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From, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. I, The early Presocratics and the Pythagoreans, Cambridge University Press, 1962, pp. 1-25.
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Page 24
However, even if in the wrong hands it was capable of being debased to the level of Horace's pig, yet as taught and lived by Epicurus himself his philosophy was not lacking in intellectual courage or moral nobility. Nevertheless, in spite of his arguments to the contrary, a message of hope and comfort which relies for its effect chiefly on the assurance that death means complete extinction does not seem to the majority of men to carry the word of salvation. As a counter-lure to the mystery-religions it had no great force. At the same time its explicit hedonism, and relegation of virtue to the second rank in the hierarchy of goods, earned it the disapproval of other philosophical schools. Stoicism in its pure form was an even more austere creed, yet it proved capable of existing at different levels and making a wider appeal. Stoicism became a potent force, especially when adapted by the Romans to their own ideals of conduct.
The note of the new Hellenism is struck at the outset by the nationality of the founder of this philosophy, Zeno of Citium, not a Greek at all but a Phoenician Semite, as was almost certainly the great systematizer of Stoic doctrine Chrysippus of Soli near Tarsus. Zeno reacted strongly against the idea that the Universe was the product of chance. He found the germ of truth rather in the mind-matter complex of Heraclitus, and put at the centre of his system the logos which has its material embodiment in fire. This union of mind and matter, for Heraclitus a naive assumption, was for Zeno a conscious achievement, following on study and explicit rejection of the Platonic and Aristotelian forms of dualism. Nothing can exist without material embodiment. The cosmos is the work of a providence which orders all things for the best, a product of conscious art, yet its designer is not transcendent. The divine essence impregnates everything, though not everywhere in the same purity. Only in man among sublunary creatures does it take the form of logos, materially represented by warm breath (pneuma). In the outer heavens it is even purer, sheer fiery mind free from the lower elements which contaminate it in and around the earth. By the possession of logos, which the lower animals lack, man, though his body is animal, shares the highest part of his nature with divinity; and since everything strives to live in accordance with its best nature, this that is, a life in conformity with the logos is the proper goal for man. Hence the Stoic ideal of the Sage, who has learned that nothing matters but the inner self. Externals (health, possessions, reputation), though the animal side of man may justify him in putting some before others, are intrinsically indifferent. To be right within is all that matters. This knowledge of the indifference of outward circumstances makes the Sage unshakably autarkes, and that is the sole requisite for a happy life.
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Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-Greece/guthrie-history-intro.asp?pg=24
