Puzzle No. 19: When?

Around 300 BC the philosopher Zeno of Citium (c. 334-262 BC), a Phoenician-Greek merchant from Citium on Cyprus who had turned to philosophy after a shipwreck stranded him in Athens, began teaching publicly in the Stoa Poikile, the colonnaded 'Painted Porch' on the north side of the Athenian Agora. From this open-air gathering place his followers, initially called Zenonians, came to be known as Stoics, giving the school its enduring name. Drawing on Cynic ethics and earlier Greek thought, Zeno taught that virtue and living in accordance with nature and universal reason (logos) were the sole true goods and the path to tranquility. Stoicism became one of the most influential schools of Hellenistic philosophy, later developed by figures such as Chrysippus and carried into the Roman world by Seneca, Epictetus, and the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Its emphasis on reason, self-control, and acceptance of fate shaped Western ethical thought for centuries and remains influential today.

Read the full story · See the world in 300 BCE