A striking feature in the history of the post-Aristotelian philosophy, and one which at the same time brings forcibly home the thorough change in its surroundings, is the fact that so many of its representatives come from eastern countries in which Greek and Oriental modes of thought met and mingled. Although for centuries Athens still continued to have the reputation of being the chief seat of Greek philosophy, and did not cease to be one of the most important seminaries of philosophy, even when it had to share that reputation with other cities, such as Alexandria, Rome, Rhodes, and Tarsus, yet at Athens itself there were teachers not a few whose foreign extraction indicates the age of Hellenism. This remark applies primarily to the later Neoplatonic School: next to it it is of none more true than of the Stoic. With this fact may be also associated the world-citizenship of this School, though it would be unfair to attribute a general characteristic of the then state of the world to purely external circumstances. Nearly all the most important Stoics before the Christian era belong by birth to Asia Minor, to Syria, and to the islands of the Eastern Archipelago. Then follow a series of Roman Stoics, by the side of whom the Phrygian Epictetus occupies a prominent place; but Greece proper is represented only by men of third or fourth rate capacity. [A. Zeno.] The founder of the Stoic School, Zeno [3] by name, was the son of Mnaseas, [4] and a native of Citium [5] in Cyprus. Leaving his home, he repaired to Athens, [6] about the year 320 B.C., [7] where he at first joined the Cynic Crates. [8] He appears to have soon become disgusted with the extravagances of the Cynics’ mode of life, [9] and his keen desire for knowledge could find no satisfaction in a teaching so meagre as theirs. [10] To supply their defects he had recourse to Stilpo, who united to the moral teaching of the Cynics the logical acumen of the Megarians. He also studied under Polemo, and it is said under Xenocrates and Diodorus the logician, with whose pupil Philo [11] he was on terms of intimacy. After a long course of intellectual preparation, he at last appeared as a teacher, soon after the beginning of the third, or perhaps during the last years of the fourth century B.C. From the Stoa ποικιλὴ, the place which he selected for delivering his lectures, his followers derived their name of Stoics, having first been called after their master Zenonians. [12] Such was the universal respect inspired by his earnestness, moral strictness, [13] and simplicity of life, [14] and the dignity, modesty, and affability of his conduct, [15] that Antigonus Gonatas vied with the city of Athens in showing appreciation of him. [16] Although lacking smoothness of style and using a language far from pure, [17] Zeno had nevertheless an extensive following. Leading a life of singular moderation, he reached an advanced age untouched by disease, although he naturally enjoyed