Poseidonios on Problems of the Roman Empire

Author(s): Hermann Strasburger

Source: The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 55, No. 1/2, Parts 1 and 2 (1965), pp. 40-53
Published by: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies
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POSEIDONIOS ON PROBLEMS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE *
By HERMANN STRASBURGER
On the life of Poseidonios there is but little reliable information
elucidating
the theme
of this
paper.1
The
probable years
of his birth and death are
i35
and
51
B.C. About his
background nothing
is known
except
that
Apameia
in
Syria was his
place
of
origin.
In view
of the mixed
population
of that
country
2
one
might
surmise the
presence
of non-Hellenic
ethnical
components
in his
ancestry,
but
nothing
is known about this. He was a
disciple
of the stoic
philosopher
Panaitios of Rhodes,3
probably
at Athens;
4
afterwards he became
himself the head of the stoic school in
Rhodes,
where he must have
acquired
the
citizenship,5
for he acted as a
magistrate
('
prytanis
')
6
and as an ambassador of the
city.
Strabo's
praise
of the
exemplary
social-welfare work at Rhodes
(I4, 653)
seems to be derived from Poseido-
nios;
in
any
case it is characteristic of Poseidonios' interest in social
problems (see
below
p.
48).
A
great exploring expedition
to the West led him to Massilia and the southern
part
of
Gaul,
to
Spain
and its Atlantic
coast,
to some islands in the western
Mediterranean,
to the
north coast of Africa and to
Sicily. During
the winter of
87
to 86 he went as a
political
ambassador to Rome and
paid
a visit to Marius who was then laid
up
with his fatal illness.
Among
his
acquaintances
with
high-ranking
Romans those with Pompey and Cicero are
especially beyond
doubt.7 A
personal
connection with the
family
of the Marcelli has been
conjectured
from some
striking
features of his historical work.8 The link
might
be a certain
M. Marcellus, who studied in Athens about the
year
i
Io,
and so
perhaps
at the same time
as Poseidonios.9 Furthermore we
might give
credit to an obscure
testimony
of his connection
with
Q.
Aelius
Tubero, grandson
of the
great
Aemilius Paullus and
nephew
of
Scipio
Aemilianus,
as this Tubero was
closely
connected with Panaitios and
passionately
devoted
to stoic
philosophy.l? Yet, among
his
relationships
with Roman statesmen which have been
traced out, probably
the most
important
is his
acquaintance
with P. Rutilius Rufus, who
was his fellow-student under Panaitios.11 The
opinion
of Rutilius on Roman affairs and
on the
problems
of Roman rule
might
have reached and influenced Poseidonios
through
Rutilius' historical
work,
written in Greek,12 as well as
by way
of
friendly
conversations.
There
might
have been occasions for these not
only
in the time of their studies but also in
later
years,
when Rutilius was
living
as an exile in
Smyrna.
We must also take into con-
sideration the
possibility
of an
acquaintance
with
Q.
Caecilius Metellus Numidicus, of
whose
philosophical
studies
during
his exile in Rhodes in the
years o100-99
Plutarch
13
had
something
to
say
in his
biography
of
Numidicus;
an
important piece
of Roman educational
history
lost to us.
Even
Polybios
in his statements on Rome
betrays
the outsider and was
evidently
influenced
by
the views of
Scipio Aemilianus;
14
Poseidonios, no doubt, in
spite
of his
travels in the
West,
had still less inside
knowledge
of Roman life than his
predecessor.
He
was to a
great
extent
dependent
on the
judgement
of his Roman friends on Roman affairs.15
*
An earlier and somewhat shorter version of this
paper
was read to the Annual
Meeting of the Roman
Society
in London on i6th
June, I964.
I am
very
grateful to Mrs. A. Schweitzer and Dr. M.
Merten,
who
helped me to translate text and notes into
English.
1
FGrHist II A, no. 87, T i-8, with
Jacoby's
com-
mentary, ib. II C (references to
F(ragments), T(esti-
monia)
and
Comm(entary)
below are to this
work).
See also K. Reinhardt, P-W s.v. Poseidonios, 563
ff.
and M. Pohlenz, Die Stoa i
(1948), 208 ff.; 2
(I955),
103 f.
2
See E. Honigmann, P-W s.v. Syria, 1565
ff.
3
Cicero, de div.
i,
6
;
de
off. 3,
8.
4
cf. Pohlenz, P-W s.v. Panaitios,
424
f.
5
cf. Hiller v.
Gaertringen,
P-W s.v. Rhodos
(Suppl. v),
80oi.
6
Hiller, I.c. 767.
7
Cicero, fin. i, 6; Tusc. 2, 6I ; nat. deor. i, 6;
123;
de div. I, 6
;
de fato 5. Plut., Cic.
4, 5;
Pomp.
42,
10. Strabo
II, 491.
8
FF
41-44.
cf. T i. Plut., Marcell.
13 f.; 17;
I9-21 ; 23. M. Muihl, Poseidonios und der plutarch.
Marcellus, 1925. F. Miinzer, Gnomon I
(1925), 96 ff.
9
Cicero,
de orat. I, 57.
cf. 45: see Miunzer, L.c. 98.
10
Ps. Plut., pro nobil. I8, 3.
cf. Pos., F
59, p. 260,
line
35
and Klebs, P-W s.v. Aelius, no.
I55.
11
Cicero, Brut. II114 ;
de
off. 3,
10.
12
F
27,
cf. F
59. Appian, lb.
382.
cf. H. Simon,
Roms Kriege in Spanien (Diss. Frankfurt, I96I), I75,
83.
13
Mar. 29, I2.
cf.
Livy,
Per.
69.
14
Particularly obvious in his description of political
dynamics in book vi. On his oral sources for Roman
history, Gelzer, Kl. Schr. III, I69 ff., 175 f., I89 f. is
very instructive.
15
MiAnzer, P-W s.v. Livius Drusus, 859. cf.
Gelzer, o.c. II, 48.
POSEIDONIOS ON PROBLEMS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Accordingly
his historical work shows
clearly
that he was
following optimate
authorities;
for instance, he was
evidently unappreciative
of the reforms of the Gracchi,16 of the
eques-
trian class in
general
17
and, at least to some extent,
of the
personality
of Marius.18 The
Roman friends of Poseidonios, such as we can name, have in common moderate
optimate
views and
openmindedness
towards the
problems
of
imperial
administration and
responsi-
bility
for the
subject peoples.
Yet it is not advisable to
picture
this group as
forming
a
priori
an intellectual
unity,
in a
context, perhaps,
of certain Roman ideals embodied in the
great
personality
of
Scipio
Aemilianus-at this
very point
more
precision
is needed. Modern
conceptions
of this
type
are determined far less
by
real historical evidence than
by
the
vague
and
romantic, almost fictitious
picture
of the so-called
Scipionic
Circle
given by
Cicero in
his De re
publica
and in the ' Laelius
'
(but
only
in these two works, and
obviously
Cicero
himself was
always
conscious of its
unhistoricity).19
It is
only
the wishful
thinking
of modern
scholars which has made this a hallowed
region
of Roman
history.
So one cannot at
pleasure
infer from the
opinions
of
any given
member of the
'
Scipionic
Circle
'
the
opinions
of
another. To
pick
but one instance out of this
complex,
which has some relevance for our
subject:
we
might
take it for
granted
that in
Smyrna
in
78
old Rutilius Rufus communicated
to the
young
Cicero vivid oral memoirs on the
great Scipio Aemilianus,
under whom he had
served as a
military
tribune at Numantia,
and that he talked about him with the utmost
respect-indeed,
critical remarks
by
Rutilius about
Scipio
can
hardly
be
imagined,
Cicero
being separated
from Rutilius
by
such a difference of
age
and rank. But this does
not allow us to conclude that the
political
maxims of Rutilius were identical with those of
Scipio throughout
the whole of his life. Not
only
had the
young Rutilius, as Cicero himself
tells us
(Brut. 85
ff., de
off.
2,
47),
got
his education in the circle of the enemies of
Scipio
Aemilianus,20 but above all it must be
seriously
doubted that this Roman stoic, whose later
life at least showed active devotion to the idea of
supra-national humanity,
could
permanently
subscribe to the hard moral code of old-time Rome which characterized the
destroyer
of
Carthage
and Numantia. The final
judgement
on the
conqueror
of Numantia in
Appian's
book on
Spain
(Ib. 425
f.)
is formulated not
uncritically
in
just
this sense and makes
Scipio
appear perhaps by
a few
degrees
better
than,
but not
fundamentally
different from,
his brutal
predecessors
in the
government
of
Spain.
This verdict is most
probably
derived from
Poseidonios,21 who, for his
part,
is
likely
to have drawn on the
history
of Rutilius Rufus.22
We have still more evidence in the
controversy
on the
expediency
of
destroying Carthage,
where Poseidonios, based,
as scholars
agree,
on Rutilius, favours the view of
Scipio
Nasica;
the latter
prophesied
that
political decay
at home and a hateful
despotism by
the Romans
16
The few meagre excerpts from Diodoros
(FF I io and I i
i)
do not make clear Poseidonios' view
on the agrarian reforms, but in any case his general
judgement on both the Gracchi was unjustly sharp.
It shows the influence of optimate polemics:
Poseidonios' authorities were convinced that both the
brothers strove for tyranny (cf.
F I 12, 7)
and were
to be held responsible for an anarchical situation.
This was also the view of Scipio Aemilianus on Ti.
Gracchus (F I Io
f.),
but I do not think that Poseido-
nios would have made it his only guide (see
further
below). Nothing
is
preserved of Rutilius' account of
the Gracchi, but there can
hardly have been a differ-
ence between his views and those of his teacher P.
Mucius Scaevola, cos. I
33 (see
on this
my forthcoming
paper
'Der Scipionenkreis'
in Hermes 94, I966),
to whom he was closely attached and who had
furthered the agrarian reform, like his brother Crassus
Mucianus, but then, obviously, when he saw the
order of the state endangered, abandoned
Ti. Gracchus and later on even condemned him
severely. Likewise
Q.
Aelius Tubero (see above
p.
40)
had turned from a friend to an enemy of the
Gracchi (Cic. Lael.
37.,
cf.
Malcovati,
ORF2 17I).
Poseidonios is likely to have followed the opinion of
the stoics Rutilius and Tubero, with both of whom he
was acquainted.
17
F 108 d
(p. 287, line 40). F ixx b (p. 296, line 5).
Diod.
36, 3,
I ; 37, 5. This view too, surely,
was.
inspired by Rutilius and
particularly by
the indigna-
tion Poseidonios felt over Rutilius' trial.
18
F
37,
cf. the passages
in Diodoros noted in
Jacoby's commentary and Diod.
38, 4.
Elsewhere in
Diodoros Marius is painted not unfavourably (34,
38f., 36, i, i and
3,
I
; 37, 2, I2 and
I4; 15).
In the
mixture of sources used by Plutarch for his biography
of Marius, too complicated
to be analysed here, two
threads of tradition are conspicuous:
the somewhat
dull praise of Marius by an unknown biographer
and
the hostile but well-informed and
pointed
treatment
of an admirer of Metellus Numidicus (see esp.
ch.
4 f.,
8, IO, 28-3 ),
who cannot be other than Rutilius
Rufus, the notorious enemy
of Marius
(28, 8, cf. io,
i and Dio
fragm. 98, 3).
For distinguishing
between
his hand and that of Poseidonios, Plutarch's biography
offers no clue to me
(cf.
W.
Steidle,
'
Sallusts histor.
Monographien ', Historia, Einzelschrift 3 (I958), 78 f.).
19
See my paper
' Der
Scipionenkreis ',
Hermes
94,
1966.
20
ibid.
21
Miinzer, P-W s.v. Cornelius, 1454.
cf. E.
Norden, German. Urgeschichte in Tacitus' Germaniac
I63
f. and H. Simon, Roms Kriege in Spanien I88,
125.
22
Norden, o.c. 436 f.; Simon, o.c. 175, 83.
41
over their
provinces
would be the inevitable
consequences
of this measure.23 There could
be no
weightier
criticism of the
imperial policy
of Aemilianus.24
The
iT-ropilc
of
Poseidonios, a universal
history,
which continued that of
Polybios,
beginning,
that is to
say,
with the
year
145,
contained
fifty-two
books
according
to Suidas
(T i).
This
figure
cannot err much on the
high side, for the
quotations
in Athenaios
reach as far as Book
49
(F 27).
Even
supposing-as
cannot be ascertained-that a book
in Poseidonios was somewhat shorter than one in
Polybios
or Diodoros
(whose
works with
forty
books each were of remarkable
size),
the work of Poseidonios was an
unusually
voluminous one. The mere fact that a
philosopher, working
in so
many
fields of
science,
devoted so much time to this, sv
irappycp
so to speak, is
unique
in ancient
historiography
25
and should therefore be noted with interest in
considering
our
political
theme.
The final
point
reached
by
his historical narrative is controversial. The datable
fragments go
down as far as 86 B.C.
(F 38).
If the number of books
(attested
only
in
Suidas)
were
certain, the work could
hardly
have
gone beyond
85
B.C., judging by
the scale it can be
seen to have observed till then.26 But the traces in the
secondary
tradition lead further
down,
most
clearly
in Diodoros, who based his universal
history
on Poseidonios
continuously
from
Book
32,
i.e. from where his former source
Polybios
left off,
to the end.27 As this is a certain
and never
seriously questioned
result of source-criticism,28 Diodoros
is,
next to the
frag-
ments
proper,
our most valuable source for
discovering
what is characteristic of Poseidonios
and thus
identifying
further
fragments
elsewhere in the
secondary
tradition.29
Before
treating briefly
the
question
of the
supposed
end of the
work,
I must
first, I
think, give
some account of the
remaining secondary
sources for
anonymous
Poseidonian material.30 In this
category
the
relatively
richest mines are the
Geography
of
Strabo and some of Plutarch's
biographies.
Both authors
acknowledge, by
a number of
citations, that
they
have read Poseidonios in the
original.31
Doubtless
they
contain much
more Poseidonian material, particularly Strabo, but the delimitation of these
passages
is an
operation
conducted on
slippery ground
and
only
in a few fortunate cases
satisfactory.
Still
more
unmanageable
is the
analysis
of other
secondary literature, where Poseidonios'
history
might
have been used
through intermediary
sources. Scholars who have some
familiarity
with Poseidonios'
stylistic peculiarities
and his favourite ideas on
history
32
will
spot
them
frequently
in the
secondary
historical tradition
(apart
from Strabo and
Plutarch),
particu-
larly
in
Appian,
and even
sporadically
in the debris of the Latin tradition down to Florus
(2,
7).
But an exhaustive
exploitation
of this
material,
without recourse to
arbitrary dogma,
is
prevented by
the
hopelessly complicated
stratification of the sources, which is charac-
teristic of the whole narrative tradition on the
history
of the later Roman
republic.33
One
must be content with occasional
finds,
such as seem to be certain
enough.
In this
paper
I shall make use of one such find,
an observation not
yet
recorded in
print,
at least to
my knowledge,
which
may perhaps
be
helpful
in
clarifying
some
points
in
Poseidonios' historical work. I am convinced that some of the most substantial references
23
F
I2,
cf. Gelzer, o.c. It, 47 f. and the literature
quoted there. cf. also W. Steidle, o.c. I8 and
H.
Fuchs,
'Der Friede als
Gefahr,' Harv. Stud.
Cl. Phil. 63 (1958), 367; 379
ff.
24
For which
policy cf. esp. Gelzer, o.c. ii, 63;
K. Bilz, Die Politik des P. Corn. Scipio Aem.
(1936),
33 f., 65; H. H. Scullard, JRS 50 (I960), 59 ff.
25
A. D. Nock,
'
Posidonius,'
JRS 49 (I959), 4.
26
See
Jacoby,
Comm. p. i56.
27
As he did some earlier geographical and ethno-
logical passages; for instance, those on Gaul and
Spain
in book
5.
28 G. Busolt, Jahrb.fiur
cl. Philol. 36 (i890), 321 ff.,
405
ff. E. Schwartz, P-W s.v. Diodoros, 690.
A. Rosenberg, Einleitung u. Quellenkunde zur r6m.
Gesch. I99 f. Jacoby, Comm., p.
157;
2o6 ff.
K. Reinhardt, P-W s.v. Poseidonios, 630 ff.
29
cp. Jacoby,
Comm. p. I59.
30
cp. Jacoby, Comm. pp. 157
f. Athenaios, our
richest source of original fragments, seems to confine
himself to the passages he quotes.
31
cp. FF 30-34, 37, 40-47, 49-58, 6o, 62-67,
70 f., 73.
32
The most
revealing characteristics are given by
K. Reinhardt: Poseidonios (i921), I9 ff.;
'*
Posei-
donios fiber
Ursprung
und
Entartung,' Orient und
Antike 6
(1928); P-W s.v. Poseidonios, 63I ff.,
822 ff.
'
Philosophy and History among the Greeks,'
Greece and Rome 2nd Ser. i, 2 (1954), 87 ff. cp.
Jacoby, Comm. p. I59 ff. and see further A.
Schulten,
Hermes 46 (1911), 592 f., with the
justified criticism
of E. Norden, Germ. Urgesch. I63, 4.
cf. also H.
Simon, Roms Kriege in Spanien 95, 20; 137; 164 f.;
I88; and
my paper: 'Komik und Satire in der
griech. Geschichtsschreibung,' Festgabe f.
Paul Kirn
(1961), 38
ff.
8a By underrating this
complication Busolt often
went astray. The right views,
at least in
principle,
are set out by E. Schwartz,
P-W s.v.
Appianos, 222,
224;
s.v. Cassius Dio, i698, 1705.
42
HERMANN STRASBURGER
POSEIDONIOS ON PROBLEMS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
we have to the
origins
and
spread
of
piracy
and to its successful final
suppression by
Pompey
are derived from no other than Poseidonios. It seems to me that this was a
subject
Poseidonios treated
extensively
and with
particular interest, a
complex
of which the
frag-
ments are now so scattered in the
secondary
sources and so mixed
up
with the Roman
tradition as to evade
precise
and detailed delimitation. But I am
pretty
sure that not
only
does
Strabo's most
interesting
account of the
development
of
piracy
and its involvement with the
problems
of the Roman
empire depend
on Poseidonios,34 but the
corresponding
accounts
in Plutarch's
Pompey
and in
Appian's
Mithridatike 35
are-directly
or
indirectly-of
the
same extraction. For instance, what Plutarch has to
say
in ch.
24
on the luxurious life of
the
pirates corresponds,
in a series of characteristic features, to established
fragments
of Poseidonios.36 In
particular
the
reports
of both authors on the
increasing power
of the
pirates
show in the whole trend of their narrative a most
striking
resemblance to Poseidonios'
great description
of the first Sicilian slave-revolt
(F
i
o8),
the
layout
of which is still
easily
recognizable
in the
Byzantine excerpts
from Diodoros.37 These
passages
on the increase
of
piracy
are so
typically
Poseidonian that the
potential authorship
of
Theophanes
of
Mytilene,
which,
since his
history
was the most
important
source for
Pompey's campaigns
in the
East,
could
obviously
be
conjectured,
can be excluded-for these limited
passages
at least-in all
certainty;
for the
fragments
of
Theophanes'
work for their
part
do not show
any
feature
of a similar kind.38
34
The central passage
in Strabo is that on the
foundation of the league of Cilician pirates (14,
688
f.),
a passage which W. Capelle (Klio 25 (1932), 103
note) has already assigned to Poseidonios, though for
insufficient reasons. Also closely related, in my view,
are several minor passages which explain the
geo-
graphical, economic and political causes of the
thriving of
piracy, illuminate the attitude of some
important cities in favour of or against piracy (further-
more their close connection with the international
slave-trade), and, finally, discuss the social solution
of the problem by Pompey (IO, 486; 14, 644; 652 ;
664 f.; 671; i6, 752; 754).
This means: an
account, probably connected in Poseidonios, was cut
into pieces by Strabo to fit in with his own
periegetic
survey and-as is obvious in Plutarch and Appian-
much abridged.
The main peculiarity pointing to Poseidonios as
being the source of Strabo, Plutarch and
Appian,
as
the case may be, is a preoccupation
with circumstantial
and complicated aetiological considerations,
an out-
look which claims intense interaction between the
problems of political history on the one hand and
social and economic, ethical and
psychological
problems on the other, which traces the dynamic of
a development from casual local origins to world-
wide danger-with evident predilection for the
paradoxes
of the subject. The most representative
survival of this is F I08 on the first Sicilian
slave-war,
the close thematic affinity of which to piracy should
be noticed particularly.
Likewise we
may
call to
mind the
exposition of the second slave-war (Diod.
36,
2
ff.),
the connection between the destruction of
Carthage and the Roman decline (F I I2) and portraits
like that of Viriathus (Simon, o.c.
135, 69), Marius
(Diodoros 37, 29)
or Athenion (F 36) (further see
esp. Reinhardt's descriptions
of Poseidonios' peculi-
arity cited above, n.
32).
In Strabo
14,
668 we may
find Poseidonian origin indicated also by the
appearance
of
Diodotos-Tryphon,
whose
activity was
treated with special interest in the histories
(see
Jacoby on Poseidonios FF
2-3
and
29).
Whether the somewhat stilted and lifeless
parallel
record of Cassius Dio
(36,
20 f.) shows traces of the
Poseidonian conception or is based on Roman
accounts, I do not dare to decide. The Thucydidean
flourish at the beginning, exempting
Dio from a
serious
aetiology,
is certainly his own product. But
I am sure that the problem of piracy
had already been
portrayed by the Roman Annalists, like the slave-
revolts in Sicily, as something which had
suddenly
fallen from heaven. It is only against the back-
ground of such run-of-the-mill treatments that the
inconvertible features of the great Poseidonian aetio-
logies
become obvious.
35
See esp. Plut., Pomp. 24 and 28, App., Mithr.
92, 4I6-96, 445.
36
FF I, 2, 7, 9, I0, 14, 20, 2x; *28, 12; *36, 49.
In Greek
historiography
the richly coloured descrip-
tion of the Tpuvqp
since
Theopompos
has a long
tradition. But for the first half of the first century-
here only in question-it
is to be found only in
Poseidonios,
as far as I know.
37
Social and economic causes of the
phenomenon:
App., Mithr. 417; Pos., F io8 b-d. Motive of
greed of gain: App., 417
and
419;
Strabo
14,
668
;
Pos., F io8d; ii6, 26, 3; I17, 36, 3
and
38, 2.
Small local beginnings
and
gradual rising
of brigan-
dage: App. 4i6 ff.; Plut., Pomp. 24, 2; Pos.,
F I08 a 2 and d. The trade of
piracy
becomes
socially
acceptable: App. 4I8, Plut. 24, 3. Armament,
technical resources: App. 419 f.; Plut. 24, 4; Pos.,
F xo8 d and a i6. Stop to all traffic because of common
insecurity: App. 423;
Plut. 25, I ; Pos., F Io8 d.
Collision with the Roman power
and initial
helpless-
ness of it: App. 423 ff.; Plut.
24,
8 ff.
; Pos.,
F io8 a 3 and d ; a I8. Derision of a Roman citizen:
Plut.
24,
i
-13. Here characterizing a situation
by
generalizing
an anecdotal feature
(as e.g.
F Io8 f
;
g; i; r)
is typical of Poseidonios, likewise the
implied hint at the blindness of the mocker, who later
on will be the helpless
victim himself: F o8 a
8;
g; f; cf. F 7 (on
the peculiarity
of the scene of
derision, which has been compared
to the derision of
Christ, see St. Weinstock,
'
Saturnalien und Neu-
jahrsfest in den Martyrerakten,'
in
'
Mullus
',
Festschrift fur Th.
Klauser, Jahrb. f. Antike u.
Christentum, Ergdnzungsband
i
(I964), 393).
In Plut.
Pomp. 28, 4 the philosophical argument
for
Pompey's
clemency points to Poseidonios'
optimistic
anti-
Thucydidean
view of human nature
(cf.
F Io8 a
I3,
c and k; Diod. 38-39, 2I. See also below pp. 47
and
50 f.).
38
FGrHist I88. The fragments,
of
course,
are too
few to permit a real comparison,
but in
any
case
they
all refer to the Mithridatic War, and as there is no
other testimony on the extent of the whole of the
work, it remains dubious whether
Theophanes
had
included the war against the pirates
at all
(cf. Jacoby
ii D, Comm. on FGrHist i88, p. 614.
For a different
view see Laqueur,
P-W s.v. Theophanes,
2
25 f., but, as
it seems to me, his
arguments
are
merely hypothetical).
43
The historical contents of the Poseidonian
passages
which have thus been detected
will be treated later
(see
below
pp.
49-50).
But,
to return to the extent of Poseidonios'
work,
it follows from this that it included the extinction of
piracy by Pompey,
and
seemingly
not as
an excursus but in the context of the
history
of
Pompey.39
This
gives strong support
to the
suggestion
of Karl
Reinhardt,40
that Poseidonios' account of the
Jews, preserved by
Strabo
(F 70),
was connected with
Pompey's conquest
of
Jerusalem
(63 B.C.).
Thus
only
two
possibilities
remain: either to take for
granted
the
special history
of
Pompey
which Strabo
seems to ascribe to Poseidonios
(T II),41
or to assume that the main
work,
the
icT-opiai,
went down to about
63
B.C.42 The latter seems to me not at all
impossible.
The number of
books
given
in Suidas is
by
no means
reliable,43
and I
really
do not understand
why
the
prevailing opinion
need be
right
that Poseidonian traces in the
secondary
tradition are
vanishing
in the
eighties,
and that the
dictatorship
of Sulla must
accordingly
be considered the
terminal
point
of the Histories.44
It is true that the
meagreness
of the
Byzantine excerpts
from Diodoros' books
38
to
40
gives
us but little to
go on,
but this cannot be
accepted
as
proving
the
assumption
that at
this
point
the main source of Diodoros
(i.e. Poseidonios)
dried
up.
For it was not Diodoros
but his
excerptors
who from this
point
hurried
carelessly
to the end of their
work;
Diodoros
himself treated the three decades from the death of Marius to the British
expedition
of
Caesar in no less than three books,45
which
corresponds exactly
to the scale used
through-
out the whole of his work. I think
that,
even in what remains of Book
38,
the unfavourable
treatment of Fimbria
(8)
points
to Poseidonios, and even more so the most favourable
treatment of the
young Pompey
(9-10),
whose
way
of life is described in
striking harmony
with the theories of Poseidonios on old-time Roman conduct.46 Furthermore the
sentence on
Spartacus
(38-39, 2I)
corresponds
to a most characteristic one of Poseidonios
on the first slave-war
(F
io8 k Exc. de sent.
399).
It would be hazardous to infer from this
one small
fragment
of Diodoros that Poseidonios' narrative included the
Spartacus war,
but more
may
be said. A
chapter
of Plutarch on
Spartacus
(Crass.
8)
sounds Poseidonian.
Moreover,
it is
possible
that Strabo in
mentioning
a
history
of
Pompey
47
is not
referring
to
a
monograph
but to a continuation of the main work of the histories, which was
only
catalogued under this title because
Pompey
was its central
figure.48 However,
I do not think
it
necessary
to decide this formal
question.
It is sufficient to notice that
Pompey
was the
Roman who not
only
had the most
conspicuous personal relationship
with Poseidonios, but
was also
historically appreciated by
him in a
particular
manner.
The most
penetrating
treatment of our
particular subject
that I have seen-and I
hope
not to have overlooked
any paper
of
importance-I
found in an article
by
Wilhelm
Capelle,
' Griechische Ethik und r6mischer
Imperialismus',
Klio
25 (I932),
86 ff.49 He examines
the reflections of Poseidonios on Roman
imperialism
in close connection with those of
Polybios
and Panaitios and on this basis deduces the central
thought
of the Middle Stoa on
this theme. Poseidonios must indeed be considered in relation to
just
these two men,
one
of whom was his teacher in
philosophy,
the other his immediate
predecessor
in historio-
graphy,
whose work he continued
(T
i ;
I2a).
Nevertheless, one could
urge
as an
objection
to this
synthesis
that it seems advisable to consider the
opinions
of these three
personalities
separately.
To
begin with,
the
assumption
that Panaitios' comment on Roman rule is
preserved
at all is based on the
unproved,
and
unprovable, supposition,
that it is his view
39
I think it probable (along the lines followed by Germ.
Urgesch. 78, 2; 103, 3. Jacoby,
Comm. pp.
the reflections of Reinhardt, Poseidonios iiber Ur- I56 f.
sprung (above, n.
32), 30 f.),
that Poseidonios post-
45
i.e. about 400 pages of a modern printed edition.
poned
his account of the whole of the development
46
F
59,
cf. the characterization of Viriathus recon-
of
piracy, from the middle of the second century till structed by Simon, o.c. (above, n.
32), 136
f.
the year 67, to this context (cf. the reconstruction
47
II, 492
=
Pos., T i. The wording does not
sketched below
pp. 50-5i),
but I cannot prove it. compel us to assume a separate monograph.
40
Poseidonios iiber
Ursprung 25 if.
48
cf. P. Treves, Oxf. Cl. Dict. s.v. Posidonius.
41
Reinhardt, P-W s.v. Poseidonios, 638 f., cf. Parallels are the history of Dionysios I in Philistos
M. Gelzer, P-W s.v. Tullius Cicero, 902; Pompeius2 (FGrHist
556,
TT ; I I; I2) or those of Agathokles
(I959), I09. and Pyrrhos
in Timaios
(FGrHist 566,
TT 8 and
9).
42
This is the view of Ed. Meyer, Caesars Monar-
49
The Bryn Mawr Dissertation of Margaret E.
chie und d. Principat des
Pompeius3, 29, 4; 6i8 f. Reeser, The political theory of the old and middle Stoa
43
See Jacoby, Comm.
p. I56. (1951), seems to be
unacquainted with Capelle's
44
cf. Busolt, o.c.
(above,
n. 28), 436; Norden, article and is inferior to it on the essential points.
44
HERMANN STRASBURGER
POSEIDONIOS ON PROBLEMS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Cicero is
reproducing
in De re
publica 3, 36,
when he defines the rule of the best over the
inferior as a natural
relationship
which is also
advantageous
for the
people
so
governed,
the
rule of the best over them
being justified
'
quod
talibus hominibus sit utilis servitus '.50
As this is an
opinion indubitably compatible
with those of Plato or
Aristotle,
but
sharply
repudiated by
the
stoics,
who before and after Panaitios were
teaching
the
equality
of
men,
it was not a
good idea,
as a mere
hypothesis,
to
impute
to Panaitios this
strange
conces-
sion to Roman
imperialism.
We must leave Panaitios out of it. All we are in a
position
to
say
is that the
conception
of Roman rule advanced here
by
Cicero
probably represents
the
basic idea for its
justification
most familiar to the Romans themselves ;50a for this aristocratic
but at the same time somewhat naive and
unreflecting pretension
can be found not
only
in
the famous verses of
Vergil:
'tu
regere imperio populos,
Romane, memento,
. . .
parcere
subiectis et debellare
superbos,'51
but
also, only slightly modified,
in a more circumstantial
statement
by
Cicero in the De
officiis (2, 26):
'Verum tamen
quam
diu
imperium populi
Romani beneficiis
tenebatur,
non
iniuriis,
bella aut
pro
sociis aut de
imperio gerebantur,
exitus erant bellorum aut mites aut
necessarii, regum, populorum,
nationum
portus
erat et
refugium senatus,
nostri autem
magistratus imperatoresque
ex hac una re maximam laudem
capere studebant,
si
provincias,
si socios
aequitate
et fide defendissent.
Itaque
illud
patro-
cinium orbis terrae verius
quam imperium poterat
nominari.' 52
Turning
from Panaitios to
Polybios,
Roman influence on
him, especially
the
personal
influence of
Scipio Aemilianus,
is more certain
by
far than stoic influence. The
supposition
50
Capelle (p. 95)
refers to A. Schmekel (Die
Philosophie
der mittleren Stoa
(1892),
6I
ff., 228),
considering
him to have
proved
this. M.
Pohlenz,
who
by
his
authority supports
this
opinion,
which
has been
accepted by many
other scholars without
any
further
examination,
contents himself with
insufficient
arguments (e.g.
Antikes Fiihrertum
(I934),
33 ;
GGA 200
(1938), i35 f.;
Die Stoa
i, 206; 22,
Io2).
His statement that Panaitios is a fundamental
source of Cicero in the De re
publica
has been doubted
in the case of the first book
especially (cp.
F.
Solmsen,
Philol. 88
(I933), 33I ; 338 ;
V.
P6schl,
R6m. Staat
undgriech.
Staatsdenken bei Cicero
(1936), 23,
note
27;
K.
Biichner,
Stud. Ital. Fil. Class. 26
(1952), 97;
id.,
Latomus
70 (1964), 149,
which I have not time to
deal with
here).
But the
arguments
adduced
by
Schmekel and
Pohlenz,
in favour of the thesis that
Cicero uses the famous
disputation
of Karneades of
155
B.C. in a
polemic reproduction
of
Panaitios,
seem
to me
very airy.
Each
attempt
to
prove
this must
fail,
a
priori,
because there is
preserved
not the tiniest
scrap
of the content of Panaitios'
political
doctrine
(cp.
De
legibus 3, I4 f.;
De re
p. I, 34),
and therefore
the
question remains,
to what
extent,
if at
all,
he
engaged
in
problems
of
practical politics.
A
study
of
all
genuine fragments (cp.
M. van
Straaten,
Panaetii
Rhodii
Fragmenta3, I962)
and
especially
the excellent
analysis
of the De
officiis by Georg
Picht (Die Grund-
lagen
der Ethik des
Panaitios, unprinted dissertation,
Freiburg, 1943,
obtainable at the Universitats-Biblio-
thek, Freiburg
im
Breisgau)
made it seem
very
doubt-
ful to me that he did so at all
(see
also the
objections
of K.
Biichner,
Latomus
l.c.).
If the doctrine of the
minor
peoples
which need
tutelage (De
re
publica 3,
36 f.)
were Panaitios'
justification
of Roman
rule,
it
should occur in the De
officiis.;
but there we look
for it in vain. This
conception
would also be a
major
break with the old stoic view of the
equality
of all
men
(Zeno (SVF I), fragm.
262 in Plut. De
Al.fort. I,
6; Chrysippos (SVF iii), fragm. 334-366 ;
Eratos-
thenes in Strabo
I,
66
f.; Seneca, ep. 47 ; Epictet.,
Diatr.
I, 13, 3 f.). Nay more,
it is
originally,
as
Capelle (I.c. 95, Io6 ff.)
and Pohlenz
(Die Stoa, 206)
are
fully aware,
a Platonic and Aristotelian
concep-
tion
(cf. especially
Aristotle's counsel to
Alexander,
Fragm. 658
Rose = Ross
p. 63.
On this E.
Buchner,
Hermes 82 ( 954), 378 ff.).
And it was
precisely
Plato
and Aristotle whose ideas of
justice
Karneades took
strong exception to,
as Cicero himself seems to have
testified in De re
publica
iii
(see
ch.
3, 9- I).
Another
mediator of the
Karneades-speeches suggests
himself
far more than Panaitios: Karneades'
disciple
Kleitomachos,
from whom Cicero derived a
great
deal of information about him on other matters
(Orelli-Baiter,
Onom. Tull.
2, I31 f.; I60)
and whom
he once cites
explicitly
for the
embassy
of
philosophers
(Acad. 2, I37).
The
logical
threads of the two
original
speeches
of Karneades have been obscured in Cicero
not
only by
the
fragmentary
state of the De re
publica
but above all because Cicero has inverted the order
of the
speeches
for and
against (see
on this
excellently
H. von
Arnim,
P-W s.v.
Karneades, 1978 ff.).
But
I think there is no reason
why
he should have needed
stoic
help against
Karneades to return to the Platonic-
Aristotelian doctrine. At
any rate,
the attitude of
Panaitios towards the
legitimation
of Roman rule
remains unknown.
50a cf. the evidence from the
early
second
century
B.C. discussed
by
H.
Volkmann,
Hermes 82
(I954),
474-
51
See on this H.
Haffter,
' Politisches Denken im
alten
Rom,'
Stud. Ital. Fil. Class. N.S.
17 (I940),
III ff.
52
The Roman
examples
in the De
officiis,
which
(as
in this
case)
do not
always
fit with their
context,
show the hand of Cicero rather than that of Panaitios.
The
logical inconsistency
in the morals of this
(probably unfinished) passage
do not
suggest
an
earlier version
by
the
philosopher (cp.
n. 50 above
and M.
Gelzer,
Kl. Schr.
II,
60
f.; II,
6
ff.).
On the
whole,
no
correspondence
can be
securely proved
between concrete issues of Roman
policy
and ascer-
tained' stoic'
doctrines;
in the case of Ti.
Gracchus,
for
instance,
his
attempted
reforms seem to have been
disapproved
of
by Scipio
Aemilianus and
Polybios
as well as
by Poseidonios,
but he had at his
disposal
a
stoic
philosopher,
Blossios of
Kymai,
as an
ideological
counsellor
(adequately
on this D. R.
Dudley,
'Blossius of
Cumae,' JRS 31 (I941), 92-9).
When
it came to the
point,
Roman statesmen did not follow
the
prescriptions
of the Greek
philosophers
in their
households and the latter were
certainly
careful not
to
give
too decided ones. The effect of the Stoa on
Roman
behaviour,
as far as there was
any,
arose from
its
general
educational
influence,
which led the
Romans to
interpret
their own task subjectively and
differently
in each case.
45
that this
man,
otherwise not
very philosophically-minded,
was influenced
by
the Stoa is based
mainly
on the
assumption
of his
friendship
with
Panaitios,
which is recorded
only
in the
fiction of Cicero's De re
publica (I, 34),
and,
in
addition,
on his
theory
of the
superiority
of
the mixed constitution in book
VI,
which
happens
to be a stoic
theory,
but is
attested,
to
my knowledge, only
for the older Stoa
(Diog.
Laert.
7, I3I).
With
regard
to the matter
in hand such a basis is too small to
support
a
convincing
thesis of a close
ideological
relationship
between
Polybios
and Panaitios.53 We should rather
rely solely
on the
explicit
general
remarks on Roman rule which can be found in the
surviving parts
of
Polybios'
work. These are less
comprehensive
and
penetrating
than one would
expect. For,
as is
well
known, Polybios
declared it his main task to describe and
explain
the
phenomenon
of
Rome's rise to
world-supremacy,54
and so
repeatedly expatiated,
in
general
or
specific
terms,
on the
origins
of Roman
superiority,
the
political
and
military
as well as moral
factors which
produced it;
55
and at the
beginning
of the third book
(ch. 4)56
he
gave
advance notice of some
general
reflections on the nature and
meaning
of Roman rule and its
advantages
and
disadvantages
for its
subjects.
This is
just
what should arouse our most
lively interest,
but a
development
of this theme is not to be found
anywhere
in the
surviving
parts
of the work. It is
likely, indeed,
that he never fulfilled this
promise,
for the scattered
remarks which are
preserved
57 show almost no trend towards a more
penetrating
reflec-
tion.
Only
the
general
line of
thought
becomes
clear, namely,
that
Polybios accepted
the Roman
conquest
of the world much as did
Scipio
Aemilianus. He
pleaded
for relative
humanity
in warfare and for the observance of law as far as
possible
in
any given
case.
But,
however much concerned he was with
deducing
from
history political
lessons for the
future,
about the
principles
and tasks of
maintaining
rule and
governing
an
empire
he
says nothing
which would take us
beyond
the well-known lines of
Vergil
or Cicero's comment in the
De
officiis.
It is
probable
that on these
questions
neither
Scipio
nor
Polybios
himself
had worked out a line of his own, in
any
case not one in which
humanity
would have been
anything
more than an instrument of an
unmitigated policy
of
power.58
In
my opinion
Poseidonios went far
beyond Polybios
in the treatment of this
subject.
In this direction
Capelle
has done valuable
preparatory work,
but he has not
paid enough
attention to the realistic historical material in Poseidonios'
kirTopial.
This defect
produces
the
wrong,
or at least
one-sided, impression
that Poseidonios is
philosophically idealizing
the role of Rome. Yet
Capelle
has the merit of
having
discovered some additional
passages
of Poseidonian
origin
in Strabo's
chapter
on
Spain
and of
having recognized,
in connection
with
them, the
authorship
of Poseidonios in Strabo's account of the Cilician
pirates
in
book
I4.59
All these
passages develop
one theme in common: in barbarian
regions,
where
the inhabitants were
damaging
their own economic
prosperity by
constant
robbery
and
warfare, 'the Romans
appear
as the
bringers
of
peace
and order.'60 This
idea,
which
Capelle
rightly recognized
as
being Poseidonian,
he
regards
as the core of what Poseidonios
thought
of Roman rule. And he relates this to a
philosophical fragment
of
Poseidonios, of which
Seneca
preserves
a version in his ninetieth letter. There the natural foundations of
govern-
ment are under discussion: in the
animal-kingdom
the
greater
and
stronger
beasts rule
over the weaker ones ; to this
corresponds
the rule of the better men in the human
sphere;
and from this it should be inferred that in the Golden
Age
the rulers were the wise men,
who
governed
for the benefit of all and
protected
the weaker ones from the
stronger.61
The
kinship
of this
conception
with Cicero's ethical
justification
of Roman
imperialism
in De re
publica 3,
36
(the very passage
which has been
wrongly,
as I
believe, ascribed to
53
cp. Ziegler, P-W s.v. Polybios, 1470 f. and N.S. 4 (I954),
102 ff. cf. M. Gelzer, Kl. Schr. ii, 63 f.,
1498 f. 7I and K. Ziegler,
P-W s.v. Polybios, 1552
ff.
54
I, I, 5;
I, 3, 9 f.; 3, I, 4; 6, 2, 3; 39, 8, 7.
58
See
esp.
the reflections in Diod. 32, 2 and
4,
55
i, 63, 9
ff. ; 3, 2, 6; ii8, 9; 6, 8
; 52-56; rightly traced back to
Polybios (H. H. Scullard, RS
52-56; i8, 28, 4
if.
50 (i960), 73, 57).
56
See on this F. W. Walbank, Hist. Comm. on Pol. 59 Strabo 3, I44, I54, 156, I63; 14, 665,
688 f.
i
(1957), 301. Capelle,
I.c. ioi f. and above pp. 42-3.
57
See for the following passage the penetrating
60
Capelle,
l.c. p. 103.
discussion by C. 0. Brink and F. W. Walbank,
CQ
61
Capelle, I.c. p. 99.
46
HERMANN STRASBURGER
POSEIDONIOS ON PROBLEMS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
Panaitios)
is
quite
evident.
However,
it seems to me erroneous to
regard
this as the
quintes-
sence of Poseidonios' reflections on the Roman
position
62
and at the same time to think it
possible
that the Stoa should have
placed
itself at the
disposal
of the Government
by
such
a hollow formula of
compromise.
I think Poseidonios is much more of a realist than is
supposed.
At all events I would hesitate to
say,
with
Capelle (p. 104),
that
Poseidonios,
like
Polybios
and
Panaitios,
was convinced
'
of the inner vocation of the Roman nation for
world-supremacy
'. Doubts must be raised
by
the mere fact that in his letter Seneca is
presenting
the ideal reconstruction which Poseidonios
gave
of the Golden
Age.
Poseidonios
was
certainly very
far from
believing
in the
possibility
of
recreating
this ideal state in his
own
age.
In several sections of his historical work he himself has
propounded
the
theory
that the moral
qualities
of the
Romans, formerly outstanding,
had been
deteriorating
since
the destruction of
Carthage
63 in a
process
of constant
decay.64
He ascribed the most
critical and
dangerous political
situations
explicitly
to this
very cause,
as for instance the
Social War
(Diod. 37, 2,
i
ff.)
and the civil war under Marius and Sulla
(Diod. 37, 2,
12
ff.).
Such indeed is the moral which
pervades
the whole
period
dealt with
by
Poseidonios
(from
I45 B.C.): beginning
with the
Spanish
wars in the middle of the second
century B.C.,
serious
crises for the Roman
government,
in
foreign
as well as in home
politics,
are an almost
incessantly recurring
theme. This outlook in itself debarred him from
any philosophically
idealizing simplification
of the
problem. Accordingly
he
very strongly emphasized
Roman
cruelty
and
perfidy
in
foreign
wars and the horrible self-destruction of the civil wars and he
detected
alarming symptoms
of
degeneration (influenced
in this
by
the
judgement
of Roman
optimates)
even in an
episode
where we see a noble endeavour to
bring
about reasonable
reforms : the
episode
of the Gracchi. In his account of economic conditions in Gaul and
Spain,
Roman and Italian merchants
appear
as avaricious and brutal
exploiters,65 and,
unfairly generalizing,
he
charges
C. Gracchus with
having
delivered
up
the
provinces
to
the ruthless
greed
of the Roman tax-farmers.66 It must be said at
once, however,
that such
statements were never left one-sided and without
compensation.
What he
says,
for
instance,
about Roman merchants
exploiting Spanish
mineral
wealth,
he
lays
likewise to the
charge
of the Phoenicians and
Carthaginians,67
who
preceded
the Romans in
Spain. Similarly,
he
gives copious
illustrations both of terrible abuses of
power by
oriental
despots
and of the
decadence of other nations.68 He describes
brutality
or
immorality everywhere
in the
world,
impartially,
but he does not make it the
general
rule. Even barbarian
peoples,
to whose
customs and national character he devoted careful
study,
are described
fairly,
without
either idealization or
disparagement.
An obvious and
well-preserved example
is his
descrip-
tion of the Gauls.69 There all characteristic features of this nation are
put together
with
scientific
thoroughness:
he describes them as
open-hearted, good-natured, valiant,
chivalrous, religious, reckless, boastful, intelligent
and
eager
to
learn;
but he also alludes to
the
crudity
of their
eating-manners,
their addiction to drink and to a
variety
of
primitive
features, especially
their
repulsive
custom of
sacrificing
human victims to their
gods
and their
habit of
preserving
the heads of
distinguished
enemies and of
nailing
them above their front-
doors. Poseidonios tells us how hard he found it to
get
accustomed to that
spectacle,
but how
in conversations with the Gauls he became more and more aware of the moral and serious
conceptions underlying
these outlandish customs.
Well differentiated too was his
description
of the
Celtiberians, though
not
quite
so
well
preserved;
he calls them cruel to criminals and
enemies,
but kind and humanitarian
70
in their attitude towards
foreigners.
When he
praises
these
qualities
and also the extra-
ordinary hospitality
of the
Celtiberians,
we must not
miss, any
more than in the
description
of the Gaulish
Celts,
the note of
complaint
and admonition intended for the
Romans,
who
maltreated these
predominantly
amiable nations
terribly.
Not so much
by
loud declamation
62
Poseidonios' F 8
(on the Heracleots and Mari-
64
FF
59;
xiI2
==
Diod.
34/5, 33;
Diod.
37, 3-5.
andynians) (cf. Reeser, I.c. p. 54,
who seems even to
65
F i 6
=
Diod. 5, 26, 3;
F
117
==
Diod.
5, 36
f.
trace back Cicero,
De re
publica 3, 37- I, 5I
to 66 F iii b
=
Diod.
34/5, 25.
Poseidonios !) also should not be
generalized
in this
67
F
II7
=
Diod.
5, 35, 4
and
38,
2.
sense (cp. Reinhardt, P-W s.v. Poseidonios, 632 f.).
68
FF
2, 5, 6, io;
Diod.
33, 4; 5 ; 6; I2; 14;
63
W. Steidle
(Sallusts
histor. Monographien I6 ff.) 15,
etc.
rightly points
out that in Poseidonios' view Roman
69
F II6
=
Diod.
5,25-32.
FF
55-58,
from Strabo's
moral decay hardly began abruptly
in
I46 B.C.,
but book 4.
FF
I5-18
=
Athen.
4, 15I-4
and
4, 246.
the events of this
year
at most initiated a
stage
of
70
-taiKETs Kad
piAavOpdbrot-two
favourite terms of
crisis in a
development
which had
begun long
before. Poseidonios, F
I7
=
Diod. 5, 34,
I.
47
as
by
the fairness of his
reporting,
Poseidonios shows that he has
completely
absorbed the
stoic doctrine of the
parity
of all men. He is
absolutely
free from the
disagreeable arrogance
underlying
the
phrase
'
quod
talibus hominibus utilis sit servitus '. I do not believe that
in
every given
case he identified the
pax
Romana with the
happiness
of the
subjugated.
His
precisely
shaded and
highly appreciative portrait
of
Viriathus,71
which has some
important
features in common with that of
Pompey (Diod. 38/9, 9)
and even alludes to the
Thucydidean
Pericles,
shows a barbarian ruler
capable
of
developing
the best
energies
of his nation and
thus
representing
at least one case in which Roman
tutelage appears unnecessary,
or even
positively
destructive.72 There is also a
fragment
in
Diodoros, certainly
with reference to
the
conquest
of
Numantia,73
which shows the
moving
attachment of
savage
barbarians to
their
liberty
and native soil: a
picture
doubtless intended to
proclaim
the
right
of these
peoples
not to be
deprived
of these assets.
Everywhere
Poseidonios likes to
point
out that
even barbarians and slaves
might
be endowed
by
nature with the
highest qualities
of human
dignity,
that
normally they
become brutal
only
as a result of brutal treatment.74
The
practical consequences
of this
conception
are
obvious, and even the
very fragmen-
tary
tradition
provides plenty
of evidence for the
vigour
with which Poseidonios insisted on
them. In so far as subordinate states exist
anywhere
in the world-and Poseidonios
accepts
them as
political
and historical realities-the crucial
problem
is the
right
treatment
(which
means for Poseidonios the humanitarian
treatment)
of the
subjects.
This remains
equally
valid for him whether he is
thinking
of
political
relations between
peoples
or of the status
of slaves in
private
law. Both
aspects
of this field of
enquiry
are
absolutely
identical for
him : social
questions
at
every
level and their
adequate
solution
according
to the
principles
of
humanity
are the central issue for that
political
instruction which the all-round historical
stock-taking
of the
philosopher
is meant to
provide.75
The often recurrent
keywords
here
are ?EtEiKEcia
(clementia)
and
piAcxvepcowtia (humanitas).76
A fundamental statement in this
sense-unfortunately preserved only
in the
doubly
simplified
form of a
Byzantine excerpt
(de
sent.)
from Diodoros-was made
by
Poseidonios
in his introduction to the first Sicilian slave-war
(F
io8
c).
There he
gave
a
prefatory
summary
on the terrible disaster which the
thoughtless mismanagement
of the Sicilian
slave-holders had inflicted on their whole
country,
and he added the
following
moral
(I
translate from the
excerpt
de
sententiis):
' Therefrom it is to be learnt that not
only
should the officials of the state behave
mildly
to those of lower
station,
but that likewise in
private
life reasonable
persons
should treat their servants
kindly.
For
haughtiness
and
harshness
produce
in
political
life rebellions of the free and in
private
households
plots by
the slaves
against
their masters and revolts which
might
endanger whole cities.
As, step
by step,
absolute
power degenerates
into
brutality
and
illegality,
so the characters of the
subjects
become
increasingly
brutish and unreasonable. For
everyone
to whom his fate has
assigned
a humble
place
will
willingly
concede to the
mightier pre-eminence
in
nobility
and
prestige; but, when he
begins
to miss his due share of
philanthropy,
then he will become
the
enemy
of brutal
despots.'
This is a
political
doctrine in the
spirit
and tone of
Aristotle,
whose
Politics,
in the
sections on the
origins
of revolts and how to
prevent them,
contain
parallel
trains of
thought
(Book
5).
But in this
political
context Aristotle, although mentioning
elsewhere the
frequent
revolts of Helots and Penestae
(2, 9,
p.
1269
a-b),
does not discuss the treatment of
slaves;
this for him is
only
a
problem
of
private
life. A literature
specifically
' On
slavery'
seems
not to have existed in
antiquity.
Extensive discussions occur as late as Seneca
(De
beneficiis,
Book
3),
although
there must have existed theories on how to treat
slaves,
as is
proved by
a casual remark in Cicero's De
officiis
(i, 4I).77
Into
historiography
social
problems
seem
to have been introduced
intentionally
for the first time
by
Agatharchides
of
Knidos,
a
contemporary
of
Polybios, yet
confined to
non-political spheres.78
It seems to have been he
71
Diod.
33,
i
; 2I a; App.,
Ib.
3I8 f.;
Dio
Cass.,
on his source see also Hiller von
Gaertringen,
P-W
fr.
73.
For a reconstruction see H. Simon, o.c. s.v. Rhodos
(suppl. v), 766.
(above, n.
32), 134
and
I35,
n. 69.
76
For these
qualities
in the Celtiberians : F iI7
=
72
For other
examples
see
above, n. 68. Diod. 5, 34,
I.
73
Diod.
34/5, 4, -z2; cf. Simon, l.c.
I64, 52.
77
cf. W. Richter,
'
Seneca und die Sklaven,'
74
For relevant
passages
see above n.
37,
ad
fin. Gymn. 65 (1958), I98, cf. 204
f.
75
Diod.
33, 14
f.
;
18
; 34/5, 3 ; 12 ; 20-23.
78 See the
excerpts
of his treatise
'
On the Red
Pos., F io8. On Eunomia at Rhodes, Strabo
652 f.;
Sea ' in Diod.
3, I2-48
and
Phot., Bibl.
250 passim.
48
HERMANN STRASBURGER
POSEIDONIOS ON PROBLEMS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
who stimulated
Poseidonios;
the
latter,
in
describing
human
misery
in the
Spanish
silver-
and
gold-mines,
was
evidently inspired by Agartharchides'
similar account of the terrible
conditions in the
Egyptian gold-mines.79
But it
might
well be Poseidonios who started the
important
innovation of
introducing
the social
question
into
high-styled historiography,
considering
it to be the central
problem
of all historical movements and thus also of Roman
world-supremacy.
It does not detract from his merit that this
conception
was
probably
stimulated
by
like-minded
personalities,
who should be looked for not
only among
stoic
philosophers
but also
among
noble
Romans,
who had become familiar with stoic
thought.
In his
history
Poseidonios
repeatedly praised
those statesmen who had obtained a
philo-
sophical education;
even our defective evidence enables us to
cite-apart
from the
Numidian
Micipsa (Diod. 34/35, 35)-the following
Roman names: P. Cornelius
Scipio
Nasica
Serapio,
cos. III
(Diod. 34/35, 33, 8);
L.
Sempronius
Asellio
(Diod. 37, 8),80
who
when
praetor
in
Sicily
at about
96
B.C. had been the benefactor of his
province;
a Mucius
Scaevola,-either
the
augur,81
who is said to have been a stoic and a follower of
Panaitios,
or his like-minded
younger relative,
the
pontifex,
who in
94
B.C.
governed
the
province
of Asia in association with Rutilius Rufus
(Diod. 37, 5);
82
an Aelius
Tubero-certainly
the zealous
disciple
of Panaitios ; 83 and
finally
P. Rutilius Rufus himself
(F 59,
?
io8).
It is
significant
not
only
for the views of
Poseidonios,
but also for those of the men
whom he admired, that he mentions, in
praise
of their
old-style
Roman
frugality
and
patriarchal humanity,
that Tubero and Rutilius used to
pay
their own slaves
scrupulously
for minor extra services received.84 This
inconspicuous gesture implied
a fundamental
acknowledgement
that
(the
law
notwithstanding)
a slave should not be considered as an
object
but as a man.
Similarly,
it was in all
probability
Rutilius Rufus who
conveyed
to
Poseidonios, either
verbally
or via his
history,
the
wording
of the
prophecy
of
Scipio
Nasica
Corculum,
'
that, if
Carthage
was
preserved,
the fear of that
city
would constrain the Romans
to inner concord and to a kind and dignified rule over their subjects, which would be the
unsurpassable
device for
perpetuating
and
increasing
their
empire; but, if
Carthage
were
to be
destroyed,
the
consequences, clearly
to be foreseen, would be,
in
home-affairs,
civil
war and, on the
part
of the so-called allies, hatred of Roman rule, caused
by
the avarice and
arbitrariness of their
governors.'
85
With our theme in mind we should note
particularly
the attention
paid
in this sentence
to the
adequate
treatment of Rome's
subjects,
which is
recognized
here too to be at once
a moral and a
political problem. Taking
both
passages together
we see how concerned
Rutilius was with this
problem,
in his
private
life as well as in his most
far-ranging political
thought.
Whether he also
developed
such ideas
extensively
in his Greek historical work,
is
hard to
guess;
with Roman
brevity
he
might equally
well have confined himself to a few
short remarks. In
any case, this
conception implies
a serious criticism of the
imperial policy
of the
destroyer
of
Carthage
and Numantia. As it is
always
characteristic of Poseidonios
to illuminate
opposite
facets of historical
problems
and
personalities-a good example
of
the latter is his treatment of Marius-our assertion of this criticism is not at all contradicted
by
the account of
Scipio's
famous
embassy
to the East
(FF
6, 30,
59;
Diod.
33, 28,
a),
where
Poseidonios has outlined an
imposing picture
of his
commanding
and honest
personality.
The
emphasis
on the
great impression
which this
embassy
made
upon
the
peoples
visited should not be taken as a
simple panegyric,
but as a hint of the
great
chance Roman
imperial policy
had at that time. Whether
Scipio
Aemilianus
recognized
and used this chance
is there left as an
open question,
which afterwards, in the
disappointment
over the treatment
of
Numantia,
which we detected in the
judgements
of Rutilius and Poseidonios
quoted
above, seems to be answered
implicitly
in the
negative. This,
I
think,
is
precisely
the
point
of view which
engaged
Poseidonios' interest so
strongly
in favour of
Pompey.
The
passages
on
piracy,
which I believe to be derived from Poseidonios'
history, help
us to
recognize
this train of
thought
and confirm the
picture
I have outlined so far
(see
79
F
117
==
Diod. 5, 38, i
-
Agatharchides in
82
On him cf. Cicero, de
off. 3,
62.
Diod.
3,
12.
83
Klebs, P-W s.v. Aelius, no. 155, 536.
80
Miinzer, P-W s.v. Sempronius, no. i8, cf.
84
cf. Cicero, de
off. I, 41.
Broughton
MRR under the year 96 B.C.
85
See above, n.
23.
81
cf. Miinzer, P-W s.v. Mucius, 43I
and Titius,
1556.
49
HERMANN STRASBURGER
above, pp.
42-3). They
show
impressively
at the same time that his historical
understanding
is not confined to ethical
questions,
but is also able to
grasp
the nexusses of
power-politics
in a manner
Thucydides
or
Polybios
would not have been ashamed of.
Leaving
aside the
uncertain minor
splinters
scattered in the
secondary tradition, particularly
in
Strabo,
I shall
keep
to such
fragments
as are-for me at
least-beyond doubt,
and summarize
only
the
main views. The account of the
developments leading up
to the Mithridatic war has to be
gathered mainly
from
Strabo;
what comes
later,
from
Appian's
Mithridatike and Plutarch's
Pompey.
Poseidonios
began
with the statement that in earlier times it was the Thalassokratia of
the Rhodians which
prevented piracy
from
arising
in the eastern
Aegean.
He seems not to
have mentioned-at least it is not in Strabo
(14, 652;
668
f.)-the
reasons for the decline
of the Rhodian
sea-power;
these were the
punitive
measures which Rome inflicted on
Rhodes after I68 B.c. and the establishment of the free
port
of
Delos,
which ruined the
Rhodian commerce. But this was
explained by
his
predecessor Polybios (30, 31) ;
so he
might
have taken for
granted
that it was well known. Then the
league
of the Cilician
pirates
came
about,
according
to
Poseidonios,
under the
patronage
of the
Syrian usurper
Diodotos-
Tryphon,
which means after
145
B.C. Poseidonios
gave
several reasons for its
thriving.
He
claimed that the main reason was the
prosperity
of the
slave-trade,
conditioned
by
the
enormous
capacity
of the slave-market at Delos. This in turn was caused
by
the increase
in wealth the Romans obtained
by destroying Carthage
and
Corinth, whereby they
became
wholesale
buyers
on the slave-market: and here we are
expected
to recall the Sicilian
slave-economy,
in connection with which Poseidonios had
given
a more detailed discussion
of the
problem
of
slavery.
Further factors
favouring
the
pirates, according
to
Poseidonios,
were, firstly,
the active
support
the Ptolemies
gave
them in order to
damage
the
Seleucids;
secondly,
the connivance of the
Rhodians, which stemmed from their aversion to the
Seleucids; and, lastly,
the laissez-faire attitude of the Romans. The
Romans, who from the
time of the
embassy
of
Scipio
Aemilianus were informed about the
complaints being made,
laid the blame for them on the
incapacity
of the Seleucids, but shrank from
deposing
the
dynasty they
had themselves
acknowledged.
But the weakness of
Syria,
so Poseidonios
stated,
caused the Parthians and the Armenians to
push forward, the latter
annexing Syria
(in
83 B.C.)
and
abandoning
the sea to the Cilician
pirates
: and thus
among
the
consequences
of Roman
inactivity
on the
Syrian
question
was the war which the Romans had to
wage
later
against
Armenia
(under
Lucullus and
Pompey).
The absolute
hey-day
of
piracy, according
to
Poseidonios, was
brought
about
by
Mithridates vi of
Pontos,
who made
systematic
use of the
sea-power
of the
pirates
in his
war
against
the Romans.86 The
picturesque description
of the
spreading
of
piracy
all over
the Mediterranean
Sea, perhaps
the best known
part
of the
story,
I
may pass
over here and
confine
myself
to
emphasizing
the Poseidonian statements on the social
background
of the
phenomenon.
It
was,
he
says, mostly
those
uprooted politically
and
economically by
the
Mithridatic war who
joined
the
league
of the
pirates, among
them some rich and well-born
people,
the trade of
piracy having
become
socially acceptable
because of the
widespread
power
of the
pirates.
But in addition
large
numbers of craftsmen
qualified
in
shipbuilding
and the manufacture of arms were forced into their service.
I
pass
over the
campaign
of
Pompey,
as the share of Poseidonios in that
portion
of the
story
is not
separable
from the Roman accounts. In
any case, these events
by
their nature
held no
significance
for his main thesis. But the end is
again important: Pompey's
humane
solution after his
victory,
which was
naturally emphasized
in other sources too. Here
Poseidonios' account shines
through chapter 28, 4
ff. of Plutarch's
Pompey (I quote
the
characteristic section in the translation of
Langhorne-Dryden): '(Pompey)
took above
twenty
thousand
prisoners,
whom he was
unwilling
to
put
to death, though
he
thought
it
dangerous
to suffer them to
disperse,
lest
they might
reunite and make head
again,
as
they
were
numerous, poor
and warlike.
Therefore, considering
that man
by
nature is not a wild
savage creature,
but becomes such
only by
an unnatural and vicious
habit,
and that he is
reclaimed and civilized
by
a
change
of
place,
conversation and manner of life,
as beasts
that are wild
by
nature become tame and tractable
by being kept
and fed in a mild domestic
86 In 88 B.C. and the
following years, App.,
Mithr.
262, 416, 586; Plut., Pomp. 24, I.
50
POSEIDONIOS ON PROBLEMS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
5I
manner, he determined to remove these
pirates
from the sea to the land, and to
give
them
a taste of an innocent and humane course of life, by settling
them in cities, and
accustoming
them to
agriculture.'
This measure of
Pompey's
broke with a
long
tradition of Roman behaviour towards
enemies considered as criminals. The
importance
which this new attitude must have had in
Poseidonios' view will
certainly
have
emerged
much more
clearly
in the
complete original
text of his histories, where it will have
provided
a contrast with the
long
series of unfavour-
able
portraits
which
preceded it, particularly those of the commanders in the
Spanish
wars.
The last instance of these was that of T. Didius
(in
97
B.C.),
who
practised
that mixture of
perfidy
and
brutality
which had
already
become traditional on the Roman side in this
theatre of war: Didius, who missed a
comparable
chance of a humane and thus durable
social solution when it was offered to him
(as
it was later to
Pompey)
by
the situation.
Only
four
years
after his cruel act of annihilation the Romans had to suffocate the next
revolt of the Celtiberians in streams of blood.87
It would be
tempting
to
imagine
that an exchange of ideas with the
philosopher
of
Rhodes had its share in
Pompey's
decision on the lot of the
pirates,
which was humane and
at the same time
politically far-sighted,
and was followed
by
his
large-scale
and
lasting
organization
of the eastern world in the same
spirit (cf.
Strabo I I,
492).
Unfortunately
the
sources
say nothing
about this. But in
any
case the demonstration of
friendship
between the
philosopher
and the statesman casts
retrospective light on the whole of Poseidonios'
history,
which
repeatedly praised
those Roman
politicians who, thanks to the lessons
they
drew from
their
philosophical education, approached
the task of
governing
their
provinces
in the
right
spirit,
to the benefit of their
subjects
and thus also of the Roman
Empire (see
above p.
49).
In Poseidonios' view this was the
spirit
in which the
problems
of mankind had to be
solved in the
future; with his
cosmopolitan
sentiments and convictions, he
steps consciously
beyond Polybios, who, although
universal in his historical
view, still
thought
in national
categories. Perhaps
his
pleading
for a
community
of all men
having equal rights was,
as the
disproportionate emphasis given
to their
respective
views in Cicero's De
officiis
suggests,
somewhat more determined and active than that of his teacher Panaitios, to whom, however,
as I said before
(see
above p.
45),
we must not impute an
opportunist betrayal
of this
ideal.88 Poseidonios'
thoughts
are idealistic but not
unrealistic;
such notions of the moral
87
App., lb. 100, 433 ff., Miinzer, P-W s.v. Didius,
409. On the sources see E. Norden, Germ.
Urgeschichte
in Tac. Germania, I64.
88
The way the idea of the societas hominum is
treated in De
officiis I, i.e. where Panaitios is Cicero's
source, seems to me very different from precisely that
part of book in which Cicero is particularly likely to
have based on Poseidonios. As Cicero says himself
(3, 7-9), Panaitios, his source until then, did not
supply any more material for book III. It is certain
that in what followed he now had recourse to a
treatise of Poseidonios, the brevity of which he
complained of (De officiis 3, 8
;
Att. i6, II, 4),
and
besides that used a OTr6pivTPa of the stoic Atheno-
dorus Calvus (Att. I.c. and i6, 14, 4), which he had
procured from the author for this purpose. The
respective
contributions of these two sources cannot
be determined exactly, but perhaps this is unnecessary
because Athenodoros was
probably
a
pupil
of Posei-
donios (von Arnim, P-W s.v. Athenodoros, n.
I9),
and so might well have reproduced Poseidonian
doctrine. Cicero's use of this source, as he himself
says, extends to ch.
32 inclusively;
the rest he com-
posed
' nullis adminiculis ', pursuing
his own ideas
(33 f.).
One can most
clearly distinguish
two different
treatments of societas hominum corresponding
to these
two different sections. In the first book the term often
occurs
(15, I7,
20 f., 50-60, 153-160 : on the most
complicated relationship between Panaitios and
Cicero in the passage 50 ff., see Picht I.c. (above, n.
50),
175 ff.).
But here the themes are, in a general philo-
sophical sense, the
liability of individuals to have
regard
for the generality of men and the relative
precedence of obligations towards those natural for-
mations of society to which every
man belongs (the
gradation of which Picht, I.c., traces to Cicero). The
greatest and highest of these for Cicero is the
nation,
which is for him the fatherland. He deliberately
omits
the most
comprehensive conception,
viz. the
infinita
societas hominum
(53, 57, i6o),
and consequently
does
not handle at all the relations between Romans or
Greeks and barbarian peoples.
This is
significant
for
Cicero at least, but one may doubt whether Panaitios'
argumentation was of similar political
concreteness
(cf. above, n.
50o).
But it may perhaps
be said, with
all due caution, that Cicero did not find in Panaitios
any definite postulates
here which would have made it
difficult for him to exclude supra-national
ideas.
In contrast to this, the passage
which is
probably
based on Poseidonios
(3, 21-32) suddenly
teems with
cosmopolitan demands,
which differ markedly
from
the tenour of the first book and are also out of
harmony
with Cicero's theory in De re publica 3, 36
f. on the
necessity for the rule of the better and conversely for
the servitude of the worse. A few sentences may prove
this:
'
Si enim sic erimus adfecti, ut
propter
suum
quisque emolumentum spoliet
aut violet
alterum,
disrumpi necesse est
eam, quae
maxime est secundum
naturam, humani generis societatem
(21).
... Neque
verum hoc solum natura,
id est iure
gentium,
sed
etiam
legibus populorum, quibus
in
singulis
civitati-
bus res
publica continetur, eodem modo constitutum
est, ut non liceat sui commodi causa nocere alteri . . .
Atque hoc multo magis
efficit
ipsa
naturae
ratio, quae
est lex divina et humana;
cui
parere qui
velit-
omnes autem parebunt, qui
secundum naturam
responsibility
of the Romans for their
subjects,
entertained
only by
a small and uninfluential
minority
in his own time, were realized to a remarkable
degree
in the administration of the
empire
in
imperial
times. Seen in this
light,
the endeavour of
Pompey
in the
period
of his
glory
seems more modern and
promising
than Caesar's.89 One would like to know what
Poseidonios
thought
about the
conquest
and treatment of Gaul
by Caesar, which he had
unwittingly
furthered
by
the information he had
supplied,90
and what he
thought
about the
mind of the
conqueror,
to whom the Gallic national character
presented
such
very
different
features
(cp. Caesar,
BG 6, I i-2o and above p.
47).
Scholars who like to
lay
stress on Caesar's fine education should not fail to observe
that no connection between him and
any philosopher
or his doctrine is attested.91 The
spiritual
and moral virtues which entitled the Romans to
world-supremacy
are far more
evident in the course of education
pursued by
Cicero and his friends, and
possibly
still more
in the
atmosphere surrounding
Cicero's venerated teachers.
Perhaps nothing
reconciles us
to the Romans of
Republican
times so much as the
humanity
which radiates from Cicero's
rhetorical and
philosophical
works as a reflex of this educational
experience.
I mean
by
this-if I
may
draw one more distinction-the actual educational
experience
which
stamped
his
spiritual development
in the
years
when he was a
disciple
of the orator Crassus and of the
Mucii
Scaevolae, and of which he himself became the
greatest
embodiment in his own
generation;
not the
retrospective
wish-dream which identified this
spirit
with that of
the old Roman aristocrats and warriors of the
glorious past, symbolized by
the
type
of
Scipio Aemilianus, a wish-dream which clouded Cicero's own
understanding
of Roman
realities, and much more that of modern scholars.92 Cicero's naive
praise
of a states-
manship
for which the destructions of
Carthage
and of Numantia were acts of
justice
and
wisdom,93 his
appreciation,
at times
partly clear-sighted
but on the whole defective,
of
the causes of the crisis and the
requirements
of
imperial government,
which
prevented
him
from
developing any programme
for the latter in his own
political
doctrine 94-all this is
conditioned
by
his fixation on an ideal which had its
justification
and its
greatness only
in the
past.
It is
significant
that from the store of historical
exempla
which Cicero scatters
through-
out his works the
opposition
of
Scipio
Nasica to the destruction of
Carthage
is
missing. By
the same token he does not
recognize
the fundamental difference between the traditional
imperialistic policy
and the line of constructive
imperialism,
based on ethical reflections,
which leads down from Nasica
through
men like Rutilius Rufus and the Scaevolae into the
future
(see
above p.
49).
Nor does Cicero
perceive
the latter's intellectual
superiority:
and this is the more
astonishing
as not
only
his
personal
connection with this circle but the
whole tenor of his own
sentiments,
education and
gifts
destined him, one would think,
to
a career along that
path (cf.
Q.fr.
i, I, 27
f.).
Perhaps
it was
only
natural that he, the novus
homo, could not free himself from the
spell
of
conservative-optimate ideology. Yet, seen
volent
vivere-, numquam committet, ut alienum
appetat et id, quod alteri detraxerit, sibi adsumat
(23).
... Itemque magis est secundum naturam, pro
omnibus gentibus, si fieri possit, conservandis aut
iuvandis, maximos labores
molestiasque suscipere . . .
quam vivere in solitudine non modo sine ullis
molestiis ... Ex quo efficitur, hominem naturae
oboedientem homini nocere non posse
(25)..
.
Atque
etiam si hoc natura praescribit, ut homo
homini,
quicumque sit, . . . consultum velit, necesse est
secundum eandem naturam omnium utilitatem esse
communem (27). .. .
Qui autem civium rationem
dicunt habendam, externorum negant, ii dirimunt
communem humani
generis
societatem
(28).'
From
3, 35
on to the end Cicero does not speak of
the humana societas apart from a few passages
(and
they are remarkably few) which lack profundity of
thought (52 f., 69, ii8) : for Cicero this idea remains
always a philosophical topic in the sphere of private
life; he does not recognize it,
or at least does not
acknowledge it, to be a problem affecting Roman
imperial policy. But there can hardly be any doubt
that the purpose of Poseidonios, to whose authority
in
3, 21-32
he conceded more than was appropriate
to his own convictions, had been to create not
just a
beautiful academic
theory,
but a constructive contri-
bution to the solution of the world's
political prob-
lems, just
as in his time Karneades had set out to do.
89
cf. F. Hampl, Hist. Zeitschr. i88
(1959), 525.
90
On Caesar's knowledge
of the 'Histories'
see,
e.g.,
E. Norden, Germ.
Urgesch.
in Tac. Germ. 99 f.
91
For relevant references, see Klotz, P-W s.v.
Julius, 259
ff.
92
cf. above pp. 41-2.
The two
papers of F.
Hampl,
which set out to shatter these illusions ('
"
Stoische
Staatsethik
"
und fruihes Rom
', Hist. Zeitschr.
184
(I957), 249 ff. and
'
R6m. Politik in republ. Zeit und
das Problem des
Sittenverfalls,'
I.c. I88
(1959),
497 ff.), in spite
of some exaggerations seem to me to
demand serious consideration.
93
Both in Lael. iI and De
off. i, 34 f.
94
De re p. 3, 36 f.; 41;
cf.
Gelzer, P-W s.v.
Tullius, 975 f.;
Cic. De off. i, 34-41 ; 2, 26-28; 75.
In
particular,
the remarks on
empire-government in
De leg. 3, 9,
with I8 and
frg, 3,
are
poor. Obviously
he had not
planned any more, to
judge by the short
survey
of what followed. cf. also H. D.
Meyer,
Cicero und das Reich, Diss. Koln
(I957), 240 ff.
52
HERMANN STRASBURGER
POSEIDONIOS ON PROBLEMS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
from our
distance,
it is most
strange
to
read,
in his letters from
Cilicia,
how he felt
happy,
and
justly so,
about
fulfilling
his task as a
governor
with the
integrity
of a Scaevola and at
the same time
strongly disgusted
by
the actual business before
him;
to notice his
genuinely
felt
humanity
towards the
oppressed provincials and,
side
by
side with
this,
his total indiffer-
ence to the fate of that wretched mountain tribe which
brought
a
gay
auction of human
prey
to his soldiers and to himself the
hope
of a
triumph. Surely
this odd mixture
95
does not
indicate a lack of
personal
reflection but is
representative
of the immature
stage
of Roman
imperial ideology.
It is also characteristic-of both the men concerned-that the
only
evidence for Poseidonios' historical work
having any impact
on Cicero's mind 96 is his wish
to see his
suppression
of the Catilinarian
conspiracy,
which he
thought equal
to
Pompey's
deeds in the
East, glorified
in the same
style by
the same
author;
and that Poseidonios in
most
polite,
even
flattering,
terms refused this
request (Att. 2, I,
2).
If I am not
mistaken,
the
wording
of the most relevant
passage
of Poseidonios' answer is
preserved
in a hidden
place;
for Cicero has
quoted it, bashfully veiled,
in the De
officiis (3, Io).97
Poseidonios
compared
the
Trd6pvroca
which Cicero had
placed
at his
disposal
for embellishment
by
his
pen,
with the
posthumous
Coan
Aphrodite
of
Apelles,
whose
singular beauty
had it made
hopeless
for
any painter
to
complete
the unfinished work
adequately.
The
grace
of this
compliment, evoking vividly
the
brilliancy
of the
masterpiece among
Poseidonios' historical
fragments,
the
Athenion-episode (F 36), surely
earns it a
place
here at the end as a little
additional
testimony
to Poseidonios'
sovereign personality.
University of Freiburg
im
Breisgau.
95
See
e.g.,
Att.
5, 10,
2
; 20, 5
f. with fam.
15, 4,
Io and Chr. M.
Wieland,
Ciceros
Briefe (1809), 3,
0S ff.; 2i, 7-12. 6, i, 15.
cf.
Gelzer,
P-W s.v.
Tullius, 971 ; 983 f.;
H. D.
Meyer,
I.c.
(n. 94),
I70
ff. and
J. Graff,
Ciceros
Selbstauffassung (I963),
37ff.
96 But it must be noticed at
least,
that
perhaps
the
strongest
and most decided words Cicero ever found
on the Roman
duty
of
responsibility
for the welfare
of the barbarians
(Q. fr. I, I, 27),
were written
very
close to this time
(about
the turn of
60-59 B.C.).
97
De
off. 3,
0o: 'Accedit eodem testis
locuples
Posidonius, qui
etiam scribit in
quadam epistola,
P. Rutilium Rufum dicere
solere, qui
Panaetium
audierat,
ut nemo
pictor
esset
inventus, qui
in Coa
Venere eam
partem, quam Apelles
inchoatam reli-
quisset,
absolveret-oris enim
pulchritudo reliqui
corporis
imitandi
spem auferebat-,
sic
ea, quae
Panaetius
praetermisisset
et non
perfecisset, propter
eorum, quae perfecisset, praestantiam
neminem
per-
secutum.' This
passage
was taken as evidence for a
published
collection of letters of Poseidonios:
"'EmTaToXai'
(cf.
A.
Schmekel, Philosophie
der mitt-
leren Stoa
(1892), I4),
or
alternatively
' Briefe
ethische
Fragen
behandelnd'
(Reinhardt,
P-W s.v.
Poseidonios, 569).
But for this there is no other
testimony except
the
private
letter to Cicero of the
year
60
B.C.,
where the double
comparison
with the
unfinished
masterpieces
of the
philosopher
Panaitios
and the
painter Apelles (for
which see E. Pfuhl,
Malerei und
Zeichnung
der Griechen
(1923), 74I),
which were continued
by nobody,
fits in
surprisingly
well as a flourish of
polite
refusal. The Coan
Aphro-
dite of
Apelles
was an
example
Cicero liked to
quote.
It occurs for the first time in
59
B.C.
(Att. 2, 2I, 4;
fam. I, 9, I5 ;
Orat.
5 ;
nat. deor.
I, 75 ;
de div.
I,
23),
so
perhaps
he had become fond of it as a result
of the
compliment
of Poseidonios. If
anyone
is
offended
by
the
present
tense
'
Rutilium . . . dicere
solere ' and concludes therefrom that the letter of
Poseidonios must have been written in Rutilius' life-
time,
i.e.
long
before 60
B.C.,
he
may accept
the
reading
of the Palatinus
1531
: 'solitum.' More
serious considerations to
my
mind are whether
' Posidonius . . .
qui
.. . scribit
'
points
to a
published
letter and whether
'scripsit (ad me)'
would be
essential to
prove
an
unpublished one;
but I do not
think that the
unpolished
text of the De
officiis
can
be
pressed
so much.
53