Stoicism is one of the most influential philosophical schools in western civilization. In fact, the name traces back to a portico on the Agora, the town square of Athen: it is here that Zeno of Citium founded the dotrine in the early 3rd century BC. An essential property of stoic philosophy is the cosmological perspective on a holistic experience of the world, resulting in a universal principle that prevails in all natural phenomena and correlations. The stoic individual is mostly concerned with recognizing and occupying his place in this order - he does so by embracing his fate through the stoic practice of emotional self-restraint, striving for wisdom by means of serenity and tranquility.