Zeno of Elea

“ The scholars pressed forward tumultuously; but Zeno, raising his arm, and looking steadily round, cried “Silence!” The crowd fell back, and the stillness of night succeeded. Then motioning the circle towards the street, to give way and admit the air, he stooped and assisted Theon to support his reviving pupil. Cleanthes raised his head, turned his eyes wildly around, and then fixed them on his master. ”

“ Zeno, the Keeper of the Seal, who was standing beside Iras, wrapped his cloak closer around his shivering limbs, pointed to it, and whispered,
"Like a woman who leaves her parents' house in the rich array of a bride, and returns to it an impoverished widow." ”

“ One day, some few years after the death of Aristotle, a short, lean, swarthy young man, of weak build, with clumsily shaped limbs, and head inclined to one side, was standing in an Athenian bookshop, intently studying a roll of manuscript. His name was Zeno, and he was a native of Citium, a Greek colony in Cyprus, where the Hellenic element had become adulterated with a considerable Phoenician infusion. According to some accounts, Zeno had come to the great centre of intellectual activity to study, according to others for the sale of Tyrian purple. ”

“ That is not a promise.'
'Why should you trust the promise of a poor slave, sir? You would not believe a lady of Constantinople in the same case if she took oath on the four Gospels! Imagine any woman missing a chance of looking at another about whom she is curious!'
'Who is the other?' asked Zeno, not much pleased.
'She is young, and as fresh as spring. Her hair is like that of all the Venetian ladies——'
'Since you have seen her, why are you so anxious to see her again?'
'Ah! You see! It is she! I knew it! She is coming to-morrow with her father.'
'Well? ”

“ Zeno was a subtle reasoner, and exceedingly popular. He taught a strict system of morals and exhibited a pleasing picture of moral discipline in his own life. As a man, his character appears deserving of the highest respect. He became exceedingly respected and revered at Athens for the probity and severity of bis life and manners, and consistency thereof with his doctrine. He possesed so large a share of public esteem that the Athenians decreed him a golden crown, and on account of his approved integrity, deposited the keys of their citadel in his hands. ”

“ Zeno had brown eyes that could soften like a woman's, but they were much more often keen and quick, turning suddenly to take in at a glance all that could be seen at all, until they fixed themselves with a piercing gaze on whatever interested their owner most for the time being,—his friend, or his adversary, his quarry if he were hunting, a woman's face or figure. He was not a big man, but he was thoroughly well made and well put together, elastic, tough, and active. His small brown hands, compact and firm, seemed ready to seize or strike at instant notice—the ideal hands of a fighting man. ”

“ Zeno was silent for a moment, and then spoke in a determined tone.
'Hear me, sire,' he said. 'A man does not run such risks twice, except for his own blood. You must either come with me at once, or give up the idea that I shall ever help you to escape. The boy may be in danger, but so are you yourself, and your life is worth more to this unhappy Empire than his. To-night, to-morrow, at any moment, your son Andronicus may send the executioner here, and there will be an end of you and of many hopes. You must risk your younger boy's life for your cause. ”

“ A simple, childlike, and eminently affectionate disposition, with little strength of intellect or perhaps originally of will, much more inclined to meditation, speculation, solitude, or friendship, than to active and public life, with a profound aversion to the pomp of royalty and with a rather strong natural leaning to pedantry, he had embraced the fortifying philosophy of Zeno in its best form, and that philosophy made him perhaps as nearly a perfectly virtuous man as has ever appeared upon our world. ”

“ Plutarch scoffs at him, “he is not vexed with torments, or burnt with fire, foiled by his adversary, sold of his enemy: though he be wrinkled, sand-blind, toothless, and deformed; yet he is most beautiful, and like a god, a king in conceit, though not worth a groat. He never dotes, never mad, never sad, drunk, because virtue cannot be taken away,” as [776] Zeno holds, “by reason of strong apprehension,” but he was mad to say so. ”

“ Turning to me, Zeno the Great was in the midst of saying that, though bereft of his scrapbook of clippings and his set of photographs, he hoped to be eternally consigned to perdition—his meaning if not his exact phraseology—if anybody got away with the even more precious belongings yet remaining to him, when nearing sounds of hurrying feet and many shrill voices from without caused him to break off. ”

“ Zeno, the Stoic, stood in precisely the same relation to the world that I do now. He is, forsooth, bred a merchant—as how many still!—and can trade and barter, and perchance higgle, and moreover he can be shipwrecked and cast ashore at the Piræus, like one of your Johns or Thomases.
He strolls into a shop and is charmed by a book by Xenophon—and straightway he becomes a philosopher. The sun of a new life's day rises to him,—serene and unclouded,—which looks over στοά. And still the fleshly Zeno sails on, shipwrecked, buffeted, tempest-tossed; but the true Zeno sails ever a placid sea. ”

“ And he answered and said unto him, “Whilst thou wast speaking my will would not consent to my coming, but when I saw that thou wast doing the work of monks, that is to say, repenting, then I rejoiced and came.”
272. On one occasion when the old man Zeno was walking in Palestine, he became weary, and he sat down by the side of a cucumber bed to eat; and his thought said to him, “Take a cucumber and eat, for of what value is one cucumber?” And he answered and said to his thought, “Those who steal go to torment; try thy soul, then, and see if it be able to endure the torment.” ”

“ Zeno, the disciple of Parmenides, having attempted to kill the tyrant Demylus, and failing in his design, maintained the doctrine of Parmenides, like pure and fine gold tried in the fire, that there is nothing which a magnanimous man ought to dread but dishonor, and that there are none but children and women, or effeminate and women-hearted men, who fear pain. ”

“ But more grateful than this to his suspicious nature, was the conclusion he drew from the frank, fearless countenance and the simple faith of the Pretorian. Such a man might be invaluable, and he determined that he should not be uselessly butchered, if it could be profitably avoided. When Zeno stooped, and whisperingly reminded him of the fact of the existence of a door, but seldom used, and hidden by the curtain, immediately behind the position of Martialis, he assented eagerly to the suggestion, which, we have seen, was carried out successfully. ”

“ And is there any chance for a good-looking fellow like me, Imlico, the son of Mago, or for an ugly fellow like that Ariston yonder, son of—who art thou the son of, Ariston? the wine hath caused me to forget completely thy distinguished parentage. Or again, think ye, Sir Herald, that there is to be found within this precious town a distinguished-looking female who could reciprocate the loving glances of my portly friend here, the noble Zeno, formerly of Rhodes? A very firebrand of love is Zeno, and the very prince of good fellows. I daresay thou art a good enough fellow thyself, by the bye. ”

“ Zeno the philosopher, fearing that when his body was put to dolorous and horrible torments, he should be forced even against his will to bewray and disclose some secret plot, bit off his tongue with his own teeth and spit it in the tyrant's face. ”

“ Zeno, founder of the celebrated school of the Stoics, lived in the third century before our era (about 362-264) . He taught at Athens in a public porch (in Greek, stoa) , from which circumstance comes the name applied to his disciples.
The Stoical philosophy was the outgrowth, in part at least, of that of the Cynics, a sect of most rigid and austere morals. The typical representative of this sect is found in Diogenes, who lived, so the story goes, in a tub, and went about Athens by daylight with a lantern, in search, as he said, of a man. The Cynics were simply a race of pagan hermits. ”

“ But such as I have, I value, and I do not care to let them get a mistaken impression of me, or of the way I live.'
'Especially not the women amongst them,' Zoë added, half interrogatively.
'There are none,' said Zeno, as if to cut short the suggestion.
'I see. You do not want your men friends to know that there are women living in your house, do you? They are doubtless all grave and elderly persons, who would be much shocked and grieved to learn that you have bought a pretty Greek slave. ”

“ Look also at the opinion of Zeno, who thought that everybody might gauge his progress in virtue by his dreams, if he saw himself in his dreams pleasing himself with nothing disgraceful, and neither doing nor wishing to do anything dreadful or unjust, but that, as in the clear depths of a calm and tranquil sea, his fancy and passions were plainly shown to be under the control of reason. ”

“ The idea of Nature as it had grown up under the hands of Heracleitus, the Sophists, and Antisthenes, supplied Zeno with a ready-made mould into which his reforming aspirations could be run. The true Republic was not a pattern laid up in heaven, nor was it restricted to the narrow dimensions of a single Hellenic state. It was the whole real universe, in every part of which except in the works of wicked men a divine law was recognised and obeyed.46 Nay, according to Cleanthes, God’s law is obeyed even by the wicked, and the essence of morality consists only in its voluntary fulfilment. ”

“ ZENO, East Roman emperor from 474 to 491, was an Isaurian of noble birth, and originally bore the name of Trascalissaeus, which he exchanged for that of Zeno on his marriage with Ariadne, daughter of Leo I., in 468. Of his early life nothing is known; after his marriage (which was designed by Leo to secure the Isaurian support against his ambitious minister Aspar) he became patrician and commander of the imperial guard and of the armies in the East. ”

“ At length the potter received the signal to retire, and Zeno was instructed to retain him in the villa until further notice. One old man at table had kept his peace, watching all and hearing all, with knitted brows and pursed mouth. He was one of the philosophers whose company was so much affected by the Emperor, and his profession was the abstruse science of astrology, a pursuit whose attributes of mystery and superstition especially recommended it to his master’s favour.
‘Look how rapt in meditation is our worthy Thrasullus,’ remarked Sejanus, with ill-concealed raillery ”

“ And so at length, without having either made any confession, or being convicted of anything, he was condemned to death with the spiritless partner of his sufferings. He was then led away to death, protesting against the iniquity of the times; imitating in his conduct the celebrated Stoic of old, Zeno, who, after he had been long subjected to torture in order to extract from him some false confession, tore out his tongue by the roots and threw it, bloody as it was, into the face of the king of Cyprus, who was examining him. ”

“ CHAPTER XVI. To return to Plautia, whom we left on the way from Tucca’s cottage to the villa Jovis, in the stormy, gray dawn.
Her litter was set down at a side door of the palace, and Zeno, the steward, stood by to hand her out. His proffered courtesy was loftily ignored, so he turned on his heel and led the way inside.
Not a living soul was to be seen; it was, doubtless, before the usual hour for any one of the Imperial household to be astir about the duties of the day.
The Greek brought them into a small peristyle close at hand. ”

“ The sun was low, for the spring days were not yet long, and the shadow of the city already fell across the deep blue water of the Golden Horn. Zeno gazed down 5 at the moving scene; his keen brown eyes watched the boats gliding by and softened, for what he saw made him think of Venice, the lagoons, and his home. Of all people, the most incorrigible wanderer is generally the most hopelessly sentimental about his native place. ”

“ Since Zeno the son of Mnaseas, the Cittiæan, has passed many years in the city, in the study of philosophy, being in all other respects a good man, and also exhorting all the young men who have sought his company to the practice of virtue, and encouraging them in the practice of temperance; making his own life a model to all men of the greatest [263] excellence, since it has in every respect corresponded to the doctrines which he has taught ”

“ Zeno, we saw, denied motion, multiplicity, and the world of sense. But he did not deny the existence of the world. That is an impossibility. Even if the world is delusion, the delusion exists. What he denied was the reality of existence. But if reality is not existence, what is it? It is Being, replied the Eleatics. But Being does not exist. Whatever exists is this or that particular sort of being. Being itself is not anywhere to be found. Thus the Eleatics first denied that existence is reality, and then that reality exists. ”

“ He who but admires virtue, yields her but half her due. She asks to be approached, to be embraced—not with fear, but with confidence—not with awe but with rapture.”
“Yet who can gaze on Zeno and ever hope to rival him?”
“You, my young friend: Why should you 14not? You have innocence; you have sensibility; you have enthusiasm; you have ambition—With what better promise could Zeno begin his career? Courage! courage! my son!” stopping, for they had insensibly walked towards the city during the dialogue, and laying his hand on Theon’s head, “We want but the will to be as great as Zeno.” ”