Problems Concerning First Principles

It is not clearly known in what year they left the Roman soil, nor in what year they returned; yet it may be suspected that Damascius, with his friends, left soon after the school was extinguished, around the year 530, and returned after the first peace was composed between the Parthians and Romans, having at least gained this fruit from their journey,

...because of all these things, the philosophers were distressed and blamed themselves for the migration. And when they spoke with the king, they were disappointed in their hope, finding a man who puffed himself up as a philosopher but knew nothing of the higher matters; and because he did not share their opinion, but held other views of the kind I have already mentioned, and not bearing the wretchedness of their associations, they returned as quickly as possible. And yet he loved them and asked them to remain; but they thought it was better for them, having only set foot on Roman borders, to die immediately, given the opportunity, than to remain with the Persians and partake of the greatest honors. And so they all returned home, saying goodbye to the barbarian's hospitality. Yet they profited from the exile, not in some small and neglected way, but from it, their subsequent life ended in contentment and joy. For when the Romans and Persians established a truce and treaty at that time of year, it was part of what was written in them that those men should return to their own customs and live freely for the rest of their time, on their own terms, not being forced to think anything beyond what they believed or to change their ancestral faith. For Chosroes did not desist until the truce was established and prevailing." Next, Agathias narrates what miracle occurred to these philosophers on their journey to their homeland. They found a fresh, unburied corpse on the road and composed it in the Greek manner. But when they had fallen asleep, an old man appeared to one of them in a dream, in the garb of a philosopher, commanding:

"Do not bury the unburied, let it become a prey for dogs,
The earth, mother of all, does not receive a mother-corrupting man."

On the following day, when their journey took them past the corpse they had composed, they found it cast out. "Having put these men to the test," Agathias concludes, "Chosroes nonetheless admired and longed for Uranius more!"

Although this passage is somewhat long, I trust it has been read gladly here, as it not only pertains to the life of Damascius but also expresses the character and customs of the leading philosophers of that time. Other examples of their credulity, vanity, and superstition are found from time to time in Photius's Excerpts, Codex 242. The latter part of this passage was given by Suidas s.v. Ambassadors: "That these were the philosophers who were sent as ambassadors to Persia together with Areobindus, Damascius the Syrian, etc." Cf. D. Petavius, Rational Temporum, Part I, Bk. VII, ch. 8, end, pp. 360–361. Brucker, Critical History of Philosophy, Vol. II, p. 345, and most who have followed him, think that the Platonists returned in the year 533.