(), philosophers.
1. Of CITIUM, a city in the island of Cyprus, founded by
Phoenician settlers. He was the son of Mnaseas. Some authorities assign other names to his
father, but with less probability (ibid. 2, 4, 5,
28). Whether he lost all his property in the shipwreck (Seneca, de
Tranqu. Animi, 100.14; Plut. de cap. ex host. Utilitate, p. 87a),
or, what is considerably less likely, remained in possession of a fabulous fortune of 1000
talents (s. v.), and an admiring recognition of his virtues shines through
even the ridicule of the comic poets (Philemon, Posidippus, &c.; Athen. 12.2), and harden himself (Ibid. 3, 17, 22). Yet he seems to have been
still entirely under their influence when he wrote his
We are not able to ascertain with certainty either the year of Zenon's birth, or that of his
death, and cannot regard as accurate the statements that he came to Athens at the age of 22 or
even 30 years, that he pursued his philosophical studies for 20 years, and presided over his
school for 58 years (ibid.), to that of his disciple
Persaeus, according to which he was only 72 years old when he died. He is said to have been
still alive in the 130th Olympiad (ibid. 6), and this is certainly in
accordance with the statements which make him a disciple of Polemon, who became president of
the Academic school in Ol. 116. 2, and also with what we are told about his intercourse with
Antigonus Gonatas, who came to the throne in Ol. 124, and with Arcesilas (
Of his writings for the most part only the titles are quoted (
Of writings relating to physics we find mentioned:
The contents of the following seem to have been of a logical kind :
Besides these there are attributed to him works:
The writings of Chrysippus and later Stoics seem to have obscured those of Zenon, and even
the warm adherents of the school seem seldom to have gone back to the books of the latter,
still less the authorities yet remaining to us. They give, and often confusedly enough,
sketches of the Stoic system, but it is only as special occasions present themselves that
they notice what belongs to the several framers of the system, and in what they differed from
each other, and from the later Stoics. Consequently we can only determine in the general, and
often merely by conjecture, how far Zenon himself had conducted the doctrine, and still less
how he gradually arrived at the outlines of it. At first he appears to have attached himself
to the Cynics. This is confirmed not only by the above-mentioned authorities, but by the
little that has been preserved out of or respecting his Politeia (Gr. Aff. cur. iii. p. 780; Plutarch in the above-quoted passages); and
it is not unlikely that it was there that he gave occasion to the assertion of the later
Stoa, that Cynism was the near way to virtue (ibid. Menag.). In his treatises (ad v. Math. 11.191 ; Hypot. 3.245, comp. 205.)
The need of a foundation and completion of ethic by means of logic and physic, led Zenon to
approximate to the Academics, and in some degree also to Aristotle. The threefold division of
philosophy he had explained in his treatise on the Idea, and had anticipated the succession
which was adopted also by Chrysippus and others,-- Logic, Physic, Ethic (Ibid.
84). In his treatment of logic, he was even behind his predecessors (Cic. de Fin. 4.4). His short and narrow conclusions needed a more explicit
foundation to be able to withstand the objections of the Academics in particular (Id. de Nat. Deor. 2.7). To show the necessity of a scientific treatment of
logic, he urged that the wise man must know how to avoid deception (Id. Acad. 2.20). Without doubt he referred our cognitions to impressions, and these to
affections of the soul (ad v. Math. 7.228, 230, 236), more exact
definitions of which were attempted by Cleanthes, Chrysippus, and others, who deviated the
one from the other, showing clearly that none such had been established by Zenon. In like
manner the division of conceptions, or representations (Ibid.
242, &c.). It lay at the basis of the subdivision of true conceptions into
comprehensible (i.
e. demonstrable, and incomprehensible, which is referred to Zenon. (ad v.
Math. 7.253). On the other hand Zenon had reserved for the free-will the power of
assent (ibid. Interp.), which
Chrysippus and others, in turn, endeavoured to separate into its constituent parts.
Zenon seems to have had no share, or but very little, in the developement of the Stoic
doctrine respecting the categories, conclusions, the parts of speech and rhetoric. The last
could have been regarded by him only as an amplification of dialectic, according to the
comparison referred to by Cicero (Orator. 32), and could hardly have
appeared to him to need a separate scientific treatment. (Cic. de Fin.
4.3.)
It seems that at the lead of his Physic stood the proposition that every thing which
operates, as well as every thing operated upon, is corporeal, and consequently that the
actual is limited to that (Ed. Eth. p. 90; l.c. ; Senec. Epist. 65). He saw this operative power
in fire (ibid.
2.41), as the basis of all vital activity (Cic. de Nat. Deor. 2.9,
3.14), and in this way was led to go back to the doctrine of Heracleitus. Attaching his views
to that doctrine, lie taught that the universe comes into being when from fire, or through
it, the primary substance passing through the intermediate stage of air, becomes liquefied,
and then the thick portion becomes earth, the rarer portion air, and lastly again becomes
rarified into fire (Ecl. Phys. p. 320). Zenon also appropriated to himself the Heracleitean
doctrine of the periodic alternation of the formation and annihilation of the universe (Stob.
Ecl. Phys. i. p. 414). The more exact definition of the doctrine in
this instance also belongs to his successors, as Chrysippus, Poseidonius, &c. The active
or artizan-fire (de
Nat. Deor. 2.22, comp. ad v. Math. 9.104, 101; Cic. de Nat. Deor. 2.8). In this
universe-fashioning fire there must dwell not merely a concomitant consciousness, but a
foreseeing one (Cic. de Nat. Deor. 2.22), that is, the eternal deity
extended throughout the whole universe, must produce (de Nat. Deor. 1.14) seems to have been directed against
Zenon's further definitions, which have not come down to us. Again, Zenon defined the deity
as that law of nature which ever accomplishes what is right, and prevents the opposite (Cic.
l.c.), as the energy which moves itself and operates according to the
laws of impregnation (de Nat. Deor. 2.39), and
identified it, or Zeus, with spirit and predestination, or unconditioned necessity (de Nat.
Deor. 2.22). He seems to have endeavoured to refer the different chief deities of the
Greek mythology to the different fundamental modes of manifestation of the single divine
primary power (Ibid. 1.14, comp. Tusc. 1.9, de Nat. Deor. 3.14, comp. Plut. de ph. pl. Decret.
4.3; l.c.). The threefold division of the soul attributed to him (Tertullian.
de Anima, 100.14) is obscure, if not dubious. But however he may have
divided it, he must have referred its different activities to one and the same fundamental
power (ad v.
Math. 9.102; comp.
Zenon, coinciding with the Cynics, and with equal stringency, recognised in the most
decided manner the unconditional nature of moral obligations, and that only that which
answers to them is valuable in itself; but departed from them partly in the deduction and
definition of them, partly and chiefly in this, that by paving the way for the separation of
the form and the purport or objects of our actions, he undertook, with reference to the
domain of the (so-called) indifferent, to demonstrate a relative value
in that which accords with natural impulses, and so to oppose the harsh contempt of the
Cynics for custom, without however allowing that the gratification of mere natural wants, and
the external good things which serve that end, have any value in themselves. In order to
bring forward prominently the unconditional value of the moral (Stob. Ecl.
Eth. p. 154) he termed it, following the example of the Eretrio-Megaric school, the
single, sole and simple good (de Fin. 3.6. 8; comp. l.c. p. 138). This he described as perfect unanimity of life (l.c. p. 132,
134; Cic. de Fin. l.c.), which in its turn should manifest itself as the
unhindered flow of life (l.c. p. 138; Hypot. 3.172). Unanimity of life however can only be attained (so Zenon
already appears to have added in discussing the point, see l.c. p. 104; comp.
Plut. Stoic. Rep. p. 1037).
Since then that unvarying unanimity or consistency of soul, out of which morally good
volitions and actions spring, is virtue (Stob. l.c. p. 104 Cic. Tusc. 4.15), true good can only consist in virtue (Stob. p. 90; de Fin. 3.10; Sen. Epist. 9 ;
Plut. l.c.). That, to the accomplishment or attainment of which virtue
is directed, has no value in itself, but on the contrary derives value only from its being
willed and accomplished morally (Stob. l.c. p. 94). And it was just at
this point that Zenon felt himself constrained to deviate from the Cynics. He could not admit
that things indifferent in themselves are without any value for us. On the contrary, he
endeavored to point out differences which fixed the measure of their relative value. They
have this, according to him, in proportion as they correspond to the original natural
instinct of self-preservation (de Fin. 3.5, 15, 4.10, 5.9, Acad. 1.16). What corresponds to that
is justly preferred (is a l.c. p. 144.
&100.156 ; comp. l.c. p. 158; de Fin. 3.13). That which is to be preferred is an appropriate thing (l.c.), and shows itself to be such
by its rational foundation (ll. cc.). The appropriate, however, and its
foundation, are perfect only when the latter is unconditional, that is,corresponds to
unconditional requirements (a de Fin. 3.7, 9, 14, 17, de Off. 1.3). So long
as an action can merely be justified as fit, it is a middling (de Fin. l.c.) It is not without reason that the germ of the distinction
between legality and morality has been traced in this Stoic separation of the Tusc. 4.13, Acad. 1.10, de Fin. 3.21. 4.9,
Parad. 3.1; de Fin. 3.14, &c.), and no one
moral action can be more virtuous than another (Cic. de Fin. 3.14; Sext.
Emp. ad v. Math. 7.422). All actions however are to be reckoned in, that
is, all are either good or bad, since even impulses and desires rest upon free consent (Stob.
p. 162, 164; Cic. Tusc. 4.9, Acad. 1.10), and
consequently even passive conditions or affections, which, because withdrawn from the
dominion of reason, are immoral (Tusc. 4.6. 14), nay, more, they are the source of immoral actions
(Stob. p. 170, &c. ; Cic. de Fin. 4.38; Plut. de
Virt. mor. p. 393). Zenon, therefore, had already especially concerned himself with the
more exact definition of the affections, and had composed a separate treatise on them, as has
been above remarked. To him belongs the fourfold division of them. He referred them to
present (Tusc. 3.3;
Stob. p. 170). They must be rooted out, and not merely set aside (Cic. Tusc. 4.18, &c.), and their place must be occupied by corresponding movements of
the reason. As he was the originator of the fourfold division of the affections (desire and
fear, pleasure and pain : Tusc. 4.6; Stob. p. 166,
&c.;
Polemon is said already to have given utterance to the suspicion that Zenon intended to
purloin other people's doctrines in order to appropriate them to himself in a new dress
(de
Fin. 3.2, 4.2, &c., Tusc. 5.12), and already Chrysippus had
endeavoured to defend him against such charges (