found herself suddenly transmuted into
the conception of memory: Minerva had hitherto been in reality not
much more. The supernatural Stoic, and the allegoric Roman,
theology coincided on the whole in their result. But, even if
the philosopher was obliged to designate individual propositions
of the priestly lore as doubtful or as erroneous--as when the Stoics,
for example, rejecting the doctrine of apotheosis, saw in Hercules,
Castor, and Pollux nothing but the spirits of distinguished men, or
as when they could not allow the images of the gods to be regarded
as representations of divinity--it was at least not the habit of
the adherents of Zeno to make war on these erroneous doctrines
and to overthrow the false gods; on the contrary, they everywhere
evinced respect and reverence for the religion of the land even
in its weaknesses. The inclination also of the Stoa towards a
casuistic morality and towards a systematic treatment of the
professional sciences was quite to the mind of the Romans,
especially of the Romans of this period, who no longer like their
fathers practised in unsophisticated fashion self-government and
good morals, but resolved the simple morality of their ancestors
into a catechism of allowable and non-allowable actions; whose
grammar and jurisprudence, moreover, urgently demanded a methodical
treatment, without possessing the ability to develop such a
treatment of themselves.

Wide Influence of Stoicism
Panaetius

So this philosophy thoroughly incorporated itself, as a plant
borrowed no doubt from abroad but acclimatized on Italian soil,
with the Roman national economy, and we meet its traces in the
most diversified spheres of action. Its earliest appearance beyond
doubt goes further back; but the Stoa was first raised to full
influence in the higher ranks of Roman society by means of the
group which gathered round Scipio Aemilianus. Panaetius of Rhodes,
the instructor of Scipio and of all Scipio's intimate friends in
the Stoic philosophy, who was constantly in his train and usually
attended him even on journeys, knew how to adapt the system to
clever men of the world, to keep its speculative side in the
background, and to modify in some measure the dryness of the
terminology and the insipidity of its moral catechism, more
particularly by calling in the aid of the earlier philosophers,
among whom Scipio himself had an especial predilection for the
Socrates of Xenophon. Thenceforth the most