LATE ANTIQUE CULTURE AND PRIVATE LIFEprofound.^30 Many elements of the Platonic philosophical tradition had been
absorbed into Christian teaching and had thereby become available to a wider
public in a different guise. Neoplatonist teaching in the fi fth and sixth centuries,
however, was also often identifi ed with paganism. As taught in the major cen-
tres, it took a highly elitist form, and among certain sections of the upper class
it still enjoyed considerable prestige; as we saw, the family of Paralius in Aph-
rodisias sent its sons to Alexandria, and a number of important mosaics from
Paphos in Cyprus and Apamea in Syria, home of a fl ourishing school especially
notable for the early fourth-century philosopher Iamblichus, may suggest the
diffusion of Neoplatonic ideas in the fourth century.^31 Athens was the particu-
lar home of Neoplatonism, the late antique version of Platonism associated in
the fi rst place with Plotinus, active in the third century, and in our period espe-
cially with Proclus, who arrived in Athens in 430 and became head of the school
there at the early age of 25 or 26 in 437. He remained head of the school until
his death in 485, when his Life was written by his successor Marinus.^32
The Neoplatonists evolved their own system of philosophical education,
in which the teachings of Aristotle and of the Stoics were harmonized with
those of Plato to form an elaborately organized syllabus. The ‘Aristotelian’
philosophers of late antique Alexandria were as much Neoplatonists as the
Athenians, and Simplicius, one of the last and greatest of the Athenian philos-
ophers of this period, wrote a series of important commentaries on the works
of Aristotle. But Neoplatonism was also deeply religious; indeed, it almost
amounted to a religious system in itself. Neoplatonists sought to understand
the nature of the divine and to evolve a scientifi c theology, practised asceti-
cism (Chapter 3), contemplation and prayer, revered the gods and adopted
special ways of invoking them (‘theurgy’). They believed in the possibility of
divine revelation, especially through the so-called ‘Chaldaean Oracles’ (sec-
ond century), which claimed to be revelations obtained by interrogation of
Plato’s soul. For Proclus and his followers, Plato himself and his writings
acquired the status of scripture. Naturally such teachings came to be identifi ed
with paganism, but many of the greatest Christian thinkers, such as Gregory
of Nyssa and Augustine, were also deeply infl uenced by Neoplatonism. Cer-
tain of Plato’s works, especially the Timaeus and the Phaedrus, were infl uential
on many Christian writers, including Augustine, and there was much common
ground between Neoplatonism and Christianity.^33 In Athens, Proclus headed
a ‘school’ not so much in the sense of buildings or an institution (the teaching
of the Academy seems still to have been conducted in a very informal way by
modern standards) as in the fact that he had a group of pupils, on whom he
exercised a charismatic infl uence and with whom he celebrated a variety of
forms of pagan cult which included prayer, meditation and hymns, and even
extended to healing miracles. When the father of a little girl, appropriately
called Asclepigeneia, who was desperately ill, asked for Proclus’ prayers:
Taking with him the great Pericles from Lydia, a man who was himself
no mean philosopher, Proclus visited the shrine of Asclepius to pray to