LELE, an eminent Grecian philosopher, was born at Elea about 504 years before Christ. He was a zealous friend of civil liberty, and is celebrated for his courageous and successful opposition to tyrants; but the incongruity of the stories related by different writers concerning him in a great measure destroys their credit. He chose to reside in his small native city of Elea rather than at Athens, because it afforded freer scope to his independent and pious spirit, which could not easily submit to the restraints of authority. It is related that he vindicated the truth with which he resented reproach, by saying, "If I were indifferent to censure, I should also be indifferent to praise."
The invention of the dialectic art has been imputed to Zeno; but there can be no doubt that the philosopher, and other metaphysical disputants of the sect, employed much ingenuity and subtlety in exhibiting examples of most of the logical arts, which were afterwards reduced to rule by Aristotle and others.
According to Aristotle, he taught that nothing can be either from that which is similar or dissimilar; that there is only one being, God; who is eternal, homogeneous, and spherical, neither finite nor infinite, neither present nor moveable; that there are many worlds; that there is no nature nor vacuum; that all bodies are composed of four elements, heat and moisture, cold and dryness; and that the body of man is from the earth, and his soul an aerial mixture of these four elements. He argued with great subtlety against the possibility of motion. If Seneca's account of this philosopher deserves credit, he reaches the highest point of scepticism, and denied the existence of external objects. The truth is, that after all that has been advanced by different writers, it is impossible to determine whether Zeno understood the term one metaphysically, logically, or physically; or whether he admitted a nature properly divine.
Zeno, the founder of the sect of the Stoics, was born about 300 years before Christ, at Citium, in the island of Cyprus. This place having been originally peopled by a colony of Phoenicians, Zeno is sometimes called a Phoenician. His father was by profession a merchant, but discovering in the youth a strong propensity towards learning, he early devoted him to philosophy. In his mercantile capacity he had frequent occasion to visit Athens, where he purchased for his son several of the writings of the most eminent Socratic philosophers. These he read with great avidity; and when he was about thirty years of age, he determined to take a voyage to a city which was so celebrated both as a mart of trade and of science. If it be true, as some writers relate, that he brought with him a valuable cargo of Phoenician purple, which was lost by shipwreck upon the coast of Piraeus, this circumstance will account for the facility with which he at first attached himself to a sect whose leading principle was the contempt of riches. Upon his first arrival in Athens, going accidentally into the shop of a bookseller, he took up a volume of the commentaries of Xenophon; and after reading a few passages, was so much delighted with the work, and formed so high an idea of the author, that he asked the bookseller where he might meet with such men. Crates, the Cynic philosopher, happening at that instant to be passing by, the bookseller pointed to him, and said, "Follow that man." Zeno attended upon the instructions of Crates, and was so well pleased with his doctrine that he became one of his disciples. But though he admired the general principles of the Cynic school, he could not easily reconcile himself to their peculiar manners. Besides, his inquisitive turn of mind would not allow him to adopt that indifference to every scientific inquiry which was one of the characteristic distinctions of the sect. He therefore attended upon other masters, who professed to instruct their disciples in the nature and causes of things. When Crates, displeased at his following other philosophers, attempted to drag him by force out of the school of Stilpo, Zeno said to him, "You may seize my body, but Stilpo has laid hold of my mind." After continuing to attend upon the lectures of Stilpo several years, he resorted to other schools, particularly to those of Xenocrates and Diodorus Cronus. By the latter he was instructed in dialectics. He was so much delighted with this branch of study, that he presented to his master a large pecuniary gratuity, in return for his free communication of some of his ingenious subtleties. At last, after attending almost every other master, he offered himself as a disciple of Polemo. This philosopher appears to have been aware that Zeno's intention, in thus removing from one school to another, was to collect materials from various quarters for a new system of his own; for when he came into Polemo's school, he said to him, "I am no stranger, Zeno, to your Phoenician arts; I perceive that your design is to creep slyly into my garden, and steal away my fruit." Polemo was not mistaken in his opinion. Having made himself master of the tenets of others, Zeno determined to become the founder of a new sect. The place which he made choice of for his school was a public portico, adorned with the pictures of Polygnotus, and other eminent painters. It was the most famous portico in Athens, and called, by way of eminence, Stoa, "the Porch." It was from this circumstance that the followers of Zeno were called Stoics.
In his person Zeno was tall and slender; his aspect was severe, and his brow contracted. His constitution was feeble, but he preserved his health by great abstemiousness. The supplies of his table consisted of figs, bread, and honey; notwithstanding which, he was frequently honoured with the company of great men. In public company, to avoid every appearance of an assuming temper, he commonly took the lowest place. Indeed so great was
his modesty, that he seldom chose to mingle with a crowd, or wished for the company of more than two or three friends at once. He paid more attention to neatness and decorum in external appearance than the Cynic philosophers. In his dress indeed he was plain, and in all his expenses frugal; but this is not to be imputed to avarice, but a contempt of external magnificence. Zeno lived to the extreme age of ninety-eight; and at last, in consequence of an accident, voluntarily put an end to his life. As he was walking out of his school he fell down, and in the fall broke one of his fingers; upon which he was so affected with a consciousness of infirmity, that, striking the earth, he said, "Why am I thus importuned? I obey thy summons;" and immediately went home and strangled himself. He died in the first year of the 129th Olympiad. The Athenians, at the request of Antigonus, erected a monument to his memory in the Ceramicum.