Theater of Fate

STOIC
PHILOS-
OPHERS

I will be able to commemorate no writings of the remaining philosophers until the age of Socrates. But in their doctrines on Fate, as they were Physicists—that is, diligent investigators of Nature—they approached closest to the Chaldeans, the fiercest defenders of Fate. Not even Socrates, easily the wisest of the Greeks, changed their opinion when he translated philosophy from nature to morals, from the field into the city; rather, he posited the necessity of all things and actions, which no force breaks Seneca, Natural Questions, book 2, chapter 36.. Zeno followed this intention of his teacher at greater length—Zeno, son of Mnaseas or Demeas, a Citiean originating from Cyprus. What wonder is it that he defended Fate most fiercely, since he was drawn to the study of philosophy by fate or unexpected chance? He practiced trade, and by importing purple from Phoenicia, he was obtaining riches for himself more easily than a sound mind, ignorant of philosophy and a despiser of, as he thought, a useless study. But while he was traveling happily one day to Athens on a ship laden with the most precious merchandise, he suffered a sad shipwreck at the Piraeus, and all