# Herillus — The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers character guide

> Herillus in The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0066-herillus

## Snapshot

A Thracian-born Stoic who walked forty furlongs daily to sit at Zeno's feet, then taught that the wise man would rather go mad than feel pleasure.

## Who they are

Herillus belongs to the first generation of Stoics circling Zeno, the kind of philosopher who defines himself by what he refuses — pleasure, flattery, easy disciples. His sharpest tension is between his humble origins (a Thracian mother, a rumor he never quite escapes) and his ferocious intellectual ambition, which drove him to lecture on virtue while insisting that labor itself is the only good. He matters because his severe, almost comic rigor shows the reader what Stoicism looked like before it softened into Roman respectability.

## In the story

### [Herillus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/chapters/herillus)

A native of Carthage, Herillus argued that the chief good is knowledge and that one should always conduct oneself according to knowledge, not ignorance.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/characters/herillus
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- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_lives_and_opinions_of_eminent_philosophers_se/characters