We follow Damascius' tale from the final flowering of the Golden Chain at Athens in the 470's through a decline and fall of philosophic teaching at Alexandria, and chaos at Athens following the death of Proclus. Our book ends in disjointed fragments, which is weirdly appropriate.
We begin our read-through, exploring the philosophic and religious cultures at Athens and Alexandria from the days of Hypatia down to the height of Proclus' career. Come for the prosopography of many extraordinary religious and philosophical characters of late antiquity, stay for Isidore's theurgic bird-imitations.
In the first part of a Storytime read-through of Damascius' great, gossipy account of the late-Platonist life, we come to grips with the messy text as it survives, and discuss some main themes of this fascinating, fragmentary work.
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