Abstract
Abstract Our primary evidence for the contribution of Cleanthes, the second Stoic scholarch, to the school’s distinctive theory of cyclical ekpyrosis (conflagration) is limited to a single difficult passage found in Stobaeus attributed to Arius Didymus. Interpretations of this text have largely proceeded by emendation (von Arnim, Meerwaldt) or claims of misconstrual or misunderstanding (Hahm). In recent studies, Salles and Hensley have taken the passage at face value and reconstructed opposed interpretations of Cleanthes’ position. The former suggests that it differs significantly from that of Zeno and Chrysippus. Both the sequence of elemental transformation and its scope are said to be challenged by Cleanthes, suggesting cosmogony was a deeply controversial area in the early Stoa. I resist this interpretation of the evidence while also attempting to read the text without textual correction. Hensley, on the other hand, finds all three to be in strict harmony. Here I advocate for a middle ground where Cleanthes is closer to the positions of both Zeno and Chrysippus, but I also find room for his development of Stoic cosmogony as composed of a series of discrete stages radiating outwards from the middle. We are left with a clearer, more nuanced picture of how Stoic natural philosophy develops in its early period.
Highlights
One point of harmony among the triad of early Stoic scholarchs was their shared commitment to the theory of an infinite cycle of total conflagrations of via free access
Even in the apparent concord of the early Stoa, there are reasons—or so it has been thought—to think that the conflagration was a point of some disagreement, on the question of how the cyclical process moves from fiery destruction to the step of world-creation, or cosmogony
He defends three major claims: (1) some of the fire of the conflagration remains throughout the cosmogony; (2) there is no need to posit any proto-elements that arise during its early stages; and (3) the early Stoics endorse the ‘same’ theory of world formation
Summary
One point of harmony among the triad of early Stoic scholarchs was their shared commitment to the theory of an infinite cycle of total conflagrations of via free access. In addition to Salles, a very recent contribution to the interpretation of early Stoic cosmogonical accounts has been offered by Ian Hensley.12 He defends three major claims: (1) some of the fire of the conflagration remains throughout the cosmogony; (2) there is no need to posit any proto-elements that arise during its early stages; and (3) the early Stoics endorse the ‘same’ theory of world formation.
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