## 1. Life




There are exactly three more or less solid facts on the basis of which
one can reconstruct the general parameters of Olympiodorus' life.
First, he held the chair of philosophy in Alexandria (the majority of
manuscripts of his work refer to him as "the philosopher of
Alexandria"). Second, he saw himself as intellectual heir to
Ammonius (see *in Meteor.* 153,7; 175,14; 188,36; 238,19;
255,23; 256,27; Olympiodorus refers to Ammonius frequently as
"the great philosopher", in one case as "our
philosopher", *in Gorg*. SS40.5; cf. SS39.2, and
he may have been Ammonius' pupil). Third, some of his lectures were
delivered not long after 565 (cf. *in Meteor*. 52,31; the way
Olympiodorus reminds his students about a comet that had appeared in
March/April 565 suggests that the event occurred a couple of years
earlier). It is generally assumed that Ammonius passed away (or at
least stopped teaching) sometime in the period between 517 and 526. If
these dates are correct, we can infer that Olympiodorus was a young
man when he came to be one of the last pupils of Ammonius and that he
led an active intellectual life into his late sixties, or early
seventies of that century. Accordingly, the dates of Olympiodorus'
life should be approximately 500-570, encompassing the entire
reign of emperor Justinian the Great (527-565). Since John
Philoponus was teaching philosophy actively until the mid-30s (without
ever holding the chair of philosophy), it seems likely that
Olympiodorus began his teaching career around that time to become the
official successor to Ammonius.




The best way to understand the circumstances of his life is to get a
sense of the final period of pagan philosophy in the age of Justinian
(for a more detailed account, see Wildberg 2005, with further
references). For our purposes, the most important factor is that in
the age of Justinian, philosophy, as a discipline taught in schools of
higher education, had acquired a highly ambiguous status. On the one
hand, almost anyone in the empire was perfectly aware of the fact that
Justinian had, right from the beginning of his reign, taken severe
measures to eradicate philosophy as a way of pagan life and learning,
both private and public. The closing of the Athenian School around 529
(with an apparent expropriation of its assets) is only the most
notorious example. On the other hand, members of the elite were
evidently also acutely aware that it was impossible to sustain the
culture of the empire, both secular and clerical, without a classical
education, part of which was and always had been, philosophy. A
training in philosophy was all the more necessary since only a firm
grounding in logic and ontology could prepare one in a meaningful way
for participation in the subtle theological debates that dominated the
best minds at the time, notably the intractable problem of the nature
of Christ: Does Christ have two natures, one human, one divine, or one
compound nature? How can one possibly understand the side-by-side of
divinity and humanity in a single substance? One could not hope to
become an expert in theology (then regarded as the highest form of
philosophy) without having exposed oneself in a serious way to the
works of Aristotle and Plato. And so, under the emperor who did
perhaps more than anyone to cripple philosophy, philosophy flourished
-- in Alexandria especially, but also elsewhere -- in a
manner unparalleled in late antiquity.




This is the world to which Olympiodorus belonged, a highly trained
pagan philosopher rendering his services to an (at least officially)
entirely Christian audience. Undoubtedly, the religious
presuppositions of his students, their needs, interests, and
expectations, determined to a large extent the parameters and content
of his classes, and, as we shall see, foregrounded the need for a
considerable amount of pedagogy on the part of the lecturer. It is
clear that even if he had wanted to, Olympiodorus could not have
expounded the views of Plato and Aristotle with the same zeal and
conviction as, for example, Simplicius, who had no audience to lecture
to (once Justinian had closed the school in Athens). To be sure,
philosophy was alive and well in the imperial institutions, but the
latter were confined on all sides by the walls of orthodoxy and
heresy. This is what has to be kept in mind before one joins the
chorus of detractors who bewail the philosophical paucity of
Olympiodorus' commentaries. (For a list of his works, see below,
sect. 6.)


## 2. Commentaries on Plato




Olympiodorus begins his commentary on Plato's *Alcibiades* with
a grand gesture: "Aristotle began his own Theology with the
words: 'All men by nature desire to know, and evidence for this
is our love of perception'. But as I begin to speak about
Plato's philosophy, I would say this, which is better, that all men
have a desire for Plato's philosophy, because all men want to draw
something useful from it; they hurry to be spell-bound by its fountain
and stand still only when they are full of Platonic enthusiasm."
Olympiodorus is working hard to galvanize his audience with his own
passion for Plato; but it is characteristic of his entire work that he
holds out for them, in the first place, that something useful is to be
gained from the study of Plato.




Useful in what sense? As if piecing together a Byzantine mosaic,
Olympiodorus hands his students the shards and tesserae that could
amount, in the appropriate number and arrangement, to classical
*paideia*. His commentaries on Plato abound with references to
Homer, Demosthenes, the 2nd-century C.E. orator Aelius
Aristides, Plutarch, Epictetus and Aristotle as well as works of Plato
other than the one being commented on, notably the *Republic*,
even if his students had not read it yet. One gets the impression that
Olympiodorus gently but firmly directs his pupils' attention to an
intellectual world waiting for them to discover it -- if they
want to. We are entering a period in late antiquity in which Plato and
Aristotle cease to be gateways to the 'truth' and turn
into some kind of cultural heritage that was worth keeping alive for
other reasons. Olympiodorus has rightly been called "the first
classicist" (Tarrant 1997).




This effort to stem the tide of cultural pauperization was carefully
packaged and structured, without depriving the lecturer of the
necessary amount of flexibility: each class (*praxis*) was
divided into three sections. The reading of the original Platonic (or
Aristotelian) text was followed by an 'overview' over the
passage (*theoria*), which in turn segued into a closer
reading (*lexis*). The overview allowed the professor to make
all kinds of general remarks on the significance and meaning of the
passage under discussion; the close reading presented more detailed
and often simply philological, linguistic, logical, or rhetorical
observations not unlike those found in our modern annotated editions.
The procedure of dividing one's comments into these two different
sections seems to be a formalized development of Proclus' work (see
Beutler 1949, 226).




Falsehood or truth in philosophical matters (somewhat abstractly
enshrined for Olympiodorus in 'common notions' [*koinai
ennoiai*]) is not something he much talks about. The reason may
not have been that he harbored no such convictions, but that they
would have been inappropriate or unwanted in the classroom. Very
often, what has proved most interesting to modern scholars for
historical reasons are remarks made entirely in passing, for example
the puzzling statement that some of the endowment of the Academy in
Athens was still intact in his time (*in Alc.* SS141.1f.);
that the Alexandrian rhetor Anatolius adapted a line of Homer to great
effect in the year 546 (*in Alc.* SS2.79-82); or that
suicide is forbidden because, according to the Orphic tradition,
"human bodies belong to Dionysus" (*in Phaed.*
SS1.3).




Occasionally, we encounter an anecdote about Ammonius, whom
Olympiodorus clearly revered and whom he invokes frequently to inflate
his own authority. One such anecdote is suggestive of a tension
between imperial rule and the political views of the
philosophers. Near the end of the *Gorgias* commentary
(SS42), Olympiodorus endorses the view that aristocracy is the
best form of government and far superior to democracy, and he
justifies this by claiming that the city, just like the human being,
is a microcosm that should resemble the macrocosm
'universe'. But this argument seems to favor monarchy; for
just as the universe is ruled by one, i.e., God, there "should
not be a number of ordinary people who rule, but one prudent and true
statesman." Olympiodorus continues: "Now, if somebody says
'But this is monarchy, not aristocracy, and that is not the same
thing', reply as the philosopher Ammonius replied: 'Give
him the knuckles and praise him. For it is the same, ... even if
there are many exceedingly good people, they form a living unit, for
they have everything in common.'" (SS42.2)




One question to ask is how the opposed positions of teacher and
student, paganism and Christianity, ancient and 'modern'
played out in Olympiodorus' classroom? Here are some illustrative
examples. The Delphic oracle still seemed to enjoy an awe-inspiring
reputation, but the names of Greek gods in Plato's text, especially
Zeus, are often omitted and/or replaced by the word 'God'.
Olympiodorus has trouble showing his students ways in which to make
sense of pagan divinities in their effort to adapt pagan philosophy to
the Christian context: "Do not be disturbed by names when you
hear talk of a 'Power of Cronus' or a 'Power of
Zeus' or suchlike, but concentrate on the objects themselves,
for we signify something different when we use these names. If you
wish, think that these powers do not have individual essences and are
not distinct from one another, but place them within the first cause
and say that there are within it both intellectual and vital
powers" (*in Gorg.* SS47.2).




At times the underlying tensions rise to the surface, but Olympiodorus
was expertly evasive of trouble from the audience. In his
44th lecture on the *Gorgias*, for instance, he
reassures his students that pagan myths ought not to be taken
literally; one ought to understand that names such as Zeus and Hera
and Hades were merely part of the language in which 'they'
(i.e., the ancient Greeks) talked. Puzzled by the vertiginous and
conflicting possibilities of allegorical
interpretations of myth, once they are not taken literally, one
obstinate student must have intervened, for Olympiodorus makes the
following evasive remark (SS44.7): "If someone says
'Then neither ought we put trust in philosophers, since they are
in disagreement, some saying the soul is water, others that it is air,
some that it is mortal, others that it is immortal', we reply
that in this case we put our trust in those who stay closer to the
common notions. But [in myths] there are no common notions to guide
our education. Hence we should first explicate the myths -- for
indeed Plato explicates them. So he said earlier ...".




Even if some students were repelled by the general world-view of
paganism, it is clear that many of them were fascinated by its more
sinister aspects. At one point in the *Gorgias* (513a),
Socrates mentions in passing certain Thessalian witches who pull down
the moon and cause an eclipse. In Lecture 39 on the *Gorgias*,
Olympiodorus explains the story behind these witches in a few broad
strokes, apparently to his own satisfaction. But witchcraft was just
the thing students wanted to hear a bit more about from the pagan
philosopher, so Lecture 40 begins like this: "Since last time I
referred to the Thessalian women, it is worth explaining the practice,
why people think wizards draw down the moon [at an eclipse], and why
ordinary people beat on bronze. Note that an eclipse is nothing other
than the privation of light. During this privation in particular,
while it is dark, certain infernal demons wander around, since the
world is without light. Then unholy and God-hating wizards cast spells
to attract these demons. Hence the multitude believes that they draw
down the moon. And since at such time demons are among us, people beat
on bronze, thereby casting off and driving the demonic interference
away. *I have dealt with these things because you are not without
ideas about these customs.* Now let me come to the present
topic." Philosophically, all this is of no interest at all, but
looking at it from a cultural point of view one gets a fascinating
whiff of the bewildering concerns of students reading Plato in the
sixth century.




Being a pagan philosopher on the municipal payroll of the City of
Alexandria--or worse, being dependent on voluntary student
fees--must have been no enviable position. One can imagine that
the act of playing the token philosopher in Alexandria and lecturing
for decades on important matters which no-one in the audience any more
*really* cared about took its toll. The *Greek
Anthology* attributes to Olympiodorus an at the same time artful
and depressing epigram (Anth. Gr., Appendix 177):



> 
>  Had the writing of Plato not checked my impulse,  
> 
>  I would have loosened by now the grievous, baneful bond of
> life.
>  


## 3. Commentaries on Aristotle




The *Prolegomena* to Aristotle's logic, or in a sense to his
whole philosophical work, begins again with a carefully worded
statement that is reminiscent of the first words of the
*Alcibiades* commentary: "Since we want to enjoy the
fountain of good things, there is an eagerness in us to cling to
Aristotle's philosophy, which provides life with the principle of good
things, and not the least because it leads the bright mind towards
precision as to what is being sought."
(*Proleg*. 1,3-6). The *Prolegomena* consists of
five lectures in which he gives his students a brief overview of the
various schools of Greek philosophy and the division of the works of
Aristotle; he explains, among other things, the aim of Aristotle's
philosophy (recognition of the Good -- apparently the prime mover
of the *Metaphysics* -- as the principle of everything,
9,14-30) and the moral an intellectual requirements of a student
and of a teacher of philosophy (10,3-33). The various
philosophical thinkers and schools are being introduced without
evaluations of their philosophical merits, and there is no talk about
the harmony of the philosophers in general, or between Plato and
Aristotle. 




Olympiodorus adopts the view of Iamblichus that the subject-matter
(*skopos*) of the *Categories* is *speech*
signifying *things* by the mediation of *thoughts*
(*Proleg.* 21,101-3; *in Cat.* 28,25ff), which
conforms with the basic interpretation of the *Categories* in
the school of Alexandria. Formally, too, the commentary resembles more
than his other commentaries on Aristotle do the standard format
familiar from other Neoplatonic commentators on Aristotle. Unlike the
commentary on the *Meteorology,* which displays the typically
Olympiodorean structure of being divided into *praxeis* which
are then subdivided into longer expositions of the meaning of the
passage under discussion (*theoriai*) and more detailed
analyses of the text (*lexeis*), the commentary on the
*Categories* is simply divided into *theoriai*
(which don't seem to be further subdivided).




The *Meteorology* commentary begins without any significant
introduction directly with Aristotle's text. It is impossible to tell
whether his students, at that point, had worked their way through the
(in the order of the curriculum) prior physical treatises, notably the
*Physics*, *de Caelo*, and *de Generatione et
Corruptione.* In any case, Olympiodorus makes no reference to
lectures he had previously delivered on these texts; all he does is
place the present work into the context of the other physical
treatises. So he says, for example, that Aristotle wrote three
treatises about the elementary bodies, the *de Caelo,* which
concerns itself with them insofar as they are eternal, the *de
Generatione,* which concerns their coming to be, and the
*Meteorology,* which treats them as things that are
"subject to influences" (*pathainomena*), a very
unusual term the precise meaning of which Olympiodorus nowhere
defines. The term occurs in Proclus, but in different contexts.




This commentary (written after 565) is of particular interest, since
it is the only complete commentary on the *Meteorology* extant
from antiquity. There is another commentary, written by the Christian
John Philoponus some 30 years earlier, but it is incomplete (comments
break off in the 12th chapter of Book I). This was, in
fact, Philoponus' last commentary, written after the highly
controversial *contra Aristotelem* and probably just at the
time when he stopped teaching philosophy. Olympiodorus must have been
familiar with the gist, if not the details, of Philoponus' searing
criticism of Aristotle, yet he appears to be entirely unfazed by
it. He announces early on the Aristotelian orthodoxy that there are
five elements, not merely four, and that the celestial element
(*aither*) is creative (*poietikos*), the
other elements material (*hulikos)* (*in Meteor.*
2,15f). Strikingly, he happily reproduces Aristotle's argument for the
existence of a fifth element from the *de Caelo* (the
circularity of the celestial motion can only be explained on the
assumption of a special celestial element, cf. *in Meteor.*
16,25-17,9). He polemicizes against the view that the heavens
consist of fire (*in Meteor.* 17,1-18,30), and in no way
qualifies, hides, or denies the fact (scandalous to Christians) that
Aristotle thought the universe, and time, to be eternal (*in
Meteor*. 8,8f;123,24f).




Olympiodorus' main influences in this commentary stem from Alexander
of Aphrodisias, whom he cites frequently, and the views of Ammonius,
which he was intimately familiar with. But Olympiodorus never refers
to Philoponus. There are occasional references to certain unnamed
people who proffered views Olympiodorus disagrees with (see e.g.,
4,16; 7,22; 23,5.11.18.20), but it is difficult to trace these views
back to Philoponus. The latter seems to have been of no concern to
him. Shockingly, perhaps, Olympiodorus simply ignores relevant and
important intellectual work that was carried out in his own lifetime,
in the same 'university', and even the same
'department' by a man he must have known personally. To
Olympiodorus and his disciples, as with Simplicius in Athens, John
Philoponus was evidently *persona non grata*.


## 4. Olympiodorus the Alchemist




Discussion of the commentary on Aristotle's *Meteorology* (with
the co-called "chemical treatise" as its fourth book)
prompts the question of the identity of the Neoplatonist Olympiodorus
with another figure carrying precisely the same name who appears in
the alchemist tradition. Four extant manuscripts of an alchemical work
that purports to be a commentary on Zosimus' *Kat'
energeian* (*On Activity*) state that the piece was written
by "Olympiodorus, the Alexandrian philosopher" (see
SS6 below). The alchemical treatise starts out as a commentary on
Zosimus (of Panopolis, not the 5th c. C.E. historian),
explaining a small passage in some detail, but then continues in the
vein of a didactic letter written to an unnamed fellow alchemist
(called 'friend of the Muses' at one point); it
'explains' how to join scattered parts of gold and purify
metals, emphasizes the significance of 'divine water'
(whatever that is) and so on and so forth. The author knows a smidgen
about the Presocratics (whom he regards as alchemists), but next to
nothing about Plato and Aristotle; instead, he can quote at length
from Zosimus, Hermes, Petasius, Pelagius, and a "divine
Mary" -- not the mother of Jesus but a Jewish sage
elsewhere attested in the alchemist tradition.




A closer survey of the text quickly reveals that scholars like H.D.
Saffrey 2005 are right to suppose that the alchemical treatise cannot
have been produced by the Neoplatonist philosopher. For one thing,
unlike the philosopher, the alchemist seems to be a Christian,
attributing a saying by Paul ("The letter kills, but the spirit
gives life." 2 Cor. 3.6) to "the Lord" (94,
13-15). In addition, contents, style, diction, as well as the
whole rhetorical ambience created by the two authors are strikingly
different. C. Viano 2006, who once defended the identity of the two
figures and who still detects some similarities in language between
the alchemical treatise and the commentary on Book IV of Aristotle's
*Meteorology*, now proposes that the author of the alchemical
treatise may have used Olympiodorus' *Meteorology* commentary,
or another, more alchemical (rather than philosophical) work; the
alchemist's manuscripts would then be testimony to the influence of
Olympiodorus.




In any case, we can be quite sure that the Neoplatonist Olympiodorus
did not write *this* piece of alchemy. Nevertheless, it seems
to be clearly *he* whom the manuscripts refer to as the work's
author. Since pseudepigraphy is one of the defining characteristics of
the genre of alchemist literature, it seems safe to assume that the
commentary on Zosimus is a false attribution. There never was another
Alexandrian named Olympiodorus whose expertise was alchemy rather than
Platonic philosophy.


## 5. Influence




The teaching of philosophy did not cease with the death of
Olympiodorus. He evidently had intelligent pupils who devoted
themselves to philosophy in a professional way. Whether they were
pagans or Christians is not entirely clear, but their commentaries
were passed around under such names as David and Elias. We can tell
that they were influenced by Olympiodorus, not only because they refer
to him, but also because they adopt his pedagogical method of dividing
their lectures into *theoriai* and *lexeis*. The
same goes for Stephanus of Alexandria, who taught philosophy in
Constantinople at the beginning of the 7th century.




Olympiodorus' wider influence is somewhat less tangible than that of
the other great Alexandrians. The Syrians and the Arabs certainly knew
and read him, but not extensively. Neither did the Latin west. The
commentary on the *Categories* has come down to us in only one
manuscript (*Codex Mutinensi* 69), and there are only a handful
of manuscripts of the *Meteorology* commentary. Manuscripts of
his commentaries on Plato are equally rare, with the exception of
those containing the *Phaedo* commentary. Yet, to medieval
alchemists Olympiodorus' illustrious name sounded arcane enough to
deserve induction into the fictitious canon of ancient alchemists.


## 6. List of extant works


1. Prolegomena to Aristotle's Logic and Commentary on Aristotle's
*Categories*: A. Busse, ed. (1902) *Olympiodori Prolegomena
et in Categorias Commentarium.* Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca
XII 1. Berlin: Reimer.
2. Commentary on Aristotle's *Meteorology*: W. Stuve,
ed. (1900) *Olympiodori in Aristotelis Meteora Commentaria.*
Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca XII 2. Berlin: Reimer.
3. Commentary on Plato's *Alcibiades I*: L. G. Westerink, ed.
(1956) *Olympiodorus.* *Commentary on the first Alcibiades
of Plato.* Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company.
4. Commentary on Plato's *Gorgias*: W. Norvin, ed. (1936)
*Olympiodori Philosophi in Platonis Gorgiam Commentaria.*
Leipzig: Teubner;  L.G. Westerink, ed. (1970)
*Olympiodorus. In Platonis Gorgiam Commentaria*. Leipzig:
Teubner. See also Jackson/Lycos/Tarrant 1998.
5. Commentary on Plato's *Phaedo*: W. Norvin, ed. (1913)
*Olympiodori Philosophi in Platonis Phaedonem Commentaria.*
Leipzig: Teubner; L.G. Westerink, ed. (1976) *The Greek
Commentators on Plato's* Phaedo*, vol. I: Olympiodorus.*
Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company.
6. Life of Plato (= Introduction to the lectures on Plato's
*Alcibiades*): A. Westermann, ed. (1862) *Olympiodori Vita
Platonis.* In: Westermann, *Olympiodori, Ammonii, Iamblichi,
Porphyrii et aliorum Vitae Platonis, Aristotelis, Pythagorae, Platoni
et Isidori.* Paris: Didot, pp. 1-4. See also the
*Alcibiades* commentary, No. 3 above, pp. 1-9.




Apart from these works, we possess scholia from Olympiodorus'
commentary on Aristotle's *de Interpretatione* in the *Codex
Vaticanus Urbinas Graecus* 35. The mutilated anonymous commentary
on the *de Interpretatione* extant in *Codex Parisinus
Graecus* 2064 and edited by L. Taran 1978 has been wrongly
ascribed to Olympiodorus. The same holds for the commentary on Plato's
*Philebus* which, although attributed to Olympiodorus, has been
shown by L. G. Westerink 1959 to be the work of Damascius.




Olympiodorus must have written a great deal more over his long
career. He himself refers to a commentary on Porphyry's
*Introduction* (see *in Cat*. 16,26; 60,10; 68,15.17);
it was used by David and Elias. There must have been commentaries on
Aristotle's *Analytics* (a late hand in the Jerusalem
manuscript Taphos 150 attributes the commentary on the *Prior
Analytics* contained therein to Olympiodorus) and on Aristotle's
physical treatises (commentaries on *de Generatione et
Corruptione* and on *de Anima* are mentioned in Arabic
sources, and the Ambrosianus Q 74 possibly contains a fragment of the
latter, see Rashed). In the *Alcibiades* commentary
(SS110,8f.), Olympiodorus announces lectures on the
*Sophist*.




The work *On the 'On Activity' by Zosimus; all that has
been said by Hermes and the Philosophers* should be regarded as a
spurious work. For an edition see: Bertholet, M. and Ruelle,
C.-M. (1888) *Collection des anciens alchemistes grecs,*
vol. III, Paris: Steinheil, pp. 69-104. French translation in
vol. II, pp. 75-113.