In an effort to reach this harmony, Zeno lived a simple life, not all that different from that of his rival Epicurus, who began his school just a few years before Zeno struck out on his own. His diet mostly consisted of bread and honey and the occasional glass of wine. He lived with roommates and rarely hired servants. Even when he was sick, he refused attempts to spoil him or change his meager diet. “He thought,” a later Stoic would say, “that someone who once experiences gourmet cuisine would want it all the time, inasmuch as the pleasure associated with drinking and eating creates in us a desire for more food and drink.”
As part of the simple life, Zeno kept to himself, preferring a close circle of friends to large social gatherings, and would later famously slip away from a party thrown by King Antigonus (and rebuff invitations to visit the king’s court). He made his points quickly and shook his head at needless rhetorical flourishes. He was also clever and funny, making a habit to ask strangers for money, so as to deter others from asking
After his studies with Crates and the Megarian philosopher Stilpo, Zeno began to teach as well—fittingly for a former merchant, in the
Zeno learned to be a creative kind of instructor, pitching his wares, as it were, alongside so many other merchants. At a dinner with a man who was known for eating so much so quickly that there was little left for his guests, Zeno grabbed an entire tray of fish and made as if he was going to eat it all himself. Catching his host’s surprised eye, he said, “What then, think you, must those who live with you suffer, if you can’t endure my gluttony for a single day?”
When one young student attracted too many admirers, Zeno ordered him to shave his head to keep them away. When a different rich and handsome student from Rhodes begged Zeno for instruction—no doubt reminding him of himself at that age—he assigned him a seat on a dusty bench, knowing it would dirty the boy’s clothes. Later, he sent him to rub shoulders with the city’s beggars, much the way Crates had sent him through the city carrying soup. But unlike Zeno, who had endured his humiliations and learned from them, this student simply left. Zeno believed that conceitedness was the primary obstacle to learning, and in this instance he was proven correct.
Zeno would eventually move to what became known as the Stoa Poikilē, literally “painted porch.” Erected in the fifth century BC (the ruins are still visible some twenty-five hundred years later), the painted porch was where Zeno and his disciples gathered for discussion. While his followers were briefly called Zenonians, it is the final credit to Zeno’s humility and the universality of his teachings that the philosophical school he founded didn’t ultimately carry his name. Instead, we know it today as
Is it not also fitting that the ancient Stoics chose a
It was said that Zeno had little patience for idlers or big egos on his porch. He wanted his students to be attentive and aware. And those who came to him with an inflated sense of their own self-worth either quickly lost it or were sent away. But for those who were ready and willing, the porch was a place to learn and be taught.