Zeno · 2

“I welcome your love of learning in so far as you cleave to that true education which tends to advantage and not to that popular counterfeit of it which serves only to corrupt morals. But if anyone has yearned for philosophy, turning away from much-vaunted pleasure which renders effeminate the souls of some of the young, it is evident that not by nature only, but also by the bent of his will he is inclined to nobility of character. But if a noble nature be aided by moderate exercise and further receive ungrudging instruction, it easily comes to acquire virtue in perfection. 9. But I am constrained by bodily weakness, due to old age, for I am eighty years old; and for that reason I am unable to join you. But I send you certain companions of my studies whose mental powers are not inferior to mine, while their bodily strength is far greater, and if you associate with these you will in no way fall short of the conditions necessary to perfect happiness.”

So he sent Persaeus and Philonides the Theban; and Epicurus in his letter to his brother Aristobulus mentions them both as living with Antigonus. I have thought it well to append the decree also which the Athenians passed concerning him. It reads as follows:[6]

10. “In the archonship of Arrhenides, in the fifth prytany of the tribe Acamantis on the twenty-first day of Maemacterion, at the twenty-third plenary assembly of the prytany, one of the presidents, Hippo, the son of Cratistoteles, of the deme Xypetaeon, and his co-presidents put the question to the vote; Thraso, the son of Thraso of the deme Anacaea, moved:

“Whereas Zeno of Citium, son of Mnaseas, has for many years been devoted to philosophy in the city and has continued to be a man of worth in all other respects, exhorting to virtue and temperance those of the youth who come to him to be taught, directing them to what is best, affording to all in his own conduct a pattern for imitation in perfect consistency with his teaching, it has seemed good to the people — 11. and may it turn out well — to bestow praise upon Zeno of Citium, the son of Mnaseas, and to crown him with a golden crown according to the law, for his goodness and temperance, and to build him a tomb in the Ceramicus at the public cost. And that for the making of the crown and the building of the tomb, the people shall now elect five commissioners from all Athenians, and the Secretary of State shall inscribe this decree on two stone pillars and it shall be lawful for him to set up one in the Academy and the other in the Lyceum. And that the magistrate presiding over the administration shall apportion the expense incurred upon the pillars, that all may know that the Athenian people honour the good both in their life and after their death. 12. Thraso of the deme Anacaea, Philocles of Peiraeus, Phaedrus of Anaphlystus, Medon of Acharnae, Micythus of Sypalettus, and Dion of Paeania have been elected commissioners for the making of the crown and the building.”

These are the terms of the decree.

Antigonus of Carystus tells us that he never denied that he was a citizen of Citium. For when he was one of those who contributed to the restoration of the baths and his name was inscribed upon the pillar as “Zeno the philosopher,” he requested that the words “of Citium” should be added. He made a hollow lid for a flask and used to carry about money in it, in order that there might be provision at hand for the necessities of his master Crates. 13. It is said that he had more than a thousand talents when he came to Greece, and that he lent this money on bottomry.[7] He used to eat little loaves and honey and to drink a little wine of good bouquet. He rarely employed men-servants; once or twice indeed he might have a young girl to wait on him in order not to seem a misogynist. He shared the same house with Persaeus, and when the latter brought in a little flute-player he lost no time in leading her straight to Persaeus. They tell us he readily adapted himself to circumstances, so much so that King Antigonus often broke in on him with a noisy party, and once took him along with other revellers to Aristocles the musician; Zeno, however, in a little while gave them the slip. 14. He disliked, they say, to be brought too near to people, so that he would take the end seat of a couch, thus saving himself at any rate from one half of such inconvenience. Nor indeed would he walk about with more than two or three. He would occasionally ask the bystanders for coppers, in order that, for fear of being asked to give, people might desist from mobbing him, as Cleanthes says in his work On Bronze. When several persons stood about him in the Colonnade he pointed to the wooden railing at the top round the altar and said, “This was once open to all, but because it was found to be a hindrance it was railed off. If you then will take yourselves off out of the way you will be the less annoyance to us.”

When Demochares, the son of Laches, greeted him and told him he had only to speak or write for anything he wanted to Antigonus, who would be sure to grant all his requests, Zeno after hearing this would have nothing more to do with him.[8] 15. After Zeno’s death Antigonus is reported to have said, “What an audience I have lost.”[9] Hence too he employed Thraso as his agent to request the Athenians to bury Zeno in the Ceramicus. And when asked why he admired him, “Because,” said he, “the many ample gifts I offered him never made him conceited nor yet appear poor-spirited.”

His bent was towards inquiry, and he was an exact reasoner on all subjects. Hence the words of Timon in his Silli:[10]

A Phoenician too I saw, a pampered old woman ensconced in gloomy pride, longing for all things; but the meshes of her subtle web have perished, and she had no more intelligence than a banjo.[11]

16. He used to dispute very carefully with Philo the logician and study along with him. Hence Zeno, who was the junior, had as great an admiration for Philo as his master Diodorus. And he had about him certain ragged dirty fellows, as Timon says[12] in these lines:

The while he got together a crowd of ignorant serfs, who surpassed all men in beggary and were the emptiest of townsfolk.[13]

Zeno himself was sour and of a frowning countenance. He was very niggardly too, clinging to meanness unworthy of a Greek, on the plea of economy, If he pitched into anyone he would do it concisely, and not effusively, keeping him rather at arm’s length. I mean, for example, his remark upon the fop showing himself off. 17. When he was slowly picking his way across a watercourse, “With good reason,” quoth Zeno, “he looks askance at the mud, for he can’t see his face in it.” When a certain Cynic declared he had no oil in his flask and begged some of him, Zeno refused to give him any. However, as the man went away, Zeno bade him consider which of the two was the more impudent. Being enamoured of Chremonides, as he and Cleanthes were sitting beside the youth, he got up, and upon Cleanthes expressing surprise, “Good physicians tell us,” said he, “that the best cure for inflammation is repose.” When of two reclining next to each other over the wine, the one who was neighbour to Zeno kicked the guest below him, Zeno himself nudged the man with his knee, and upon the man turning round, inquired, “How do you think your neighbour liked what you did to him?” 18. To a lover of boys he remarked, “Just as schoolmasters lose their common-sense by spending all their time with boys, so it is with people like you.” He used to say that the very exact expressions used by those who avoided solecisms were like the coins struck by Alexander: they were beautiful in appearance and well-rounded like the coins, but none the better on that account. Words of the opposite kind he would compare to the Attic tetradrachms, which, though struck carelessly and inartistically, nevertheless outweighed the ornate phrases. When his pupil Ariston discoursed at length in an uninspired manner, sometimes in a headstrong and over-confident way. “Your father,” said he, “must have been drunk when he begat you.” Hence he would call him a chatterbox, being himself concise in speech.

19. There was a gourmand so greedy that he left nothing for his table companions. A large fish having been served, Zeno took it up as if he were about to eat the whole. When the other looked at him, “What do you suppose,” said he, “those who live with you feel every day, if you cannot put up with my gourmandise in this single instance?” A youth was putting a question with more curiosity than became his years, whereupon Zeno led him to a mirror, and bade him look in it; after which he inquired if he thought it became anyone who looked like that to ask such questions. Some one said that he did not in general agree with Antisthenes, whereupon Zeno produced that author’s essay on Sophocles, and asked him if he thought it had any excellence; to which the reply was that he did not know. “Then are you not ashamed,” quoth he, “to pick out and mention anything wrong said by Antisthenes, while you suppress his good things without giving them a thought?”

20. Some one having said that he thought the chain-arguments of the philosophers seemed brief and curt, Zeno replied, “You are quite right; indeed, the very syllables ought, if possible, to be clipped.” Some one remarked to him about Polemo, that his discourse was different from the subject he announced. He replied with a frown, “Well, what value would you have set upon what was given out?” He said that when conversing we ought to be earnest and, like actors, we should have a loud voice and great strength; but we ought not to open the mouth too wide, which is what your senseless chatterbox does. “Telling periods,” he said, “unlike the works of good craftsmen, should need no pause for the contemplation of their excellences; on the contrary, the hearer should be so absorbed in the discourse itself as to have no leisure even to take notes.”

21. Once when a young man was talking a good deal, he said, “Your ears have slid down and merged in your tongue.” To the fair youth, who gave it as his opinion that the wise man would not fall in love, his reply was: “Then who can be more hapless than you fair youths?” He used to say that even of philosophers the greater number were in most things unwise, while about small and casual things they were quite ignorant. And he used to cite the saying of Caphisius, who, when one of his pupils was endeavouring to blow the flute lustily, gave him a slap and told him that to play well does not depend on loudness, though playing loudly may follow upon playing well.[14] And to a youth who was talking somewhat saucily his rejoinder was, “I would rather not tell you what I am thinking, my lad.”

22. A Rhodian, who was handsome and rich, but nothing more, insisted on joining his class; but so unwelcome was this pupil, that first of all Zeno made him sit on the benches that were dusty, that he might soil his cloak, and then he consigned him to the place where the beggars sat, that he might rub shoulders with their rags; so at last the young man went away. Nothing, he declared, was more unbecoming than arrogance, especially in the young. He used also to say that it was not the words and expressions that we ought to remember, but we should exercise our mind in disposing to advantage of what we hear, instead of, as it were, tasting a well-cooked dish or well-dressed meal. The young, he thought, should behave with perfect propriety in walk, gait and dress, and he used continually to quote the lines of Euripides about Capaneus:

Large means had he, yet not the haughtinessThat springs from wealth, nor cherished prouder thoughtsOf vain ambition than the poorest man.[15]

23. Again he would say that if we want to master the sciences there is nothing so fatal as conceit, and again there is nothing we stand so much in need of as time. To the question “Who is a friend?” his answer was, “A second self (alter ego).” We are told that he was once chastising a slave for stealing, and when the latter pleaded that it was his fate to steal, “Yes, and to be beaten too,” said Zeno. Beauty he called the flower of chastity, while according to others it was chastity which he called the flower of beauty.[16] Once when he saw the slave of one of his acquaintance marked with weals, “I see,” said he, “the imprints of your anger.” To one who had been drenched with unguent, “Who is this,” quoth he, “who smells of woman?” When Dionysius the Renegade asked, “Why am I the only pupil you do not correct?” the reply was, “Because I mistrust you.” To a stripling who was talking nonsense his words were, “The reason why we have two ears and only one mouth is that we may listen the more and talk the less.” 24. One day at a banquet he was reclining in silence and was asked the reason: whereupon he bade his critic carry word to the king that there was one present who knew how to hold his tongue. Now those who inquired of him were ambassadors from King Ptolemy, and they wanted to know what message they should take back from him to the king. On being asked how he felt about abuse, he replied, “As an envoy feels who is dismissed without an answer.” Apollonius of Tyre tells us how, when Crates laid hold on him by the cloak to drag him from Stilpo, Zeno said, “The right way to seize a philosopher, Crates, is by the ears: persuade me then and drag me off by them; but, if you use violence, my body will be with you, but my mind with Stilpo.”

25. According to Hippobotus he forgathered with Diodorus, with whom he worked hard at dialectic. And when he was already making progress, he would enter Polemo’s school: so far from all self-conceit was he. In consequence Polemo is said to have addressed him thus: “You slip in, Zeno, by the garden door — I’m quite aware of it — you filch my doctrines and give them a Phoenician make-up.” A dialectician once showed him seven logical forms concerned with the sophism known as “The Reaper,” and Zeno asked him how much he wanted for them. Being told a hundred drachmas, he promptly paid two hundred: to such lengths would he go in his love of learning. They say too that he first introduced the word Duty and wrote a treatise on the subject. It is said, moreover, that he corrected Hesiod’s lines thus:

He is best of all men who follows good advice: good too is he who finds out all things for himself.[17]

26. The reason he gave for this was that the man capable of giving a proper hearing to what is said and profiting by it was superior to him who discovers everything himself. For the one had merely a right apprehension, the other in obeying good counsel superadded conduct.

When he was asked why he, though so austere, relaxed at a drinking-party, he said, “Lupins too are bitter, but when they are soaked become sweet.” Hecato too in the second book of his Anecdotes says that he indulged freely at such gatherings. And he would say, “Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue.” “Well-being is attained by little and little, and nevertheless it is no little thing itself.” [Others attribute this[18] to Socrates.]

27. He showed the utmost endurance, and the greatest frugality; the food he used required no fire to dress, and the cloak he wore was thin. Hence it was said of him:

The cold of winter and the ceaseless rainCome powerless against him: weak the dartOf the fierce summer sun or racking painTo bend that iron frame. He stands apartUnspoiled by public feast and jollity:Patient, unwearied night and day doth heCling to his studies of philosophy.

Nay more: the comic poets by their very jests at his expense praised him without intending it. Thus Philemon says in a play, Philosophers:

This man adopts a new philosophy.He teaches to go hungry: yet he getsDisciples. One sole loaf of bread his food;His best dessert dried figs; water his drink.

Others attribute these lines to Poseidippus.

By this time he had almost become a proverb. At all events, “More temperate than Zeno the philosopher” was a current saying about him. Poseidippus also writes in his Men Transported:

So that for ten whole daysMore temperate than Zeno’s self he seemed.

28. And in very truth in this species of virtue and in dignity he surpassed all mankind, ay, and in happiness; for he was ninety-eight when he died and had enjoyed good health without an ailment to the last. Persaeus, however, in his ethical lectures makes him die at the age of seventy-two, having come to Athens at the age of twenty-two. But Apollonius says that he presided over the school for fifty-eight years. The manner of his death was as follows. As he was leaving the school he tripped and fell, breaking a toe. Striking the ground with his fist, he quoted the line from the Niobe:[19]