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Posidonius, Stoic philosopher (see stoicism), scientist, and historian. A Syrian Greek from *Apamea on the Orontes, he was educated at Athens under *Panaetius, but settled in *Rhodes, a prosperous free city with already a reputation for philosophy and science. Granted citizenship, he took a significant part in public life as *prytanis, and as a member of at least one embassy to Rome in 87/6. Probably in the 90s he embarked on long tours of research to the west, visiting certainly Spain, southern Gaul, and of course Rome and Italy. Thereafter his School in Rhodes became the leading centre of Stoicism, and a general mecca not only for intellectuals, but for the great and powerful of the Roman world such as *Pompey and *Cicero.The range of his writing is astonishing. In addition to the conventional departments of philosophy (natural philosophy or *physics, ethics, *logic), he wrote penetratingly on *astronomy, *meteorology, *mathematics, *geography, hydrology, seismology (see earthquakes), zoology (see animals, knowledge about), *botany, *anthropology, and history (see historiography, hellenistic).