The importance of Posidonius of Apamea (c. 135–c. 50 BC) for the Roman intellectual life of the late Republic and the Empire (especially in its first two centuries) can hardly be overestimated. His philosophical and scientific work, of which we now have only fragments, ranged from the traditional fields of Stoicism – natural philosophy, logic, ethics (including moral psychology) – to the painstaking investigation of disciplines which either were considered by the earlier Stoics only in an insignificant way (meteorology, astronomy), or were completely beyond their interests (history, physical, mathematical, and ethnic geography). This encyclopedic approach won for him already during his lifetime and soon after his death the authority of the maximus omnium Stoicorum (Cic. Hort. fr. 50 Grilli = test. 33 E.–K.),Footnote ¹ among both professional philosophers and Roman dilettanti like Pompey. The influence of his innovative work, and the polemical reaction to it (the two often going hand in hand) is found in later centuries in moral philosophy and psychology (Seneca, Galen), natural philosophy, astronomy, and mathematics (Geminus, Seneca, Pliny the Elder, Cleomedes), as well as history and geography, both mathematical and physical (Caesar, Diodorus of Sicily, Strabo).

In view of this considerable impact in different fields, Posidonius is an appropriate starting point for a discussion of the subject of linguistic naturalism at Rome, since Roman thinkers and writers were exposed to traditional Greek theories on linguistic naturalism through his work. As will be seen, Posidonius’ contribution to Stoic naturalism was original, but is obscure to us in many respects, since it did not win considerable popularity.

Although Posidonius’ texts were excerpted primarily because of his astonishing polymathy, the later evidence provides us with a glance at the scope and the typical features of his bold attempt to integrate the achievements of science and scholarship into the system of Stoic philosophy. The excessive emphasis typically placed by the outstanding earlier scholars of Posidonius (K. Reinhardt, M. Pohlenz) on the heterodoxy of the Apamean with respect to particular doctrines has since given way to a more securely evidenced picture of him as a philosopher who modified some doctrines of his predecessors, and filled in the gaps, but aimed at the conservation and endorsement of the fundamental principles of the Stoic system.Footnote ² The main novelty of Posidonius’ achievement is now seen not as the radical revision of Stoic philosophical orthodoxy, but rather as an attempt to build a many-branched scientific foundation for the earlier Stoic creed. Along with the investigation of particular scientific problems, inspired by personal interests which were not typical of the earlier Stoics, Posidonius aimed at constructing a system of philosophical and scientific knowledge which would provide a hierarchy of causal explanations for empirical facts,Footnote ³ and thus enhance the traditional Stoic understanding of the universe as a set of all-penetrating chains of causes.

One small piece of Posidonius’ teaching which I will revisit in this paper is his attempt to complement the linguistic naturalism of the Stoics with an explanation, along naturalist lines, of the differences between languages, in order to render Stoic naturalism immune to what was often considered to be one of the main challenges to the naturalist stance. It illustrates well, in spite of the meagre evidence for this part of the Posidonian theory, both his fidelity to the main tenets of Stoic philosophy (of which linguistic naturalism was an essential component at least since Chrysippus), and his readiness to complement them with the results of up-to-date scientific research, together of course with his own original and bold hypotheses. Another important aspect of Posidonius’ approach, namely his keenness to offer solutions to the problems of his predecessors, seems also to be visible in our case, although the discussion I try to reconstruct remains necessarily hypothetical.

The evidence for the views of Posidonius’ Stoic predecessors on the origin of language is meagre.Footnote ⁴ The Stoics’ notorious commitment to etymology goes back minimally to Chrysippus. A considerable number of his etymologies are preserved; they seek, for the most part, to decode quasi-philosophical meaning which corresponds to Chrysippus’ own view of the subject in question.Footnote ⁵ Galen attests that Chrysippus used etymology as an argument in favour of his own philosophical position (Gal. PHP 2.2.5 De Lacy = FDS 247). As one of the more striking examples, he cites Chrysippus’ famous argument that when one pronounces the pronoun ego the lower lip at the syllable e- moves towards the chest, thus proving that the heart, not the brain, is the real ‘I’, i.e. the ruling part of the soul; the next syllable, -go, is pronounced in full conformity with the same symbolic meaning, contrary to the pronoun ekeinos, in which the syllable -kei- modifies the meaning of -e-, transferring its pointing to ‘I’ from the speaker to another person, by adding the notion of distance (Gal. PHP 2.2.9–11 De Lacy = SVF 2.895). This example is remarkable because it shows that Chrysippus was already attempting to analyze the simple and, admittedly, most primitive words into their elements (see further on this point Garcea, in this volume). As Galen notices (ibid. 2.2.13), Chrysippus’ remark on ekeinos in this context was provoked by the obvious difficulty that two words with the opposite meanings contain the same element, namely -e-. This immediately evokes a famous difficulty in the Cratylus (434d): the word sklerotes, which on the whole conveys the notion of harshness, contains not only the sounds which are associated with this feature but also -l-, which has the opposite symbolic meaning. Chrysippus’ solution of the problem is the opposite of that of the interlocutors in the Cratylus (435b–d): he does not yield to the admission that there is inevitably some conventional element in words (which are in general appropriate to the features of the things they designate), but attempts instead to maintain that sounds acquire additional symbolic capacities due to their neighbouring elements (e+go points to ‘this-I’, e+kei to ‘that-I’).Footnote ⁶

Chrysippus’ views on how words acquired their phonetic composition, and thus their linguistic meaning, are not known in detail, but it is attested that he referred to the imposition of names when discussing etymology (SVF 2.914).Footnote ⁷ This implies that words for him are the results of intentional acts of naming, as opposed to the spontaneous acts we find in the Epicurean account.Footnote ⁸ This is quite expected, and follows the stance laid out in Socrates’ speech in the middle part of the Cratylus, both in his use of etymology for the decoding of philosophical meanings and, especially, in his attempt to push the search for these meanings back to the primitive words and even to their elements.Footnote ⁹ On the evidence we have, the early Stoic approach to the principles of language is that of Socrates in the Cratylus – the search for ways of proving that a given word is appropriate to a given thing. The assumption which underlies this search is that decoding words by means of etymology, or pointing to the imitative capacities of words, will reveal the rational understanding of the world possessed by those who first created said words.Footnote ¹⁰ As in the Cratylus, this most naturally leads to the conviction that language was created by the imposition of skilfully created words onto things, without going into detail as regards who was responsible, how they arrived at the idea of naming, and how other people were taught to do the same.Footnote ¹¹ Let us look now at Posidonius’ impact.

Posidonius’ theory of the origin of language attracted little attention even in the epoch of Pan-Posidonianism, perhaps understandably given the notorious scarcity of the relevant evidence. There were attempts in the time of the Pan-Posidonian Quellenforschung to ascribe to Posidonius various passages in Greek and Roman authors on the origin of language, but the credentials for their Posidonian provenance turn out, on scrutiny, to be for the most part rather weak. Thus, Rudberg found in Posidonius, on the basis of such ascriptions, a more considerable emphasis on the role of imposition of names in the origins of language, in contrast to the orthodox Stoic view, but although he was right that the interest in the process of the origin of culture and, presumably, of language, was untypical for Posidonius’ Stoic predecessors, there is no evidence that Posidonius’ real innovation was the emphasis on imposition.Footnote ¹²

The most reliable and promising piece of evidence for Posidonius’ views on the origin of language, which is unfortunately tantalizingly brief, shows unambiguously that his innovation of the earlier Stoic views was a more refined version of naturalism. The evidence is provided by Strabo (2.3.7 = fr. 49.310–63 E.–K.), who in his work sharply criticized but extensively drew on Posidonius’ On the Ocean, a treatise devoted to the mathematical, physical, and ethnographic geography which contained his theory of the zonal division of the oikoumene. Strabo blames Posidonius for contradictions in this theory: after criticizing existing theories of the division of the areas of the oikoumene into continents, and proposing instead to divide it into zones which are parallel to the equator (klimata), which might explain the differences between the animals, plants, and climates of these zonal areas by their closeness either to the frigid or to the torrid zones, Posidonius then refutes his own argument and praises again the existing division into continents (fr. 49.310–17 E.–K.).Footnote ¹³ Some additional features of Posidonius’ position can be retrieved from Strabo’s ensuing criticism: he treated the zonal differences just mentioned, as well as ethnic differences, including differences of language, as the effects of providence (fr. 49.317–19 E.–K.), i.e. he assumed or argued that these differentiating climatic influences are beneficial. As follows from Strabo’s counterargument, the ethnic differences include, apart from languages, capacities of developing crafts and sciences (fr. 49.319–26 E.–K.).Footnote ¹⁴

Strabo blamed Posidonius not only for the alleged contradiction but also for confusing the causal factors: ethnic and linguistic differences arise, according to Strabo, not from providence but from ‘accident and chance’;Footnote ¹⁵ he thus put in doubt both the beneficent character of ethnic differences and the possibility of explaining them. At the end of the whole discussion he blames Posidonius’ excessively ‘physical’ manner of treating geographical problems, and relates this to his generally ‘aetiological’ mode of investigation, in which he follows Aristotle, and which is rejected by ‘our people’, i.e. by the Stoics, because of the ‘obscurity of causes’ (fr. 49.360–3 E.–K.). Scholars usually treat this final passage, no doubt correctly, as reflecting the ‘mainstream’ Stoic position, and use it to establish the correct conclusion that Posidonius went further than the Stoics before him in looking for the causes of concrete events and processes.Footnote ¹⁶

It is plausible to see in Strabo’s criticism of Posidonius’ explanation of regional differences between the nations the same orthodox Stoic attitude – both lack of interest in such a causal approach, which expands on phenomena which have little philosophical importance, and admission that the causes in this field, i.e. the causal nexus of geography, environment, psychology, and history, are difficult or even impossible to investigate. Granted that we have no evidence contra, we can confidently use Strabo as a proof that Posidonius’ attempt to explain the differences of language (and also habit) between nations was an innovation on orthodox Stoicism.

One piece of evidence of the same negative character can be added. In a very different context, in the Letters to Lucilius (90) Seneca criticizes Posidonius for assigning the technical achievements of human civilization to the primordial sages – the proto-philosophers – and for looking for detailed explanations of how they came to their discoveries. According to Seneca, these inventions, contrary to morality, laws, and political institutions, have nothing to do with philosophical wisdom, and should be ascribed to usus, i.e. to everyday practice and experience (90.35).Footnote ¹⁷

Although Seneca does not deny that there was a sort of inventiveness at work in the accomplishment of these discoveries, he certainly rejects the possibility of ascertaining the exact causes of technical inventions, as Posidonius sought to do, and denies their beneficent character. This gives us a hint that not only the differences between cultures in respect of their intellectual achievements, but also the course of technical progress itself, were not discussed by Stoics before Posidonius (and by the Stoic ‘mainstream’ after him).

Seneca’s criticism is different from that of Strabo but both point in the same direction: mainstream Stoicism after Posidonius (and, presumably, also before him) did not inquire after the causes of cultural achievements. The impression which these two pieces of evidence convey squares well with the silence of our sources on any elaborated Stoic views of the origin of culture. There is no authentic evidence for Zeno’s views on this subject.Footnote ¹⁸ We have the statement, probably going back to Chrysippus (Lact. De ira Dei 13 = SVF 2.1172), and which was used as an argument against the Academics, that necessity and experience would reveal the utility of many things now thought to be hostile to human kind, as they had already revealed this in the past.Footnote ¹⁹ This demonstrates the relevance of the subject of cultural progress for the Stoics, but the interest in explaining human discoveries here does not go beyond a general reference to the factors determining progress, just as in Seneca.Footnote ²⁰ Granted that there is no other evidence for Stoic interest in the subject of cultural progress beyond this, it seems not to be too bold to propose that mainstream Stoicism did not have any detailed doctrine of cultural progress in terms of aetiology; minimally, we can maintain that the origin of human language, and also of technology, did not receive detailed examination among the Stoics before Posidonius.

In contrast, Posidonius’ theory in this field was broad: according to Seneca, it embraced the development of morals and of political institutions, and also of various branches of technology.Footnote ²¹ In these fields Posidonius attempted to give explanations of human inventions and to establish causal connections between them, so that their development was presented as a gradual process. Posidonius’ standpoint was that there is a strict continuity in the development of philosophy from the very beginning of human existence up to the later stages which are traditionally labelled as ‘philosophy’: all pioneering human achievements in technology, agriculture, and politics are philosophical inventions. Seneca disagreed with Posidonius insofar as this concerned technology (Seneca defends the ‘hard primitivist’ stance, arguing that even elementary improvements of human life are superfluous because they lead to moral deterioration), but agreed insofar as it concerned development in the moral and political fields (he, however, is prone to denying the title of philosophical wisdom for the wise – the sapientes – who were active before moral philosophy started; Posidonius, on the contrary, insisted on continuity).

Some further points should be stressed. Posidonius’ view of the development of culture is strongly intellectualist and elitist – humankind at its very beginning voluntarily, because of its moral integrity, obeyed the power of the wise, who were their kings, like the animal herd; all subsequent discoveries were also made by outstanding persons. In this respect Posidonius clearly follows the example of Plato, with his philosophically wise name-givers in the Cratylus, and probably also of his Stoic predecessors, who took over this motif from Plato in their etymological exercises. Notice that before Posidonius neither Plato (with some some exceptions, such as Philebus 16c) nor even less the Stoics, as far as we can judge, treated the other fields of human culture as having emerged due to philosophical intellectuals. This was certainly Posidonius’ innovation (being distinct from the account of mainstream Stoicism), giving the traditionally revered ‘first inventors’ the place of honour in the integral history of philosophy.

Next, as follows from Seneca’s polemics, the reason for evaluating the outstanding persons as philosophers (they are just philosophers, not the Stoic sages) was for Posidonius, first, that they met, at that moment, the pressing needs of humankind (see Ep. 90.16 on the cold), being guided not by self-interest but by care for the rest of humankind; and, second, because the first step in discoveries in every field was notoriously difficult: Seneca, with some irony, cites Posidonius’ claims that the craft of grinding and baking bread was invented through the imitation of chewing and digesting food, or that ships were invented through analyzing the anatomical structure of fishes (see Ep. 90.22). The meaning of this hypertrophic intellectualism becomes clear once we understand it as a polemical response to Epicurus’ theory of human discoveries as being due to compulsion by nature or to imitation of natural processes: seeing that, as pioneers, the inventors had no teacher apart from nature itself, they should be rather seen as natural philosophers, like the name-givers of the Cratylus.Footnote ²²

In view of this impact of the Cratylus on Posidonius’ intellectualist stance, and also because the earlier Stoics were committed to treating names as the impositions of the wise, it is improbable that he failed to treat the origin of language in the same intellectualist vein as moral and technical discoveries, although this particular point is not mentioned by Seneca. Strabo provides a welcome testimony that the origin of differences between languages was treated by Posidonius as an effect of the providential influence of the natural environment.Footnote ²³ I will argue that the context in which it is made strongly suggests that language was for Posidonius one of the philosophical inventions, and that environmental influences served as an additional factor in all other fields of discovery. But, before this, I will propose another important predecessor of Posidonius’ views.

Although evidence for the details of Posidonius’ theory is scarce, in terms of the number of branches of human culture it discusses, and in terms of the attention it gives to (a) the aetiology of inventions and their mutual relations, and to (b) the causes of human progress in general, his theory can in fact be compared with only one other: that of Epicurus. It is not my purpose in this paper to discuss in detail the relation of Posidonius’ views on the origin of culture to Epicurus’ views, which, surprisingly, has seldom attracted the attention it deserves. In fact there are reasons to think that Epicurus’ theory was, for Posidonius, both the standard – in its aetiological approach to inventions and in its attempt to reconstruct the whole causal chain of human progress – on which his own doctrine of culture, innovating on orthodox Stoicism, could be modelled, and, simultaneously, the main target of his attack, in its general tendency to deny the providential care of the gods and the primary role of rationality in human achievements. Epicurus (Ep. Hdt. 75–6) attempted to explain cultural discoveries by such factors as natural compulsion, most obviously in his idea of the spontaneous origin of proto-words, and direct learning from nature, i.e. the imitation of natural processes, like the invention of cooking following observation of the softening power of the sun’s warmth (Lucr. DRN 5.1101–4), trying to eliminate any supposition of supernatural or extraordinary wisdom as an operative force in inventions.Footnote ²⁴ It is noticeable that Posidonius employed a pattern of explanations similar to that of the Epicureans (see above on the imitation of natural processes), presenting inventions as starting from observations, but requiring also the rational penetration of nature, thus stressing, most probably against Epicurus, that culture is the product of outstanding intellectual efforts (and thus possibly demonstrating the divine care which is manifest in this development, contrary to Epicurus). It would be most natural for Posidonius to use Plato in this polemical reshaping of Epicurus’ theory, giving a more consistent and more realistic form to Plato’s non-systematic reasoning on this subject, such as the presentation in the Cratylus of the knowledge of the earliest humans as philosophical or proto-philosophical, or the ascription of human technical and scientific inventiveness to divine gifts or divine teaching, or the focus on the special closeness of the earliest humans to the gods and of the care of the latter for humankind.Footnote ²⁵ Once again, the pattern for this Posidonian critical re-interpretation of Epicurus’ aetiology in the spirit of Plato was, in a way, created by Epicurus himself. Epicurus, while building his own theory of culture, critically addressed Plato’s relevant views (such as the ascription of language to the primordial nomothetai), and sometimes endorsed the doctrines of Plato’s opponents, placing them in a modified form in his own account of the development of culture.Footnote ²⁶ In what follows I will discuss, however, independently of this larger claim about Poisidonius’ general theory of culture, only his views on the origin and development of language, in their possible relation to both of his outstanding predecessors, Plato and Epicurus.

One important aspect of Posidonius’ views concerning the dependence of language on geographic differences is known from Strabo’s discussion of the Eremboi-problem in Od. 4.84 (on Menelaus’ travelling), Αἰθίοπάς θ’ ἱκόμην καὶ Σιδονίους καὶ Ἐρεμβούς (Str. 1.2.34 = fr. 280 E.–K.; 16.4.27 = fr. 281 E.–K.). Posidonius followed the view of Zeno of Citium, who interpreted Homer’s Eremboi as Arabs, but unlike Zeno he did not recommend altering Eremboi to Arabes in Homer’s text. He proposed instead that Homer used the designation of Arabs current in his time, viz. either Eremboi or, with a slight alteration, Aramboi.Footnote ²⁷

Both reports of Posidonius’ reasoning by Strabo are essentially the same, but they mutually complement each other in some interesting ways. According to the earlier one, (1.2.34 = fr. 280 E.–K.), one should read Eremboi (or Aramboi) in Homer and understand this to mean Arabs, since three peoples, Arameans (Syrians), Armenians, and Arabs, are very similar in their languages, modes of living, physical characteristics, and life in close proximity to each other.Footnote ²⁸ The similarity of these peoples is greater, the closer they are to each other: the Syrians and those Armenians and Arabs who dwell in Mesopotamia have some differences, in accordance with their geographical locations (notice that the main cause of differences within Mesopotamia is the latitude – klima – of the habitats of these nations), but the similarity of peoples prevails; the larger differences between the Syrians and the Armenians and Arabs beyond Mesopotamia (most Armenians and Arabs dwell naturally beyond its borders) thus prove that all these peoples initially formed a unity and inhabited Mesopotamia.Footnote ²⁹ Although the following sentence is badly damaged, it is clear that Posidonius pointed to some other peoples, also living in Syria and having characteristics similar to those of each other and to those of the Arameans, Arabs, and Armenians, the ethnic names of whom are also of a similar kind (καὶ οἱ Ἀσσύριοι δὲ καὶ οἱ Ἀριανοὶ παραπλησίως πως ἔχουσι καὶ πρὸς τούτους καὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους).Footnote ³⁰ In the end, Posidonius maintained (presumably arguing from the kinship of all these peoples) that their ethnic self-designations are also akin (not only that they sound similar), and that the Homeric Eremboi (this was the main point of the whole discussion) points to the ethnic name of Arabs, the Eremboi being a distorted form of an ancient self-designation of the Arabs, something like Aramboi.Footnote ³¹

The next citation by Strabo of the same (or similar) reasoning of Posidonius on Homeric Eremboi (Str. 16.4.27 = fr. 281a E.–K.) makes the same point in a more concise form – one should read in Homer Eremboi (or Aramboi), because of the similarities between and, accordingly, the kinship of, Arameans, Armenians, and Arabs; their ethnic names are thus also kindred, and Eremboi points to a name that is similar to Aramaioi and Armenioi – but is more explicit on the crucial point of the underlying theory: these three peoples are in fact the descendants of a single people which was later split into three tribes. According to the environment of their new abodes they gradually changed their ethnic features in accordance with their klimata, viz. the latitude (the differences presumably were greater, the further away they moved from their initial abode: see the report of Strabo (fr. 280) discussed above). The diverging ethnic names are the result of these ethnic divergences, i.e. their languages gradually changed under the influence of a new environment.Footnote ³²

These scraps of Posidonius’ theory confirm that local affinity was for him the main explanation of similarities in language (as well as in national habits), and that languages were thought to diverge together with the separation of parts of the same people from each other. This gives a picture of the evolution of both language and culture as a natural and appropriate response to the environment, and of ensuing changes under the influence of new environmental conditions. It might seem that Posidonius’ views on the origin of different languages also entails something like the spontaneous and mechanical reactions of the creators of language (or simply of the initial language-speakers) to their specific environment, thus bringing him close to a stance of mechanistic determinism in linguistic matters. For this reason, his theory seems to invite a comparison with the doctrine of the Hippocratic On Airs (5.4, 6.5, 7.2, 8.7, 15.5 Diller) on immediate climatic influences on human phonetics. Nevertheless, this would be a hasty inference. First, differences in language were, for Posidonius, on the same level as differences in habits, scientific discoveries, and moral customs. All these specific features are not only the necessary effects of environmental influences, but also the result of rational responses to them. As for languages, there is already one hint in the exposition of Posidonius’ views in Strabo that he resisted the mechanistic interpretation of linguistic difference. Strabo’s account shows indirectly that change of locality did not mean necessarily linguistic differentiation, as is shown by the persistence of the ethnic name of Arabs both in and out of Mesopotamia. Additionally, the language of Arabs in and out of Mesopotamia (as well as other ethnic peculiarities) would have remained the same in spite of migrations. To better understand this aspect of the theory (namely, the persistence of ethnic distinctions) one should remember that the ‘orthodox’ Stoic view was that language emerged through imposition, i.e. through rational assignment of names appropriate to objects. There is no evidence that Posidonius departed from this view, and it is entirely plausible that he treated the differences of languages, like the other ethnic differences he discussed, as the result of the combined effect of the natural environment and human creativity. We should add to this the typical ancient emphasis on the initial phase of the process as the decisive one. Posidonius’ theory of human culture thus appears to entail a series of fundamental discoveries which were somehow influenced by climatic differences, rather than automatic responses to environmental influences. In the particular case of language, the theory would involve the rational imposition of names, somehow influenced by specific climatic influences; these may stimulate further divergences in language due to migrations of native speakers, and even the splitting of the language into new languages, but again this occurs not mechanistically but rather through the rational acts of the later impositors of names, who somehow take these changes into account; at the same time, a simple migration of a person or of a group would not effect a considerable linguistic change, in spite of living in a new environment, because there is no ‘impositor’ who would fix these changes. It is worth noticing that the Hippocratic theory explains only phonetic differences, but does not attempt to explain the lexical differences which are of course most important for language differentiation – presumably, it tacitly assumes them to be the effect of ‘rational’ inventions, according to the prevailing view. According to the Cratylus, a language is exposed permanently to the deformations of the initial words by the native speakers, but is basically created by the initial impositions of names to things; there is no idea that later partial changes, even if they are shared now by all speakers of the language, would fundamentally change the set of relations between words and nominata that were created by the initial authoritative legislative acts.

In order to better understand the character of Posidonius’ innovation, it is important to keep in mind that his claim regarding the influence of the natural environment on ethnic differences has a respectable Stoic ancestry. The influence of climate on different mental abilities of representatives of various nations was already admitted by Chrysippus (Cic. Fat. 7 = SVF 2.950).Footnote ³³ Panaetius argued for climatic influences on individual differences (Cic. Div. 2.94), and for the influence of terrarum situs (ibid. 96–7), i.e. of climate, on the physical and psychic faculties of different peoples, opposing it to the theory of the influence of the moon (and stars) on the child at the time of birth.Footnote ³⁴

However, Posidonius’ own teaching seems to be different from that of each of his predecessors. Galen summarizes it as follows: differences in the characters of both animals and human beings depend on differences in their physical constitutions: those who are broad-chested and warmer are braver, those who are wide-hipped and colder are more cowardly. National characters are, accordingly, different in respect of cowardice and bravery, love of pleasure and industriousness, depending on the area in which each people live, because the affective motions of the soul always follow the disposition of the body, which varies considerably with the temperature (krasis) of the environment. Posidonius also mentioned differences in temperature and density of blood in human beings and animals, which also, apparently, depend on the environment, and serve in all probability as the immediate explanation of differences in affective motions (Gal. PHP 5.5.22–5, 1.320.22–322.25 De Lacy = fr. 169.84–96 E.–K.). National characters arising from these recurrent psychic motions are thus, ultimately, the effects of climatic influence, brought about via the intermediary of the constitution of the blood.Footnote ³⁵

Chrysippus, as far as we know, only claimed that the mental capacities of nations somehow depend on the air they breathe, in a manner parallel to the influence of salutary or pestilent environments upon physical qualities (Cic. Fat. 7). Posidonius’ theory goes far beyond this in elaborating the causal mechanism of environmental influences; unlike Chrysippus, he believed that climatic factors display their influence on physical predispositions to affective states. The differences between nations thus lay not in the intellectual capacities but in the prevailing emotional dispositions, such as the bravery of one nation or the cowardice of another.Footnote ³⁶ Thus, Posidonius who, unlike Panaetius, returned to Chrysippus’ teaching on the overall domination of the heimarmene, now made it a much more accountable and investigable system of natural causes, stretching from planetary motions at the top, to human psychology, individual and national, at the bottom.Footnote ³⁷ The idea of climatic influence could thus be happily integrated into the whole of cosmic causality, since the distribution of climatic zones depends on their proximity to the sun. One more aspect can be added: it is probably not accidental that Strabo, in his polemics with Posidonius, mentions the advantageous dispositions of nations, and not their faults, whereas Chrysippus, according to Cicero’s De Fato, only mentions these differences to show that some nations have hindrances which are fatal to the development of reason (cf. Galen on Chrysippus preferring the Greeks to the rest of humankind). Presumably, for this reason, Posidonius claimed, in opposition to mainstream Stoicism, that national differences demonstrate the work of the cosmic divine Providence. One may guess that he meant that they are beneficial for the corresponding part of humankind, as appropriate responses to the challenges of their environment, but also that they somehow contribute to the benefit of the whole; not only may bravery give an example to the whole of humankind, but so too may the affective dispositions that result in vicious moral states, like greediness, stimulate intellectual activities which are ultimately beneficial for all humans, such as, for example, arithmetic, invented by the Phoenicians (see Kidd Reference Kidd1978 on the subordinate but necessary role of science in relation to philosophy, according to Posidonius).

Now let us look at Posidonius’ view of language differences. As we have seen, Chrysippus and the other Stoics before Posidonius were proponents of a form of linguistic naturalism. But their main concern was to maintain the appropriateness of certain words (especially those which seem to be the simplest ones) to the objects they designate; these attempts were made with Greek words only; it is difficult to see how such a theory could refute the conventionalist thesis about the multitude of different languages.

So far, this evidence suggests that Stoic naturalism before Posidonius did not involve any attempt to explain the existence of differences between languages, or to rebut the claim that said differences prove the correctness of the conventionalist theory. Strabo’s reaction to Posidonius’ theory shows that the orthodox Stoic answer was that these differences go back to causes of which it is enormously difficult or even impossible to give an account. It might imply that, according to orthodox Stoicism, the most primitive words imitate in some way or other the qualities of their nominata, but it is difficult to say why these imitative words vary in their phonetic content.

We do not know much about Posidonius’ position in linguistic matters. Some of his etymologies are preserved, but they say little about his theoretical views: of course the Stoic commitment to etymologizing is well known (and is even overestimated), and Posidonius was presumably no exception, but etymological explanations can be found everywhere, for instance in Aristotle, whose theoretical stance was conventionalist. More relevant are some scraps of Posidonius’ argument that the syndesmoi, which include for him not only conjunctions but also prefixes and prepositions, have their own semantic value – a theory which is contrary to the orthodox Stoic position;Footnote ³⁸ at least some of them were called in this context ‘the conjunctions which are according to nature’ (Apollonius Dyscolus, Conj. GG 2.1.214.4–20 = fr. 45 E.–K.); Posidonius argued also that the Greek conjunction epei is composed of the conjunction ei and the preposition epi, and so has an etymology (fr. 192 E.–K.). It is thus possible that, at least in some aspects, Posidonius’ naturalism was more radical than that of his predecessors. It also shows that naturalism according to Posidonius is not reduced to etymological ‘correctness’, as was the case for the earlier Stoics.

Keeping this in mind, let me now return to Strabo’s evidence. Posidonius’ theory of the dependence of ethnic differences (including language) on climate has usually been viewed as belonging to the tradition of climatic ethnography which begins with the Hippocratic On Airs. But, in fact, we find in this tradition no attempt to take into account the existence of different languages (only some phonetic differences are noticed, as pointed out above, p. 31). It is more promising to suppose that Posidonius, in providing his obviously innovative explanation of the differences of languages along naturalist lines, took into account the famous passage from Plato’s Cratylus which contains the earliest known argument against the conventionalist thesis concerning the differences between languages (the latter being brought forward in the dialogue by Hermogenes at Cra. 385d). Socrates’ answer (389a5–390a10) constructs an analogy between the name and the tool:Footnote ³⁹ just as the craftsman, having in mind the general type of tool he produces will produce every time a specific type of this tool in accordance with the material on which the tool should work, and uses, accordingly, a specific material to produce this tool, similarly the craftsman of names, having in mind the general type of name for a thing, will produce an appropriate name for each thing, which can have variable elements (syllables); such names will be appropriate no matter what elements they are made of, and the varying names for one and the same thing will, accordingly, be appropriate in different languages; the generally appropriate name for each thing will be its physei onoma, and the true imposer of names (nomothetes) is a person who is able to put the general type of name for each thing in variable letters and syllables (390d9–e5). So far, the analogy of the name and the tool seems to work, but one thing that remains puzzling is why the creators of language in different countries should make words for the same things from different elements. There is an important hint at it in the analogy which Socrates uses: the smith producing the drill even for one and the same purpose does not always use the same kind of iron for it (see Ademollo Reference Ademollo2011: 136–7), but it remains nevertheless the right drill, provided that the generally appropriate form of drill is preserved, no matter whether this drill has been produced among the Greeks or among the Barbarians. By the same token, while words can be made up of different phonetic material, each word remains the correct word for the thing in question if it reproduces the generally appropriate type of word for this thing, and the creator of such a word in one language is not worse than in another. This implies that the creators of words have no other option but to employ the material they have at their disposal, or in other words, that the words are composed of the elements which exist before the act of formation of the words starts, and these elements are not identical in different peoples.Footnote ⁴⁰

The interlocutors are obviously satisfied with this refutation of conventionalism, but the difficulty which this analogy implies becomes evident when one looks at Socrates’ further development of the naturalist theory: it is necessary to prove that the first, most primitive words, down to which the process of etymologizing will inevitably come, and which cannot themselves be further etymologized, are still appropriate to the things they designate. Socrates thus attempts to show that these words can be reduced to sounds, and that these sounds have mimetic faculties – they imitate the properties of the things which the corresponding words designate (424b–425c). Now, if we look at this theory from the perspective of the name–tool analogy, it becomes clear that the previous argument against conventionalism falls down. If every element of the most primitive word imitates some feature of the nominatum, and together in combination they imitate all its essential features, then there simply cannot be various words for one and the same nominatum, and the differences between languages cannot be explained along naturalist lines. It is not altogether clear whether Plato thought that the explanation of the differences between languages from the naturalist standpoint is refuted by this pushing of naturalism to its radical extreme, or, vice versa, that one should sacrifice radical naturalism in order to save the earlier explanation.Footnote ⁴¹ Nevertheless, Cratylus in the dialogue has to admit that there is inevitably a conventional element in words which are made of matter that imitates the qualities of the nominata.

But whatever Plato’s final view on the matter might be, it is clear that radical phonetic naturalism of the strict analytical kind found in Socrates’ theory fails to explain the existence of different languages. It seems plausible that Epicurus took this difficulty into account when bringing forward his own naturalistic explanations of language differences. According to Epicurus (Ep. Hdt. 75–6), words (or, at least, the original words in each language), are natural in two senses: (1) because they are utterances provoked by certain emotional reactions to certain objects, and thus are not somebody’s purposeful creations, and (2) because these utterances correspond to the nominata, i.e. to the objects which evoke these words. But these utterances vary from people to people because (a) the same things provoke different visual representations and different emotions in different places, presumably because things of the same type have their own particular features depending on the land in which they are found, and (b) there are, additionally, differences between nations themselves, in accordance with differences in their locations; this possibly implies some physiological and/or climatic peculiarities which influence the utterances (cf. the Hippocratic On Airs). This answer differs fundamentally from that of Plato (spontaneous utterances versus purposefully created words), but it shares with it one important assumption, namely that similar things should produce basically identical words. That Epicurus assumes this is also implied by Lucretius’ argument from the various sounds of animals; in spite of their variety there is one fundamental type of utterance which corresponds to a certain situation and a certain emotion; in the same way, although the variety of human sounds greatly supersedes that of animals, a certain object produces in humans a certain emotion and a certain utterance (5.1056–90); additional factors with a bearing on the situation will include the peculiar features of objects, and probably also the influences of each peculiar environment. It is easy to see why the Epicureans did not sacrifice the correlation between specific things and specific words, but only softened it – otherwise it would be impossible to claim that in every given language there is an objective and necessary bond between the nomen and the nominatum; one would expect instead that different words are uttered in accordance with varieties of particular instances of these objects and with various occasional additional influences; the words we employ for each object would be the result of conventional legislation. The Epicurean theory presumes instead that a thing of a certain type produces basically an identical utterance in every situation and everywhere (a sort of essentialist assumption), but that there are also linguistic variations which develop together with the development of differences between the instances of the same nominatum, between the environments in various lands, and possibly also between the physiologies of different nations.

Epicurus’ theory of the spontaneous origin of appropriate words avoids one of the difficulties which the naturalist theory in the Cratylus entailed. There is no trace in the Epicurean theory of an attempt to demonstrate that every element of the word corresponds to some feature of the nominatum; there is no correspondence of elementary sounds to the elementary parts of the nominatum. Objects evoke utterances with a certain phonetic content, and, contrary to Plato, the differences in the content of words for the same things can be plausibly explained by reference to local varieties of the things themselves and by reference to differences of environment.Footnote ⁴²

Now let us look at the Stoic theory from this perspective. As we have already seen, the Stoics, beginning at least from Chrysippus, were committed to the view that language was created by the philosopher-like name-givers, and that etymologizing (in the broad Stoic sense) allows us to follow the origin of words back to their meaningful elements (sounds and syllables). The most detailed exposition of Stoic naturalism, at Aug. Dial. 6,Footnote ⁴³ complements this scarce evidence; it shows the Stoic view to be in accordance with Socrates’ second naturalistic discourse in the Cratylus: the etymology of every word can be discovered, and in order to escape infinite regression, it is necessary to assume that there are words which cannot be etymologically explained through other words; it remains to admit that they imitate the thing directly. These cunabula uerborum are either onomatopoeic, sound-imitating words like hinnitus, tinnitus, balatus, which imitate the sounds of physical objects or of animals; or words like uepris, ‘torn-bush’, or mel, ubi sensus rerum cum sonorum sensu concordarent, i.e. words whose sounds, harsh or gentle, evoke feelings which are similar to those which these things themselves evoke. The other words of this primitive kind, which designate things which cannot be imitated directly, were simply transferred onto them (with some modifications) from things of the first kind, according to the principles of proximity, similarity, and even contrariety between the corresponding nominata (see Barwick Reference Barwick1957a: 29–30, Long Reference Long, Frede and Inwood2005, Allen Reference Allen, Frede and Inwood2005). Augustine also mentions that words owe their mimetic capacities to the singular sounds of which they are composed.Footnote ⁴⁴

The evidence of Origen (C. Cels. 1.24 = SVF 2.146) is unfortunately tantalizingly brief: the Stoics belong to the physei-party in the debate regarding the relation of words to objects (physei as opposed to the conventional imposition promoted by Aristotle), since their ‘protai phonai’ imitate the things designated by the names; in accordance with this they introduce ‘the elements of etymology’.Footnote ⁴⁵ Since the phonai in the next sentence on the Epicurean doctrine refers to the proto-words, the same meaning can be assigned also to the Stoic protai phonai: they are thus, like Augustine’s cunabula, the first, i.e. non-etymologized, words, not the singular sounds.Footnote ⁴⁶ The primitive words imitate reality and are thus first in the sense of being non-derivative; they are also presumably historically first, because nobody ever spoke by means of singular sounds. But is it plausible that these words are the ‘elements of etymology’, i.e. those words to which all other words can be reduced by means of etymological analysis, as Long understands it?Footnote ⁴⁷ One category of these words, the onomatopoetic words (hinnitus, tinnitus, etc.), certainly is not. But the words which imitate the properties of things via the similar effects of their soundings do this by means of their parts, syllables, or sounds. I suggest that they are the Stoic ‘elements of etymology’.

So far, in view of Chrysippus’ position, it is quite possible that the Stoics before Posidonius were committed to the extreme form of naturalism of the middle part of the Cratylus. It is understandable that such a theory was not amenable to attempts to take into account the differences between languages, regardless of whether its proponents were aware that the extreme naturalist stance of the middle part of the dialogue challenges the attempt to explain these differences along more moderate lines in the earlier part of it.

Now, it seems plausible that both attempts to explain language differences, Plato’s and Epicurus’, were taken into account by Posidonius; his own solution is clear to us only insofar as he explained these differences with reference to geographic and climatic differences, and that he saw in them the action of Providence. It is not difficult to decide what position Posidonius took on Epicurus’ defence of the spontaneous origin of words against Plato’s theory of their creation by wise name-givers. Posidonius’ culture is created by the wise men, and it is plausible that his view of the origin of language corresponded to Socrates’ naturalism in the Cratylus – the different languages were created by the wise name-givers. But Socrates’ reasoning was improved by Posidonius’ on one significant point: it remains unexplained in the Cratylus just why the creators of language make appropriate names for the same things from different sounds. Epicurus’ theory might provide such an explanation: the differences of word form are determined by (a) specific visual impressions and affects, and (b) ethnic differences which depend on the area in which the creators dwell. Although much in this tantalizingly brief statement remains obscure, I take it in the sense that (a) (seemingly) identical things had their own local peculiarities and thus impress upon humans differently, and the accompanying emotions evoked by these impressions (emotions are responsible immediately for the character of sounds) are again different because attitudes to similar things might be different in various areas (for instance, nations can react differently to sun or rain), and (b) there are differences between the peoples themselves, presumably in their physiology and, accordingly, in their phonetic capacities.

Posidonius’ theory of zonal influences on different languages was compared above to the Hippocratic theory of the On Airs; but that theory had a very limited scope, and has nothing to do with linguistic naturalism, since it explains only phonetic differences, not differences of lexical character. Epicurus’ influence is much more probable since the primary purpose of his theory is to explain how the existence of different words for (seemingly) the same things can be compatible with the claim that words are inherently related to their objects, and since it employs a wider system of factors in its explanation.Footnote ⁴⁸ Now, Posidonius’ theory of the dependence of national temperaments on emotions which are specific to a given area (see above) made it possible for him to account for differences in languages along the lines of Epicurus’ theory. Of course, contrary to Epicurus, the emotion-dependent elements of language in Posidonius were only the material from which the imposers of words created the further etymologically appropriate words and the further structure of language, along similar lines to Plato’s explanation of the differences between languages.Footnote ⁴⁹

There is a passage in Vitruvius which possibly, but not certainly, goes back to Posidonius (Vitr. 6.1.3–12 = FGrH 87 F 121 = fr. 71 Theiler).Footnote ⁵⁰ It gives an idea of what sort of providence is at work in the different kinds of physical constitution and different characters in various geographical zones: the main cause of differentiation is the proximity of a region to the sun, and the quantity of warmth and moisture which results; the differences of physical constitution and temperament which are produced by these factors fit the environment in which the nations live: thus the north produces larger and stronger bodies, with a large amount of blood, light skin and eye-colour, which are appropriate for war but badly adapted to the heat and fevers of the south; and, vice versa, the people in the south, stunted, with a small amount of blood, dark-skinned and dark-eyed, are not brave in war but are very hardy as concerns heat and fevers (Vitr. 6.1.3–4). This corresponds broadly to what Posidonius could have in view, and in this context the effects of climate on human phonetics also appear (6.1.5–8). They can be reduced, according to Vitruvius, to the same two causes – warmth and moisture, with the nations who live in the south producing high-pitched sounds, and those who live in moist regions producing deep sounds (ita et hominum corpora uno genere figurationis et una mundi coniunctione concepta alia propter regionis ardorem acutum spiritum aeris exprimunt tactu, alia propter umoris abundantiam grauissimas effundunt sonorum qualitates (6.1.8)). The idea might be related to Posidonius’ theory, but in any case it does not shed light on the crucial point, namely the differences between languages as concerns lexica.

K. Reinhardt inferred from this passage, combining it with Str. 2.3.7 and Manil. 4.731, that according to Posidonius different languages developed from the original unity just as the different physical constitutions and psychic types did.Footnote ⁵¹ It is not entirely clear what he had in view, but Posidonius’ theory certainly does not envisage the original unity of all languages. Strabo maintains the dependence of the formation of languages on climate,Footnote ⁵² and Vitruvius (6.1.8) stresses that the physical constitutions of human nations formed under the same constellations, i.e. simultaneously, at the time of the first origin of humankind, differ nevertheless in accordance with climatic influences. It is unlikely that the account he followed would have omitted the important point that initially all these nations were born in the same place; and only this, according to the principle stated here, would make them have the same initial language. Rather, Posidonius’ theory, like that of Epicurus, entails the principal identity of words for the same things in the localities which are close to one another, and growing differences between the words for the same things in accordance with local differences.

There is an interesting passage in Dio Chrysostom’s Olympic Oration (12.27–9 von Arnim = fr. 368 Theiler) on a certainly Stoic teaching about the origin of culture and language which can with some plausibility be ascribed to Posidonius.Footnote ⁵³ It is part of an account of the origin of human culture, which serves as a proof that the first people had to come inevitably to the idea of the divine providence. The beauty of human speech, which they must have perceived, is testimony to this providential care. Dio mentions, on the one hand, the pleasure and clearness of sounds uttered by humans, and, on the other, the clearness and epistemic value of said sounds, which was recognized when the people assigned them to things. After that, the people became able to receive from one another the memories and the apprehensions of endless things (12.28).Footnote ⁵⁴ A remarkable aspect of this theory is that it does not imply that the initial sounds were confused or unarticulated, as is claimed in most theories of language evolution. In this regard, it reminds us of the Epicurean theory, in which there is no stage of confused sounds which makes the invention of artificial articulation inevitable; the sounds become immediately related to things, as they are uttered spontaneously as emotional responses to them.Footnote ⁵⁵ Of course the teleological tint of Dio’s theory – the peculiar beauty of natural human sounds – is alien to the Epicurean theory. Just this aspect of Dio’s theory would accord with Posidonius’ view of the influence of environment on the initial ‘matter’ of language, because according to him, it is not eliminated by any artificial improvements.

The assigning of words to things in Dio’s theory suggests a theory of imposition of words onto things, as opposed to the naturalism of the Epicurean type, and we can take this as additional support for the idea that the Stoic theory was similar to Plato’s imposition of names, rather than to Epicurus’ spontaneous process of uttering words. But Dio’s theory depicts the creation of language as a collective process, rather than as an invention of the wise imposers of names. There is no evidence for the method of imposition according to the orthodox Stoic view, and the Cratylus, as has been noticed, avoids any detailed description of imposition. If Dio’s theory bears on Posidonius’ theory, this collective process would make sense as a response to the Epicurean attack against the earlier theory of the ‘imposer’ of names (most probably, against the one developed in the Cratylus), which proceeds through three arguments: (1) it is incredible that somebody could invent imposition without seeing other people communicating between themselves, and thus not understanding the utility of non-invented language; (2) it would have been impossible to teach words to other people, who would not understand their utility; (3) it would have been impossible for a hypothetical inventor to collect people together to teach them the language, before the language had been invented.Footnote ⁵⁶ Dio’s theory is immune to these arguments: it depicts the creation of language as a rational but collective process: it is not an invention of a single person, but rather starts, without external impulse, in the whole of humankind. This does not rule out the role of outstanding individuals (Posidonius’ sages) in the creation of meaningful words attached to things, but their activity corresponds to the need of the whole of humankind.

Epicurus’ theory also includes a second stage (Ep. Hdt. 76) – that of imposition. It does not change the natural correspondence of words to things, but only makes communication more convenient, and it is tempting to think that Epicurus has in mind some unification of words which had already been related to things through spontaneous utterances (see Verlinsky Reference Verlinsky, Frede and Inwood2005: 71–7). The latter point is debatable, but the persistence of the initial natural words and their links to the objects they designate is beyond doubt. Now, it is not necessary to treat the impositions in Dio as radically different from the impositions of Epicurus’ second stage. We cannot say exactly how Dio understands this process, but he certainly does not have in view that next to the beautiful and pleasant initial sounds, the new words are created artificially as different from the earlier ones; rather they can be understood as rational linguistic signs composed of naturally arising phonetic elements (the Stoic stoicheia).Footnote ⁵⁷

Dio’s piece seems to give the most explicit and detailed version of what the Stoic theory of the imposition of names might have been, given their stress on the rationality of humankind (duly reflected in the original language), their insistence on imposition, and their emphasis on the imitative abilities of human language. At the same time, it is unlikely that such a view was developed by the earlier Stoics, given their lack of interest in speculating on the origin of human culture, and the Posidonian provenance seems to be more credible granted his detailed reasoning on this subject, including on the origin of language. Dio’s theory, without explicitly mentioning the problem, certainly implies the natural origins of different languages, in accordance with Posidonius’ attested view.

Of course it cannot be proved definitely that Dio depends on Posidonius and that his theory of language is influenced by Epicurus. However, I would maintain that Dio’s reasoning, for which some have proposed Posidonian provenance on other grounds, shows the specific Posidonian interest in the problems of the origin of culture and language which is not attested for the other Stoics of importance. Equally, the revisionist appropriation of the Epicurean ideas which this passage shows is in accord with Posidonius’ modus actionis in the creation of his alternative theory of the origin of language and culture.

To summarize, in spite of the elusiveness of Posidonius’ views on the origin of language, it is certain that its main and innovative feature was the attempt to explain the differences of languages along naturalist lines, for which he probably creatively used and reformed the analogous attempts of Plato and Epicurus. For many reasons, most of all because of the unpopularity of Posidonius’ scientific approach in the later Stoa and the growing orthodoxy, his new doctrines in this field did not attract much attention in further philosophical debates (the result of my paper is that we have even less evidence for his views than it is usually assumed). Still, Posidonius’ idea of the climatic influences upon differences between languages via prevailing psychological dispositions is a remarkable attempt in the history of linguistic naturalism which anticipates similar theories in modern times. As for the history of ancient naturalism, this part of his teaching shows once more a pervasive influence of the textus classicus in this field, Plato’s Cratylus. I have not attempted to investigate Posidonius’ influence on Cicero and Varro in the question of the imposition of names – this is a different, and difficult, task which may promise a better understanding of the relationships between their respective ideas, even in the event of a negative result.