Fate — heimarmenē — is the coherent sequence of causes (αἰτίων εἱρμός) that runs through the whole cosmos. For the Stoics, εἱμαρμένη is functionally identical with the Logos, with the nature of the whole, with Zeus, and with πρόνοια (providence): it is not the blind necessity of ancient tragedy but the rational order according to which everything happens κατὰ φύσιν. The ethical weight: the correct attitude toward εἱμαρμένη is voluntary assent to what happens; murmuring is a category error, since the one who murmurs is in revolt against the very structure of the real.

Lexically, εἱμαρμένη is verbal (a perfect-passive participial substantive of μείρομαι, "to receive as one's lot"); its kindred nominal form from the same root is TERMμοῖρα ("share, what is measured out"). The nuance differs: εἱμαρμένη foregrounds the property of the cosmos of being "measured out through and through"; μοῖρα the particular share, a stretch of that fabric.

SVF II 912–1007 (the doctrine of fate, providence, and a necessity coincident with nature); Cic. De div. I 125–127 (Chrysippus); DL VII 149; LS 55, 62. In Marcus: Med. 2.2; 4.34; 05-08 (the well-known "the threads of your life are woven together with the whole"); 05-24 (how small a part of fate you are); 07-46 (τὴν εἱμαρμένην οὐδ’ ἂν εἷς ἐκφύγοι — "no one escapes his fate," Plato, Gorgias); 08-35 (nature "orders into εἱμαρμένη" all that resists; so the rational turns a hindrance into material); 7.57; 10.5; 12.14.

In 02-02 εἱμαρμένον appears in the closing imperative: "do not be vexed at your present lot, and do not fear what is to come." This is the condensed formula of the Stoic consent to fate: the present moment is already inscribed in the overall order and so cannot be "what ought not to have happened"; the future belongs to the same order and so is no object of fear. The connection with Hadot's discipline of desire: εὐδοκίμησις — "well-wishing" toward what happens — is the rational mode proper to one's relation with εἱμαρμένη.