Greek Texts & Translations

The Athenians buried him in the Ceramicus and honoured him in the decrees already cited above, adding their testimony of his goodness. Here is the epitaph composed for him by Antipater of Sidon ^note:

Here lies great Zeno, dear to Citium, who scaled high Olympus, though he piled not Pelion on Ossa, nor toiled at the labours of Heracles, but this was the path he found out to the stars - the way of temperance alone.

Here too is another by Zenodotus the Stoic, a pupil of Diogenes ^note:

Thou madest self-sufficiency thy rule,

Eschewing haughty wealth, O godlike Zeno,

With aspect grave and hoary brow serene.

A manly doctrine thine: and by thy prudence

With much toil thou didst found a great new school,

Chaste parent of unfearing liberty.

And if thy native country was Phoenicia,

What need to slight thee? came not Cadmus thence,

Who gave to Greece her books and art of writing?

And Athenaeus the epigrammatist speaks of all the Stoics in common as follows ^note: 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 !

She only it is who keeps the lives of men

And cities, - safer than high gates and walls.

But those who place their happiness in pleasure

Are led by the least worthy of the Muses.

We have ourselves mentioned the manner of Zeno's death in the Pammetros (a collection of poems in various metres) :

The story goes that Zeno of Citium after enduring many hardships by reason of old age was set free, some say by ceasing to take food; others say that once when he had tripped he beat with his hand upon the earth and cried, "I come of my own accord; why then call me?" ^note

For there are some who hold this to have been the manner of his death.

So much then concerning his death.

Demetrius the Magnesian, in his work on Men of the Same Name, says of him : his father, Mnaseas, being a merchant often went to Athens and brought away many books about Socrates for Zeno while still a boy. 7.1.32 Hence he had been well trained even before he left his native place. And thus it came about that on his arrival at Athens he attached himself to Crates. And it seems, he adds, that, when the rest were at a loss how to express their views, Zeno framed a definition of the end. They say that he was in the habit of swearing by "capers" just as Socrates used to swear by "the dog." Some there are, and among them Cassius the Sceptic and his disciples, who accuse Zeno at length. Their first count is that in the beginning of his Republic he pronounced the ordinary education useless : the next is that he applies to all men who are not virtuous the opprobrious epithets of foemen, enemies, slaves, and aliens to one another, parents to children, brothers to brothers, friends to friends.

Again, in the Republic, making an invidious contrast, he declares the good alone to be true citizens or friends or kindred or free men ; and accordingly in the view of the Stoics parents and children are enemies, not being wise. Again, it is objected, in the Republic he lays down community of wives, and at line 200 prohibits the building of temples, lawcourts and gymnasia in cities ; while as regards a currency he writes that we should not think it need be introduced either for purposes of exchange or for travelling abroad. Further, he bids men and women wear the same dress and keep no part of the body entirely covered. 7.1.34 That the Republic is the work of Zeno is attested by Chrysippus in his De Republica. And he discussed amatory subjects in the beginning of that book of his which is entitled "The Art of Love." Moreover, he writes much the same in his Interludes. So much for the criticisms to be found not only in Cassius but in Isidorus of Pergamum, the rhetorician. Isidorus likewise affirms that the passages disapproved by the school were expunged from his works by Athenodorus the Stoic, who was in charge of the Pergamene library ; and that afterwards, when Athenodorus was detected and compromised, they were replaced. So much concerning the passages in his writings which are regarded as spurious.

There have been eight persons of the name of Zeno. First the Eleatic, of whom more hereafter ; the second our present subject ; the third a Rhodian who wrote a local history in one volume ; the fourth a historian who wrote about the expedition of Pyrrhus into Italy and Sicily, and besides that an epitome of the political history of Rome and Carthage ; the fifth a pupil of Chrysippus, who left few writings but many disciples ; the sixth a physician of the school of Herophilus, a competent practitioner, though a poor writer; the seventh a grammarian, who besides other writings has left behind him epigrams; the eighth a Sidonian by birth and an Epicurean philosopher, lucid both in thinking and in style.