Abstract

In the first chapter, Erskine provides an interesting and exhaustive analysis of the evidence for Zeno's Politeia. He rejects statements to the effect that Zeno wrote the Politeia in his early days when he was influenced by the Cynics as the invention of the Stoics of the first century B. C., who were embarrassed by its contents. Two of the stipulations in the Politeia, that there should be no coinage and no private property, he explains in terms of the economic and political instability in fourth-century Greece. He argues that "the ideal society of Zeno's Politeia contained only the wise". There is no reason to suppose, however, that this society, however ideal, could ensure that every child would become wise. The most it could claim was that every child would become an adult who was making progress towards virtue. I can see no reason why the presence of those actively seeking virtue would disturb the homonoia of the ideal city.