Note 41 — Chapter XIV · THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY AS A WHOLE AND ITS HISTORICAL POSITION.

Diog. vii. 35, x. 25, and Procl. in Euclid. 55, says that Zeno was a native of Sidon, and a pupil of Apollodorus; nor can these statements be referred to an older Zeno, as some previous writers maintained, believing Apollodorus to be called in error a pupil of Epicurus by Diog. x. 25, instead of to the one mentioned by Cicero. For no trace of such a one exists; and Diogenes vii. 35 would then have passed over the teacher of Cicero without notice, although the latter cannot possibly have been unknown to him. According to Cic. Acad. i. 12, 46, Zeno attended the lectures of Carneades and admired them; and since Carneades died not later than 129 B.C., Zeno cannot have been born much later than 150 B.C. If, therefore, Zeno was really the successor of Apollodorus, the latter must be placed entirely in the second century. But this fact is not sufficiently established. Cicero, in company with Atticus, attended his lectures (Cic. l.c.; Fin. i. 5, 16; Tusc. iii. 17, 38. In Cic. N. D. i. 21, 58, Cotta says the same of himself), on his first visit to Athens, 78 or 79 B.C.; conf. N. D. i. 34, 93; but this cannot possibly be the same Zeno or Xeno (as Krische, Forsch. 26, maintains) whom Cic. Ad Att. v. 10, 11; xvi. 3 mentions as living in 50 and 43 B.C. Cic. N. D. i. 21, calls him princeps Epicureorum (and Philo of Larissa, coryphæus Epicureorum); Tusc. l.c., acriculus senex, istorum (Epicureans) acutissimus. Diog. x. 25, calls him πολύγραφος ἀνήρ. From Procl. in Euclid. 55; 59; 60, we hear of a treatise of Zeno, in which he attacked the validity of mathematical proofs. Philodemus’ treatise περὶ παῤῥησίας (Vol. Herc. v. a) seems, from the title, to have been an abstract from Zeno. Cotemporary with Zeno was that Aristio, or Athenio, who played a part in Athens during the Mithridatic war, and is sometimes called a Peripatetic, and sometimes an Epicurean (Plut. Sulla, 12; 14; 23). See Zeller’s Philosophie der Griechen, vol. ii. b, 759, 2. Perhaps to the time of his despotism the statement may be referred (Demetrius Magnes in Athen. xiii. 611, b) that the Stoic Theotimus, who wrote against Epicurus, was killed at the instance of Zeno. ↑