STOICS

followers of an A then i an school of philosophy named from the stoa, ‘porch,’ in which its founder, Zeno of Citium in Cyprus, c. 300 B.C., taught. His succe ors were Cleanthes and Chrysippus, the latter of whom consolidated its doctrines. Later Panzetius of Rhodes, c. 140 B.C. initiated a more moderate phase of Stoic teaching. Of all Gr. schools Stoicism was most congenial to the Roman temper, and among its most famous names are those of Seneca, HE pice ure an ism, Stoicism is e entially a practical philosophy, the source of its ethics being the ideal of the wise man after the pattern of So crates, who perceives that the true good of man lies not in outward objects, but in the state of the soul itself—in that knowledge or wisdom by which he is delivered from the pa ions and desires that perturb the life of the ordinary man. The early Stoics had a good deal of the Cynic harshne of view, but the more rigid dualisms were gradually modified, until life of Stoic virtue was able to adapt itself tolerably well to the nece ities of its environment. Stoics regarded the universe as a rational, though material, whole, and were opposed to the crude atomism of the Epicureans. Stoicism of the latest or Roman period was characterized by its strongly practical and religious tendency, as in the Discourses and Encheiridion of Epictetus, and the Thoughts or Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.