SVF I.197
Stoic: Zeno of Citium · Ancient source: Porphyrius, De abstinentia, Book III — De abst. III 19 · Source language: Ancient Greek · Source status: Testimonium
Original — Ancient Greek
οἰκειώσεως πάσης καὶ ἀλλοτριώσεως ἀρχὴ τὸ αἰσθάνεσθαι. τὴν δὲ οἰκείωσιν ἀρχὴν τίθενται δικαιοσύνης οἱ ἀπὸ Ζήνωνος.
StoicOs Translation
The beginning of all appropriation (oikeiōsis) and alienation is perception. And the followers of Zeno make appropriation the beginning of justice.
Context
Porphyry, arguing in De abstinentia about whether justice extends to animals, cites the Stoic position: justice grows out of oikeiōsis — the natural appropriation by which a living being first embraces itself and its own, and then ever wider circles of others.
Text verified against von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 197, pp. 48–49 (OCR of the scanned edition). Von Arnim himself notes that the opening clause (“the beginning of all appropriation and alienation is perception”) is Porphyry's wording, not Zeno's, printed because Porphyry appears to speak from the Stoic position; he compares Plutarch, De Stoic. rep. 12 p. 1038c.
What the source actually tells us
A one-sentence testimonium attributing to “the followers of Zeno” the foundational thesis that justice begins in oikeiōsis. The opening clause on perception is Porphyry's own bridge, as von Arnim expressly warns. Plutarch independently attests the school's equation of oikeiōsis with perception of what is one's own.
Philosophical meaning
Justice is not a contract or a convention: it grows from the same natural root as self-preservation. The affection by which a creature is at home with itself widens — to children, kin, fellow citizens, humanity — until treating others justly is as natural as caring for oneself. Here lies the seed of the cosmopolitanism of Zeno's Republic (SVF I.262) and of the later Stoic circles of concern.
Scholarly uncertainty
The attribution is to “the followers of Zeno” (hoi apo Zēnōnos), not to Zeno verbatim, and the full oikeiōsis theory known from later sources may be a gradual school elaboration; how much of it stood in Zeno's own books cannot be determined. The opening clause is Porphyry's, as von Arnim's own note states.
Go deeper
- Read SVF I.262 — Zeno's Republic: one life, one common law
- Read SVF I.179 — the end is to live in agreement
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.