ABSTRACT
Stoicism, one of the major philosophical schools which flourished in the centuries following the death of Aristotle, was established by Zeno of Citium (not to be confused with the pre-Socratic Zeno of Elea, known for his paradoxes) and named after the porch where its headquarters were located in Athens. The third head of the school, Chrysippus, was a prolific author who appears to have been responsible for formulating most of its core doctrines during the 3rd century bc. His numerous works, like those of the other early Stoics, survive mainly in fragments quoted or paraphrased by such figures as Plutarch, Galen, Sextus Empiricus, and Diogenes Laertius.1 By contrast, the teachings of a later Stoic such as Epictetus (ad 55-135), a former slave who ended up living in the northwestern Greek city of Nicopolis, survive in complete and readable form thanks to the Discourses recorded by his student Arrian, which provide a more vivid and thorough illustration of Stoic philosophy in practice. Ancient Stoicism prided itself on offering a comprehensive philosophical system whose branches in logic, physics, and ethics-in modern terms, epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics-were integrated into a coherent whole that could provide guidance for human beings in every walk of life.
