THE STOIC THINKING.

Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished throughout the Roman and Greek World until the 3rd  century BC. Based on the ethical ideas of the Cynics, it taught that the goal of life was to live in accordance with Nature. It advocated the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions. As reasoning creatures, people was able to gain happiness by rigorous training and by living in a way which is natural for themselves, rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, sex, and fame. Similar ideas appeared in early Christianity.
Stoicism was founded by Zeno of Citium (334- 262 BC), a thinker from Citium, Cyprus, of Phoenician descent. Zeno's interest in philosophy began when he consulted the oracle to know what he should do to attain the best life, and that the god's response was that he should take on the complexion of the dead, perceiving from this the study of ancient authors. He became a wealthy merchant. On a voyage from Phoenicia to Peiraeus he survived a shipwreck, after which he went to Athens and visited a bookseller. There he encounter Xenophon's Memorabilia. He was so please with the book's portrayal of Socrates that he asked the bookseller where men like Socrates were to be found. Just then, Crates of Thebes, the famous Cynic living at that time in Greece happened to be walking by, and the bookseller pointed to him. He became Crate's pupil, showing a strong bent for philosophy, though with too much modesty to assimilate Cynic shamelessness. Crates, desiring to cure this defect in him, gave him a pot full of lentil-soup to carry, and when he saw that Zeno was ashamed and tried to keep it out of sight, Crates broke the pot with a blow of his staff. As Zeno began to run off in embarrassment with the lentil-soup flowing down his legs, Crates said, "Why run away, my little Phoenician? Nothing terrible has befallen you."
Apart from Crates, Zeno studied under the philosophers of the Megarian school (pupils of Socrates) and the dialecticians Diodorus Cronus, and Philo. He is also said to have studied Platonist philosophy under Xenocrates and Polemo. His disciples were initially called Zenonians, but eventually they came to be known as Stoics, a name previously applied to poets who congregated in the Stoa Poikile.
Zeno died around 262 BC. Diogennes Laertius reported the following about Zeno's death: "As he was leaving the school he tripped and fell, breaking his toe. Striking the ground with his fist, he quoted the line from the Niobe: 'I come, I come, why do you call for me? ' and died on the spot through holding his breath.' "
Niobe was the daughter of Tantalus. She was mentioned in Homer's Iliad which relates her personal quality of excessive pride and dangerous overconfidence, in combination with arrogance, for which she was punished by Leto, a daughter of a Titan, to slay all of her children.
Her father, Tantalus became one of the inhabitants of Tartarus, the deepest portion of the Underworld, reserved for the punishment of evildoers. He was punished for his evil behavior by standing in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches raised his intended meal from his grasp. Whenever he bent down to get a drink, the water receded before he could get any. This fate cursed him with eternal depravation of nourishment.