STATE OF THE ART & RESEARCH

Hans von Arnim 

(Gerswalde, 1859-Wien, 1931)

[1927 © Georg Fayer - ÖNB, Bildarchiv Austria Inventarnummer Pb 580.555-F 283] 

https://www.bildarchivaustria.at/Pages/ImageDetail.aspx?p_iBildID=10450663

Alongside Epicurus’ school, Stoicism is the most important current of thought in Hellenistic philosophy. The first phase of this school extends from Zeno of Citium (334/333–262/261 BCE) to Chrysippus’ followers (viz. up to the end of the 2nd century BCE). Apart from some fragments transmitted by the Herculaneum papyri and the medieval manuscript tradition (viz. Stobaeus), only indirect witnesses on the early Stoics remain today.

The huge corpus of this material was collected mostly in Hans von Arnim’s Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta (3 vols., Leipzig 1903–1905; in 1924 Maximilian Adler, a Czech classical philologist who was murdered by the Nazis in the Auschwitz concentration camp, published a further volume containing the Indices).

In reality, from the 17th to the 19th century there had already been various partial attempts to collect and/or comment on the extant fragments of the early Stoics, in particular (but not only) of Chrysippus. We may remember:

(1) G.H. Hagedorn, Moralia Chrysippea e Rerum Naturis petita, Altdorf 1685; Id. Ethica Chrysippi, Norimberga 1715. 

(2) J.F. Richter, De Chrysippo Stoico fastuoso, Diss. Lipsiae 1738. 

(3) F. Baguet, De Chrysippi vita doctrina et reliquiis, Diss. Lovanii 1822. 

(4) C. Petersen, Philosophiae Chrysippeae fundamenta in notionum dispositione posita, Altona 1827. 

(5) N. Saal, De Aristone Chio et Herillo Carthaginiensi Stoicis commentatio, Pars I: De Aristonis Chii vita scriptis et doctrina, Diss. Coloniae 1852.

(6) A. Gercke, Chrysippea, in Jahrbücher für classische Philologie, Suppl. XIV, 1885, 692–779. 

(7) R. Nicolai, De logicis Chrysippi libris tam colligendis quam ad doctrinae rationes accomodate disponendis commentatio, Quedlinburg 1859.

(8) C. Aronis, Χρύσιππος γραμματικός, Diss. Jenae 1885.

(9) In 1891 the English scholar A.C. Pearson first published the fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes in a systematic way (The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes, with Introduction and Explanatory Notes: An Essay which Obtained the Hare Prize in the Year 1889, London).

This last work constituted, by von Arnim’s explicit admission, the basis of his volume devoted to the founder of the Stoa and his successors.

Anyway, during the last century there have been several partial attempt to correct, translate, and/or integrate von Arnim’ s collection. They can be summarized in the following timeline:

(1) N. Festa, I frammenti degli Stoici antichi, 2 vols., Bari 1932-1935.

(2) R. Anastasi, I frammenti degli Stoici antichi, Padua 1962.

(3) É. Bréhier & P.-M. Schuhl, Les Stoïciens, Paris 1962.

(4) M. Baldassarri, La logica stoica: testimonianze e frammenti, 8 vols., Como 1984–1987.

(5) A.A. Long & D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 2 vols. Cambridge 1987 (German transl. of vol. 1 by K. Hülser, Die hellenistischen Philosophen, Stuttgart-Weimar 1999).

(6) K. Hülser, Die Fragmente zur Dialektik der Stoiker, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1987-1988.

(7) A.T. Watanabe, Cleanthes, Fragments: Text and Commentary, Diss. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1988.

(8) M. Isnardi Parente, Stoici antichi, 2 vols., Turin 1989.

(9) R. Radice, Stoici antichi: Tutti i frammenti secondo la raccolta di Hans von Arnim, Milan 1998 (repr. 2014).

(10) R. Dufour, Chrysippe: Œuvre philosophique, 2 vols., Paris 2004 (2nd ed. 2019).

(11) M.D. Boeri & R. Salles, Los filósofos estoicos: ontología, lógica, física y ética, Sankt Augustin 2014.

Despite these attempts, the Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta still remain a reference point in scholarship. The New von Arnim will replace this work in its entirety. The ongoing editions will be divided into four parts, focused on Zeno of Citium, the disciples of Zeno (including the so-called ‘heterodox’ Stoics), Chrysippus of Soli, and the disciples of Chrysippus, respectively.

Each volume will be accompanied by commentaries also devoted to Stoic figures sometimes neglected in scholarship (e.g., Apollophanes of Antioch, Diogenes of Babylon, Dionysius of Cyrene, Aristobulus etc.). An additional volume will contain all testimonies where the general name of the Stoics appears (von Arnim had conventionally considered this kind of evidence as Chrysippean, tout court).