Talk:Panaetius

Untitled
Article begun, copied from 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. To be expanded later. --Tregonsee 03:27, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 04:20, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Bumped classes from "Stub" to "Start" Singinglemon (talk) 23:43, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Date of the eastern embassy
Since I've altered the date of the eastern embassy I thought I'd better explain the change here.

It's an old point of scholarly dispute based on two conflicting passages in Cicero: Lucullus (or Academica Pr.II) 5  dates it before Scipio's censorship (of 142-141 BC): in legatione illa nobili quam ante censuram obiit. But in de Re Publica vi.11 amid very accurate references to Scipio's life and career the famous legation is placed between his censorship and second consulate of 134 BC: censorque fueris, et obieris legatus Aegyptum Syriam Asiam Graeciam.

As between these equally authoritative passages it is pretty clear that the date is built into the whole structure of the second while it depends upon the single word ante in the first, and it was a common slip of both authors and copyists to write ante for post and vice-versa. In addition the placing of the various Diodorus fragments in the excerptor sequences excludes the earlier date and is only compatible with the later. All these issues and otherts besides are discussed in the article and book by A. E. Astin I have cited in the appropriate footnote (currently numbered 7).

One other issue I have noticed myself is that of the three Roman envoys, L. Metellus Calvus (pr.145, cos.142) is attested epigraphically as Macedonian commander, which must have been at least for the one year spring 145-spring 144, and may have been the biennium 145-143, after which he was elected consul in autumn 143. Even if his command was for the one year, by the time he got to Rome from Macedonia the embassy cannot have left Rome before summer 144, and the bare twelve month period summer 144 to summer 143 is probably not long enough for this lengthy and complex mission, which most probably belongs spring 139 to autumn 138 BC., Appietas (talk) 10:10, 27 November 2008 (UTC)