The Daily Stoic - The Life Of Chrysippus

Episode Date: May 14, 2023

In today's audiobook reading, Ryan presents the biography of the great Greco-Phoenician Stoic philosopher Chrysippus. Written by the prolific biographer of the Greek philosophers Diogenes Laertius, this text covers Chrysippus’s early life, how he used his natural talents for dialectics and writing, stories of his teaching career, and more.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, from the Stoic texts, audio books that we like here recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy and most importantly that you're able to apply it to actual life. Thank you for listening. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stoke Podcast. One of my favorite jokes from Epic Titus. He hears two of his students bragging about having read all of the works of Chrysipus. Now, Chryspus is an early Stoke philosopher and he wrote a lot. Someone that's 700 books, almost none of them survive except for a few fragments.

But what we know of Crescipus is that he was a particularly dense and maybe not the easiest to read of the Stoke. He's what we think of when we think of philosophers, particularly ancient philosophers, right? Unpronounceable name, super smart, too smart for his own good, pretentious, maybe a little bit, all he thinks. Anyways, epictetus here is a bragging about it and he goes, you know what? If Craycipus was a better writer, you'd have less to brag about. Meaning that if Craycipus had written more clearly and more excessively, the students

wouldn't be so hotty and pretentious because everyone would be able to read it. And I've always thought of that as a great encapsulation of what stoicism is really about. It's not totally fair to Cricipus, who is the successor of Clientys, so basically the third head of the stoic school. We don't really know how good or bad he was as a writer,

because most of them are lost to us, but this could change. Actually, they've begun to discover some of his works in Tumed at Herculaneum and at Pompeii. And so perhaps future generations will have a very different understanding of Cresipus. Cresipus was a fighter, a protector, a bit pedantic at times, but overall a fascinating guy, much to learn from. Senka is a huge fan of his less-so epictetus for the reasons we mentioned earlier.

But in today's episode, I wanted to give you Dijonis Leartis' miniature biography of Cresifus. We've been bringing you some of these lately, read by the one and only Michael Reed, who we brought on. It's a narrator. He's been doing a great job. You might recognize him from some of our YouTube videos as well. And if you haven't read Lives of the Stokes, we do a deep dive into Crasipus there as well. But it's always good to go straight to the source or as close to the source as we can. And this is a biography. Many, many thousands of years old. It gives you a

sense of who these stoics were. Not just what they wrote about, but who they were and how they lived. And hopefully that will help you understand the philosophy a little bit better. It's funny, I talked to lots of people and a good chunk of those people haven't been readers for a long time. They've just gotten back into it. And I always love hearing that and they tell me how they fall in love with reading.

They're reading more than ever. And I go, let me guess, you listen audio books, don't you? And it's true. And almost invariably, they listen to them on Audible. And that's because Audible offers an incredible selection of audio books across every genre from best sellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs. And of course, ancient philosophy, all my books are

available on audio, read by me for the most part. Audible lets you enjoy all your audio entertainment in one app. You'll always find the best of what you love, or something new to discover, and as an audible member you get to choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog, including the latest best sellers and new releases. You'll discover thousands of titles from popular favorites, exclusive new series, exciting new voices in audio. You can check out Stillness is the Key, the the daily dad I just recorded so that's up on audible now coming up on the 10-year anniversary of

the obstacle is the way audiobooks so all those are available and new members can try audible for free for 30 days visit audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500 500 that's audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500-500, that's audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500-500. Chrysipus was the son of Apolognes and a native of either Sohli or Tarsus, as Alexander tells us in his successions, and he was a pupil of Clienthes. Previously, he used to practice running as a public runner. Antes. Previously, he used to practice running as a public runner. Then he became a pupil of Xenon, or of Clientes, as Diocles and the Generality of Authors say, and while he was still living, he abandoned him and became a very eminent philosopher. He was a man of

great natural ability and of great acuteness in every way, so that in many points he descended from Xenon and also from Clienthes, to whom he often used to say that he only wanted to be instructed in the dogmas of the school and that he would discover the demonstrations for himself. But whenever he opposed him with any vehemence, he also repented so that he used frequently to say, in most respects, I am a happy man, accepting where Clienthe's is concerned. For in that matter, I am far from fortunate.

And he had such high reputation as a dialectician that most people thought that if there were such a science as dialectics among the gods, it would be in no respect different from that of chrysapis. But though he was so imminently able in matter, he was not perfect in style. He was industrious beyond all other men, as is plain from his writings, for he wrote more than 705 books. Andy often wrote several books on the same subject, wishing to put down everything that occurred to him, and constantly correcting

his previous assertions, and using a great abundance of testimonies. So that, as in one of his writings, he had quoted nearly the whole of the Medea of Erypides, and someone had his book in his hands. This latter, when he was asked what he had got there, made answer, the Medea of Chrysipus. And Appaladorus, the Athenian, in his collection of dogmas, wishing to assert that Epicurus had written out of his own head, and without any quotations to support his arguments, was a great deal more than all the books of chrysipus speaks thus. I give his exact words. For if anyone were to take away from the books of chrysipus, all the passages which he quotes from other authors, his paper would be left empty. These are the words of Apalodorus, but the old woman who lived with

him as Diocles reports used to say that he wrote 500 lines every day. And Hecutan says that he first applied himself to philosophy when his patronomy had been confiscated and seized by the royal treasury. He was slight in person as is plain from his statue which is in the ceramicus, which is nearly hidden by the equestrian statue near it, in reference to which circumstance Carnietti's called him Criccipus. He was once reproached by someone for not attending the lectures of Arreston, who was drawing a great crowd after him at the time, and he replied,

if I had attended to the multitude, I should not have been a philosopher. And once, when he saw a dialectician pressing hard on Clienthese and proposing sophisticated fallacies to him, he said, ceased to drag that old man from more important business and proposed these questions to us who are young. At another time, when someone wishing to ask him something privately was addressing him

quietly, but when he saw a multitude approaching began to speak more energetically, he said to him, Alas, my brother, now your eye is troubled. You were quite saying just now, and yet how quickly have you succumbed to frenzy? And at drinking parties, he used to behave quietly, moving his legs about however, so that a female slave once said, it is only the legs of chrysopist that are drunk.

And he had so high an opinion of himself that once when a man asked him, to whom shall I entrust my son? He said, to me, for if I thought that there was anyone better than myself, I would have gone to him to teach me philosophy. In reference to which anecdotes, they report that people used to save him. He was indeed a clear and subtle head. The rest are forms of empty ether made. And also, for if Christmas had not lived and taught, the Stoic school would surely have been not. Life can get you down. I'm no stranger to that. When I find things are piling up, I'm struggling

to deal with something. Obviously, I use my journal, obviously I turn to stochism, but I also turn to my therapist, which I've had for a long time and has helped me through a bunch of stuff. And because I'm so busy and I live out in the country, I do therapy remote, so I don't have to drive somewhere. And that's where today's sponsor comes in. Toxbase makes it easy to find a therapist that you like. It's convenient, it's affordable. By doing everything online, Toxbase makes getting the help you want easy and affordable, so why wait?

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your first month and show your support for the daily stoic. That's Talkspace.com slash stoic. But at last, when Arsis Aleyas and Lakides, as Socean records in his eighth book, came to the Academy, he joined them in the study of philosophy, from which circumstance he got the habit of arguing for and against a custom, and discussed magnitudes and quantities

following the system of the academics. Her Mipus relates that one day when he was teaching in the podium, he was invited to a sacrifice by his pupils, and that drinking some sweet, unmixed wine, he was seized with with giddiness and departed this life five days afterwards when he had lived 73 years, dying in the 143rd Olympiad, 208 to 205 BC, as Appaladorus says in his chronicles, and we have written an epigram on him. Chisepus drank with open mouth some wine, then became giddy and so quickly died, two little thought he of the porch's wheel, or of his country's, or of his own dear life, and so descended to the realms of hell.

But some people say that he died of a fit of immoderate laughter. For that seeing his ass eating figs, he told his old woman to give the ass some unmixed wine to drink afterwards, and then laughed so violently that he died. He appears to have been a man of exceeding arrogance. Accordingly, though he wrote such numbers of books, he never dedicated one of them to any sovereign, and he was contented with one single old woman, as Demetrius tells us in his people of the same name. And when Tolemie wrote to Clienthe's, begging him either to come to him himself or to send him someone, Sfaris went to him, but Crysapis slided the invitation. However, he sent for the sons of his sister, Aristocryon in

Philocrates, and educated them, and he was the first person who ventured to hold a school in the open air in the Lysium, as the before-mentin demitrious relates. There was also another Chrysapis, a native of Naitis, a doctor from whom a rassistratus testifies that he received great benefit. And another also who was a son of his, and the physician of Tolemie, who, having had a false accusation brought against him, was apprehended and punished by being scourged. There was also a fourth who was a pupil of a rassistratus, and a fifth was an author of a work called Georgiax.

Now this philosopher used to delight in proposing questions of this sort. The person who reveals the mysteries of the uninitiated commits a sin. The hyrophant reveals them to be uninitiated, therefore the hyrophant commits sin. The hyalurphant reveals them to be uninitiated. Therefore, the hyalurphant commits sin. Another was that which is not in the city is also not in the house. But a well is not in the city. Therefore, there is not a well in the house. Another was there is a certain head. That head you have not got. There is then a head that you have not got. Therefore, you have not got a head. Again, if a man is in Maghara, he is not in Athens, but there is a man in Maghara. Therefore, there is not a man in Athens. Again, if you say anything, what you say comes out of your mouth, but if you say a wagon, therefore a wagon comes out of your mouth.

Another was, if you have not lost a thing, you have it, but if you have not lost horns, therefore you have horns. Though some attribute this Sophism to Ubiolides, there are people who run chrysopus down as having written a great deal that is very shameful and indecent. For in his treatise on the ancient natural historians, he relates the story of Zeus and Hera very indecently, devoting 600 lines to what no one could repeat without polluting his mouth. For, as it is said, he composes this story, though he praises it as consisting of natural details, in a way more suitable to streetwalkers than to goddesses, and not at all

resembling the ideas which have been adopted or sighted by writers and paintings. For they were found neither in Polamon, nor in Hipsichrates, nor in Antagonus, but were inserted by himself. And in his treatise on the Republic, he allows people to marry their mothers, or their daughters daughters or their sons. And he repeats this doctrine in his treatise on those things, which are not desirable for their own sake, in the very opening of it. And in the third book of his treatise on justice, he devotes a thousand lines to bidding people devour even the dead. In the second book of his treatise on life and means of support, where he is warning us to consider beforehand how the wise man ought to provide for himself

with means, he says, and yet why need he provide himself with means? For if it is for the sake of living, living at all is a matter of indifference. If it is for the sake of pleasure, that is a matter of indifference, too. If it is for the sake of virtue, that is of itself sufficient for happiness. But the methods of providing oneself with means are ridiculous. For instance, some derive them from a king, and then it is necessary to humor him. Some from friendship, and then friendship will become a thing to be bought with a price. Some from wisdom, and then wisdom will become mercenary. And these are the accusations which he brings.

Thanks for listening to the Daily Stoke Podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoke Store. You can get them personalized, you can get them sent to a friend. The Ops goes away. You go as the enemy, stillness is the key. The leatherbound edition of the Daily Stoke. We have them all in the Daily Stoke Store, which you can check out at store.dailystoke.com. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Early and Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest

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