# The Stoics: virtue, reason, and the life in accord with nature

From Zeno's painted porch to Marcus Aurelius: the Stoic teaching that virtue is the only good and freedom lies in accepting what we cannot control, through Chrysippus, Seneca, Epictetus, and the modern revival.

*This story parallel: The Logos: reason, the Word, and the defence of life*
*This story part of: Religion and ideology*

## c. 301 BCE — The Stoics make the Logos divine reason

The Stoics described the Logos as a rational, fiery principle pervading the cosmos, of which each human mind held a spark. Living well meant living in accord with this universal reason.

## c. 301 BCE — Zeno of Citium founds the Stoa

A merchant turned philosopher, Zeno of Citium began teaching in the Stoa Poikile, the painted porch on the Athenian agora that gave Stoicism its name. He taught that the good life meant living in accord with reason and nature.

## c. 251 BCE — The Stoics teach virtue as the only good

The Stoics held that virtue alone is good and vice alone is bad, while health, wealth and death are indifferent. Freedom came from mastering the judgements within our control and accepting what is not, a discipline they called living in accord with nature.

## c. 231 BCE — Chrysippus gives Stoicism its system

Chrysippus, the third head of the school, built Stoicism into a full system of logic, physics and ethics, writing hundreds of works. The ancients said that without Chrysippus there would have been no Stoa.

## c. 55 — Seneca, the Stoic at Nero’s court

The statesman and playwright Seneca served as tutor and adviser to the emperor Nero while writing letters and essays that carried Stoic ethics to a Roman audience. Ordered to kill himself in 65 CE, he died as a Stoic sage was meant to.

## c. 125 — Epictetus and the Enchiridion

Born a slave and later freed, Epictetus taught that some things are up to us and some are not, and that peace comes from caring only about the former. His pupil Arrian recorded his teaching in the Discourses and the handbook known as the Enchiridion.

## c. 175 — Marcus Aurelius writes the Meditations

The emperor Marcus Aurelius kept a private notebook of Stoic reflections while on campaign, never meant for publication. The Meditations became the most widely read Stoic work, a ruler counselling himself to duty, patience and acceptance.

## c. 2010 — The modern Stoic revival

Stoicism returned as popular self-help and therapy, its ideas echoed in cognitive behavioural therapy and spread through books, Stoic Week and online communities. Critics warned that the pop version often dropped the demanding ethics for calm and productivity.