A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

CLEANTHES. partly in his own private gratifications, partly in relieving the wants of friends, and partly in works of public magnificence and utility. But fortune, which had raised him so rapidly, as suddenly hurled him down. A scarcity of corn having arisen, the blame was artfully cast upon the favourite by Papirius Dionysius, the praefectus annonae. A tumult burst forth in the circus, a mob hurried to the suburban villa of Commodus, clamouring for vengeance, and the emperor giving way to the dictates of his natural cowardice, yielded up Cleander, who was torn to pieces, and his whole family and nearest friends destroyed. (Dion Cass. lxxii. 12, 13; Herodian. i. 12, 10; Lamprid. Commod. 6, 7, 11.) [W. R.] CLEANDER, an architect, who constructed some baths at Rome for the emperor Commodus. (Lamprid. Comnm. c. 17; Osann, Kunsiblatt, 1830, N. 83.) [L. U.] CLEA'NDRIDAS (K\eavSplasa), a Spartan, father of Gylippus, who having been appointed by the ephors as counsellor to Pleistoanax in the invasion of Attica, B. c. 445, was said to have been bribed by Pericles to withdraw his army. He was condemned to death, but fled to Thurii, and was there received into citizenship. (Plut. Pericd. 22, Nic. 28; Thuc. vi. 104, 93, vii. 2; Diod. xiii. 106, who calls him Clearchus.) He afterwards commanded the Thurians in their war against the Tarentines. (Strab. vi. p. 264, who calls him Cleandrias.) [A. H. C.] CLEA'NOR (KAseivwp), an Arcadian of Orchomenus, entered into the service of Cyrus the Younger, and is introduced by Xenophon as refusing, in the name of the Greeks, after the battle of Cunaxa, B. c. 401, to surrender their arms at the requisition of Artaxerxes. (Xen. Anab. ii. 1. ~ 10.) After the treacherous apprehension of Clearchus and the other generals by Tissaphernes, Cleanor was one of those who were appointed to fill their places, and seems to have acted throughout the retreat with bravery and vigour. (Xen. A'nab. iii. 1. ~ 47, 2. ~~ 4-6, iv. 6. ~ 9.) When the Greeks found themselves deceived by the adventurer Coeratades, under whom they had marched out of Byzantium, Cleanor was among those who advised that they should enter the service of Seuthes, the Thracian prince, who had conciliated him by the present of a horse. We find him afterwards co-operating with Xenophon, of whom he seems to have had a high opinion, in his endeavour to obtain from Seuthes the promised pay. (Xen. Anab. vii. 2. ~ 2, 5. ~ 10.) [E. E.] CLEANTHES (Ke'av6uOs), a Stoic, born at Assos in Troas about B. c. 300, though the exact date is unknown. He was the son of Phanias, and entered life as a boxer, but had only four drachmas of his own when he felt himself impelled to the study of philosophy. He first placed himself under Crates, and then under Zeno, whose faithful disciple he continued for nineteen years. In order to support himself and pay Zeno the necessary fee for his instructions, he worked all night at drawing water from gardens, and in consequence received the nickname of epedavrhsis.* As he spent the whole day in philosophical pursuits, lie had no visible means of support, and was therefore sum CLEANTHES. 779 moned before the Areiopagus to account for his way of living. The judges were so delighted by the evidence of industry which he produced, that they voted him ten minae, though Zeno would not permit him to accept them. By his fellow-pupils he was considered slow and stupid, and received from them the title of the Ass, in which appellation he said that he rejoiced, as it implied that his back was strong enough to bear whatever Zeno put upon it. Several other anecdotes preserved of him shew that he was one of those enthusiastic votaries of philosophy who naturally appeared from time to time in an age when there was no deep and earnest religion to satisfy the thinking part of mankind. We are not therefore surprised to hear of his declaring that for the sake of philosophy he would dig and undergo all possible labour, of his taking notes from Zeno's lectures on bones and pieces of earthenware when he was too poor to buy paper, and of the quaint penitence with which he reviled himself for his small progress in philosophy, by calling himself an old man "possessed indeed of grey hairs, but not of a mind." For this vigour and zeal in the pursuit, he was styled a second Hercules; and when Zeno died, B. c. 263, Cleanthes succeeded him in his school. This event was fortunate for the preservation of the Stoical doctrines, for though Cleanthes was not endowed with the sagacity -necessary to rectify and develop his master's system, yet his stern morality and his devotion to Zeno induced him to keep it free from all foreign corruptions. His poverty was relieved by a present of 3000 minas from Antigonus, and he died at the age of eighty. The story of his death is characteristic. His physician recommended to him a two days' abstinence from food to cure an ulcer in his mouth, and at the end of the second day, he said that, as he had now advanced so far on the road to death, it would be a pity to have the trouble over again, and he therefore still refused all nourishment, and died of starvation. The names of the numerous treatises of Cleanthes preserved by Lafirtius (vii. 175) present the usual catalogue of moral and philosophical subjects: 7repl diperTiv, 7repi ISoviPs, 7repi Oecuv, &c. A hymn of his to Zeus is still extant, and contains some striking sentiments. It was published in Greek and German by H. H. Cludius, Gottingen, 1786; also by Sturz, 1785, re-edited by Merzdorf, Lips. 1835, and by others. His doctrines were almost exactly those of Zeno. There was a slight variation between his opinion and the more usual Stoical view respecting the immortality of the soul. Cleanthes taught that all souls are immortal, but that the intensity of existence after death would vary according to the strength or weakness of the particular soul, thereby leaving to the wicked some apprehension of future punishment; whereas Chrysippus considered that only the souls of, the wise and good were to survive death. (Plut. Plac. Phil. iv. 7.) Again, with regard to the ethical principle of the Stoics, to "live in unison with nature," it is said that Zeno only enunciated the vague direction, oboAeoyyoupe'vws pv, which Cleanthes explained by the addition of rji q(Pres. (Stob. Eel. ii. p. 132.) By this he meant the universal nature of things, whereas Chrysippus understood by the nature which we are to follow, the particular nature of man, as well as universal nature. (Diog. Laert. vii. 89.) This opinion of Cleanthes was of a Cynical character [ANTISTHENES], and held up as a model - - * Hence the correction of puteum for pluteumn has been proposed in Juv. ii. 7: "' Et jubet archetypos pluteoum servare Cleanthas."

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A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.
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Smith, William, Sir, ed. 1813-1893.
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Page 779
Publication
Boston,: Little, Brown and co.,
1867.
Subject terms
Classical dictionaries
Biography -- Dictionaries.
Greece -- Biography.
Rome -- Biography.

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"A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood." In the digital collection Making of America Books. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/acl3129.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 23, 2025.
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