# Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography/Volume 3/Zeno, the Stoic

​ZENO, the founder of the stoic philosophy, was born at Citium, a town in the island of Cyprus, about 350 b.c. It is uncertain at what time he came to Athens—probably when he was about twenty-five years of age. He is said to have lost all his property, which was considerable, by shipwreck in the neighbourhood of the Piræus. This disaster may have had some effect in determining the austere character of his philosophy. He attached himself first to the Cynics—a sect who snarled at all mankind—but was soon repelled by their grossness of manners, intellectual narrowness, ignorance, and incapacity. After studying for twenty years under Stilpo of the Megaric sect, and under Xenocrates and Polemon, the successors of Plato in the Academy, he resolved to establish an ethical school of his own, of a more practical and not less enlightened character than any at that time in vogue. He founded the sect and philosophy of the Stoics, so called from Stoa, the Porch—the place in Athens where he delivered his doctrines, and the walls of which were adorned with the paintings of Polygnotus representing the victories gained by the Athenians over the Persians. Zeno wrote many works, but none of them are extant. From their titles we may judge them to have been of no small ethical interest—"On the Life according to Nature;" "On Impulse;" "On the Nature of Man," and others of a similar purport. Zeno died at an advanced age, probably about 260 b.c. The stoical ethics will perhaps be best understood if placed in contrast with the contemporary doctrines of Epicurus. Both systems teach that happiness is the summum bonum, or chief good of man; that the means to this end is the life according to nature; and that this is identical with the life of virtue. But they differ widely as to what the nature of man is, and as to what his virtue and his happiness consist in. According to the Stoics, man's nature is, we may say, a nature above nature. According to the Epicureans, it is a nature on a level with nature. The Stoic places man's nature in the activity of reason, of thought, of the spirit. The Epicurean places it in the passivity of sensation, of feeling, of the flesh. Hence, according to the stoical doctrine, the life of nature is the life in which reason rules and keeps down the passions, not merely on prudential grounds, but because reason is the essence, and passion rather the accident of our being. On the other hand, the Epicurean doctrine is that the life of nature is a life in which reason is indeed permitted to direct the passions, but solely from considerations of prudence, and because their unrestrained indulgence would in the long run make us miserable. Here sensation and passion are regarded as the more essential, and reason as the less essential, part of our constitution. Thus stoicism makes our virtue and happiness to centre in the restraint which our reason imposes on our passive modifications, inasmuch as in this restraint we find our true freedom, and assume our true nature, which, as has been said, is a nature above nature; while epicurism places our virtue and happiness in the indulgence, within reasonable limits, of our passive modifications, inasmuch as these, according to this system, constitute the true staple and groundwork of our nature. Neither system preaches restraint or indulgence exclusively; but stoicism, laying emphasis on the restraint, says, "Restrain the passions in so far as nature will permit;" epicurism, laying emphasis on the indulgence, says, "Indulge the passions in so far as prudence will allow."—J. F. F.