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Poseidonios on Problems of the Roman Empire*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Hermann Strasburger
Affiliation:
University of Freiburg im Breisgau.

Extract

On the life of Poseidonios there is but little reliable information elucidating the theme of this paper. The probable years of his birth and death are 135 and 51 B.C. About his background nothing is known except that Apameia in Syria was his place of origin. In view of the mixed population of that country one might surmise the presence of non-Hellenic ethnical components in his ancestry, but nothing is known about this. He was a disciple of the stoic philosopher Panaitios of Rhodes, probably at Athens; afterwards he became himself the head of the stoic school in Rhodes, where he must have acquired the citizenship, for he acted as a magistrate (‘prytanis’) and as an ambassador of the city. Strabo's praise of the exemplary social-welfare work at Rhodes (14, 653) seems to be derived from Poseidonios; in any case it is characteristic of Poseidonios' interest in social problems (see below p. 48).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Hermann Strasburger 1965. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 FGrHist II A, no. 87, T 1–8, with Jacoby's commentary, ib. II C (references to F(ragments), T(estimonia) and Comm(entary) below are to this work). See also K. Reinhardt, P–W s.v. Poseidonios, 563 ff. and Pohlenz, M., Die Stoa I (1948), 208 ffGoogle Scholar.; 2 (1955), 103 f.

2 See E. Honigmann, P–W s.v. Syria, 1565 ff.

3 Cicero, , de div. 1, 6Google Scholar; de off. 3, 8.

4 cf. Pohlenz, P–W s.v. Panaitios, 424 f.

5 cf. Hiller v. Gaertringen, P–W s.v. Rhodos (Suppl. V), 801.

6 Hiller, l.c. 767.

7 Cicero, , fin. 1, 6Google Scholar; Tusc. 2, 61; nat. deor. I, 6; 123; de div. I, 6; de fato 5. Plut., Cic. 4, 5; Pomp. 42, 10. Strabo 11, 491.

8 FF 41–44. cf. T I. Plut., Marcell. 13 f.; 17; 19–21; 23. M. Mühl, Poseidonios und der plutarch. Marcellus, 1925. Münzer, F., Gnomon I (1925), 96 ff.Google Scholar

9 Cicero, , de orat. I, 57.Google Scholar cf. 45: see Münzer, l.c. 98.

10 Ps. Plut., pro nobil. 18, 3. cf. Pos., F 59, p. 260, line 35 and Klebs, P–W s.v. Aelius, no. 155.

11 Cicero, Brut. 114; de off. 3, 10.

12 F 27, cf. F 59. Appian, Ib. 382. cf. Simon, H., Roms Kriege in Spanien (Diss. Frankfurt, 1961), 175, 83.Google Scholar

13 Mar. 29, 12. cf. Livy, Per. 69.

14 Particularly obvious in his description of political dynamics in book VI. On his oral sources for Roman history, Gelzer, Kl. Schr. III, 169 ff., 175 f., 189 f. is very instructive.

15 Münzer, P–W s.v. Livius Drusus, 859. cf. Gelzer, o.c. 11, 48.

16 The few meagre excerpts from Diodoros (FF 110 and 111) do not make clear Poseidonios' view on the agrarian reforms, but in any case his general judgement on both the Gracchi was unjustly sharp. It shows the influence of optimate polemics: Poseidonios' authorities were convinced that both the brothers strove for tyranny (cf. F 112, 7) and were to be held responsible for an anarchical situation. This was also the view of Scipio Aemilianus on Ti. Gracchus (F 110 f.), but I do not think that Poseidonios would have made it his only guide (see further below). Nothing is preserved of Rutilius' account of the Gracchi, but there can hardly have been a difference between his views and those of his teacher P. Mucius Scaevola, cos. 133 (see on this my forthcoming paper ‘Der Scipionenkreis’ in Hermes 94, 1966), to whom he was closely attached and who had furthered the agrarian reform, like his brother Crassus Mucianus, but then, obviously, when he saw the order of the state endangered, abandoned Ti. Gracchus and later on even condemned him severely. Likewise Q. Aelius Tubero (see above p. 40) had turned from a friend to an enemy of the Gracchi (Cic. Lael. 37., cf. Malcovati, ORF 2 171). Poseidonios is likely to have followed the opinion of the stoics Rutilius and Tubero, with both of whom he was acquainted.

17 F 108 d (p. 287, line 40). F III b(p. 296, line 5). Diod. 36, 3, 1; 37, 5. This view too, surely, was inspired by Rutilius and particularly by the indignation Poseidonios felt over Rutilius' trial.

18 F 37. cf. tne passages in Diodoros noted in Jacoby's commentary and Diod. 38, 4. Elsewhere in Diodoros Marius is painted not unfavourably (34, 38 f., 36, 1, 1 and 3, 1; 37, 2, 12 and 14; 15). In the mixture of sources used by Plutarch for his biography of Marius, too complicated to be analysed here, two threads of tradition are conspicuous: the somewhat dull praise of Marius by an unknown biographer and the hostile but well-informed and pointed treatment of an admirer of Metellus Numidicus (see esp. ch. 4 f., 8, 10, 28–31), who cannot be other than Rutilius Rufus, the notorious enemy of Marius (28, 8, cf. 10, 1 and Dio fragm. 98, 3). For distinguishing between his hand and that of Poseidonios, Plutarch's biography offers no clue to me (cf. Steidle, W., ‘Sallusts histor. Monographien’, Historia, Einzelschrift 3 (1958), 78 f.Google Scholar).

19 See my paper ‘Der Scipionenkreis’, Hermes 94, 1966.

21 Münzer, P–W s.v. Cornelius, 1454. cf. E. Norden, German. Urgeschichte in Tacitus' Germania 163 f. and Simon, H., Roms Kriege in Spanien 188, 125.Google Scholar

22 Norden, o.c. 436 f.; Simon, o.c. 175, 83.

23 F 112, cf. Gelzer, o.c. 11, 47 f. and the literature quoted there. cf. also W. Steidle, o.c. 18 and Fuchs, H., ‘Der Friede als Gefahr,’ Harv. Stud. Cl. Phil. 63 (1958), 367Google Scholar; 379 ff.

24 For which policy cf. esp. Gelzer, o.c. 11, 63; Bilz, K., Die Politik des P. Corn. Scipio Aem. (1936), 33 f.Google Scholar, 65; Scullard, H. H., JRS 50 (1960), 59 ff.Google Scholar

25 Nock, A. D., ‘Posidonius,’ JRS 49 (1959), 4.Google Scholar

26 See Jacoby, Comm. p. 156.

27 As he did some earlier geographical and ethnological passages; for instance, those on Gaul and Spain in book 5.

28 Busolt, G., Jahrb.für cl. Philol. 36 (1890), 321 ff.Google Scholar, 405 ff. E. Schwartz, P–W s.v. Diodoros, 690. A. Rosenberg, Einleitung u. Quellenkunde zur röm. Gesch. 199 f. Jacoby, Comm., p. 157; 206 ff. K. Reinhardt, P–W s.v. Poseidonios, 630 ff.

29 cp. Jacoby, Comm. p. 159.

30 cp. Jacoby, Comm. pp. 157 f. Athenaios, our richest source of original fragments, seems to confine himself to the passages he quotes.

31 cp. FF 30–34, 37, 40–47, 49–58, 60, 62–67, 70 f., 73.

32 The most revealing characteristics are given by Reinhardt, K.: Poseidonios (1921), 19 ff.Google Scholar; ‘Poseidonios über Ursprung und Entartung,’ Orient und Antike 6 (1928); P–W s.v. Poseidonios, 631 ff., 822 ff. ‘Philosophy and History among the Greeks,’ Greece and Rome 2nd Ser. 1, 2 (1954), 87 ff. cp. Jacoby, Comm. p. 159 ff. and see further Schulten, A., Hermes 46 (1911), 592 f.Google Scholar, with the justified criticism of Norden, E., Germ. Urgesch. 163, 4.Google Scholar cf. also Simon, H., Roms Kriege in Spanien 95, 20Google Scholar; 137; 164 f.; 188; and my paper: ‘Komik und Satire in der griech. Geschichtsschreibung,’ Festgabe f. Paul Kirn (1961), 38 ff.

33 By underrating this complication Busolt often went astray. The right views, at least in principle, are set out by E. Schwartz, P–W s.v. Appianos, 222, 224; s.v. Cassius Dio, 1698, 1705.

34 The central passage in Strabo is that on the foundation of the league of Cilician pirates (14, 688 f.), a passage which Capelle, W. (Klio 25 (1932), 103 note)Google Scholar has already assigned to Poseidonios, though for insufficient reasons. Also closely related, in my view, are several minor passages which explain the geographical, economic and political causes of the thriving of piracy, illuminate the attitude of some important cities in favour of or against piracy (furthermore their close connection with the international slave-trade), and, finally, discuss the social solution of the problem by Pompey (10, 486; 14, 644; 652; 664 f.; 671; 16, 752; 754). This means: an account, probably connected in Poseidonios, was cut into pieces by Strabo to fit in with his own periegetic survey and—as is obvious in Plutarch and Appian—much abridged.

The main peculiarity pointing to Poseidonios as being the source of Strabo, Plutarch and Appian, as the case may be, is a preoccupation with circumstantial and complicated aetiological considerations, an outlook which claims intense interaction between the problems of political history on the one hand and social and economic, ethical and psychological problems on the other, which traces the dynamic of a development from casual local origins to world-wide danger—with evident predilection for the paradoxes of the subject. The most representative survival of this is F 108 on the first Sicilian slave-war, the close thematic affinity of which to piracy should be noticed particularly. Likewise we may call to mind the exposition of the second slave-war (Diod. 36, 2 ff.), the connection between the destruction of Carthage and the Roman decline (F 112) and portraits like that of Viriathus (Simon, o.c. 135, 69), Marius (Diodoros 37, 29) or Athenion (F 36) (further see esp. Reinhardt's descriptions of Poseidonios' peculiarity cited above, n. 32). In Strabo 14, 668 we may find Poseidonian origin indicated also by the appearance of Diodotos-Tryphon, whose activity was treated with special interest in the histories (see Jacoby on Poseidonios FF 2–3 and 29).

Whether the somewhat stilted and lifeless parallel record of Cassius Dio (36, 20 f.) shows traces of the Poseidonian conception or is based on Roman accounts, I do not dare to decide. The Thucydidean flourish at the beginning, exempting Dio from a serious aetiology, is certainly his own product. But I am sure that the problem of piracy had already been portrayed by the Roman Annalists, like the slaverevolts in Sicily, as something which had suddenly fallen from heaven. It is only against the background of such run-of-the-mill treatments that the inconvertible features of the great Poseidonian aetiologies become obvious.

35 See esp. Plut., Pomp. 24 and 28, App., Mithr. 92, 416–96, 445.

36 FF 1, 2, 7, 9, 10, 14, 20, 21; *28, 12; *36, 49. In Greek historiography the richly coloured description of the τρυφή since Theopompos has a long tradition. But for the first half of the first century— here only in question—it is to be found only in Poseidonios, as far as I know.

37 Social and economic causes of the phenomenon: App., Mithr. 417; Pos., F 108 b–d. Motive of greed of gain: App., 417 and 419; Strabo 14, 668; Pos., F 108 d; 116, 26, 3; 117, 36, 3 and 38, 2. Small local beginnings and gradual rising of briganage: App. 416 ff.; Plut., Pomp. 24, 2; Pos., F 108 a 2 and d. The trade of piracy becomes socially acceptable: App. 418, Plut. 24, 3. Armament, technical resources: App. 419 f.; Plut. 24, 4; Pos., F 108 d and a 16. Stop to all traffic because of common insecurity: App. 423; Plut. 25, 1; Pos., F 108 d. Collision with the Roman power and initial helplessness of it: App. 423 ff.; Plut. 24, 8 ff.; Pos., F 108 a 3 and d; a 18. Derision of a Roman citizen: Plut. 24, 11–13. Here characterizing a situation by generalizing an anecdotal feature (as e.g. F 108 f; g; i; r) is typical of Poseidonios, likewise the implied hint at the blindness of the mocker, who later on will be the helpless victim himself: F 108 a 8; g; f; cf. F 7 (on the peculiarity of the scene of derision, which has been compared to the derision of Christ, see St. Weinstock, ‘Saturnalien und Neujahrsfest in den Märtyrerakten,’ in ‘Mullus’, Festschrift für Klauser, Th., Jahrb. f. Antike u. Christentum, Ergänzungsband I (1964), 393)Google Scholar. In Plut. Pomp. 28, 4 the philosophical argument for Pompey's clemency points to Poseidonios' optimistic anti-Thucydidean view of human nature (cf. F 108 a 13, c and k; Diod. 38–39, 21. See also below pp. 47 and 50 f.).

38 FGrHist 188. The fragments, of course, are too few to permit a real comparison, but in any case they all refer to the Mithridatic War, and as there is no other testimony on the extent of the whole of the work, it remains dubious whether Theophanes had included the war against the pirates at all (cf. Jacoby II D, Comm. on FGrHist 188, p. 614. For a different view see Laqueur, P–W s.v. Theophanes, 2125 f., but, as it seems to me, his arguments are merely hypothetical).

39 I think it probable (along the lines followed by the reflections of Reinhardt, Poseidonios über Ursprung (above, n. 32), 30 f.), that Poseidonios postponed his account of the whole of the development of piracy, from the middle of the second century till the year 67, to this context (cf. the reconstruction sketched below pp. 50–51), but I cannot prove it.

40 Poseidonios über Ursprung 25 ff.

41 Reinhardt, P–W s.v. Poseidonios, 638 f., cf. M. Gelzer, P–W s.v. Tullius Cicero, 902; Pompeius 2 (1959), 109.

42 This is the view of Ed. Meyer, , Caesars Monarchie und d. Principat des Pompeius 3, 29, 4Google Scholar; 618 f.

43 See Jacoby, Comm. p. 156.

44 cf. Busolt, o.c. (above, n. 28), 436; Norden, , Germ. Urgesch. 78, 2Google Scholar; 103, 3. Jacoby, Comm. pp.156 f.

45 i.e. about 400 pages of a modern printed edition.

46 F 59 cf. the characterization of Viriathus reconstructed by Simon, o.c. (above, n. 32), 136 f.

47 11, 492 = Pos., T II. The wording does not compel us to assume a separate monograph.

48 cf. P. Treves, Oxf. Cl. Dict. s.v. Posidonius. Parallels are the history of Dionysios I in Philistos (FGrHist 556, TT 1; 11; 12) or those of Agathokles and Pyrrhos in Timaios (FGrHist 566, TT 8 and 9).

49 The Bryn Mawr Dissertation of Margaret E. Reeser, The political theory of the old and middle Stoa (1951), seems to be unacquainted with Capelle's article and is inferior to it on the essential points.

50 Capelle (p. 95) refers to Schmekel, A. (Die Philosophie der mittleren Stoa (1892), 61 ff., 228)Google Scholar, considering him to have proved this. M. Pohlenz, who by his authority supports this opinion, which has been accepted by many other scholars without any further examination, contents himself with insufficient arguments (e.g. Antikes Führertum (1934), 33; GGA 200 (1938), 135 f.; Die Stoa I, 206; 22, 102). His statement that Panaitios is a fundamental source of Cicero in the De re publica has been doubted in the case of the first book especially (cp. Solmsen, F., Philol. 88 (1933), 331Google Scholar; 338; Pöschl, V., Röm. Staat und griech. Staatsdenken bei Cicero (1936), 23Google Scholar, note 27; Büchner, K., Stud. Ital. Fil. Class. 26 (1952), 97Google Scholar; id., Latomus 70 (1964), 149, which I have not time to deal with here). But the arguments adduced by Schmekel and Pohlenz, in favour of the thesis that Cicero uses the famous disputation of Karneades of 155 B.C. in a polemic reproduction of Panaitios, seem to me very airy. Each attempt to prove this must fail, a priori, because there is preserved not the tiniest scrap of the content of Panaitios' political doctrine (cp. De legibus 3, 14 f.; De rep. I, 34), and therefore the question remains, to what extent, if at all, he engaged in problems of practical politics. A study of all genuine fragments (cp. M. van Straaten, Panaetii Rhodii Fragmenta 3, 1962) and especially the excellent analysis of the De officiis by Georg Picht (Die Grundlagen der Ethik des Panaitios, unprinted dissertation, Freiburg, 1943, obtainable at the Universitäts-Bibliothek, Freiburg im Breisgau) made it seem very doubtful to me that he did so at all (see also the objections of K. Büchner, Latomus l.c.). If the doctrine of the minor peoples which need tutelage (De re publica 3, 36 f.) were Panaitios' justification of Roman rule, it should occur in the De officiis.; but there we look for it in vain. This conception would also be a major break with the old stoic view of the equality of all men (Zeno (SVFI), fragm. 262 in Plut. De Al.fort. I, 6; Chrysippos (SVF III), fragm. 334–366; Eratosthenes in Strabo 1, 66 f.; Seneca, ep. 47; Epictet., Diatr. I, 13, 3 f.). Nay more, it is originally, as Capelle (l.c. 95, 106 ff.) and Pohlenz (Die Stoa, 206) are fully aware, a Platonic and Aristotelian conception (cf. especially Aristotle's counsel to Alexander, Fragm. 658 Rose = Ross p. 63. On this Buchner, E., Hermes 82 (1954), 378 ff.Google Scholar). And it was precisely Plato and Aristotle whose ideas of justice Karneades took strong exception to, as Cicero himself seems to have testified in De re publica III (see ch. 3, 9–11). Another mediator of the Karneades-speeches suggests himself far more than Panaitios: Karneades' disciple Kleitomachos, from whom Cicero derived a great deal of information about him on other matters (Orelli-Baiter, , Onom. Tull. 2, 131 f.; 160Google Scholar) and whom he once cites explicitly for the embassy of philosophers (Acad. 2, 137). The logical threads of the two original speeches of Karneades have been obscured in Cicero not only by the fragmentary state of the De re publica but above all because Cicero has inverted the order of the speeches for and against (see on this excellently H. von Arnim, P–W s.v. Karneades, 1978 ff.). But I think there is no reason why he should have needed stoic help against Karneades to return to the Platonic-Aristotelian doctrine. At any rate, the attitude of Panaitios towards the legitimation of Roman rule remains unknown.

50a cf. the evidence from the early second century B.C. discussed by Volkmann, H., Hermes 82 (1954), 474.Google Scholar

51 See on this Haffter, H., ‘Politisches Denken im alten Rom,’ Stud. Ital. Fil. Class. N.S. 17 (1940), III ff.Google Scholar

52 The Roman examples in the De officiis, which (as in this case) do not always fit with their context, show the hand of Cicero rather than that of Panaitios. The logical inconsistency in the morals of this (probably unfinished) passage do not suggest an earlier version by the philosopher (cp. n. 50 above and M. Gelzer, Kl. Schr. III, 60 f.; II, 6 ff.). On the whole, no correspondence can be securely proved between concrete issues of Roman policy and ascertained ‘stoic’ doctrines; in the case of Ti. Gracchus, for instance, his attempted reforms seem to have been disapproved of by Scipio Aemilianus and Polybios as well as by Poseidonios, but he had at his disposal a stoic philosopher, Blossios of Kymai, as an ideological counsellor (adequately on this Dudley, D. R., ‘Blossius of Cumae,’ JRS 31 (1941), 92–9Google Scholar). When it came to the point, Roman statesmen did not follow the prescriptions of the Greek philosophers in their households and the latter were certainly careful not to give too decided ones. The effect of the Stoa on Roman behaviour, as far as there was any, arose from its general educational influence, which led the Romans to interpret their own task subjectively and differently in each case.

53 cp. Ziegler, P–W s.v. Polybios, 1470 f. and 1498 f.

54 1, 1, 5; 1, 3, 9 f.; 3, 1, 4; 6, 2, 3; 39, 8, 7.

55 1, 63, 9 ff.; 3, 2, 6; 118, 9; 6, 18; 52–56; 52–56; 18, 28, 4ff.

56 See on this Walbank, F. W., Hist. Comm. on Pol. I (1957), 301.Google Scholar

57 See for the following passage the penetrating discussion by Brink, C. O. and Walbank, F. W., CQ N.S. 4 (1954), 102 ff.Google Scholar cf. M. Gelzer, Kl. Schr. II, 63 f., 71 and K. Ziegler, P–W s.v. Polybios, 1552 ff.

58 See esp. the reflections in Diod. 32, 2 and 4, rightly traced back to Polybios (Scullard, H. H., JRS 50 (1960), 73, 57)Google Scholar.

59 Strabo 3, 144, 154, 156, 163; 14, 665, 688 f. Capelle, l.c. 101 f. and above pp. 42–3.

60 Capelle, l.c. p. 103.

61 Capelle, l.c. p. 99.

62 Poseidonios' F 8 (on the Heracleots and Mariandynians) (cf. Reeser, l.c. p. 54, who seems even to trace back Cicero, De re publica 3, 37∼ 1, 51 to Poseidonios!) also should not be generalized in this sense (cp. Reinhardt, P–W s.v. Poseidonios, 632 f.).

63 W. Steidle (Sallusts histor. Monographien 16 ff.) rightly points out that in Poseidonios' view Roman moral decay hardly began abruptly in 146 B.C., but the events of this year at most initiated a stage of crisis in a development which had begun long before.

64 FF 59; 112 = Diod. 34/5, 33; Diod. 37, 3–5.

65 F 116 = Diod. 5, 26, 3; F 117 = Diod. 5, 36 f.

66 F III b = Diod. 34/5. 25.

67 F 117 = Diod. 5, 35, 4 and 38, 2.

68 FF 2, 5, 6, 10; Diod. 33, 4; 5; 6; 12; 4; 15, etc.

69 F 116 = Diod. 5, 25–32. FF 55–58, from Strabo's book 4. FF 15–18 = Athen. 4, 151–4 and 4, 246.

70 ἐπιεικεῑς καὶ φιλανθρώποι—two favourite terms of Poseidonios, F 117 = Diod. 5, 34, 1.

71 Diod. 33, 1; 21 a; App., Ib. 318 f.; Dio Cass., fr. 73. For a reconstruction see H. Simon, o.c. (above, n. 32), 134 and 135, n. 69.

72 For other examples see above, n. 68.

73 Diod. 34/5, 4, 1–2; cf. Simon, l.c. 164, 52.

74 For relevant passages see above n. 37, ad fin.

75 Diod. 33, 14 f.; 18; 34/5, 3; 12; 20–23. Pos., F 108. On Eunomia at Rhodes, Strabo 652 f.; on his source see also Hiller von Gaertringen, P–W s.v. Rhodos (suppl. V), 766.

76 For these qualities in the Celtiberians: F 117 = Diod. 5, 34, 1.

77 cf. W. Richter, ‘Seneca und die Sklaven,’ Gymn. 65 (1958), 198, cf. 204 f.

78 See the excerpts of his treatise ‘On the Red Sea’ in Diod. 3, 12–48 and Phot., Bibl. 250 passim.

79 F 117 = Diod. 5, 38, 1 ∼ Agatharchides in Diod. 3, 12.

80 Münzer, P–W s.v. Sempronius, no. 18, cf. Broughton MRR under the year 96 B.C.

81 cf. Münzer, P–W s.v. Mucius, 431 and Titius, 1556.

82 On him cf. Cicero, de off. 3, 62.

83 Klebs, P–W s.v. Aelius, no. 155, 536.

84 cf. Cicero, de off. I, 41.

85 See above, n. 23.

86 In 88 B.C. and the following years, App., Mithr. 262, 416, 586; Plut., Pomp. 24, 1.

87 App., Ib. 100, 433 ff., Münzer, P–W s.v. Didius, 409. On the sources see E. Norden, Germ. Urgeschichte in Tac. Germania, 164.

88 The way the idea of the societas hominum is treated in De officiis I, i.e. where Panaitios is Cicero's source, seems to me very different from precisely that part of book III which Cicero is particularly likely to have based on Poseidonios. As Cicero says himself (3. 7–9), Panaitios, his source until then, did not supply any more material for book III. It is certain that in what followed he now had recourse to a treatise of Poseidonios, the brevity of which he complained of (De officiis 3, 8; Att. 16, 11, 4), and besides that used a ὑπόμνημα of the stoic Athenodorus Calvus (Att. l.c. and 16, 14, 4), which he had procured from the author for this purpose. The respective contributions of these two sources cannot be determined exactly, but perhaps this is unnecessary because Athenodoros was probably a pupil of Poseidonios (von Arnim, p–w s.v. Athenodoros, n. 19), and so might well have reproduced Poseidonian doctrine. Cicero's use of this source, as he himself says, extends to ch. 32 inclusively; the rest he composed ‘nullis adminiculis’, pursuing his own ideas (33 f.).

One can most clearly distinguish two different treatments of societas hominum corresponding to these two different sections. In the first book the term often occurs (15, 17, 20 f., 50–60, 153–160: on the most complicated relationship between Panaitios and Cicero in the passage 50 ff., see Picht l.c. (above, n. 50), 175 ff.). But here the themes are, in a general philosophical sense, the liability of individuals to have regard for the generality of men and the relative precedence of obligations towards those natural formations of society to which every man belongs (the gradation of which Picht, l.c., traces to Cicero). The greatest and highest of these for Cicero is the nation, which is for him the fatherland. He deliberately omits the most comprehensive conception, viz. the infinita societas hominum (53, 57, 160), and consequently does not handle at all the relations between Romans or Greeks and barbarian peoples. This is significant for Cicero at least, but one may doubt whether Panaitios' argumentation was of similar political concreteness (cf. above, n. 50). But it may perhaps be said, with all due caution, that Cicero did not find in Panaitios any definite postulates here which would have made it difficult for him to exclude supra-national ideas.

In contrast to this, the passage which is probably based on Poseidonios (3, 21–32) suddenly teems with cosmopolitan demands, which differ markedly from the tenour of the first book and are also out of harmony with Cicero's theory in De re publica 3, 36 f. on the necessity for the rule of the better and conversely for the servitude of the worse. A few sentences may prove this:

‘Si enim sic erimus adfecti, ut propter suum quisque emolumentum spoliet aut violet alterum, disrumpi necesse est eam, quae maxime est secundum naturam, humani generis societatem (21).… Neque verum hoc solum natura, id est iure gentium, sed etiam legibus populorum, quibus in singulis civitatibus res publica continetur, eodem modo constitutum est, ut non liceat sui commodi causa nocere alteri… Atque hoc multo magis efficit ipsa naturae ratio, quae est lex divina et humana; cui parere qui velit— omnes autem parebunt, qui secundum naturam volent vivere—, numquam committet, ut alienum appetat et id, quod alteri detraxerit, sibi adsumat (23). … Itemque magis est secundum naturam, pro omnibus gentibus, si fieri possit, conservandis aut iuvandis, maximos labores molestiasque suscipere… quam vivere in solitudine non modo sine ullis molestiis… Ex quo efficitur, hominem naturae oboedientem homini nocere non posse (25).…Atque etiam si hoc natura praescribit, ut homo homini, quicumque sit, …consultum velit, necesse est secundum eandem naturam omnium utilitatem esse communem (27). …Qui autem civium rationem dicunt habendam, externotum negant, ii dirimunt communem humani generis societatem (28).’

From 3, 35 on to the end Cicero does not speak of the humana societas apart from a few passages (and they are remarkably few) which lack profundity of thought (52 f., 69, 118): for Cicero this idea remains always a philosophical topic in the sphere of private life; he does not recognize it, or at least does not acknowledge it, to be a problem affecting Roman imperial policy. But there can hardly be any doubt that the purpose of Poseidonios, to whose authority in 3, 21–32 he conceded more than was appropriate to his own convictions, had been to create not just a beautiful academic theory, but a constructive contribution to the solution of the world's political problems, just as in his time Karneades had set out to do.

89 cf. Hampl, F., Hist. Zeitschr. 188 (1959), 525.Google Scholar

90 On Caesar's knowledge of the ‘Histories’ see, e.g., E. Norden, Germ. Urgesch. in Tac. Germ. 99 f.

91 For relevant references, see Klotz, p–w s.v. Julius, 259 ff.

92 cf. above pp. 41–2. The two papers of F. Hampl, which set out to shatter these illusions (‘“Stoische Staatsethik” und frühes Rom’, Hist. Zeitschr. 184 (1957), 249 ff. and ‘Röm. Politik in republ. Zeit und das Problem des Sittenverfalls,’ l.c. 188 (1959), 497 ff.), in spite of some exaggerations seem to me to demand serious consideration.

93 Both in Lael. II and De off. I, 34 f.

94 De re p. 3, 36 f.; 41; cf. Gelzer, p–w s.v. Tullius, 975 f.; Cic. De off. I, 34–41; 2, 26–28; 75. In particular, the remarks on empire-government in De leg. 3, 9, with 18 and frg, 3, are poor. Obviously he had not planned any more, to judge by the short survey of what followed, cf. also Meyer, H. D., Cicero und das Reich, Diss. Köln (1957), 240 ff.Google Scholar

95 See e.g., Att. 5, 10, 2; 20, 5 f. with fam. 15, 4, 10 and Wieland, Chr. M., Ciceros Briefe (1809), 3, 501 ff.Google Scholar; 21, 7–12. 6, 1, 15. cf. Gelzer, p–w s.v. Tullius, 971; 983 f.; H. D. Meyer, l.c. (n. 94), 170 ff. and Graff, J., Ciceros Selbstauffassung (1963), 37 ff.Google Scholar

96 But it must be noticed at least, that perhaps the strongest and most decided words Cicero ever found on the Roman duty of responsibility for the welfare of the barbarians (Q. fr. I, 1, 27), were written very close to this time (about the turn of 60–59 B.C.).

97 De off. 3, 10: ‘Accedit eodem testis locuples Posidonius, qui etiam scribit in quadam epistola, P. Rutilium Rufum dicere solere, qui Panaetium audierat, ut nemo pictor esset inventus, qui in Coa Venere eam partem, quam Apelles inchoatam reliquisset, absolveret—oris enim pulchritudo reliqui corporis imitandi spem auferebat—, sic ea, quae Panaetius praetermisisset et non perfecisset, propter eorum, quae perfecisset, praestantiam neminem persecutum.’ This passage was taken as evidence for a published collection of letters of Poseidonios: ‘Ἐπιστολαί’ (cf. Schmekel, A., Philosophie der mittleren Stoa (1892), 14Google Scholar), or alternatively ‘Briefe ethische Fragen behandelnd’ (Reinhardt, p–w s.v. Poseidonios, 569). But for this there is no other testimony except the private letter to Cicero of the year 60 B.C., where the double comparison with the unfinished masterpieces of the philosopher Panaitios and the painter Apelles (for which see E. Pfuhl, Malerei und Zeichnung der Griechen (1923), 741), which were continued by nobody, fits in surprisingly well as a flourish of polite refusal. The Coan Aphrodite of Apelles was an example Cicero liked to quote. It occurs for the first time in 59 B.C. (Att. 2, 21, 4; fam. I, 9, 15; Orat. 5; nat. deor. I, 75; de div. I, 23), so perhaps he had become fond of it as a result of the compliment of Poseidonios. If anyone is offended by the present tense ‘Rutilium… dicere solere’ and concludes therefrom that the letter of Poseidonios must have been written in Rutilius' lifetime, i.e. long before 60 B.C., he may accept the reading of the Palatinus 1531: ‘solitum.’ More serious considerations to my mind are whether ‘Posidonius…qui…scribit’ points to a published letter and whether ‘scripsit (ad me)’ would be essential to prove an unpublished one; but I do not think that the unpolished text of the De officiis can be pressed so much.