Chapter
4. DIONYSIUS (c. 330-250 b.c.)
Dionysius, the
Renegade,
1 declared
that pleasure was the end of action ; this under the trying circumstance of an attack of ophthalmia. For so violent was his suffering
that he could not bring himself to call pain a thing
indifferent.
He was the son of Theophantus and a native of
Heraclea. At first, as Diocles relates, he was a pupil of his
fellow-townsman, Heraclides, next of Alexinus and Menedemus, and
lastly of Zeno.
[
167]
At the outset of his career he was fond of
literature and tried his hand at all kinds of poetry ; afterwards he
took Aratus
2 for his model, whom he strove
to imitate. When he fell away from Zeno, he went over to the
Cyrenaics, and used to frequent houses of ill fame and indulge in
all other excesses without disguise. After living till he was nearly
eighty years of age, he committed suicide by starving himself.
The following works are attributed to him :
Of Apathy, two books
On Training, two books.
Of
Pleasure, four books.
Of Wealth, Popularity and Revenge
How to live amongst Men.
Of Prosperity.
Of Ancient
Kings.
Of those who are Praised.
Of the Customs of
Barbarians.
These three, then, are the heterodox Stoics. The
legitimate successor to Zeno, however, was Cleanthes : of whom we
have now to speak.