Ancient · c. 135–51 BC
Who influenced Posidonius?
Influences and legacy
Stoic polymath of Rhodes — astronomy, history, and the passions as the soul's disease.
Posidonius was influenced by Panaetius, and went on to influence Cicero. That is 2 lines of the 448 documented lines of influence between the 279 thinkers on this map.
Read on Wikipedia Portrait: Sailko, CC BY 3.0 See the whole map
Who was Posidonius?
Posidonius of Apamea in Syria studied Stoicism with Panaetius in Athens and then travelled for years through Spain, Africa, Italy and Gaul doing research. He settled as a teacher on Rhodes, where Pompey and Cicero came to know him, and after Panaetius he did the most to bring Stoicism to Rome.
He was considered the most learned man of his age. He tried to measure the distance and size of the Sun and the diameter of the Earth and to explain the Moon's effect on the tides. Like other Stoics of his time he also drew on Plato and Aristotle. His works are lost, but later writers relied on them heavily.
Summarized from the lead of the Wikipedia article.
Who influenced Posidonius?
1 direct influence on this map, earliest first.
- Panaetius c. 185–110 BC
Who did Posidonius influence?
1 thinker on this map draws directly on Posidonius.
- Cicero 106–43 BC
The line of teachers behind Posidonius
The longest documented line of influence ending at Posidonius runs 9 generations back, to Thales of Miletus.
Two steps away from Posidonius
Indirect influences
- Through Panaetius: Zeno of Citium
The second generation
- Through Cicero: Niccolò Machiavelli, Michel de Montaigne, Hugo Grotius
Posidonius by the numbers
- Direct influences
- 1
- Direct followers
- 1
- Thinkers upstream
- 11
- Thinkers downstream
- 138
- Wikipedia languages
- 54 — #40 of 54 among ancient philosophers
- Card rarity
- Epic
Questions about Posidonius
- Who influenced Posidonius?
- Panaetius.
- Who did Posidonius influence?
- Cicero.
- When did Posidonius live?
- c. 135–51 BC. The map files Posidonius under the ancient world.
- How rare is the Posidonius card?
- Wikipedia carries an article on Posidonius in 54 languages, which makes it an Epic card. Legendary starts at 100 languages, Epic at 50 and Rare at 25.
More ancient philosophers
- Confucius 551–479 BC
- Aristotle 384–322 BC
- Plato c. 428–348 BC
- Socrates c. 470–399 BC
- Pythagoras c. 570–495 BC
- Laozi c. 6th c. BC
- Cicero 106–43 BC
- Thales of Miletus c. 624–546 BC