Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/595

 STOICS 571 modesty from the name and its responsibilities. But the development of the system led them gradually and reluct- antly to renounce this hope, as they came to realize the arduous conditions involved. Zeno indeed could hardly have been denied the title conferred upon Epicurus. Cleanthes, the " second Hercules," held it possible for man to attain to virtue. From anecdotes recorded of the tricks played upon Aristo and Sphaerus (Diog. Laer., vii. 162, 117) it may be inferred that the former deemed himself infallible in his opinions, i.e., set up for a sage ; Perseus himself, who had exposed the pretensions of Aristo, is twitted with having failed to conform with the perfect generalship which was one trait of the wise man, when he allowed the citadel of Corinth to be taken by Aratus (Athen., iv. 102 D). The trait of infallibility especially proved hard to establish when successive heads of the school seriously differed in their doctrine. The prospect became daily more distant, and at length faded away. Chrysippus declined to call himself or any of his contem- poraries a sage. One or two such manifestations there may have been Socrates and Diogenes 1 but the wise man was rarer, he thought, than the phoenix. If his suc- cessors allowed one or two more exceptions, to Diogenes of Seleucia at any rate the sage was an unrealized ideal, as we learn from Plutarch (De Comm. Not., 33, 1076 B), who does not fail to seize upon this extreme view. Posi- donius left even Socrates, Diogenes, and Antisthenes in the state of progress towards virtue. Although there was in the end a reaction from this extreme, yet it is impos- sible to mistake the bearing of all this upon a practical system of morals. So long as dialectic subtleties and exciting polemics afforded food for the intellect, the gulf between theory and practice might be ignored. But once let this system be presented to men in earnest about right living, and eager to profit by what they are taught, and an ethical reform is inevitable. Conduct for us will be separated from conduct for the sage. We shall be told not always to imitate him. There will be a new law, dwell- ing specially upon the " external duties " required of all men, wise or unwise ; and even the sufficiency of virtue for our happiness may be questioned. The introducer and expositor of such a twofold morality was a remarkable man. Born at Rhodes c. 185 B.C., a citizen of the most flourishing of Greek states and almost the only one which yet retained vigour and freedom, Panaetius lived for years in the house of Scipio Africanus the younger at Rome, accompanied him on embassies and campaigns, and was perhaps the first Greek who in a private capacity had any insight into the working of the Roman state or the character of its citizens. Later in life, as head of the Stoic school at Athens, he achieved a reputation second only to that of Chrysippus. He is the earliest Stoic author from whom we have, even indirectly, any consider- able piece of work, as books i. and ii. of the De Officiis are a rechauffe, in Cicero's fashion, of Panaetius "Upon External Duty " (irfpl TOV KaO^Kovro?). The introduction of Stoicism at Rome was the most momentous of the many changes that it saw. After the first sharp collision with the jealousy of the national authorities it found a ready acceptance, and made rapid progress amongst the noblest families. It has been well said that the old heroes of the republic were unconscious Stoics, fitted by their narrowness, their stern simplicity, and devotion to duty for the almost Semitic earnestness of the new doctrine. In Greece its insensibility to art and the cultivation of life was a fatal defect ; not so with the shrewd men of the world, desirous of qualifying as advocates or jurists. It supplied them with an incentive to scientific research in archaeology and grammar ; it penetrated jurisprudence until the belief in the ultimate identity of the jus gentium with the law of nature modified the praetor's edicts for centuries. Even to the prosaic religion of old Home, with its narrow original conception and multitude of burdensome rites, it became in some sort a support. Sccevola, following Panaetius, explained that the prudence of statesmen had established this public institution in the service of order midway between the errors of popular superstition and the barren truths of enlightened philosophy. Soon the influence of the pupils reacted upon the doctrines taught. Of specula- tive interest the ordinary Roman had as little as may be ; for abstract discussion and controversy he cared nothing. Indifferent to the scientific basis or logical development of doctrines, he selected from various writers and from dif- ferent schools what he found most serviceable. All had to be simplified and disengaged from technical subtleties. To attract his Roman pupils Panaetius would naturally Pansetius. choose simple topics susceptible of rhetorical treatment or of application to individual details. He was the represen- tative, not merely of Stoicism, but of Greece and Greek literature, and would feel pride in introducing its greatest masterpieces : amongst all that he studied, he valued most the writings of Plato. He admired the classic style, the exquisite purity of language, the flights of imagination, but he admired above all the philosophy. He marks a reaction of the genuine Hellenic spirit against the narrow austerity of the first Stoics. Zeno and Chrysippus had in- troduced a repellent technical terminology ; their writings lacked every grace of style. With Panastius the Stoa became eloquent : he did his best to improve upon the uncouth words in vogue, even at some slight cost of accu- racy, e.g., to discard Trpo-rjjfi.ii'ov for evxprja-rov, or else de- signate it " so-called good," or even simply " good," if the context allowed. The part Panrctius took in philological and historical studies is characteristic of the man. We know much of the results of these studies ; of his philosophy technically we know very little. He wrote only upon ethics, where historical knowledge would be of use. Crates of Mallus, one of his teachers, aimed at fulfilling the high functions of a " critic " according to his own definition, that the critic must acquaint himself with all rational knowledge. Panix'tius was competent to pass judgment upon the critical "divination" of an Aristarchus (who was perhaps himself also a Stoic), and took an interest in the restoration of Old Attic forms to the text of Plato. Just then there had been a movement towards a wider and more liberal education, by which even contemporary Epicureans were affected. Dioge.nes the Babylonian had written a treatise on language and one entitled The Laws. Along with grammar, which had been a prominent branch of study under Chrysippus, philosophy, history, geography, chronology, and kin- dred subjects came to be recognized as fields of activity no less than philology proper. It has been recently established that Polybius the histoiian was a Stoic, and it is clear that he was greatly influ- enced by the form of the system which he learned to know, in the society of Scipio and his friends, from Pansetius. 1 Nor is it im- probable that works of the latter served Cicero as the originals of his DC Jlcpullica and De Lcgibus. 2 Thus the gulf between Stoicism and the later Cynics, who were persistently hostile to culture, could not fail to be widened. A wave of eclecticism passed overall the Greek schools in the 1st Eclectic- century r.c. Platouism and scepticism had left undoubted traces ism. upon the doctrine of such a reformer as Pansetius. He had doubts about a general conflagration ; possibly (he thought) Aristotle was right in affirming the eternity of the present order of the world. He doubted the entire system of divination. On these points his disciples Posidonius and Hecato seem to have reverted to orthodoxy. But in ethics his innovations were more suggestive and fertile. He separated wisdom as a theoretic virtue from the other three which he called practical. Hecato slightly modified this : showing that precepts (eewp^ara) are needed for justice and temperance also, he made them scientific virtues, reserving for his second class the unscientific virtue (aQetip-riros &per-fi) of courage, together with 1 Hirzel, Untersuch., ii. p. 841 sq. Polybius's rejection of divina- tion is decisive. See, e.g., his explanation upon natural causes of Scipio the elder's capture of New Carthage, " by the aid of Neptune, x. 11 (c/. x. 2). P. Voigt holds that in vi. 5, 1, rtffiv ertpois ruv (f>toff6(f>cav is an allusion to Panaetius. 2 This, at least, is maintained by Schmekel.