are of public esteem that the Athenians decreed
him a golden crown, and on account of his approved integrity, deposited
the keys of their citadel in his hands. Antigouus Gonates, King of
Macedon, was a constant attendant at his lectures whilst at Athens,
and when that monarch returned, he earnestly invited Zeno to his court.
During the philosopher's lifetime, the Athenians erected a statue of
brass as a mark of the estimation in which they held him.

Zeno lived to the extreme age of ninety-eight, when, as he was leaving,
his school one day, he fell and broke his finger. The consciousness of
his infirmity afflicted him so much, that he exclaimed, "Why am I thus
importuned? Earth, I obey thy summons!" and immediately going home, he
put his affairs in order, and strangled himself. In person, Zeno was
tall and slender; his brow was furrowed with thought; and this, with
his long and close application to study, gave a tinge of severity to his
aspect. Although of a feeble constitution, he preserved his health by
his great abstemiousness, his diet consisting of figs, bread, and honey.
He was plain and modest in his dress and habits and very frugal in all
his expenses, showing the same respect for the poor as for the rich, and
conversing as freely with the slave as he did with the king. Independent
in spirit, he broke off all communication with his friend Democharis,
because that person had offered to procure a gratuity for Zeno from
the King of Macedon. His system appears to have been little more than a
collection from his various lessons of whatever was most in unison with
his peculiar habit of thought, and an attempt to reconcile and combine
in one system the various elements of different theories. Taking from
so many schools various portions of their doctrine, he seems to have
provoked the antagonism of many of his contemporaries, and several
philosophers of learning and ability employed their eloquence to
diminish the growing influence of the new school. Towards the close of
his life, he found a powerful antagonist in the person of Epicurus, and
the Epicureans and Stoics have since treated each other as rival sects.
Zeno's school appears to have been generally a resort for the poor, and
it was a common joke amongst his adversaries, that poverty was the charm
for which he was indebted for his scholars. The list of his disciples,
however, contains the names of some very rich and powerful men, who
may have regarded the Stoic th