Ancient Greece gave the world democracy, philosophy, theatre and mathematics. It also, rather wonderfully, gave us one of history’s strangest recorded deaths.
His name was Chrysippus of Soli, a third century BC Stoic philosopher whose writings shaped Western thought for centuries. By all accounts, he was an exceptionally intelligent man, producing hundreds of philosophical works and earning a reputation as one of the greatest thinkers of the ancient world.
Sadly, history remembers him for something rather less profound.
According to several ancient writers, Chrysippus owned a donkey and one day he noticed the animal enthusiastically eating figs. Now, most people would just let the donkey eat it’s snack. Chrysippus, however, found the sight so amusing that he allegedly called to a servant:
“Now give the donkey some neat wine to wash the figs down!”
Whether the servant actually obeyed is lost to history, but what happened next has become legendary.
Watching the scene unfold, Chrysippus reportedly erupted into uncontrollable laughter. He laughed and laughed and laughed some more until he collapsed. The philosopher, according to ancient accounts, literally laughed himself to death.
Modern doctors have suggested several possibilities. A violent laughing fit can trigger cardiac arrest in someone with an underlying heart condition. It can also cause breathing difficulties, loss of consciousness or a fatal stroke. So, while ‘dying of laughter’ sounds like the punchline to a joke, it isn’t entirely impossible, and whether every detail is true or not doesn’t really matter.
For over two thousand years, one of history’s greatest philosophers has been remembered not for logic or reason, but for finding a drunken donkey so hilarious that he couldn’t stop laughing and there is a certain poetry in that.
Stoicism teaches us to accept the things we can’t control. I doubt Chrysippus expected one of those things to be a tipsy donkey with a taste for fruit.
Still, there are worse ways to leave the world than laughing…
