A History of Greek Philosophy / THE STOICS

Page 13

The common characteristic of all these systems in their later developments, is their cosmopolitanism. Homo sum, nil humani a me alienum puto, ‘I am a man; nothing appertaining to humanity do I deem alien from myself,’ this was the true keynote of whatever was vital in any of them. And the reason of this is not far to seek. We have seen already how the chaos of sophistic doctrine was largely conditioned, if not produced, by the breakdown of the old civic life of Greece. The process hardly suffered delay from all the efforts of Socrates and Plato. Cosmopolitanism was already a point of union between the Cynics and Cyrenaics. And the march of politics was always tending in the same direction. First through great leagues, such as the Spartan or Athenian or Theban, each with a predominant or tyrannical city at the head; then later through the conquest of Greece by Alexander, and the leaguing of all Greek-speaking peoples in the great invasion of Asia; then through the spread of Greek letters all over the Eastern world, and the influx upon Greek centres such as Athens and Alexandria, of all manner of foreign intelligences; and finally, through the conquest of all this teeming world of culture by the discipline and practical ability of Rome, and its incorporation in a universal empire of law, all the barriers which had divided city from city and tribe from tribe and race from race disappeared, and only a common humanity remained.

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