SVF I.501

Original — Ancient Greek

⟨Κλεάνθης⟩ ἄναμμα νοερὸν τὸ ἐκ θαλάττης τὸν ἥλιον.

StoicOs Translation

(Cleanthes:) the sun is an intelligent kindling arising from the sea.

Context

Aëtius' handbook records, in lemma form, each philosopher's definition of the sun. Cicero's sceptic and Macrobius preserve the accompanying theory: the sun feeds on the ocean's exhalations and turns back at the solstices so as not to stray too far from its food.

Source notes:Text verified against von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 501, p. 112 (OCR of the scanned edition; the lemma-name, a dash in the OCR, is restored as ⟨Κλεάνθης⟩ from the Placita context). Von Arnim adds Cicero, De nat. deor. III 37 and Macrobius, Sat. I 23,2 on the sun feeding on the ocean's moisture.

What the source actually tells us

A two-word definition under Cleanthes' name — anamma noeron, an intelligent kindling — with the solstice theory attached to him by name in Cicero. It coheres exactly with his sun-hēgemonikon doctrine (SVF I.499).

Philosophical meaning

The ruling fire of the world is not exempt from nature's economy: it burns, therefore it must be fed, and the sea feeds it. In Cleanthes' physics even the divine sun lives by exchange with the world it governs — intelligence and metabolism in one body, the Heraclitean inheritance he interpreted in four books.

Scholarly uncertainty

The lemma is doxographic shorthand; the name stands in the Placita tradition but is a restoration where the OCR of von Arnim's page is damaged. The fuller reasoning survives only through Cicero's hostile speaker and late Macrobius.

Go deeper

• Read SVF I.499 — the sun as ruling part of the cosmos →