P.Herc. 1384 is the upper part of a bookroll, which was unrolled using Piaggio's machine between 16 April and 15 May 1804. It consists of thirteen dark-grey and partially layered fragments of different sizes (max. 10.7 cm in height × max. 34.2 cm in length for a total extension of 2.39 m), which are distributed across five frames stored in the Officina dei Papiri Ercolanesi of the ‘Vittorio Emanuele III’ National Library of Naples.Footnote ¹ It preserves the upper portion of fifty-one columns of text and contains – as far as we can judge – an ethical work having the wise man as its protagonist and focusing on whether he can become mad and angry, on whether he can fall in love, get drunk and engage in politics, and, finally, on his educational mission. In particular, the wise man is said to be exempt from madness (col. 1 Antoni) and (presumably) other irrational states such as dream delirium, drunkenness and unregulated love (cols. 2–5), to which consciousness and temperance are opposed (col. 4); political courage and audacity are commended (cols. 6–7); and the author praises the wise man's love for those making moral progress and distinguishes it from vulgar and shameful love (cols. 22–4). From col. 31 on we have an abrupt change of subject: the wise man's engagement in politics is described, with a focus on his rejection of trickery (col. 31) and his austerity (col. 32), his abnegation (cols. 32–3), his social and political virtues (cols. 36–7), his concern for future generations (cols. 40–1) and the philosophical education of youths (cols. 42–9). In this last regard, the usefulness of dialectic and physics, but also of medicine, geometry and poetry, is discussed (col. 44) and an enigmatic sharing of profits and goods (possibly between the master and his disciples) is alluded to (col. 45). The book closes with a quotation from Zeno of Citium consisting in the reworking of a famous Hesiodean passage (Op. 293–5), by which this philosopher highlights the superiority of learning from a good master over self-learning (col. 50).

Until the first comprehensive edition of the papyrus was published in 2012,Footnote ² only fifteen columns of it (cols. 18–32) were known to scholarsFootnote ³ and only one column (col. 22) had been edited.Footnote ⁴ On the basis of the content of just this limited portion of the text, Wilhelm Crönert proposed to identify P.Herc. 1384 as Philodemus’ On Love (Περὶ ἔρωτος).Footnote ⁵ This identification, which endured among scholars until recently, was successfully questioned by the last editor of the papyrus, Agathe Antoni, who first suggested ascribing it to other works by the same authorFootnote ⁶ and then, in a subsequent contribution, proposed on various grounds to assign it to a Stoic author.Footnote ⁷ In particular, Gilles Dorival, who has co-authored the latter essay with Antoni, argued for the attribution of P.Herc. 1384 to Chrysippus on the basis of the occurrence in it (col. 38.1–5 Antoni) of a doxa (actually a chreia)Footnote ⁸ also reported by Stobaeus, according to which this philosopher, ‘when he was asked why he did not engage in politics, replied: “because if one does so badly, he displeases the gods; if [one does so] well, he displeases the citizens”’.Footnote ⁹ More specifically, since according to him a similar refusal to engage in politics was voiced in Chrysippus’ On Ways of Life (Περὶ βίων)Footnote ¹⁰ and On Things Which Are Chosen in Themselves (Περὶ τῶν δι’ αὑτὰ αἱρετῶν),Footnote ¹¹ Dorival went so far as to advance a possible identification of P.Herc. 1384 with either of these works.Footnote ¹² Finally, Antoni herself, in the framework of her critical edition of the whole papyrus, confirmed the Stoic inspiration of the work contained in it, which she identified as an ethical–political treatise – whose fil rouge would be the education of morally promising youths by the wise man – by either an early Stoic thinker such as Chrysippus or a second-century BC Cynicising Stoic philosopher, or otherwise someone standing halfway between the two.Footnote ¹³ However, in this last contribution, Antoni's former confidence in assigning P.Herc. 1384 to Chrysippus himself appears mitigated and, surprisingly, Dorival's hypothesis of its identification as a specific work by this philosopher is not taken up or even mentioned. We shall see below why.

Now, the arguments which, according to Antoni, would lead us to exclude an Epicurean and a Philodemean authorship for P.Herc. 1384 can be summarised as follows:

(a) in the book there is no trace of the structure typical of an anti-commentary, namely a summary and rebuttal of one's opponents’ views, of the sort characteristic of Philodemus’ and other Epicureans’ doctrinal treatises;Footnote ¹⁴

(b) there is no polemical approach or reference to opponents or opposing doctrines. As is widely known, the Epicureans were considered inveterate polemicists and philosophical polemic was seen as typical of their school.Footnote ¹⁵ In particular, the systematic refutation of the views of one's opponents as a dialectical means to build one's own philosophical position had been a well-known tool of the Epicurean argumentative method ever since Epicurus’ On Nature;Footnote ¹⁶

(c) the only exception to point (b) is represented by the polemical allusion to ‘those who [regard] pleasure as the end’ (col. 32.8–9). If these philosophers are to be identified as Epicureans, as seems likely, then the author of the book cannot be an Epicurean philosopher himself;Footnote ¹⁷

(d) there is no reference at all to any Epicurean authorities or doctrines, whereas in Philodemus the opposite is normally the case;Footnote ¹⁸

(e) the philosophical vocabulary is not specifically Epicurean or Philodemean, with the exception of certain words and expressions belonging to the Hellenistic philosophical lingua franca;Footnote ¹⁹

(f) the extensive use and range of the poetic authors quoted appear to be distant from the Epicurean and Philodemean usage;Footnote ²⁰

(g) from a stylistic point of view, the author would not appear to be concerned with avoiding hiatus, in contrast to Philodemus, who notoriously makes a systematic effort to avoid it.Footnote ²¹

Conversely, among those features which, according to Antoni, hint at a Stoic and Chrysippean authorship for P.Herc. 1384, we may cite the following:

(i) the technical philosophical vocabulary, which appears to be Stoic and, more specifically, Chrysippean. Among the relevant lexemes, Antoni mentions ὁ νοῦν ἔχων (col. 24.3), one of the Stoic designations of the wise man, περιστάσεις or ‘circumstances’ (col. 1.5–6),Footnote ²² ἐπιστροφή or ‘attention’ (col. 3.5–6),Footnote ²³ ἀναστροφή or ‘conduct’ (col. 4.2),Footnote ²⁴ προκόπτοντες or ‘those making moral progress’ (col. 24.6–7),Footnote ²⁵ καθήκουσα or ‘appropriate’ (col. 25.5),Footnote ²⁶ κοινὸς λόγος or ‘common reason’ (col. 27.9),Footnote ²⁷ ἀκολουθητικοί or ‘capable of following’ (col. 42.4–5),Footnote ²⁸ ὀρθὸς νόμος or ‘right law’ (col. 42.4–5 – for Antoni a possible combination of κοινὸς νόμος ‘universal law’ and ὀρθὸς λόγος ‘right reason’),Footnote ²⁹ πρόνοια or ‘providence’ (col. 42.6)Footnote ³⁰ and ἀφιλοτίμως or ‘without ambition’ (col. 46.2).Footnote ³¹

(ii) the extensive use and specific choice of the literary authors quoted (from Hesiod to Euripides via Solon and Ibycus), which fit in particularly well with Chrysippus’ literary usage. According to our sources, this philosopher's works, differently from Epicurus’, were full of poetic quotations, particularly from Euripides, an author who played a distinctive role in the works of early Stoic thinkers, and especially of Chrysippus himself;Footnote ³²

(iii) the commendatory quotation from the Stoic Zeno of Citium, reported by both Diogenes Laertius (7.25–6 = Zeno Cit. fr. 1.5 SVF) and Proclus (ad Hes. Op. 291 = fr. 1.235 SVF), which closes the book (col. 50);Footnote ³³

(iv) the reference to mythical exempla such as Odysseus and Philoctetes – two Stoic ‘heroes’ – (cols. 31–2) and, above all, the moral idealisation of Heracles, the patron saint of the Cynics, who also played a central role in early Stoicism (col. 30);Footnote ³⁴

(v) the exaltation of πόνος (cols. 6.3, 32.3, 34.2)Footnote ³⁵ and the praise of ἔρως as an element of social cohesion (col. A), which are typical of Stoicism;Footnote ³⁶

(vi) some stylistic features such as the frequent use of the syntagm τὰ παραπλήσια governing a demonstrative pronoun in the dative (cols. 1.10, 26.2 and 8, 41.1) and sequences of adverbs such as φρον]ί̣μως | [κ]αὶ εὐλαβῶ[ς οὐδὲ] πο|λεμικῶς (col. 7.2–4), which were typical of Chrysippus;Footnote ³⁷

(vii) the likeness of the hand which drafted P.Herc. 1384 to that of P.Herc. 1020, which contains a Stoic text devoted to dialectics and centred on the wise man;Footnote ³⁸

(viii) the intriguing thematic and stylistic similarities with P.Herc. 1158, a likely Stoic text;Footnote ³⁹

(ix) the occurrence of a Chrysippean chreia concerning the refusal to engage in politics, also reported by Stobaeus (Flor. 4.4.29 Hense = Chrysippus fr. 3.694 SVF) and mentioned above (col. 38.1–5);Footnote ⁴⁰

(x) the presence in the Herculanean collection of a small nucleus of Stoic and specifically Chrysippean papyri such as P.Herc. 1020, 307, 1421, 1038 and 1380.Footnote ⁴¹

From the above arguments Antoni draws a first, provisional, conclusion (1): ‘Since there are undoubtedly Stoic elements in P.Herc. 1384 which are proper to Chrysippus, it now seems much more plausible that the author of the roll was an adherent of the Stoa, who was contemporary with, or later than, Chrysippus.’Footnote ⁴² To that effect, she resumes as a main argument point (ix) above, viz. the presence in the papyrus of a Chrysippean chreia (col. 38). However, given the rejection later in the text of physics and dialectics as useless (col. 44) – an assertion which is patently incompatible with Chrysippus’ teachingFootnote ⁴³ – Antoni immediately reconsiders her initial conclusion by suggesting (2) that ‘a similar refusal would fit better with second-century BC Stoicism, which recovered the Cynic heritage and maybe also the criticism of “encyclopaedic” culture and those disciplines not directly related to the moral good’.Footnote ⁴⁴ For Antoni, second-century BC Stoic thinkers rediscovered Cynic moral teaching (and, in particular, the praise of πόνος it entailed), taking it as the most authentic foundation of Stoic ethics.Footnote ⁴⁵ Finally, in order to fit (1) with (2), she advances the hybrid conclusion (3) that ‘the author of the treatise preserved by P.Herc. 1384 might be a Stoic author …, who by retrieving Chrysippean elements, incorporated therein elements of Socratic and Cynic inspiration’.Footnote ⁴⁶

Antoni's argumentation, as summarised above, is intriguing and challenging. To be sure, some arguments (points a–b, d–f and iv–vi above) are not as compelling as others. Besides, other points could have been argued better.Footnote ⁴⁷ Finally, further evidence can possibly be added to points (i) and (vi).Footnote ⁴⁸ Instead, what is almost completely missing in Antoni's account (except for the exaltation of πόνος and the praise of ἔρως as an element of social cohesion – two typically Stoic commonplaces highlighted at point v) is a philosophical comparison between P.Herc. 1384 and the Stoic sources concerning the wise man's behaviour and lifestyle.Footnote ⁴⁹ But, in principle, points (c) (the critical allusion to ‘those who [regard] pleasure as the end’ – col. 32.8–9 – and who must be identified as hedonistic philosophers)Footnote ⁵⁰, (i) (the philosophical vocabulary) and (iii) (the laudatory quotation from Zeno of Citium, which closes the book – col. 50) alone are enough to exclude an Epicurean authorship for P.Herc. 1384. Yet even points (i) and (iii) on their own are sufficient to prove a Stoic authorship. As far as the former is concerned, maybe none of the philosophically significant lexemes detectable in the papyrus, taken alone, can stricto sensu be regarded as exclusively Stoic, even though several of them were mostly used by Stoic authors with a technical meaning, while others (for instance, ἀκολουθητικός + dative and ἀξίωμα) were only employed among philosophers by Aristotle and the Stoics. However, their mutual combination in an intrinsically coherent lexical system identifies a well-defined language which can only be Stoic. So, there can be no doubt about the Stoic authorship of P.Herc. 1384.

As for Antoni's conclusions, these are questionable for a number of reasons. First, the presence in the papyrus of a chreia explicitly attributed to Chrysippus by Stobaeus (col. 38.1–5)Footnote ⁵¹ is not sufficient per se to argue that P.Herc. 1384 was authored precisely by this Stoic philosopher. The surviving text of the column does not allow us to say with certainty whether the chreia is here advanced in the first person by the author himself, or whether it is a quotation from Chrysippus. In the latter case, the author obviously cannot be Chrysippus himself. Conversely, the rejection in the papyrus of physics and dialectics as useless (col. 44.1–14)Footnote ⁵² – a claim rightly regarded by Antoni as contrasting with Chrysippus’ philosophyFootnote ⁵³ – is not advanced by the author in his own voice, as Antoni seems to believe, but is ascribed by him to another person. The presence of ἔγρα̣φ̣ε̣ ‘he wrote’ immediately before (in line 3) and of the optative οὐδ’ ἂν γέν[οι]το χρή|σιμα (lines 6–7), whose grammatical subject is δι[α]λε|κτικὰ … κα[ὶ] φυσικά (lines 4–5), clearly reveals that the author is here reporting, instead of his own position, that of another philosopher. So, this cannot be taken as a proof against Chrysippus’ authorship of P.Herc. 1384, which remains perfectly possible.

The above shows that Antoni's conclusions (2) and (3) are not logically compelling. As far as (2) is concerned, even assuming that the rejection of dialectic and physics was advanced by the author himself, this would not necessarily make him an exponent of second-century BC Cynicising Stoicism, as Antoni suggests. It is well known that, within the Stoa, such a rejection was advocated for the first time as early as the morally rigorist philosopher Aristo of Chios (died post-230 BC), a pupil of Zeno, who excluded physics and logic (whereof dialectic was considered a part)Footnote ⁵⁴ from philosophy and confined the latter to ethics.Footnote ⁵⁵ Besides, second-century BC Stoicism was obviously not restricted to this Cynicising and morally rigorist position, as Antoni surprisingly assumes. This was indeed the position of Zenodotus and Apollodorus of Seleucia, two disciples of Diogenes of Babylon, who in the latter half of the same century fostered a return to ‘the most manly Stoic philosophy’ or a ‘shortcut to virtue’, which they identified with Cynicism and Zeno's earlier philosophical reflection and traced back to Antisthenes through the so-called Cynic–Stoic succession.Footnote ⁵⁶ But this was just one of the two main and mutually conflicting positions attested within the school in this period,Footnote ⁵⁷ and certainly not the most authoritative one. As is well known, one of the most prominent exponents of so-called ‘Middle Stoicism’,Footnote ⁵⁸ Panaetius, who revised Stoic teaching in several respectsFootnote ⁵⁹ and was considered open to Platonic and Aristotelian influences,Footnote ⁶⁰ was, on the contrary, hostile to Cynicising Stoicism and, in particular, Cynic ἀναίδεια. While promoting a morally moderate and universally accessible kind of Stoicism,Footnote ⁶¹ he did his best to distance himself philosophically from this rigorist tendency and, historically speaking, from the original κυνισμός of the school.Footnote ⁶² For the same reasons another prominent ‘Middle-Stoic’ philosopher, Posidonius, seems to have dismissed Zeno himself as unworthy.Footnote ⁶³

Likewise, even if Antoni's conclusion (3) were true, it would make no sense from a historico-philosophical point of view. Historically speaking, early Stoics after Chrysippus could never have adopted such a syncretistic position. Philosophers such as Zeno of Tarsus, Diogenes of Babylon and Antipater, while developing Stoic teaching in several ways,Footnote ⁶⁴ essentially followed in Chrysippus’ footsteps.Footnote ⁶⁵ At the same time, they were anything but Cynicising or morally rigorist Stoics.Footnote ⁶⁶ Conversely, those Stoics, such as Zenodotus and Apollodorus, who after Antipater tried to recover Cynic and early Zenonian moral rigorism could only do so in contrast to Chrysippus, the one philosopher, within early Stoicism, who by confuting Aristo's morally rigorist position tried to eliminate this original Zenonian standpoint from within the school.Footnote ⁶⁷ Finally, ‘Middle Stoics’, such as Panaetius and Posidonius but also Mnesarchus and Boethus, who developed or, in some respects, even rethought Chrysippean StoicismFootnote ⁶⁸ were, for this very reason, neither stricto sensu Chrysippean nor by any means Cynicising or morally rigorist Stoic thinkers.Footnote ⁶⁹ Hence – to the best of my knowledge – the philosophical stance that has been proposed by Antoni for the author of P.Herc. 1384 in her conclusion (3) – ‘the author of the treatise preserved by P.Herc. 1384 might be a Stoic author …, who by retrieving Chrysippean elements, incorporated therein elements of Socratic and Cynic inspiration’ – was never favoured by any Stoic follower, at least prior to Philodemus.

If Antoni's conclusions (2) and (3) are unfounded, then only conclusion (1) remains valid: ‘Since there are undoubtedly Stoic elements in P.Herc. 1384 which are proper to Chrysippus, … the author of the roll was an adherent of the Stoa, who was contemporary with, or later than, Chrysippus.’ Here too some observations are called for. If, as Antoni suggests, P.Herc. 1384 contains Chrysippean elements and if its author is a contemporary of Chrysippus (281/277–208/204 BC),Footnote ⁷⁰ then the most reasonable solution is to conclude that he is Chrysippus himself. That this author is a Chrysippean Stoic philosopher contemporary with Chrysippus but different from him is only theoretically possible, but it is historically fairly unlikely.Footnote ⁷¹ If, instead, he is to be identified as a Chrysippean philosopher later than Chrysippus, he could be one of the prominent early Stoics who followed him and remained – though with some differencesFootnote ⁷² – essentially faithful to his thought, that is Zeno of Tarsus, Diogenes of Babylon or Antipater. After all, as we have seen, ‘Middle Stoics’ such as Panaetius and Posidonius, on the one hand, and Cynicising Stoics such as Zenodotus and Apollodorus, on the other, were not strictly Chrysippean and can even be thought of as anti-Chrysippean Stoic thinkers. But even in the case of the ‘faithful’ Chrysippeans certain restrictions are probably to be applied.Footnote ⁷³ Be that as it may, it is difficult to imagine that the author of P.Herc. 1384 is a Stoic philosopher prior to Chrysippus, because – as far as we know – some terms found in this text are not attested before Chrysippus, or were probably introduced into Stoic philosophy by him.Footnote ⁷⁴ In summary, the range of possibilities is quite narrow. We must be dealing here with either Chrysippus himself or one of his immediate successors: Zeno of Tarsus, Diogenes of Babylon or – less likely – Antipater.Footnote ⁷⁵

Now, two of Antoni's arguments (points vii and x above), if improved, can help us narrow the focus down on the possibility of a specifically Chrysippean authorship for P.Herc. 1384. As far as point (x) is concerned, we know that, beside this papyrus, another six Stoic papyri have survived in the Herculanean library, a collection which is otherwise mostly devoted to Epicurean authors and topics.Footnote ⁷⁶ Four of them, which still bear the corresponding end-title (subscriptio) with the name of the author (Chrysippus), preserve works precisely by this Stoic philosopher. They are P.Herc. 1421 and 1038, which contain the first and the second book of his On Providence;Footnote ⁷⁷ P.Herc. 307, which preserves his Logical Enquiries;Footnote ⁷⁸ and P.Herc. 1380, which preserves a logical-linguistic work, On the Elements of Speech.Footnote ⁷⁹ To these, another two papyri are to be added, namely P.Herc. 1158 and 1020, which, just like P.Herc. 1384, do not preserve any subscriptio but contain works of Stoic and – at least in the latter case – most probably Chrysippean authorship.Footnote ⁸⁰ Now, the existence in the library of a nucleus of Stoic papyri,Footnote ⁸¹ of which most are certainly, and another one is likely to be, by Chrysippus, suggests, for reasons of coherence, that all of them – including P.Herc. 1384 – are by the same Stoic author and that, in reality, this surviving cluster of Stoic papyri belonged to a specifically Chrysippean section of Philodemus’ library.Footnote ⁸² The importance of Chrysippus as the most renowned representative of the Epicureans’ rival school and, hence, as their philosophical opponent par excellence, whose thought must be properly known in order to be refuted – or, as in Philodemus’ case, even appropriated – has already been highlighted by scholars. In particular, the presence of some Chrysippean treatises in the Herculanean library might have served as an authoritative textual basis for the composition of some of Philodemus’ works.Footnote ⁸³ This also explains why several treatises by Chrysippus are either amply quoted or paraphrased or otherwise circumstantially alluded to by Philodemus in treatises such as On Stoics and On Anger.Footnote ⁸⁴

As for Antoni's point (vii), the hand of P.Herc. 1384 – a unicum in the Herculanean collection,Footnote ⁸⁵ which has escaped Guglielmo Cavallo's classificationFootnote ⁸⁶ and has been dated by Antoni to the second quarter of first century BC – bears a close likeness to that of another graphically atypical Stoic papyrus, viz. P.Herc. 1020,Footnote ⁸⁷ which has been assigned by Cavallo to his ‘Gruppo H’ (post mid-first century BC).Footnote ⁸⁸ This similarity strongly suggests that these two books belong to the same editorial project.Footnote ⁸⁹ Now, P.Herc. 1020 contains not a generically Stoic work – as Antoni contendsFootnote ⁹⁰ – but an early Stoic text on the wise man's cognitive, moral and dialectical virtues,Footnote ⁹¹ which has been attributed on solid grounds by its editor princeps, Hans von Arnim, to either Chrysippus or, possibly, one of his immediate successors, Diogenes of Babylon and Antipater.Footnote ⁹² The assigning of P.Herc. 1020 to Chrysippus himself was confirmed shortly after von Arnim by Max PohlenzFootnote ⁹³ and Bruno KeilFootnote ⁹⁴ on the basis of a passage from Isidorus of PelusiumFootnote ⁹⁵ – which escaped von Arnim – where Chrysippus is explicitly credited with a definition of philosophy as ‘the exercise of the correctness of logos’, coinciding with that provided by the author of P.Herc. 1020 at col. 108.12–15 (ἐπ̣ι̣|τήδε̣υσις λόγου ὀρ[θ]ό|τητο̣ς). Moreover, in more recent years Michele Alessandrelli and myself, in the framework of a re-edition of von Arnim's text (= cols. 104–112 Alessandrelli–Ranocchia) based on our personal inspection of the original papyrus and propaedeutic to its first comprehensive edition,Footnote ⁹⁶ have offered a new set of further arguments in favour of a specifically Chrysippean authorship for it.Footnote ⁹⁷ So, even though in principle cases like this are always open to doubt (as mentioned, in P.Herc. 1020 no title survives), there remains no or very little room for acceptable alternatives to Chrysippus.Footnote ⁹⁸ Now, if P.Herc. 1020 is by Chrysippus and if P.Herc. 1384 probably belongs to the same editorial project or work, it is reasonable to conclude that the latter is by the same author, that is, again, Chrysippus.

Another argument in favour of Chrysippus must be added to this picture. Diogenes Laertius tells us that ‘while Chrysippus holds that virtue can be lost, Cleanthes maintains that it cannot. According to the former it may be lost in consequence of drunkenness or melancholy; the latter takes it to be inalienable owing to the certainty of our mental apprehension.’Footnote ⁹⁹ For Chrysippus, differently from Cleanthes, in order to avoid losing virtue and, hence, wisdom – whether permanently or temporarily we do not know – the wise man must pay ‘special attention’ (πλείων ἐπιστροφή) or ‘rational attention’ (λογικὴ ἐπιστροφή) to his assents ‘so that they take place, not randomly, but with understanding’.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ So, for instance, he must avoid giving his assent to the representation ‘drinking a lot is enjoyable’ if he wants to avoid getting drunk and keep his self-consciousness and his inner rationality; or, he should avoid granting his assent to the representation ‘having much sex is exciting’ if he wishes to avoid falling desperately in love and to maintain his self-control and his inner consistency. By doing so, he will maintain his hegemonikon unaltered and firm and will keep on being virtuous and wise. In the opposite case, he will undermine his reasoning faculty and will lose both virtue and wisdom. Now, in P.Herc. 1384 we find, right within the section of the book devoted to madness, drunkenness, dream delirium and unregulated love (cols. 15) – all irrational states which imply losing one's reason – the construction ἐπιστρ[ε|φομέ]νων ἐπιστρο|[φὴν δ]έχεσθαι ‘to receive attention from people who are attentive to (something)’ (col. 3.4–6), a figura etymologica whose subject – given the contextFootnote ¹⁰¹ – cannot but be the wise man.Footnote ¹⁰² This expression, when taken together with the main assumption of the section, according to which ‘the wise man neither abandons himself to madness … nor other states of this kind’ (col. 1.1–4), and the claims according to which drunkenness is an extremely alien state (col. 4.2–3) and ‘makes one a fool’ (col. 5.4–6), suggests that in order to avoid alienating himself from his own nature, losing his reason and becoming a fool, the wise man will have to make sure not to abandon himself to excessive drinking, or – to put it differently – not to grant his assent to the representation ‘drinking a lot is enjoyable’. But alienating oneself from one's own nature, losing one's reason and becoming a fool means losing one's virtue, and this corresponds exactly to the position typical of Chrysippus that was briefly discussed above. In other words, in our papyrus the concrete risk that the wise man may lose his virtue seems to represent the conceptual framework which justifies the special care he must exercise in the case of situations, or false representations, of this sort.Footnote ¹⁰³

So, it is reasonable to conclude that, just like P.Herc. 1020, P.Herc. 1384 is by Chrysippus himself. But, if so, to which of his works could it belong? To try to answer this question, it is necessary to refer again to P.Herc. 1020. In our new edition of the last eight columns of it (cols. 104–12 Alessandrelli–Ranocchia), Michele Alessandrelli and I have proposed on several grounds that we identify this papyrus as a book of Chrysippus’ On Ways of Life (Περὶ βίων), a lost treatise in four books attested by both Diogenes LaertiusFootnote ¹⁰⁴ and Plutarch.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ This possibility should be taken into serious consideration for a number of reasons. The first reason is the occurrence, in one of Plutarch's direct quotations from this work,Footnote ¹⁰⁶ of the very rare Chrysippean term εὐαπόσειστος ‘so as to be easily shaken off’,Footnote ¹⁰⁷ which is attested in Greek literature only here and in P.Herc. 1020, col. 104.8. The second is provided by the frequent allusions to the Stoic wise man detectable in Plutarch's and Diogenes Laertius’ direct quotations from this work.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ They are descriptions of the lifestyle typical of the wise man in all the various public and private spheres, which appear very similar to those contained in P.Herc. 1020.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Interestingly – and independently of the case of P.Herc. 1020 – in 2007 Gilles Dorival proposed to identify P.Herc. 1384 too as a book of Chrysippus’ On Ways of Life on the basis of some supposed thematic analogies between the two texts concerning the wise man's political (in)activity.Footnote ¹¹⁰

But what would a work On Ways of Life have looked like? As I have shown in a recent contribution,Footnote ¹¹¹ the philosophical genre Περὶ βίων was essentially different from the ‘biographical’ or anecdotal one.Footnote ¹¹² It was mostly cultivated by Epicureans and Stoics, but also – at least from the late Hellenistic period onwards, and under the influence of Stoicism – by Academic and Peripatetic philosophers. By cross-analysing the information inferable from other sourcesFootnote ¹¹³ and the surviving fragments of Epicurus’ and Chrysippus’ On Ways of Life – the most famous and most representative examples of this genre – we may conclude with a fair degree of confidence that philosophical works Περὶ βίων had the following characteristics: (a) they were moral pieces of writing belonging to the practical or applied section of ethics, rather than proper doctrinal treatises; (b) their protagonist was the wise man; (c) their subject matter consisted in issues related to the wise man's way of life in the most diverse fields of his individual and social action; this included both general lifestyles, which were described and contrasted, and more specific topics or courses of action such as whether the wise man will engage in politics or rhetoric, live together with kings and obey the laws, marry, do business and make money, play the Cynic and beg, fall in love, get drunk or commit suicide, how he will behave with pupils, and whether he will be knowledgeable or a good dialectician or orator; (d) their target was generally (but not always) the non-wise who, in this way, were furnished with an exemplary code of conduct to which to conform their lives, so as to make progress towards (or preserve) wisdom; (e) their purpose was to supply principles enabling the pursuit (or preservation) of the end, however this may have been understood.

In particular, we know from Plutarch that Chrysippus’ On Ways of Life, while comprising different books and covering a wide range of topics, was a ‘unitary treatise’ (μία σύνταξις), which is probably to say an uninterrupted exposition having the same protagonist and preserving the same narrative scheme.Footnote ¹¹⁴ In particular, the first book focused on the possibility for the wise man to be, or live with, a king, to fight for a sovereignFootnote ¹¹⁵ and make profit by being in power, cultivating friendships and engaging in politics.Footnote ¹¹⁶ It also discussed the wise man's relationship with his pupils with respect to teaching and its remuneration,Footnote ¹¹⁷ the possibility for him to pay for doctors when ill and to commit suicide once deprived of his senses,Footnote ¹¹⁸ the issues of whether he will suffer injusticeFootnote ¹¹⁹ and of whether – and with whom – he will fall in love,Footnote ¹²⁰ and his political activity for the moral elevation of his fellow citizens.Footnote ¹²¹ The second book dealt again with his concern about profit-making.Footnote ¹²² We know nothing about the third book. The fourth book dwelt on the philosopher's life in the school, which was critically equated with an existence full of pleasures and free from political distress,Footnote ¹²³ on the philosophical training of his pupils,Footnote ¹²⁴ on the wise man's doing nothing or little or what is proper to him,Footnote ¹²⁵ but also on epistemological and dialectical issues, especially his use of anti-logical arguments and how to tackle the questions raised by Megarics and other insidious opponents in dialectical discussions.Footnote ¹²⁶ This picture clearly shows that the main characteristic of the work was to describe the wise man's behaviour in every life situation. In any case, Chrysippus’ Περὶ βίων – the only work with this title to have been written by a Stoic philosopher – must have enjoyed considerable popularity in antiquity, since a specific section Περὶ βίων is included – and described with Stoic terms and examples – in the Stoic-influenced divisions of practical ethics by Eudorus of Alexandria and Philo of Larissa reported in the ethical doxography conventionally attributed to Arius Didymus.Footnote ¹²⁷

Now, already in 2004, when she still believed in a Philodemean authorship for P.Herc. 1384, Antoni noticed that its text, while having the same protagonist, was arranged into different thematic sections.Footnote ¹²⁸ This fact led Antoni to propose a possible identification of the papyrus as a book of Philodemus’ On Ways of Life (Περὶ ἠθῶν καὶ βίων), a treatise which includes at least On Frank Speech (P.Herc. 1471).Footnote ¹²⁹ As mentioned, in 2007 Dorival – in the study co-authored by Antoni – tentatively proposed that we identify it, once again, with a work On Ways of Life, but this time by Chrysippus. In particular, our papyrus would correspond to book 4 of this treatise because here the author, as in P.Herc. 1384, maintains that the wise man does not engage in politics, concerns himself with few things and only minds his own business.Footnote ¹³⁰ Although Dorival's argument for this kind of identification is different from Antoni's,Footnote ¹³¹ and is essentially flawed,Footnote ¹³² his intuition that P.Herc. 1384 may belong to this Chrysippean work, together with Antoni's suspicion that it may fall into the philosophical genre Περὶ βίων, seems to go in the right direction.

Like any other work Περὶ βίων and like Chrysippus’ treatise by the same title, P.Herc. 1384 is not a real doctrinal treatise, but looks like a text on descriptive ethics with a prescriptive goal in the background. As we have seen above, its protagonist is the wise man, and the subjects it deals with are topics related to the wise man's mode of life in the various fields of his individual and social action. Its target are those who are receptive towards the teaching of a proficient master (col. 50), namely those progressing towards virtue or, to put it otherwise, the philosopher's pupils in the school.Footnote ¹³³ From the above points it follows that its purpose, albeit not directly discernible, must deal with moral progress (col. 24) and the pursuit of wisdom. Just like Chrysippus’ Περὶ βίων, P.Herc. 1384 is an uninterrupted exposition arranged into different thematic sections. Worth noting is the fact that three of the main topics it presents – those concerning the erotic, the political and the educational activity of the wise man – recur in the latter text as well, and in a similar fashion. In particular, in col. 24 of P.Herc. 1384 the wise man is said to cultivate love for moral progressors (τοῖς τε προκεκοφόσιν ἐπιβαλ{λ}εῖν τοῦτο [sc. ἔρως]), just as in Chrysippus’ Περὶ βίων (book 1) he is said ‘to love those youths who show a natural disposition to virtue (τὴν πρὸς ἀρετὴν εὐφυΐαν) in their outward appearance’.Footnote ¹³⁴ In cols. 31–41, the wise man's active political engagement for the sake of future generations is described, just as in Περὶ βίων (book 1) he is said to engage in politics to stop vice and incite to virtue,Footnote ¹³⁵ to the point that, if possible, he will become a king or live together with a ruler and fight on his side.Footnote ¹³⁶ These claims are only apparently contradicted by the aforementioned chreia reported in P.Herc. 1384 whereby someone (most probably Chrysippus)Footnote ¹³⁷ confesses that he ‘will not engage in politics because, if one does so well, he displeases the citizens’, but if [one does so] badly, he displeases the gods (col. 38.1–5).Footnote ¹³⁸ In fact, this text alludes to Chrysippus’ personal choice of life,Footnote ¹³⁹ which need not necessarily coincide with the wise man's way of life as such.Footnote ¹⁴⁰ Even if it did, the Stoics admitted of three preferable ways of life (kingly, political and scientific), which are either equally worthy of being chosen by the wise man or are hierarchically ordered so that the kingly and the political life generally take precedence over the scientific one. So, for Stoicism every wise man is free to choose for himself which of these three different lifestyles is best suited to him, according to his own inclinations and the different circumstances of his life. In particular, if he is not a king himself or if it is impossible for him to engage in politics, he will gladly choose the scientific life (to be identified with the scholastic one), being aware that, whichever way of life he adopts, only the rational life or life according to virtue is preferable in itself.Footnote ¹⁴¹ So, this chreia does not entail any contradiction whatsoever with the Stoic wise man's primary engagement in politics,Footnote ¹⁴² as described in both P.Herc. 1384 and Chrysippus’ Περὶ βίων, and in other ancient sources.Footnote ¹⁴³ Finally, in cols. 42–9 of our papyrus, the wise man's educational mission and the philosophical training of his disciples are illustrated, just as in Chrysippus’ On Ways of Life (possibly, again, book 1) his teaching activity and relationship with his pupils are discussed.Footnote ¹⁴⁴ In both cases, a reference to the profit deriving from this kind of activity is made: in P.Herc. 1384, the author speaks of a share of profits and benefits, which given the context must refer to the relationship between master and pupils (col. 45.1–11);Footnote ¹⁴⁵ in the Περὶ βίων, Chrysippus discusses whether the wise man/master will expect to be paid for his lectures in advance or later on, on the basis of a specific agreement.Footnote ¹⁴⁶

What cannot escape the reader is that these three claims all come from the same book of Chrysippus’ On Ways of Life, namely book 1 (although this is only a hypothesis in the case of the third claim).Footnote ¹⁴⁷ Bearing in mind all the analogies between P.Herc. 1384 and both the philosophical genre Περὶ βίων and Chrysippus’ work by this title briefly discussed above (i.e. the fact that they share the same practical–ethical character, protagonist, range of topics, narrative scheme, target readership and purpose, along with very similar claims), the presence of some major topics and statements concerning the erotic, political and educational activity of the wise man in both P.Herc. 1384 and book 1 of Chrysippus’ Περὶ βίων is sufficient evidence to propose a possible identification of our papyrus with this very book. One may wonder why these conceptual analogies are not supported by any textual overlap between the fragments of that book and P.Herc. 1384. But, in the first case, Diogenes Laertius’ testimony cannot by any means be regarded as a proper quotation from Chrysippus’ Περὶ βίων, because it is simultaneously ascribed by him to Zeno's Republic and Apollodorus’ Ethics.Footnote ¹⁴⁸ The second and the third Chrysippean testimonies, by contrast, do contain some direct quotations from book 1 of Περὶ βίων. However, given the small extent of the surviving text in P.Herc. 1384 – between one and two tenths of the original text, according to AntoniFootnote ¹⁴⁹ – a possible textual match between Chrysippus’ Περὶ βίων and this piece of writing should be regarded, statistically speaking, as a very fortunate coincidence.Footnote ¹⁵⁰

A possible identification of P.Herc. 1384 with book 1 of Chrysippus’ On Ways of Life is reinforced by its comparison with P.Herc. 1020, which, as we know, probably belongs to the same editorial project and has recently been ascribed, on several grounds, to book 4 of the same treatise.Footnote ¹⁵¹ Without once again entering into the discussion of why this should be the case, suffice it here to say that its genre, protagonist, thematic variety and narrative scheme are the same as in the philosophical genre Περὶ βίων, Chrysippus’ work by the same title and P.Herc. 1384. In particular, the main topics inferable from the portion of P.Herc. 1020 edited so far (cols. 104–12 Alessandrelli–Ranocchia)Footnote ¹⁵² – the wise man's cognitive, moral and dialectical virtues – fit in well with what we know about book 4 of Chrysippus’ On Ways of Life. Just as in the latter the author addresses epistemological and dialectical issues, such as the use of anti-logical arguments and how to tackle the questions raised by Megarics and other opponents in dialectical discussions,Footnote ¹⁵³ so in P.Herc. 1020 the author dwells on epistemology (cols. 104–8 and 112), dialectic and, in particular, on how to dialectically engage with formidable adversaries (cols. 109–10). In addition, just as in Περὶ βίων book 4, where Chrysippus discusses philosophy in general and its parts,Footnote ¹⁵⁴ so in P.Herc. 1020 the author provides a masterly definition of philosophy by contrasting it with one of its sub-sections, viz., again, dialectic (col. 108.12–27).Footnote ¹⁵⁵ So, if P.Herc. 1384 and 1020 both belong to this Chrysippean treatise, they must coincide with books 1 and 4 respectively.

To be sure, here we are not dealing with strictly deductive pieces of proof, but with various kinds of arguments, whose synergistic combination points in the same direction, by corroborating this attribution hypothesis from different sides (philosophical, thematic, lexical, literary, stylistic and palaeographical). One only wonders where the two remaining books (books 2 and 3) of Chrysippus’ Περὶ βίων may have ended up and why they have not yet been identified in the Herculanean collection. As in the case of Epicurus’ 37-book On Nature and several multi-volume works by Philodemus – of which several books, albeit not all, have been preserved – their loss must be considered merely accidental. However, as experience suggests, nothing rules out the possibility that they will be identified in the future.Footnote ¹⁵⁶ If this argumentation is correct, the Stoic or, better, Chrysippean section of Philodemus’ library also included, among the various works mentioned above, a complete copy of Chrysippus’ famous treatise On Ways of Life.