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Eros in government: Zeno and the virtuous city

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

George Boys-Stones
George Boys-Stones
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Oxford
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Extract

According to a report in Athenaeus (Deipnosophistae 561CD), the qualities of Erosled the Stoic Zeno to make him the tutelary god of his ideal state:

Pontianus said that Zeno of Citium took Eros to be the god of love and freedom, and even the provider of concord, but nothing else. This is why he said in his Republic that Eros was the god who contributed to the safety of the city.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , May 1998 , pp. 168 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1998

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References

1 Diogenes Laertius says that Zeno wrote the Republic while he was studying under Crates (D.L. 7.4); and Philodemus says that some Stoics tried to excuse the embarrassingly Cynical elements of the work (such as its notorious tolerance towards incest, for example) on the grounds that Zeno was very young when he wrote the work (de Stoicis 9.1–3 in the edition of T. Dorandi, Cronache Ercolanesi 12 [1982], 91–133). Cf. J.M.Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge, 1969), p. 64; P.Steinmetz in H. Flashar (ed.), Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie 4 (Basel, 1994), p. 522. But strong reasons to doubt this evidence have been adduced by A.Erskine (The Hellenistic Stoa [Ithaca, 1990], pp. 9–15), who argues that the work must have been written at the very earliest when Zeno was a pupil of Polemo (after he was a pupil of Crates: D.L. 7.1). The very fact that later Stoics tried to argue it back into an earlier phase of his life only shows that their critics could assume that it was actually a work of his maturity.

2 See D.L. 6.46, 69, Plutarch, de Stoic, rep. 21,1044B, and esp. Dio Chrysostom, or. 6.18–19.

3 Cf. Hadot, I., Tradition Stoicienne et Idees Politiques au Temps des Gracques, Revue des itudes Latines 48 (1970), 133–79, at p. 150.Google Scholar

4 Plutarch, Lycurgus 17–18 (esp. 17.1, 18.4). See Schofield, M., The Stoic Idea of the City (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 34–42 with K.J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (London, 1978), pp. 201–2. Cf. Plato, Republic 5, 2–4, where soldiers are encouraged to greater courage in the protection of the state by the promise of licence to extract kisses from any youth (male or, in this case, female as well): so that if one of them should be in love with a boy or a girl, he might be keener to win the prize for valour.Google Scholar

5 This is the line taken by Schofield in The Stoic Idea of the City, chapter 2.

6 E.g. Xenophon, Mem. 1.3,11; Plato, Symposium 196b4–d4, Republic 1,329b8–c4. Already in Homer (Iliad 14.315–6), epos (not personified) can conquer the heart even of Zeus, as Epos (now personified) conquers the mind of gods and men in Hesiod (Theogony 120–2). For Eros as a tyrant, see esp. Euripides fr. 132 [Nauck] (and note that the longest version of this fragment comes from Athenaeus S61BC, immediately before the attestation of Zenos views on Eros and the city with which it is contrasted).

7 Schofield admits the difficulty of this claim on his interpretation, and concludes that Athenaeus has mistakenly interpolated the point about freedom into Pontianus account of Zeno (The Stoic Idea of the City, pp. 48–56).

8 Cf. Lasserre, F., La Figure d'eros dans la Poesie Grecque (Lausanne, 1946), pp. 130–49. In Hesiod (Theogony 116–22 with M. L. West, Hesiod– Theogony [Oxford, 1966], pp. 195–6), as in the fifth–century mythographer Acusilaus (9 Bl–3 [D.–K.]), Earth and Eros are the first beings to emerge from Chaos. Eros also played an important role in Orphic cosmology, where he had been identified early on with Phanes as Trpwroyovos (Orpheus frr. 74, 82 [Kern] with M. L. West, The Orphic Poems [Oxford, 1983], p. 203; cf. Euripides, Hypsipyle fr. 57,22–3 [Bond] Orpheus fr. 2 [Kern]). For the cosmogonical role of Phanes/Eros, see e.g. Orpheus fir. 1 (Aristophanes, Birds 690–702), 54, 85 [Kern]. (West, Ab Ovo, CQ 44 [1994], 289–307, esp. p. 304, suggests a link with the Phoenician cosmogonies recorded by Eudemus (fr. 150, p. 71,1–15 [Wehrli]) and Sanchuniathon of Beirut (apud Philo Byblos, FGrH IIIC 790, F2, pp. 806,15–807,9), both of which involve personified Desire.) Pherecydes (7 B3 [D.–K.]) is reported to have said that Zas (Zeus) became Eros in order to create the world out of opposites, bringing d/toAoyta, Ma, and ivtoois to the whole–but the accuracy of this report has been questioned: see West, Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient (Oxford, 1971), p. 17; and G. S. Kirk, I E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge, 1983), p. 62 ad fr. 54, where it is suggested, perhaps significantly in the light of my argument, that the fragment represents a palpably Stoic interpretation. See also Plato, Symp. 178a6–c2 (which is the source for one of the fragments of Acusilaus mentioned above); Aristotle, Metaph. A.4,. One of the most powerful poetic expressions of this tradition is the short poem by Simias of Rhodes, the nrepvyes Epairos (Anth. Graec 15.24). Simias has Eros himself refute the claim that Aphrodite was his mother: For I was born when Necessity was ruler... I am called the son of Chaos, not of Cypris or Ares. (He drives home the point by describing Eros as a small boy, but with a heavy beard. This grotesque clash of age symbolism has an interesting parallel in a Stoic text I shall refer to later, in which Eros is described as young and the oldest of all.) Eros, in Simias poem, is lord of the broad–bosomed earth, who set in place Acmonidas–that is, Uranus, the heaven itself. Elsewhere more of an attempt is made to reconcile the cosmogonical tradition with the popular ancestry of Eros, and we sometimes find aspects of Eros cosmological role transferred to Aphrodite. Cf. Orphic Hymn 55, and Orpheus fr. 184 [Kern]. Empedocles Ma is personified as Aphrodite (esp. 31 B17 [D.–K.]); and although Parmenides says that Eros was created very first of all, he most probably meant that he was the first creation of that goddess (see the texts at 28 B13 [D.–K.]). Cf. also Socrates in the Symposiums of Plato (180de) and, especially, Xenophon (8.9–11).Google Scholar

9 We do not have any (other) direct evidence that the Stoics referred to the cosmos as But the sage is called , and he is called this precisely in virtue of being icoAos. See Stobaeus, eel. 2, p. 108,5–12 [Wachsmuth] with Plutarch, de comm. not. 28,1072F–3B.

10 Cornutus attributes his account of the cosmological Eros rather vaguely to some people (which means some Stoics, as I have shown). But in the chapter that follows this account (chapter 26 of his Introduction), the same people who identified the cosmos with Eros are also said to identify it with Atlas, whose providence guarantees the salvation of all of its parts (p. 48,16–17 [Lang]). And we know that Cleanthes said precisely this, from the passages given at SVF 1.549. What is more, the variant reading (with rough breathing) at Cornutus p. 48,15 [Lang] would be explained if the passage did derive from Cleanthes, since we are told that Cleanthes aspirated the initial letter of to explain its special application to Atlas. It might be added that in chapter 27 the same people again identify the cosmos with Pan, and we find here too material that can be traced back to an earlier stage in the Stoa: it was already present in the work of Apollodorus, the second century pupil of the Stoic Panaetius (see FGrH IIB, 244 F136a–b). The cosmological Eros is clearly presupposed by a passage which von Arnim took to be a fragment of another of Zenos pupils, Chrysippus: see SVF 2.565 (from the scholia on Hesiod, Theogony 115). Unfortunately, the attribution of this fragment to the Stoics, let alone to a particular Stoic, cannot be objectively established.

11 Plutarch attributes this view to Lycurgus, Plato, Diogenes, and others as well, but this does not weaken its use as evidence for Zeno: each thinker would naturally interpret the view as expressed in his own terms. Furthermore, we have evidence for the Stoics at large that they thought the ideal city was virtuous in a way analogous to an individual: see SVF3.327 and 328, where the city is called (Cleanthes calls it aaretos as well in 328), a term more usually employed by the Stoics to indicate the virtuous character of the sage.

12 Hence Zeno's definition of the moral end: to live consistently ( Stobaeus, eel. 2, p. 75,11–12 [Wachsmuth]). Zeno seems to have left this deliberately ambiguous, between living consistently with nature and living consistently full stop.

13 It must make sense to call the city part of nature, since it is a natural product of humanity: see Stobaeus, eel. 2, p. 54,4–7 [Wachsmuth]; Cicero, defin. 3.65.

14 Note that, while all citizens of Zeno's state are virtuous, this does not mean that all members of the state will be virtuous. Children, in particular, cannot be virtuous, as I have noted. This distinction between citizens and members of a state (which Aristotle discussed in Politics 3.5) is very important, and helps to solve a contradiction which is perceived to exist in the testimonia for Chrysippus political work too. Chrysippus also thinks that only sages are citizens of the cosmopolis, his ideal state (cf. SVF 3.328, 679–80); but many of our fragments say that the cosmopolis includes all men (e.g. SVF 2.527–8, 3.327–8, 333, 339, 341). The explanation for this is that none of these inclusive fragments talk about citizenship of the ideal state, but only in more general terms of inclusion. And included members who are not citizens are not supposed to affect the character of the state, since they have no part in its government (cf. again Aristotle).

15 Eros does not, after all, account for relationships with youths, or at least he does so only to the limited extent that they show a potential for virtue (D.L. 7.129), because children are intellectually immature (cf. again Plutarch, de comm. not. 1072F–3B) and so cannot, in this strict sense, be loved. Pederastic relationships are not what Eros (this Eros) demands: in a sense, precisely the sense in which we do something preferable despite its not being good as such, they take place despite Eros. Sexual relations are allowable, even desirable, but if and only if they do not compromise the virtue of the city, which it is the true function of Eros to ensure. Perhaps this is what Zeno meant when he said that Eros was the god of (true, Stoic) love, freedom, and concord, but nothing else.

16 Apud Plutarch, de Stoic, rep. 16, 1041BC, a passage which clearly looks to Plato, Republic 1, 351e–352a. The work from which Plutarch draws this material is named as Chrysippus but the preceding chapter of the de Stoic, rep. gives it its fuller title, (Against Plato Concerning Justice). This fuller title probably points to an attack aimed specifically at Platos Republic, also known to the ancients as the nepl AIKOLIOV (D.L. 3.60). Chrysippus did himself say that the soul had parts, probably as many as eight (SPT2.823–33). But these are parts in the sense of qualities or capacities, not in anything like the sense intended by Plato. The Stoics do talk of individual virtue as being a matter of internal harmony, as we have already seen, and they describe vice in the corresponding terms as a matter of internal disharmony (cf. SVF 3.390,460). But this is to be understood in terms of intellectual consistency (the consistency of ones beliefs about the world, for example), and not in terms of the interrelationship of distinct parts. There are, for the Stoics, no psychic homunculi whose harmony it makes sense to describe in the language of love.

17 And cf. Erskine, The Hellenistic Stoa, pp. 44–5.

18 It is a matter of debate whether Zeno wrote about an ideal city–state in his Republic (so most recently Schofield in The Stoic Idea of the City), or whether he used the work to introduce into the Stoa the notion that the ideal state is the cosmos itself (a reading somewhat out of favour at the moment, but cf. e.g. Hadot, op. cit. n. 3). The reading I have given to Zenos appeal to Eros will fit either picture; but the assimilation of the order of the city to the order of the cosmos is at least suggestive of a burgeoning notion of the cosmos as city.