A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

(Περσαῖος), surnamed Cittieus (Κιττιεύς), from his native town Cittium, in the south of Crete, was a favourite disciple of Zeno, the stoic, who was also of Cittium. Suidas (s. v.) states that he was also named Dorotheus, and that his father's name was Demetrius. Diogenes Laertius mentions that it was doubtful whether he was merely an intimate friend of Zeno's, or whether, after having been the slave of Antigonus Gonatus, and tutor to his son Alcyoneus, and then presented by that monarch to Zeno as a copyist, he had been freed by the philosopher. The opinion that he had been Zeno's slave prevails extensively in later writers, as in A. Gellius (2.18). But the notion is contradicted by the general current of his life, and seems to have originated in a remark of Bion Borysthenites. Bion having seen a bronze statue of Persaeus, bearing the inscription, Περσαῖον Ζήνωνος Κιτιέα, remarked that this was a mistake, for Περσαιον Ζήνωνος οἰκιτιέα. (Athen. 4.162d.) But from the sal nigrum which characterises Bion's sayings, this seems nothing more than a sneer at the servility which he thus insinuated that Persaeus, with whom he had come into rivalry at the court of Antigonus, manifested in his demeanour to Zeno. Indeed, if Persaeus had actually been Zeno's slave, the sarcasm would have been pointless. We learn from Diogenes Laertius, that Zeno lived in the same house with Persaeus, and he narrates an incident, which certainly supports the insinuation of Bion. The same story is told by Athenaeus (xiii. p. 607a. b.), on the authority of Antigonus the Carystian, somewhat differently, and not so much to Zeno's credit. Persaeus was in the prime of life in the 130th Olympiad, B. C. 260. Antigonus Gonatas had sent for Zeno. between B. C. 277 and 271 (Clinton, F. H. vol. ii. p. 368, note i), when the philosopher was in his eightyfirst year. Zeno excused himself, but sent Persaeus and Philonides, with whom went also the poet Aratus, who had received instructions from Persaeus at Athens. Persaeus seems to have been in high favour with Antigonus, and to have guided the monarch in his choice of literary associates, as we learn from a sneer of Bion's, recorded by Laertius. At last, unhappily for himself, he was appointed to a chief command in Corinth, and hence he is classed by Aelian (Ael. VH 3.17), among those philosophers who have taken an active part in public affairs. According to Athenaeus (iv. p. 162c), who has no high opinion of his morality, his dissipation led to the loss of Corinth, which was taken by Aratus the Sicyonian, B. C. 243. Pausanias (2.8, 7.8) states that he was then slain. Plutarch doubtfully represents him as escaping to Cenchreae. But this may have been to put into his mouth when alive, what Athenaeus says of him when dead, that he who had been taught by Zeno to consider philosophers as the only men fit to be generals, had been forced to alter his opinion, being corrected by a Sicyonian youth.

[W.M.G]