Posidonius

, a philosopher of Apamea. He lived at Rhodes for some time, and afterwards came to Rome, where, after cultivating the friendship of Pompey and Cicero, he died in his 84th year. He wrote a treatise on the nature of the gods, and also attempted to measure the circumference of the earth; he accounted for the tides from the motion of the moon, and calculated the height of the atmosphere to be 400 stadia, nearly agreeing with the ideas of the moderns. Cicero , Tusculanæ Dis put at i ones , bk. 5 , ch. 37 .— Strabo , bk. 14 .――Another philosopher, born at Alexandria in Egypt.