SVF I.262
Stoic: Zeno of Citium · Ancient source: Plutarch, De Alexandri fortuna aut virtute, Oration I — Plut. Alex. fort. 1.6, 329a–b · Source language: Ancient Greek · Source status: Later report, Paraphrase by ancient source
Original — Ancient Greek
καὶ μὴν ἡ πολὺ θαυμαζομένη πολιτεία τοῦ τὴν Στωικῶν αἵρεσιν καταβαλομένου Ζήνωνος εἰς ἓν τοῦτο συντείνει κεφάλαιον, ἵνα μὴ κατὰ πόλεις μηδὲ κατὰ δήμους οἰκῶμεν, ἰδίοις ἕκαστοι διωρισμένοι δικαίοις, ἀλλὰ πάντας ἀνθρώπους ἡγώμεθα δημότας καὶ πολίτας, εἷς δὲ βίος ᾖ καὶ κόσμος, ὥσπερ ἀγέλης συννόμου νόμῳ κοινῷ συντρεφομένης. τοῦτο Ζήνων μὲν ἔγραψεν ὥσπερ ὄναρ ἢ εἴδωλον εὐνομίας φιλοσόφου καὶ πολιτείας ἀνατυπωσάμενος.
StoicOs Translation
Indeed, the much-admired Republic of Zeno, founder of the Stoic school, aims at this one main point: that we should not live by cities and demes, each group marked off by its own rules of justice, but should regard all human beings as our fellow-demesmen and fellow-citizens; and that there should be one life and one order, as of a herd grazing together, reared under a common law. Zeno wrote this as one sketching a dream or image of a philosopher's good order and commonwealth.
Context
Plutarch, writing about four centuries after Zeno in a rhetorical work praising Alexander, summarises the central thesis of Zeno's lost Republic. The witness is literary and has its own agenda — Plutarch wants Alexander to appear as the one who realised what Zeno only dreamed — which colours his framing of the work.
Greek text verified against H. von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 262, pp. 60–61 (scanned pages). Plutarch summarises the main point of Zeno's lost Republic (Politeia) and then adds his own characterisation of it as “a dream or image”.
What the source actually tells us
This is a later report and paraphrase, not Zeno's wording: Plutarch compresses a whole book into one sentence and adds his own judgment (“a dream or image”). What it secures is the thrust of the Republic — one human community under one common law — while the book's actual arguments and provisions remain largely unknown.
Philosophical meaning
This is the earliest grand statement of Stoic cosmopolitanism: humanity as one polis, membership defined not by birth or borders but by shared reason and a common law. The idea passes from Zeno through later Stoicism into Marcus Aurelius' “city common to gods and human beings” — and far beyond antiquity.
Scholarly uncertainty
Other ancient reports about Zeno's Republic (gathered by von Arnim as nos. 259–271) transmit provocative details that Plutarch omits, and some witnesses are openly hostile to the book. How Plutarch's idealising one-sentence summary relates to the work's actual content is debated; his “dream or image” verdict is his own, not Zeno's.
Practical wisdom
Zeno's one main point survives as a daily discipline: treat the stranger as a fellow-citizen. Before dividing the world into us and them, remember the Stoic claim that reason makes every human being a member of the same commonwealth.
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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.