SVF Volume I
Cleanthes of Assos
Κλεάνθης ὁ Ἄσσιος · c. 331–c. 230 BCE
Who was Cleanthes of Assos?
Cleanthes (c. 331–c. 230 BCE) came from Assos in the Troad to Athens, reportedly a former boxer with four drachmas to his name. He earned his keep drawing water in gardens by night so that he could hear Zeno by day — Athens nicknamed him Phreantles, the Well-Drawer. On Zeno's death he became the second head of the Stoa and led it, according to the Herculaneum Index of Stoics, for thirty-two years, handing the school on to Chrysippus.
How his work survives — and the Hymn to Zeus
Diogenes Laërtius preserves a catalogue of some fifty titles — on Zeno's physics, four books interpreting Heraclitus, on the passions, on duty, on the gods — yet none survives whole. What time did leave is exceptional: the Hymn to Zeus, quoted complete by Stobaeus, is the longest continuous piece of early Stoic writing we possess, and Epictetus preserved his four-verse prayer to Zeus and Fate. Cleanthes reaches us both in others' reports and, uniquely among the early Stoics, in his own sustained voice.
Reading the Cleanthes sources critically
Not everything printed under Cleanthes' name is equally his. Some witnesses quote his verses; others report doctrine 'of Cleanthes and Chrysippus' together; some late authors attach general Stoic teaching to his name, and von Arnim himself marks several pieces as spurious. The StoicOs edition keeps these layers apart: words actually attributed to Cleanthes, what a later author tells about him, and what a source reports as school doctrine are labelled as such — and where the attribution rests on placement rather than naming, the entry says so.
Vita · SVF I.463–481
The Life of Cleanthes — the ancient testimonia as one continuous account
Source entries
10 / 10 sources
- SVF I.487Seneca · LatinParaphrase by ancient source · Testimonium
For, as Cleanthes used to say, just as our breath gives a clearer sound when the trumpet, drawing it through the narrows of its long channel, pours it out through the wider opening at the end, so the tight constraint of verse makes our thoughts clearer.
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- SVF I.499Arius Didymus (ap. Eusebius) · Ancient GreekTestimonium
As the ruling part of the cosmos, Cleanthes held it to be the sun, because it is the greatest of the heavenly bodies and contributes most to the administration of the whole, making day and year and the other seasons.
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- SVF I.501Aëtius · Ancient GreekTestimonium
(Cleanthes:) the sun is an intelligent kindling arising from the sea.
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- SVF I.527Epictetus · Ancient GreekDirect quotation · Fragment
Lead me, O Zeus, and you too, Destiny, wherever I have been appointed by you: I shall follow without hesitating. And if, grown bad, I should be unwilling, I shall follow no less.
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- SVF I.529Sextus Empiricus · Ancient GreekTestimonium · Paraphrase by ancient source
Cleanthes argued as follows: if one nature is better than another, there would be some best nature; if one soul is better than another, there would be some best soul; and if, then, one living being is better than another, there would be some supreme living being — for such series do not by nature run off to infinity.
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- SVF I.537Stobaeus · Ancient GreekDirect quotation · Fragment · Textually disputed
Most glorious of the immortals, called by many names, almighty forever, Zeus, founder of nature, steering all things with law — hail! For it is right for all mortals to address you: from you we are born, having received, alone of all that lives and moves as mortal upon the earth, a likeness of your voice. Therefore I shall hymn you and sing your might forever. You this whole cosmos, wheeling about the earth, obeys wherever you lead, and willingly is it ruled by you: such a servant do you hold in your unconquerable hands — the two-edged, fiery, ever-living thunderbolt, under whose stroke all works of nature are accomplished. By it you direct the common reason that moves through all things, mingling with the great and the small lights; by it you have become so great, highest king through all. No work comes to pass on earth apart from you, divinity, nor in the divine ethereal vault, nor in the sea — except what the bad do in their own follies. But you know how to make the odd even and to order the disordered; and what is not dear is dear to you. For so have you joined all things into one, the good with the bad, that one reason comes to be of all things, everlasting — which those mortals who are bad flee and abandon, ill-fated ones who, forever longing to possess goods, neither see nor hear god's common law, by obeying which, with understanding, they could have a good life. Instead they rush, senseless, each after a different evil: some in quarrelsome zeal for glory, some turned to gain without measure, others to indulgence and the pleasant works of the body — ⟨but they meet with evils⟩, and are carried now here, now there, striving hard to become the very opposite of all this. But Zeus, giver of all, shrouded in dark clouds, lord of the bright thunderbolt, deliver human beings from their ruinous ignorance; scatter it, Father, from the soul, and grant that we attain the insight trusting in which you steer all things with justice — so that, being honoured, we may repay you with honour, hymning your works without ceasing, as befits a mortal; since there is no greater privilege for mortals or for gods than duly to hymn forever the common law in justice.
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- SVF I.552Stobaeus · Ancient GreekTestimonium
Cleanthes … rendered it thus: the end is to live in agreement with nature.
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- SVF I.574Sextus Empiricus · Ancient GreekTestimonium
But Cleanthes (held) that pleasure is neither in accordance with nature nor has value in life — just as a cosmetic is not in accordance with nature.
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- SVF I.575Stobaeus · Ancient GreekTestimonium
Cleanthes used to say that grief is a paralysis of the soul.
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- SVF I.608Stobaeus · Ancient GreekTestimonium
Cleanthes, asked why among the ancients, though fewer pursued philosophy, more nevertheless became distinguished than now, said: “Because then it was deed that was practised — now, discourse.”
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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.