Stoics on Superphysics

Ariston: Stoic

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

¹ Ariston the Bald was:

a native of Chios, surnamed the Siren, said, that the chief good was to live in perfect indifference to all those things which are of an intermediate character between virtue and vice; making not the slightest difference between them, but regarding them all on a footing of equality.

For that the wise man resembles a good actor; who, whether he is filling the part of Agamemnon or Thersites, will perform them both equally well.

Carneades: Stoic

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

¹ Carneades was:

the son of Epicomus, or Philocomus, as Alexander states in his Successions
a native of Cyrene

² He read all the books of the Stoics with great care, and especially those of Chrysippus.

Chrysippus: Stoic

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

¹ Chrysippus was:

the son of Apollonius
a native of either Soli or Tarsus, as Alexander tells us in his Successions
was a pupil of Cleanthes

Previously he used to practise running as a public runner.

Cleanthes: Stoic

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

¹ Cleanthes was:

a native of Assos
the son of Phanias

He was originally a boxer, as we learn from Antisthenes, in his Successions.

He came to Athens with only 4 drachmas. He attached himself to Zeno and devoted himself to Philosophy in a most noble manner.

Dionysius: Stoic

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

¹ Dionysius, the Deserter, as he was called, asserted that pleasure was the chief good, from the circumstance of his being afflicted with a complaint in his eyes.

For, as he suffered severely, he could not pronounce pain a thing indifferent.

Sphaerus

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

¹ Sphærus, a native of the Bosphorus was a pupil of Cleanthes after the death of Zeno.

² When he made a considerable advance in philosophy he went to Alexandria, to the court of Ptolemy Philopater.

Zeno of Citium: Founder of Stoicism

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

¹ Zeno was:

the son of Mnaseas, or Demeas
a native of Citium, in Cyprus, which is a Grecian city, partly occupied by a Phœnician colony.

² He had his head naturally bent on one side, as Timotheus, the Athenian, tells us, in his work on Lives.

Zeno of Citium: Founder of Stoicism

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

⁹ The Athenians set a decree concerning him:

“In the archonship of Arrhenides, in presidency 5 of the tribe Acamantis, on day 21 of the month Maimacterion, on day 23 of the aforesaid presidency, in a duly convened assembly, Hippo, the son of Cratistoteles, of the borough of Xypetion, being one of the presidents put the following decree to the vote. The decree was proposed by Thrason, of Anacæa, the son of Thrason.

Zeno of Citium: Founder of Stoicism

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

²⁰ He used to devote a lot of time to Diodorus, as we learn from Hippobotus.

He studied dialectics under him.

When he had made a good deal of progress he attached himself to Polemo because of his freedom from arrogance, so that it is reported that he said to him, “I am not ignorant, O Zeno, that you slip into the garden-door and steal my doctrines, and then clothe them in a Phœnician dress.”

Zeno of Citium: Founder of Stoicism

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

^32-33 The Stoics divide philosophy into 3:

natural philosophy
ethics
logic

Zeno was the first to make this division in his treatise on Reason.

He was followed in it by:

Zeno of Citium: Founder of Stoicism

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

³⁶

Zeno of Citium: Founder of Stoicism

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

⁴¹ Posidonius defines poetical expression in his introduction on Style as “A metrical or rhythmical diction, proceeding in preparation, and avoiding all resemblance to prose.”

For instance, “The vast and boundless earth,” “Th’ expanse of heaven,” are rhythmical expressions; and[281] poetry is a collection of poetical expressions signifying something, containing an imitation of divine and human beings.

Zeno of Citium: Founder of Stoicism

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

⁶⁷ The Stoics divide natural philosophy into the topics of:

bodies
principles
elements
Gods
boundaries
place
the vacuum.

They make these divisions according to species. But according to genera they divide them into 3 topics:

Zeno of Citium: Founder of Stoicism

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

⁷⁰ They speak of the world in a threefold sense.

As God himself, whom they call a being of a certain quality, having for his peculiar manifestation universal substance, a being imperishable, and who never had any generation, being the maker of the arrangement and order that we see.

Footnotes

Thu, 21 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

[1] “The religion of the ancient Persians was the worship of fire or of the elements, in which fire was symbolical of the Deity. At a later period, in the time of the Greeks, the ancient worship was changed into the adoration of the stars (Sabæism), especially of the sun and of the morning star. This religion was distinguished by a simple and majestic character. Its priests were called Magi.”—Tenneman’s Manual of the History of Philosophy, Introd. § 70.