Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/475



1. the present lecture I propose to place before you, as clearly as the lights which I have been able to collect on the subject will enable me, the moral philosophy of the Stoics.

2. Zeno, the founder of the Stoical sect, was born in the island of Cyprus. The dates of his birth and death are uncertain. He is said to have been alive, in an extreme old age, in the year 260 B.C., so that we may assume 300 B.C., or thereabouts, as the period when he flourished, or was in the active exercise of his powers. The place in Athens where he harangued his pupils was stoa, the porch; the Variegated Porch, as it was called, from the paintings of Polygnotus which adorned its walls, and which represented the victories gained by the Athenians over the Persians. From this meeting-place his adherents received the name of Stoics; that is, the philosophers of the porch. The successors of Zeno were (Cleanthes and Chrysippus, the latter of whom is mentioned by Horace in the lines in which he gives the preference