13 Facts About Panaetius

1.

Panaetius was a pupil of Diogenes of Babylon and Antipater of Tarsus in Athens, before moving to Rome where he did much to introduce Stoic doctrines to the city, thanks to the patronage of Scipio Aemilianus.

2.

Panaetius is said to have been a pupil of the linguist Crates of Mallus, who taught in Pergamum, and moved to Athens where he attended the lectures of Critolaus and Carneades, but attached himself principally to the Stoic Diogenes of Babylon and his disciple Antipater of Tarsus.

3.

Probably through Gaius Laelius, who had attended the lectures of Diogenes and then of Panaetius, he was introduced to Scipio Aemilianus and, like Polybius before him, gained his friendship.

4.

Panaetius returned with Scipio to Rome, where he did much to introduce Stoic doctrines and Greek philosophy.

5.

Panaetius had a number of distinguished Romans as pupils, amongst them Q Scaevola the augur and Q Aelius Tubero the Stoic.

6.

Panaetius attempted to bring the ultimate goal of life closer to natural impulses, and to show by similes the inseparability of the virtues.

7.

Panaetius argued that the recognition of the moral, as something to be striven after for its own sake, was a fundamental idea in the speeches of Demosthenes.

8.

Panaetius rejected the doctrine of apatheia, and instead affirmed that certain pleasurable sensations could be regarded as in accordance with nature.

9.

Panaetius insisted that moral definitions should be laid down in such a way that they might be applied by the person who had not yet attained to wisdom.

10.

The principal work of Panaetius was, without doubt, his treatise On Duties composed in three books.

11.

Cicero wrote his own work On Duties in deliberate imitation of Panaetius, and stated that in the third section of the subject that he did not follow Posidonius, but instead that he had completed independently and without assistance what Panaetius had left untouched.

12.

Cicero seems to have been induced to follow Panaetius, passing by earlier attempts of the Stoics to investigate the philosophy of morals, not merely by the superiority of his work in other respects, but especially by the effort that prevailed throughout it, laying aside abstract investigations and paradoxical definitions, to demonstrate the philosophy of morals in its application to life.

13.

Panaetius wrote treatises concerning On Cheerfulness; on the Magistrates; On Providence; On Divination; a political treatise used by Cicero in his De Republica; and a letter to Quintus Aelius Tubero.