But the two most important developments of the post-Aristotelian philosophy were Stoicism and Epicureanism. As Greek life came in contact with other races and the law of the State and the old religion of Greece were shaken, the need was felt of finding a substitute for these, a principle of conduct which should enable a man to stand alone and rise superior to circumstances. Such a principle the Stoics claimed to have found. Their great names are Zeno, the founder, Cleanthes of Assos, and Chrysippus of Soli, called the second founder; in PanTtius of Rhodes and Posidonius of Apamea, Stoicism showed a softened and eclectic tendency.
The broad distinction noticed above between the Italic or Doric and the Ionic schools reap pears in the marked contrast between the two later materialistic schools. The Stoics are Boric and Roman in character, the Epicureans are Ionic and Greek. "The one might be said to rep resent the law, the other the gospel of paganism." Epicureanism may be briefly described as a com nination of the physics of Democritus with the ethics of Aristippus; its end was even more ex clusively practical than that of the Stoics. After Epicurus himself the most distinguished members of the school were Metrodorus, Hermarchus, Co totes, and Leonteus.
But beneath the antagonism of the post Aristotelian schools there was much in com mon, and a constant tendency, especially in the Acadeniic and Stoic schools, to approximate to each other. The rise of the Roman power and the growing intercourse between Greece and Rome furthered a natural movement, on the one side toward Scepticism and on the other toward Eclec ticism, as it was surmised that different schools presented different aspects of truth. A considera tion of the latter (see ECLECTICISM ) , which is typified in Cicero, would carry us outside the limits of purely Greek philosophy, as would the later hybrid between the ideas of the East and the West, known as Neo-Platonism (q.v.). For a popular yet scholarly account of the whole his tory, consult Mayor, Sketch of Ancient Philos ophy from Tholes to Cicero (Cambridge, 1881) ; also Bender, Mythologie and Metaphysik (Stutt gart, 1899) ; Erdmann. History of Philosophy, vol. i. (Eng. trans., London, 1890) ; Brandis, Geschichte der Entwickelungen der griechischen Philosophic (Berlin, 1862-64) ; and see the ar ticles on the various schools and philosophers mentioned above.