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Zeno of Citium was a Hellenistic philosopher from Citium, Cyprus. Zeno was the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy, which he taught in Athens from about 300 BC. Based on the moral ideas of the Cynics, Stoicism laid great emphasis on goodness and peace of mind gained from living a life of virtue in accordance with nature. It proved very popular, and flourished as one of the major schools of philosophy from the Hellenistic period through to the Roman era, and enjoyed revivals in the Renaissance as Neostoicism and in the current era as Modern Stoicism.
Posidonius "of Apameia" or "of Rhodes", was a Greek politician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, historian, mathematician, and teacher native to Apamea, Syria. He was considered the most learned man of his time and, possibly, of the entire Stoic school. After a period learning Stoic philosophy from Panaetius in Athens, he spent many years in travel and scientific researches in Spain, Africa, Italy, Gaul, Liguria, Sicily and on the eastern shores of the Adriatic. He settled as a teacher at Rhodes where his fame attracted numerous scholars. Next to Panaetius he did most, by writings and personal lectures, to spread Stoicism to the Roman world, and he became well known to many leading men, including Pompey and Cicero.
Crantor was a Greek philosopher and scholarch (leader) of the Old Academy, probably born around the middle of the 4th century BC, at Soli in Cilicia.
The gens Lucilia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. The most famous member of this gens was the poet Gaius Lucilius, who flourished during the latter part of the second century BC. Although many Lucilii appear in Roman history, the only one known to have obtained any of the higher offices of the Roman state was Lucilius Longus, consul suffectus in AD 7.
Panaetius of Rhodes was an ancient Greek Stoic philosopher. He 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. After the death of Scipio in 129 BC, he returned to the Stoic school in Athens, and was its last undisputed scholarch. With Panaetius, Stoicism became much more eclectic. His most famous work was his On Duties, the principal source used by Cicero in his own work of the same name.
Lucius Licinius Crassus was a Roman orator and statesman. He was considered the greatest orator of his day, most notably by his pupil Cicero. Crassus is also famous as one of the main characters in Cicero's work De Oratore, a dramatic dialogue on the art of oratory set just before Crassus' death in 91 BC.
Clitomachus or Cleitomachus was a Greek philosopher, originally from Carthage, who came to Athens in 163/2 BC and studied philosophy under Carneades. He became head of the Academy around 127/6 BC. He was an Academic skeptic like his master. Nothing survives of his writings, which were dedicated to making known the views of Carneades, but Cicero made use of them for some of his works.
Quintus Mucius Scaevola Augur was a politician of the Roman Republic and an early authority on Roman law. He was first educated in law by his father and in philosophy by the stoic Panaetius of Rhodes.
Antiochus of Ascalon was an Academic philosopher. He was a pupil of Philo of Larissa at the Academy, but he diverged from the Academic skepticism of Philo and his predecessors. He was a teacher of Cicero, and the first of a new breed of eclectics among the Platonists; he endeavoured to bring the doctrines of the Stoics and the Peripatetics into Platonism, and stated, in opposition to Philo, that the mind could distinguish true from false. In doing so, he claimed to be reviving the doctrines of the Old Academy. With him began the phase of philosophy known as Middle Platonism.
Diogenes of Babylon was a Stoic philosopher. He was the head of the Stoic school in Athens, and he was one of three philosophers sent to Rome in 155 BC. He wrote many works, but none of his writings survived, except as quotations by later writers.
Critolaus of Phaselis was a Greek philosopher of the Peripatetic school. He was one of three philosophers sent to Rome in 155 BC, where their doctrines fascinated the citizens, but frightened the more conservative statesmen. None of his writings survive. He was interested in rhetoric and ethics, and considered pleasure to be an evil. He maintained the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of the world, and of the human race in general, directing his arguments against the Stoics.
Antipater of Tyre was a Greek Stoic philosopher and a friend of Cato the Younger and Cicero.
Polemon of Athens was an eminent Greek Platonist philosopher and Plato's third successor as scholarch from 314/313 to 270/269 BC. A pupil of Xenocrates, he believed that philosophy should be practiced rather than just studied, and he placed the highest good in living according to nature.
Diodotus was a Stoic philosopher, and was a friend of Cicero.
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The gens Cania, also written Kania, was a Roman family during the late Republic and in imperial times. None of its members obtained any important magistracies.
The Scipionic Circle, or the Circle of Scipio, was a group of philosophers, poets, and politicians patronized by their namesake, Scipio Aemilianus. Together they would discuss Greek culture, literature, and humanism. Alongside their philhellenic disposition, the group also had a more humane Roman foreign policy. The term was first derived during the 19th century and ubiquitously adopted by scholars of the early 20th century. The collection of members varied during its existence, from 15 names of the early period, to 27 in its middle to 10 in its final.
The Paradoxa Stoicorum is a work by the academic skeptic philosopher Cicero in which he attempts to explain six famous Stoic sayings that appear to go against common understanding: (1) virtue is the sole good; (2) virtue is the sole requisite for happiness; (3) all good deeds are equally virtuous and all bad deeds equally vicious; (4) all fools are mad; (5) only the wise are free, whereas all fools are enslaved; and (6) only the wise are rich.
De Fato is a partially lost philosophical treatise written by the Roman orator Cicero in 44 BC. Only two-thirds of the work exists; the beginning and ending are missing. It takes the form of a dialogue, although it reads more like an exposition, whose interlocutors are Cicero and his friend Aulus Hirtius.
References
- ↑ Jan H. Blits. The Heart of Rome: Ancient Rome’s Political Culture. via Google Books
- ↑ Cicero. De Oratore. iii. 21, 78