Note 26 — Chapter X · ETHICS. THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE STOIC ETHICS. ABSTRACT THEORY OF MORALITY.

According to Plut. Sto. Rep. 20, 3 and 7 and 10; 30, 3, Diog. vii. 188, Stob. ii. 224, the Stoics, following Chrysippus, admit three ways of earning an honest livelihood—by teaching, by courting the rich, by serving states and princes. The first and the last were no longer condemned in the Alexandrian period, as they had been before, but still they were in bad repute, and the second was particularly so. Still more at variance with Greek customs was the course advocated by Chrysippus (in Plut. Sto. Rep. 30): καὶ κυβιστήσειν τρὶς ἐπὶ τούτῳ λαβόντα τάλαντον. Chrysippus himself (in Diog.) enumerates the objections to the modes of life just named, and, in general, to all trading for money, but his objections cannot have appeared to him conclusive. ↑