SVF I.552
Stoic: Cleanthes of Assos · Ancient source: Stobaeus, Eclogae (Anthology), Book II — Ecl. II 7,6a p. 76,9 W. · Source language: Ancient Greek · Source status: Testimonium
Original — Ancient Greek
Κλεάνθης ... οὕτως ἀπέδωκε· τέλος ἐστὶ τὸ ὁμολογουμένως τῇ φύσει ζῆν.
StoicOs Translation
Cleanthes … rendered it thus: the end is to live in agreement with nature.
Context
The same ethical doxography (Arius Didymus in Stobaeus) that preserves Zeno's telos-formula 'to live in agreement' (SVF I.179) continues with Cleanthes' version, now with the decisive addition: 'with nature'.
Text verified against von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 552, p. 125 (OCR of the scanned edition). Von Arnim adds Diogenes Laërtius 7.87 (Zeno first said the end is 'to live in agreement with nature'; 'and likewise Cleanthes in his On Pleasure') and Clemens, Strom. II 21,129 — whose explanatory clause von Arnim assigns to Diogenes of Babylon, not Cleanthes.
What the source actually tells us
The ancient tradition itself is divided over the addition: Stobaeus' source credits the words 'with nature' to Cleanthes as a completion of Zeno's shorter formula, while Diogenes Laërtius 7.87 gives the full phrase to Zeno already, adding that Cleanthes said 'likewise' in his On Pleasure. Either way, the formula that defined Stoic ethics for five centuries passed through Cleanthes' hands, in a named book.
Philosophical meaning
Two words change the scale of ethics. Zeno's 'living in agreement' named an inner coherence; adding 'with nature' anchors that coherence in the order of the whole — the common law of the Hymn (SVF I.537). Agreement with oneself and obedience to the cosmos become one and the same act; ethics is grounded in physics, as the successor's characteristic move.
Scholarly uncertainty
Who first wrote 'with nature' — Zeno or Cleanthes — was already disputed in antiquity and cannot be settled; Stobaeus' report itself is compressed doxography. Clemens' further explanation ('consisting in right reasoning…') is excluded here, with von Arnim, as belonging to Diogenes of Babylon.
Go deeper
- Read SVF I.179 — Zeno's formula: living in agreement
- Read SVF I.537 — the Hymn to Zeus and the common law
- Read the Vita — Cleanthes as successor of Zeno
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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