Antipater of Tyre

Antipater (Greek: Ἀντίπατρος; fl. 1st century BC) of Tyre was a Stoic philosopher, and a friend of Cato the Younger and Cicero.^[1]

Life

Antipater lived after, or was at least younger than, Panaetius. Cicero, in speaking of him, says, that he died "recently at Athens", which must mean shortly before 45 BC.^[2] He is mentioned by Strabo as a "famous philosopher" from Tyre.^[3] Antipater is said to have befriended Cato when Cato was a young man, and introduced him to Stoic philosophy:^[4]

Having gained the intimate acquaintance of Antipater the Tyrian, the Stoic philosopher, he [Cato] devoted himself to the study, above everything, of moral and political doctrine.

Works

Little is known about his writings. From Cicero we can perhaps infer that Antipater, like Panaetius, wrote a work On Duties (Latin: de Officiis):

Antipater of Tyre, a Stoic philosopher who recently died at Athens, claims that two points were overlooked by Panaetius — the care of health and of property.

Diogenes Laërtius^[5] refers to another work by him called On the Cosmos (Greek: περὶ κόσμου):

The whole world is a living being, endowed with soul and reason, and having aether for its ruling principle: so says Antipater of Tyre in the eighth book of his treatise On the Cosmos.

— Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 139

Notes

1. Leonhard Schmitz claimed (William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1867) Page 204) that the Antipater of Tyre who was the friend of Cato, was a different, earlier Antipater of Tyre to the one mentioned by Cicero. Schmitz did not explain why; he may have thought (incorrectly) that a teacher of Cato could not have lived down to 45 BC.
2. Cicero, de Officiis, ii. 86
3. Strabo, Geography, xvi. 2. 24
4. Plutarch, Cato the Younger. 4.
5. Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, vii. 139, 142, 148