A Brief History of Stoicism - a podcast by Simon Drew

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: 

Stoicism began as one of the major schools of philosophy within the Hellenistic period in the mediterranean. For context, Hellenistic literally means “one who uses the Greek language”. This period is marked to have started around the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and some estimates suggest that it ended in 146 BC  following the invasion of the Greek heartlands by Rome. Most people agree that this period officially ended in 31 BC. 

We talk about Hellenism as a period in time, but we can also talk about the “Hellenistic schools of thought”, or the “Hellenistic Philosophies”. This was the period when Greece gave rise to the first structures of Democracy, and places like Athens, where Stoicism began, were bustling with new inventions and ideas. It was a cultural expansion unlike any other time in History, and we have that to thank for much of our western culture that we enjoy today. 

I have a great interview with Michael Tremblay where we discuss the ins and outs of the Hellenistic philosophies, but for now it’s important to know that this period in ancient Greece was marked by massive advancements and explorations into art, theatre, mathematics, sciences, music, literature and of course, philosophy, including schools of philosophy that you may have heard of, like the Cynics, the Skeptics, the Epicureans, and of course, Stoicism, which all belonged to the “Hellenistic” tradition. 

And so that brings us to the birth of Stoicism. 

Zeno of Citium was by all accounts the official founder of the Stoic school of philosophy. The story goes that Zeno was a wealthy merchant who was shipwrecked while traveling to Athens with a load full of purple dye. This was very expensive cargo as this die was extracted painstakingly from sea snails, and it was seen as a symbol of luxury and royalty to use such a colour. And as Donald Robertson puts it so eloquently, Zeno’s fortune came from and now returned to the sea. 

So now Zeno is stuck in Athens. What does he do? Well the legend goes that Zeno did what any of us would have done; he traveled to the Oracle of Delphi to receive guidance from the God Apollo. There, the Oracle told him that he was to “dye himself with the colour, not of dead shellfish, but of dead men.” 

Zeno interpreted this to mean that he should learn from the great thinkers of the past, and began at once to read about people like Socrates, which is very important to know as the Stoic philosophy is widely considered to be a derivative of the Socratic teachings, especially with its focus on virtue as the main good in life. 

And so the legend continues that as Zeno was reading about Socrates, he asked the bookseller, “tell me where I can find a man like this?”. And because Athens was a town full of thinkers and philosophers the bookseller pointed out the window at a man called Crates of Thebes, a famous Cynic philosopher. 

And so Zeno went on to study with Crates for a couple of decades before he started his own school of philosophy in around 300BC on the stairs of a painted porch in Athens called the Stoa Poikile, thus, Stoicism is created - a philosophy that was founded in the principle that a good life is one that is aimed first at virtue, and is lived in alignment with Nature. 

We really don’t have many writings from the early Greek Stoics, and it’s not until Stoicism makes its way to Rome that we really start to get some great literature to sink our teeth into. It’s important to note that between Greece and Rome there were many notable philosophers who lead the Stoic school and added to the teachings of Zeno. Some of these include Cleanthes, the second head of the Stoic school, and Chrysippus, the third head. And we also have Diogenes of Babylon, who travelled to Rome in 155BC with other philosophers and spread these Greek ideas to the Roman Empire.

And so here we are in Rome, an

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