My aim in this essay is to investigate the Peripatetic conception of “primary (προηγούμεναι) actions,” or “primary acts of virtue,” as it is laid out in some passages of Doxography C (a text commonly attributed to Arius Didymus and excerpted in Stobaeus, Ecl. II.7 116.19ff.). In the first section of my essay, I will comment briefly on the composition and sources of Doxography C in order to justify my methodology. Sections 2 and 3 will be dedicated to the analysis of the argument in a key segment of this text (quoted as T-2 below) and of the concept of “primary actions” presented in this segment and some parallel passages. I will discuss the reasons why a subset of virtuous activities is singled out as primary. To this end, both their role as constituent parts of a eudaimonic life and as acts that fulfill the inherent teleology of human virtue will have to be scrutinized. In section 4, I will analyze yet another passage (quoted as T-8), which offers comments on the notion of primary acts of virtue. I am going to argue that T-8 articulates a different understanding of “primary” activity and thus reflects a different strand of Peripatetic reasoning on the question of the human telos. Whereas T-2 responds to Stoic challenges by formulating a conception of human happiness that reduces all somatic and external goods to a strictly 162instrumental role for the sake of “noble activities,” T-8 articulates a more inclusive view of happiness, a view that gives room for the “enjoyment of natural goods” separate from, and in addition to, “noble activities.” ¹