Hierocles the Stoic c. 100 AD – c. 180 AD

Hierocles the Stoic was a Greek Stoic philosopher of the second century AD, distinct from the later Neoplatonist Hierocles of Alexandria. Substantial portions of his Elements of Ethics survive in a papyrus from Hermopolis and in the Anthology of Stobaeus. His most influential contribution to Stoic moral philosophy is the celebrated image of the concentric circles, in which each human being is encompassed by a series of widening circles of care, the inner circles consisting of self and family and the outer circles encompassing fellow citizens and the whole of humankind, with the moral task being to draw the outer circles inward toward the center.