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

the son of Mnaseas, the Citiaean, 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 Citiaean, 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 enroll 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 everyone may understand that the whole people of Athens honors good men both while they are living and after they are dead. And Thrason of Anacaea, Philocles of the Piraeus, Phaedrus of Anaphlystos, Medon of Acharnae, Micythus of Sypalettus, and Dion of Paeania, are hereby appointed to superintend the building of the tomb.

These then are the terms of the decree.

But Antigonus of Carystos says that Zeno himself never denied that he was a native of Citium. 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 Citium.”

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.

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

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 Persaeus; and once, when he brought in a female flute-player to him, he hastened to bring her back to him.

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.

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.”

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.”

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

I saw an aged woman of Phoenicia,
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.

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.

If he reproved anyone, 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