SVF I.217
Stoic: Zeno of Citium · Ancient source: Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, Book IV — IV 158b · Source language: Ancient Greek · Source status: Direct quotation, Testimonium
Original — Ancient Greek
Στωικὸν δὲ δόγμα ἐστίν, ὅτι πάντα τε εὖ ποιήσει ὁ σοφὸς καὶ φακῆν φρονίμως ἀρτύσει· διὸ καὶ Τίμων ὁ Φλιάσιος ἔφη· “Ζηνώνειόν γε φακῆν ἕψειν ὃς μὴ φρονίμως μεμάθηκεν”, ὡς οὐκ ἄλλως δυναμένης ἑψηθῆναι φακῆς εἰ μὴ κατὰ τὴν Ζηνώνειον ὑφήγησιν, ὃς ἔφη· “εἰς δὲ φακῆν ἔμβαλλε δυωδέκατον κοριάννου”.
StoicOs Translation
It is a Stoic doctrine that the sage will do all things well — he will even season lentil soup wisely. Hence Timon of Phlius said: “… to cook the Zenonian lentil soup, whoever has not learned it wisely” — as if lentil soup could not be cooked otherwise than by the Zenonian instruction, for Zeno said: “And into the lentil soup throw a twelfth part of coriander.”
Context
Athenaeus' learned banquet-conversation preserves, half in jest, a Stoic doctrine with Zeno's own hexameter recipe — mocked already by the sceptic poet Timon, Zeno's contemporary.
Text verified against von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 217, p. 53 (OCR of the scanned edition). The closing hexameter is Zeno's own verse, quoted via Timon of Phlius (fr. 22 Wachsmuth); one OCR garbling (“εἰς δὲ”) is restored.
What the source actually tells us
The doctrine (“the sage does everything well”) matches SVF I.216 verbatim; the verse is quoted as Zeno's own words through a contemporary witness, Timon — making the coriander line one of the very few near-contemporary verbal echoes of Zeno we possess.
Philosophical meaning
Wisdom has no small occasions. If virtue is one practical wisdom applied to domains (SVF I.200), then cooking lentils falls under it as much as facing death: the sage's excellence shows in the proportion of coriander as in the proportion of a life. The ancients laughed — and remembered the verse for five centuries.
Scholarly uncertainty
Athenaeus writes for entertainment and the chain runs through Timon's satire; the verse's original context in Zeno (perhaps a work on frugal living) is lost. The doctrine itself is independently secured by SVF I.216; the verse's attribution rests on Timon and Athenaeus.
Go deeper
- Read SVF I.216 — two kinds of human beings
- Read SVF I.200 — many virtues, one practical wisdom
- Read the Vita — Zeno's frugal way of life
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.