The founding of the Stoic School was the result of the experiences of Zeno of Citium. Having lost much of his wealth in commerce, he turned to philosophy at Athens. Impressed with the character of Socrates, he attached himself successively to the Cynic, Megarian, and Platonic Schools, but without much satisfaction. He made himself master of the teachings of these Schools, and then founded a School of his own. It is said that when he asked for admittance to the Academy, Polemo, the leader, replied, “I am no stranger to your Phœnician art, Zeno. I perceive your design is to creep slyly into my garden and steal away my fruit.” In 294 B. C. he began to teach in the Painted Porch (see map, p. 219), a painted colonnade in the Athenian market-place. The School thereafter went by the name of Stoa, or the Porch. His contemporary antagonists were Arcesilaus in the Academy, and Epicurus. Zeno’s reputation throughout Greece was very high and well deserved. He was a parsimonious man, simple and rude spoken. He used a bad dialect, foreign words, and taught a strange doctrine. He suffered a slight wound and, taking it as a hint of destiny, committed suicide, saying, “I am coming, Earth, why do you call me?” Stoicism did not flourish under Cleanthes (who was leader of the School for thirty-two years), although to-day he is the best known of these three leaders on account of his _Hymn to Zeus_. He was originally a pugilist, and was so poor that he had to work as a water-carrier by night in order to attend the lectures of Zeno by day. He is said to have had a heavy mind, but it was nevertheless the mind of an inspired prophet and a thoughtful man of science. When Cleanthes received the Stoic doctrines from Zeno, they were still plastic. He made them monistic and pantheistic, and introduced the doctrine of “tension.” Under Chrysippus (280–206 B. C.) Stoicism was revived and he saved it from extinction. Chrysippus was the systematizer of the School and its literary representative. He wrote five hundred and five separate treatises, three hundred of which were on logical subjects. He is said to have seldom let a day pass without writing five hundred lines. He was the moderating influence of the School, mediating between extremes and removing objections. He restated Zeno’s doctrines, but his discourses abound in curious subtleties rather than argument. He was a much more scholarly man than his predecessors, and passed for the most learned man in antiquity. “Give me doctrines,” he said to Cleanthes, “and I will find arguments for them.” His haughtiness created many adversaries, both in the Academy and among the Epicureans, and he had great contempt for men of rank. He said, “If I thought any philosopher excelled me, I would myself become his pupil.” It was a common saying in those days, “No Chrysippus, no Stoa.” In the hands of Chrysippus the Stoic teaching became a well-rounded system.