Panaetius
PANAETIUS (c. 185-180 to 110-108 B.C.), Greek Stoic philosopher, belonged to a Rhodian family, but w-as probably educated partly in Pergamum under Crates of Maflus and afterwards in Athens, where he attended the lectures of Diogenes the Babylonian, Critolaus and Carneades. He subsequently went to Rome, where he became the friend of Laelius and of Scipio the Younger. He lived as a guest in the house of the latter, and accompanied him on his mission to Egypt and Asia (143 or 141). He returned with Scipio to Rome, where he did much to introduce Stoic doctrines and Greek philosophy. He had a number of distinguished Romans as pupils, amongst them Q. Mucins Scaevola the augur and Q. Aelius Tubero. After the murder of Scipio in 129, he resided by turns in Athens and Rome, but chiefly in Athens, where he succeeded Antipater of Tarsus as head of the Stoic school. The right of citizenship was offered him by the Athenians, but he refused it. His chief pupil in philosophy was Posidonius of Apamea. In his teaching he laid stress on ethics; and his most important works, of which only insignificant fragments are preserved, were on this subject. They are as follow: Hepi Toiv Kadr^Kovros (On Duty), in three books, the original of the first two books of Cicero's De officiis; llipl irpovoias (On Providence), used by Cicero in his De divinatione (ii.) and probably in part of the second book of the De Dcoritm natura; a political treatise (perhaps called Hepi TToXtTiKTjs), used by Cicero in his De republica; Hepi fWvfiias (On Cheerfulness); Uipl alpicraov (On Philosophical Schools); a letter to Q. Aelius Tubero, De dolore patiendo (Cicero, De finibus, iv. 9, 23).
Edition of the fragments by H. N. Fowler (Bonn, 1885), and in F. van Lynden's monograph (Leiden, 1802). See also A. Schmekel, Die Philosophie der mittleren Stoa (1892); F. Susemihl, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur in der Alexandrinerzeit (1892), ii._ 63-80; E. Zeller, " Beitrage zur Kenntniss des Stoikers Panatius " in Commentationes philologae in honorem Th. Mommseni (1877); on the use made of him by Cicero, R. Hirzel, Untersuchungen (As Ciceros philosophischen Schriflen (1877-1883). For his importance in the Stoic succession and his philosophy generally, see Stoics.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
