SVF I.176
Stoic: Zeno of Citium · Ancient source: Aëtius, Placita, Book I — Aët. 1.27,5 (Diels, DDG p. 322b 9) · Source language: Ancient Greek · Source status: Later report
Original — Ancient Greek
Ζήνων ὁ Στωικὸς ἐν τῷ περὶ φύσεως (τὴν εἱμαρμένην) δύναμιν κινητικὴν τῆς ὕλης κατὰ ταὐτὰ καὶ ὡσαύτως, ἥντινα μὴ διαφέρειν πρόνοιαν καὶ φύσιν καλεῖν.
StoicOs Translation
Zeno the Stoic, in his On Nature: [fate is] a power that moves matter in the same respects and in the same way; it makes no difference whether one calls it providence or nature.
Context
The passage comes from the doxographic tradition under the name of Aëtius, a systematic summary of philosophers' opinions preserved through later epitomes and reconstructed in Diels' Doxographi Graeci. It cites Zeno's own treatise On Nature by title — valuable, since the work itself is lost.
Greek text verified against H. von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 176, p. 44 (scanned page). The words (τὴν εἱμαρμένην) in parentheses are the editor's supplement identifying the subject; Aëtius survives through the epitome tradition edited in Diels' Doxographi Graeci.
What the source actually tells us
This is a later doxographic report, compressed into a definition. It supports that Zeno, in On Nature, described fate as the power moving matter with perfect regularity, and that he treated “fate”, “providence” and “nature” as names for the same thing. The subject word itself is an editorial supplement drawn from the chapter heading on fate.
Philosophical meaning
Here fate is not a hostile external force but the lawful self-movement of nature itself — one power, seen as fate in its regularity, providence in its care, nature in its growth. This identification grounds the Stoic conviction that accepting one's fate and following nature are the same act of reason.
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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.