PHASES

The history of the Stoic school is conventionally divided into three phases:

• Early Stoicism: from Zeno's foundation of the school, c. 300, to the late second century b.c.: the period which includes the headship of the greatest Stoic of them all, Chrysippus

• Middle Stoicism: the era of Panaetius and Posidonius

• Roman Stoicism: the Roman Imperial period, dominated by Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius

Although the Stoic tradition’s continuity is at least as important as any resolution into distinct phases, the traditional divisions do reflect key changes which no school history can afford to ignore. The following account will, in fact, assume a rough division into five phases, despite acknowledgment of extensive overlaps between them:

1. the first generation

2. the era of the early Athenian scholarchs

3. the Platonising phase (‘Middle Stoicism’)

4. the first century b.c. decentralisation

5. the Imperial phase

The primary ground for separating these is that each represents, to some extent, a different perspective on what it is to be a Stoic – that is, on what allegiances and commitments are entailed by the chosen label.