Zeno's Ideal State

Abstract

Although we have more references to the Politela of Zeno of Kition than to any of his other works, our evidence for its character and content is so slight, open to dispute on so many points, and at first sight so inconsistent, that there is a strong temptation to follow other guides: our conception of Stoic doctrine as a whole; a particular theory of the development of such an idea as the ‘brotherhood of man’; or even the general tendency to read modern ideas into ancient thought. It is hardly surprising that such material has led to a bewildering variety of interpretations. Thus while Zeller, followed by Barth and others, describes Zeno's ideal as a ‘polity of the wise’, Pöhlmann makes it include both wise and foolish. Pöhlmann, Dyroff and Karst place it in the future, Pohlenz in the past. Whereas Pearson, Hicks, Bidez and others see it as a world state embracing all humanity, for Tarn it is ‘a very limited State … a quite small community’. Recent discussions appear only to have increased the confusion, and it seems worth while to make a fresh attempt to gain clarity on the subject.