Hellenistic Ethics and Philosophical Power

The legacy of the Hellenistic philosophers is unique in one respect. Since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the English language has appropriated the words stoic(al), skeptic(al), epicure(an), and cynic(al) as ways of describing character, attitudes, and behavior. These terms have lost some of their Greco-Roman connotations, but they continue to preserve a significant link with their origins. If we call someone today a stoic or an epicurean, we are making a comment on an ethical outlook; we are calling attention to highly general characteristics which imply certain basic attitudes to life and exclude others. The terms presuppose consistency on the