{"_index":"sire","_id":"875","_score":null,"_source":{"id":875,"authors_free":[{"id":1285,"entry_id":875,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":1286,"entry_id":875,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":133,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Sorabji, Richard","free_first_name":"Richard","free_last_name":"Sorabji","norm_person":{"id":133,"first_name":"Richard","last_name":"Sorabji","full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/130064165","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Themistius: the last Peripatetic commentator on Aristotle?","main_title":{"title":"Themistius: the last Peripatetic commentator on Aristotle?"},"abstract":"[B]oth the content of Themistius\u2019 works, and such evidence as we \r\nhave of the commentators\u2019 attitudes to him, show that he was \r\npredominantly a Peripatetic. In this he stood out against the tendencies \r\nof his time. His frequently expressed admiration for Plato does not \r\ninvalidate this conclusion. Themistius may rightly claim to have been the \r\nlast major figure in antiquity who was a genuine follower of Aristotle. For \r\nhim, unlike his contemporaries, Plato does not surpass the master of \r\nthose who know but he, and Socrates, \u2018innanzi agli altri piu presso gli \r\nstanno\u2019. [Conclusion, p. 123]","btype":2,"date":"1990","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/j4M1Faq3An8bJ7v","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}},{"id":133,"full_name":"Sorabji, Richard","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":875,"section_of":1453,"pages":"113-123","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":1453,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":"reference","type":4,"language":"en","title":"Aristotle Transformed. The ancient commentators and their influence","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1990","edition_no":null,"free_date":null,"abstract":"This book brings together twenty articles giving a comprehensive view of the work of the Aristotelian commentators. First published in 1990, the collection is now brought up to date with a new introduction by Richard Sorabji. New generations of scholars will benefit from this reissuing of classic essays, including seminal works by major scholars, and the volume gives a comprehensive background to the work of the project on the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, which has published over 100 volumes of translations since 1987 and has disseminated these crucial texts to scholars worldwide.\r\n\r\nThe importance of the commentators is partly that they represent the thought and classroom teaching of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonist schools and partly that they provide a panorama of a thousand years of ancient Greek philosophy, revealing many original quotations from lost works. Even more significant is the profound influence - uncovered in some of the chapters of this book - that they exert on later philosophy, Islamic and Western. Not only did they preserve anti-Aristotelian material which helped inspire Medieval and Renaissance science, but they present Aristotle in a form that made him acceptable to the Christian church. It is not Aristotle, but Aristotle transformed and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators that so often lies behind the views of later thinkers. [author's abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/M8lXuAdHpDW8tvu","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":1453,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Duckworth","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"1","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1990]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"805","_score":null,"_source":{"id":805,"authors_free":[{"id":1191,"entry_id":805,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Alexander of Aphrodisias in the later Greek commentaries on Aristotle\u2019s De Anima","main_title":{"title":"Alexander of Aphrodisias in the later Greek commentaries on Aristotle\u2019s De Anima"},"abstract":"These are a few examples of how the Neoplatonist commenta\u00ad\r\ntors confronted Alexander on matters where differences could \r\nhardly fail to arise. What happens is clear enough. But it would be \r\nwrong to think that these principles of interpretation are not applied \r\nat other points in the work. Let us take an apparently innocuous \r\nissue like the section where Aristotle discusses locomotion under the \r\nstimulus of the appetitive faculty (433 b 8sqq.). Alexander, giving a \r\nclearly Aristotelian explanation, said that the faculty was moved \r\naccidentally. Plutarch differed, and said that the activity of the \r\nappetitive faculty is movement: this Simplicius describes as a Pla\u00ad\r\ntonic explanation, and prefers it (302,23-30).44 On the other hand, a \r\nfew pages below Simplicius prefers Alexander to Plutarch on the \r\nquestion whether moving but ungenerated entities have sense-per\u00ad\r\nception (320,33-34): we have already looked at his and Stephanus\u2019 account of this passage.45 As we indicated, Stephanus there quotes \r\nAlexander only to disagree with him, and here we have at least one \r\npiece of evidence to show that Neoplatonist commentators could \r\ntake a different view of the same passage. If we had more examples \r\nof texts where Alexander\u2019s views of the De anima were discussed by \r\nmore than one of his successors, we should be able to form a clearer \r\npicture of how far the different commentators were prepared to \r\naccept them, and thus incidentally of the precise differences between \r\nthese commentators themselves on the points at issue. [conclusion p. 105-106]","btype":2,"date":"1987","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/yyFedFSkP8qo8dn","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":805,"section_of":189,"pages":"90-106","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":189,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"de","title":"Aristoteles - Werk und Wirkung. Paul Moraux gewidmet. Bd. 2: Kommentierung, \u00dcberlieferung, Nachleben","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Wiesner\/Lulofs\/Kollesch\/Nutton1987","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1987","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1987","abstract":"Kommentierung, Uberlieferung und Nachleben des Aristoteles sind das Thema dieses Bandes. Mit der Aristotelesrenaissance des 1. Jh. v.Chr. einsetzend, vermitteln die Beitr\u00e4ge, unter acht Hauptkapiteln zusammengefa\u00dft, ein eindrucksvolles Bild von der Rezeption zweier Jahrtausende. D a \u00df diese Rezeption kontinuierlich in ihren wichtigen Phasen illustriert werden kann, ist - wie schon im ersten Band - der freundlichen Kooperation der beteiligten Autoren zu verdanken. Als besonderer Gl\u00fccksfall mag gelten, da\u00df einige Beitr\u00e4ge sich in idealer Weise erg\u00e4nzen. So wird der Leser in zwei auf einanderfolgenden Artikeln die Interpretationsgeschichte der zentralen Kapitel Metaphysik \u039b 7 und 9 von Plotin und Themistios \u00fcber Maimonides und Gersonides bis Hegel verfolgen k\u00f6nnen. Dieses Bem\u00fchen um Aristoteles von der Antike bis in die Neuzeit ist etwa f\u00fcr De anima bei Alexander von Aphrodisias und Leibniz, f\u00fcr die \r\nKategorien bei Plotin und Peirce dokumentiert, wobei die Erstver\u00f6ffentlichung der Ubersetzung von Cat. 1 - 4 durch den bedeutenden amerikanischen Philosophen mit besonderer Freude angezeigt werden darf. \r\nVon den Autoren dieses Bandes weilen Paul Henry und Charles B. Schmitt nicht mehr unter uns. In ein Buch \u00fcber Plotins Entretiens sollte der hier ver\u00f6ffentlichte Beitrag von Paul Henry sp\u00e4ter einmal integriert werden; daraus erkl\u00e4ren sich gelegentliche Hinweise auf geplante Teile dieses nun nicht mehr vollendeten Werkes. Die Studie von Charles B.Schmitt \u00fcber die Aristoteles-Florilegien der Renaissance bietet die erste Gesamtdarstellung zu diesem Thema und enth\u00e4lt im Anhang ein Verzeichnis mit wichtigen Erg\u00e4nzungen zu seiner grundlegenden \u201eBibliography of Aristotle Editions, 1501-1600\". [Vorwort p. V-VI]\r\n","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/Q1P6OhIp8zaE99c","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":189,"pubplace":"Berlin \u2013 New York","publisher":"de Gruyter","series":"Aristoteles - Werk und Wirkung. Paul Moraux gewidmet","volume":"2","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1987]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"770","_score":null,"_source":{"id":770,"authors_free":[{"id":1134,"entry_id":770,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Review of Erwin Sonderegger: Simplikios: \u00dcber die Zeit","main_title":{"title":"Review of Erwin Sonderegger: Simplikios: \u00dcber die Zeit"},"abstract":"Like a well-trained Neoplatonist commentator, Sonderegger outlines the skopos of his book on the first page. It is to consider Simplicius' thought about time and make it available to a wider audience (an audience that would, however, need to know Greek). His basis is the 28-page excursus at the end of Simplicius' commentary on Physics 4, known as the Corollarium de Tempore (hereafter, with S., CdT), to which, in the main body of the book, he attends with the minimum of excursions. This is partly dictated by his announced interest in Simplicius himself rather than his relation to other thinkers: as he rightly says, that cannot be treated until it is clear what Simplicius himself thought. In the present state of work on late Neoplatonism, this is not a trivial point.\r\n\r\nSonderegger's aims have produced a very different book from the little-noticed work of H. Meyer, Das Corollarium de Tempore des Simplikios und die Aporien des Aristoteles \u00fcber die Zeit (Meisenheim am Glan, 1969). Meyer's book is more philosophical and also differs in that his purpose was primarily to understand Aristotle, with no notion of being exoteric. Of this book, Sonderegger takes virtually no account, on the grounds that its presuppositions are very different from his own. What Sonderegger has given us is a very detailed and careful descriptive analysis of CdT, with special attention to the organization of the discussions (pp. 38\u2013139), preceded by an introduction on Simplicius' Physics commentary, his excursuses, and Neoplatonism in general, and followed by some 30 pages of translation and 20 of appendices. These include a table of the uses and contexts of key terms in CdT, examinations of the extent and authenticity of quotations from Ps.-Archytas, Iamblichus, and Damascius, and a translation of Simplicius In Categorias 356.8\u201325, which contains in nuce much of the thought of CdT.\r\n\r\nSonderegger is clearly aware that Simplicius wrote commentaries to expound his own philosophy, yet he tends to exaggerate the difference in thought rather than merely presentation, which might be expected in CdT and the analogous digressions on chance and place, as opposed to those parts of the commentary that start from specific lemmata. Even if CdT is more connected, it still proceeds largely by discussing quoted texts, and, as Sonderegger reminds us, Simplicius' aim is always to arrive at his own view of time. That, he claims, will help us to understand Aristotle (773.12\u201314): one recalls uneasily the project of expounding the De anima while following Iamblichus (In De an. 1.18\u201320). Sonderegger perhaps underestimates the extent to which Simplicius saw himself as engaged in the same enterprise as Aristotle\u2014and Plato.\r\n\r\nThough he can cite texts for Simplicius' awareness of the difference between what he and Aristotle say, it does not always follow that Simplicius saw the difference between what he and Aristotle think. The texts Sonderegger quotes at p. 25 n.50 rather point out that Aristotle's intentions are the same, even if his language is not. Thus, 356.31 ff. clearly shows that Simplicius thinks the views on time (chronos) of Aristotle and hoi Neoteroi (the Neoplatonists) are not different. Conversely, in his sketch of the Neoplatonist background, which, as he says, constantly appears in Simplicius' commentary, Sonderegger is inclined to underplay divergences. It is only in the broadest sense true that the outlines of Simplicius' Neoplatonism were determined by Plotinus. The qualification that he liked to attach himself to Iamblichus and used terminology that can be traced back to Proclus is more important.\r\n\r\nThe extent of Proclus' influence is thoroughly documented by I. Hadot, Le Probl\u00e8me du N\u00e9oplatonisme Alexandrin: Hi\u00e9rocl\u00e8s et Simplicius (Paris, 1978), cited on p. 26 n. 51. I cannot understand the arguments here (29\u201335) that, for Simplicius, the hypostases are somehow unreal. This is conducted in terms drawn from Husserl and Heidegger, which, to an English-speaking reader, are not immediately illuminating. Incidentally, diakrisis is not an entity. To treat it as if it were is a kind of hyper-Neoplatonic realism: the meaning of \"differentiation\" is normally adequate.\r\n\r\nOn time itself, there is a major difference between Plotinus and his post-Iamblichean successors on a point which concerns Sonderegger throughout: the invention of a further type of time that almost becomes a separate hypostasis. This is the psychic time that Simplicius calls protos chronos, as opposed to ordinary physical time on the one hand and aion on the other. The exposition and defense of this first time is the main aim of CdT. It is even more clearly a product of late Neoplatonic triadic thinking than Sonderegger's discussion (69\u201374) shows.\r\n\r\nIf there is a triad of things permanent and ungenerated, permanent and generated, impermanent and generated, a mediating time is required for the second member of the triad. That this is Simplicius' thinking is shown by the way he has opposed aion as adiakritos and physical time as ho en ti thesei the\u00f4rmenos (784.34 ff.), a relation justifying, if not requiring, a higher time. The most notable recasting of Aristotle in Neoplatonist terms is the transformation of his definition into metron tou kata to einai rhontos (not quite \"Mass des Seins des Physischen\"), which, for all his concern to show that Simplicius distinguishes between Aristotle's views and his own, Sonderegger seems inclined to accept (cf. esp. 43 f. and 138).\r\n\r\nThe translation aims at utility rather than elegance. Its value is greater at a time when interest in the thought of late antiquity is spreading among the wholly or nearly Greekless. Translations are increasingly called for. But who would translate the 1,366 pages of Simplicius' Physics commentary, or, indeed, publish the translation? [the entire review]","btype":3,"date":"1983","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/ZCYOjLO9LGrxQNt","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":770,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"The Classical Review, New Series","volume":"33","issue":"2","pages":"337-338"}},"sort":[1983]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"873","_score":null,"_source":{"id":873,"authors_free":[{"id":1282,"entry_id":873,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":1283,"entry_id":873,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":403,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"},"free_name":"Markus, R. A.","free_first_name":"R. A.","free_last_name":"Markus","norm_person":{"id":403,"first_name":"R. A.","last_name":"Markus","full_name":"Markus, R. A.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/121838862","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}},{"id":2229,"entry_id":873,"agent_type":"person","is_normalised":1,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Plotinus in later Platonism","main_title":{"title":"Plotinus in later Platonism"},"abstract":"We have seen, then, that in some areas later Neoplatonists introduced Plotinus\u2019 views to corroborate their own. This was equally true of his opinions as a Platonist and, as they understood him, as an interpreter of Aristotle. These agreements are most often found in relatively uncontroversial areas of their thought.\r\n\r\nHowever, at the extremes of the metaphysical world and in those other areas where difficulties were likely to arise, we do find substantial differences. We must, however, be cautious about interpreting these differences in terms of chronological changes. The later Neoplatonists continued to disagree among themselves, and the process we have examined was not one of linear development away from Plotinus. [conclusion p. 220]","btype":2,"date":"1981","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/ydcrCuFuFOAFW6r","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}},{"id":403,"full_name":"Markus, R. A.","role":{"id":2,"role_name":"editor"}},{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":{"id":873,"section_of":131,"pages":"212-222","is_catalog":null,"book":{"id":131,"bilderberg_idno":null,"dare_idno":null,"catalog_idno":null,"entry_type":null,"type":4,"language":"en","title":"Neoplatonism and early Christian thought: Essays in honour of A.H. Armstrong","title_transcript":"","title_translation":"","short_title":"Blumenthal\/Markus1981a","has_no_author":null,"volume":null,"date":"1981","edition_no":null,"free_date":"1981","abstract":"The studies collected in this book are all concerned with aspects of the Platonic tradition, either in its own internal development in the Hellenistic age and the period of the Roman Empire, or with the influence of Platonism, in one or other of its forms, on other spiritual traditions, especially that of Christianity. [offical abstract]","republication_of":null,"online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/PcJka3NQUzhA8jZ","translation_of":null,"new_edition_of":null,"is_catalog":0,"in_bibliography":0,"is_inactive":0,"notes":null,"doi_url":null,"book":{"id":131,"pubplace":"London","publisher":"Variorum","series":"","volume":"","edition_no":"","valid_from":null,"valid_until":null}}},"article":null},"sort":[1981]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"876","_score":null,"_source":{"id":876,"authors_free":[{"id":1287,"entry_id":876,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"529 and its Sequel: What Happened to the Academy?","main_title":{"title":"529 and its Sequel: What Happened to the Academy?"},"abstract":"In an excellent and already well-known article, Professor Alan Cameron has made a strong case for the thesis that, notwithstanding the evidence of Malalas and a long-established tradition, Justinian did not succeed in finally closing the Platonic Academy in 529, and that its activities continued after a short interruption. The purpose of this paper is, firstly, to argue that some of the evidence usually adduced in favor of the view that the Academy was closed may not be applicable, but that it seems nevertheless to have succumbed to some form of imperial pressure, and, secondly, to question the view that philosophy continued to be taught, or even studied, at Athens from 532 until the Slavs sacked the city nearly fifty years later.\r\n\r\nThe most important piece of evidence for the continued existence of the Academy is a passage from Olympiodorus' commentary on Plato's 1st Alcibiades which says, \"Perhaps Plato made a practice of taking no fees because he was well-off. That is why the diadochika have lasted till now, in spite of many confiscations.\" Diadochika is left untranslated since its meaning is by no means certain. It could refer to the salary of the Head of the Academy. It could also, however, be a term for the Academy's endowments in general. A third meaning, suggested by J. Whittaker, is spiritual rather than material heritage, but despite arguments, it is unlikely that the word in its context does not refer to some form of funding. To this point, we must return shortly.\r\n\r\nCameron argues convincingly that this passage was written somewhere around 560, on the grounds that it refers to an incident in the career of a grammaticus called Anatolius, dateable to the late 540s, as one that his readers can no longer be expected to remember. He infers from this that the Academy was still operating at that time and, moreover, in possession of substantial funds some thirty years after its alleged closure and expropriation. At about the same time, Whittaker, apparently writing before the appearance of Cameron's paper and arguing against Westerink, questioned whether the text adduced provided evidence either for confiscations at the time when Olympiodorus was writing or for the continued availability of material resources.\r\n\r\nOlympiodorus' report certainly raises some serious problems. The first relates to the confiscations. Cameron has discussed a number of possible occasions between 529 and the date of the composition of Olympiodorus' commentary about 560. If Academy funds were being confiscated during that period, then clearly there must have been a conspicuous Academy to be subject to the confiscations. But, as Whittaker has pointed out, the reference of the present participle stating that there were confiscations could be to any time during the reference of the main verb, that is, to the whole period between Plato and the time of writing. One possible inference is that the funds had been subjected to confiscations even before 529 but still survived in the hands of the scholarchs after that date. Justinian's edict is quite likely not to have been new but, like much of his legislation, a re-enactment of former decrees\u2014some of which were in any case disregarded. Nevertheless, it is difficult to find a suitable earlier occasion, or occasions, to be the time of the confiscations in question.\r\n\r\nA second, and more basic, problem attaches to the funds themselves. There is no other evidence, except a report in the Suda article on Plato, and a parallel text in Photius, which attributes any of the late Academy's resources, or those of its office-holders, to inheritance from Plato. This Suda article, which is based on Damascius' Life of Isidore, tells us that only the Academy garden had been Plato's\u2014he was not well-off\u2014and that there were large accretions of funds in the fifth century. We know that most of the major buildings in Athens were destroyed by the Heruls in 267. Damascius, moreover, in the extract provided by Photius, made a point of denying what he says was a commonly held view that the resources of the Academy went back to Plato himself: \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b4\u1f72 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b4\u03cc\u03c7\u03c9\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1 \u03bf\u1f50\u03ba \u1f61\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f31 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u1f76 \u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03af\u03b6\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9 \u03a0\u03bb\u03ac\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f26\u03bd \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f00\u03bd\u03ad\u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03b5\u03bd. This summary too continues with the points that Plato was not rich, that only the garden was his, and that there were large additions through bequests later. From this text, we may infer that Olympiodorus' diadochika must have been school resources under the control of the school's head: Damascius is talking about sums of money, and the garden could hardly have been part of the scholarch's salary.\r\n\r\nIf, then, such funds as were available to the Academy in the 5th and 6th centuries were not the product of Plato's own endowments, Olympiodorus\u2014or his source\u2014has wrongly inferred from the Academy's current, or recent, wealth, and Plato's aristocratic background and refusal to take fees, that Plato himself was responsible for the endowments. Damascius' disclaimer shows that he was not the first to do so. And if Olympiodorus was wrong about that, then he might also, though less obviously, have been wrong in saying that the funds existed in his own day. His information could have been some thirty years out of date, a period for the survival of obsolete information by no means inconceivable even with modern methods of disseminating information. We need look no further than the reputations of university departments in our own times. If the close relation between Athenian and Alexandrian philosophers that had obtained in the fifth century were by now a thing of the past\u2014whether because of odium academicum, as manifested in the bitter attacks launched by Philoponus on the views of Proclus in a previous generation, and Simplicius in his own, the latter being furiously reciprocated\u2014or because nothing was any longer happening at Athens, or for some other reason, that would be sufficient to explain such an error.\r\n\r\nTo return to the question of a re-endowment in the 5th century. There are a number of indications that this happened. In the first place, negatively, there is little if any evidence that the Academy, or any but insignificant Platonists, were active at Athens in the preceding period. Positively, we have a report from Synesius that he went to Athens and found nothing going on at all:\r\n\r\n\"It is like a sacrificial victim at the end of the proceedings, with only the skin left as a token of the animal that once was. So philosophy has moved its home, and all that is left for a visitor is to wander around looking at the Academy, the Lyceum, and, yes, the Stoa Poikile...\" [introduction p. 369-372]","btype":3,"date":"1978","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/8waAtP8ixbo8cmC","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":876,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Byzantion","volume":"48","issue":"2","pages":"369\u2013385"}},"sort":[1978]}

{"_index":"sire","_id":"612","_score":null,"_source":{"id":612,"authors_free":[{"id":867,"entry_id":612,"agent_type":null,"is_normalised":null,"person_id":108,"institution_id":null,"role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"},"free_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","free_first_name":"Henry J.","free_last_name":"Blumenthal","norm_person":{"id":108,"first_name":"Henry J.","last_name":"Blumenthal","full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","short_ident":"","is_classical_name":null,"dnb_url":"http:\/\/d-nb.info\/gnd\/1051543967","viaf_url":"","db_url":"","from_claudius":null}}],"entry_title":"Neoplatonic Elements in the \"de Anima\" Commentaries","main_title":{"title":"Neoplatonic Elements in the \"de Anima\" Commentaries"},"abstract":"Most scholars who refer to the Greek commentators for help in the understanding of difficult Aristotelian texts seem to expect straightforward scholarly treatment of their problems. Not infrequently they are disappointed and complain about the irrelevance of the commentary they read, or inveigh against the incompetence of the commentators. Only Alexander is generally exempt from such censure, and that in itself is significant. For he is the only major commentator whose work survives in any considerable quantity who wrote before Neoplatonism.\r\n\r\nShortly after Alexander, the kind of thought that is conveniently described by this label came to dominate Greek philosophy, and nearly all pagan philosophy and philosophical scholarship was pursued under its influence, if not by its active adherents. It is the purpose of this paper to argue that these facts are not trivial items of background interest but are fundamental to a proper assessment of the later commentators' opinions on points of Aristotelian scholarship. It is necessary to take account of the ideas and purpose of these commentators if one is to make any serious critical use of their work, and this cannot be done if one merely dips into their voluminous works in the hope of occasional enlightenment.\r\n\r\nThat these men were swayed by their own opinions and preconceptions is perhaps obvious once stated. Even Simplicius, notwithstanding his reputation for careful scholarship, is no exception. Simplicius may have done us a great service by preserving fragments of the pre-Socratics, but he was nevertheless a man who entertained ideas which were not likely to lead to the correct interpretation of Aristotle, as Hicks for one saw\u2014Ross, it seems, did not. In fact, one might go so far as to say that Simplicius was less well-fitted than some of the other commentators to give a good account of his subject.\r\n\r\nThose whose immediate reaction to such a statement is that it is grossly unfair to so fine a scholar might be disturbed by some of the material in the preface to Simplicius' De Anima commentary\u2014as they would by that in Philoponus' as well\u2014material which often escapes notice for the simple reason that one normally refers to these works for help with specific passages and does not read them as a whole.\r\n\r\nThis is not to say that there are no obvious signs of what is going on in the body of the commentaries, for there certainly are. A case in point is Simplicius' claim in the De Caelo commentary (640.27\u201332) that Aristotle's criticisms of Plato are directed not against Plato himself but against those who failed to grasp Plato's real meaning.\r\n\r\nIn the preface to the commentary on the Categories, Simplicius goes further and says that in dealing with Aristotle's attacks on Plato, one should not consider only the philosophers' language and complain about their discord, but rather one should concentrate on their thought and seek out their accord on most matters (In Cat. 7.29\u201332). Here we have two expressions of the normal Neoplatonic view that Plato and Aristotle were usually trying to say the same thing.\r\n\r\nThis view can, of course, be traced back to the revival of positive teaching in the New Academy. This is not to say that no Neoplatonist was aware of the differences, and certain Aristotelian doctrines remained unacceptable. In the passage we have just mentioned, Simplicius talks about he en tois pleistois symphonia, and elsewhere he shows that he is alive to differences (e.g., In De Caelo 454.23 ff.), even if he does regard Aristotle as Plato's truest pupil (ib. 378.20 f.) or his best interpreter (In De An. 245.12).\r\n\r\nPhiloponus, moreover, actually protested against the view that Aristotle's attacks on Plato's ideas were not directed at Plato himself, a view that seems to have had some currency (cf. De Aet. M. II.2 29.2\u20138 R). None the less, ever since Plotinus, whose adoption of much Aristotelian thought would be clear enough without Porphyry's explicit statement on the point (Vita Plot. 14.4 ff.), the new Platonism had been more or less Aristotelianized: the controversies about whether or not Aristotelian views could be accepted by Platonists which had been current in the Middle Platonic period were no longer live.\r\n\r\nBy the time Simplicius and Philoponus composed their commentaries, Aristotle's philosophy had been used as the standard introduction to Plato for at least two centuries. The tendency among certain modern scholars to see Aristotle simply as a Platonist has a precedent in the activities of the Neoplatonists: in both cases, it depends on a somewhat special understanding of Plato. [introduction 64-66]","btype":3,"date":"1976","language":"English","online_url":"","online_resources":"https:\/\/uni-koeln.sciebo.de\/s\/3j2gfRYnCCVhtJC","doi_url":null,"categories":[],"authors":[{"id":108,"full_name":"Blumenthal, Henry J.","role":{"id":1,"role_name":"author"}}],"book":null,"booksection":null,"article":{"id":612,"journal_id":null,"journal_name":"Phronesis","volume":"21","issue":"1","pages":"64-87"}},"sort":[1976]}