Zeno of Citium (/ˈziːnoʊ/; Koinē Greek: Ζήνων ὁ Κιτιεύς, Zēnōn ho Kitieus; c.

334 –
c. 262 BC) was a Hellenistic philosopher from Citium (Κίτιον, Kition), Cyprus.[4]
Zeno was the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy, which he taught in Athens
from about 300 BC. Based on the moral ideas of the Cynics, Stoicism laid great
emphasis on goodness and peace of mind gained from living a life of virtue in
accordance with nature. It proved very popular, and flourished as one of the major
schools of philosophy from the Hellenistic period through to the Roman era, and
enjoyed revivals in the Renaissance as Neostoicism and in the current era as Modern
Stoicism.

Contents
1 Life
2 Philosophy
2.1 Logic
2.2 Physics
2.3 Ethics
3 Works
4 Notes
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External links
Life
Zeno was born c. 334 BC,[a] in Citium in Cyprus and he was of possible Phoenician
ancestry.[5][6] Most of the details known about his life come from the biography
and anecdotes preserved by Diogenes Laërtius in his Lives and Opinions of Eminent
Philosophers, a few of which are confirmed by the Suda (a 10th-century Byzantine
encyclopedia).[7] Diogenes reports that Zeno's interest in philosophy began when
"he consulted the oracle to know what he should do to attain the best life, and
that the god's response was that he should take on the complexion of the dead.
Whereupon, perceiving what this meant, he studied ancient authors."[8] Zeno became
a wealthy merchant. On a voyage from Phoenicia to Peiraeus he survived a shipwreck,
after which he went to Athens and visited a bookseller. There he encountered
Xenophon's Memorabilia. He was so pleased with the book's portrayal of Socrates
that he asked the bookseller where men like Socrates were to be found. Just then,
Crates of Thebes – the most famous Cynic living at that time in Greece – happened
to be walking by, and the bookseller pointed to him.[9]

Zeno is described as a haggard, dark-skinned person,[10] living a spare, ascetic

life[11] despite his wealth. This coincides with the influences of Cynic teaching,
and was, at least in part, continued in his Stoic philosophy. From the day Zeno
became Crates’ pupil, he showed a strong bent for philosophy, though with too much
native modesty to assimilate Cynic shamelessness. Hence Crates, desirous of curing
this defect in him, gave him a potful of lentil-soup to carry through the Ceramicus
(the pottery district); and when he saw that Zeno was ashamed and tried to keep it
out of sight, Crates broke the pot with a blow of his staff. As Zeno began to run
off in embarrassment with the lentil-soup flowing down his legs, Crates chided,
"Why run away, my little Phoenician? Nothing terrible has befallen you."[12]

Apart from Crates, Zeno studied under the philosophers of the Megarian school,
including Stilpo,[13] and the dialecticians Diodorus Cronus,[14] and Philo.[15] He
is also said to have studied Platonist philosophy under the direction of
Xenocrates,[16] and Polemo.[17]

Zeno began teaching in the colonnade in the Agora of Athens known as the Stoa
Poikile (Greek Στοὰ Ποικίλη) in 301 BC. His disciples were initially called
"Zenonians," but eventually they came to be known as "Stoics," a name previously
applied to poets who congregated in the Stoa Poikile.
Among the admirers of Zeno was king Antigonus II Gonatas of Macedonia,[18] who,
whenever he came to Athens, would visit Zeno. Zeno is said to have declined an
invitation to visit Antigonus in Macedonia, although their supposed correspondence
preserved by Laërtius[19] is undoubtedly the invention of a later writer.[20] Zeno
instead sent his friend and disciple Persaeus,[19] who had lived with Zeno in his
house.[21] Among Zeno's other pupils there were Aristo of Chios, Sphaerus, and
Cleanthes who succeeded Zeno as the head (scholarch) of the Stoic school in Athens.
[22]

Zeno is said to have declined Athenian citizenship when it was offered to him,
fearing that he would appear unfaithful to his native land,[23] where he was highly
esteemed, and where he contributed to the restoration of its baths, after which his
name was inscribed upon a pillar there as "Zeno the philosopher".[24] We are also
told that Zeno was of an earnest, gloomy disposition;[25] that he preferred the
company of the few to the many;[26] that he was fond of burying himself in
investigations;[27] and that he disliked verbose and elaborate speeches.[28]
Diogenes Laërtius has preserved many clever and witty remarks by Zeno,[29] although
these anecdotes are generally considered unreliable.[20]

Zeno died around 262 BC.[a] Laërtius reports about his death:

As he was leaving the school he tripped and fell, breaking his toe. Striking the
ground with his fist, he quoted the line from the Niobe:

I come, I come, why dost thou call for me?

and died on the spot through holding his breath.[30]

During his lifetime, Zeno received appreciation for his philosophical and
pedagogical teachings. Among other things, Zeno was honored with the golden crown,
[31] and a tomb was built in honor of his moral influence on the youth of his era.
[32]

The crater Zeno on the Moon is named in his honour.

Philosophy

Modern bust of Zeno in Athens

Following the ideas of the Old Academy, Zeno divided philosophy into three parts:
logic (a wide subject including rhetoric, grammar, and the theories of perception
and thought); physics (not just science, but the divine nature of the universe as
well); and ethics, the end goal of which was to achieve eudaimonia through the
right way of living according to Nature. Because Zeno's ideas were later expanded
upon by Chrysippus and other Stoics, it can be difficult to determine precisely
what he thought. But his general views can be outlined as follows:

Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Aristote & Zeno by François Pouqueville

Logic
In his treatment of logic, Zeno was influenced by Stilpo and the other Megarians.
Zeno urged the need to lay down a basis for logic because the wise person must know
how to avoid deception.[33] Cicero accused Zeno of being inferior to his
philosophical predecessors in his treatment of logic,[34] and it seems true that a
more exact treatment of the subject was laid down by his successors, including
Chrysippus.[35] Zeno divided true conceptions into the comprehensible and the
incomprehensible,[36] permitting for free-will the power of assent
(sinkatathesis/συνκατάθεσις) in distinguishing between sense impressions.[37] Zeno
said that there were four stages in the process leading to true knowledge, which he
illustrated with the example of the flat, extended hand, and the gradual closing of
the fist:

Zeno stretched out his fingers, and showed the palm of his hand, – "Perception," –
he said, – "is a thing like this."- Then, when he had closed his fingers a little,
– "Assent is like this." – Afterwards, when he had completely closed his hand, and
showed his fist, that, he said, was Comprehension. From which simile he also gave
that state a new name, calling it katalepsis (κατάληψις). But when he brought his
left hand against his right, and with it took a firm and tight hold of his fist: –
"Knowledge" – he said, was of that character; and that was what none but a wise
person possessed.[38]

Physics
The universe, in Zeno's view, is God:[39] a divine reasoning entity, where all the
parts belong to the whole.[40] Into this pantheistic system he incorporated the
physics of Heraclitus; the universe contains a divine artisan-fire, which foresees
everything,[41] and extending throughout the universe, must produce everything:

Zeno, then, defines nature by saying that it is artistically working fire, which
advances by fixed methods to creation. For he maintains that it is the main
function of art to create and produce and that what the hand accomplishes in the
productions of the arts we employ, is accomplished much more artistically by
nature, that is, as I said, by artistically working fire, which is the master of
the other arts.[41]

This divine fire,[37] or aether,[42] is the basis for all activity in the universe,
[43] operating on otherwise passive matter, which neither increases nor diminishes
itself.[44] The primary substance in the universe comes from fire, passes through
the stage of air, and then becomes water: the thicker portion becoming earth, and
the thinner portion becoming air again, and then rarefying back into fire.[45]
Individual souls are part of the same fire as the world-soul of the universe.[46]
Following Heraclitus, Zeno adopted the view that the universe underwent regular
cycles of formation and destruction.[47]

The nature of the universe is such that it accomplishes what is right and prevents
the opposite,[48] and is identified with unconditional Fate,[49] while allowing it
the free-will attributed to it.[41]

Ethics

Zeno, portrayed as a medieval scholar in the Nuremberg Chronicle

Like the Cynics, Zeno recognised a single, sole and simple good,[50] which is the
only goal to strive for.[51] "Happiness is a good flow of life," said Zeno,[52] and
this can only be achieved through the use of right reason coinciding with the
universal reason (Logos), which governs everything. A bad feeling (pathos) "is a
disturbance of the mind repugnant to reason, and against Nature."[53] This
consistency of soul, out of which morally good actions spring, is virtue,[54] true
good can only consist in virtue.[55]

Zeno deviated from the Cynics in saying that things that are morally adiaphora
(indifferent) could nevertheless have value. Things have a relative value in
proportion to how they aid the natural instinct for self-preservation.[56] That
which is to be preferred is a "fitting action" (kathêkon/καθῆκον), a designation
Zeno first introduced. Self-preservation, and the things that contribute towards
it, has only a conditional value; it does not aid happiness, which depends only on
moral actions.[57]

Just as virtue can only exist within the dominion of reason, so vice can only exist
with the rejection of reason. Virtue is absolutely opposed to vice,[58] the two
cannot exist in the same thing together, and cannot be increased or decreased;[59]
no one moral action is more virtuous than another.[60] All actions are either good
or bad, since impulses and desires rest upon free consent,[61] and hence even
passive mental states or emotions that are not guided by reason are immoral,[62]
and produce immoral actions.[63] Zeno distinguished four negative emotions: desire,
fear, pleasure and sorrow (epithumia, phobos, hêdonê, lupê / ἐπιθυμία, φόβος,
ἡδονή, λύπη),[64] and he was probably responsible for distinguishing the three
corresponding positive emotions: will, caution, and joy (boulêsis, eulabeia,
chara / βούλησις, εὐλάβεια, χαρά), with no corresponding rational equivalent for
pain. All errors must be rooted out, not merely set aside,[65] and replaced with
right reason.Zeno of Citium (/ˈziːnoʊ/; Koinē Greek: Ζήνων ὁ Κιτιεύς, Zēnōn ho
Kitieus; c. 334 – c. 262 BC) was a Hellenistic philosopher from Citium (Κίτιον,
Kition), Cyprus.[4] Zeno was the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy, which
he taught in Athens from about 300 BC. Based on the moral ideas of the Cynics,
Stoicism laid great emphasis on goodness and peace of mind gained from living a
life of virtue in accordance with nature. It proved very popular, and flourished as
one of the major schools of philosophy from the Hellenistic period through to the
Roman era, and enjoyed revivals in the Renaissance as Neostoicism and in the
current era as Modern Stoicism.

Contents
1 Life
2 Philosophy
2.1 Logic
2.2 Physics
2.3 Ethics
3 Works
4 Notes
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External links
Life
Zeno was born c. 334 BC,[a] in Citium in Cyprus and he was of possible Phoenician
ancestry.[5][6] Most of the details known about his life come from the biography
and anecdotes preserved by Diogenes Laërtius in his Lives and Opinions of Eminent
Philosophers, a few of which are confirmed by the Suda (a 10th-century Byzantine
encyclopedia).[7] Diogenes reports that Zeno's interest in philosophy began when
"he consulted the oracle to know what he should do to attain the best life, and
that the god's response was that he should take on the complexion of the dead.
Whereupon, perceiving what this meant, he studied ancient authors."[8] Zeno became
a wealthy merchant. On a voyage from Phoenicia to Peiraeus he survived a shipwreck,
after which he went to Athens and visited a bookseller. There he encountered
Xenophon's Memorabilia. He was so pleased with the book's portrayal of Socrates
that he asked the bookseller where men like Socrates were to be found. Just then,
Crates of Thebes – the most famous Cynic living at that time in Greece – happened
to be walking by, and the bookseller pointed to him.[9]

Zeno is described as a haggard, dark-skinned person,[10] living a spare, ascetic

life[11] despite his wealth. This coincides with the influences of Cynic teaching,
and was, at least in part, continued in his Stoic philosophy. From the day Zeno
became Crates’ pupil, he showed a strong bent for philosophy, though with too much
native modesty to assimilate Cynic shamelessness. Hence Crates, desirous of curing
this defect in him, gave him a potful of lentil-soup to carry through the Ceramicus
(the pottery district); and when he saw that Zeno was ashamed and tried to keep it
out of sight, Crates broke the pot with a blow of his staff. As Zeno began to run
off in embarrassment with the lentil-soup flowing down his legs, Crates chided,
"Why run away, my little Phoenician? Nothing terrible has befallen you."[12]

Apart from Crates, Zeno studied under the philosophers of the Megarian school,
including Stilpo,[13] and the dialecticians Diodorus Cronus,[14] and Philo.[15] He
is also said to have studied Platonist philosophy under the direction of
Xenocrates,[16] and Polemo.[17]

Zeno began teaching in the colonnade in the Agora of Athens known as the Stoa
Poikile (Greek Στοὰ Ποικίλη) in 301 BC. His disciples were initially called
"Zenonians," but eventually they came to be known as "Stoics," a name previously
applied to poets who congregated in the Stoa Poikile.

Among the admirers of Zeno was king Antigonus II Gonatas of Macedonia,[18] who,
whenever he came to Athens, would visit Zeno. Zeno is said to have declined an
invitation to visit Antigonus in Macedonia, although their supposed correspondence
preserved by Laërtius[19] is undoubtedly the invention of a later writer.[20] Zeno
instead sent his friend and disciple Persaeus,[19] who had lived with Zeno in his
house.[21] Among Zeno's other pupils there were Aristo of Chios, Sphaerus, and
Cleanthes who succeeded Zeno as the head (scholarch) of the Stoic school in Athens.
[22]

Zeno is said to have declined Athenian citizenship when it was offered to him,
fearing that he would appear unfaithful to his native land,[23] where he was highly
esteemed, and where he contributed to the restoration of its baths, after which his
name was inscribed upon a pillar there as "Zeno the philosopher".[24] We are also
told that Zeno was of an earnest, gloomy disposition;[25] that he preferred the
company of the few to the many;[26] that he was fond of burying himself in
investigations;[27] and that he disliked verbose and elaborate speeches.[28]
Diogenes Laërtius has preserved many clever and witty remarks by Zeno,[29] although
these anecdotes are generally considered unreliable.[20]

Zeno died around 262 BC.[a] Laërtius reports about his death:

As he was leaving the school he tripped and fell, breaking his toe. Striking the
ground with his fist, he quoted the line from the Niobe:

I come, I come, why dost thou call for me?

and died on the spot through holding his breath.[30]

During his lifetime, Zeno received appreciation for his philosophical and
pedagogical teachings. Among other things, Zeno was honored with the golden crown,
[31] and a tomb was built in honor of his moral influence on the youth of his era.
[32]

The crater Zeno on the Moon is named in his honour.

Philosophy

Modern bust of Zeno in Athens

Following the ideas of the Old Academy, Zeno divided philosophy into three parts:
logic (a wide subject including rhetoric, grammar, and the theories of perception
and thought); physics (not just science, but the divine nature of the universe as
well); and ethics, the end goal of which was to achieve eudaimonia through the
right way of living according to Nature. Because Zeno's ideas were later expanded
upon by Chrysippus and other Stoics, it can be difficult to determine precisely
what he thought. But his general views can be outlined as follows:

Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Aristote & Zeno by François Pouqueville

Logic
In his treatment of logic, Zeno was influenced by Stilpo and the other Megarians.
Zeno urged the need to lay down a basis for logic because the wise person must know
how to avoid deception.[33] Cicero accused Zeno of being inferior to his
philosophical predecessors in his treatment of logic,[34] and it seems true that a
more exact treatment of the subject was laid down by his successors, including
Chrysippus.[35] Zeno divided true conceptions into the comprehensible and the
incomprehensible,[36] permitting for free-will the power of assent
(sinkatathesis/συνκατάθεσις) in distinguishing between sense impressions.[37] Zeno
said that there were four stages in the process leading to true knowledge, which he
illustrated with the example of the flat, extended hand, and the gradual closing of
the fist:

Zeno stretched out his fingers, and showed the palm of his hand, – "Perception," –
he said, – "is a thing like this."- Then, when he had closed his fingers a little,
– "Assent is like this." – Afterwards, when he had completely closed his hand, and
showed his fist, that, he said, was Comprehension. From which simile he also gave
that state a new name, calling it katalepsis (κατάληψις). But when he brought his
left hand against his right, and with it took a firm and tight hold of his fist: –
"Knowledge" – he said, was of that character; and that was what none but a wise
person possessed.[38]

Physics
The universe, in Zeno's view, is God:[39] a divine reasoning entity, where all the
parts belong to the whole.[40] Into this pantheistic system he incorporated the
physics of Heraclitus; the universe contains a divine artisan-fire, which foresees
everything,[41] and extending throughout the universe, must produce everything:

Zeno, then, defines nature by saying that it is artistically working fire, which
advances by fixed methods to creation. For he maintains that it is the main
function of art to create and produce and that what the hand accomplishes in the
productions of the arts we employ, is accomplished much more artistically by
nature, that is, as I said, by artistically working fire, which is the master of
the other arts.[41]

This divine fire,[37] or aether,[42] is the basis for all activity in the universe,
[43] operating on otherwise passive matter, which neither increases nor diminishes
itself.[44] The primary substance in the universe comes from fire, passes through
the stage of air, and then becomes water: the thicker portion becoming earth, and
the thinner portion becoming air again, and then rarefying back into fire.[45]
Individual souls are part of the same fire as the world-soul of the universe.[46]
Following Heraclitus, Zeno adopted the view that the universe underwent regular
cycles of formation and destruction.[47]

The nature of the universe is such that it accomplishes what is right and prevents
the opposite,[48] and is identified with unconditional Fate,[49] while allowing it
the free-will attributed to it.[41]

Ethics

Zeno, portrayed as a medieval scholar in the Nuremberg Chronicle

Like the Cynics, Zeno recognised a single, sole and simple good,[50] which is the
only goal to strive for.[51] "Happiness is a good flow of life," said Zeno,[52] and
this can only be achieved through the use of right reason coinciding with the
universal reason (Logos), which governs everything. A bad feeling (pathos) "is a
disturbance of the mind repugnant to reason, and against Nature."[53] This
consistency of soul, out of which morally good actions spring, is virtue,[54] true
good can only consist in virtue.[55]

Zeno deviated from the Cynics in saying that things that are morally adiaphora
(indifferent) could nevertheless have value. Things have a relative value in
proportion to how they aid the natural instinct for self-preservation.[56] That
which is to be preferred is a "fitting action" (kathêkon/καθῆκον), a designation
Zeno first introduced. Self-preservation, and the things that contribute towards
it, has only a conditional value; it does not aid happiness, which depends only on
moral actions.[57]

Just as virtue can only exist within the dominion of reason, so vice can only exist
with the rejection of reason. Virtue is absolutely opposed to vice,[58] the two
cannot exist in the same thing together, and cannot be increased or decreased;[59]
no one moral action is more virtuous than another.[60] All actions are either good
or bad, since impulses and desires rest upon free consent,[61] and hence even
passive mental states or emotions that are not guided by reason are immoral,[62]
and produce immoral actions.[63] Zeno distinguished four negative emotions: desire,
fear, pleasure and sorrow (epithumia, phobos, hêdonê, lupê / ἐπιθυμία, φόβος,
ἡδονή, λύπη),[64] and he was probably responsible for distinguishing the three
corresponding positive emotions: will, caution, and joy (boulêsis, eulabeia,
chara / βούλησις, εὐλάβεια, χαρά), with no corresponding rational equivalent for
pain. All errors must be rooted out, not merely set aside,[65] and replaced with
right reason.