SVF II.1000
Stoic: Chrysippus of Soli · Ancient source: Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae VII 2 — NA 7.2 · Source language: Latin · Source status: Direct quotation, Testimonium
Original — Latin
Fatum, quod εἱμαρμένην Graeci vocant, ad hanc ferme sententiam Chrysippus, Stoicae princeps philosophiae, definit: “Fatum est”, inquit, “sempiterna quaedam et indeclinabilis series rerum et catena, volvens semetipsa sese et implicans per aeternos consequentiae ordines, ex quibus apta nexaque est.” — In libro περὶ προνοίας quarto εἱμαρμένην esse dicit φυσικήν τινα σύνταξιν τῶν ὅλων ἐξ ἀϊδίου τῶν ἑτέρων τοῖς ἑτέροις ἐπακολουθούντων καὶ μεταπολουμένων ἀπαραβάτου οὔσης τῆς τοιαύτης ἐπιπλοκῆς.
StoicOs Translation
Fate, which the Greeks call heimarmenē, Chrysippus, chief of Stoic philosophy, defines roughly to this effect: 'Fate', he says, 'is a certain everlasting and unswerving series and chain of things, rolling and entwining itself through eternal orders of consequence, out of which it is fitted and bound together.' — In the fourth book On Providence he says that fate is 'a certain natural ordering of the whole from everlasting, the one set of things following upon and succeeding the other, such interconnection being inviolable.'
Context
Gellius devotes a chapter of his Attic Nights to Chrysippus on fate and responsibility, quoting from On Providence book 4 — the same chapter that transmits the stone rolling downhill, twin of Cicero's cylinder.
Text verified against von Arnim, SVF II (1903), no. 1000, pp. 293–294 (OCR of the scanned edition). Gellius gives his Latin rendering, then — 'I have added Chrysippus' own words, as far as my memory served' — the Greek definition from On Providence book 4. The same chapter transmits Chrysippus' answer to the objection from responsibility, with the stone/cylinder simile in indirect quotation.
What the source actually tells us
Uniquely valuable: Gellius names the book and transcribes Chrysippus' Greek 'so that the reader may check my rendering' — as close to the systematiser's own sentence as the tradition allows, with the honest caveat 'as far as my memory served'.
Philosophical meaning
Fate is nature's own syntax: an ordering of the whole in which each thing follows the other and the weave cannot be broken. Not a decree imposed on the world but the world's coherence itself — which is why, for Chrysippus, to act by fate and to act by one's own nature are not rivals (cf. II.974).
Scholarly uncertainty
Gellius quotes from memory and says so; the Latin frame-definition is his paraphrase. The transmitted participle μεταπολουμένων is linguistically difficult and variously emended by editors.
Go deeper
- Read SVF II.974 — the cylinder: fate and responsibility
- Read SVF II.913 — fate as the logos of the cosmos
About this edition
StoicOs Ancient Library is a developing multilingual digital study edition of surviving early Stoic material. The Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta assembled by Hans von Arnim provides the traditional reference framework. StoicOs distinguishes carefully between fragments, testimonia, later reports and interpretation. StoicOs translations are prepared from the surviving ancient-language sources where available.
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