Our primary evidence for the contribution of Cleanthes, the second Stoic scholarch, to the school’s distinctive theory of cyclical ekpyrosis (conflagration) is limited to a single difficult passage found in Stobaeus attributed to Arius Didymus. Interpretations of this text have largely proceeded by emendation (von Arnim, Meerwaldt) or claims of misconstrual or misunderstanding (Hahm). In recent studies, Salles and Hensley have taken the passage at face value and reconstructed opposed interpretations of Cleanthes’ position. The former suggests that it differs significantly from that of Zeno and Chrysippus. Both the sequence of elemental transformation and its scope are said to be challenged by Cleanthes, suggesting cosmogony was a deeply controversial area in the early Stoa. I resist this interpretation of the evidence while also attempting to read the text without textual correction. Hensley, on the other hand, finds all three to be in strict harmony. Here I advocate for a middle ground where Cleanthes is closer to the positions of both Zeno and Chrysippus, but I also find room for his development of Stoic cosmogony as composed of a series of discrete stages radiating outwards from the middle. We are left with a clearer, more nuanced picture of how Stoic natural philosophy develops in its early period.

我们的主要证据是第二个斯多葛学派的Cleanthes对学校独特的周期性癫痫病理论的贡献（大火）仅限于在Stobaeus中归因于Arius Didymus的单个困难通道。对该文本的解释主要是通过修正（von Arnim，Meerwaldt）或对构造或误解的主张（Hahm）来进行的。在最近的研究中，Salles和Hensley从表面上看了这篇文章，并重构了Cleanthes立场的对立解释。前者表明它与Zeno和Chrysippus的显着不同。据说元素转化的顺序及其范围都受到Cleanthes的挑战，这表明宇宙论是Stoa早期的一个备受争议的领域。我拒绝对证据的这种解释，同时也尝试在不进行文本更正的情况下阅读文本。另一方面，亨斯利则发现这三者之间是严格协调的。在这里，我主张一个中间地带，使Cleanthes更接近Zeno和Chrysippus的位置，但是我也为他的Stoic世界性发展留有空间，它由一系列从中间向外辐射的离散阶段组成。我们对斯多葛的自然哲学在早期如何发展有了更清晰，更细微的了解。