SVF I.207
Stoic: Zeno of Citium · Ancient source: Cicero, Academica posteriora, Book I — Acad. post. I 38 · Source language: Latin · Source status: Testimonium, Later report
Original — Latin
cumque perturbationem animi illi ex homine non tollerent — sed ea contraherent in angustumque deducerent, hic omnibus his quasi morbis voluit carere sapientem; cumque eas perturbationes antiqui naturales esse dicerent et rationis expertes aliaque in parte animi cupiditatem, alia rationem collocarent, ne his quidem adsentiebatur. nam et perturbationes voluntarias esse putabat opinionisque iudicio suscipi et omnium perturbationum matrem esse arbitrabatur immoderatam quandam intemperantiam.
StoicOs Translation
And whereas they (the older philosophers) did not remove disturbance of the soul from man — but compressed and narrowed it — he (Zeno) wanted the wise man to be free of all these as of so many diseases; and whereas the ancients said those disturbances were natural and devoid of reason, and placed desire in one part of the soul and reason in another, he did not assent to this either. For he held that the disturbances are voluntary and are taken up by a judgment of opinion, and he considered the mother of all disturbances to be a certain immoderate intemperance.
Context
Varro's survey in Cicero's Academica contrasts Zeno with the Academic-Peripatetic tradition point by point; here it reaches the passions, where the older schools prescribed moderation (metriopatheia) and Zeno demanded freedom.
Text verified against von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 207, p. 51 (OCR of the scanned edition; the paragraph number is garbled in the OCR — the passage belongs to Varro's survey at I 38). The dash marks Cicero's own transitional words omitted by von Arnim.
What the source actually tells us
An explicitly attributed report of three connected Zenonian theses: the sage is free of passions as of diseases; the soul is not divided into a rational and an irrational part; and passions are voluntary, taken up by a judgment of opinion. Each is independently confirmed (SVF I.205, I.202, I.212, I.215).
Philosophical meaning
The most liberating and most demanding sentence in Zeno's psychology: the passions are voluntary. Nothing outside us forces grief, fear or rage upon us; we take them up by assenting to an opinion. What we have assented to, we can in principle refuse — hence the sage's freedom is possible, and the daily examination of judgments becomes the core of Stoic practice.
Scholarly uncertainty
Cicero's Latin compresses Greek technicalities (opinionis iudicio for assent to a doxa) and writes nearly three centuries later; the polemical framing against “the ancients” is Varro's arrangement. The substance, however, coheres exactly with Zeno's definitions preserved in Greek (SVF I.205–206, I.212).
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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.