of things, which causes them to concur in producing a well-regulated
life; and in this sense, every good has a proper value. Again, they
say that a thing has value, when in some point of view, it has a sort
of intermediate power of aiding us to live conformably to nature; and
under this class, we may range riches or good health, if they give any
assistance to natural life. Again, value is predicated of the price
which one gives for the attainment of an object, which some one, who
has experience of the object sought, fixes as its fair price; as if we
were to say, for instance, that as some wheat was to be exchanged for
barley, with a mule thrown in to make up the difference. Those goods
then are preferred, which have a value, as in the case of the mental
goods, ability, skill, improvement, and the like; and in the case of the
corporeal goods, life, health, strength, a good constitution, soundness,
beauty; and in the case of external goods, riches, glory, nobility of
birth, and the like.

Rejected things are, in the case of qualities of the mind, stupidity,
unskilfulness, and the like; in the case of circumstances affecting
the body, death, disease, weakness, a bad constitution, mutilation,
disgrace, and the like; in the case of external circumstances, poverty,
want of reputation, ignoble birth, and the like. But those qualities
and circumstances which are indifferent, are neither preferred nor
rejected. Again, of things preferred, some are preferred for their own
sakes, some for the sake of other things, and some partly for their own
sakes and partly for that of other things. Those which are preferred for
their own sakes, are ability, improvement, and the like; those which are
preferred for the sake of other things, are wealth, nobility of birth,
and the like; those which are preferred partly for their own sake, and
partly for that of something else, are strength, vigour of the senses,
universal soundness, and the like; for they are preferred, for their own
sakes, inasmuch as they are in accordance with nature; and for the sake
of something else, inasmuch as they are productive of no small number of
advantages; and the same is the case in the inverse ratio, with those
things which are rejected.

LXII. Again, they say that that is duty, which is preferred, and which
contains in itself reasonable arguments why we should prefer it; as
for instance, its corresponding to the nature of life itself; and this
argument extends to plants and animals, for even their nature is subject
to the obligation of certain duties. And duty (τὸ καθῆκον) had this name
given to it by Zeno, in the first instance, its appellation being derived
from its coming to, or according to some people, ἀπὸ τοῦ κατά τινας
ἥκειν; and its effect is something kindred to the preparations made by
nature. Now of the things done according to inclination, some are duties,
and some are contrary to duty; and some are neither duties nor contrary
to duty. Those are duties, which reason selects to do, as for instance,
to honour one’s parents, one’s brothers, one’s country, to gratify one’s
friends. Those actions are contrary to duty, which reason does not
choose; as for instance, to neglect one’s parents, to be indifferent to
one’s brothers, to shirk assisting one’s friends, to be careless about
the welfare of one’s country, and so on. Those are neither duties, nor
contrary to duty, which reason neither selects to do, nor, on the other
hand, repudiates, such actions, for instance, as to pick up straw, to
hold a pen, or a comb, or things of that sort.

Again, there are some duties which do not depend on circumstances, and
some which do. These do not depend on circumstances, to take care of
one’s health, and of the sound state of one’s senses, and the like. Those
which do depend on circumstances, are the mutilation of one’s members,
the sacrificing of one’s property, and so on. And the case of those
actions which are contrary to duty, is similar. Again, of duties, some
are always such, and some are not always. What is always a duty, is to
live in accordance with virtue; but to ask questions, to give answers, to
walk, and the like, are not always duties. And the same statement holds
good with respect to acts contrary to duty.

There is also a class of intermediate duties, such as the duty of boys
obeying their masters.

LXIII. The Stoics also say that the mind is divisible into eight parts;
for that the five organs of sensation, and the vocal power, and the
intellectual power, which is the mind itself, and the generative power,
are all parts of the mind. But by error, there is produced a perversion
which operates on the intellect, from which many perturbations arise, and
many causes of inconstancy. And all perturbation is itself, according
to Zeno, a movement of the mind, or superfluous inclination, which is
irrational, and contrary to nature. Moreover, of the superior class of
perturbations, as Hecaton says, in the second book of his treatise on
the Passions, and as Zeno also says in his work on the Passions, there
are four kinds, grief, fear, desire, and pleasure. And they consider
that these perturbations are judgments, as Chrysippus contends in his
work on the Passions; for covetousness is an opinion that money is a
beautiful object, and in like manner drunkenness and intemperance, and
other things of the sort, are judgments. And grief they define to be an
irrational contraction of the mind, and it is divided into the following
species, pity, envy, emulation, jealousy, pain, perturbation, sorrow,
anguish, confusion. Pity is a grief over some one, on the ground of his
being in undeserved distress. Envy is a grief, at the good fortune of
another. Emulation is a grief at that belonging to some one else, which
one desires one’s self. Jealousy is a grief at another also having what
one has one’s self. Pain is a grief which weighs one down. Perturbation
is grief which narrows one, and causes one to feel in a strait. Sorrow
is a grief arising from deliberate thought, which endures for some
time, and gradually increases. Anguish is a grief with acute pain.
Confusion is an irrational grief, which frets one, and prevents one from
clearly discerning present circumstances. But fear is the expectation
of evil; and the following feelings are all classed under the head of
fear: apprehension, hesitation, shame, perplexity, trepidation, and
anxiety. Apprehension is a fear which produces alarm. Shame is a fear
of discredit. Hesitation is a fear of coming activity. Perplexity is a
fear, from the imagination of some unusual thing. Trepidation is a fear
accompanied with an oppression of the voice. Anxiety is a fear of some
uncertain event.

Again, desire is an irrational appetite; to which head, the following
feelings are referrible: want, hatred, contentiousness, anger, love,
enmity, rage. Want is a desire arising from our not having something
or other, and is, as it were, separated from the thing, but is still
stretching, and attracted towards it in vain. And hatred is a desire that
it should be ill with some one, accompanied with a certain continual
increase and extension. Contentiousness is a certain desire accompanied
with deliberate choice. Anger is a desire of revenge, on a person who
appears to have injured one in an unbecoming way. Love is a desire not
conversant about a virtuous object, for it is an attempt to conciliate
affection, because of some beauty which is seen. Enmity is a certain
anger of long duration, and full of hatred, and it is a watchful passion,
as is shown in the following lines:—

    For though we deem the short-liv’d fury past,
    ’Tis sure the mighty will revenge at last.[90]

But rage is anger at its commencement.

Again, pleasure is an irrational elation of the mind over something
which appears to be desirable; and its different species are enjoyment,
rejoicing at evil, delight, and extravagant joy. Enjoyment now, is a
pleasure which charms the mind through the ears. Rejoicing at evil
(ἐπιχαιρεκακία), is a pleasure which arises at the misfortunes of others.
Delight (τέρψις), that is to say turning (τρέψις), is a certain turning
of the soul (προτροπή τις ψυχῆς), to softness. Extravagant joy is the
dissolution of virtue. And as there are said to be some sicknesses
(ἀῤῥωστήματα), in the body, as, for instance, gout and arthritic
disorders; so too are those diseases of the soul, such as a fondness for
glory, or for pleasure, and other feelings of that sort. For an ἀῤῥώστημα
is a disease accompanied with weakness; and a disease is an opinion of
something which appears exceedingly desirable. And, as in the case of the
body, there are illnesses to which people are especially liable, such as
colds or diarrhœa; so also are there propensities which the mind is under
the influence of, such as enviousness, pitifulness, quarrelsomeness, and
so on.

There are also three good dispositions of the mind; joy, caution, and
will. And joy they say is the opposite of pleasure, since it is a
rational elation of the mind; so caution is the opposite of fear, being
a rational avoidance of anything, for the wise man will never be afraid,
but he will act with caution; and will, they define as the opposite of
desire, since it is a rational wish. As therefore some things fall under
the class of the first perturbations, in the same manner do some things
fall under the class of the first good dispositions. And accordingly,
under the head of will, are classed goodwill, placidity, salutation,
affection; and under the head of caution are ranged reverence and
modesty; under the head of joy, we speak of delight, mirth, and good
spirits.

LXIV. They say also, that the wise man is free from perturbations,
because he has no strong propensities. But that this freedom from
propensities also exists in the bad man, being, however, then quite
another thing, inasmuch as it proceeds in him only from the hardness and
unimpressibility of his nature. They also pronounce the wise man free
from vanity, since he regards with equal eye what is glorious and what is
inglorious. At the same time, they admit that there is another character
devoid of vanity, who, however, is only reckoned one of the rash men,
being in fact the bad man. They also say that all the virtuous men are
austere, because they do never speak with reference to pleasure, nor do
they listen to what is said by others with reference to pleasure. At the
same time, they call another man austere too, using the term in nearly
the same sense as they do when they speak of austere wine, which is used
in compounding medicines, but not for drinking.

They also pronounce the wise to be honest-hearted men, anxiously
attending to those matters which may make them better, by means of some
principle which conceals what is bad, and brings to light what is good.
Nor is there any hypocrisy about them; for they cut off all pretence in
their voice and appearance. They also keep aloof from business; for they
guard carefully against doing any thing contrary to their duty. They
drink wine, but they do not get drunk; and they never yield to frenzy.
Occasionally, extraordinary imaginations may obtain a momentary power
over them, owing to some melancholy or trifling, arising not according to
the principle of what is desirable, but contrary to nature. Nor, again,
will the wise man feel grief; because grief is an irrational contraction
of the soul, as Apollodorus defines it in his Ethics.

They are also, as they say, godlike; for they have something in them
which is as it were a God. But the bad man is an atheist. Now there are
two kinds of atheists; one who speaks in a spirit of hostility to, and
the other, who utterly disregards, the divine nature; but they admit
that all bad men are not atheists in this last sense. The good, on the
contrary, are pious; for they have a thorough acquaintance with the laws
respecting the Gods. And piety is a knowledge of the proper reverence
and worship due to the Gods. Moreover they sacrifice to the Gods, and
keep themselves pure; for they avoid all offences having reference to
the Gods, and the Gods admire them; for they are holy and just in all
that concerns the Deity; and the wise men are the only priests; for they
consider the matters relating to sacrifices, and the erection of temples,
and purifications, and all other things which peculiarly concern the
Gods. They also pronounce that men are bound to honour their parents,
and their brethren, in the second place after the Gods. They also say
that parental affection for one’s children is natural to them, and is a
feeling which does not exist in bad men. And they lay down the position
that all offences are equal, as Chrysippus argues in the fourth book of
his Ethic Questions, and so say Persæus and Zeno. For if one thing that
is true is not more true than another thing that is true, neither is one
thing that is false more false than another thing that is false; so too,
one deceit is not greater than another, nor one sin than another. For the
man who is a hundred furlongs from Canopus, and the man who is only one,
are both equally not in Canopus; and so too, he who commits a greater
sin, and he who commits a less, are both equally not in the right path.

Heraclides of Tarsus, indeed, the friend of Antipater, of Tarsus, and
Athenodorus, both assert that offences are not equal.

Again, the Stoics, as for instance, Chrysippus, in the first book of his
work on Lives, say, that the wise man will take a part in the affairs of
the state, if nothing hinders him. For that he will restrain vice, and
excite men to virtue. Also, they say that he will marry, as Zeno says,
in his Republic, and beget children. Moreover, that the wise man will
never form mere opinions, that is to say, he will never agree to anything
that is false; and that he will become a Cynic; for that Cynicism is a
short path to virtue, as Apollodorus calls it in his Ethics; that he
will even eat human flesh, if there should be occasion; that he is the
only free man, and that the bad are slaves; for that freedom is a power
of independent action, but slavery a deprivation of the same. That there
is besides, another slavery, which consists in subjection, and a third
which consists in possession and subjection; the contrary of which is
masterhood, which is likewise bad.

And they say, that not only are the wise free, but that they are also
kings, since kingly power is an irresponsible dominion, which can only
exist in the case of the wise man, as Chrysippus says in his treatise
on the Proper Application of his Terms made by Zeno; for he says that
a ruler ought to give decisions on good and evil, and that none of the
wicked understand these things. In the same way, they assert that they
are the only people who are fit to be magistrates or judges, or orators,
and that none of the bad are qualified for these tasks. Moreover, that
they are free from all error, in consequence of their not being prone to
any wrong actions. Also, that they are unconnected with injury, for that
they never injure any one else, nor themselves. Also, that they are not
pitiful, and that they never make allowance for any one; for that they do
not relax the punishments appointed by law, since yielding, and pity, and
mercifulness itself, never exist in any of their souls, so as to induce
an affectation of kindness in respect of punishment; nor do they ever
think any punishment too severe. Again, they say that the wise man never
wonders at any of the things which appear extraordinary; as for instance,
at the stories about Charon, or the ebbing of the tide, or the springs
of hot water, or the bursting forth of flames. But, say they further,
the wise man will not live in solitude; for he is by nature sociable and
practical. Accordingly, he will take exercise for the sake of hardening
and invigorating his body. And the wise man will pray, asking good things
from the Gods, as Posidonius says in the first book of his treatise on
Duties, and Hecaton says the same thing in the thirteenth book of his
treatise on Extraordinary Things.

They also say, that friendship exists in the virtuous alone, on account
of their resemblance to one another. And they describe friendship itself
as a certain communion of the things which concern life, since we use
our friends as ourselves. And they assert that a friend is desirable for
his own sake, and that a number of friends is a good; and that among the
wicked there is no such thing as friendship, and that no wicked man can
have a friend.

Again, they say that all the foolish are mad; for that they are not
prudent, and that madness is equivalent to folly in every one of its
actions; but that the wise man does everything properly, just as we say
that Ismenias can play every piece of flute-music well. Also, they say
that everything belongs to the wise man, for that the law has given them
perfect and universal power; but some things also are said to belong to
the wicked, just in the same manner as some things are said to belong
to the unjust, or as a house is said to belong to a city in a different
sense from that in which a thing belongs to the person who uses it.

LXV. And they say that virtues reciprocally follow one another, and that
he who has one has all; for that the precepts of them all are common,
as Chrysippus affirms in the first book of his treatise on Laws; and
Apollodorus, in his Natural Philosophy, according to the ancient system;
and Hecaton, in the third book of his treatise on Virtues. For they
say that the man who is endued with virtue, is able to consider and
also to do what must be done. But what must be done must be chosen, and
encountered, and distributed, and awaited; so that if the man does some
things by deliberate choice, and some in a spirit of endurance, and some
distributively, and some patiently; he is prudent, and courageous, and
just, and temperate. And each of the virtues has a particular subject
of its own, about which it is conversant; as, for instance, courage is
conversant about the things which must be endured: prudence is conversant
about what must be done and what must not, and what is of a neutral
or indifferent character. And in like manner, the other virtues are
conversant about their own peculiar subjects; and wisdom in counsel and
shrewdness follow prudence; and good order and decorum follow temperance;
and equality and goodness of judgment follow justice; and constancy and
energy follow courage.

Another doctrine of the Stoics is, that there is nothing intermediate
between virtue and vice; while the Peripatetics assert that there is a
stage between virtue and vice, being an improvement on vice which has not
yet arrived at virtue. For the Stoics say, that as a stick must be either
straight or crooked, so a man must be either just or unjust, and cannot
be more just than just, or more unjust than unjust; and that the same
rule applies to all cases. Moreover, Chrysippus is of opinion that virtue
can be lost, but Cleanthes affirms that it cannot; the one saying that it
can be lost by drunkenness or melancholy, the other maintaining that it
cannot be lost on account of the firm perceptions which it implants in
men. They also pronounce it a proper object of choice; accordingly, we
are ashamed of actions which we do improperly, while we are aware that
what is honourable is the only good. Again, they affirm that it is of
itself sufficient for happiness, as Zeno says, and he is followed in this
assertion by Chrysippus in the first book of his treatise on Virtues, and
by Hecaton in the second book of his treatise on Goods.

“For if,” says he, “magnanimity be sufficient of itself to enable us to
act in a manner superior to all other men; and if that is a part of
virtue, then virtue is of itself sufficient for happiness, despising all
things which seem troublesome to it.” However, Panætius and Posidonius
do not admit that virtue has this sufficiency of itself, but say that
there is also need of good health, and competency, and strength. And
their opinion is that a man exercises virtue in everything, as Cleanthes
asserts, for it cannot be lost; and the virtuous man on every occasion
exercises his soul, which is in a state of perfection.

LXVI. Again, they say that justice exists by nature, and not because
of any definition or principle; just as law does, or right reason, as
Chrysippus tells us in his treatise on the Beautiful; and they think
that one ought not to abandon philosophy on account of the different
opinions prevailing among philosophers, since on this principle one would
wholly quit life, as Posidonius argues in his Exhortatory Essays. Another
doctrine of Chrysippus is, that general learning is very useful.

And the School in general maintain that there are no obligations of
justice binding on us with reference to other animals, on account of
their dissimilarity to us, as Chrysippus asserts in the first book of his
treatise on Justice, and the same opinion is maintained by Posidonius
in the first book of his treatise on Duty. They say too, that the wise
man will love those young men, who by their outward appearance, show a
natural aptitude for virtue; and this opinion is advanced by Zeno, in
his Republic, and by Chrysippus in the first book of his work on Lives,
and by Apollodorus in his Ethics. And they describe love as an endeavour
to benefit a friend on account of his visible beauty; and that it is an
attribute not of acquaintanceship, but of friendship. Accordingly, that
Thrasonides, although he had his mistress in his power, abstained from
her, because he was hated by her. Love, therefore, according to them is a
part of friendship, as Chrysippus asserts in his essay on Love; and it is
not blameable. Moreover, beauty is the flower of virtue.

And as there are three kinds of lives; the theoretical, the practical,
and the logical; they say that the last is the one which ought to be
chosen. For that a logical, that is a rational, animal was made by nature
on purpose for speculation and action. And they say that a wise man will
very rationally take himself out of life, either for the sake of his
country or of his friends, or if he be in bitter pain, or under the
affliction of mutilation, or incurable disease. And they also teach that
women ought to be in common among the wise, so that whoever meets with
any one may enjoy her, and this doctrine is maintained by Zeno in his
Republic, and by Chrysippus in his treatise on Polity, and by Diogenes
the Cynic, and by Plato; and then, say they, we shall love all boys
equally after the manner of fathers, and all suspicion on the ground of
undue familiarity will be removed.

They affirm too, that the best of political constitutions is a mixed one,
combined of democracy, and kingly power, and aristocracy. And they say
many things of this sort, and more too, in their Ethical Dogmas, and they
maintain them by suitable explanations and arguments. But this may be
enough for us to say of their doctrines on this head by way of summary,
and taking them in an elementary manner.

LXVII. They divide natural philosophy into the topics of bodies, and
of principles, and of elements, and of Gods, and of boundaries, and of
place, and of the vacuum. And they make these divisions according to
species; but according to genera they divide them into three topics,
that of the world, that of the elements, and the third is that which
reasons on causes. The topic about the world, they say, is subdivided
into two parts. For that in one point of view, the mathematicians also
have a share in it; and according to it it is that they prosecute their
investigations into the nature of the fixed stars and the planets; as,
for instance, whether the sun is of such a size as he appears to be, and
similarly, whether the moon is; and in the same way they investigate
the question of spherical motion, and others of the same character. The
other point of view is that which is reserved exclusively for natural
philosophers, according to which it is that the existence and substance
of things are examined, [for instance, whether the sun and the stars
consist of matter and form,] and whether the sun is born or not born,
whether it is living or lifeless, corruptible or incorruptible, whether
it is regulated by Providence, and other questions of this kind.

The topic which examines into causes they say is also divisible into
two parts; and with reference to one of its considerations, the
investigations of physicians partake of it; according to which it is
that they investigate the dominant principle of the soul, and the
things which exist in the soul, and seeds, and things of this kind.
And its other division is claimed as belonging to them also by the
mathematicians, as, for instance, how we see, what is the cause of our
appearance being reflected in a mirror, how clouds are collected, how
thunder is produced, and the rainbow, and the halo, and comets, and
things of that kind.

LXVIII. They think that there are two general principles in the universe,
the active and the passive. That the passive is matter, an existence
without any distinctive quality. That the active is the reason which
exists in the passive, that is to say, God. For that he, being eternal,
and existing throughout all matter, makes everything. And Zeno, the
Cittiæan, lays down this doctrine in his treatise on Essence, and so does
Cleanthes in his essay on Atoms, Chrysippus in the first book of his
Investigations in Natural Philosophy, towards the end, Archedemus in his
work on Elements, and Posidonius in the second book of his treatise on
Natural Philosophy. But they say that principles and elements differ from
one another. For that the one had no generation or beginning, and will
have no end; but that the elements may be destroyed by the operation of
fire. Also, that the elements are bodies, but principles have no bodies
and no forms, and elements too have forms.

Now a body, says Apollodorus in his Natural Philosophy, is extended in
a threefold manner; in length, in breadth, in depth; and then it is
called a solid body; and the superficies is the limit of the body having
length and breadth alone, but not depth. But Posidonius, in the third
book of his Heavenly Phænomena, will not allow a superficies either
any substantial reality, or any intelligible existence. A line is the
limit of a superficies, or length without breadth, or something which
has nothing but length. A point is the boundary of a line, and is the
smallest of all symbols.

They also teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind, and Fate,
and Jupiter, and by many other names besides. And that, as he was in the
beginning by himself, he turned into water the whole substance which
pervaded the air; and as the seed is contained in the produce, so too, he
being the seminal principle of the world, remained behind in moisture,
making matter fit to be employed by himself in the production of those
things which were to come after; and then, first of all, he made the
four elements, fire, water, air, and earth. And Zeno speaks of these in
his treatise on the Universe, and so does Chrysippus in the first book of
his Physics, and so does Archedemus in some treatise on the Elements.

LXIX. Now an element is that out of which at first all things which are
are produced, and into which all things are resolved at last. And the
four elements are all equally an essence without any distinctive quality,
namely, matter; but fire is the hot, water the moist, air the cold, and
earth the dry—though this last quality is also common to the air. The
fire is the highest, and that is called æther, in which first of all the
sphere was generated in which the fixed stars are set, then that in which
the planets revolve; after that the air, then the water; and the sediment
as it were of all is the earth, which is placed in the centre of the rest.

LXX. They also speak of the world in a threefold sense; at one time
meaning God himself, whom they call a being of a certain quality, having
for his peculiar manifestation universal substance, a being imperishable,
and who never had any generation, being the maker of the arrangement and
order that we see; and who, after certain periods of time, absorbs all
substance in himself, and then re-produces it from himself. And this
arrangement of the stars they call the world, and so the third sense
is one composed of both the preceding ones. And the world is a thing
which is peculiarly of such and such a quality consisting of universal
substance, as Posidonius affirms in his Meteorological Elements, being a
system compounded of heaven and earth, and all the creatures which exist
in them; or it may be called a system compounded of Gods and men, and of
the things created on their account. And the heaven is the most remote
circumference of the world, in which all the Divine Nature is situated.

Again, the world is inhabited and regulated according to intellect
and providence, as Chrysippus says, in his works on Providence, and
Posidonius in the thirteenth book of his treatise on Gods, since mind
penetrates into every part of the world, just as the soul pervades us;
but it is in a greater degree in some parts, and in a less degree in
others. For instance, it penetrates as a habit, as, for instance, into
the bones and sinews; and into some it penetrates as the mind does, for
instance, into the dominant principle. And thus the whole world, being
a living thing, endowed with a soul and with reason, has the æther as
its dominant principle, as Antipater, of Tyre, says in the eighth book
of his treatise on the World. But Chrysippus, in the first book of his
essay on Providence, and Posidonius in his treatise on Gods, say that the
heaven is the dominant principle of the world; and Cleanthes attributes
this to the sun. Chrysippus, however, on this point contradicts himself;
for he says in another place, that the most subtle portion of the æther,
which is also called by the Stoics the first God, is what is infused in
a sensible manner into all the beings which are in the air, and through
every animal and every plant, and through the earth itself according to a
certain habit; and that it is this which communicates to them the faculty
of feeling.

They say too, that the world is one and also finite, having a spherical
form. For that such a shape is the most convenient for motion, as
Posidonius says, in the fifteenth book of his Discussions on Natural
Philosophy, and so says Antipater also in his essay on the World. And
on the outside there is diffused around it a boundless vacuum, which is
incorporeal. And it is incorporeal inasmuch, as it is capable of being
contained by bodies, but is not so. And that there is no such thing as
a vacuum in the world, but that it is all closely united and compact;
for that this condition is necessarily brought about by the concord
and harmony which exist between the heavenly bodies and those of the
earth. And Chrysippus mentions a vacuum in his essay on a Vacuum, and
also in the first book of his treatise on the Physical Arts, and so
does Apollophanes in his Natural Philosophy, and so does Apollodorus,
and so does Posidonius in the second book of his discourses on Natural
Philosophy. And they say that these things are all incorporeal, and all
alike. Moreover, that time is incorporeal, since it is an interval of the
motion of the world. And that of time, the past and the future are both
illimitable, but the present is limited. And they assert that the world
is perishable, inasmuch as it was produced by reason, and is one of the
things which are perceptible by the senses; and whatever has its parts
perishable, must also be perishable in the whole. And the parts of the
world are perishable, for they change into one another. Therefore, the
whole world is perishable. And again, if anything admits of a change for
the worse it is perishable; therefore, the world is perishable, for it
can be dried up, and it can be covered with water.

Now the world was created when its substance was changed from fire to
moisture, by the action of the air; and then its denser parts coagulated,
and so the earth was made, and the thinner portions were evaporated and
became air; and this being rarefied more and more, produced fire. And
then, by the combination of all these elements, were produced plants and
animals, and other kinds of things. Now Zeno speaks of the creation, and
of the destruction of the world, in his treatise on the Universe, and so
does Cleanthes, and so does Antipater, in the tenth book of his treatise
on the World. But Panætius asserts that the world is imperishable.

Again, that the world is an animal, and that it is endued with reason,
and life, and intellect, is affirmed by Chrysippus, in the first volume
of his treatise on Providence, and by Apollodorus in his Natural
Philosophy, and by Posidonius; and that it is an animal in this sense,
as being an essence endued with life, and with sensation. For that which
is an animal, is better than that which is not an animal. But nothing is
better than the world; therefore the world is an animal. And it is endued
with life, as is plain from the fact of our own soul being as it were
a fragment broken off from it. But Boethus denies that the world is an
animal.

Again, that the world is one, is affirmed by Zeno, in his treatise on
the Universe, and by Chrysippus, and by Apollodorus, in his Natural
Philosophy, and by Posidonius, in the first book of his Discourses
on Natural Philosophy. And by the term, the universe, according to
Apollodorus, is understood both the world itself, and also the whole of
the world itself, and of the exterior vacuum taken together. The world,
then, is finite, and the vacuum infinite.

LXXI. Of the stars, those which are fixed are only moved in connection
with the movements of the entire heaven; but the planets move according
to their own peculiar and separate motions. And the sun takes an oblique
path through the circle of the zodiac, and in the same manner also does
the moon, which is of a winding form. And the sun is pure fire, as
Posidonius asserts in the seventh book of his treatise on the Heavenly
Bodies, and it is larger than the earth, as the same author informs us,
in the sixteenth book of his Disclosures on Natural Philosophy. Also
it is spherical, as he says in another place, being made on the same
principle as the world is. Therefore it is fire, because it performs all
the functions of fire. And it is larger than the earth, as is proved by
the fact of the whole earth being illuminated by it, and also the whole
heaven. Also the fact of the earth throwing a conical shadow, proves that
the sun is greater than it, and the sun is seen in every part, because
of its magnitude. But the moon is of a more earthy nature than the sun,
inasmuch as it is nearer the earth.

Moreover, they say that all these fiery bodies, and all the other
stars, receive nutriment; the sun from the vast sea, being a sort of
intellectual appendage; and the moon from the fresh waters, being mingled
with the air, and also near the earth, as Posidonius explains it in the
sixth book of his Discourses on Natural Philosophy. And all the other
stars derive their nourishment from the earth. They also consider that
the stars are of a spherical figure, and that the earth is immovable. And
that the moon has not a light of her own, but that she borrows it from
the sun. And that the sun is eclipsed, when the moon runs in front of it
on the side towards us, as Zeno describes in his work on the Universe;
for when it comes across it in its passage, it conceals it, and again it
reveals it; and this is a phenomenon easily seen in a basin of water.
And the moon is eclipsed when it comes below the shadow of the earth, on
which account this never happens, except at the time of the full moon;
and although it is diametrically opposite to the sun every month, still
it is not eclipsed every month, because when its motions are obliquely
towards the sun, it does not find itself in the same place as the sun,
being either a little more to the north, or a little more to the south.
When therefore it is found in the same place with the sun, and with the
other intermediate objects, then it takes as it were the diameter of the
sun, and is eclipsed. And its place is along the line which runs between
the crab and the scorpion, and the ram and the bull, as Posidonius tells
us.

LXXII. They also say that God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect,
and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil,
having a foreknowledge of the world and of all that is in the world;
however, that he has not the figure of a man; and that he is the creator
of the universe, and as it were, the Father of all things in common, and
that a portion of him pervades everything, which is called by different
names, according to its powers; for they call him Δία as being the person
(δι’ ὃν) everything is, and Ζῆνα, inasmuch as he is the cause of life,
(τοῦ Ζῆν), or because he pervades life. And Ἀθηνᾶ, with reference to the
extension of his dominant power over the æther (εἰς αἰθέρα). And Ἥρα,
on account of his extension through the air (εἰς ἀέρα). And Ἥφαιστος,
on account of his pervading fire, which is the chief instrument of art;
and Ποσειδῶν, as pervading moisture, and Δημήτηρ, as pervading the
earth (Γῆ). And in the same way, regarding some other of his peculiar
attributes, they have given him other names.[91]

The substance of God is asserted by Zeno to be the universal world, and
the heaven; and Chrysippus agrees with this doctrine, in his eleventh
book on the Gods, and so also does Posidonius, in the first book of his
treatise on the same subject. Antipater, in the seventh book of his
treatise on the World, says that his substance is aërial. And Boethus,
in his treatise on Nature, calls the substance of God the sphere of the
fixed stars.

LXXIII. And his nature they define to be, that which keeps the world
together, and sometimes that which produces the things upon the earth.
And nature is a habit which derives its movements from itself, perfecting
and holding together all that arises out of it, according to the
principles of production, in certain definite periods, and doing the same
as the things from which it is separated. And it has for its object,
suitableness and pleasure, as is plain from its having created man.

LXXIV. But Chrysippus, in his treatise on Fate, and Posidonius, in the
second book of his work on Fate, and Zeno, and Boethus, in the eleventh
book of his treatise on Fate, say, that all things are produced by fate.
And fate, (εἱμαρμένη), is a connected (εἰρομένη) cause of existing
things, or the reason according to which the world is regulated.

LXXV. They also say that divination has a universal existence, since
Providence has; and they define it as an act on account of certain
results, as Zeno and Chrysippus, in the second book of his treatise on
Divination, and Athenodorus and Posidonius, in the twelfth book of his
discourses on Natural Philosophy, and in the fifth book of his treatise
on Divination, all agree in saying; for Panætius denies that it has any
certain foundation.

LXXVI. And they say that the substance of all existing things is Primary
Matter, as Chrysippus asserts in the first book of his Physics; and
Zeno says the same. Now matter is that from which anything whatever is
produced. And it is called by a twofold appellation, essence and matter;
the one as relating to all things taken together, and the other to things
in particular and separate. The one which relates to all things taken
together, never becomes either greater or less; but the one relating to
things in particular, does become greater or less, as the case may be.

LXXVII. Body is, according to them, a substance and finite; as Antipater
says, in the second book of his treatise on Substance; and Apollodorus,
in his Natural Philosophy, agrees with him. It is also subject to change,
as we learn from the same author; for if it were immutable, then the
things which have been produced out of it would not have been produced;
on which account he also says that it is infinitely divisible: but
Chrysippus denies that it is infinite; for that nothing is infinite,
which is divisible at all.

LXXVIII. He admits, however, that it is infinitely divisible, and that
its concretions take place over the whole of it, as he explains in the
third book of his Physics, and not according to any circumference or
juxtaposition; for a little wine when thrown into the sea, will keep its
distinctness for a brief period, but after that, will be lost.

LXXIX. They also say that there are some Dæmones, who have a sympathy
with mankind, being surveyors of all human affairs; and that there are
heroes, which are the souls of virtuous men, which have left their bodies.

LXXX. Of the things which take place in the air, they say that winter is
the effect of the air above the earth being cooled, on account of the
retirement of the sun to a greater distance than before; that spring is
a good temperature of the air, according to the sun’s approach towards
us; that summer is the effect of the air above the earth being warmed by
the approach of the sun towards the north; that autumn is caused by the
retreat of the sun from us … to those places from which they flow.[92]

LXXXI. And the cause of the production of the winds is the sun, which
evaporates the clouds. Moreover, the rainbow is the reflexion of the
sun’s rays from the moist clouds, or, as Posidonius explains it in his
Meteorology, a manifestation of a section of the sun or moon, in a cloud
suffused with dew; being hollow and continuous to the sight; so that it
is reflected as in a mirror, under the appearance of a circle. And that
comets, and bearded stars, and meteors, are fires which have an existence
when the density of the air is borne upwards to the regions of the æther.

That a ray of light is a kindling of sudden fire, borne through the air
with great rapidity, and displaying an appearance of length; that rain
proceeds from the clouds, being a transformation of them into water,
whenever the moisture which is caught up from the earth or from the sea,
by the sun, is not able to be otherwise disposed of; for when it is
solidified, it is then called hoar frost. And hail is a cloud congealed,
and subsequently dispersed by the wind. Snow is moisture from a congealed
cloud, as Posidonius tells us in the eighth book of his discourse on
Natural Philosophy. Lightning is a kindling of the clouds from their
being rubbed together, or else broken asunder by the wind, as Zeno tells
us in his treatise on the Universe; and thunder is the noise made by them
on the occasion of their being rubbed together or broken asunder; and
the thunderbolt is a sudden kindling which falls with great violence on
the earth, from the clouds being rubbed together or broken asunder, or,
as others say, it is a conversion of fiery air violently brought down to
the earth. A typhon is a vast thunderbolt, violent and full of wind, or
a smoky breath of a cloud broken asunder. A πρηστὴς is a cloud rent by
fire, with wind,[93] … into the hollows of the earth, or when the wind
is pent up in the earth, as Posidonius says in his eighth book; and that
some of them are shakings, others rendings, others emissions of fire, and
others, instances of violent fermentation.

LXXXII. They also think that the general arrangement of the world is in
this fashion; that the earth is in the middle, occupying the place of the
centre; next to which comes the water, of a spherical form; and having
the same centre as the earth; so that the earth is in the water; and next
to the water comes the air, which has also a spherical form.

LXXXIII. And that there are five circles in the heaven; of which the
first is the arctic circle, which is always visible; the second is the
tropical summer circle; the third is the equinoctial circle; the fourth,
the winter tropical circle; and the fifth the antarctic, which is not
visible. And they are called parallel, because they do not incline to one
another; they are drawn however around the same centre. But the zodiac
is oblique, cutting the parallel circles. There are also five zones on
the earth; the first is the northern one, placed under the arctic circle,
uninhabitable by reason of the cold; the second is temperate; the third
is uninhabitable because of the heat, and is called the torrid zone; the
fourth is a temperate zone, on the other side of the torrid zone; the
fifth is the southern zone, being also uninhabitable by reason of the
cold.[94]

LXXXIV. Another of their doctrines is that nature is an artificial fire
tending by a regular road to production, which is a fiery kind of breath
proceeding according to art. Also, that the soul is sensible, and that
it is a spirit which is born with us; consequently it is a body and
continues to exist after death; that nevertheless it is perishable. But
that the soul of the universe is imperishable, and that the souls which
exist in animals are only parts of that of the universe. But Zeno, the
Cittiæan, and Antipater, in their treatise concerning the Soul, and
Posidonius also, all say that the soul is a warm spirit; for that by
it we have our breath, and by it we are moved. Cleanthes, accordingly,
asserts that all souls continue to exist till they are burnt up; but
Chrysippus says that it is only the souls of the wise that endure. And
they further teach that there are eight parts of the soul; the five
senses, and the generative faculties, and voice, and reason. And we see
because of a body of luminous air which extends from the organ of sight
to the object in a conical form, as it is asserted by Chrysippus, in the
second book of his Natural Philosophy, and also by Apollodorus. And the
apex of this cone is close to the eye, and its base is formed by the
object which is seen; so that that which is seen is as it were reported
to the eye by this continuous cone of air extended towards it like a
staff. In the same way, we hear because the air between the speaker and
the hearer is struck in a spherical manner; and is then agitated in
waves, resembling the circular eddies which one sees in a cistern when a
stone is dropped into it.

Sleep, they say, is produced by a relaxation of the æsthetic energies
with reference to the dominant part of the soul. And the causes of the
passions they explain to be the motions and conversions which take place
in connection with this spirit or soul.

LXXXV. Seed, they define as a thing of a nature capable of producing
other things of the same nature as the thing from which it has been
separated. And the seed of man, which man emits, is, together with
moisture, mixed up with the parts of the soul by that kind of mixture
which corresponds to the capacity of the parents. And Chrysippus says,
in the second book of his Natural Philosophy, that it is a spirit
according to substance; as is manifest from the seeds which are planted
in the earth; and which, if they are old, do not germinate, because all
their virtue has evaporated. And Sphærus says, that seed proceeds from
the entire body, and that that is how it is that it produces all the
parts of the body.

They also say that the seed of the female is unproductive; for, as
Sphærus says, it is devoid of tone, and small in quantity, and watery.

LXXXVI. They also say that that is the dominant part of the soul which is
its most excellent part; in which the imaginations and the desires are
formed, and whence reason proceeds. And this place is in the heart.

These then are the doctrines on the subject of natural philosophy
entertained by them, which it seems sufficient for us to detail, having
regard to the due proportions of this book. And the following are the
points in which some of them disagreed with the rest.


LIFE OF ARISTON.

I. Ariston the Bald, a native of Chios, surnamed the Siren, said, that
the chief good was to live in perfect indifference to all those things
which are of an intermediate character between virtue and vice; making
not the slightest difference between them, but regarding them all on a
footing of equality. For that the wise man resembles a good actor; who,
whether he is filling the part of Agamemnon or Thersites, will perform
them both equally well.

II. And he discarded altogether the topic of physics, and of logic,
saying that the one was above us, and that the other had nothing to do
with us; and that the only branch of philosophy with which we had any
real concern was ethics.

III. He also said that dialectic reasonings were like cobwebs; which,
although they seem to be put together on principles of art, are utterly
useless.

IV. And he did not introduce many virtues into his scheme, as Zeno did;
nor one virtue under a great many names, as the Megaric philosophers did;
but defined virtue as consisting in behaving in a certain manner with
reference to a certain thing.

V. And as he philosophized in this manner, and carried on his discussions
in the Cynosarges, he got so much influence as to be called a founder of
a sect. Accordingly, Miltiades, and Diphilus were called Aristoneans.

VI. He was a man of very persuasive eloquence, and one who could adapt
himself well to the humours of a multitude. On which account Timon says
of him:—

    And one who, from Ariston’s wily race,
    Traced his descent.

Diocles, the Magnesian, tells us that Ariston having fallen in with
Polemo, passed over to his school, at a time when Zeno was lying ill
with a long sickness. The Stoic doctrine to which he was most attached,
was the one that the wise man is never guided by opinions. But Persæus
argued against this, and caused one of two twin brothers to place a
deposit in his hands, and then caused the other to reclaim it; and thus
he convicted him, as he was in doubt on this point, and therefore forced
to act on opinion. He was a great enemy of Arcesilaus. And once, seeing
a bull of a monstrous conformation, having a womb, he said, “Alas! here
is an argument for Arcesilaus against the evidence of his senses.” On
another occasion, when a philosopher of the Academy said that he did not
comprehend anything, he said to him, “Do not you even see the man who is
sitting next to you?” And as he said that he did not, he said:—

    Who then has blinded you, who’s been so harsh,
    As thus to rob you of your beaming eyes?

VII. The following works are attributed to him. Two books of Exhortatory
Discourses; Dialogues on the Doctrines of Zeno; six books of
Conversations; seven books of Discussions on Wisdom; Conversations on
Love; Commentaries on Vain Glory; twenty-five books of Reminiscences;
three books of Memorabilia; eleven books of Apophthegms; a volume
against the Orators; a volume against the Rescripts of Alexinus; three
treatises against the Dialecticians; four books of Letters to Cleanthes.
But Panætius and Sosicrates say, that his only genuine writings are his
letters; and that all the rest are the works of Ariston the Peripatetic.

VIII. It is said that he, being bald, got a stroke of the sun, and so
died. And we have written a jesting epigram on him in Scazon iambics, in
the following terms:—

    Why, O Ariston, being old and bald,
    Did you allow the sun to roast your crown?
    Thus, in an unbecoming search for warmth,
    Against your will, you’ve found out chilly Hell.

IX. There was also another man of the name of Ariston; a native of Julii,
one of the Peripatetic school. And another who was an Athenian musician.
A fourth who was a tragic poet. A fifth, a native of Alæa, who wrote a
treatise on the Oratorical Art. A sixth was a peripatetic Philosopher of
Alexandria.


LIFE OF HERILLUS

I. Herillus, a native of Carthage, said that the chief good was
knowledge; that is to say, the always conducting one’s self in such a way
as to refer everything to the principle of living according to knowledge,
and not been misled by ignorance. He also said that knowledge was a habit
not departing from reason in the reception of perceptions.

On one occasion, he said that there was no such thing as a chief good,
but that circumstances and events changed it, just as the same piece of
brass might become a statue either of Alexander or of Socrates. And that
besides the chief good or end (τέλος[95]), there was a subordinate end
(ὑποτελίς) different from it. And that those who were not wise aimed at
the latter; but that only the wise man directed his views to the former.
And all the things between virtue and vice he pronounced indifferent.

II. His books contain but few lines, but they are full of power, and
contain arguments in opposition to Zeno.

III. It is said, that when he was a boy, many people were attached to
him; and as Zeno wished to drive them away, he persuaded him to have his
head shaved, which disgusted them all.

IV. His books are these. One on Exercise; one on the Passions; one on
Opinion; the Lawgiver; the Skilful Midwife; the Contradictory Teacher;
the Preparer; the Director; the Mercury; the Medea; a book of Dialogues;
a book of Ethical Propositions.


LIFE OF DIONYSIUS

I. Dionysius, the Deserter, as he was called, asserted that pleasure
was the chief good, from the circumstance of his being afflicted with
a complaint in his eyes. For, as he suffered severely, he could not
pronounce pain a thing indifferent.

II. He was the son of Theophantus, and a native of Heraclea.

III. He was a pupil, as we are told by Diocles, first of all of
Heraclides, his fellow citizen; after that of Alexinus, and Menedemus;
and last of all of Zeno. And at first, as he was very devoted to
learning, he tried his hand at all kinds of poetry. Afterwards, he
attached himself to Aratus, whom he took for his model. Having left Zeno,
he turned to the Cyrenaics, and became a frequenter of brothels, and in
other respects indulged in luxury without disguise.

IV. When he had lived near eighty years, he died of starvation.

V. The following books are attributed to him. Two books on Apathy; two
on Exercise; four on Pleasure; one on Riches, and Favours, and Revenge;
one on the Use of Men; one on Good Fortune; one on Ancient Kings; one on
Things which are Praised; one on Barbarian Customs.

These now are the chief men who differed from the Stoics. But the man who
succeeded Zeno in his school was Cleanthes, whom we must now speak of.


LIFE OF CLEANTHES

I. Cleanthes was a native of Assos, and the son of Phanias. He was
originally a boxer, as we learn from Antisthenes, in his Successions.
And he came to Athens, having but four drachmas, as some people say, and
attaching himself to Zeno, he devoted himself to Philosophy in a most
noble manner; and he adhered to the same doctrines as his master.

II. He was especially eminent for his industry, so that as he was a
very poor man, he was forced to undertake mercenary employments, and
he used to draw water in the gardens by night, and by day he used to
exercise himself in philosophical discussions; on which account he was
called Phreantles.[96] They also say that he was on one occasion brought
before a court of justice, to be compelled to give an account what his
sources of income were from which he maintained himself in such good
condition; and that then he was acquitted, having produced as his witness
the gardener in whose garden he drew the water; and a woman who was a
mealseller, in whose establishment he used to prepare the meal. And the
judges of the Areopagus admired him, and voted that ten minæ should be
given to him; but Zeno forbade him to accept them.

They also say that Antigonus presented him three thousand drachmas.
And once, when he was conducting some young men to some spectacle, it
happened that the wind blew away his cloak, and it was then seen that
he had nothing on under it; on which he was greatly applauded by the
Athenians, according to the account given by Demetrius, the Magnesian,
in his essay on People of the same Name. And he was greatly admired by
them on account of this circumstance.

They also say that Antigonus, who was a pupil of his, once asked him why
he drew water; and that he made answer, “Do I do nothing beyond drawing
water? Do I not also dig, and do I not water the land, and do all sorts
of things for the sake of philosophy?” For Zeno used to accustom him to
this, and used to require him to bring him an obol by way of tribute.[97]
And once he brought one of the pieces of money which he had collected in
this way, into the middle of a company of his acquaintances, and said,
“Cleanthes could maintain even another Cleanthes if he were to choose;
but others who have plenty of means to support themselves, seek for
necessaries from others; although they only study philosophy in a very
lazy manner.” And, in reference to these habits of his, Cleanthes was
called a second Heracles.

III. He was then very industrious; but he was not well endowed by nature,
and was very slow in his intellect. On which account Timon says of him:—

    What stately ram thus measures o’er the ground,
    And master of the flock surveys them round?
    What citizen of Assos, dull and cold,
    Fond of long words, a mouth-piece, but not bold.[98]

And when he was ridiculed by his fellow pupils, he used to bear it
patiently.

IV. He did not even object to the name when he was called an ass; but
only said that he was the only animal able to bear the burdens which Zeno
put upon him. And once, when he was reproached as a coward, he said,
“That is the reason why I make but few mistakes.” He used to say, in
justification of his preference of his own way of life to that of the
rich, “That while they were playing at ball, he was earning money by
digging hard and barren ground.” And he very often used to blame himself.
And once, Ariston heard him doing so, and said, “Who is it that you are
reproaching?” and he replied, “An old man who has grey hair, but no
brains.”

When some one once said to him, that Arcesilaus did not do what he ought,
“Desist,” he replied, “and do not blame him; for, if he destroys duty as
far as his words go, at all events he establishes it by his actions.”
Arcesilaus once said to him, “I never listen to flatterers.” “Yes,”
rejoined Cleanthes, “I flatter you, when I say that though you say one
thing, you do another.” When some one once asked him what lesson he ought
to inculcate on his son, he replied, “The warning of Electra:”—

    Silence, silence, gently step.[99]

When a Lacedæmonian once said in his hearing, that labour was a good
thing, he was delighted, and addressed him:—

    Oh, early worth, a soul so wise and young
    Proclaims you from the sage Lycurgus sprung.[100]

Hecaton tells us in his Apophthegms, that once when a young man said,
“If a man who beats his stomach γαστρίζει then a man who slaps his thigh
μηρίζει,” he replied, “Do you stick to your διαμηρίζει.” But analogous
words do not always indicate analogous facts. Once when he was conversing
with a youth, he asked him if he felt; and as he said that he did, “Why
is it then,” said Cleanthes, “that I do not feel that you feel?”

When Sositheus, the poet, said in the theatre where he was present:—

    Men whom the folly of Cleanthes urges;

He continued in the same attitude; at which the hearers were surprised,
and applauded him, but drove Sositheus away. And when he expressed his
sorrow for having abused him in this manner, he answered him gently,
saying, “That it would be a preposterous thing for Bacchus and Hercules
to bear being ridiculed by the poets without any expression of anger, and
for him to be indignant at any chance attack.” He used also to say, “That
the Peripatetics were in the same condition as lyres, which though they
utter sweet notes, do not hear themselves.” And it is said, that when
he asserted that, on the principles of Zeno, one could judge of a man’s
character by his looks, some witty young men brought him a profligate
fellow, having a hardy look from continual exercise in the fields, and
requested him to tell them his moral character; and he, having hesitated
a little, bade the man depart; and, as he departed, he sneezed, “I have
the fellow now,” said Cleanthes, “he is a debauchee.”

He said once to a man who was conversing with him by himself, “You are
not talking to a bad man.” And when some one reproached him with his old
age, he rejoined, “I too wish to depart, but when I perceive myself to
be in good health in every respect, and to be able to recite and read, I
am content to remain.” They say too, that he used to write down all that
he heard from Zeno on oyster shells, and on the shoulder-blades of oxen,
from want of money to buy paper with.

V. And though he was of this character, and in such circumstances, he
became so eminent, that, though Zeno had many other disciples of high
reputation, he succeeded him as the president of his School.

VI. And he left behind him some excellent books, which are these. One
on Time; two on Zeno’s System of Natural Philosophy; four books of the
Explanations of Heraclitus; one on Sensation; one on Art; one addressed
to Democritus; one to Aristarchus; one to Herillus; two on Desire; one
entitled Archæology; one on the Gods; one on the Giants; one on Marriage;
one on Poets; three on Duty; one on Good Counsel; one on Favour; one
called Exhortatory; one on Virtues; one on Natural Ability; one on
Gorgippus; one on Enviousness; one on Love; one on Freedom; one called
the Art of Love; one on Honour; one on Glory; The Statesman; one on
Counsel; one on Laws; one on Deciding as a Judge; one on the Way of Life;
three on Reason; one on the Chief Good; one on the Beautiful; one on
Actions; one on Knowledge; one on Kingly Power; one on Friendship; one on
Banquets; one on the Principle that Virtue is the same in Man and Woman;
one on the Wise Man Employing Sophisms; one on Apophthegms; two books
of Conversations; one on Pleasure; one on Properties; one on Doubtful
Things; one on Dialectics; one on Modes; one on Categorems.

VII. These are his writings.

And he died in the following manner. His gums swelled very much; and,
at the command of his physicians, he abstained from food for two days.
And he got so well that his physicians allowed him to return to all his
former habits; but he refused, and saying that he had now already gone
part of the way, he abstained from food for the future, and so died;
being, as some report, eighty years old, and having been a pupil of Zeno
nineteen years. And we have written a playful epigram on him also, which
runs thus:—

    I praise Cleanthes, but praise Pluto more;
    Who could not bear to see him grown so old,
    So gave him rest at last among the dead,
    Who’d drawn such loads of water while alive.


LIFE OF SPHÆRUS.

I. Sphærus, a native of the Bosphorus, was, as we have said before, a
pupil of Cleanthes after the death of Zeno.

II. And when he made a considerable advance in philosophy he went to
Alexandria, to the court of Ptolemy Philopater. And once, when there
was a discussion concerning the question whether a wise man would allow
himself to be guided by opinion, and when Sphærus affirmed that he would
not, the king, wishing to refute him, ordered some pomegranates of wax
to be set before him; and when Sphærus was deceived by them, the king
shouted that he had given his assent to a false perception. But Sphærus
answered very neatly, that he had not given his assent to the fact that
they were pomegranates, but to the fact that it was probable that they
might be pomegranates. And that a perception which could be comprehended
differed from one that was only probable.

Once, when Mnesistratus accused him of denying that Ptolemy was a king,
he said to him, “That Ptolemy was a man with such and such qualities, and
a king.”[101]

III. He wrote the following books. Two on the World; one on the Elements
of Seed; one on Fortune; one on the Smallest Things; one on Atoms and
Phantoms; one on the Senses; five Conversations about Heraclitus; one on
Ethical Arrangement; one on Duty; one on Appetite; two on the Passions;
one on Kingly Power; on the Lacedæmonian Constitution; three on Lycurgus
and Socrates; one on Law; one on Divination; one volume of Dialogues on
Love; one on the Eretrian Philosophers; one on Things Similar; one on
Terms; one on Habits; three on Contradictions; one on Reason; one on
Riches; one on Glory; one on Death; two on the Art of Dialectics; one on
Categorems; one on Ambiguity; and a volume of Letters.


LIFE OF CHRYSIPPUS.

I. Chrysippus was the son of Apollonius, and a native of either Soli or
Tarsus, as Alexander tells us in his Successions; and he was a pupil of
Cleanthes. Previously he used to practise running as a public runner;
then he became a pupil of Zeno or of Cleanthes, as Diocles and the
generality of authors say, and while he was still living he abandoned
him, and became a very eminent philosopher.

II. He was a man of great natural ability, and of great acuteness in
every way, so that in many points he dissented from Zeno, and also
from Cleanthes, to whom he often used to say that he only wanted to
be instructed in the dogmas of the school, and that he would discover
the demonstrations for himself. But whenever he opposed him with any
vehemence, he always repented, so that he used frequently to say:—

    In most respects I am a happy man,
    Excepting where Cleanthes is concerned;
    For in that matter I am far from fortunate.

And he had such a high reputation as a dialectician, that most people
thought that if there were such a science as dialectics among the Gods;
it would be in no respect different from that of Chrysippus. But though
he was so eminently able in matter, he was not perfect in style.

III. He was industrious beyond all other men; as is plain from his
writings; for he wrote more than seven hundred and five books. And he
often wrote several books on the same subject, wishing to put down
everything that occurred to him; and constantly correcting his previous
assertions, and using a great abundance of testimonies. So that, as in
one of his writings he had quoted very nearly the whole of the Medea of
Euripides, and some one had his book in his hands; this latter, when he
was asked what he had got there, made answer, “The Medea of Chrysippus.”
And Apollodorus, the Athenian, in his Collection of Dogmas, wishing to
assert that what Epicurus had written out of his own head, and without
any quotations to support his arguments, was a great deal more than all
the books of Chrysippus, speaks thus (I give his exact words), “For if
any one were to take away from the books of Chrysippus all the passages
which he quotes from other authors, his paper would be left empty.”

These are the words of Apollodorus; but the old woman who lived with him,
as Diocles reports, used to say that he wrote five hundred lines every
day. And Hecaton says, that he first applied himself to philosophy, when
his patrimony had been confiscated, and seized for the royal treasury.

IV. He was slight in person, as is plain from his statue which is in the
Ceramicus, which is nearly hidden by the equestrian statue near it; in
reference to which circumstance, Carneades called him Crypsippus.[102]
He was once reproached by some one for not attending the lectures of
Ariston, who was drawing a great crowd after him at the time; and he
replied, “If I had attended to the multitude I should not have been a
philosopher.” And once, when he saw a dialectician pressing hard on
Cleanthes, and proposing sophistical fallacies to him, he said, “Cease
to drag that old man from more important business, and propose these
questions to us who are young.” At another time, when some one wishing to
ask him something privately, was addressing him quietly, but when he saw
a multitude approaching began to speak more energetically he said to him:—

    Alas, my brother! now your eye is troubled;
    You were quite sane just now; and yet how quickly
    Have you succumbed to frenzy.[103]

And at drinking parties he used to behave quietly, moving his legs about
however, so that a female slave once said, “It is only the legs of
Chrysippus that are drunk.” And he had so high an opinion of himself,
that once, when a man asked him, “To whom shall I entrust my son?” he
said, “To me, for if I thought that there was any one better than myself,
I would have gone to him to teach me philosophy.” In reference to which
anecdote they report that people used to say of him:—

    He has indeed a clear and subtle head,
    The rest are forms of empty æther made.[104]

And also:—

    For if Chrysippus had not lived and taught,
    The Stoic school would surely have been nought.

VI. But at last, when Arcesilaus and Lacydes, as Sotion records in
his eighth book, came to the Academy, he joined them in the study of
philosophy; from which circumstance he got the habit of arguing for and
against a custom, and discussed magnitudes and quantities, following the
system of the Academics.

VII. Hermippus relates, that one day, when he was teaching in the Odeum,
he was invited to a sacrifice by his pupils; and, that drinking some
sweet unmixed wine, he was seized with giddiness, and departed this life
five days afterwards, when he had lived seventy-three years; dying in the
hundred and forty-third olympiad, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles.
And we have written an epigram on him:—

    Chrysippus drank with open mouth some wine
    Then became giddy, and so quickly died.
    Too little reck’d he of the Porch’s weal,
    Or of his country’s, or of his own dear life;
    And so descended to the realms of Hell.

But some people say that he died of a fit of immoderate laughter. For
that seeing his ass eating figs, he told his old woman to give the ass
some unmixed wine to drink afterwards, and then laughed so violently that
he died.

VIII. He appears to have been a man of exceeding arrogance. Accordingly,
though he wrote such numbers of books, he never dedicated one of them
to any sovereign. And he was contented with one single old woman, as
Demetrius tells us, in his People of the same Name. And when Ptolemy
wrote to Cleanthes, begging him either to come to him himself or to send
him some one, Sphærus went to him, but Chrysippus slighted the invitation.

IX. However, he sent for the sons of his sister, Aristocreon and
Philocrates, and educated them; and he was the first person who ventured
to hold a school in the open air in the Lyceum, as the before mentioned
Demetrius relates.

X. There was also another Chrysippus, a native of Cnidos, a physician,
from whom Erasistratus testifies that he received great benefit. And
another also who was a son of his, and the physician of Ptolemy; who,
having had a false accusation brought against him, was apprehended and
punished by being scourged. There was also a fourth who was a pupil of
Erasistratus; and a fifth was an author of a work called Georgics.

XI. Now this philosopher used to delight in proposing questions of this
sort. The person who reveals the mysteries to the uninitiated commits
a sin; the hierophant reveals them to the uninitiated; therefore the
hierophant commits sin? Another was, that which is not in the city, is
also not in the house; but a well is not in the city, therefore, there is
not a well in the house. Another was, there is a certain head; that head
you have not got; there is then a head that you have not got; therefore,
you have not got a head. Again, if a man is in Megara, he is not in
Athens; but there is a man in Megara, therefore, there is not a man in
Athens. Again, if you say anything, what you say comes out of your mouth;
but you say “a waggon,” therefore a waggon comes out of your mouth.
Another was, if you have not lost a thing, you have it; but you have not
lost horns; therefore, you have horns. Though some attribute this sophism
to Eubulides.

XII. There are people who run Chrysippus down as having written a great
deal that is very shameful and indecent. For in his treatise on the
Ancient Natural Historians, he relates the story of Jupiter and Juno
very indecently, devoting six hundred lines to what no one could repeat
without polluting his mouth. For, as it is said, he composes this story,
though he praises it as consisting of natural details, in a way more
suitable to street walkers than to Goddesses; and not at all resembling
the ideas which have been adopted or cited by writers in paintings. For
they were found neither in Polemo, nor in Hypsicrates, nor in Antigonus,
but were inserted by himself. And in his treatise on Polity, he allows
people to marry their mothers, or their daughters, or their sons. And
he repeats this doctrine in his treatise on those things which are not
desirable for their own sake, in the very opening of it. And in the third
book of his treatise on Justice, he devotes a thousand lines to bidding
people devour even the dead.

In the second book of his treatise on Life and Means of Support, where he
is warning us to consider beforehand, how the wise man ought to provide
himself with means, he says, “And yet why need he provide himself with
means? for if it is for the sake of living, living at all is a matter
of indifference; if it is for the sake of pleasure, that is a matter of
indifference too; if it is for the sake of virtue, that is of itself
sufficient for happiness. But the methods of providing one’s self with
means are ridiculous; for instance, some derive them from a king; and
then it will be necessary to humour him. Some from friendship; and
then friendship will become a thing to be bought with a price. Some
from wisdom; and then wisdom will become mercenary; and these are the
accusations which he brings.”

But since he has written many books of high reputation, it has seemed
good to me to give a catalogue of them, classifying them according to
their subjects. They are the following:—

Books on Logic; Propositions; Logical Questions; a book of the
Contemplations of the Philosopher; six books of Dialectic Terms addressed
to Metrodorus; one on the Technical Terms used in Dialectics, addressed
to Zeno; one called the Art of Dialectics, addressed to Aristagoras; four
books of Probable Conjunctive Reasons, addressed to Dioscorides.

The first set of treatises on the Logical Topics, which concern things,
contains: one essay on Propositions; one on those Propositions which are
not simple; two on the Copulative Propositions, addressed to Athenades;
three on Positive Propositions, addressed to Aristagoras; one on Definite
Propositions, addressed to Athenodorus; one on Privative Propositions,
addressed to Thearus; three on the Best Propositions, addressed to Dion;
four on the Differences between Indefinite Propositions; two on those
Propositions which are enunciated with a reference to time; two on
Perfect Propositions.

The second set contains, one essay on a Disjunctive True Propositions,
addressed to Gorgippides; four on a Conjunctive True Proposition, also
addressed to Gorgippides; one called, the Sect, addressed to Gorgippides;
one on the argument of Consequents; one on questions touched upon in the
three preceding treatises, and now re-examined, this also is addressed
to Gorgippides; one on what is Possible, addressed to Clitus; one on the
treatise of Philo, on Signification; one on what it is that Falsehood
consists in.

The third set contains, two treatises on Imperative Propositions; two
on Interrogation; four on Examination; an epitome of the subject of
Interrogation and Examination; four treatises on Answer; an abridgment on
Answer; two essays on Investigation.

The fourth set contains ten books on Categorems, addressed to Metrodorus;
one treatise on what is Direct and Indirect, addressed to Philarchus; one
on Conjunctions, addressed to Apollonides; four on Categorems, addressed
to Pasylus.

The fifth set contains, one treatise on the Five Cases; one on Things
defined according to the Subject; two on Enunciation, addressed to
Stesagoras; two on Appellative Nouns.

The next class of his writings refers to rules of Logic, with reference
to words, and speech which consists of words.

The first set of these contains, six treatises on Singular and Plural
Enunciations; five on Words, addressed to Sosigenes and Alexander; four
on the Inequality of Words, addressed to Dion; three on the Sorites
which refer to Words; one on Solecisms in the Use of Words, addressed to
Dionysius; one entitled Discourses, contrary to Customs; one entitled
Diction, and addressed to Dionysius.

The second set contains, five treatises on the Elements of Speech and of
Phrases; four on the Arrangement of Phrases; three on the Arrangement,
and on the Elements of Phrases, addressed to Philip; one on the Elements
of Discourse, addressed to Nicias; one on Correlatives.

The third set contains, two treatises against those who do not admit
Division; four on Ambiguous Expressions, addressed to Apollos; one,
Ambiguity in Modes; two on the Ambiguous Use of Figures, in Conjunctive
Propositions; two on the essay on Ambiguous Expressions, by Panthoides;
five on the Introduction to the Ambiguous Expressions; one, being an
abridgment of the Ambiguous Expressions, addressed to Epicrates; and a
collection of instances to serve as an Introduction to the Ambiguous
Expressions, in two books.

The next class is on the subject of that part of logic which is
conversant about reasonings and modes.

The first set of works in this class, contains, the Art of Reasoning
and of Modes, in five books, addressed to Dioscorides; a treatise on
Reasoning, in three books; one on the Structure of Modes, addressed to
Stesagoras, in five books; a comparison of the Elements of Modes; a
treatise on Reciprocal and Conjunctive Reasonings; an essay to Agathon,
called also an essay on Problems, which follow one another; a treatise,
proving that Syllogistic Propositions suppose one or more other terms;
one on Conclusions, addressed to Aristagoras; one essay, proving that
the same reasoning can affect several figures; one against those who
deny that the same reasoning can be expressed by syllogism, and without
syllogism, in two books; three treatises against those who attack the
resolution of Syllogisms; one on the treatise on Modes, by Philo,
addressed to Timostratus; two treatises on Logic, in one volume,
addressed to Timocrates and Philomathes; one volume of questions on
Reasonings and Modes.

The second set contains, one book of Conclusive Reasonings, addressed
to Zeno; one on Primary Syllogisms, which are not demonstrative; one on
the resolution of Syllogisms; one, in two books, on Captious Reasonings,
addressed to Pasylus; one book of Considerations on Syllogisms; one book
of Introductory Syllogisms, addressed to Zeno; three of Introductory
Modes, addressed also to Zeno; five of False Figures of Syllogism; one
of a Syllogistic Method, for the resolution of arguments, which are not
demonstrative; one of Researches into the Modes, addressed to Zeno and
Philomathes (but this appears to be an erroneous title).

The third set contains, one essay on Incidental Reasonings, addressed to
Athenades (this again is an incorrect title); three books of Incidental
Discourses on the Medium (another incorrect title); one essay on the
Disjunctive Reasons of Aminias.

The fourth set contains, a treatise on Hypothesis, in three books,
addressed to Meleager; a book of hypothetical reasonings on the Laws,
addressed also to Meleager; two books of hypothetical reasoning to serve
as an Introduction; two books of hypothetical reasonings on Theorems; a
treatise in two books, being a resolution of the Hypothetical Reasonings
of Hedylus; an essay, in three books, being a resolution of the
Hypothetical Reasonings of Alexander (this is an incorrect title); two
books of Expositions, addressed to Leodamas.

The fifth set contains, an introduction to Fallacy, addressed to
Aristocreon; an introduction to False Reasonings; a treatise in six
books, on Fallacy, addressed to Aristocreon.

The sixth set contains, a treatise against those who believe Truth and
Falsehood to be the same thing. One, in two books, against those who have
recourse to division to resolve the Fallacy, addressed to Aristocreon; a
demonstrative essay, to prove that it is not proper to divide indefinite
terms; an essay, in three books, in answer to the objections against
the non-division of Indefinite Terms, addressed to Pasylus; a solution,
according to the principles of the ancients, addressed to Dioscorides; an
essay on the Resolution of the Fallacy, addressed to Aristocreon, this is
in three books; a resolution of the Hypothetical Arguments of Hedylus,
in one book, addressed to Aristocreon and Apollos.

The seventh set contains, a treatise against those who contend that
the premisses on the Fallacy, are false; a treatise on Negative
Reasoning, addressed to Aristocreon, in two books; one book of Negative
Reasonings, addressed to Gymnasias; two books of a treatise on Reasoning
by Progression, addressed to Stesagoras; two books of Reasonings by
Interrogation, and on the Arrest,[105] addressed to Onetor; an essay, in
two books, on the Corrected Argument, addressed to Aristobulus; another
on the Non-apparent Argument, addressed to Athenades.

The eighth set contains, an essay on the Argument Outis, in eight books,
addressed to Menecrates; a treatise, in two books, on Arguments composed
of a finite term, and an indefinite term, addressed to Pasylus; another
essay on the Argument Outis, addressed to Epicrates.

The ninth set contains, two volumes of Sophisms, addressed to Heraclides,
and Pollis; five volumes of Dialectic Arguments, which admit of no
solution, addressed to Dioscorides; an essay, in one book, against the
Method of Arcesilaus, addressed to Sphærus.

The tenth set contains, a treatise in six books, against Custom,
addressed to Metrodorus; and another, in seven books, on Custom,
addressed to Gorgippides.

There are, therefore, works on Logic, in the four grand classes which we
have here enumerated, embracing various questions, without any connection
with one another, to the number of thirty nine sets, amounting in the
whole to three hundred and eleven treatises on Logic.

The next division comprises those works which have for their object, the
explanation of Moral Ideas.

The first class of this division, contains an essay, giving a description
of Reason, addressed to Theosphorus; a book of Ethical questions; three
books of Principles, to serve as the foundation of Dogmas, addressed
to Philomathes; two books of definitions of Good-breeding, addressed
to Metrodorus; two books of definitions of the Bad, addressed to
Metrodorus; two books of definitions of Neutral Things, addressed also
to Metrodorus; seven books of definitions of Things, according to their
genera, addressed to Metrodorus; and two books of Definitions, according
to other systems, addressed to Metrodorus.

The second set contains, a treatise on Things Similar, in three books,
addressed to Aristocles; an essay on Definitions, in seven books,
addressed to Metrodorus.

The third set contains, a treatise, in seven books, on the Incorrect
Objections made to Definitions, addressed to Laodamas; two books of
Probable Arguments bearing on Definitions, addressed to Dioscorides;
two books on Species and Genus, addressed to Gorgippides; one book on
Divisions; two books on Contraries, addressed to Dionysius; a book of
Probable Arguments relating to Divisions, and Genera, and Species; a book
on Contraries.

The fourth set contains, a treatise, in seven books, on Etymologies,
addressed to Diocles; another, in four books, on the same subject,
addressed to the same person.

The fifth set contains, a treatise in two books, on Proverbs, addressed
to Zenodotus; an essay on Poems, addressed to Philomathes; an essay, on
How one Ought to Listen to Poems, in two books; an essay, in reply to
Critics, addressed to Diodorus.

The next division refers to Ethics, looked at in a general point of view,
and to the different systems arising out of them, and to the Virtues.

The first set contains, an essay against Pictures, addressed to Timonax;
an essay on the Manner in which we express ourselves about, and form our
Conceptions of, each separate thing; two books of Thoughts, addressed to
Laodamas; an essay, in three books, on Conception, addressed to Pythonax;
an essay, that the Wise Man is not Guided by Opinion; an essay, in five
books, on Comprehension, and Knowledge, and Ignorance; a treatise on
Reason, in two books; a treatise on the Employment of Reason, addressed
to Leptines.

The second set contains, a treatise, that the Ancient Philosophers
approved of Logic, with Proofs to support the Arguments, in two books,
addressed to Zeno; a treatise on Dialectics, in four books, addressed
to Aristocreon; an answer to the Objections urged against Dialectics,
in three books; an essay on Rhetoric, in four books, addressed to
Dioscorides.

The third set contains, a treatise on Habit, in three books, addressed
to Cleon; a treatise on Art and Want of Art, in four books, addressed to
Aristocreon; a treatise, in four books, on the Difference between the
Virtues, addressed to Diodorus; a treatise, to show that all the Virtues
are Equal; a treatise on the Virtues, in two books, addressed to Pollis.

The next division refers to Ethics, as relating to Good and Evil.

The first set contains, a treatise in ten books, on the Honourable, and
on Pleasure, addressed to Aristocreon; a demonstration, that Pleasure is
not the Chief Good of Man, in four books; a demonstration that Pleasure
is not a Good at all, in four books; a treatise on what is said by …[106]
 
[81] A sort of guitar or violin.

[82] The Greek is, ἐν τῷ θερίζοντι λόγῳ, a species of argument so called,
because he who used it mowed or knocked down his adversaries.—Aldob.

[83] The Greek in the text is:—

    Κεῖνος μὲν πανάριστος ὃς εὖ εἰπόντι πίθηται,
    Ἐσθλὸς δ’ αὖ κἀκεῖνος ὃς αὐτὸς πάντα νοήσῃ.

The lines in Hesiod are:—

    Κεῖνος μὲν πανάριστος ὃς αὐτὸς πάντα νοήσῃ
    Ἐσθλὸς δ’ αὖ κἀκεῖνος ὃς εὖ εἰπόντι πίθηται.—Op. E. Di. 293.

    That man is best, whose unassisted wit
    Perceives at once what in each case is fit.
    And next to him, he surely is most wise,
    Who willingly submits to good advice.

[84] Huerner thinks (as indeed is evident) that something is lost here;
and proposes to read the sentence thus:—Τῶν δὲ κατηγορημάτων τὰ μέν ἐστι
συμβάματα ὡς τὸ πλεῖν, οἷον Σωκράτης πλεῖ, τὰ δὲ παρασυμβάματα ὡς τὸ
διὰ πέτρας πλεῖν. With reference to which passage, Liddell and Scott,
Gr. Eng. Lex. _voc._ σύμβαμα, thus speak: “σύμβαμα … as a philosophical
term of the Stoics = κατηγόρημα, a complete predicament such as is an
intransitive verb: _e.g._ Σωκράτης περιπατεῖ; while an imperfect verb was
regarded as an incomplete predicament; _e.g._ Σωκράτει μέλει, and called
παρασύμβαμα, or παρακατηγόρημα.”

[85] This line is from the Inachus of Sophocles (one of his lost plays).

[86] Homer, Iliad II. 484.

[87] This line is from the Citharista of Menander.

[88] It would appear that there is a considerable hiatus here; for
the instance following is a sorites, and not a specimen of the veiled
argument. And there is no instance given of the concealed, or of the
horned one. Still, the mere fact of the text being unintelligible,
is far from proving that we have not got it as Diogenes wrote it; as
though in the language of the writer in Smith’s Biographical Dictionary,
vol. i. pp. 1022, 1023, “the work contains a rich store of living
features, which serve to illustrate the private life of the Greeks,” it
is equally clear that the author “was unequal to writing a history of
Greek philosophy. His work in reality is nothing but a compilation of
the most heterogeneous and often contradictory accounts.… The traces
of carelessness and mistakes are very numerous; much in the work is
confused, and there is also much that is quite absurd. And as far
as philosophy itself is concerned, Diogenes very frequently did not
know what he was talking about when he abridged the theories of the
philosophers.”

[89] The third point of view is wanting; and those that are given appear
to be ill selected. The French translator, following the hint of Huebner,
gives the following passage from Sextus Empiricus (a physician of the
Sceptic school, about B.C. 250), in his work against the Philosophers,
which he says may serve to rectify and complete the statement of
Diogenes Laërtius. “Good is said in one sense of that which produces
the useful, or from which the useful results; that is, the good _par
excellence_, virtue. For virtue is as it were the source from which all
utility naturally flows. In another sense it is said of that which is
accidentally the cause of utility; under this point of view we call good
not only virtue, but also those actions which are conformable to virtue,
for they are accidentally useful. In the third and last place, we call
good everything that possibly can be useful, comprehending under this
definition virtue, virtuous actions, friends, good men, the Gods, &c.,
&c.”

[90] Hom. Il. I. 81. Pope’s Version, l. 105.

[91] It is hardly necessary to remark that Ἀθηνᾶ is the name of Minerva,
not of Jupiter; Ἥρα, of Juno; Ἥφαιστος, of Vulcan; Ποσειδῶν, of Neptune,
and Δημήτηρ, of Ceres. Ἥφαιστος is properly derived from φαίνω, to
shine; Ποσειδῶν has some affinity with πόω, to drink. Δημήτηρ is only a
dialectic variation of Τῆ μητὴρ.

[92] There is a hiatus in the text here. Casaubon supplies the meaning by
a reference to Plutarch’s Treatise on the opinions of the Philosophers,
iii. 7, “that the winds are a flowing of the air, and that they have
various names with reference to the countries from which they flow.”

[93] Something is evidently wanting here; probably some mention of an
earthquake.

[94] This is similar to Virgil’s description.

    Quinque tenent cœlum zonæ, quarum una corusco
    Semper Sole rubens, et torrida semper ab igni:
    Quam circum extremæ dextrà lævàque trahuntur.
    Cœruleâ glacie concretæ atque imbribus atris.
    Has inter mediamque duæ mortalibus ægris
    Munere concessæ Divûm, et via secta per ambas,
    Obliquus qua se signorum verteret ordo.—GEORG. I. 233.

There is no part of Dryden’s translation superior to that of this passage.

    Five girdles bind the skies; the torrid zone
    Glows with the passing and repassing sun;
    Far on the right and left, th’ extremes of heaven,
    To frosts, and snows, and bitter blasts are given;
    Betwixt the midst. And there the Gods assigned
    Four habitable seats for human kind,
    And, cross their limits cut a sloping way,
    Which the twelve signs in beauteous order sway. l. 322.

[95] “Ὑποτελὶς, a name given by Herillus in Diogenes Laërtius to a man’s
natural talents, &c., which ought all to be subordinate to the attainment
of the chief good.”—L. & S. _in voc._

[96] From φρέαρ, a well, and ἀντλέω to draw water.

[97] The Greek used is ἀποφορὰ; which was a term especially applied to
the money which slaves let out to hire paid to their master.

[98] This is a parody on Hom. Il. iii. 196. Pope’s version, i. 260. The
word ὅλμος means the mouth piece of a flute.

[99] Taken from the Orestes of Euripides, i. 140.

[100] This is parodied from Hom. Od. iv. 611. Pope’s version, l. 831.

[101] This is referring to the Stoic doctrine ridiculed by Horace:

                      Si dives qui sapiens est,
    Et sutor bonus, et solus formosus, et est Rex
    Cur optas quod habes?—Hor. Sat. i. 130.

Which may be translated:—

    If every man is rich who’s wise,
    A cobbler too beyond all price;
    A handsome man, and eke a king;
    Why thus your vows at random fling?

[102] From κρύπτω, to hide, and ἵππος, a horse.

[103] These lines are from the Erestes of Euripides, v. 247.

[104] This is a quotation from Homer, Od. x. 495. Pope’s Version, 586.
The Greek here is, οἷος πέπνυται. The line in Homer stands:

    οἵῳ πέπνυσθαι,—sc: πόρε περσεφόνεια.

[105] The argument by progression is the sorites. “The arrest” is the
method of encountering the sorites, by taking some particular point at
which to stop the admissions required by the sorites.

[106] The remainder of the life of Chrysippus is lost. 

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