THE BOOK REPORT Episode 30- Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman- Zeno the Prophet
“To Zeno, the purpose of philosophy, of virtue, was to find ‘a smooth flow of life,’ to get to a place where everything we do is in ‘harmonious accord with each man’s guiding spirit and the will of the one who governs the universe.”
The origins of Stoicism begin with a merchant from Kition, Cyprus. Born in 334bc, the tale says that Zeno was sailing the Mediterranean transporting purple dye. “Prized by the wealthy and royalty who dressed themselves in clothes colored with it, the rare dye was painstakingly extracted by slaves from the blood of sea snails and dried in the sun, until it was, as one ancient said, ‘worth its weight in silver.’” During the trip, there was a shipwreck and Zeno lost all the cargo he was carrying. Whether it was natural causes, his own error, or something else, it really doesn’t matter why the ship sank, he lost everything! “Yet the unlucky merchant would later rejoice in his loss, claiming, ‘I made a prosperous voyage when I suffered a shipwreck.’ For it was this shipwreck that sent Zeno to Athens, on the path to creating what would become Stoic philosophy.”
It is said that Zeno’s father, Mnaeseas, a merchant as well, brought his son many books to read and was a very loving father. While it is debated how Zeno arrived in Athens, the city when he did arrive, was “ruled by literate elites whose success and education allowed them to explore and debate ideas that we are still talking about today. It was fertile ground for the awakening that was to come for Zeno.” His ‘awakening’ took place in a bookstore. “One day, Zeno found himself taking a break from the fray of business, browsing titles in a bookshop, looking for something to read, when he learned that a talk had been scheduled for that day. Taking his seat, he listened to the bookseller read a medley of works about Socrates, the philosopher who had been put to death in Athens a century before and whose ideas Zeno’s father had introduced him to as a boy.”
Zeno once consulted an oracle on how he could live his best life. The oracle responded, “To live the best life you should have conversations with the dead.” As he was in that bookstore, he must have thought that books were what the oracle was talking about. Zeno heard the bookseller read “The Choice of Heracles” In this story, Heracles has a choice between ‘two maidens’ virtue or vice. One of hard work or one of laziness. The virtuous maiden would say “You must accustom your body to be the servant of your mind, and train it with toil and sweat.” Vice replied “Wait a minute, don’t you see what a long hard road to the joy she describes? Come the easy way with me!”
Zeno wanted to find a man like Socrates, he wanted help choosing virtue or vice. Zeno asked the bookseller “Who could help me with my choice?” As a man name Crates was passing by, “The bookseller simply extended his hand and pointed.” Crate of Thebes became Zeno’s teacher. Crate wanted to cure Zeno of his self-consciousness. Crate sent Zeno to carry a pot of lentils across town. Why lentils? “Lentils were then seen as a food eaten only by poor people. Undoubtedly, Crates was attempting to challenge the snobbish identity of Zeno’s upper-class upbringing.” Zeno hid as he carried the pot through town but Crate tracked him down and spilled the pot all over Zeno. Zeno tried running away but Crates laughed, saying, “Why run away my little Phoenician? Nothing terrible has befallen you.” With the help of Crates, Zeno became who he was called to be.
After learning from Crates, Zeno became a teacher in the public square. “There, amid the shops where people bought and sold their wares, Zeno discussed with them the true value of things. In this literal marketplace of ideas, he offered to them something he believed vital- an engaged philosophy of life that could help people find peace in an often turbulent world. ‘Of the three kinds of life, the contemplative, the active, and the rational’ Diogenes would write, the Stoics ‘declare that we should choose the latter because a rational being is expressly produced by nature for contemplation and action.’”
As a teacher, when it came to keeping his students humble, Zeno followed in his teacher's footsteps. When attracting too many admirers, Zeno commanded a young student to shave his head to keep them away. Once a wealthy student wanted Zeno to be his teacher, Zeno ordered him to dirty his clothes by sitting on a dusty bench, then he ordered him to mingle with beggars, but the young student simply left.
“Zeno would eventually move to what became known as the Stoa Poikile, literally ‘painted porch.’ The painted porch was where Zeno and his disciples gathered for discussion.” I’m guessing where the term Stoic comes from. On a side note, Ryan Holiday has a bookstore called… The Painted Porch, I haven’t gone even though it’s about 40 min from where I live but, it’s on my bucket list.
Zeno was also an author although none of his work survived. “What we know of it comes via summaries from people who read it.” It is said that the quote “We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen twice as much as we speak” originated from Zeno. “He supposedly said that there was nothing more unbecoming for a person than to put on airs and that doing so was even less tolerable for the young. ‘Better to trip with the feet, ‘he once said, ‘than with the tongue.’” He was the one who express the four virtues of Stoicism (courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom) The story Holiday gives on how Zeno died is a bit bizarre. “At the age of seventy-two, leaving the porch one day, he tripped and quite painfully broke his fingers. Sprawled on the ground, he seemed to have decided the incident was a sign and that his number was up. Punching the ground, he quoted a line from Timotheus, a musician and poet from the century before him:
I come of my own accord; why then call me?
Then Zeno held his breath until he passed from this life.”
He died 262bc.
Even though this does sound like he was a bit crazy, we have to thank him for giving us a practical philosophy. Stoicism not only helped many people, including me but also inspired many other philosophers including Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and many more! From kings to slaves, Stoicism can help anybody in their lives.