Posidonius 135 BC – 51 BC

Posidonius of Apamea was a Greek Stoic philosopher, polymath, and one of the most learned men of antiquity. Settling in Rhodes, where he taught the young Cicero, he produced encyclopedic works on natural philosophy, ethics, history, geography, and astronomy, almost all of which are lost. He revised Stoic moral psychology to allow a richer role for the irrational passions and developed a sympathetic cosmology in which all parts of the world are joined in a single living organism. His reach is preserved indirectly through Cicero, Strabo, Galen, and Seneca, on whom his influence was profound.