Current Movements in Stoic Philosophy Links
http://dmoz.org/Society/Philosophy/Curr ... ts/Stoics/
Rebirth ?
More than 2,200 years have passed since a group of sober people gathered in a covered colonnade, or stoa, in the marketplace of Athens to discuss the good life -- a life of virtue and honor. They became known as Stoics, and their ancient creed is enjoying a renaissance today in, of all things, popular culture. Why? Because the Stoic way of thinking is as relevant, indeed, as urgently practical, today in 21st century America as it was 1,900 years ago in the Roman empire when a great teacher named Epictetus (pronounced eh-pick-TEE-tuss) set up a school to teach Stoicism to teen-agers.
http://puffin.creighton.edu/phil/Stephe ... oicism.htm
Zeno was born in 333 B.C. in Citium, a principal Phoenician city in Cyprus, situated on the southeast coast near modern Larnaca. Zeno himself was of Phoenician ancestry. For most of his youth he was a merchant, but, so the story has it, at the age of thirty, he was shipwrecked while transporting purple dye from Phoenicia to Peiraeus. While kicking his heels in Athens, he frequented a bookshop, where he was drawn to the works of Socrates. Asking the shopkeeper where men like Socrates could be found, he received the reply "Follow that man." The man in question was Crates the Cynic, and Zeno became his pupil, later commenting "I made a prosperous voyage when I was shipwrecked."
Crates appears to have been a hard master. Zeno was overly conscious of social propriety (a habit which he always found hard to shake, despite his anarchistic views), and Crates attempted to cure this by making him carry a pot of lentils through the streets of Athens. Like a Zen master, Crates suddenly smashed the pot with his staff, and Zeno ran away in embarrassment with lentil soup dripping down his legs and Crates calling after him: 'Why run away, my little Phoenician? Nothing terrible has befallen you!' It was under Crates' tutelage that Zeno wrote his greatest work, the Republic. Eventually Zeno began to teach in his own right, wandering up and down the arcade of painted columns known as the 'Stoa'
Zeno certainly seems to have inherited the Cynics' preference for gruff speech and shocking behaviour. He was continually making fun of the fops of Athens, commenting on a youth who was taking pains to avoid stepping in some mud, that it was only because he couldn't see his reflection in it. Of another, who was given to displays of rhetoric, he said "Your ears have slid down and merged in your tongue.' He attempted to avoid attracting too many followers by associating with (according to Timon) 'a crowd of ignorant serfs, who surpassed all men in beggary", and was also in the habit of asking passers by for small change. Despite this, he was held in high esteem by the citizens of Athens, and was even given the keys to the city. He was also invited to act as an advisor to King Anigonus of Macedon, but he turned this down, sending his pupil Persaeus, instead.
Not much is known of Zeno's personal life. He appears to have continued his interest in trade, though by all accounts his life was fairly frugal, his main enjoyment being to sit in the sun eating figs and drinking wine. In fact, contrary to the popular image of Stoicism, Zeno seems to have liked his drink, commenting (presumably while staggering drunkenly) that it was better to slip with the feet than with the tongue. He was not fond of being waited upon (possibly due to the Cynics' and Stoics' opposition to slavery), though it was said that he occasionally had a maid-servant wait at his parties "in order not to appear a misogynist." He probably died in 261 B.C., striking the ground with his fist and quoting the line from Niobe, "I come, I come, why do you call me?"
He received notoriety for his advocacy of what is generally referred to as "community of women" or "community of wives", though a better term would probably be "free love".
http://phoenicia.org/zenocit.html
Epictetus was born a slave in Hieropolis in Phrygia (now Turkey), a Greek-speaking province of the Roman empire, around A.D. 55. He came to Rome and was the slave of Epaphroditus, an immensely powerful freedman (ex-slave) of the notorious Roman emperor Nero. Epaphroditus let Epictetus study with the Stoic teacher Musonius Rufus, before eventually freeing him. Like Socrates, Epictetus then began wandering the streets, buttonholing Romans with philosophical inquiries. That earned him a rap on the head from a wealthy ex-consul more accustomed to asking than answering questions. Undeterred, Epictetus taught Stoicism in Rome until the emperor Domitian banished all philosophers from Rome in A.D. 89.
Epictetus traveled to the city of Nicopolis on the Adriatic coast in northwest Greece where he set up his own philosophical school. (Nicopolis was on the main route between Rome and Athens.) Many distinguished Greeks and Romans visited Epictetus’ school, including Hadrian, the Roman emperor from A.D. 117-138. One such visitor was Lucius Flavianus Arrianus Xenophon, Arrian for short, a Roman citizen from the province of Bithynia, who studied with Epictetus from about A.D. 107 to 109 before becoming a leading Roman politician and historian. Epictetus, like his hero Socrates, evidently wrote nothing down. His teachings survive through Arrian’s written version of Epictetus’ school lectures and conversations, entitled the Discourses.
Epictetus became lame, either from rheumatism or because of the cruelty of his master Epaphroditus. He lived a life of great austerity and simplicity, and he chose to marry at a late age and adopt an orphan child who would otherwise have been left to die.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/
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