A history of Greek mathematics - Wilbourhall.org

HYPATIA. PORPHYRY 529
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only to the first six Books, in which case the fact that Hypatia
wrote a commentary on them may account for the survival of
these Books while the rest of the thirteen were first forgotten
and then lost.
It will be convenient to take next the series of Neo-
Platonist commentators. It does not appear that Ammonius
Saccas (about a.d. 175-250), the founder of. Neo-Platonism, or
his pupil Plotinus (a.d. 204-69), who first expounded the
doctrines in systematic form, had any special
connexion with
mathematics, but Porphyry (about 232-304), the disciple of
Plotinus and the reviser and editor of his works, appears to
have written a commentary on the Elements. This we gather
from Proclus, who quotes from Porphyry comments on Eucl.
I. 14 and 26 and alternative proofs of I. 18, 20. It is possible
that Porphyry's work may have been used later by Pappus in
writing his own commentary, and Proclus may have got his
references from Pappus, but the form of these references suggests
that he had direct
Porphyry.
access to the original commentary of
Iamblichus (died about a.d. 330) was the author of a commentary
on the Introductio arithmetica of Nicomachus, and
of other works which have already been mentioned. He was
a pupil of Porphyry as well as of Anatolius, also a disciple of
Porphyry.
But the most important of the Neo-Platonists to the historian
of mathematics is Proclus (a.d. 410-85). Proclus
received his early training at Alexandria, where Olympiodorus
was his instructor in the works of Aristotle, and
mathematics was taught him by one Heron (of course a
different Heron from the '
mechanicus Hero' of the Metrica,
&c). He afterwards went to Athens, where he learnt the
Neo-Platonic philosophy from Plutarch, the grandson of
Nestorius,
and from his pupil Syrianus, and became one of its
most prominent exponents. He speaks everywhere with the
highest respect of his masters, and was in turn regarded with
extravagant veneration by his contemporaries, as we learn
from Marinus, his pupil and biographer. On the death of
Syrianus he was put at the head of the Neo-Platonic school.
He was a man of untiring industry, as is shown by the
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