SVF I.271
- Stoic
- Zeno of Citium
- Ancient source
- Seneca, De otio 3,2 (with De tranquillitate animi 1,10) — De otio 3,2
- Source language
- Latin
- Source status
- Testimonium · Later report
Original — Latin
Zenon ait: accedet ad rem publicam (sapiens), nisi si quid impedierit. — Seneca, De tranq. an. 1,10: sequor Zenona, Cleanthem, Chrysippum; quorum tamen nemo ad rem publicam accessit, et nemo non misit.StoicOs Translation
Zeno says: the wise man will take part in public affairs, unless something prevents him. — Seneca, On tranquillity: I follow Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus — of whom, however, not one entered public life, and not one failed to send others into it.
Context
In his defence of philosophical leisure, Seneca cites the school's founding maxim on political engagement — and, elsewhere, its ironical counterpart about the founders' own retired lives.
Source notes:Text verified against von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 271, p. 62 (OCR of the scanned edition, ed. Gertz). Seneca quotes the maxim with “Zenon ait”; in De tranquillitate he adds, wryly, that none of the three first Stoic heads entered public life themselves — and none failed to send others.
What the source actually tells us
A maxim quoted with “Zenon ait” by a Stoic insider, in Latin; Diogenes Laërtius 7.121 confirms the doctrine in Greek (“the sage will take part in politics, unless something prevents him — as Chrysippus says in On Lives”), showing a fixed school formula from the founder.
Philosophical meaning
Against Epicurus' “live unnoticed”, Zeno makes engagement the default: the sage owes his reason to the community of gods and men (cf. SVF I.262), and withdraws only when circumstances genuinely prevent — the reservation clause, not the rule. Seneca's irony shows the clause working: teaching, too, is a way of sending men into public life.
Scholarly uncertainty
Seneca quotes in Latin three centuries later, and Diogenes attaches the parallel Greek formula to Chrysippus' book; whether Seneca cites Zeno's Republic or a school compendium is unknown. The attribution “Zenon ait” is explicit but unlocated.
Biographical context
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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.