Note 132 — Chapter VI · THE SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY AT ATHENS AND THEIR ABOLITION BY JUSTINIAN

Vitruvius (v, 11) is the source for the topography of the gymnasium, Becker-Göll's Charicles for the elaboration of scattered details.

[133] The liveliest picture of Socrates debating in a gymnasium will be found in Plato's Lysis.

[134] Diogenes Laert., Plato, 9, 14; Pausanias, i, 30; cf. Pliny, Hist. Nat., xii, i.

[135] Diogenes Laert., Speusippus, 3.

[136] Damascius, Vit. Isidori, 158; Suidas, Plato.

[137] Plutarch, Alexander, 5.

[138] Diogenes Laert. in Vita, 4, 7.

[139] Zeller, in his History of Philosophy, prefers this explanation of the name. It is also held that they were so designated merely because A. taught in the περίπατοζ or promenade of the gymnasium.

[140] Diogenes Laert., 3.

[141] Diogenes Laert., 6, 7.

[142] Cyprus was at first Phoenician; later at various times Greek, Egyptian, and Persian.

[143] The best known Roman Stoics are Cato of Utica, Seneca, Lucan the poet, Helvidius Priscus, Arrian, Epictetus, and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

[144] Diogenes Laert., Epicurus, 1.

[145] Ibid., 7.

[146] Diogenes Laert., Epicurus, 9, 10; Pliny, xix, 4.

[147] The chief Roman Epicureans were Lucretius, the poetical expositor of his system, Horace, Atticus, and the younger Pliny.

[148] Dio Cass., lxxxi, 31; Philostratus, Vit. Soph., ii, 2. The action in Lucian's "Eunuch" is laid at this time, and seems to represent a real contest. The castrate claimed one of the salaried positions, but an outcry arose in view of his emasculated condition. The most obvious objection taken appeared to be that a philosopher should be adorned with a long beard. "In that case," he retorted, "your best plan would be to elect a goat." The litigation had to be referred to Rome, but with what result we are not told.

[149] See p. 258 et seq.

[150] In the time of Julian Pergamus was the most active centre of Neoplatonism; and his principal tutors, Aedesius, Chrysanthius, and Maximus, taught there. For their ridiculous practices, half charlatanism, half fanaticism, see the lives by Eunapius.

[151] "Away with every word of Epicurus and Pyrrho!" exclaims Julian. "Thanks to the gods, most of their books are now lost." Frag. Epist. (H., p. 386).

[152] See p. 207.

[153] Among the most noted of these teachers was Proaeresius, who is described as a colossus, nine feet high. During a visit to Rome he made such an impression that a statue was erected to him with the inscription: "The Queen of Cities to the Prince of Eloquence." He, however, was a Christian, and, therefore, was forced to resign by Julian. By way of a set off to this giant, another very able rhetorician, Alypius, was a pigmy; see their lives by Eunapius.

[154] See p. 207.

[155] Damascius and Suidas, loc. cit.

[156] Usually referred to as the son of Nestorius to distinguish him from the well-known writer of lives, who lived under Trajan.

[157] Marinus, Vita Procli.

[158] Marinus, Vita Procli. The schools of rhetoric were not extinct at this date, as they are stated to have made overtures to Proclus, but he refused to engage himself to any of them.

[159] It is generally agreed among scholars that the writings of Orpheus now extant are spurious productions emanating from the Neoplatonists themselves, who, as a pious fraud, expanded very scanty relics to considerable bulk with the object of providing an old traditional basis for their theology. In this age the daughters of philosophers, like Hypatia, often worked with their fathers, and, when advanced enough, gave instruction to the classes. Thus Aclepigeneia, the daughter of Plutarch, was the only one versed in the so-called Chaldaean lore, and she in that department became the preceptress of Proclus; Marinus, op. cit. The work of Damascius (Vit. Isidor.) is dedicated to a certain Theodora who, with her sisters, had been pupils of himself and Isidorus. The course of study is shown to have been prolonged and comprehensive, extending sometimes over a decade or more. It included rhetoric, dialectic, literature in prose and verse, mathematics, and astronomy (Ptolemy's system), besides the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, and the Neoplatonists; Photius, Cod., 181. From a passage in Olympiodorus (Creuzer, Frankf., 1820, ii, pp. xii, 141), it seems that to the last the school continued to be open free to students as in the days of Plato himself. The fact is also indicated by the anecdote related of Proaeresius and his friend Hephaestion. Armenians both of them, they arrived at Athens so destitute that they possessed between them only clothing sufficient for one person. When, therefore, one went out to hear a lecture, the other had to remain within wrapped up in some old bed coverlets; (Eunapius in Vit.). Presents must, however, have been received, as it is mentioned (Damascius and Suidas, loc. cit.) that under Proclus the funds of the Academy rose to the amount of 1,000 gold pieces.

[160] Vacherot has arranged a table, in which the numerous divinities admitted by Proclus are seen according to their roll of precedence; Ecole d'Alexandrie, Paris, 1846, ii, p. 378. A comprehensive work by Jules Simon with the same title came out almost simultaneously. Zeller (Philos. d. Griech., v, pp. 548, 808) defines the position of matter according to the views of Plotinus and Proclus. The first considers it to be the original evil, but with the latter it is neutral, and bad only in relation to that which is better. These notions, however, are embedded in pages of refinements, so that no real finality is attained.

[161] By the age of twenty-eight Proclus had finished his commentary on the Timaeus, which exceeded in bulk the whole writings of Plato. Half of it is lost, but the portion preserved makes a ponderous tome.

[162] Victor Cousin and Thomas Taylor. The latter professes himself to be a complete convert to the religion of Proclus, and the former, who was a leader of thought, almost goes as far. The difference in theological standpoint between Christians, Stoics, and Neoplatonists is explained by the historians of philosophy. The Christian triune God exists apart from the universe, which he produces by his own voluntary act. With the pantheistic Stoics the Deity is pervasive without limit, and in all best things most immanent. Thus the good man may be his most perfect manifestation, and in no degree less than Zeus himself. But the essence of Neoplatonism is the Oriental conception of emanation, and in this pantheism everything is viewed as progressively inferior in proportion to its distance from the transcendent source, i.e., the One. In this system the good man cannot be equal to the Deity; he can only endeavour to elevate himself to reunion with his source by ecstatic detachment from all lower grades. In the other systems the world had a beginning and end in time, but the eternity of the cosmos was a necessary dogma of Neoplatonism.

[163] See Porphyry's elaborate treatise, De Abstinentia ab Esu Carnium. He tries to prove the quasi-humanity of animals; they have a language of their own, which some men have understood, etc.

[164] Proclus, like Plotinus, acted the part of a father to all the young people of his acquaintance. Porphyry, somewhat late in life, married a widow named Marcella, stating that he only did so in order to fulfil the paternal office towards her children. Yet fornication was not a Neoplatonic sin, and even Proclus resorted to it restrainedly. A letter of Porphyry to Marcella, a condensed manual of ethics, is extant, and has recently appeared in an English dress.

[165] Or literally, "the hierophant of the whole world."

[166] Marinus also informs us that he was on terms of great cordiality with Pan, but according to another authority this god had died some centuries previously. Plutarch (De Defect. Orac., 17) tells us, on the report of "a well-known man of very sound character," that a vessel sailing in the Ambracian Gulf touched one evening at the Isle of Paxae. Shortly, a voice from the land thrice summoned Thames the Egyptian, one of the crew, and gave him the injunction, "When you come to Paloda, announce that the Great Pan is dead." The mandate was obeyed, they put in at a deserted spot, and Thames, standing in the bows, shouted the required information. Immediately the whole ship's company heard "a deep groan, proceeding as it were from a multitude of men." The news was carried to Rome, and Tiberius, after interviewing Thames, decided to hold an inquest. All the savants of the Court sat on the deceased, and, without viewing the body, pronounced him to be Pan, the son of Hermes and Penelope. The witness in this case was doubtless of the same class as those who from time to time contribute marvels to the reports of the Psychical Society and the Occult Review.

[167] The alumni of the school went and taught in other places; for instance, Agapius, a hearer of Proclus, under whom Jn. Lydus studied (De Magist., iii, 26), the same, perhaps, who was the "big wig" of the medical faculty at CP., about that time, and made a large fortune, as related by Damascius and Suidas. Damascius (Vit. Isidori) gives an account of the practice of Jacob Psychristus, an eminent physician of the latter part of the fifth century. He trusted chiefly to purgations, baths, and diets, used the knife and cautery sparingly, and repudiated bleeding. On visiting CP. he found the profession there neither experienced nor learned, but relying on a routine derived from their predecessors, which they followed in a blind and careless manner. Pamprepius, one of the ablest disciples of Proclus, deserted the Academy for the Byzantine court, and attached himself to Illus, the great rebel in the reign of Zeno; but ultimately he was executed by his patron for having ventured on predictions which were falsified by the event; Suidas, sb. nom. (Malchus); Theophanes, an. 5976, etc.

[168] Marinus, op. cit., ad fin.

[169] Of this period there is a sort of chronicle extant in the form of a life of Isidore of Gaza, who became scholarch next after Marinus. The whole work has been abridged from the original of Damascius by Photius (Cod. 242), and portions of it are given by Suidas, apparently in full, under various biographical headings, e.g. Aedesia, Archiadas, Asclepiodotus, Domninus, Hegias, Hermeias, Hierocles, Pamprepius, Salustius, Serapion, etc., all philosophers of this later time. The narrative is stuffed with nonsense to an even greater extent than the life by Marinus, and gives instances of prophecy by crystal-gazing, of casting out of devils, etc. Curiously enough, it contains some of the earliest recorded observations of electric phenomena, viz. an ass of Tiberius and a horse of Severus that emitted sparks; that fire issued from the body of Walamir, father of Theodoric the Goth, without singeing his clothing, etc.

[170] Syrianus had devoted himself particularly to this task, and his extant commentaries are a necessary part of the armament of the modern Aristotelian.

[171] Jn. Malala, xviii, 451. Alemannus (op. cit., p. 459) cites an anonymous Greek chronicle, in which astronomy as well as philosophy is prohibited.

[172] Marinus, op. cit., ad fin.

[173] Jn. Ephes. Com., p. 249.

[174] Procopius, Anecd., 26. Olympiodorus (op. cit.), writing probably just before the closure of the schools, notices that these confiscations had been going on for some time. It seems that Justinian began systematically to seize on the property of all teachers he disapproved of.

[175] Zonaras, xiv, 6.

[176] The Pragmatic Sanction addressed to Pope Vigilius (554) indicates the restoration; sect. 22. It would seem that state aid must have been in abeyance for twenty years or more, as the evidence of Procopius extends to 550.

[177] Republic, vi, etc.

[178] The commentaries of Simplicius on Aristotle, besides being of considerable bulk, are the most valuable of that class of writings which have come down to us. They have been repeatedly published since 1499.

[179] The narrative of this migration to Persia is due to Agathias (ii, 28, et seq.), who does not, however, mention that they were driven out by legislation, but represents them merely as dissatisfied with the religion of the Empire. He speaks of them with the greatest respect; they were the "fine flower" of the philosophy of his age.

[180] Agathias, loc. cit. Quicherat (ad calc. Dübner's Plotinus, Paris, 1855) endeavours to refute Agathias in respect of his low estimate of the intellectual attainments of Chosroes. In the first place he relies on a Syrian MS. discovered by Renan in the British Museum, which is an epitome of Aristotle's Logic, purporting to have been made by Paul the Persian, a Nestorian priest, for the use of Chosroes. This neutralizes the objection of A. that the niceties of Greek philosophy could not be rendered in the rude Pahlavi, it being known that the Shahinshah was obliged to have recourse to translations. Syriac, however, is a language of considerable literary refinement. Further he publishes a MS.—not long unearthed at St. Germains—a Latin version by Scotus Erigena(?) of the solutions given by Priscian, one of the seven, to certain "doubts" entertained by Chosroes. The work is incomplete, but nine of the questions which puzzled the monarch are dealt with, viz. the soul, sleep, dreams; the routine of the seasons; why doctors differ; the tides; rain and lightning; variation of animal and plants after removal to a different climate; and the venom of serpents. Indisputably Chosroes was a very able ruler, and it is clear that he evinced great curiosity in every department of knowledge, but that he could have studied with the assiduity necessary for the attainment of erudition is a scarcely tenable supposition; and the episode of Uranius falls in very aptly with what we should predicate as likely to be the outcome of his desultory inquisitiveness.

[181] Damascius profited by his Persian experiences to give an account of Babylonian dualism in one of his treatises. This work has received considerable attention of late. See books by Ruelle, Paris, 1889, and Chaignet, Paris, 1898.

[182] See Bigg's Neoplatonism, Lond., 1892, for a tabulated synopsis. There were also earthly triads, which included the sacraments and the various orders of priests, etc.

[183] Simon and Zeller stop short at the fall of the school of Athens, but Vacherot has devoted a third volume to tracing out the diffusion of Neoplatonic ideas in Western thought throughout the Middle Ages until recent times. Mystics such as Jacob Boehme, Molinos, Madame Guyon, etc. (Quietists), are connected with this stage of the fantasy.

[184] Cudworth, one of the "Cambridge Platonists," is the central figure of this group. In his True Intellectual System of the Universe (pp. 900, fol., 1678, an inceptive fragment of a larger(!) work never completed) he appears as a modern Plotinus labouring in the realm of metaphysics under the obsession of Hebrew and Orthodox mythology in which he had been nurtured, but in verbosity and expansiveness he well outdistances his prototype. He is inclined to believe in ghosts, and thence to draw a theistic proof of the existence of a "supreme ghost," i.e. the Deity. See Tulloch's Rational Theology in England in 17th Century, 1874, ii, p. 240 et seq.