Posidonius of Apamea

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 2.1 §2 Posidonius has now written back from Rhodes

  Posidonius of Apamea (c. 135-51 BC), the great Stoic polymath who taught at Rhodes, where Cicero had heard him. Cicero had asked him to write up the consulship more elaborately; Posidonius declined, daunted (Cicero claims) by Cicero's own version.

• On Fate §5 the master's leave

  Pace magistri: Posidonius of Apamea was the leading Stoic of Cicero's youth and, in a sense, his teacher; Cicero apologizes for criticizing him as one would a master.

• On the Ends of Good and Evil §1.6 our friend Posidonius

  Posidonius of Apamea (c. 135-51 BC), the great Stoic polymath whom Cicero had heard at Rhodes and counted as a personal acquaintance. The phrase 'familiaris noster' marks him as a friend.

• On the Nature of the Gods §2.88 that orrery which our friend Posidonius lately made

  Posidonius of Apamea (c. 135-51 BC), the great Stoic polymath and Cicero's older contemporary, who built a planetarium modeling the motions of sun, moon, and planets. Balbus argues that if the model implies a maker, so much more the heavens it imitates.

• On Duties §1.159 Posidonius has assembled a great many such things

  Posidonius of Apamea, the polymath Stoic of the generation after Panaetius, here cited as having catalogued the foul or shameful acts a wise man would never commit even to save his country. Cicero uses him to limit the claims of patriotism against decency.

• Tusculan Disputations §2.61 But not so our friend Posidonius

  Posidonius of Apamea (c. 135-c. 51 BC), the great Stoic polymath who taught at Rhodes, where Cicero himself studied under him. Despite agonizing joint pain (gout or arthritis), he refused to concede pain was an evil, the counter-example to Dionysius of Heraclea.