Ancient Philosophy · Part 20 · The Hellenistic schools · B2–C1
The Stoics: Living According to Nature
Part 20 of Ancient Philosophy: a merchant who lost everything in a shipwreck founded the philosophy that would guide Roman emperors and slaves alike. The Stoics taught that the world is ruled by reason, that only virtue is truly good, and that nothing outside us can harm us, as long as we judge rightly. Conditions (unless, as long as, provided that, even if), with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Tonight, the philosophy most educated Romans follow today: Stoicism.
And the philosophy whose words I borrow most often. The logos, the reason in all things, is a Stoic word before it is mine.
Because they met in a painted porch, a stoa, in the market of Athens. Philosophy in a public colonnade, open to everyone.
Zeno of Citium, a merchant from Cyprus, founded the school around 300 BCE. He taught in the Stoa Poikile, the Painted Porch, a public colonnade on the Athenian agora. His successors were Cleanthes, a former boxer and water-carrier, and Chrysippus, who made Stoicism into a complete system.
The Stoics divided philosophy into logic, physics and ethics. They taught that the universe is a single living being, governed by divine reason, the logos, which they also called Zeus, nature or fate. A wise person lives in agreement with nature, and the only true good is virtue.
Almost all the early Stoics’ writings are lost. Chrysippus alone is said to have written 705 books. We know their teaching through fragments, summaries and later Stoics, especially the Roman writers to come.
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