The Stoic Idea of the City

The early Stoics initiated the long natural law tradition of Western political thought. Yet Zeno, founder of the school, wrote a notorious Republic prescribing a community of the good and wise in the classical ideal state mould. Malcolm Schofield's book begins with a study of the ancient controversies which surround the Republic and supply us with much of our evidence about its contents, and goes on to explore the Platonised concept of love treated by Zeno as a key principle of political unity. In Chrysippus, Zeno's most influential successor, the idea of a city of sages is transformed into the theory of a cosmic city of gods and men. Dr Schofield examines the arguments for the theory and reconstructs its original intellectual context. In his concluding chapter, he shows how its emergence constitutes, in effect, the transition from republicanism to natural law. The scattered and hitherto underused textual evidence is translated in the course of the book, which will serve as a unique collection of source material. The Stoic Idea of the City will interest classicists, theologians and historians of political thought as well as those primarily concerned with ancient philosophy.