Vitae philosophorum

Thraso of the deme Anacaea, Philocles of Peiraeus, Phaedrus of Anaphlystus, Medon of Acharnae, Micythus of Sypalettus, and Dion of Paeania have been elected commissioners for the making of the crown and the building.

These are the terms of the decree.

Antigonus of Carystus tells us that he never denied that he was a citizen of Citium. For when he was one of those who contributed to the restoration of the baths and his name was inscribed upon the pillar as Zeno the philosopher, he requested that the words of Citium should be added. He made a hollow lid for a flask and used to carry about money in it, in order that there might be provision at hand for the necessities of his master Crates.

It is said that he had more than a thousand talents when he came to Greece, and that he lent this money on bottomry.[*](The security for the loan was either the cargo shipped or the vessel itself. As the risk was great, the interest was proportionately high. Demosth. Or. xxxiv. 23, l. 17, lvi. 17.) He used to eat little loaves and honey and to drink a little wine of good bouquet. He rarely employed men-servants; once or twice indeed he might have a young girl to wait on him in order not to seem a misogynist. He shared the same house with Persaeus, and when the latter brought in a little flute-player he lost no time in leading her straight to Persaeus. They tell us he readily adapted himself to circumstances,

He disliked, they say, to be brought too near to people, so that he would take the end seat of a couch, thus saving himself at any rate from one half of such inconvenience. Nor indeed would he walk about with more than two or three. He would occasionally ask the bystanders for coppers, in order that, for fear of being asked to give, people might desist from mobbing him, as Cleanthes says in his work On Bronze. When several persons stood about him in the Colonnade he pointed to the wooden railing at the top round the altar and said, This was once open to all, but because it was found to be a hindrance it was railed off. If you then will take yourselves off out of the way you will be the less annoyance to us.

When Demochares, the son of Laches, greeted him and told him he had only to speak or write for anything he wanted to Antigonus, who would be sure to grant all his requests, Zeno after hearing this would have nothing more to do with him.[*](Zeno must have foreseen that this compliment would be followed by a request to use his undoubted influence with the king on behalf of Demochares. who, as an Athenian patriot and the nephew of Demosthenes, was out of favour at the Macedonian court. Indeed the fact of his making such advances at all is so strange that Ferguson (p. 172) and Tarn (p. 94, note 11) feel constrained to offer hypothetical explanations.)

After Zeno’s death Antigonus is reported to have said, What an audience I have lost.[*](Tarn, Antig. Gon. p. 310, well compares Plato, Politicus 260 c, and Epicurus (ap. Senec. Ep. 7. 11), satis enim magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus.) Hence too he employed Thraso as his agent to request the Athenians to bury Zeno in the Ceramicus. And when asked why he admired him, Because, said

His bent was towards inquiry, and he was an exact reasoner on all subjects. Hence the words of Timon in his Silli[*](Frag. 38 D.):

A Phoenician too I saw, a pampered old woman ensconced in gloomy pride, longing for all things; but the meshes of her subtle web have perished, and she had no more intelligence than a banjo.[*](Cf.Od. xi. 281, 271.)

He used to dispute very carefully with Philo the logician and study along with him. Hence Zeno, who was the junior, had as great an admiration for Philo as his master Diodorus. And he had about him certain ragged dirty fellows, as Timon says[*](Frag. 39 D.) in these lines:

The while he got together a crowd of ignorant serfs, who surpassed all men in beggary and were the emptiest of townsfolk.[*](Cf.Il. ii. 831, xxiii. 133.)

Zeno himself was sour and of a frowning countenance. He was very niggardly too, clinging to meanness unworthy of a Greek, on the plea of economy, If he pitched into anyone he would do it concisely, and not effusively, keeping him rather at arm’s length. I mean, for example, his remark upon the fop showing himself off.