The Stoic Succession

Zeno of Citium taught in the Painted Porch, the Stoa Poikile, at Athens from around 300 BC, and his followers took their name from it: Stoics. Cleanthes, once a boxer, is said to have drawn water by night to earn his living. Of Chrysippus it was said that without him there would have been no Porch. Diogenes of Babylon went to Rome as an envoy of Athens in 155 BC. Panaetius of Rhodes, a friend of Scipio Aemilianus, made Stoicism at home among Rome's leading men, and his pupil Posidonius taught at Rhodes, where Cicero heard him in 77 BC.

At Rome the teaching passed from teacher to pupil, and the plate draws a link only where one is recorded. Cato the Younger was a close companion of the Stoic Antipater of Tyre. Seneca learned from Attalus, became tutor and adviser to Nero, and was forced by him to take his own life in AD 65; he held up Cato as his pattern of the wise man. Musonius Rufus, a Roman knight exiled by Nero, taught Epictetus, who was born a slave and later taught at Nicopolis; his pupil Arrian wrote down the lectures as the Discourses. Junius Rusticus, Marcus Aurelius's Stoic teacher, shared with him the notes of Epictetus's lectures.