SVF I.77

Original — Latin

Amo verecundiam, ⟨tu autem ... iam⟩ vel potius libertatem loquendi. Atqui hoc Zenoni placuit — homini mehercule acuto, etsi Academiae nostrae cum eo magna rixa est — sed, ut dico, placet Stoicis suo quamque rem nomine appellare. ... Habes scholam Stoicam: ὁ σοφὸς εὐθυρρημονήσει.

StoicOs Translation

I love modesty, ⟨but you ... now⟩ — or rather freedom of speech. And yet this pleased Zeno — by Hercules an acute man, though our Academy has a great quarrel with him — but, as I say, it pleases the Stoics to call each thing by its own name. ... There you have the Stoic school: the wise man will speak plainly.

Context

A private letter of Cicero to Paetus, written in 46 BCE in a joking register: Cicero teases his friend by expounding, tongue in cheek, the Stoic thesis that nothing is obscene and each thing should be called by its own name. The argument section (nothing shameful lies in the thing or in the word) is developed with examples that von Arnim abridges. In De officiis 1.128, printed under the same number, Cicero rejects the same position seriously.

Source notes:Latin text verified against H. von Arnim, SVF I (1903), no. 77, p. 22 (scanned page). The angle brackets ⟨tu autem ... iam⟩ mark an editorial supplement in a damaged spot of Cicero's letter — printed exactly as in von Arnim. The letter continues with Cicero's playful development of the Stoic argument (von Arnim abridges the examples with “(secuntur exempla)”) and closes: “Habes scholam Stoicam: ὁ σοφὸς εὐθυρρημονήσει”. The ellipsis inside our displayed excerpt is marked and explained here: it skips Cicero's example section. Under the same number von Arnim adds Cicero, De officiis 1.128, where Cicero criticises this very Cynic-leaning position.

What the source actually tells us

A later report in a playful private letter: Cicero attributes the principle to Zeno by name (“hoc Zenoni placuit”) and to the Stoics generally, and quotes the Greek school-slogan ὁ σοφὸς εὐθυρρημονήσει (“the wise man will speak plainly”). The jesting register and Cicero's Academic allegiance colour the framing; the doctrine itself fits Zeno's well-attested Cynic inheritance. The supplement ⟨tu autem ... iam⟩ is editorial, marking damaged text.

Philosophical meaning

Zeno's principle of parrhēsia in miniature: shame belongs to deeds, not to words. If a thing is not disgraceful, naming it plainly cannot be; if it is disgraceful, euphemism does not clean it. Language should track reality — a linguistic honesty that Zeno inherited from the Cynics and disciplined into Stoic doctrine.

Scholarly uncertainty

The argument's elaboration is Cicero's playful paraphrase, not Zeno's text; how far Zeno himself carried the principle is uncertain, and Cicero's serious criticism in De officiis 1.128 shows the position was contested even among admirers.

Go deeper

• Character and honesty in Stoic Ethics →
• The four Stoic virtues explained →