Zeno of Citium is François-Charles-Hugues-Laurent Pouqueville's Grèce.
Bust of Zeno of Citium.
Bust of Zeno of Citium.
Zeno of Citium, an ancient Greek Stoic philosopher. From Thomas Stanley, The history of philosophy: containing the lives, opinions, actions and Discourses of the Philosophers of every Sect, illustrated with effigies of divers of them.
Ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Citium, depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicle.
Zeno of Citium is François-Charles-Hugues-Laurent Pouqueville's Grèce.
Bust of Zeno of Citium.
Bust of Zeno of Citium.
Zeno of Citium, an ancient Greek Stoic philosopher. From Thomas Stanley, The history of philosophy: containing the lives, opinions, actions and Discourses of the Philosophers of every Sect, illustrated with effigies of divers of them.
Ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Citium, depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicle.
https://www.amazon.com/C-Pearson/dp/0265326958/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=Fragments+of+Zeno+and+Cleanthes&qid=1599567714&s=books&sr=1-6
1891
Ζήνων ὁ Κιτιεύ
Zeno was born in the Phonecian-Greek city of Citium on Cyprus (modern-day Larnaca, Cyprus) in the same year that Alexander the Great ascended to the throne of Macedonia (around 335 B.C.). His father, Mnaseas, was a merchant who often traveled to Athens and Zeno, naturally, took up his father’s profession.
It is unclear whether Zeno studied philosophy in his youth but, around the age of 22, while stranded in Athens after a shipwreck, he picked up a copy of Xenophon’s Memorabilia and was so impressed by the figure of Socrates that he abandoned his former life and made the study of philosophy his only interest.
Zeno studied under Crates of Thebes and then under Stilpo the Megarian and then became the pupil of Polemo. From each of these men he learned some different aspects and nuance of the life of a philosopher. From Stilpo, for example, it is said he learned that the greatest fault in life lay in saying 'yes' too quickly to any request and one should avoid doing so in order to live a tranquil life. In this, he pre-dates Sartre's assertion that saying 'no' is an assertion of one's personal identity while agreeing to another's request diminishes the individual personality.
After many years of study, Zeno set up his own school and began to teach on the porches (the 'stoa') of the arcade in the marketplace in Athens and so his school took the name of the place of learning, Stoic.
Zeno believed one should court reason and recognize that all things are impermanent and without lasting value.
It is alleged that Zeno said, "I made a prosperous voyage when I was shipwrecked" and by this, he meant that, prior to his coming to Athens, his life had no meaning. The discipline of philosophy gave Zeno a focus he seems to have lacked as a merchant, and he devoted himself to study and, more importantly, to living the values he absorbed from his teachers and the books he read.
Zeno died around 262 B.C.E. There were varying reports about his age when he died; some said he was ninety-eight but his disciple Persaeus said he was seventy-two. Diogenes reports that he fell as he was leaving his school and broke one of his toes; striking the ground with his hand, he repeated a line out of the Niobe, "I come, why call me so?" and died.
Zeno of Citium was the founder of Stoicism. His teachings had a profound influence throughout the ancient world and in important respects helped pave the way for Christianity. Zeno's successors as leaders of the Stoa were Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Zeno of Tarsus, Diogenes the Babylonian, Panaetius of Rhodes, Posidonius, and Hecaton. The Stoic system, with its emphasis on fortitude and discipline, appealed to the Romans and became the most widely accepted Greek philosophy among the Roman ruling classes. Greek and Roman writers in imperial times came to identify the good Roman emperors, such as Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, with the Stoic king, and the evil emperors, such as Caligula, Nero, and Domitian, with the depraved tyrant. Marcus Aurelius was the emperor who most obviously accepted Stoicism as a way of life, and his collection of personal memoirs bears eloquent witness to the appeal which Zeno's system had to a fine and sensitive mind.
With the demise of the city-states and the concomitant failure of the older and simpler religious views to satisfy men's new spiritual needs in a time of changing values, Zeno's philosophical teachings imparted a sense of worth and dignity to the lives of great numbers of men. The striking similarities between Stoicism and Christianity made it one of the important precursors of that religion in antiquity.
Zeno was Pagan in accordance with traditional Ancient Greek beliefs.
Political philosophy was an important part of Zeno's thought. Nevertheless, despite having influential patrons among the politicians of his time there is little information about Zeno's own involvement.
Zeno's philosophical system embraced physics, logic, and ethics. Its greatest strength lay not in the elaborate but false theories set forth as explanations for the make-up of the universe, but in the almost evangelical message of its ethics. Man, in Zeno's view, had the key to true happiness within himself. He must identify with Nature (or Zeus or Providence or the Cosmos, for all were used interchangeably) and strive for self-sufficiency, which meant the rejection of all the external goods and values men traditionally cherished. In place of these, the divine reason given to every person must be cultivated toward the understanding and acceptance of God's universe. Social position was unimportant, and it was possible for the pauper or the king to strive toward the Stoic goal. The true Stoic sage was aware of the laws of Nature and followed them willingly because a beneficent Providence was guiding events. Individual suffering and misfortunes were subsumed under a larger and more important good. The ultimate goal was apathia, a state in which a person was completely indifferent to all but his own divinely given understanding of things. Virtue was defined as knowledge and vice as ignorance. The path to virtue was not easy, however. It demanded tough discipline and strict control over natural feelings and reactions such as pleasure, lust, anxiety, and fear. It also demanded a great deal of study of both theory and practical science, for only through complete awareness of the truth of the material world could the Stoic sage come to that understanding which gave him happiness.
Stoic physics and logic followed Heraclitus, Aristotle, and the two Socratic thinkers Antisthenes and Diodorus. It was an eclectic system which mixed a corporeal universe with an ultimate divine reason. God, the divine and beneficent reason behind all things, was originally one and the same with Fire, the basis of the physical universe. Through an elaborate process of separation, God willed Himself apart from corporeality and caused the chain of events which we know as the history of the universe. At some specific moment in the future, He will take corporeality back unto Himself in a mighty conflagration. This process will repeat itself infinitely and history will repeat itself exactly an endless number of times. Man's freedom in such a totally predetermined chain of causation is possible only through the independence of his mind, which bears the same relationship to his body as does God to the corporeal universe. Through reason, man may come to an understanding and acceptance of the way things are and may willingly comply with Nature. Ignorance of the truth leads to vain hopes and expectations, and the ignorant man is condemned to a life of blindness. It can be readily seen from the Stoic view of a beneficent God at work in a completely preordained universe that Stoicism was among the first philosophical systems to claim that this is the best of all possible worlds.
Zeno was known for his powers of abstinence and his austere lifestyle; he was very frugal, ate food that did not require cooking, and wore thin clothing. He was very much respected by the citizens of Athens for living according to his own teachings, and for setting an example of temperance and virtue for the young men of the city. He enjoyed drinking wine at dinner parties and when questioned about it, replied that it was better to slip with the feet than with the tongue.
Diogenes reports that Zeno did not like to receive public attention and was of an even temperament. King Antigonus of Macedonia, who used to listen to Zeno’s lectures, enjoyed his company and often took him along to social engagements, from which he would quietly slip away. When Zeno was already quite old, King Antigonus invited him to come to Macedonia to advise him. Zeno demurred, saying that he was too feeble, and sent two of his younger followers, Persaeus and Philonides, in his place.
There is no information on whether Zeno was married or had any children.
