Ita relinqui nihil praeter ignem. Gli Stoici antichi tra cosmogonia e conflagrazione, in M. Alessandrelli (a cura di), Conflagrazione: ciclicità e conservazione del mondo dall'antichità al Rinascimento, «Bruniana & Campanelliana», 25, 1, (2020), pp. 85-105.

This essay outlines the Stoic doctrine of conflagration. Its dependence on Heraclitus and his belief in conflagration and cosmogony is affirmed. The Stoics found in Heraclitus a representation of the conflagration but not a theory of it. Their contribution consisted precisely in formulating such a theory. However, since in doing this they drew upon the Ionian tradition, a tension emerged between the original core of the Heraclitean doctrine, deeply mystical and religious in nature, and the reductionist materialism implied by the aforementioned tradition. Another relevant contrast concerns the conceptual scheme by which the Stoics conceived of the conflagration. We find, on the one hand, a permanentist scheme of the Aristotelian sort and, on the other, an emanationist scheme of Heraclitean derivation. In the end, I wish to advance the hypothesis that the conflagration is a sort of crucible of Zeus' thoughts and that time accompanies the unfolding of this supreme theoretical activity.