Many of the Hellenistic geographers were somehow connected to Stoic philosophy. Eratosthenes was trained by Ariston of Chios, a student of the founder of the philosophical sect of Stoicism, Zeno. Posidonius studied under the noted Stoic philosopher Panaetius, and Strabo, perhaps under Posidonius's sway, converted to the Stoic school of philosophy. The Stoics (named after the Stoa Poikile, a public hall in Athens where Zeno taught) held the doctrine that the sophos (Greek) or sapiens (Latin), the "wise man," could be virtuous by living in accordance with phusis (Greek) or natura (Latin), "nature." Originating in the political unrestin Greece that followed Alexander's death in 323 B.C.E., the Stoic doctrine in its first manifestations turned its adherents away from social concerns and toward arete (Greek) or virtus (Latin), "virtue," which they argued could be found within the individual and is paralleled in the order...