Type of Media 1
Author 1
Date 7
Type of Media
Author
Where was Simplicius?, 1992
By: Foulkes, Paul
Title Where was Simplicius?
Type Article
Language English
Date 1992
Journal The Journal of Hellenic Studies
Volume 112
Pages 143
Categories no categories
Author(s) Foulkes, Paul
Editor(s)
Translator(s)
In Simplicius: sa vie, son oeuvre, sa survie (Berlin 1987, reviewed in JHS cx [1990] 244–45), the editor, Mme I. Hadot, in the first part of the biographical introduction, cites Agathias Hist. ii 31.4. This is usually taken to show that the Neoplatonists, who had fled to the Persian court when Justinian closed down the Academy in 529, went back to Athens after 532. That view, she holds, rests on a misreading of the text. However, she herself misconstrues kath’ heautous as "selon leur choix": that is, on returning from exile to their own accustomed places, these men should henceforth live without fear as they might choose. To yield that version, the Greek would have to be kath’ autous. The actual expression means "amongst themselves": they might philosophize, but not in public. That a touch of private heterodoxy amongst the learned few is harmless if it does not stir up the ignorant many was well understood, indeed explicitly so later, in Islam and medieval Christianity. Where, then, did the returned exiles settle? We do not know. That the Persian king sought to ensure protection for them in their previous habitat neither shows nor refutes that they went back there or to any other nameable place. Mme Hadot certainly cannot well enlist M. Tardieu’s inference, in the second part of the introduction, from Simplicius on the four calendars (Comm. in Arist. Graeca x 875.19–22). Simplicius there states that "we posit the beginning of the year" (hêmeis de hêmeras poioumetha archês eniautou) to fall at four times, namely the summer solstice, as at Athens; the autumnal equinox, as in the then province of Asia; the winter solstice, as with the Romans; or the vernal equinox, as with the Arabs and Damascenes. In context, Simplicius here contrasts beginnings that are natural (physei) and imposed (thesei). Adding the sentence before and after the one on the four types of year, the passage runs thus: "As regards time, flow, or becoming, the natural beginning comes first. We ourselves put the beginning of the year at (1) or (2) or (3) or (4). Likewise, those who say that a month begins at full moon or new moon will be imposing this." The passage figures in his comments on Arist. Ph. 226b34–227a10, on consecutiveness. Simplicius never says that all four types of year were in use at one place, nor does his text imply it. Of the two solstitial years, Academics would use the summer one from tradition, while the winter one is Roman imperial. The equinoctial years were used in the areas stated. If the equinoctial and Roman calendars existed together in some place where the Neoplatonists did settle, then in that place there must have been four calendars. Clearly, though, the reverse inference is invalid: that the four calendars co-existed does not prove the presence of Neoplatonists. The Athenian calendar may have existed there for other reasons: its being there is necessary, but not sufficient, for the Neoplatonists’ presence. As to Harran (Carrhae), which Tardieu argues is where Simplicius settled, Arab sources confirm that the equinoctial calendars and the Roman one did exist there. We have no independent evidence that the Athenian one did. We have only Simplicius’ statement, if he was at Harran. That, however, is precisely what must be established. To cite the four-calendar passage as proof that he was, begs the question and ignores the context. Where Simplicius wrote his commentaries thus remains unclear, for lack of evidence. [the entire text]

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Where was Simplicius?, 1992
By: Foulkes, Paul
Title Where was Simplicius?
Type Article
Language English
Date 1992
Journal The Journal of Hellenic Studies
Volume 112
Pages 143
Categories no categories
Author(s) Foulkes, Paul
Editor(s)
Translator(s) 
In Simplicius: sa vie, son oeuvre, sa survie (Berlin 1987, reviewed in JHS cx [1990] 244–45), the editor, Mme I. Hadot, in the first part of the biographical introduction, cites Agathias Hist. ii 31.4. This is usually taken to show that the Neoplatonists, who had fled to the Persian court when Justinian closed down the Academy in 529, went back to Athens after 532. That view, she holds, rests on a misreading of the text. However, she herself misconstrues kath’ heautous as "selon leur choix": that is, on returning from exile to their own accustomed places, these men should henceforth live without fear as they might choose. To yield that version, the Greek would have to be kath’ autous. The actual expression means "amongst themselves": they might philosophize, but not in public.

That a touch of private heterodoxy amongst the learned few is harmless if it does not stir up the ignorant many was well understood, indeed explicitly so later, in Islam and medieval Christianity.

Where, then, did the returned exiles settle? We do not know. That the Persian king sought to ensure protection for them in their previous habitat neither shows nor refutes that they went back there or to any other nameable place.

Mme Hadot certainly cannot well enlist M. Tardieu’s inference, in the second part of the introduction, from Simplicius on the four calendars (Comm. in Arist. Graeca x 875.19–22). Simplicius there states that "we  posit the beginning of the year" (hêmeis de hêmeras poioumetha archês eniautou) to fall at four times, namely the summer solstice, as at Athens; the autumnal equinox, as in the then province of Asia; the winter solstice, as with the Romans; or the vernal equinox, as with the Arabs and Damascenes.

In context, Simplicius here contrasts beginnings that are natural (physei) and imposed (thesei). Adding the sentence before and after the one on the four types of year, the passage runs thus: "As regards time, flow, or becoming, the natural beginning comes first. We ourselves put the beginning of the year at (1) or (2) or (3) or (4). Likewise, those who say that a month begins at full moon or new moon will be imposing this." The passage figures in his comments on Arist. Ph. 226b34–227a10, on consecutiveness.

Simplicius never says that all four types of year were in use at one place, nor does his text imply it. Of the two solstitial years, Academics would use the summer one from tradition, while the winter one is Roman imperial. The equinoctial years were used in the areas stated.

If the equinoctial and Roman calendars existed together in some place where the Neoplatonists did settle, then in that place there must have been four calendars. Clearly, though, the reverse inference is invalid: that the four calendars co-existed does not prove the presence of Neoplatonists. The Athenian calendar may have existed there for other reasons: its being there is necessary, but not sufficient, for the Neoplatonists’ presence.

As to Harran (Carrhae), which Tardieu argues is where Simplicius settled, Arab sources confirm that the equinoctial calendars and the Roman one did exist there. We have no independent evidence that the Athenian one did. We have only Simplicius’ statement, if he was at Harran. That, however, is precisely what must be established. To cite the four-calendar passage as proof that he was, begs the question and ignores the context.

Where Simplicius wrote his commentaries thus remains unclear, for lack of evidence. [the entire text]

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