Cleanthes

Cleanthes left Assos for Athens around 330 BC with no money and a fighter's build. He listened to Zeno of Citium's lectures and supported himself by carrying water after dark. When Zeno died around 262 BC, Cleanthes became the second head of the Stoic school and held the post for 32 years. He preserved Zeno's doctrines while pushing Stoic physics toward materialism and pantheism, arguing that the divine and the physical were one substance. The largest surviving fragment of his work is a Hymn to Zeus. He taught Chrysippus, who would become one of the most influential Stoic philosophers in histo…