Founded in Athens around 300 BCE by Zeno of Citium, who taught from a public colonnade — the Stoa Poikile, or “painted porch,” which gave the school its name. Stoicism held that virtue is the only true good, and that a good life comes from living in accordance with reason and nature while meeting whatever lies beyond our control with equanimity. It reached its most famous flowering in Rome, through the statesman Seneca, the former slave Epictetus, and the emperor Marcus Aurelius.