Plut. Mor., Stoic Contradictions 2 — The contradictions of the Stoics

Plut. Mor., Stoic Contradictions 2 — The contradictions of the Stoics, Plutarch; served verbatim

Since then there are in their discourses many things written by Zeno himself, many by Cleanthes, and most of all by Chrysippus, concerning policy, governing, and being governed, concerning judging and pleading, and yet there is not to be found in any of their lives either leading of armies, making of laws, going to parliament, pleading before the judges, fighting for their country, travelling on embassies, or bestowing of public gifts, but they have all, feeding (if I may so say) on rest as on the lotus, led their whole lives, and those not short but very long ones, in foreign countries, amongst disputations, books, and walkings; it is manifest that they have lived rather according to the writings and sayings of others than their own professions, having spent all their days in that repose which Epicurus and Hieronymus so much commend. Chrysippus indeed himself, in his Fourth Book of Lives, thinks there is no difference between a scholastic life and a voluptuous one. I will set down here his very words: They who are of opinion that a scholastic life is from the very beginning most suitable to philosophers seem to me to be in an error, thinking that men ought to follow this for the sake of some recreation or some other thing like to it, and in that manner to spin out the whole course of their life; that is, if it may be explained, to live at ease. For this opinion of theirs is not to be concealed, many of them delivering it clearly, and not a few more obscurely. Who therefore did more grow old in this scholastic life than Chrysippus, Cleanthes, Diogenes, Zeno, and Antipater, who left their countries not out of any discontent, but that they might quietly enjoy their delight, studying, and disputing at their leisure. To verify which, Aristocreon, the disciple and intimate friend of Chrysippus, having erected his statue of brass upon a pillar, engraved on it these verses: This brazen statue Aristocreon To’s friend Chrysippus newly here has put, Whose sharp-edged wit, like sword of champion, Did Academic knots in sunder cut. Such a one then was Chrysippus, an old man, a philosopher, one who praised the regal and civil life, and thought there was no difference between a scholastic and voluptuous one.

The Greek stands ready in the workroom; the English is served. Both faces will read together.

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Filed here — the addresses this episode attests; counted by the house’s first pass

Chrysippus — a candidate entry Diogenes — a candidate entry Epicurus — a candidate entry Hieronymus — a candidate entry Zeno — a candidate entry

The contradictions of the Stoics, Plutarch — translated by E. Smith (rev. W. W. Goodwin), 1874
Apparatus shelf + pinned Perseus TEI — Plutarch's Morals (the Moralia), ed. William W. Goodwin, five volumes · 'Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by William W. Goodwin, Ph. D.', with an introduction by R. W. Emerson; Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1874 (five volumes; a minority of the TEI transcriptions were keyed from the same publisher's 1878 reprint)
license: public-domain (US: the Goodwin edition is an 1874 Boston publication of a 1684-1694 translation — title pages verified on all five shelf scans at acquisition; Perseus digital editions CC BY-SA 4.0, attribution recorded per ops/corpus-staging/SOURCES.md pattern)