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Panaetius

Παναίτιος). A Greek philosopher of Rhodes, born about B.C. 180; the most important representative of Stoicism in his time. From Athens, where he had received his education, he went to Rome, about B.C. 156. Being there received into the circle of the younger Scipio and of Laelius, he was able to gain numerous adherents among the Roman nobles by his skill in softening the harshness and subtlety of the Stoic teaching, and in representing it in a refined and polished form. After Scipio's death (129 B.C.) he returned to Athens, where he died, as the head of the Stoic school, about 111. Only unimportant fragments of his writings remain. The most important of them, the Treatise on Duty (Περὶ τοῦ Καθήκοντος), in three books, supplied the groundwork of the De Officiis of Cicero. See Thiancourt, Essai sur les Traités Philosophiques de Cicéron et leurs Sources Grecques (Paris, 1885).

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