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Early
Hellenist Philosophers
Development
of the Physical Sciences
Roman
Contributions to Philosophy
Later
Hellenist Philosophers
Hellenist
and Roman History: General Sources
EARLY HELLENIST PHILOSOPHERS
Diogenes, who was a contemporary of Plato and Aristotle, laid out an important part of the Hellenistic world-view with his Cynicism. Please note: the Cynicism of the originator of this philosophy, Diogenes, had little in common with what we today understand as cynicism. Diogenes of Synope (c. 412-323 BC)
Even before Philip and Alexander had arrived on the Greek scene--the constant warring among the Greeks, the hunger of Athens for power and dominion over its neighbors, the general sense that things were not right politically in Greece--had caused Diogenes to begin to look to inner or personal integrity as a substitute for lost public integrity (which had once been the focus of the moral life in Greece).
He felt that the happiest life is one in which we live our simplest--in accordance with the most basic ways of nature. Diogenes had seen too much evil come from the Athenians' growing love of money, status and power--and took a militantly hostile position against such things, mocking those who chased after them. Diogenes noted that animals, such as a dog, live quite contented lives without having to have the various material and psychological adornments of civilization that we think are so necessary for life. As he himself went around as a "natural" person (some said that his ascetic life resembled more that of a dog than a man!) he became identified as the kuon or kyon, meaning "dog," and his philosophy as that of the "cynic" (from kyon).
Links to other information on Diogenes:
Diogenes of Synope (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)Crates was one of Diogenes' students who gave away his fortune in order to follow the simple ways of his teacher--in order to help others free themselves from the bondage to the kind of materialism that gripped at Greek society in his days. Crates was a kindly and generous individual who had a more loving and less reproving way about his cynicism--which endeared him to many Greeks and won a number to the cause. Crates of Thebes
Pyrrho is considered the founder of the Greek school of skepticism. He was the first to break seriously with the intellectual tradition of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle--in their quest for knowledge. Not only did Pyrrho feel that true knowledge was unattainable, but he felt that people are freed to live a truly happier life if they do not frustrate themselves with pointless intellectual pursuits, but learn to live through emotional self-discipline in a state of contentment with things as they simply present themselves to us. Pyrrho of Elis (ca. 360-270 B.C.)
His answer to the accusation that his theories on life left us with no moral absolutes was simply that we ought to live by time-honored traditions that seemed to have worked out for us over the long run. While we could never state with absolute certainty that such traditions were ultimately true or good, they seemed to have proven themselves in their simple workability. That ought to be a sufficient reason for following them. Certainly to Pyrrho, following traditions was a lot safer than going after new, radical ideas that had only untrustworthy intellectual reason to justify themselves. Thus a conservative social agenda tended to go with this early skepticism.
Pyrrho (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)As is well known, Epicurus, the founder of the philosophy that bears his name, advocated the pursuit of pleasure. But in his definition of pleasure he intended something that had little in common with what we today so often identify as pleasure. In keeping with the traditions of Greek philosophy in early Hellenistic times, he understood pleasure as attaining freedom from the pains and hurts of life through the practice of virtuous living.
Epicurus (342-270 BC)
However, unlike Socrates, he did not feel that virtue was a good in itself, worthy of devotion because of its superior qualities. He never looked deeply into the question of virtue's great, even divine, qualities. Rather he recommended focusing on living a virtuous life because it was able to produce pleasure--freedom from pain. It was in the ability to produce pleasure that virtue achieved its worth. Virtue was not the highest good. It was merely the means to the highest good, which was pleasure.
He also believed that we should focus our energies and thoughts on the material life immediately before us--and not waste time speculating about life after death. To him there probably was no such existence. In part this was due to his materialistic-atomistic cosmology (much like Democritus') which saw life as a result of atoms moving through space in such a way to form the stars, planets, the earth, and all upon the earth, including ourselves. This process was all determined by mechanical laws--not by any kind of gods.
Epicurus' major works or writings:
Letter to Menoeceus (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Principal Doctrines (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy) from Diogenes Laertius's Lives of Eminent Philosophers
Letter to Herodotus
Letter to Pythocles
On NatureEpicurean History (V. Cook)
Epicurus (342-270 BCE.) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Principle Doctrines: Epicurus (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Epicurus: Hellenistic Philosopher (Trinity)
Menander (342-291 BC)
Zeno, sometimes called "the Phoenecian" was born in Citium in Cyprus. But he came to Athens as a young man and lived there for the rest of his life--without ever becoming a citizen of Athens. He studied in the various philosophical schools of Athens and under different masters (including the Academy that Plato had founded earlier). For a time he was most attracted to the Cynicism of his teacher Crates--and eventually began to teach the subject in the Painted Stoa (Porch) in the Athenian market. [It was from his teaching in the Stoa that the name for his philosophy, Stoicism, eventually developed.]
Zeno of Citium (336-264 BC)
But he added his own touches to the teachings of his master Crates--especially elements that had quite Eastern elements to them. In the uniqueness of his teachings he truly set out a new philosophical course--a blending of Greek philosophy and Eastern mysticism.
We know that his interest was primarily ethical--in the manner of Socrates, whom he supposedly honored greatly in his teaching. He, like Socrates, was quite confident of the powers of disciplined human reason to secure both deep insight into the cosmos and happiness in a person's own life.
That confidence was clearly based on his belief in the supreme existence of Divine Reason (the Logos), the ultimate reality behind mere appearances. He taught that human mind could--and most certainly should--attach itself to this Logos in pure devotion.
He taught further that the only path to human happiness for a person came through complete personal self-mastery, in particular of the mind over the body, and especially as the mind was led to contemplate the higher realities of the Logos. Zeno taught his students to seek the ability to quiet the body's cravings so as to become totally focused on this devotional union with the Logos. This quieting of the body--and of the mind--furthermore was expected to be possible (importantly so) in the face of particularly difficult human circumstances.
This "quietism" ultimately became the hallmark of the Stoic.
Zeno of Citium and the Cynics (Moore)
Stoicism (Ecole Initiative)A disciple of Zeno's who lived the life of poverty in pursuit of the Stoic ideal. Though he was not quick-witted, he was so faithful in his idealism that he became Zeno's natural successor. Cleanthes of Assos (331-232 BC)
Cleanthes (331-232 BCE.) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)Stoic philosopher who deified the world as "God," especially in the world's more rational or logical features.
Chrysippus (ca. 280-207 B.C.)
Chrysippus(Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)A Greek scholar and politician, who wrote a history about the rise to power of Rome. When Macedonia was defeated by Rome in 168 BC he was brought as a political prisoner to Rome. But he was able to use this misfortune to intervene on behalf of his Greek compatriots to secure fairly gentle treatment by the Romans of the Greeks (the Romans tended to be quite impressed with Greek civilization anyway.) Polybius (ca. 200-118 BC)
Living there another 18 years, and becoming part of the political circle of the powerful Scipio family, he became familiar with a number of Roman notables. Thus when he eventually wrote the story of Rome's rise to power (40 volumes covering the period up to the final conquest of Greece in 164 AD--only the first 5 volumes having survived to today), he did so with particular insight.
Histories
Book VIII : The Seige of Syracuse (Archimedes Home Page)
Posidonius of Apamea (c. 135-50 BC)
DEVELOPMENT OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES
The "father" of Western geometry. Euclid taught mathematics in Alexandria, Egypt. But we know little about him except through his preserved works, the most important being Elements. Euclid (fl. 300 BC)
Elements (D.E. Joyce: Clark U)
Data
On Divisions of Figures
Phaenomena
OpticsEuclid (330?-275? B.C.) (Paul Golba)
Euclid (Donald Lancon)
Euclid of Alexandria (St. Andrews)
Only through references from Archimedes (in his Sand Reckoner of 212 BC) and Plutarch do we have knowledge of this amazing ancient scientist. We know that Aristarchus had a much greater vision of the universe than did his contemporary world and that he put forth some amazing observations (amazing for his time, anyway). As a young man he published a work that declared that the sun was 19 times the size and distance of the moon (actually the figure is about 400 times the size and distance)--something that seemed to defy the common sense of his times that the sun and moon differed only in the intensity of their light, not their size and distance. Aristarchus of Samos (c. 310-230 BC)
An even more startling observation arose from his calculation that the sun was much larger than the earth and therefore the likelihood was that the smaller body (the earth) revolved around the larger (the sun) rather than the reverse. This was the first known pronouncement of the heleocentric theory (the sun is the center of things) in opposition to the geocentric theory (the earth is the center of things)
This view was ridiculed at the time because it seemed so obviously wrong! Nonetheless, his work was defended and promoted by Seleucus of Babylonia a century later. But ultimately it came to naught in Western thinking.
On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and MoonAristarchus of Samos (Eric Weisstein )
Aristarchus of Samos (St. Andrews)
Archimedes was a scientist in the way we understand the term: he combined his love of mathematical theory with a zeal for experimentation. Consequently he produced a number of major insights into the realm of mechanical engineering and physics. He was a major contributor to the study of geometry and the science of weights and measures. He also came very close to inventing the calculus (that honor ultimately went to Newton 1,900 years later).
Archimedes (287-212 BC)
He also was famed in his days for the inventive defense devices he provided his native city of Syracuse (Sicily) in its (ultimately unsuccessful) defense effort against the besieging Romans.
The Sand-Reckoner (212 BC)Archimedes (Chris Rorres)
Archimedes (Paul Golba)
Archimedes of Syracuse (St. Andrews)
Archimedes of Syracuse (Eric Weisstein)
Archimedes (IMSS-Florence)Eratosthenes was the librarian of the great museum/library of Alexandria. Based on the knowledge that at noon at the summer solstice shone directly down a well in Syene (Aswan) Egypt--and calculating the angle of the shadow that the sun made over a vertical pole at Alexandria Egypt at exactly the same moment--and having an accurate measure of the distance between the well at Syene and his rod at Alexandria, Eratosthenes estimated the earth's circumference at 24,660 miles--only about 200 miles less than the actual measure! He also claimed that a person could sail around the earth and arrive back at his starting point, provided that he never changed course along the way. Eratosthenes (ca. 276-192 BC)
He likewise catalogued nearly 700 stars. And he devised a system of calculating prime numbers.
He was one who put forth strong arguments against the heliocentric theory of Aristarchus--on the grounds that a mathematic system of eccentrics and epicycles seemed to account more logically for the movement of the heavens (he had a very strong influence on Ptolemy who took up his work several centuries later) and did not suffer from a theory which required the earth to move. This to Hipparchus flew solidly in the face of common sense. Hipparchus (fl. 145-130 BC)
But in other respects he was a very accomplished mathematician, geometrist and astronomer. He rejected astrology and based his work solely on rigorous observation--that avoided metaphysical speculation. He was highly instrumental in the creation of trigonometry--including the formula for spherical triangles. He created a star catalogue which was quite accurate--and which listed almost 1000 stars.
Greco-Roman geographer Strabo (ca. 63 BC - 21 AD)
Geography (Perseus)Strabo(Perseus Encyclopedia)
Following (three centuries later!) the line of thought of Hipparchus, Ptolemy rejected the opinion of Aristarchus that the sun was the center of our cosmos (the heleocentric theory). Ptolemy "demonstrated" what appeared to be the much more logical (and ancient) view that the earth is the center of the cosmos (the geocentric theory) and that all heavenly bodies rotate around the earth as the epicenter of the universe. In order to get his theory to work, he (and others after him) had to add a large number of secondary explanations (following Hipparchus' use of eccentrics and epicycles) of the peculiar movement of heavenly bodies around the earth in order to get them to fit his theory.
Ptolemy (85-165 AD)
Almagest
Geography
Analemma
PlanisphaeriumClaudius Ptolemy (St. Andrews)
A very accomplished Greek physician Galen (c. 130-200 AD)
On the Natural Faculties (170 AD) (VaTech)
ROMAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO PHILOSOPHY
Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) (106-43 BC)
Laelius, or: An Essay on Friendship (CMU)
On the Genres of Rhetoric (Towson)
The Dream of Scipio (WashStateU: Richard Hooker)Cicero (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
The Cicero Homepage (Riggsby - UT)
Cicero (WashStateU: Hooker)Lucretius was a naturalist in the tradition of Democritus and Epicurus--holding a very low view of the religion of his times. He claimed that popular religion was the source of the worst superstitions and sources of human evil. Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus) (96-55 BC)
De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) (MIT)
On the Nature of the Universe (Dunkle: a critical summary)Lucretius (98-55 BCE.) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Roman poet who dignified the Roman nationalist aspiration with his vivid writings. Vergil [or Virgil] (Publius Vergilius Maro) (70-19 BC)
His biggest project, one that had not yet been completed to his satisfaction at his death, was the Aeneid. This was the story of Aeneas, a Trojan survivor of the deadly war with the Greeks, who set out on his own across the Mediterranean, lived for a while in North Africa with the beautiful Dido, but in the end tragically left her in order to journey to Italy and there establish a settlement at Rome. This is, in short, the Roman answer to the Greek works of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey--designed to put Roman culture on a par with Greek culture, at least in terms of its supposed antiquity and heroic origins. But it also strikes a deep moral-ethical cord in the way it portrays Aeneas as a man who understood the bitter-sweet of his destiny and was willing to face that destiny as a matter of honor and duty (pietas)--even against odds that were greater than life.
Eclogues (Selections) (VaTech: gopher)
Ten pastoral poems celebrating life in rural central Italy.
Georgics (MIT)
Four books of prosaic instructions on farming methods--also celebrating traditional Roman rural life
(something in the vein of Hesiod's Works and Days).
Aeneid (UOregon: Darkwing)
His great epic poem in 12 books narrating the journeys leading up to founding of Rome by Aeneas.Vergil's Home Page (UPenn)Roman poet and satirist. Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65-8 BC)
Roman historian. Livy (Titus Livius) (59 BC - 17 AD)
The History of Rome (UVa)
Vol. One
Vol. Two
Vol. Three
Vol. Four
Vol. Five
Vol. SixRoman poet. Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (43 BC - 17 AD)
Seneca was a Spanish-born Stoic philosopher/statesman who stressed--and practiced--a gentle virtue in his living. He was of a distinct intellectual background, his father (Seneca the Elder) having been a notable rhetorician (polished public advocate before the law) and author in his time. The younger Seneca was educated in Rome under the Stoic Attalus, studying rhetoric and philosophy in preparation to become an advocate (lawyer) like his father.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (the Younger) (4 BC-65 AD)
As Seneca grew in stature and respect at Rome--he also drew suspicious political scrutiny from the imperial party. And in 41 AD he was banished to Corsica by the emperor Claudius. Eight years later he was brought out of exile to become the tutor of the young Nero--who for a while was brought up under the positive influence of Seneca.
In 57 AD Nero (now emperor) appointed Seneca Roman consul. From this important position Seneca hoped (for a few years) to augment a regime of enlightenment in Roman political life. But imperial pride once again worked against the virtuous (and increasingly popular) Seneca. Nero, now emperor and coming under the influence of an ambitious and flattering court circle--and presuming himself to be a great luminary of his age and thus resenting the greater light cast by Seneca--began to undermine his old tutor's position. Sensing the danger, Seneca quietly retired from public life.
But in 65 AD the elderly Seneca was accused (along with his rhetorician-statesman nephew Lucanus) of being part of the failed plot (led by Gaius Calpurnius Piso) to assassinate Nero. Nero thus ordered Seneca to take his own life.
With Stoic reserve and resolve Seneca did as ordered--ending his life in keeping with his Stoic understanding of life: not to place too much thought on one's physical existence but instead to find such inner peace that neither life nor death distract someone from his deeper sense of inner being.
De brevitate vitae (49)
De beneficiis (7 vols: ca. 62-64)
De tranquillitate animi (ca. 62-63)
De provedentia (ca. 63-64)
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (ca. 63-64)
Naturales Quaestiones (7 vols: 63)
Roman historian. Tacitus (54-119 AD)
The Annals (MIT)
Germania (Fordham: Medieval Sourcebook)
The Histories (MIT)
Roman philosopher: a systematizer of Stoic thought.Epictetus (50-138 AD)
The Discourses (English Server: gopher @ CMU)
The Enchiridion or Manual (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)Epictetus (c.55 - c.135 CE.) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher.
Marcus Aurelius Antonius (121-180 AD)
Meditations (167 AD) (MIT)Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Catholic Encyclopedia)
LATER HELLENIST PHILOSOPHERS
Alexandrian Jew; "Middle-Platonist" Philo (c. 15 BC to 40 AD)
Historian and biographer of a large number of famous Greek and Roman individuals--and the source of much of our in-depth knowledge of many historical figures.. Plutarch (ca. 45-125 AD)
Lives of the Noble Greeks and RomansPlutarch(Perseus Encyclopedia)Through his important 10-volume work, Lives of the Philosophers, we possess a vastly richer knowledge about many of the ancient Greek philosophers. Diogenes Laertius (3rd cent. AD)
Philosophoi Biol (Lives of the Philosophers)Diogenes Laertius (3rd cn. CE.) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
A developer of "Neo-Platonism." Headed Plato's Academy in Athens
Plotinus (204-270 AD)
The Six Enneads (250) (MIT)Plotinus(Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Porphyry (232-304)
Isagogue
HELLENIST AND ROMAN HISTORY:
GENERAL SOURCES
The Hellenist Quest for Universal Order (300 to 150 BC) (Spiritual Pilgrim)
The Roman Quest for Material Order (150 BC to 300 AD) (Spiritual Pilgrim)
Hellenist History: Other Sources:
Philosophical Background of the Hellenistic Age (BrooklynColl: Roger Dunkle)Roman History:The Rome Project (The Dalton School)
Rome (WashStateU: Hooker)
Chronology: Rome (EvansvilleU: Beavers)
Rome (NorthParkU: Koeller)
Roma: History (Citta dei Ragazzi)
Welcome to RomanSites (UKansas)
The Roman Republican Constitution (UTexas)
The Romans Page (Mulvihill, Hession, Meaney, Bhaoíll, O' Brien)
The Collapse of the Roman Empire--Military Aspects (ORB Online Encyclopedia: Hugh Elton)
The Fall of the Roman Empire Revisited (UVa: Eric Goldberg)
History of Western Civilization (BoiseStateU: Ellis Knox)
The Punic Wars
The Roman Revolution
The First Caesars
De Imperatoribus Romanis: An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Emperors
Copyright © 2000 by Miles H. Hodges. All Rights Reserved.
