Lives of the Stoics

While Zeno had maintained that Stoics must participate in public life unless they are unable—and a few of his students had done so—most, to this point, did not. More and more, Zeno began to rely on his hardworking apostle, especially as the Stoics suffered attacks from rival schools. While Suillius’s motives were quite suspect and he would later be convicted on serious criminal charges and banished from Rome, there was at least some truth to his written attacks on Seneca’s hypocrisy. He would instead pursue truth where it could be found.