2.1 Bio-doxography

We have no precise biographical information on Apollophanes. We can only say that he was born in Antioch, Mesopotamia,¹⁰ at the beginning of the 3rd century BCE. Later, in Athens, he followed Aristo of Chios,¹¹ who, in 262/1 BCE—the year of Zeno’s death, which occurred during the archonship of Arrhenides¹² —established himself as a popular lecturer at the Cynosarges, so much so that he came to be regarded as the founder of a new school (αἱρετιστής).¹³ From Philodemus’ On Rhetoric (T 1¹⁴ ) we indirectly learn that Apollophanes was a model of the active life, i.e. that he was politically engaged; therefore, he stood as an illustrious exponent of a kind of bios that was the absolute opposite of that advocated by the Kepos.¹⁵ In some ways, the Philodemean testimony suggests that Apollophanes’ activity made him a charismatic character, perhaps even outside his school. Philodemus evokes the image of a tower (τὴν … τ??ύρ|[σι]ν) in relation to Apollophanes¹⁶ and, in mentioning the figure of a tribune (ἐπὶ] τοῦ βήματος), he seems to be making an indirect reference to the philosopher’s marked oratorical skills—a characteristic he had in common with his teacher, who was known as the ‘Siren’ on account of his rhetorical prowess.¹⁷ Unfortunately we do not know which and how many offices Apollophanes may have held, in what circumstances he displayed his eloquence, and indeed in what way he participated in the political events of his time.

The number of Apollophanes’ works is unknown and the sources only hand down two titles: Physics (T 2) and Aristo (T 8). The latter treatise is particularly significant because it is connected to the bio-doxographical aspects of this Stoic thinker. The ambiguity of Athenaeus’ passage about Apollophanes’ works has caused much discussion, giving rise to conflicting theses. In T 8, in particular, we read that both Eratosthenes of Cyrene and Apollophanes, both disciples of Aristo, were the authors of a treatise titled Aristo, in which they spoke about their teacher’s φιληδονία. Hirzel considered this testimony to be proof of the fact that Apollophanes was a dissident pupil of Aristo.¹⁸ Ioppolo, instead, proposed to consider this piece of news in objective terms, without reading any disparaging intent into it. To support this interpretation, she evoked the analogous information concerning Eratosthenes, suggesting that we interpret Aristo’s ethics as a non-radical anti-hedonistic doctrine.¹⁹

Ioppolo’s thesis is highly questionable, especially since even in Eratosthenes’ case Aristo’s debauchery does not appear to be described in a neutral way. Indeed, the image of the perforation of the wall of Pleasure represents a Verspottung that clearly betrays a certain resentment, if not a deep sense of disappointment.²⁰ Therefore, I am inclined to re-evaluate Hirzel’s thesis and to assign the verb ἐμφανίζω in Athenaeus’ testimony a negative meaning (‘to denounce’, as I prefer to translate, or rather ‘to accuse’, not simply ‘to make clear’). But that is not all. In my opinion the solution to the problem is to be found in the adverb ὕστερον that precedes the quotation from Eratosthenes’ Aristo. It is quite evident that according to this passage Aristo only devoted himself to φιληδονία at an advanced stage of his life. On closer inspection, even Athenaeus’ testimony on Apollophanes suggests a sort of “conversion to pleasure” in Aristo’s old age. The reference to Dionysius of Heraclea that immediately follows Apollophanes’ “denunciation” of his teacher’s φιληδονία (περὶ δὲ Διονυσίου τοῦ Ἡρακλεώτου τί δεῖ καὶ λέγειν;) sounds like a confirmation of this perspective. But evidently this sort of moral “derailment”, which was undoubtedly experienced by his closest disciples as a sort of (philosophical) betrayal, occurred in the very last phase of Aristo’s life. Hence, it did not erase the memory of Aristo’s ethics as a rigid and rigoristic doctrine: an image attested above all by Cicero,²¹ but also, for example, by Clement of Alexandria.²² Although Apollophanes’ criticism of Aristo on the ethical level occurred in the later phase of their relationship, it helps to make Apollophanes a very sui generis ‘Aristonean’ even in the field of ethics, despite the strong points of contact between him and his teacher.²³ But this originality will become clearer towards the end of my attempt to delineate this figure on the historical-philosophical level.

2.2 Logic

Judging from the sources available to us, the only epistemological principle defended by Aristo, in polemical opposition to the Sceptical Academy (particularly Arcesilaus), would appear to have been that of sensory evidence (ἐνάργεια) and the cataleptic impression.²⁴ His philosophy, however, was inspired by a radical anti-dialectical approach, entailing a focus on ethics alone.²⁵ Long observes that Aristo’s anti-dialectical attitude should be read in the light of his tendency to emphasise the Cynical imprinting of Stoicism.²⁶ However, it is reasonable to believe that the three-book treatise Against the Dialecticians was directed against dialectic, understood—according to the double definition given by Diogenes Laertius (7.42)—as the ‘science of discoursing correctly on arguments in question-and-answer form’ (ἐπιστήμην οὖσαν … τοῦ ὀρθῶς διαλέγεσθαι περὶ τὸν ἐν ἐρωτήσει καὶ ἀποκρίσει λόγον), rather than as the ‘science of things true and false and neither true nor false’ (ἐπιστήμην ἀληθῶν καὶ ψευδῶν καὶ οὐδετέρων), since the latter meaning of dialectic was only introduced by Chrysippus.²⁷ It is therefore evident that Apollophanes’ interest in dialectic must be referred to the first kind of dialectic. The fact remains that this interest in dialectic stood in contrast to his teacher’s dismissive attitude towards this field of investigation. Thus, Apollophanes remained faithful to Zeno as regards the structure and partition of philosophy (logic, physics, and ethics) and we have no reason to believe that he ever changed his opinion on this matter.²⁸

The Herculanean, most likely Philodemean, treatise De sensibus (T 3) suggests that Apollophanes too was a staunch supporter of the principle of evidence. In this sense he was truly ‘Aristonean’. But the other information we have does not allow us to reduce Apollophanes’ Stoicism to the ethical field alone. We are therefore entitled to regard his defence of ἐνάργεια as part of a purely epistemological battle. Apollophanes, however, also pursued—certainly not by chance—physical studies.²⁹ His ‘heterodox’ side, if we exclude the fidelity to Aristo’s doctrine of virtue,³⁰ does not even stand out from a complete disinterest in “logic” in the broad sense of the word, in particular as regards such a complex aspect of the theory of knowledge as analogy (and memory),³¹ attested precisely by PHerc. 19/698. Together with col. 19, col. 18 Monet constitutes a thematic section of the treatise devoted to the relationship between sense perception and time. The anonymous Epicurean writer’s criticism of Apollophanes’ theory of the involvement of sense perceptions in analogy should be contextualised precisely by viewing it in relation to this line of reasoning. For the Epicurean author sense perceptions, which are irrational in themselves, cannot be endowed with memory; hence, it is absurd to believe that present sense perceptions, through the process of analogy, can be remembered by past ones and therefore be influenced (or confused) by them.³² From this critique it is clear that Apollophanes advocated a doctrine of memory that somewhat resembles the Platonic theory of recollection,³³ but we are unable to establish to what extent this similarity was a conscious theoretical option.

In this regard, the expression ὑπὸ τοῦ | πιθανοῦ κ[ι]νηθείς at lines 4-5 of T 3 remains a riddle. What does it mean that Apollophanes was led by the πιθανόν to ascribe the faculty of memory to sense perceptions and to assume that the latter are involved in the process of analogy? I understand that substantivised adjective as a reference to the “criterion of the probable”, thus rejecting the reading which would lead that term back to the strictly rhetorical-sophistic field.³⁴ This is obviously something different from the πιθανόν that was later adopted in the Sceptical Academy (viz. Carneades). I would argue that the Epicurean author is alluding here to a reasoning developed by Apollophanes in accordance with the principles of his school. In my opinion, he is referring to Zeno of Citium’s doctrine of memory, which defined the latter as a sort of ‘storage of impressions’ (μνήμη θησαυρισμὸς οὖσα φαντασιῶν).³⁵ But the impressions are conveyed to the intellect (νοῦς) precisely by sense perceptions, without which it would be unable to grasp bodies. So the intellect behaves like wax receiving an imprint (τύπωσις).³⁶

Now, the role of impressions in the Stoic doctrine of knowledge could justify the technical meaning of the term πιθανόν in the passage from PHerc. 19/698 we are dealing with. Diocles of Magnesia attests that, for the Stoics, an utterance is ‘probable’ when it leads to assent (πιθανὸν δέ ἐστιν ἀξίωμα τὸ ἄγον εἰς συγκατάθεσιν).³⁷ In Stoic epistemology, impressions are classified into two groups, persuasive (πιθαναί) and non-persuasive (ἀπίθανοι): the former are those impressions that produce an incisive action on the soul, the latter those that distance us from assent. Both types of impressions can be either true or false. The true ones can be cataleptic or non-cataleptic. Non-cataleptic impressions are affected by the state in which the perceiver finds himself (for example, madness in the case of a madman). Cataleptic impressions, on the other hand, are imprinted on the soul starting from a truly existing reality, meaning that they perfectly correspond to their external objects and, starting from sense perceptions, induce us to assent.³⁸

2.3 Physics

As already mentioned in § 2.1, we know that Apollophanes dealt with physics and that he devoted a special treatise to this subject, in which—among other topics—he certainly examined the concept of vacuum (T 2). This fundamental theme in Stoic physics had already been a focus of analysis for Zeno of Citium, according to whom vacuum consists in the absence of a body. Together with place, time, and lekta, vacuum is one of the ‘incorporeals’³⁹ and is characterised by being continuous, infinite, separated from the cosmos, outside the sky (i.e. extending around it), and therefore outside of the ‘whole’.⁴⁰ We have no evidence to suggest that Apollophanes introduced substantial innovations to these foundations of the Stoic theory of vacuum, which Chrysippus later explored in a more systematic manner.⁴¹

The other line of physical studies that Apollophanes certainly pursued is related to the nature and functions of the soul. Indeed, we may suppose that psychology was one of the subjects in which Apollophanes was most interested. Aëtius (T 5) attests that the Stoics in general considered the soul to consist of eight parts (μέρη):⁴² the five parts pertaining to sensory perceptions (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch); the phonetic part (the one related to the voice); the spermatic part (the one related to reproduction); and, finally, the regent part, that is to say the main part of the soul from which all the others branch off (Aëtius uses the metaphor of the octopus and its tentacles). Apollophanes instead apparently proposed a division into nine parts.⁴³ If, as I believe, this is plausible (see below), then Apollophanes’ doxa can be regarded as the expression of a ‘heterodox’ thesis concerning this fundamental aspect of Stoic psychology, not least on account of the very position it occupies in Aëtius’ chapter. As a matter of fact, Apollophanes’ opinion is the only one attributed to a specific Stoic. However, Aëtius does not say which part of the soul Apollophanes identified as the ninth, and it can be assumed that he also accepted the other eight indicated in the previous doxa. The problem is to understand what meaning the concept of “part (of the soul)” had in his psychological doctrine.

Even before this issue, the question emerges of the relationship between Aëtius’ testimony and the far more detailed one from Tertullian’s De anima (T 6). These two pieces of evidence differ in terms of their structure. For example, Aëtius’ text lacks the ascending trend in the number of parts of the soul that we find in the Church Father.⁴⁴ However, as regards the shared doxa on Apollophanes, it is perfectly possible that both Aëtius and Tertullian depended on a common doxographical source. Following Diels’ authoritative opinion, Waszink claimed that Tertullian’s source was Soranus’ treatise On the Soul (Περὶ ψυχῆς).⁴⁵ But this is not the place to delve into such aspects of the Quellenforschung. What is more interesting for our purposes is the fact that from Tertullian’s passage it emerges that it makes little sense to speak of Stoic ‘heterodoxy’ with regard to the “mereology” of the soul, since, from Zeno of Citium to Posidonius, there was never a unity of views on this point within the Stoic school: Zeno identified three parts, Apollophanes nine, Chrysippus eight, and other unspecified Stoics twelve; finally, as far as Middle Stoicism is concerned, the division ranges from the six parts theorised by Panaetius to the fourteen posited by Posidonius, who later increased them to seventeen.⁴⁶ Tertullian, however, warns us that psychological divisions do not refer so much to partes (in Greek, μέρη) as to vires et efficaciae et operae, viz. ‘faculties’ or ‘powers’ (in Greek, δυνάμεις). Unfortunately, the surviving testimonies on Stoic psychology are often conflicting with regard to the relationship between ‘parts’ and ‘faculties’ or ‘powers’. Sextus Empiricus, for example, seems to combine the two notions and lead them both back to the opposition between rational (λογικόν) and irrational (ἄλογον).⁴⁷ There are undoubtedly certain authors, such as Diogenes Laertius, Porphyry, and Philo of Alexandria, who speak exclusively of ‘parts’: they too enumerate eight, according to the same criteria followed by Aëtius (i.e. the five senses, phonation, reproduction, and reason).⁴⁸ But, as Inwood observes, probably “the most important partition of the soul in standard Stoic theory is not a division into parts at all, but a distinction of powers within one part”, namely the regent part of the soul.⁴⁹ As is well known, this is confirmed above all by an excerpt from Iamblichus’ treatise On the Soul handed down by Stobaeus:⁵⁰ among other things, Iamblichus states that while it is true that the soul is divided into eight ‘parts’ (ὀκταμερῆ), its ‘faculties’ (δυνάμεις) are many more.⁵¹ Although the matter remains unclear, it is possible to infer that the ‘parts’ are the sections into which the soul is spatially divided and which allow it to exercise its ‘faculties’, i.e. its substantial qualities.

To return to Aëtius’ report, a working hypothesis might be that the doxographer generally defines the parts of the soul as μέρη. But this does not exclude that Apollophanes’ position was only apparently ‘heterodox’ in comparison to the original tripartition of the soul in Zeno. Most probably Apollophanes referred precisely to the ‘faculties’ (δυνάμεις) of the regent part rather than to the ‘parts’ (of the soul) in the strict sense.⁵²

2.4 Ethics

Let us move on to ethics. Athenaeus’ testimony on pleasure (T 8) has already been discussed. We should now reflect on the two sources that allow us to say something about Apollophanes’ conception of virtue and death. It is best to start with the first problem. Diogenes Laertius (T 7) attests that Apollophanes was a supporter of the uniqueness of virtue. According to Zeller, the doctrine of the one virtue, which Apollophanes identifies as φρόνησις, is an essentially Aristonean position.⁵³ But this thesis was already corrected by Hirzel, who hypothesised that Apollophanes’ view of this issue was rather closer to Zeno’s.⁵⁴ In any case, according to the doxai on the subject that Diogenes Laertius attributes to the other Stoics before the testimony on Apollophanes, the latter certainly disagreed with, and probably attacked, the stance held by his contemporary Cleanthes. Indeed, Diogenes says that Cleanthes,⁵⁵ along with Chrysippus⁵⁶ and Antipater,⁵⁷ was among those who posited more than four virtues.⁵⁸

Finally, Apollophanes’ ethical reflection also extended to the topic of death. This must have been a central aspect of his philosophy, for otherwise it would be difficult to explain why Philodemus chose Apollophanes as the target of his polemic when seeking to criticise the Stoic school. To better contextualise the passage, in T 9 I have decided to include the two columns from Book 4 of Philodemus’ On Death that follow the very fragmentary one in which Apollophanes’ name appears (col. 84 Delattre). Basing myself on Delattre’s new edition, I believe that the Epicurean philosopher’s polemical arguments provide sufficient elements to infer e contrario what Apollophanes supposedly thought about death and the ethical questions surrounding it.

According to some scholars, Philodemus is here contesting the idea that one can die without pain at the moment of separation of the soul from the body.⁵⁹ The new reconstruction of the passage suggests that this was rather the position adopted by Apollophanes (and by the Stoics in general, obviously from the Epicurean point of view). As it is especially clear from col. 86 Delattre, Philodemus’ aim is precisely to demonstrate (against his Stoic opponent) that, at least in some cases (l. 11: ποτ’), the severing of the ‘bond of sympathy’ between body and soul is painless. Delattre points out that “cette conviction, il la fonde précisément sur le constat qu’il se rencontre des morts indolores (voir supra, col. 82,1-6), et loin que les phénomènes s’y opposent, certains confirment indiscutablement cette possibilité”.⁶⁰ Thus, although pain accompanies fatal diseases in many cases, it cannot be considered the cause of death in sick people. Pain is rather the result of the close relationship between soul and body, and while death corresponds to the dissolution of that relationship, it will not necessarily be painful.⁶¹ Indeed, in some cases death—that is, the disintegration of the atoms of the soul and the dissolution of its bond with the body—can even be a pleasant experience.⁶²

If this is Philodemus’ view, one could hypothesise that, according to Apollophanes, the moment of death is always accompanied by pain. However, we have no way of knowing what strategies he envisioned to cope with this form of pain. In this regard, we can only imagine that those strategies aimed to show that death, despite the physical pain it necessarily entails, is not an evil, as Zeno had already argued.⁶³ Therefore, from col. 84 to line 5 of col. 86 of PHerc. 1050, Philodemus paraphrased this Stoic view. He then challenged the philosophical foundations of this view, starting from line 6 of col. 86. The direct intervention by Philodemus at this point, with the consequent exposition of the Epicurean point of view on death—which is not to be feared as it is nothing to us⁶⁴ —and ἀναισθησία,⁶⁵ is proved by the presence of a diple obelismene precisely between lines 5 and 6 of col. 86.

2.5 Conclusions

From all that has been argued so far, it emerges that Apollophanes is a figure difficult to “label” within the context of first-generation Stoicism. On the basis of the patchy surviving information about him, it is possible to reconstruct a prominent personality on the philosophical level, who with regard to many important points was caught between the extremes of Stoic ‘heterodoxy’ and ‘orthodoxy’. Defining him as a ‘heterodox’ philosopher tout court does little justice to the complexity of his positions, especially those which distinguish him from his teacher, sometimes in a striking way. In particular, a) Apollophanes rejected Aristo’s “pan-ethicism” and openly criticised his teacher’s hedonism in his treatise Aristo, which—contrary to what one might think—cannot have been a celebratory work; above all, b) he also dealt with certain aspects of dialectic and the Stoic theory of knowledge; and c) he studied Stoic physics, by composing a work, Physics, in which he dealt with the topic of vacuum, and developing his own original theory of the soul and its partitions.

I think these elements are enough to conclude that the relations between Apollophanes and Aristo evolved over time and ultimately deteriorated in an irreparable way. Initially Apollophanes was a fervent supporter of his teacher’s theses, but he later distanced himself from him with regard to some fundamental issues, even to the point of openly criticising him for his pro-hedonist tendencies. The treatise Aristo most likely sprung precisely from Apollophanes’ need to clarify his own autonomous position and to explain (possibly to the ‘Aristoneans’) the reasons for his dissent. In general, it can be assumed that in the latter phase of his life Apollophanes adopted more ‘orthodox’ views with respect to the genuine Stoic tradition, both in terms of the general approach to philosophical research envisaged by Zeno of Citium, and in terms of the defence of the school’s rigoristic ethical attitude.