Atlas of Thinkers
ThinkersAtlasTimelineLibraryBlog
WorksFragmentsQuotesReadSchoolsVirtuesPlacesIdeasConceptsInfluenceAbout

Explore

Compare

Two thinkers, side by side

Life

Portrait of Zeno of Citium
Zeno of Citium

c. 334 BCE – c. 262 BCE

HellenisticStoic

Born Citium

He lost everything in a shipwreck and found philosophy. Then he built Stoicism.

Portrait of Seneca
Seneca

c. 4 BCE – 65 CE

RomanStoic

Born Cordoba

Stoic philosopher, tutor to an emperor, and the richest man in Rome. He wrote about poverty and died by his own hand on Nero's orders.

Connection

Zeno of Citium founder of tradition Seneca — Zeno founded Stoicism. Seneca carried it into the Roman world three centuries later.

Shared Ideas

Stoic Ethics

Ideas

VirtueLogosReasonNatureStoic EthicsNatural Law
Stoic EthicsOn AngerOn the Shortness of LifeDuty

Words

“We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.”

— Zeno of Citium

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

— Seneca

“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a great deal of it.”

— Seneca

Key Moments

c. 334 BCE

Born in Citium

c. 312 BCE

Shipwreck and Discovery

c. 300 BCE

Teaching at the Painted Porch

c. 300 BCE

Virtue as the Only Good

c. 4 BCE

Born in Cordoba

41 CE

Exiled to Corsica

49 CE

Recalled to Tutor Nero

62 CE

Moral Letters to Lucilius

Works

Fragments & Doctrines

Republic

On Anger

The Minor Dialogues

Letters to Lucilius

Atlas of Thinkers

A story-first philosophy atlas. Explore history's greatest thinkers through place, time, movement, and ideas.

Letters from the Atlas

One thinker, one idea, one passage, once a month.

Explore

  • Thinkers
  • Atlas
  • Works

Browse

  • Concepts
  • Fragments
  • Volumes

About

  • About the Atlas
  • Image Credits

Volume I · Ancient Greece · 624-262 BCE