The Daily Stoic - The Life Of Zeno The Prophet

Episode Date: June 11, 2023

In today's audiobook reading, Ryan narrates a section of his own New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling book Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius, which he wrote with Stephen Hanselman. With this section, Ryan starts from the very beginning by profiling the founder of Stoicism, Zeno of Citium.✉️ 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 of life. Thank you for listening. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I was just talking about this. I just recorded an episode of the podcast with Martha Nowzbaum. There's a great translator and scholar on the Stokes. And we were talking about how, you know, what the Stokes said was one thing, how they actually lived was another. Like, who were they? How did they apply these ideas? Right?

It's one thing to say, you know, don't be overcome by your emotions. And then you look at someone like Cicero and he loses a child. How could he not be affected by that? And was he affected by that? Do we misunderstand him when the Stoics say don't be overwhelmed by our emotions that they mean feel it to a certain degree? Right? By actually looking at who the Stoics were, we get a better understanding of what they said. Conversely, we understand where they were just saying things and then whether they lived up to them. There's something obviously I think about a lot myself.

It's easy to write about these ideas, but living them, it's what's hard. That's obviously the idea behind lives of the Stoics, the art of living from Xeno to Marx's Realist, which is a book I wrote with my collaborator, Steve Hanselman, a couple years ago. And I wanted to bring you a chunk of that book today because it starts us at the start of stoicism with Zeno, who I call Zeno, the prophet, the founder of stoicism. You wonder why it's called stoicism and not Zenoism? Well, we'll get into that in the chapter, but basically it's because stoicism starts on the

stoa poquile, the painted porch, also then in my bookstore, that's where Xeno taught. And I think to his credit, but also to the credit of the school, it wasn't about celebrating the one due, it was about celebrating the ideas that happened on that porch. And I'm going to bring you today my essay, My Biography of-Cityam, founder of Stoicism, we're going to go all the way back to Greece, the time of Alexander the Great, and we're going to start where Stoicism started. So you can check out lives of the Stoics, anywhere, books or sold, you've got signed copies in the Daily Stoics Store, and here at the Pinin Porch, the modern Stoapokila, if you will. And I hope you enjoy this episode and

enjoy learning a little bit more about Zeno. 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 stosism, 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? And Toxbase can help with any specific challenge you might be facing. That's why it's the number one online therapy platform with license therapists and over 40 specialties. It's secure and private and in network with most major insurers. As a listener of this podcast, you can get 80 bucks off your first month with talk space when you go to talkspace.com.sashtoic. To match with a license therapist today, go to talkspace.com.sashtoic to match with a licensed therapist today and go to ToxBase.com.sashtoic to get 80 bucks off your first month and show your support for the Born 334 BC, died 262 BC, origin, kideon, cypress. The story of stoicism begins fittingly in misfortune.

On a fateful day in the 4th century BC, the Phoenician merchant Xeno set sail on the Mediterranean with a cargo full of Tyrion purple dye. Prized by the wealthy and by 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 historian said, worth its weight and silver. Zeno's family's trade was in one of the most valuable goods in the ancient world, and as it is for many entrepreneurs, their business was on the line every day.

No one knows what caused the wreck. Was it a storm? Pirates, human error? Does it matter? Zeno lost everything, ship and cargo. And in a time before insurance and venture capital, it was an irreplaceable fortune. Yet the unlucky merchant would later rejoice in his loss,

claiming, I made a prosperous voyage when I suffered shipwreck. For it was a shipwreck that sent Zeno to Athens and on the path to creating what would become stoic philosophy. There are, like the origin stories of all prophets, some conflicting accounts of Zeno's early life and his shipwreck is no exception. One account claims that Zeno was in Athens already

when he learned of his cargo's demise and said, well done, fortune to drive me thus to philosophy. Still, others hold that he had already sold the cargo in Athens when he took up the pursuit of philosophy. It's also quite possible that he had been sent to the city by his parents to avoid the terrible war between Alexander the great successors that ravaged his homeland. In fact, some ancient sources report that he possessed in a state and maritime investments worth many millions at the time of his arrival in Athens. Yet another source records that Xeno arrived in 312 BC at the age of 22, the very year that his birthplace was raised and its king was killed by an invader. Of all the possible origins for a philosophy of resilience and self-discipline, as well

as in difference to suffering and misfortune, an unexpected disaster rings the most true, whether or not it fully wiped out Xeno and his family financially. A shipwreck might just as easily have driven Xeno to an ordinary life as a land-based merchant or depriving him of his family, it would have driven him to drink or destitution. Instead, it was something he used. It was a call he had to answer, spurring him to a new life and a new way of being. This ability to adapt was a survival trait well suited to the times. The world of Zeno's boyhood was one of chaos. In 333 BC, the year after he was born in Kideon, a Greek city

on the island of Cyprus, Alexander the Great liberated the country from two centuries of Persian rule. From then on, Zeno's home was a valuable chess piece on the shifting board of broken empires, one that changed hands many times. His father was forced to literally navigate this chaos as he traveled the seas in the family trade. There would have been blockades to run, bribes to pay, and enemy lines to avoid as he sailed from Cyprus to Seidon, Seidon to Tyra, Tyra to Perius, the great port city outside Athens and back again.

He seems to have been a loving father who made sure to bring home many books to his son, including those about Socrates. It was likely never a question of whether Zeno would enter the family trade and follow his father to the sea, trading Phoenician die, dreaming of adventures and riches. We are told he was tall and lean and that his dark complexion in bearing earned him the epithet in Egyptian vine. In his later years, he would be described as thick-legged

flabby and weak attributes that caused him some awkwardness and social shyness as he aged and adjusted to life on land. For all the uncertainty of the conditions of Zeno's arrival in Athens, we know what the city was like when he arrived. Athens was a bustling commercial center with 21,000 citizens half as many foreign nationals and a staggeringly large slave population which numbered in the hundreds of thousands. The entire city was turned towards business ruled by literate elites whose success and education allowed them time to explore and debate ideas that we are still talking about today.

It was fertile ground for the awakening that was to come for Xeno. In fact, we know exactly where this awakening happened, a surprisingly modern place, a bookstore. One day, Xeno 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 the day,

taking his seat, he listened to the bookseller, read a medley of works about Socrates, the philosopher who'd been put to death in Athens a century before, and whose ideas Xeno's father had introduced him to as a boy. On one of his voyages before, his shipwreck perhaps inspired by a similar trek that Socrates had made, Zeno consulted an oracle about what he should do to live the best life, the oracle's response, to live the best life you should have conversation with the dead. It must have

struck him there in that bookstore, possibly the same one his father had shopped in years before, as he listened to the words of Socrates read aloud and brought to life that he was doing precisely what the oracle had advised. Because isn't that what books are a way to gain wisdom from those no longer with us? As the bookseller read from the second book of Xenophon's memorabilia, Xenop was hearing Socrates' teachings as they had been conducted in those very streets just a few generations before. The passage that struck him most was the choice of Hercules, itself a story about a hero at a crossroads. In this myth, Hercules is forced to choose between two maidens, one representing virtue and the other vice,

one a life of virtuous hard work and the other of laziness. You must, Zeno, would have heard the character of virtue say, a custom your body to be the servant of your mind and train it with toil and sweat. And then he heard vice offer a very different choice. Wait a minute, she cries. Don't you see what a long and hard road to the joy she describes? Come the easy way with me. The two roads diverge in the wood,

or rather in a bookstore in Athens, the still chooses the hard one. Approaching the bookseller, Zeno asked the question that would change his life. Where can I find a man like that? That is, where can I find my own Socrates? Where can I find someone to study under, as Xenophon had, under that wise philosopher, who can help me with my choice?

If Zenos misfortune had been to suffer that terrible shipwreck, his luck was more than made right for having walked into that bookshop and made doubly good when in that moment Cratees, a well-known Athenian philosopher, happened to be passing by. The bookseller simply extended his hand and pointed. You could say it was faded. The later Stoics certainly would have agreed. The hero had suffered a great loss, and because of it crossed the threshold to find his true teachers. At the same time, it was a choice that Xeno made to go into the bookstore after his terrible loss to sit and listen to the bookseller. Most important not to be content to leave the words he had heard

there at that. No, he wanted more, he demanded more answers, demanded to be taught more, and it's from that impulse that stoicism would be formed. Cratees of Thebes, like Xeno, was the son of a wealthy family and heir to a large fortune. From Diagonies, Leartus, we learn that after Cratees watched a performance of the tragedy of telephys, the story of King telephys, son of Hercules, wounded by Achilles, he gave his money away and moved to Athens to study philosophy. There he became known as the door opener, Diagonese wrote,

the caller to whom all doors fly open of those eager to learn from the great philosopher. When the student is ready, the old Zen saying goes, the teacher appears, Cratees was exactly what Xeno needed. One of Cratees' first lessons was intended to cure Xeno if his self-consciousness about his appearance, sensing that his new pupil was too worried about his social status. Cratees assigned him the task of carrying

a heavy pot of lentil soup across town. Xeno tried to sneak the pot through town, taking back streets to avoid being seen, doing such a humiliating task. Lentils then were seen as a food eaten only by poor people. This was undoubtedly an attempt to challenge his snobbish self-identity. Tracking him down, crates cracked the pot open with his staff spilling the soup all over him.

Xenot trembled with embarrassment and tried to flee. Why run away my little Phoenician, Kratie's laugh, nothing terrible has befallen you. Just because someone has anxieties or self-doubt or was taught the wrong things early in life doesn't mean they can't become something great, provided they have the courage and the mentors to help them change. With Kratie's tough love,

Zeno overcame his self-consciousness to become who he was called to be. 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 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 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. to 505. As Zeno left his trading days behind him, he chose a new way of living that balanced study and thought with the needs of a world driven by commerce, conquest, and technology. 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. To the Greeks, each of us had a day-mone, an inner genius or guiding purpose that is connected to the universal nature. Those who live by keeping the individual and the universal nature's in agreement are happy Zeno said, and those who lived by keeping the individual and the universal natures in agreement are happy Zeno said, and those who don't are not.

In an effort to reach this harmony, Zeno lived a simple life, not at all that different from that of his rival Epicurus, who began his school just a few years before Zeno struck out on his own. His diet mostly consisted of bread and honey and the occasional glass of wine. He lived with roommates and rarely hired servants, even when he was sick, he refused attempts to spoil him or change his meager diet. He thought a later stoke would say that someone who once experienced his gourmet cuisine would want it all the time, and as much as the pleasure associated with drinking and eating

creates in us a desire for more food and drink. As part of the simple life, Zeno kept to himself preferring a close circle of friends to large gatherings, and would famously later slip away from a party thrown by King Antigunus and also rebuff invitations to visit the King's Court. He made his points quickly and shook his head at needless rhetorical flourishes. He was also clever and funny, making a habit to ask strangers for money so as to deter others from asking him the same question. There is no indication that his early wealth in any way spoiled him or inflated his baseline sense of comfort. If anything, losing it had proved to him that money was not to be

prized and mattered very little. It became almost a proverb in Athens when someone was describing a sober, frugal, and disciplined person to say, he is more temperate than Zeno the philosopher. After his studies with crates and the measure on philosopher,ilpo, Zeno began to teach as well, fittingly for a former merchant in the Agura itself. 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 them something he believed vital

and engaged philosophy of life that could help people find peace in an often turbulent world. Of the three kinds 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 declared that we should choose the latter because a rational being is expressly produced by nature for contemplation and action. Xenolun to be a creative kind of instructor, pitching his wares as it were alongside so many

other merchants. At a dinner with a man who was known for eating so much so quickly that there was little left for his guest, Xeno grabbed an entire tray of fish and made as if he was going to eat it all himself. Catching his host's surprised eye, he said, what then think you must those who live with you suffer if you can't endure my gluttony for a single day. When one student attracted too many admirers, Zeno ordered him to shave his head to keep

them away. When a different rich, enhanced student from Rhodes begged Zeno for instruction, no doubt reminding himself at that age. He assigned him a seat on a dusty bench, knowing it would dirty the boys clothes. Later, he sent him to rub shoulders with the city's beggars, much the way that Cratees had sent him through the city carrying soup. But unlike Xeno who had endured his humiliations and learned from them, this student simply left. Xeno believed that concededness was the primary obstacle to learning, and in this instance, he was proven correct.

Xeno would eventually move to what became known as the stoic poquile, literally painted porch. Arected in the 5th century BC, the ruins are still visible today, some 2500 years later. The painted porch was where Xeno and his disciples gathered for discussion. While his followers were briefly called Zenoanians, it is the final credit to Zeno's humility and the universality of his teachings that the philosophical school he founded didn't ultimately carry his name. Instead, we know it today as stoicism and homage to its unique origins. know it today as stoicism and homage to its unique origins. Is it not also fitting that the ancient Stoics chose a porch as their namesake and their

home? Was not a bell tower or a stage, not a windowless lecture hall. It was an inviting, accessible structure, a place for contemplation, reflection, and most of all friendship and discussion. It was said that Zeno had little patience for idlers or big egos on his porch. He wanted his students to be attentive and aware, and those who came to him with an inflated sense

of their own self-worth either quickly lost it or were sent away. But for those who were ready and willing the porch was a place to learn and be taught. Sadly, none of his work survived to us, not even his most important work republic, which masterfully rebutted the arguments of Plato's book by the same name. What we know of it comes via summaries from people who read it. From them, we learn that the early

Stoics were remarkably utopian. Much of that would be discarded later by more pragmatic Stoics, but still Zeno's early thinking set a tone that rings true today, namely that we should consider all men to be of one community and one polity and that we should have a common life in order common to us all. And even as a herd that feeds together and shares the pastures of a common field. Zeno also wrote well-known essays on education, on human nature, on duty, on emotions, on law, on the logos, and even one tantalizingly titled, Homeric Problems. What could of the whole world be about?

How wonderful would it be to read Zeno's recollections of crates? Alast all we have of these writings is the occasional fragment or quote. Even these scraps are enough to teach plenty. The goal of life is to live in harmony with nature. We are told he wrote in On Human Nature, which means to live according to virtue because nature leads us to virtue. Zeno is also credited with originating the expression that man was given two ears and only one mouth for a reason. He supposedly said that there was given two years and only one mouth for a reason. He supposedly said that there was nothing more unbecoming for a person than to put on errors, 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 also the first to express the four virtues of stoicism, courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. He held these traits to be inseparable yet distinct and different from one another. We don't know where or when Xeno first put his big four in writing, but we can feel its impact for they appear in the works and decisions of nearly every other Stoic that came after him. Unlike many profits, Xeno was respected and admired in his own time.

There was no persecution, no angering of the authorities. He was given the keys to the City Walls of Athens, awarded a golden crown, and a bronze statue in his own lifetime. Yet for all the adoration Athens heaped on him, and the adoration he gave in return, Zeno knew that home mattered. After donating money from the restoration of some important baths and Athens, he specifically requested that of Kiteon be inscribed on the building next to his name.

He may have been a citizen of the world and ex-pat who loved his adopted Athens where he would live for half a century, but he didn't want anyone to forget where he came from. For all his clever quips, the only things you know ever really cared about what he tried to teach about was truth. Perception he said stretching out his fingers is a thing like this, meaning expansive and large. Closing his fingers together a bit, he would say, ascent, meaning to form a conception about something is like this.

Now closing his hands to a fist, he called that comprehension, and finally wrapping one hand around another he called this combination knowledge. This full combination, he said, was possessed only by the wise. In his studies with living teachers like Cratees and his conversations with the dead, that chance encounter with Socrates' teaching that the oracle had predicted Zeno danced with wisdom. He explored it in the Agora with his students.

He had thought deeply on long walks and tested it in debates. His own journey toward wisdom was a long one, some 50 years from that shipwreck until his death. It was defined not by some single epiphany or discovery but instead by hard work. He inched his way there through years of study and training as we all must. Well, being is realized by small steps, you would say, looking back, but it is truly no

small thing. As with many philosophers, accounts of Xenos death stretch our credulity, but teach a lesson nonetheless. At age 72, leaving the porch one day, he tripped and quite painfully broke his finger. Sprawled on the ground he seems to have decided that the incident was a sign and that his number was up. Punching the ground he quoted a line from Tim Otheus, a musician and poet from the century before him, I come of my own accord, why then call me? And then Zeno held his breath until he passed from this life.

until he passed from this life. 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 app goes away, you go as the enemy, still in this 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 ad free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Is this thing all? Check one, two, one, two. Hey y'all, I'm Kiki Palmer.

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