02 JACQUES BRUNSCHWIG 11-2 Copy

Ο Ζήνων ανάμεσα στο Κίτιο και στην Αθήνα JACQUES BRUNSCHWIG Ο Ζήνων, γεννημένος στο Κίτιο, πέρασε το μεγαλύτερο μέρος της ζωής του στην Αθήνα. Η ιστορία του αποτελεί παράδειγμα πολιτισμικής και κοινωνικής ένταξης ενός μετανάστη. Πολλές ευνοϊκές συνθήκες έκαναν αυτή την επιτυχία εφικτή: ο εξελληνισμός της Κύπρου, η ύπαρξη μιας ευρέως διαδεδομένης Ελληνικής παιδείας, η κυκλοφορία και το εμπόριο βιβλίων (φαίνεται πως ο εκπολιτισμός του Ζήνωνα πραγματοποιήθηκε κυρίως μέσω βιβλίων), η ύπαρξη μιας ελεύθερης, ανταγωνιστικής φιλοσοφικής αγοράς, η έλλειψη του φαινομένου της ξενοφοβίας στην Αθήνα. Ο Ζήνων κατόρθωσε να ενταχθεί χωρίς να διακόψει τους αστικούς και συναισθηματικούς του δεσμούς με την πόλη της καταγωγής του. Έχω την γνώμη ότι επιλέγοντας να διδάξει στη Στοά, ένα δυσοίωνο μνημειακό χώρο για τους Αθηναίους, έδειξε πόσο λίγο ενδιαφερόταν για τις αντιξοότητες της τοπικής πολιτικής ιστορίας. Έχω τη γνώμη επίσης ότι η αρχική και προσωρινή του συμπάθεια για τον Κυνισμό, αυτή τη ριζικά αντι- κοινωνική ιδεολογία, ήταν πιο πολύ ένας πνευματικός πειραματισμός παρά ένας ολόψυχος προσηλυτισμός στο Κυνικό τρόπο ζωής. Tελικά, το ψήφισμα που ψηφίστηκε από τους Αθηναίους προς τιμή του δείχνει ότι η ένταξη του ήταν πράγματι επιτυχημένη, ίσως κάπως περισσότερο απ΄ όσο έπρεπεo αλλά πρέπει να λάβουμε υπόψη μας το στοιχείο της Αθηναϊκής αυτό- επιδοκιμασίας στην "πολιτικά σωστή" εικόνα που αποδόθηκε στο Ζήνωνα με το ψήφισμα αυτό. Zeno between Kition and Athens JACQUES BRUNSCHWIG Zeno was born here: thanks to the organizers of the present conference, it is our privilege to be able to utter this sentence to-day, and to express thereby a true proposition. Zeno was born here, yes indeed; but he spent most of his life in Athens, speaking Greek and writing in Greek; he never visited his native city again, so far as we know; and in Athens he died, loaded with official honours. He was the son of a rich Cypriot merchant; it is quite likely that he was a Phoenician by his birth (one of his nicknames, in Athens, will be Phoinikidion1, “the little Phoenician”), and also, according to some scholars, by his mother tongue. He is, in an exemplary fashion, what would be called nowadays an “accultured person”. His story is, among other things, the story of an immigrant who successfully became fully integrated in his new cultural surroundings. This story has already been told and studied, of course, by nearly all of the historians of the Stoic school; however, the special subject I wish to deal with has been somewhat neglected, if I am not mistaken.2 Needless to say, I have absolutely no new pieces of evidence to bring into the discussion. I would only like to draw attention to some aspects of the evidence, which I believe have been hitherto largely ignored. Such is certainly not the case with two aspects of the subject that I shall leave aside, as far as possible: first, the much debated and slippery question whether the Stoic philosophy owes anything to 1 Diogenes Laertius (hereafter: DL) VII 3. See also Cic. Fin. IV 56 and (with distinctly xenophobic overtones) Tusc. V 34. 2 It has been sketched in a very short paper by Gabaude 1996: 11-14. Much more substantial is Yon 1997-1998, which my friend Christian Le Roy, Professor of Ancient History at the Paris - I University, kindly brought to my knowledge. 14 Jacques Brunschwig Zeno’s supposedly "Semitic" origins; and secondly, the complex problem of Zeno’s philosophical curriculum before his founding the Stoic school.3 What primarily concerns me is to explore, at least cursorily, the combination of various favourable factors which Zeno met, both in Kition and in Athens, and which allowed him to become a star example of a successful integration. Perhaps there is still something to be learnt, even in our own days, from this story. But should we say from this story, or rather from this myth ? A general caveat is in order here. When we want to say anything about Zeno’s life, his way of life, his relationships with his native city and his adoptive city, we are obliged to rely, willy nilly, on the main source about these matters, namely Diogenes Laertius’ Life of Zeno in Book VII. The historical value of the information it provides, especially in matter of anecdotes, sayings, biographical details, etc., is of course highly debatable, especially as some of these informations are given in different and often incompatible versions. Here I shall not attempt to assess the value and likelihood of this information. Thus, I shall deliberately run the risk of telling, not the story, but at best the myth of a successful integration. Let us first come back to Kition. Diogenes (VII 1) describes Kition as "a Greek political entity (πÒλισµα •λληνικÒν) which had received Phoenician settlers", thus as a multi-ethnic society with Greek political institutions, apparently containing a predominant Greek population and a minor group of non-Greek settlers or descendants of settlers. This description, according to Pohlenz, the main supporter of Zeno’s "Semitismus", is an attempt to demonstrate Zeno’s Hellenism, and puts the facts of the matter upside down; actually, in the fourth century, the Greeks in Cyprus still had to fight for political and cultural domination against an active Semitic population, mainly concentrated in Kition.4 Some of 3 See David Hahm’s contribution to the present volume, and his 1992, as well as Mansfeld 1986. 4 See Pohlenz 1967: I, 25 and 26 n. 2. During the IVth century, "les Kitiens - “Phéniciens” de langue et de religion - sont les seuls vrais concurrents à Chypre des Salaminiens - qui se proclament “hellénophiles” (Yon 1997-1998: 169). Zeno between Kition and Athens 15 Pohlenz’s historical arguments seem to be serious.5 But he has apparently somewhat overestimated his case: as a matter of facts, works of art of Greek style, or even imported from Greece, have been found in Larnaca-Kition and its area, as well as a number of bilingual inscriptions, both public and private.6 According to Marguerite Yon, "il est évident que des groupes sociaux chypro- phéniciens comme celui dont était issu Zénon devaient pratiquer normalement la langue grecque, à la fois comme langue d’échanges commerciaux et comme langue de culture".7 Zeno’s Greek acculturation thus seems to have begun largely before he reached the shores of Greece proper. Much has been built on the basis of his father’s name, Mnaseas. This name is mentioned several times in DL VII.8 It is generally agreed that Mnaseas is a hellenized version of Semitic names like Manasse or Menahem. If that is true, the conclusion to draw would be, of course, that Zeno’s father was a Phoenician; but also, and much more importantly in my opinion, that he was already a hellenized Phoenician.9 Of course, we cannot know whether 5 For instance, he points out that an uninterrupted series of Phoenician tyrants governed Kition until 312. On the linguistic level, he mentions a funeral monument dedicated by two brothers with Phoenician names to their father, called Menexenos: the linguistic evolution was not onesidedly favourable to Hellenism. According to Yon 1997-1998: 166, n. 2 et 3, the latest archaeological and epigraphical evidence confirms that local coins and official inscriptions were written in Phoenician until 254 at least. 6 See Yon 1997-1998: 170. 7 Yon 1997-1998: 170. 8 §§ 1, 10, 11, 31; in the first passage, an alternative version, Demeas, is also mentioned. 9 “C’est un des noms grecs qui apparaissent le plus fréquemment dans l’onomastique des Phéniciens grécisés de l'époque hellénistique” (Masson 1969: 692-693). Perhaps, however, Zeno’s father “se désignait comme Mnaséas en grec, et comme Menahem en phénicien” (Yon 1997-1998: 172); hence, it would be normally expected that a Greek author like Diogenes Laertius only mentions his Greek name. However, in another case (admittedly a bit different), Diogenes is able to mention both names, the local one and the Greek one (see IV 67: the Carthaginese Hasdrubal first taught philosophy in his fatherland and in his own language, and later became famous, as pupil and successor of Carneades, under the name of Cleitomachus). 16 Jacques Brunschwig Mnaseas was the first of his lineage to have settled in Cyprus and to have adopted a hellenized version of his name (like so many modern European immigrants who changed their names when arriving in the United States); but that is fairly unlikely, given his belonging to the class of well-off merchants. Moreover, Mnaseas’ hellenization is sufficiently proved by the fact that he gave his son a distinctly Greek name, "Zeno".10 In any case, it seems pretty certain that the process of hellenization, in Zeno’s family, was earlier than Zeno himself. Now let us have a look on a more special point, namely Zeno’s encounter with Greek philosophy. As is well known, there are various rival accounts of the story in DL VII. According to Demetrius the Magnesian, the source of Diogenes VII 31, Mnaseas was a merchant; he often went to Athens, and he brought away from there many "Socratic books" for Zeno while he was still a boy living in Kition. According to this version, then, "<Zeno> had been well trained even before he left his native place". Another version (DL VII 2-3), quite different and more famous, "accentuates the role of chance in this event"11: Zeno had been a merchant ship owner like his father, trading in purple; when he was already thirty years old and well established in his commercial career, he had his ship wrecked near Peiraeus. He then happened to sit down in an Athenian bookshop (this is enough to indicate what the curiosity of our young merchant tended at), and to pick up a copy of Xenophon’s Memorabilia II.

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