Zeno of Citium

Zeno of Citium (not to be confused with Zeno of Elias) was the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy, which (along with its rival, Epicureanism) came to dominate the thinking of the Hellenistic world, and later, the Roman Empire, with some elements of Stoic thought even influencing early Christianity. For a long time the stoics have had a bad press, Stoicism being associated in the popular imagination with a grim and pessimistic world-view, in contrast to the jolly Epicureans. Fortunately, however, Stoicism is now being re-evaluated by groups as diverse as psychotherapists and semioticians, and it is therefore frustrating that so little is known of the original Stoic philosophy as taught by Zeno. None of Zeno's works have survived; all we know of him is contained in a few quotations and anecdotes in the works of his followers and critics. Most of these are collected in Book VII of Diogenes Laertius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers.