Roman Stoicism: being lectures on the history of the Stoic philosophy with special reference to its development within the Roman EmpireArnold, Edward Vernon
Religion
Roman Stoicism: being lectures on the history of the Stoic philosophy with special reference to its development within the Roman Empire
Arnold, Edward Vernon
Stoics
[Sidenote: Zeno joins the Cynics.]
=74.= Our authorities busy themselves chiefly with narrating the
eccentricities of Crates, who wore warm clothing in summer and rags in
winter, entered the theatre as the audience were coming out, and drank
water instead of wine. But doubtless, like his predecessors in the Cynic
school, he was a man of the true Socratic character, who had trained
himself to bear hunger and thirst, heat and cold, flattery and abuse.
His life and wisdom won him the love of the high-born Hipparchia, who
turned from her wealthy and noble suitors, choosing instead the poverty
of Crates, who had abandoned all his possessions. In his company she went
from house to house, knocking at all doors in turn, sometimes admonishing
the inmates of their sins, sometimes sharing with them their meals[29].
In such a life Zeno recognised the forcefulness of Socrates, and in the
dogmas of the Cynic school he reached the foundation on which that life
was built. From that foundation neither Zeno nor his true followers ever
departed, and thus Stoicism embodied and spread the fundamental dogmas of
Cynism, that the individual alone is really existent, that virtue is the
supreme good, and that the wise man, though a beggar, is truly a king.
[Sidenote: Zeno’s Republic.]
=75.= Whilst still an adherent of the Cynic school[30], Zeno wrote his
Πολιτεία or _Republic_, which is evidently an attack on Plato’s work
with the same title[31]. If this work does not reveal to us the fully
developed philosopher, it at least shews us better than any other
evidence what the man Zeno was. His ideal was the establishment of a
perfect State, a completion of the work in which Alexander had failed;
and he found a starting-point in a treatise by Antisthenes on the same
subject. The ideal State must embrace the whole world, so that a man no
longer says, ‘I am of Athens,’ or ‘of Sidon,’ but ‘I am a citizen of the
world[32].’ Its laws must be those which are prescribed by nature, not
by convention. It will have no images or temples, for these are unworthy
of the nature of the deity; no sacrifices, because he cannot be pleased
by costly gifts; no law-courts, for its citizens will do one another
no harm; no statues, for the virtues of its inhabitants will be its
adornment[33]; no gymnasia, for its youth must not waste their time in
idle exercises[34].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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