Problems Concerning First Principles

In order to draw this from the clearest fountains and to perceive it more fully and deeply, he went to Athens to place himself under the discipline of Marinus, Isidorus, and Zenodotus, and to enter into closer familiarity with the most famous philosophers there. For the Platonic philosophers at Athens lived united by a certain society and devoted themselves to higher philosophy, namely, to divine, magical, and theurgic matters. Damascius proved the sharpness of his intellect and the ardor of his learning to these men to such an extent that later, when Isidorus, the successor of Marinus, and subsequently Zenodotus, resigned from the mastership, he was held worthy to continue the (golden) chain of the Platonists original: "3".

However, he seems to have held this office for no long time. For since those Platonic philosophers were the most stubborn defenders of the ancient religions against the healthier Christian reason, which was already reigning on the very throne of the Roman Empire, they were harassed in various ways from the times of Constantine the Great and were suppressed from time to time, so that the Platonic school and society could scarcely endure. Finally, indeed, after that tumult which arose at the beginning of the year 532, which is called Nika Victory from the shout of one Circus faction, many sacred and profane buildings at Constantinople had been destroyed by fire, and in the restoration of these, Justinia-

3. Photius, Codex 181, p. 412, and Codex 242, throughout. Suidas, s.v. Hermias — philosopher, father of Ammonius and Heliodorus, the teachers of Damascius. Because our author was established in the Platonic Chair, he is distinguished in manuscript books by the surname Diadochus Successor. See Creuzer on Proclus in Plato's Alcibiades, preface p. XVI, note 1. I suspect that Isidorus and Zenodotus were already forced by persecutions and vexations to leave the chair, while Damascius held his schools privately from the magistrates.