Zeno of Citium

A philosopher born in Citium on Cyprus who moved to Athens and, after studying with several teachers including the Cynic Crates, began teaching in the Stoa Poikile, the Painted Porch, around 300 BCE, giving Stoicism its name. Zeno taught that virtue, understood as living in agreement with reason and with nature, is the only true good, and that external things such as wealth, health, and reputation are, strictly, indifferent, useful to prefer but not necessary for a good life. Almost none of his own writing survives; his teaching is known mainly through later summaries and through the more completely preserved works of later Stoics such as Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, who developed and transmitted the school he founded.