New schools: Zeno, Epicurus, Pyrrho

Abstract

Aristotle’s death in the year 322/1 B. C. can be regarded as the end of the classical era of Greek philosophical thought. But Athens did not cease to be the city of philosophers in the hellenistic era culminating in the rule of Alexander the Great (336–323), although it was no longer a city of politicians, artists and poets. Plato’s and Aristotle’s schools became for the hellenistic era the centres of attraction and their influence brought to Athens philosophers from various parts of the Greek world, some even to stay there permanently. Thus new centres of philosophic investigation sprang up in Athens besides the Academy and the Lyceum. Zeno of Citium in Cyprus founded his school in a painted porch, stoa poikile, which hence bore the name of the school of the Stoics, and in Athens also Epicurus of Samos settled permanently, whose disciples used to assemble in his famous garden.