Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers

​When Sositheus the poet said to him in the theater while he was present, "Whom the folly of Cleanthes drives like cattle," he remained in the very same posture; admiring this, the audience applauded Cleanthes and drove Sositheus out. And when the poet repented of the insult, Cleanthes received him, remarking that it was absurd that Dionysus and Heracles should not be angry when mocked by the poets, while he himself should take offense at a casual insult. He used to say too that the Peripatetics were in the same condition as lyres, which, though sounding beautifully, do not hear themselves. It is also said that, when he asserted that according to Zeno character can be apprehended from bodily appearance, certain witty young men brought to him a pathic who had been toughened by rural labor, and demanded that he declare his character; and that when he was at a loss, Cleanthes bade the man depart. But as the fellow sneezed on leaving, "I have caught him!" said Cleanthes, "He is effeminate."

​To a man who was alone and talking to himself, he said: "You are not talking to a worthless person." When someone reproached him for his old age, he said: "I too wish to depart; but when I consider myself healthy in all respects, and writing and reading, I stay on again." They say that he wrote down what he heard from Zeno on potsherds and the shoulder blades of oxen, through lack of money to buy paper. Being such a man, he had the strength, though there were many other notable disciples of Zeno, to succeed to the school himself. He has left behind most admirable books, which are as follows: On Time. On Zeno's Natural Philosophy, two books. Expositions of Heraclitus, four books. On Sensation. On Art. Against Democritus. Against Aristarchus. Against Herillus. On Impulse, two books.

​Archaeology. On the Gods. On the Giants. On Marriage. On the Poet. On Duty, three books. On Good Counsel. On Gratitude. Protreptic. On Virtues. On Natural Talent. On Gorgippus. On Envy. On Love. On Freedom. Art of Love. On Honor. On Reputation. The Statesman. On Counsel. On Laws. On Passing Judgment. On Upbringing. On Reason, three books. On the Chief End. On Noble Things. On Actions. On Knowledge. On Kingship. On Friendship. On the Banquet. On the Thesis that the Virtue of Man and Woman is the Same. On the Wise Man Acting as a Teacher. On Apophthegms. Diatribes, two books. On Pleasure. On Proper Properties. On Difficult Problems. On Dialectic. On Figures of Speech. On Predicates. These are his books.

​And he died in the following manner: his gums became inflamed, and when the physicians forbade him food, he abstained from nourishment for two days. And he recovered so well that the physicians permitted him all his usual habits; but he would not submit to it, and saying that he had already traveled so far on his road, he abstained for the remaining days and met his end in the same manner as Zeno, having lived, as some say, eighty years, and having been a hearer of Zeno for nineteen years. We also composed a playful poem on him as follows: "I praise Cleanthes, but still more Hades; for seeing him as an old man, he could not endure that he, having drawn out so long a time of life, should not henceforth have rest among the dead."