106 //-1
include the following. Persaeus of Citium, son of Demetrius; some say
he was his follower, others that he was a member of his household, one
of those sent by Antigonus to help him with his library, having been a
tutor to Antigonus' son Halcyoneus. Antigonus once wanted to put
Persaeus to the test and so had a false message announced to him to the
effect that his lands had been sacked by the enemy; when he frowned,
Antigonus said, "do you see that wealth is not an indifferent thing?" ...
- [Another student of Zeno was] Ariston of Chios, the son of Milti-
ades, the one who introduced [the doctrine of] indifference. And Herillus
of Carthage, the one who said that knowledge was the goal And Dionysius
the one who went over to hedonism; for because of a severe inflammation
of the eye he became reluctant to say any longer that pain was an
indifferent thing; he came from Heraclea. And Sphaerus from the
Bosporus. And Cleanthes, son of Phanias, from Assos, the one who took
over the school; Zeno compared him to writing tablets made of hard
wax, which are hard to write on but which retain what is written. Sphaerus
also studied under Cleanthes after Zeno's death, and we shall mention
him in our discussion of Cleanthes. 38. The following too were students
of Zeno, according to Hippobotus: Philonides of Thebes, Callippus of
Corinth, Posidonius of Alexandria, Athenodorus of Soli and Zeno of
Sidon ....
- Ariston of Chios, the Bald, [also] nicknamed the Siren. He said
that the goal was to live in a state of indifference with respect to what
is intermediate between virtue and vice, acknowledging no distinction
whatsoever in them but treating them all alike. For the wise man is like
a good actor, who plays either role fittingly, whether he takes on the role
of Thersites or Agamemnon. He abolished the topics of physics and
logic, saying that the one was beyond our powers and that the other was
nothing to us and that only ethics mattered to us.
- [He said] that dialectical arguments were like spider webs: al-
though they seem to indicate craftsmanlike skill, they are useless. He did
not introduce many virtues, as Zeno did, nor did he say that there was
one called by many names, as the Megarians did; rather, he appealed to
relative dispositions. By philosophizing thus and conversing in Cyno-
sarges he became important enough to be called the leader of a school
Thus Miltiades and Diphilus were called Aristonians. He was a persuasive
fellow and just what the crowd liked to hear ....
- He met Polemo and, as Diodes of Magnesia says, went over [to
his school] when Zeno became afflicted with a long illness. He was most
attached to the Stoic doctrine that the wise man is undogmatic. Persaeus
opposed him on this point and had one of a set of twins deposit money
with him and the other then get it back. Thus he perplexed and refuted
