=89.= The most intimate companion[2] of Zeno was PERSAEUS of Citium (circ. 300-243 B.C.). He was the fellow-townsman of Zeno, and, as good authorities assert, at first his personal servant (οἰκέτης)[3] and afterwards his fellow-lodger. On the recommendation of Zeno he took service, together with Aratus the poet, with Antigonus Gonatas, king of Macedonia[4]. Here he was often twitted as to the Stoic paradoxes. King Antigonus sent him messengers announcing the loss of his wife, child, and property, and found that he was not entirely indifferent to external circumstances[5]. He adapted himself easily to court life, and is said to have written a treatise on the theory of the banquet, in which he did not rise above the moral standard of his neighbours[6]. Nor did he disdain to hoax Aristo of Chius, who held strongly to the paradox that ‘the wise man never opines’; he first sent him money by one of two twins, and then sent another to demand it back[7]. Another Socratic paradox, that ‘the wise man is sure to be a good general,’ he endeavoured to maintain by his personal example[8]. Antigonus placed him in command of the acropolis at Corinth, which was nevertheless taken by Aratus of Sicyon in 243 B.C. According to one account, Persaeus was wounded in the attack, and afterwards put to death by the conqueror[9]; others relate that he escaped to Cenchreae[10]. As a philosopher he is of little importance; but Cicero mentions that he not only maintained that amongst the gods were men raised to the sky for their services to mankind (which was an accepted Stoic doctrine), but also that objects useful to man had been deified[11]. [Sidenote: Aratus.] =90.= Two other companions of Zeno also took service under Antigonus, apparently at the same time. Of these PHILONIDES of Thebes[12] is otherwise unknown to us. The other was ARATUS of Soli in Cilicia, author of the well-known poem _The Phaenomena_, an astronomical treatise afterwards translated into Latin by Cicero, and largely used by Virgil in his _Georgics_. The poems of Aratus had a wide influence, and were probably the source from which so many Stoic conceptions reached Virgil. The most interesting part for us is the Introduction, in which he interprets Zeus in Stoic fashion as the deity who dwells in sea and land, in markets and streets: whose family is mankind; and whose providence has set the stars in the heaven to regulate the seasons of the year and to be a guide to the farmer and the sailor[13]. The spirit of this poem is closely akin to that of the hymn of Cleanthes. [Sidenote: Sphaerus.]