Cleanthes [SEP] position held
Cleanthes
Cleanthes (; "Kleanthēs"; c. 330 BC – c. 230 BC), of Assos, was a Greek Stoic philosopher and successor to Zeno of Citium as the second head ("scholarch") of the Stoic school in Athens. Originally a boxer, he came to Athens where he took up philosophy, listening to Zeno's lectures. He supported himself by working as a water-carrier at night. After the death of Zeno, c. 262 BC, he became the head of the school, a post
Chrysippus represents a deviant position. He claims that Zeno and Cleanthes were really on Plato's side, but the evidence he presents is very meagre. He accepts he has little evidence for Zeno, and the only evidence he provides for Cleanthes is a brief versified dialogue between anger and reason which he thinks shows that Cleanthes accepted an irrational part of the soul.
Throughout his polemic, Galen draws heavily on the Stoic philosopher Posidonius (1st-century BCE) who wrote his own "On Passions" as a commentary on Chrysippus