CHRYSIPPUS, son of Apollonius of Tarsus, was born at Soli in Cilicia, D.C. 280. He appears to have been driven to study by having, in some way, lost or squandered his patrimooy. When he determined on devoting himself to philosophy he went to Athens, and attended the instructions of Cleanthes, whom he afterwards succeeded. (Strabo, xiii., p. 610, Casaub.) Cicero (' De Nat.. Deer.' ii. 6 ; iii. 10), in com mon with other ancient writers, describes Chrysippus as a skilful and acute dialectician, and (i. 15) accounts him the most ingenious expo sitor of the Stole dreams. Habite of industry probably gave him an advantage over his rivals. Diogenes Laertius reports, upon the authority of Diodes, a statement of Chrysippus'a nurse, that he seldom wrote leas than 500 lines a day. It appears hnwever that he indulged largely in quotations; and the actual amount of his original labour in composition cannot be gathered from the number of his productions. He is said by Diogenes to have written upwards of 705 volumes, many on the same subject. Cicero (' Tuac. Qurest.' i. 108) gives him the character of a careful collector of facts. After Zeno he was considered the main prop of the Porch (Cie. 'Acad. ()meat.' iv. 75); and allusions are frequently made to the estimation in which he was held. (Juvenal, 'Sat. IL 5.; xiii. 184; Horace, 'Epist.' i. 2, 4.) Chrysippus sometimes exposed himself to the attacks of his enemies, Carneades in particular, by defending two opposite sides of the same question : but the argumeuts which were good in his were good also in others hands. lie frequently succeeded in entangling his hearers
by the use of the logical form ' sorites,' which is said to have been invented by him, and is called by Persius (' Sat..' vi. 80) Chrysippue's heap.' Sorites (croptirnt) means 'a heap,' and is in logic a heap of propositions io the syllogistic form. (Cic. 'Acad. Qmest.' iv. 16; Whately, 'Logic,' p. 122.) Chrysippus did not spare his adversaries in his replies to their argumenta; and some anecdotes which are told of him seem to show that he occasionally overstepped the bounds of moderation. Notwithstanding this, his style of argumentation was so much admired, that it was said, if the gods themselves were to use a system of logic, they would adopt that of Chrysippus.
Chrysippus appears to have held substantially all the main doctrines of the Stoic. theology, though in some minute particulars he is said to have differed from Zeno and Cleauthea: the charges of impiety made against him are probably to be ascribed only to a peculiar method of advocating his opinions. lie died, apparently from an apoplectic fit, at the age of seventy-three, n.o. 207.
(Diogenes Laertius, book vii., Life of Chrysippus; Fabricii, theca Grim, vol. ii., pp. 392-93.)