Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

philosophy in athens 841
Damascius was as strongly pagan as Proclus. The references to
Christians in the Life of Isidorus are veiled but scornful. According to
Agathias, Damascius and six other philosophers, including Simplicius and
Priscianus Lydus, left Athens for Persia and the court of Khusro I when
Justinian in 529 forbade pagans to teach philosophy or law. Traditionally,
Justinian’s action has been described as ‘closing the schools’ and it has been
assumed that the Neoplatonist philosophers never returned to Athens.
Since 1969 there has been considerable discussion by philosophers, historians
and archaeologists over what did happen to Damascius and his colleagues.
Malalas reports that Justinian sent an edict to Athens prohibiting
the teaching there of philosophy and law. This report has regularly been
interpreted as referring to the laws prohibiting pagans from teaching found
in the Codex Iustinianus i.11.10.2 and i.5.18.4, although those laws do not
refer specifically to Athens. Archaeology suggests that several groups of
pagan teachers in Athens were affected by these laws. A group of houses
on the Areopagus, plausibly identified as educational establishments, was
suddenly abandoned about 530. In one, sculpture was deposited in a well
which was then sealed. The ‘House of Proclus’ too was abandoned some
time in the sixth century, although there are no finds which date its abandonment
precisely. The combination of literary and archaeological evidence
does support the traditional view that the Neoplatonists left Athens
in 529 or soon afterwards.
By Agathias’ account, the philosophers’ stay in Persia was short-lived.
The peace treaty signed between Justinian and Khusro in 532 included a
provision that they might return to their own ways and live privately, without
fear. Where did they go? Damascius, an old man by this time, may have
retired to his native Syria. A funerary epigram in the museum at Emesa,
dated to 538, is almost identical with an epigram in the Palatine Anthology
ascribed to Damascius. We do not know when or where Damascius died. In
1969 Alan Cameron suggested that Simplicius, Priscianus Lydus and the
others returned to Athens. The only strong evidence for this is a passage
from Olympiodorus’ Commentary on the First Alcibiades, probably written
about 560, which says that the diadochika, the endowments of the Athenian
school, have lasted until the present time in spite of the many confiscations
which are taking place. Recently Michel Tardieu has argued that none of the
philosophers ever returned to Athens. Instead, Simplicius and others settled
in Harran in northern Mesopotamia. Tardieu’s case rests on two distinct
bodies of evidence. On the one hand there is an allusion in the Arabic writer
Mas�udi to a Platonist school in the tenth century at Harran, which was still
a pagan city at that time. On the other hand, Tardieu argues that a number
of references in Simplicius’ works indicate that they were written in that
area. Tardieu has even suggested that it was only Damascius who visited
Khusro’s court; the others never got further than Harran. The references in
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