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Μελετηματα Contextualizing Late Greek Philosophy

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Μελετηματα Contextualizing Late Greek Philosophy '%- ΚΕΝΤΡΟΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΡΩΜΑΪΚΗΣ ΑΡΧΑΙΟΤΗΤΟΣ ΕΘΝΙΚΟΝ ΙΔΡΥΜΑ ΕΡΕΥΝΩΝ RESEARCH CENTRE FOR GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITY NATIONAL HELLENIC RESEARCH FOUNDATION ΜΕΛΕΤΗΜΑΤΑ 54 ELIZABETH KEY FOWDEN and GARTH FOWDEN CONTEXTUALIZING LATE GREEK PHILOSOPHY : " w. ψ^ ATHENS 2008 DIFFUSION DE BOCCARD - 11, RUE DE MEDICIS, 75006 PARIS 3 Η έκδοση αυτή χρηματοδοτήθηκε από το έργο με τίτλο - «Μελέτη και διά­ χυση τεκμηριωτικών δεδομένων της ιστορίας του Ελληνισμού κατά την Αρχαιότητα» του μέτρου 3.3 του Επιχειρησιακού Προγράμματος «Αντα­ γωνιστικότητα» - ΕΠΑΝ, πράξη «Αριστεία σε Ερευνητικά Ινστιτούτα» Γ.Γ.Ε.Τ. (2ος Κύκλος). Το Ευρωπαϊκό Ταμείο Περιφερειακής Ανάπτυξης συμμετέχει 75% στις δαπάνες υλοποίησης του ανωτέρω έργου. ISBN 978-960-7905-40-6 © Κέντρον Ελληνικής και Ρωμαϊκής Αρχαιότητος, Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών, 48 Βασ. Κωνσταντίνου, 116 35 Αθήνα. Επεξεργασία κειμένου, εικόνων, εκτύπωση και βιβλιοδεσία: Γραφικές Τέχνες «Γ. Αργυρόπουλος ΕΠΕ» Κ. Παλαμά 13 Καματερό Αθήνα Τηλ. 21023 12 317-Fax21023 13 742 "The school of Plato". Mosaic, Pompeii, 1st c. A.D., Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Italy. ELIZABETH KEY FOWDEN and GARTH FOWDEN CONTEXTUALIZING LATE GREEK PHILOSOPHY KENTPON ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗΣ KAI ΡΩΜΑΪΚΗΣ ΑΡΧΑΙΟΤΗΤΟΣ ΕΘΝΙΚΟΝ ΙΔΡΥΜΑ ΕΡΕΥΝΩΝ RESEARCH CENTRE FOR GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITY NATIONAL HELLENIC RESEARCH FOUNDATION ΜΕΛΕΤΗΜΑΤΑ 54 DIFFUSION DE BOCCARD -11, RUE DE MEDICIS, 75006 PARIS ELIZABETH KEY FOWDEN and GARTH FOWDEN CONTEXTUALIZING LATE GREEK PHILOSOPHY ATHENS 2008 Contents Abbreviations 9 Preface 11 Acknowledgments 15 PART I: ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN LATE ANTIQUE PLATONISM by ELIZABETH KEY FOWDEN Introduction 19 1. Learning to live in the world 27 Harmonizing the world 28 Learning by imitating 33 The philosopher priest 3 7 Pythagoras the model student 42 Pythagoras the model teacher 51 The community 55 2. Learning to become like God 63 Educational exercises 64 Music and movement 65 The observation of nature 71 Divine ritual 72 Godlikeness 75 Conclusion 82 PART II: PLOTINUS'S LIFE AND TEACHING by GARTH FOWDEN 3. The life 89 4. The Great Treatise 1 101 5. The Great Treatise 2 115 PART III: PLOTINUS'S POSTERITY by GARTH FOWDEN 6. Plotinus among the Christians 131 7. Three Greek sheikhs from Baghdad: Plotinus, Proclus and Aristotle 145 Bibliography of primary sources 163 Index 165 Abbreviations ANRW H. Temporini and W. Haase (eds), Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt (Berlin 1972-) DL Diogenes Laertius, Vitae philosophorum DM Iamblichus, De mysteriis In Ale Proclus, In Piatonis Alcibiadem LSJ H.G. Liddell, R. Scott, H.S. Jones (eds), A Greek-English lexicon (Oxford 19409), with a revised supplement, 1996) SHA Scriptores Historiae Augustae VA Philostratus, Vita Apollonii VIsid Damascius, Vita Isidori VProc Marinus of Neapolis, Proclus sive de felicitate VP Iamblichus, De vita Pythagorica VPh Eunapius, Vitae philosophorum et sophistarum VPyth Porphyry, Vita Pythagorae In the Bibliography of Primary Sources, references to Greek and Latin works appear in their standard Latinized forms, whereas Arabic titles are given in English for greater accessibility. Preface Thanks above all to the efforts of Pierre Hadot,1 we have in recent decades come to understand more clearly than before that ancient philosophical writing, and the oral teaching which lay behind it, was not usually intended as the construction of a theoretical system. Rather it was meant as an incitement to concrete 'spiritual exercises', aimed at helping the philosopher to purify the self - in other words, that in us which we are in a position to change by our own efforts - while letting go of longings and appetites whose fulfillment lies outside our own powers. Ancient philosophy was not primarily a doctrinal edifice, but a way of life. Parallel to this, some limited progress has also been made in the study of philosophy's social environment and of its own social articulation, particularly at the end of Greco-Roman antiquity and in the circles of the so- called 'Neoplatonists'. In the same year in which Hadot published his influential discussion of 'Exercices spirituels', one of the contributors to the present volume published his first article, entitled 'The Platonist philosopher and his circle in late antiquity', Philosophia 1 (1977) 359-83. This was part of a doctoral thesis submitted at Oxford in 1979 under the title 'Pagan philosophers in late antique society, with special reference to Iamblichus and his followers', but never published in its entirety;2 nor has any other work covered the same ground in the meantime. Hadot, an historian of ideas, drew attention to the fundamentally personal character of late Greek philosophy; but it was never his intention to work out in practical socio-historical terms the mechanisms by which that understanding of philosophy was translated into day-to-day experience, through for example the unique relations that 1. P. Hadot, 'Exercices spirituels', Annuaire de la Ve Section de l'École pratique des hautes études 84 (1977) 25-70; reprinted in id., Exercices spirituels et philosophie antique (revised and expanded edition, Paris 2002) 19-74. 2. See though G. Fowden, 'The pagan holy man in late antique society', Journal of Hellenic studies 102 (1982) 33-59. PREFACE obtained between the philosophical master and his disciples. As for the social historians, Edward Watts has recently made an important contribution in his City and school in late antique Athens and Alexandria (Berkeley 2006); but generally speaking interest in the biographical texts has rarely been accompanied by serious commitment to reading the philosophical treatises and commentaries. The present volume is intended to show that the ideal of an at once socio- historical and authentically philosophical approach to the spiritual life of the late Greek elites is still alive, and that a presentation of late antique philosophical life that does justice as much to the ideas themselves as to the circumstances in which they were studied and lived is a realizable aim. What follows is, then, work in progress, all destined to be presented more fully elsewhere. Part I (E.K.F.) takes its cue from the late Lives of Pythagoras by Porphyry and Iamblichus, which tell us a lot about Pythagoras's educational activities, above all in Magna Graecia. These two chapters pose the question, how one acquired the first seeds of philosophy in the course of one's general education. What was the earliest context for the idea of philosophy as a way of life? And how was this encouraged through the formulation of ideal systems of education such as that attributed to Pythagoras, aimed at making those who went through it 'as like God as possible', but at the same time mindful of the need to construct a viable human society? Part II (G.F.) focuses on the greatest of the later Greek philosophers, Plotinus. After an account of his life in chapter 3, it attempts a historically contextualized approach to his doctrine (chapters 4-5) by concentrating on four chronologically consecutive treatises, probably originally a single exposition delivered during the mature years of his teaching career at Rome. Part III (G.F.) is then dedicated to 'Plotinus's posterity', and in particular Christian and Muslim reception of his teaching. Although patristic readings are occasionally dealt with in introductions to Plotinus's thought,3 the ninth- century Arabic translation - under the name of Aristotle - is usually left to specialists in Arabic philosophy. Our rejection of this division of labour is linked to a much wider historiographical project, namely the incorporation of both late Greco-Roman antiquity and the world of early Islam in a broader periodization, the first millennium, based primarily on the history of 3. E.g. J. Rist, 'Plotinus and Christian philosophy', in L.P. Gerson (ed.), The Cambridge companion to Plotinus (Cambridge 1996) 386-413. PREFACE 13 ideas rather than political, social or economic considerations.4 It is, after all, primarily through the religions and philosophies it inculcated that this period still acts on our contemporary world. Annotation has for the most part been confined to identification of primary sources, except in the last chapter on account of the unfamiliarity of the materials there discussed to the classical audience at which the present series is aimed. 4. G. Fowden, 'Late antiquity: Period or idea?', in J. Arnason and K. Raaflaub (eds), Comparative perspectives on the Roman Empire (Oxford, forthcoming). Cf also id., Qusayr 'Amra: Art and the Umayyad elite in late antique Syria (Berkeley 2004). Acknowledgments Earlier versions of chapters 3 to 6 were delivered and discussed at the Central European University Summer University, Budapest, in July 2004; and of chapter 7 at the conference on 'Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire (lst-4th cent. AD)', University of Exeter, July 2006. PARTI ELEMENTARY EDUCATION IN LATE ANTIQUE PLATONISM by ELIZABETH KEY FOWDEN INTRODUCTION And it is likely that, whether a child or a man is playing or being serious, one plays and the other is serious for the sake of contemplation, and every action is a serious effort towards contemplation. Plotinus, Enneads 3.8.1.13-15.l It is customary when studying ancient education to assume that philosophical education may commence once the student has reached some level of maturity - it was, after all, a road chosen by a small elite. What I am interested to trace, instead, is that train of thought which understood philosophical education more generously, not only as a discipline of reading and interpreting set philosophical texts as the student progresses up a scale of virtues, but as a discipline of the whole person, body, mind and soul, that began from the very beginning of an individual's life. The philosopher who in late antiquity was widely thought to embody best this all-embracing mode of learning was Pythagoras. His teachings offered a way of life that confirmed the inter-relatedness of all stages of learning, from painting to philosophical discourse, from walking in a grove to solving arithmetical problems.
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