=96.= We come last amongst Zeno’s hearers to CLEANTHES of Assos in Asia Minor (331-232 B.C.), who succeeded Zeno as head of the school when already advanced in years, and presided over it for a whole generation. In personal character he was a worthy successor of Socrates, Diogenes, and Zeno. He was trained in hardship and willing endurance[51]; and if he did not quickly understand, yet all he learnt was deeply impressed upon him[52]. He studied Zeno’s life even more attentively than his doctrines; lived with him, watched his hours of retirement, inquired whether his actions corresponded to his teaching[53]. Himself a man of the people, he ardently desired to spread his convictions amongst the many, and chose verse as the best means to express clearly his meaning and win access to men’s ears[54]. He remained constant to Zeno’s teaching[55], but he inspired it with a fresh enthusiasm and developed it in more consistent detail. He is before all things the theologian of Stoicism. The belief in the deity, which in the fragments of Zeno’s teaching appears merely formal and argumentative, becomes in the verse of Cleanthes ardent and dominating. God is the creator and the director of the world; his Logos gives it order and harmony. In God’s designs it is the privilege and duty of man to cooperate; but since he is possessed of free will, it is also within his power to make a futile opposition. In this way the good and the bad stand in definite contrast. Finally, right knowledge and right action are only possible by association with the deity through praise and prayer. [Sidenote: His poetry.] =97.= It is our good fortune to possess several complete poems of Cleanthes, which are of more value to us towards appreciating his standpoint than a hundred detached sentences would be. The _hymn to Zeus_[56] is the most important, and its likeness to the opening of Aratus’ _Phaenomena_[57] will not escape notice. _Hymn to Zeus._ Supreme of gods, by titles manifold Invoked, o thou who over all dost hold Eternal dominance, Nature’s author, Zeus, Guiding a universe by Law controlled; 2 Hail! for ’tis meet that men should call on thee Whose seed we are; and ours the destiny Alone of all that lives and moves on earth, A mirror of thy deity[58] to be. 5 Therefore I hymn thee and thy power I praise; For at thy word, on their appointed ways The orbs of heaven in circuit round the earth Move, and submissive each thy rule obeys, 8 Who holdest in thy hands invincible So dread a minister to work thy will— The eternal bolt of fire, two-edged, whose blast Thro’ all the powers of nature strikes a chill[59]— 11 Whereby thou guid’st the universal force, Reason, through all things interfused, whose course Commingles with the great and lesser[60] lights— Thyself of all the sovran and the source: 14