The Sage
The perfectly wise person — flawless in virtue, free, and untroubled — a near-impossible ideal the Stoics admitted scarcely anyone reaches.
The sage (sophos) is the Greek ideal of the completely wise and good person, who acts rightly in all things and is undisturbed by fortune. The Stoics (3rd c. BCE onward) gave the figure its sharpest form: the sage alone is truly free, rich, and happy, yet so rare as to be almost a regulative ideal — which is why ordinary people are 'progressors' striving toward it. Epicureans and others held their own versions, making the sage the common Hellenistic image of the fully realized human.
How it traveled
- SymposiumAthens · -385explains
- RepublicAthens · -375explains
- StatesmanAthens · -358explains
- MemorabiliaAthens · -354explains
- To NicoclesAthens · -338explains
- Nicomachean EthicsChalcis · -322explains
- Pro L. MurenaFormiae · -63explains
- Paradoxa StoicorumFormiae · -46explains
- Tusculanae DisputationesFormiae · -43explains
- de Finibus Bonorum et MalorumFormiae · -43explains
- De AmicitiaFormiae · -43explains
- LucullusFormiae · -43explains
- De consolatione ad Helviam— · 42explains
- Institutio OratoriaRome · 95explains
- DiscoursesNicopolis · 108explains
- De Stoicorum repugnantiisChaeronea · 120explains
- De communibus notitiis adversus StoicosChaeronea · 120explains
- Apophthegmata LaconicaChaeronea · 120applies
- Quomodo quis suos in virtute sentiat profectusChaeronea · 120explains
- Cato the YoungerChaeronea · 120explains
- De Alexandri magni fortuna aut virtuteChaeronea · 120explains
- PhocionChaeronea · 120explains
- Compendium argumenti Stoicos absurdiora poetis dicereChaeronea · 120explains
- The HandbookNicopolis · 135explains
- FragmentsNicopolis · 135explains
- Ad Se IpsumVindobona (Vienna) · 170explains
- HermotimusSamosata · 180explains
- Noctes AtticaeRome · 180explains
- Adversus MathematicosAlexandria · 190explains
- Pyrrhoniae HypotyposesAlexandria · 210explains
Key passages(20)
Liber de philosophorum sectis (epitome ap. Stobaeum) · Arius Didymus
de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum · Cicero
De Stoicorum repugnantiis · Plutarch
Liber de philosophorum sectis (epitome ap. Stobaeum) · Arius Didymus
Liber de philosophorum sectis (epitome ap. Stobaeum) · Arius Didymus
Eclogarum Liber · Ausonius, Decimus Magnus