Tom Hodgkinson on how a street brawl in ancient Athens led to the birth of Stoicism

Stoicism was born in the city-state of Athens in 303 bc when a bearded and dishevelled old philosopher spilled a bowl of lentil soup down the legs of an earnest young man of 30. The old man was called Crates the Cynic, and the young man was called Zeno. He was a Phoenician from the city of Citium in Cyprus, an Athenian colony. He’d been shipwrecked near Athens while carrying a cargo of porphyry, a purplish rock used for building monuments.

In Athens he found a bookshop (or we might say a scroll-shop) and started reading the Memorabilia of Xenophon, a book about Socrates. He was so inspired by the wisdom of the philosopher that he asked the bookseller where on earth he might find men like these today. Crates happened to be ambling past the shop at this moment and the bookseller said, ‘Follow that man.’

Crates had himself been taught by Diogenes of Sinope, the notorious Cynic philosopher who was famous for having lived in an upturned wine cask. Zeno followed Crates around and drank in his philosophy, but was a bit too shy, meek and reserved to adopt the shamelessness of the Cynics. These philosophers lived like dogs, hence their name, which means ‘dog-like’ (compare our ‘canine’). They had sex in public, urinated in the street, slept outdoors, refused to work, wore rags, gatecrashed parties, stole wine and spat at the rich people. They were punks. For them, freedom was found in a total rejection of convention.

Crates was married to Hipparchia, a well-born young woman who had rejected her smart young suitors in favour of this rather grotty old shambling figure. Imagine Slavoj Žižek but with no clothes on and carrying a stick.

In order to cure Zeno of what he saw as his excessive modesty, Crates gave him a bowl of lentil soup and told him to carry it around the streets of Athens. Later he saw that an embarrassed Zeno was trying to hide the bowl. Crates took his stick and smashed the bowl. Zeno ran away, with lentils pouring down his legs.

‘Why run away, my little Phoenician?’ shouted Crates after him. ‘Nothing terrible has befallen you.’

From this philosophical street brawl has grown the most enduring and popular of the ancient Greek schools. Zeno taught in the Stoa, a cloister in Athens decorated with paintings that one critic has called ‘the National Gallery of Athens’, which gave the Stoics their name. I guess an equivalent would be teaching in Trafalgar Square.

The Stoics were loved by the Romans, who had a Stoic emperor, Marcus Aurelius. They influenced the early Christians like St Paul, and the gospels used terms and ideas they’d developed. They are a constant feature in medieval philosophy. The Renaissance loved them; we find Stoic sentiments in Shakespeare. They remained popular through the centuries into the Victorian and modern eras. Today’s American statesmen and soldiers will profess adherence to the Stoic creed. Mental health professionals love it too: cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) borrows heavily from Stoic ideas.

To be Stoic is commonly understood to mean something like ‘uncomplaining in the face of adversity’. Little boys who were beaten at their public schools learned to conceal their tears and develop a stiff upper lip. However, this is a rather narrow view of a complex and wide-ranging philosophical system, which is a lot more hippyish and mystical than it appears.

This is an extract from How to Live Like a Stoic: A Handbook for Happiness by Tom Hodgkinson (Bloomsbury Continuum, £16.99), which is out on 12 February. Pre-order a copy via Linktree here.