THE LETTERS OF : POPULAR PHILOSOPHY IN A NEOPLATONIC MODE

John Dillon

I. Introduction

My purpose in the present essay is to introduce to you the fragments of the Letters of Iamblichus of Chalcis, preserved at various points in the vast Anthologia of John of Stobi. John is the only man to show any interest in these letters,1 but he plainly values them a good deal, having preserved substantial fragments of as many as twenty of them. These letters I originally collected many years ago, when I was taking an interest also in Iamblichus’ treatise On the Soul (also preserved exclusively by John),2 and have now at last published, in cooperation with Dr. Wolfgang Polleichtner of Bochum, with the Society for Biblical Literature, in their Texts and Translations series (2009).3 These letters seem to derive from the later stage of Iamblichus’ career, when, probably somewhere in the early 280’s, after a period of study with in Rome, he returned to his native Syria, to set up a philosophi- cal school of his own in Apamea. It is in that context that these letters may be viewed. In them, he is addressing his own pupils, and—perhaps more importantly—a cross-section of prominent members of Syrian and Anato- lian society, including some imperial administrators, on a series of - sophical topics, mostly of an ethical nature. I would regard these as some- thing like calling cards, especially when addressed to the latter category of

1 Apart from two passing, though rather signi cant, references, one in ’ Com- mentary on the Phaedo, p. 203, 26f. Norvin (our Testimonium 1), the other in Olympiodorus’ Commentary on the , 46. 9. 20–28 West. (our Testimonium 2). These demonstrate that a collection of the letters was available to the philosophers of the later Athenian Academy, as one would after all expect. 2 Subsequently published as Finamore–Dillon 2002. 3 Much of this essay has been incorporated into the Introduction to that volume. Of course, there has since appeared the very  ne, and much more copious, edition of Daniela Taormina and Rosa Maria Piccione (2010). A number of the more ‘political’ letters have also been published, with commentary, by D.J. O’Meara and J. Schamp (2006). 52 john dillon recipient, but they are nonetheless, I feel, not without some philosophical interest; and they certainly possess a modicum of sociological signi cance as well. They remind us, in fact, of the extent to which a late antique philosopher was a public  gure, despite the determined otherworldliness of their philosophical stance.4 The interesting fact remains, however, that from no other philosopher of the Neoplatonic period do we have such a collection of letters as this, and that, I think, is the signi cance of this collection.5

II. Protreptic Epistolography As a Genre

Protreptic epistolography as a philosophic genre goes back, so far as we can see, no further than , who communicated a signi cant part of his philosophy in this form. It does not seem to form any part of the Platonist tradition.6 For Iamblichus, however, we must recognise that the practice of writing philosophic letters went back to the oldest generations of Pythagoreans, and even to himself. We do indeed have tes- timonies, and even fragments, of letters7 from Pythagoras (to Anaximenes, and to King Hiero of Syracuse), as well as from his wife (to eight diferent correspondents, seven of them female), his daughter Myia (to her friend Phyllis), and his son Telauges (rather anachronistically, to Philo- laus).8 Apart from Pythagoras and his immediate family, we have evidence of letters from Lysis to Hipparchus, from to (and a reply to this, in the form of Plato’s Epistle XII), and from the lady Melissa to her friend Cleareta. The fact that all these documents appear to us palpably and

4 Cf. my paper: Dillon 2004. 5 I realise that we have from the hand of Porphyry two documents described as ‘letters’, the Letter to Marcella and the Letter to Anebo, but I would regard the former rather as a treatise in epistolary form, and the latter as a polemical ‘open letter’, which again would not qualify as a philosophical letter in the present sense. 6 Those letters of Plato that may possibly be genuine, notably Epistles VII and VIII, are really primarily apologiae for his actions (despite the ‘philosophical digression’ in VII), and so do not strictly count as philosophical epistles. The more ‘philosophical’ members of the collection, such as Epp. II and VI, are of much later provenance—though this was, of course, not obvious to ancient readers. In any case, all of the Platonic epistles are presented as ‘real’ letters, rather than epistolary philosophical essays. 7 Most conveniently collected by Theslef (1965). 8 As regards anachronisms, we may note that Theano, in her letter to her friend Rhodope (Theslef, p. 200), excuses herself for not sending a copy of “the book of Plato, which is entitled Ideas, or ”! It is not easy to penetrate the mental state of the author of such a document.