THE DERVENI PAPYRUS AND EARLY STOICISM*

1. The most exciting recent development in the interpretation of the Derveni papyrus, to my mind, is the hypothesis that the text might have been composed under Stoic influence or, indeed, it was written by a member of the Stoic school. The first step comes in Fabienne Jourdan’s French book on the Derveni papyrus. In the Introduction to her book, in the section entitled L’auteur?, Jourdan remarks that the affinities with Stoicism may be stronger than with any of the Presocratic authors regularly mentioned in connection with the Derveni text.1 She does not develop the remark and does not elaborate on the wider consequences of the suggestion, but here and there in the book she points out some resemblances. So, for example, in her annotated index verborum in the three sentence entry on pneàma, she reminds the reader that this term is very important in Stoic physics and in her notes on col. XVIII she remarks that Moira