The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius (best free ebook reader txt) 📕

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.

The disciples of Zeno were very numerous. The most eminent were, first of all, Persaeus of Citium, 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 Lacedaemonians; one on Marriage; one on Impiety; the Thyestes; an Essay on Love; a volume of Exhortations; one of Conversations; four of Apothegms; 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 Sphaerus, 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, Sphaerus 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.

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.

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 of Citium 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 Panaetius 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.

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