Note 5 — Chapter III · HISTORY OF THE STOICS UNTIL THE END OF THE SECOND CENTURY B.C.

The dates in Zeno’s life are very uncertain. He is said to have been thirty when he first came to Athens (Diog. 2). Persæus, however (Ibid. 28), his pupil and countryman, says twenty-two. These statements are of little use, since the date of his coming to Athens is unknown. If it is true that after reading with Crates he was for ten years a pupil of Xenocrates, who died 314 B.C. (Timocrates in Diog. 2), he must have come to Athens not later than 328 B.C. But this fact may be doubted. For his whole line of thought resembles that of Crates and Stilpo. How then can he have been for ten years a pupil in the Academy, and in addition have enjoyed Polemo’s teaching? Altogether he is said to have frequented the schools of different philosophers for twenty years before opening his own (Diog. 4). According to Apollon. in Diog. 28, he presided over his own school for fifty-eight years, which is hardly reconcileable with the above data, even if he attained the age of ninety-eight (Diog. 28; Lucian, Macrob. 19). According to Persæus (Diog. 28), he only attained the age of seventy-two (Clinton, Fast. Hell. II. 368 capriciously suggests 92), and was altogether only fifty years in Athens. On the other hand, in his own letter to Antigonus (Diog. 9), he distinctly calls himself an octogenarian, but the genuineness of this letter, borrowed by Diogenes from Apollonius the Tyrian about 50 B.C., may perhaps be doubted. The year of Zeno’s death is likewise unknown. His relations to Antigonus Gonatas prove at least that he was not dead before the beginning of his reign in 278 B.C., and probably not till long afterwards. It would appear from the calculation of his age, that his death did not take place till 260 B.C. He may, then, have lived circa 350 to 260 B.C.; but these dates are quite uncertain. ↑