Hecato of Rhodes c. 150 BC – c. 75 BC

Hecato of Rhodes was a Greek Stoic philosopher of the late second and early first centuries BC and one of the most prolific moralists of the late Hellenistic Stoa. A pupil of Panaetius and a compatriot of Posidonius, he wrote at least twenty-two books on duty, the goods, the virtues, the passions, and the philosophical paradoxes, none of which survives intact. Cicero drew extensively on his treatise On Duties for his own De Officiis, and Seneca quoted him admiringly as a model of clarity and humanity in moral philosophy. His writings preserved the practical and humanistic emphasis of middle Stoic ethics.