Antipater of Tarsus
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- See Antipater (disambiguation) for others of this name.
Antipater of Tarsus was a Stoic philosopher, the disciple and successor of Diogenes and the teacher of Panaetius. He was born around 144 BC (Cic. de Divin. i. 3, de Off. iii. 12.). Plutarch speaks of him with Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus, as one of the principal Stoic philosophers (de Stoic. Repugnant, p. 144), and Cicero mentions him as remarkable for acuteness. (De Off. iii. 12.) Of his personal history nothing is known, nor would the few extant notices of his philosophical opinions be a sufficient ground for any great reputation, if it were not for the testimony of ancient authors to his merit. He seems to have taken the lead during his lifetime in the disputes constantly recurring between his own school and the Academy, although he is said to have felt himself so unequal in argument to his contemporary Carneades, in public disputation, that he confined himself to writing; whence he was called "kalamoxoas". (Pint. Mor. p. 514, d.; Euseb. de Praep. Evang. xiv. 8.)
He taught belief in God as " a Being blessed, incorruptible, and of goodwill to men," and blamed those who ascribed to the gods "generation and corruption," which is said to have been the doctrine of Chrysippus. (Plut. de Stoic. Rep. p. 192.) Besides this treatise on the gods, he also wrote two books on divination, a common topic among the Stoics, in which he proved the truth of the science from the fore knowledge and benevolence of the Deity, explained dreams to be supernatural intimations of the future, and collected stories of divination attributed to Socrates. (Cic. de Divin. i. 3, 20, 39, 54.) He is said to have believed that Fate was a god, though it is not clear what was implied in this expression (Stob. de Fate) 16); and it appears from Athenaeus that he wrote a treatise entitled "peri deisidaimonias". (viii. p. 346.)
Of his labours in moral philosophy nothing remains but a few scattered no tices, just sufficient to shew that the science had begun to decline; the questions which are treated being points of detail, and such as had more to do with the application of moral precepts than with the principles themselves : such as they were, how ever, he took higher ground in solving them than his master Diogenes. (Cic. de Off. iii. 12, 13, 23.) Compare Varro, de Ling. Lat. vi. 1. p. 184, Fragm, p. 289, ed. Bip.
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1867).
