He is hardly likely to be identifiable with the homonymous Stoic (contrast Kudlien;
cf. T113 EK).
F. Kudlien, “Poseidonios und die Ärzteschule der Pneumatiker,” Hermes 90 (1962) 419–429.
PTK
Poseido ̄nios (Med. II) (400 – 440 CE)
Denied that demons caused any disease or mental illness (P, HE 8.10), and
explained them on the basis of displacement of humors, to the head in the case of mental
illness. A A gives extensive extracts, showing that he prescribed phlebotomy,
regimen, and mainly vegetal drugs, containing few exotics (aloes: CMG 8.2, pp. 139, 147;
ginger, pp. 150–151; Indian buckthorn: p. 167; and silphium: p. 129); he followed
A on hellebore: 3.122 (CMG 8.1, pp. 309–310). His explanations of mental ill-
nesses, which show some affinity with -G, I 13 (14.732–733, 741
K.), consistently invoke humoral pathology: three forms of phrenitis come from phlegm,
Aëtios 6.2 (CMG 8.2, pp. 125–128); cold and wet humors cause karos, 6.5 ( p. 133), wet and
warm cause ko ̄ma, 6.6 ( pp. 133–134); chilling of the head causes mo ̄ro ̄sis and le ̄ros, 6.22
( pp. 159–160); cf. also on melancholy, 6.9 ( pp. 141–143) and epilepsy, 6.13 ( pp. 153–155),
including three recipes 6.19–21 ( pp. 158–159). Not even nightmares, long attributed to
spirits, were demonic, but rather caused by indigestion, 6.12 ( pp. 152–153): cf. S
in C A Chron. 1.55 (CML 6.1.1, p. 220). He follows A
on le ̄thargia (6.3, pp. 128–131), katale ̄psia as the mean between phrenitis and le ̄thargia
(6.4, pp. 131–133), skoto ̄ma (6.7, pp. 134–136), and mania, caused by blood rising to the
head (6.8, pp. 136–141). He cites G, Simples 11.24 (12.356–357 K.), on ashed crabs as
an antidote for hudropobia, though primarily following R’ method of treatment,
6.24 ( pp. 163–169). See also P A, 7.3, 7.20.26, 7.21.2, 7.22.4 (CMG 9.2,
pp. 196, 387, 392, 394).
PLRE 1 (1971) 717; BNP 11 (2007) 682 (#1), V. Nutton.
PTK
Poseido ̄nios of Apameia (ca 110 – ca 51 BCE)
Born in Apameia on the Orontes, ca 135 BCE, student of P and founder of
a Stoic school at Rhodes which superseded the school at Athens after Panaitios’ death.
Poseido ̄nios wrote broadly on physics, logic, and ethics. As Rhodian ambassador to Rome
in 87– 86 BCE, Poseido ̄nios became close to influential Romans, including C and
Pompey. Precise details of his philosophy have been much debated, compounded by
methodological divisions among modern historians of philosophy regarding which sources
should count as fragments (the most secure collection is that of Edelstein and Kidd,
confining itself to sources mentioning Poseido ̄nios by name, a good antidote to the kind of
pan-Poseidonianism found in some earlier accounts).
Much of Poseido ̄nios’ philosophy built on and developed standard Stoic fare: the unity
of the kosmos; its finite and spherical nature; its governance by divine reason; the division
into active and passive principles; the soul as warm pneuma; the doctrine of fate; and the
efficacy of divination (though Poseido ̄nios seems to have emphasized astrology in particu-
lar). Poseido ̄nios is said to have written five books on divination (D L,
7.149; Cicero, Div. 1.6), and Cicero (ibid. 2.35) reports that he followed C and
POSEIDO ̄NIOS OF APAMEIA