Preface to the
First Edition
This work began as a series of texts produced for use in undergraduate
survey courses in Greek philosophy at the University of Toronto. The
authors had for many years been keenly aware of the limitations of existing
translations of the works of the Hellenistic philosophers. We began with
limited and sporadic efforts to remedy the situation by producing bits
and pieces of translation. It gradually became clear that a more permanent
and comprehensive solution was required. Hence the present work, which
consists of completely new translations of much more material. We feel
that the additional material will make the book useful to more advanced
students, as well as to its original audience. We have aimed throughout
to provide sufficient material to enable the reader at whatever level to
acquire a good grasp of the main lines of thought in Hellenistic philoso-
phy. We have also attempted to provide a bridge to the growing mass
of excellent secondary literature. A student acquainted with the material in
this book should be able to appreciate some of the first-rate contemporary
philosophy being done by scholars working on Stoicism, Epicureanism,
and Scepticism.
In deciding what material to include we have been especially concerned
to convey a sense of ongoing discussion among the Hellenistic philoso-
phers, a sense which will be most strongly felt with the Stoics and
Sceptics. In addition, we have made a special effort to provide longer
passages of unexcerpted original sources, rather than short and more
thematically focussed texts. We hope that extended texts will be more
readable, will give a clearer sense of the major philosophical movements
in this period, and will provide the student with an appreciation for the
nature of the evidence for what is, after all, a relatively badly documented
period of Greek philosophy.
There is at once too much and too little in this book. There is too
much in the sense that we have sometimes allowed our authors to speak
beyond the minimum necessary to make a point. We have also not been
very scrupulous about avoiding repetition of arguments, especially when
this makes an entire passage clearer. An instructor using this book as a
textbook will no doubt wish to make judicious selections of material. It
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