Panaetius (; ; – ) of Rhodes was an Ancient Greece Stoicism philosopher.
Life
Panaetius, son of Nicagoras, was born around 185–180 BC, into an old and eminent Rhodian family.
[Suda, Panaitios; Strabo, xiv 2.13 – 655 ed. Casaubon, includes Panaetius' ancestors ( hoi progonoi) among the most memorable Rhodian commanders and athletes] He is said to have been a pupil of the linguist Crates of Mallus,
[Strabo, xiv 5.16 – 676 ed. Casaubon] 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.
[Suda Panaitios; Cicero, de Divinatione, i. 3] Although it is often thought that he was chosen by the people of
Lindos, on Rhodes, to be the priest of
Poseidon, this was actually an honour bestowed upon his grandfather, who was also called Panaetius, son of Nicagoras
[P. E. Easterling, Bernard Knox, (1989), The Cambridge History of Classical Literature: Part 3, p. 196. Cambridge University Press]
Probably through Gaius Laelius, who had attended the lectures of Diogenes and then of Panaetius,[Cicero, de Finibus, ii. 8] he was introduced to Scipio Aemilianus and, like Polybius before him,[Suda, Panaitios, comp. Polybios] gained his friendship.[Cicero, de Finibus, iv. 9, de Officiis, i. 26, de Amicitia, 27, comp. pro Murena, 31, Velleius i.13.3] Both Panaetius and Polybius accompanied him on the Roman embassy that Scipio headed to the principal monarchs and polities of the Hellenistic east in 139–138 BC.[Cicero de Re Publica vi. 11, A. E. Astin, Classical Philology 54 (1959), 221–27, and Scipio Aemilianus (Ox., 1967), 127, 138, 177] Along with Polybius, he became a member of the Scipionic Circle.
He returned with Scipio to Rome, where he did much to introduce Stoic doctrines and Greek philosophy. He had a number of distinguished Romans as pupils, amongst them Q. Scaevola the augur and Q. Aelius Tubero the Stoic. After the death of Scipio in spring 129 BC, he resided by turns in Athens and Rome, but chiefly in Athens, where he succeeded Antipater of Tarsus as head of the Stoic school.[Cicero, de Divinatione, i. 3] The right of citizenship was offered him by the Athenians, but he refused it. His chief pupil in philosophy was Posidonius. He died in Athens[Suda, Panaitios] sometime in 110/09 BC, the approximate year in which L. Crassus the orator found there no longer Panaetius himself, but his disciple Mnesarchus.[Cicero, de Oratore, i. 11]
Philosophy
With Panaetius began the new
Eclecticism shaping of
Stoicism theory; so that even among the
Neoplatonists he passed for a Platonist.
[Proclus, in Plat. Tim.] For this reason also he assigned the first place in philosophy to
Stoic physics, not to
Stoic logic,
and appears not to have undertaken any original treatment of the latter. In Physics he gave up the Stoic doctrine of the
ekpyrosis;
[Cicero, De Natura Deorum, ii. 46, comp. 142; Stobaeus, Ecl. Phys. i.] tried to simplify the division of the faculties of the soul;
[Nemes. de Nat. Hom. c. 15; Tertull. de Anima, c. 14] and doubted the reality of divination.
[Cicero, de Divinatione, i. 3, ii. 42, 47, Academica, ii. 33, comp. Epiphanius, adv. Haeres. ii. 9] In
Ethics he recognized only a two-fold division of
arete, the theoretical and the practical, in contrast to the
dianoetic and the
ethical of
Aristotle.
[Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VI.]
Ethics
Panaetius attempted to bring the ultimate goal of life closer to natural impulses,
[Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, ii.] and to show by similes the inseparability of the virtues.
[Stobaeus, Ecl. Eth. ii.] Possibly as an answer to a similar criticism of stoicism given by
Carneades, he stated virtue alone was not enough if there is no adequate living and health.
He 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.
[Plutarch, Demosthenes] He rejected the doctrine of
apatheia,
[Aulus Gellius, xii. 5] and instead affirmed that certain pleasurable sensations could be regarded as in accordance with
physis.
[Sextus Empiricus, adv. Math. xi. 73] He also 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.
[Seneca, Epistles, 116. 5]
Politics
Panaetius believed the polis was born from a
social contract among individuals wishing to retain their
private property.
[Capelle, 2020, p.355] He saw community as natural, and argued for treating even slaves with justice and proportionality. Despite his Platonic influence, however, he rejected the Platonic republic for considering it unrealistic and unnatural.
[Capelle, 2020, p. 354] He followed his colleague
Polybius in seeing the Roman republic as an ideal combination of the three traditional forms of rule, incorporating the best of
monarchy,
aristocracy and
democracy without falling in their shortcomings.
[ Panetius went further and exalted Roman imperialism as a enterprise of justice, as the conquest and assimilation of barbarian peoples transformed their tribal anarchy into peace and order, preventing barbarians from abusing each other and subjecting them to the same law ruling Romans. His idea of justice was the rule of the most virtuous, not the strongest, with the conqueror being obligated to the conquered.][Capelle, 2020, p. 358]
Panaetius considered war inhuman, but contemplated just war as a last resource to achieve peace and justice whenever peaceful means were impossible. This entailed two forms of just war, for retribution and for defense, both of which had to be officially declared. As conquest must be beneficial for everybody involved, he established the importance of treating the defeated in a civilized way, especially those who surrendered, even after a prolonged conflict.[Capelle, 2020, p. 357]
Writings
On Duties
The principal work of Panaetius was, without doubt, his treatise On Duties ( 'Peri tou Kathēkontos' (Classical) or 'Peri tou Kathikodos' (Modern)) composed in three books. In this he proposed to investigate, first, what was moral or immoral; then, what was useful or not useful; and lastly, how the apparent conflict between the moral and the useful was to be decided; for, as a Stoic, he could only regard this conflict as apparent not real. The third investigation he had expressly promised at the end of the third book, but had not carried out;[Cicero, ad Atticum, xvi. 11, de Officiis, iii. 2, 3, comp. i. 3, iii. 7, ii. 25] and his disciple Posidonius seems to have only timidly and imperfectly supplied what was needed.[Cicero, de Officiis, iii. 2]
Cicero wrote his own work De Officiis in deliberate imitation of Panaetius,[Cicero, de Officiis, ii. 17, iii. 2, i. 2, ad Atticum, xvi. 11] 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.[Cicero, de Officiis, iii. 7] To judge from the insignificant character of the deviations, to which Cicero himself calls attention, as for example, the attempt to define moral obligation,[Cicero, de Officiis, i. 2] the completion of the imperfect division into three parts,[Cicero, de Officiis, i. 3, comp. ii. 25] the rejection of unnecessary discussions,[Cicero, de Officiis, ii. 5] small supplementary additions,[Cicero, de Officiis, ii. 24, 25] in the first two books Cicero has borrowed the scientific contents of his work from Panaetius, without any essential alterations. 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.[Cicero, de Officiis, ii. 10]
Generally speaking, Panaetius, following Aristotle, Xenocrates, Theophrastus, Dicaearchus, and especially Plato, had softened down the severity of the earlier Stoics, and, without giving up their fundamental definitions, had modified them so as to be capable of being applied to the conduct of life, and clothed them in the garb of eloquence.[Cicero, de Finibus, iv. 28, Tusculanae Quaestiones, i. 32, de Legibus, iii. 6; comp. Plutarch, de Stoic. Repugnant.]
That Cicero has not reproduced the entire contents of the three books of Panaetius, we see from a fragment, which is not found in Cicero, preserved by Aulus Gellius,[Aulus Gellius, xiii. 27] and which acquaints us with Panaetius's treatment of his subject in its rhetorical aspects.
Other works
Panaetius also wrote treatises concerning On Cheerfulness;[ Peri Euthumias: , which Plutarch probably had before him in his composition of the same name.] On the Magistrates;[Cicero, de Legibus, iii. 5, 6] On Providence;[Cicero, ad Atticum, xiii. 8] On Divination;[Cicero, De Finibus, iv. 9, 23] His work On Philosophical Schools appears to have been rich in facts and critical remarks, and the notices which we have about Socrates, and on the books of Plato and others of the Socratic school, given on the authority of Panaetius, were probably taken from that work.
Notes
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Aristotle. “Book VI”. Nicomachean Ethics.
Further reading
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Capelle, Wilhelm. 2020. History of Greek philosophy. De Gruyter.
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Gill, Christopher. 1994. "Peace of Mind and Being Yourself: Panaetius to Plutarch." In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. Vol. II.36.7. Edited by Wolfgang Haase and Hildegard Temporini, 4599–4640. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.
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Dyck, Andrew R. 1979. "The Plan of Panaetius' Περι τοῦ καθήκοντος." American Journal of Philology C: 408–416.
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Morford, Mark P. O. 1999. "The Dual Citizenship of the Roman Stoics." In Veritatis Amicitiaeque Causa: Essays in Honor of Anna Lydia Motto and John R. Clark. Edited by Anna Lydia Motto, 147–164. Wauconda (Ill.) : Bolchazy-Carducci.
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Roskam, Geert. 2005. "The Doctrine of Moral Progress in Later Stoic Thinking.” On the Path to Virtue: The Stoic Doctrine of Moral Progress and its Reception in (Middle-) Platonism. Ancient and Medieval Philosophy 33. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven Univ. Press.
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Sandbach, Francis Henry. 1975. The Stoics. Ancient Culture and Society. London: Chatto & Windus.
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Schofield, Malcolm. 2012. "The Fourth Virtue." Cicero's Practical Philosophy. Edited by Water Nicgorski, 43–57. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
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Stone, A. M. 2008. "Greek Ethics and Roman Statesmen: De Officiis and the Philippics." In Cicero’s Philippics: History, rhetoric and ideology. Edited by Tom Stevenson and Marcus Wilson, 214–239. Prudentia 37–38. Auckland, New Zealand: Polygraphia.
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Straaten, M. van. 1976. "Notes on Panaetius' Theory of the Constitution of Man." In Images of Man in Ancient and Medieval Thought: Studia Gerardo Verbeke ab amicis et collegis dicata. Edited by Gérard Verbeke & Fernand Bossier. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
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Tieleman, Teun L. 2007. "Panaetius’ Place in the History of Stoicism, with Special Reference to his Moral Psychology." In Pyrrhonists, Patricians, Platonizers: Hellenistic Philosophy in the Period 155–86 BC; Tenth Symposium Hellenisticum. Edited by Anna Maria Ioppolo and David N. Sedley, 104–142. Naples: Bibliopolis.
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Walbank, Frank William. 1965. "Political Morality and the Friends of Scipio." Journal of Roman Studies 55.1–2: 1–16.
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Wiemer, Hans-Ulrich. 2018. "A Stoic Ethic for Roman Aristocrats? Panaitios' Doctrine of Behavior, its Context and its Adressees". In The Polis in the Hellenistic World. Edited by Henning Börm and Nino Luraghi, 229–258. Stuttgart: Steiner.
