Cleanthes

Hellenistic · Europe · 331 to 232 BCE

Second head of the Stoic school. He wrote a famous hymn to Zeus and held that we should live in harmony with nature.

What it is

Cleanthes was a Greek Stoic philosopher from Assos, a town in the Troad. He was the second head of the Stoic school, taking over after the death of its founder, Zeno of Citium, in the 260s BCE.

He was born about 330 BCE and died about 230, though the sources differ by a year or two. His pupils included Chrysippus, who followed him as head of the school, and King Antigonus II. Almost everything he wrote is lost.

The main ideas

A living universe. He taught that the divine is the fire, or ether, that gives life to everything in the universe.
The soul is a body. He argued that the soul is physical. His evidence was that the soul feels pain when the body is struck.
Living with nature. Zeno had described the goal of life as living in agreement. Cleanthes added the words "with nature", and the phrase became the familiar Stoic formula for a good life.

What it looks like in practice

Imagine someone whose plans have fallen through for reasons beyond their control. A follower of Cleanthes would ask them to look at how the world actually runs and to live in agreement with it, instead of in a quarrel with it. This is an illustration of the Stoic approach, not a passage from his writing.

Books and moments

About fifty works. Only fragments survive. They are preserved in the writings of Diogenes Laertius and Stobaeus, and a few in Cicero and Seneca.
The Hymn to Zeus. This is the most important of the surviving fragments and the largest piece we have of his own words.
Head of the school. He led the Stoics from the 260s until about the end of his life, and handed the school to Chrysippus.

Questions and criticism

How original was he? The sources do not agree on how much he added to what Zeno taught, and it is fair to ask how much of the Stoic account of nature is his own.
What is left of him? Because only fragments of his works survive, much of what is called his thought comes through later writers.
How firm are the dates? The sources give his birth and death, and the start of his leadership, a year or two apart.

Close neighbours

The pages on Zeno of Citium and Chrysippus cover the founder who came before him and the pupil who followed him. The page on Stoicism sets out the school as a whole, and the page on Seneca covers a Roman writer in whose works some of his fragments are found.

Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 29 October 2026. The sources are listed below.

Philosophies they belong to or are close to

Stoicism

Who they connect to

Influenced by

Zeno of Citium · He studied under Zeno of Citium for years and succeeded him as head of the school.

Other Hellenistic thinkers

Antisthenes · 445 to 365 BCE
Diogenes of Sinope · 412 to 323 BCE
Crates of Thebes · 365 to 285 BCE
Pyrrho of Elis · 360 to 270 BCE
Epicurus · 341 to 270 BCE
Zeno of Citium · 334 to 262 BCE
Chrysippus · 279 to 206 BCE
Carneades · 214 to 129 BCE
Cicero · 106 to 43 BCE
Lucretius · 99 to 55 BCE

Sources we used

Cleanthes · Encyclopaedia Britannica, read on 29 October 2026
Cleanthes · Wikipedia, read on 29 October 2026
Stoicism · Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, read on 29 October 2026
Stoicism · Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, read on 29 October 2026