Poseidonios

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Poseidonios of Rhodes

Poseidonios ( Greek Ποσειδώνιος Poseidōnios, Latinized Posidonius ; * 135 BC ; † 51 BC ) was an important Greek philosopher , historian and polymath of the late Hellenism from the Syrian Apamea . Although he was born in Syria, he was a Greek because Apamea was a polis that had once been founded by the Seleucids . After studying in Athens , he settled as a teacher on the island of Rhodes , for which he also worked in a diplomatic mission. Poseidonios was particularly respected in Rome , not least because he unconditionally accepted the Roman power of order in world politics at that time. Many Roman aristocrats studied with him.

philosophy

Poseidonios was a pupil of Panaitios of Rhodes and belongs to the philosophical school of the middle Stoa . Among the listeners of his lectures were Cicero and Pompeius , because many Romans of the upper class were studying in Athens or Rhodes at the time. His contribution to the stoic doctrine of affect is of particular interest.

In contradiction to the representatives of the older Stoa, especially Chrysippos , Poseidonios took the view that affects are caused by irrational parts of the soul . The older Stoics had been of the opinion that the soul was a unified and reasonable ability of man to lead. Although the soul is reasonable, it can be deceived and therefore consent to unreasonable decisions and affects. Poseidonios found this explanation implausible. So he returned to Plato's view that the soul consists of the three parts of reason, desire and courage, which could also explain why unreasonable affects sprout in children - regardless of a good upbringing - and why the affects diminish over time; Questions that Chrysippus was unable to answer adequately.

ethnography

From around 105 BC. Poseidonios undertook extensive journeys, which he a. a. as far as Spain. There are also reports of repeated trips to Rome.

In his work Über den Okeanos und seineprobleme - like all works of Poseidonius only passed down through quotations from other authors - he took up a concept that had been in use since the 5th century BC. Chr. Widespread climate zone theory , according to which the peoples of the north and south are to be distinguished on the basis of the climate influence: The peoples of the north have a more powerful body, a lighter skin, yellowish-reddish hair, blue eyes and a lot of blood. Although they had a dull spirit, they were characterized by a great courage to fight because of their carelessness. In contrast, people living in the warm Orient were characterized as being of short stature, with brown skin, curly hair, dark eyes, lean legs and little blood. They were distinguished by a keen mind, great resourcefulness, but also cowardice and cunning. (Greeks and Romans, on the other hand, who lived halfway between these peoples, are as brave as the Teutons and as clever as the Orientals.)

Poseidonios was probably the first to use the word Germanic in literature. In his 30th book, about 80 BC. Written in the 4th century BC, which was lost and only survived as a fragment in the 4th book of Athenaeus of Naukratis (approx. 200 AD), he briefly reports on their eating habits: The Germans, on the other hand, as Poseidonios says in the 30th book , serve up roasted meat piece by piece at lunchtime and drink milk with it and the wine unmixed. This news and probably others of its kind did not reveal until the 1st century BC. A new, uncommon ethnographic term appears among the Romans and Greeks . It was also not possible to know more precisely because the Germanic tribes did not even exist before , only individual tribes were known.

History work

Poseidonios wrote a (only fragmentary) continuation of the Histories of Polybius in 52 books, in which the period from 146 to 79 BC. Was treated. According to the surviving fragments, the historical work contained extensive ethnographic material on numerous peoples outside the Greco-Roman cultural area, such as the Celts, Teutons, Jews, Parthians, etc. In this context, he described the foreign policy successes of the Romans, but at the same time criticized the internal decline of the republic and the greed of the rulers, whereby the internal crisis of the republic in the period after 133 BC. Emphasized. Poseidonios was also interested in the causes of natural phenomena such as the threshold of the Nile, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes; the relevant material may have been processed in the excursions typical of ancient historiography.

Geography and astronomy

Calculations of the circumference of the earth are said to come from Poseidonius, which Ptolemy took over and which led to a long-term erroneous doctrine. Its value of about 35,500 km (according to V.Bialas) was 5–6% below the circumference of the earth calculated by Eratosthenes 150 years earlier. Among other things, Columbus is said to have considered his sea voyage to the west on the basis of these data, on which he discovered the islands off the American continent. However, the correctness of this sequential chain can only be proven to a limited extent. It can be assumed that Columbus, Ptolemy and Poseidonios did not know the earth measurement carried out by Eratosthenes , because his calculation comes very close to the actual circumference of the earth, their method is fundamentally correct and their knowledge would have made Columbus realize that the islands that were discovered were not Parts of India could trade, but entirely new lands.

Unlike Eratosthenes, Posidonius did not use an elevation angle measurement to the sun, but to Canopus , a star of the first magnitude deep in the south - and only on the relatively short distance from Rhodes to Alexandria . Apart from the unfavorable measuring conditions, Volker Bialas believes that the result was less used for earth measurements than for a calculation example.

Recent studies of the “ Antikythera Mechanism ” have led to the assumption that the metal, clockwork-like ancient artifact for the mathematical calculation of solar eclipses and other celestial phenomena could have been invented or even constructed by Poseidonios. Because earlier dates to the years 80 to 65 BC Chr. Have recently been put on a probable time of origin between 150 and 100 BC. Corrected.

From Poseidonios the view is handed down to Strabo that he considered it probable that the Atlantis described by Plato actually existed. He concluded this based on his observation of land emerging or sinking.

The moon crater Posidonius is named after the ancient scholar.

Works

None of the works has survived. Only the titles and fragments of the writings have been preserved through quotations from other authors:

  • About the Ocean and its problems
  • 52 books of history
  • About the gods (used by Cicero in De natura deorum )
  • About the affects (used by Galen )
  • About the art of divination (5 books)

Text output

  • Ludwig Edelstein , Ian G. Kidd (Ed.): Posidonius . 3 volumes. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1972-1999. Vol. 1: The Fragments (critical edition); Vol. 2: The Commentary (two volumes); Vol. 3: The Translation of the Fragments .
  • Willy Theiler (Ed.): Poseidonios: The Fragments . Volume 1: Texts . Volume 2: Explanations . De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1982, ISBN 3-11-007128-2
  • Ken Dowden: Poseidonios (87). In: Brill's New Jacoby (with English translation, extensive commentary and references).

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Athenaios IV, 153e (= fragment 22/73 = F 188 Theiler); see Jürgen Malitz: Die Historien des Poseidonios , Munich 1983, p. 204.
  2. ^ Strabo II 102.
personal data
SURNAME Poseidonios
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Posidonius (Latin)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek philosopher, historian and polymath
DATE OF BIRTH 135 BC Chr.
PLACE OF BIRTH Apamea on the Orontes
DATE OF DEATH 51 BC Chr.