ABSTRACT
The Stoics were followers of Zeno of Citium (c.333-262 bce).1 Zeno arrived in Athens at the age of twenty-two, where he attended lectures in the Academy and studied as well with the logician Diodorus Cronus, Stilpo the Megarian, and the Cynic Philosopher Crates.2 He began teaching philosophy himself in a public hall in Athens known as the stoa poikilê (painted colonnade), as a result of which his followers were known as the men of the Stoa. Upon his death, he was succeeded as head of the school by his disciple Cleanthes (d. c.232). The third head of the school was Chrysippus of Soli (c.281-206), the intellectual giant of early Stoicism whose voluminous writings worked out the details of and arguments for Stoic theses, and defended them against attack from the Academy, which had undergone its ‘sceptical turn’ under the direction of Arcesilaus in the mid-third century. The enormous impact of Chrysippus on the development of Stoicism is reflected in the saying, ‘Had there been no Chrysippus, there would have been no Stoa’ (DL 7.183). Later Greek Stoics included Diogenes of Babylon (c.240-152 bce), Panaetius of Rhodes (c.185-109) and his pupil Posidonius (b. c.135), who was one of Cicero’s teachers. Stoicism continued to attract adherents well into the Roman Empire. Notable Stoics in the Roman era included Seneca (4 bce-65 ce), Epictetus (55135) and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (d. 180).
