The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
the borough shall enrol the decree and engrave it on two pillars, and he
shall be permitted to place one pillar in the Academy, and one in the
Lyceum. And he who is appointed to superintend the work shall divide the
expense that the pillars amount to, in such a way that every one may
understand that the whole people of Athens honours good men both while
they are living and after they are dead. And Thrason of Anacæa, Philocles
of the Piræus, Phædrus of Anaphlystos, Medon of Acharnæ, Micythus of
Sypalettus, and Dion of Pæania, are hereby appointed to superintend the
building of the tomb.”
These then are the terms of the decree.
X. But Antigonus, of Carystos, says, that Zeno himself never denied that
he was a native of Cittium. For that when on one occasion, there was a
citizen of that town who had contributed to the building of some baths,
and was having his name engraved on the pillar, as the countryman of Zeno
the philosopher, he bade them add, “Of Cittium.”
XI. And at another time, when he had had a hollow covering made for some
vessel, he carried it about for some money, in order to procure present
relief for some difficulties which were distressing Crates his master.
And they say that he, when he first arrived in Greece, had more than a
thousand talents, which he lent out at nautical usury.
XII. And he used to eat little loaves and honey, and to drink a small
quantity of sweet smelling wine.
XIII. He had very few youthful acquaintances of the male sex, and he did
not cultivate them much, lest he should be thought to be a misogynist.
And he dwelt in the same house with Persæus; and once, when he brought in
a female flute-player to him, he hastened to bring her back to him.
XIV. And he was, it is said, of a very accommodating temper; so much so,
that Antigonus, the king, often came to dine with him, and often carried
him off to dine with him, at the house of Aristocles the harp-player; but
when he was there, he would presently steal away.
XV. It is also said that he avoided a crowd with great care, so that he
used to sit at the end of a bench, in order at all events to avoid being
incommoded on one side. And he never used to walk with more than two or
three companions. And he used at times to exact a piece of money from all
who came to hear him, with a view of not being distressed by numbers; and
this story is told by Cleanthes, in his treatise on Brazen Money. And
when he was surrounded by any great crowd, he would point to a balustrade
of wood at the end of the colonnade which surrounded an altar, and say,
“That was once in the middle of this place, but it was placed apart
because it was in people’s way; and now, if you will only withdraw from
the middle here, you too will incommode me much less.”
XVI. And when Demochares, the son of Laches, embraced him once, and said
that he would tell Antigonus, or write to him of everything which he
wanted, as he always did everything for him, Zeno, when he had heard him
say this, avoided his company for the future. And it is said, that after
the death of Zeno, Antigonus said, “What a spectacle have I lost.” On
which account he employed Thrason, their ambassador, to entreat of the
Athenians to allow him to be buried in the Ceramicus. And when he was
asked why he had such an admiration for him, he replied, “Because, though
I gave him a great many important presents, he was never elated, and
never humbled.”
XVII. He was a man of a very investigating spirit, and one who inquired
very minutely into everything; in reference to which, Timon, in his
Silli, speaks thus:—
I saw an aged woman of Phœnicia,
Hungry and covetous, in a proud obscurity,
Longing for everything. She had a basket
So full of holes that it retained nothing.
Likewise her mind was less than a skindapsus.[81]
He used to study very carefully with Philo, the dialectician, and to
argue with him at their mutual leisure; on which account he excited the
wonder of the younger Zeno, no less than Diodorus his master.
XVIII. There were also a lot of dirty beggars always about him, as Timon
tells us, where he says:—
Till he collected a vast cloud of beggars,
Who were of all men in the world the poorest,
And the most worthless citizens of Athens.
And he himself was a man of a morose and bitter countenance, with a
constantly frowning expression. He was very economical, and descended
even to the meanness of the barbarians, under the pretence of economy.
XIX. If he reproved any one, he did it with brevity and without
exaggeration, and as it were, at a distance. I allude, for instance, to
the way in which he spoke of a man who took exceeding pains in setting
himself off, for as he was crossing a gutter with great hesitation, he
said, “He is right to look down upon the mud, for he cannot see himself
in it.” And when some Cynic one day said that he had no oil in his
cruise, and asked him for some, he refused to give him any, but bade him
go away and consider which of the two was the more impudent. He was very
much in love with Chremonides; and once, when he and Cleanthes were both
sitting by him, he got up; and as Cleanthes wondered at this, he said,
“I hear from skilful physicians that the best thing for some tumours
is rest.” Once, when two people were sitting above him at table at a
banquet, and the one next him kept kicking the other with his foot, he
himself kicked him with his knee; and when he turned round upon him for
doing so, he said, “Why then do you think that your other neighbour is to
be treated in this way by you?”
On one occasion he said to a man who was very fond of young boys,
that “Schoolmasters who were always associating with boys had no more
intellect than the boys themselves.” He used also to say that the
discourses of those men who were careful to avoid solecisms, and to
adhere to the strictest rules of composition, were like Alexandrine
money, they were pleasing to the eye and well-formed like the coin, but
were nothing the better for that; but those who were not so particular
he likened to the Attic tetradrachmas, which were struck at random and
without any great nicety, and so he said that their discourses often
outweighed the more polished styles of the others. And when Ariston, his
disciple, had been holding forth a good deal without much wit, but still
in some points with a good deal of readiness and confidence, he said to
him, “It would be impossible for you to speak thus, if your father had
not been drunk when he begat you;” and for the same reason he nicknamed
him the chatterer, as he himself was very concise in his speeches. Once,
when he was in company with an epicure who usually left nothing for his
messmates, and when a large fish was set before him, he took it all as
if he could eat the whole of it; and when the others looked at him with
astonishment, he said, “What then do you think that your companions feel
every day, if you cannot bear with my gluttony for one day?”
On one occasion, when a youth was asking him questions with a pertinacity
unsuited to his age, he led him to a looking-glass and bade him look at
himself, and then asked him whether such questions appeared suitable to
the face he saw there. And when a man said before him once, that in most
points he did not agree with the doctrines of Antisthenes, he quoted to
him an apophthegm of Sophocles, and asked him whether he thought there
was much sense in that, and when he said that he did not know, “Are you
not then ashamed,” said he, “to pick out and recollect anything bad
which may have been said by Antisthenes, but not to regard or remember
whatever is said that is good?” A man once said, that the sayings of the
philosophers appeared to him very trivial; “You say true,” replied Zeno,
“and their syllables too ought to be short, if that is possible.” When
some one spoke to him of Polemo, and said that he proposed one question
for discussion and then argued another, he became angry, and said, “At
what value did he estimate the subject that had been proposed?” And he
said that a man who was to discuss a question ought to have a loud voice
and great energy, like the actors, but not to open his mouth too wide,
which those who speak a great deal but only talk nonsense usually do. And
he used to say that there was no need for those who argued well to leave
their hearers room to look about them, as good workmen do who want to
have their work seen; but that, on the contrary, those who are listening
to them ought to be so attentive to all that is said as to have no
leisure to take notes.
Once when a young man was talking a great deal, he said, “Your ears have
run down into your tongue.” On one occasion a very handsome man was
saying that a wise man did not appear to him likely to fall in love;
“Then,” said he, “I cannot imagine anything that will be more miserable
than you good-looking fellows.” He also used often to say that most
philosophers were wise in great things, but ignorant of petty subjects
and chance details; and he used to cite the saying of Caphesius, who,
when one of his pupils was labouring hard to be able to blow very
powerfully, gave him a slap, and said, that excellence did not depend
upon greatness, but greatness on excellence. Once, when a young man was
arguing very confidently, he said, “I should not like to say, O youth,
all that occurs to me.” And once, when a handsome and wealthy Rhodian,
but one who had no other qualification, was pressing him to take him as
a pupil, he, as he was not inclined to receive him, first of all made
him sit on the dusty seats that he might dirt his cloak, then he put him
down in the place of the poor that he might rub against their rags, and
at last the young man went away. One of his sayings used to be, that
vanity was the most unbecoming of all things, and especially so in the
young. Another was, that one ought not to try and recollect the exact
words and expressions of a discourse, but to fix all one’s attention on
the arrangement of the arguments, instead of treating it as if it were a
piece of boiled meat, or some delicate eatable. He used also to say that
young men ought to maintain the most scrupulous reserve in their walking,
their gait, and their dress; and he was constantly quoting the lines of
Euripides on Capaneus, that—
His wealth was ample.
But yet no pride did mingle with his state,
Nor had he haughty thought, or arrogance
More than the poorest man.
And one of his sayings used to be, that nothing was more unfriendly to
the comprehension of the accurate sciences than poetry; and that there
was nothing that we stood in so much need of as time. When he was asked
what a friend was, he replied, “Another I.” They say that he was once
scourging a slave whom he had detected in theft; and when he said to
him, “It was fated that I should steal;” he rejoined, “Yes, and that
you should be beaten.” He used to call beauty the flower of the voice;
but some report this as if he had said that the voice is the flower of
beauty. On one occasion, when he saw a slave belonging to one of his
friends severely bruised, he said to his friend, “I see the footsteps
of your anger.” He once accosted a man who was all over unguents
and perfumes, “Who is this who smells like a woman?” When Dionysius
Metathemenus asked him why he was the only person whom he did not
correct, he replied, “Because I have no confidence in you.” A young man
was talking a great deal of nonsense, and he said to him, “This is the
reason why we have two ears and only one mouth, that we may hear more and
speak less.”
Once, when he was at an entertainment and remained wholly silent, he was
asked what the reason was; and so he bade the person who found fault with