Ocellus Lucanus, Firmicus Maternus, Select Theorems of Proclus (Thomas Taylor)

world was not generated and is imperishable, and he proves it with most exquisite reasoning.' Censorinus also, in De Die Natali (Chapter 2), says 'that the opinion that the human race is perpetual has for its authors Pythagoras the Samian, Ocellus Lucanus, and Archytas of Tarentum.' He is likewise mentioned by Jamblichus in his Life of Pythagoras; by Syrianus in his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics; and by Proclus in his commentary on Plato’s Timaeus—who, as we have shown in the notes on Ocellus, demonstrates that Ocellus was wrong in ascribing only two powers to the elements instead of three. Finally, this tract is cited by Stobaeus in Eclogae Physicae (Book 1, Chapter 24). All these testimonies clearly prove that Chalmers is a man who cannot say with Socrates (in Plato's Gorgias):

'That he has bid farewell to the honors of the multitude and has his eye directed solely to truth.'

To the treatise of Ocellus, I have added a translation of a fragment by Taurus, a Platonic philosopher, On the Eternity of the WorldTaurus flourished under Marcus Antoninus, and the original of the aforementioned fragment is only found in the treatise of Philoponus against Proclus, On the Eternity of the World..

For nearly all of the content in the previous three paragraphs, I am indebted to my excellent friend Mr. J. B. Inglis, who has also read Ocellus with great attention and made notes upon it—further proof that the work is not neglected.