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Damascius (; , 458 – after 538), known as "the last of the Neoplatonists," was the last scholarch of the School of Athens. He was one of the pagan philosophers persecuted by Justinian in the early 6th century, and was forced for a time to seek refuge in the Persian court, before being allowed back into the Empire. His surviving works consist of three commentaries on the works of Plato, and a metaphysical text entitled ''Difficulties and Solutions of First Principles''. ==Life== Damascius was born in Damascus in Syria, whence he derived his name: his Syrian name is unknown. In his early youth he went to Alexandria, where he spent twelve years partly as a pupil of Theon, a rhetorician, and partly as a professor of rhetoric. He was then convinced by his teacher Isidore to shift his focus to philosophy and science, and studied under Hermias and his sons, Ammonius and Heliodorus. Later on in life he migrated to Athens and continued his studies under Marinus, the mathematician, Zenodotus, and Isidore, the dialectician. He became a close friend of Isidore, succeeded him as head of the School of Athens in ca. 515, and wrote his biography, part of which is preserved in the ''Bibliotheca'' of Photius. In 529 Justinian I closed the school, and Damascius with six of his colleagues sought an asylum, probably in 532, at the court of Khosrau I of Persia. They found the conditions intolerable, and when the following year Justinian and Khosrau concluded a peace treaty, it was provided that the philosophers should be allowed to return.〔Agathias, ''Scholast.'' ii. 30〕 It is believed that Damascius returned to Alexandria and there devoted himself to the writing of his works.〔 Among the disciples of Damascius the most important are Simplicius, the celebrated commentator on Aristotle, Epictetus, and Eulamius. We have no further particulars of the life of Damascius; we only know that he did not found any new school, and thus Neoplatonist philosophy ended its external existence. But Neoplatonist ideas were preserved in the Christian church down to the later times of the Middle Ages, notably by means of the tremendous influence exerted by the Pseudo-Dionysian corpus. Mazzucchi (2006) identifies Damascius himself as the author of the Pseudo-Dionysian writings, the "last counter-offensive of the pagan" (''l'ultima controffensiva del paganesimo''). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Damascius」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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