Agapios (Neoplatonist)

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Agapios ( Greek  Ἀγάπιος Agápios ; * around 460; † after 511) was a late ancient Greek philosopher and philologist. He was held in high regard as a versatile scholar. Nothing has been handed down about his teaching, nothing of his works has survived.

Identity question

In the older specialist literature, as in the Suda , a distinction was made between two scholars named Agapios, a philosopher and philologist from Athens ("Agapios of Athens") and a doctor from Alexandria ("Agapios of Alexandria"). This distinction continues to have supporters, but more recent research seems to be taking the view that they are the same person.

According to a hypothesis by Paul Tannery , Agapios is possibly identical to a philosopher and mathematician named A genanntānīs in a medieval commentary on the elements of Euclid in Arabic. The author of this work, the Persian mathematician an-Nayrīzī , who worked in Baghdad in the late 9th century , quoted a now-lost Euclid commentary attributed to the late ancient scholar Simplikios , in which Aġānīs was mentioned several times.

Life

Agapios was probably born around 460. If he can be equated with the doctor, he came from Alexandria and began his training there. There is no doubt that he entered the Neoplatonic school of philosophy in Athens. At that time this was still under the direction of the famous, already elderly philosopher Proklos . The contemporary Egyptian poet Christodoros referred to this; he praised Agapios in the lost poem About the listeners of the great Proclus , from which only a single verse is passed down through a quotation. In this verse Christodoros referred to Agapios as the last (in time) but first (in terms of rank) among the disciples of Proclus.

After Proclus' death in 485, Agapios attended the lessons of his successor Marinos . Under Emperor Zenon (474–491) he was arrested along with other philosophers. This happened as part of a state persecution of the pagan thinkers to whom he was one.

If the philosopher Agapios is identical to the doctor of the same name, he later went to Constantinople and founded his own very successful school there. The competence of the doctor made him famous and provided him with a considerable income.

The last message about Agapios comes from the work De magistratibus by John Lydos . He reports there that at the age of twenty-one in 511 he took part in the lesson of Agapios about the teachings of Plato and Aristotle .

swell

The main source is a few preserved fragments from the now largely lost philosophical history of Damascius , the last head of the Neoplatonic school of philosophy in Athens , written between 517 and 526 . Damascius held Agapios in high esteem. He counted him among the three best contemporary literary critics he knew and praised his erudition, which had also brought him recognition in Alexandria and Constantinople.

literature

  • Richard Goulet: Agapius d'Athènes. In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques. Volume 1, CNRS, Paris 1989, ISBN 2-222-04042-6 , p. 63
  • Jacques Schamp: Biography de l'écrivain. V. Agapios. In: Michel Dubuisson, Jacques Schamp (Ed.): Jean le Lydien: Des magistratures de l'état romain . Volume 1, Part 1, Les Belles Lettres, Paris 2006, ISBN 978-2-251-00533-1 , pp. XXI-XXVII
  • Elżbieta Szabat: Agapios. In: Paweł Janiszewski, Krystyna Stebnicka, Elżbieta Szabat: Prosopography of Greek Rhetors and Sophists of the Roman Empire. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, ISBN 978-0-19-871340-1 , p. 6 f.

Remarks

  1. ^ Henri Dominique Saffrey, Alain-Philippe Segonds (ed.): Marinus: Proclus ou Sur le bonheur , Paris 2001, pp. XXII f. Note 3; Jacques Schamp: Biography de l'écrivain. V. Agapios. In: Michel Dubuisson, Jacques Schamp (eds.): Jean le Lydien: Des magistratures de l'état romain , vol. 1, part 1, Paris 2006, pp. XXI – XXVII, here: p. XXII note 38 and p XXIV f. Note 45.
  2. ↑ Polymnia Athanassiadi (ed.): Damascius: The Philosophical History , Athens 1999, p. 257, note 278; Elżbieta Szabat: Agapios. In: Paweł Janiszewski, Krystyna Stebnicka, Elżbieta Szabat: Prosopography of Greek Rhetors and Sophists of the Roman Empire , Oxford 2015, p. 6 f.
  3. ↑ See Richard Goulet, Maroun Aouad: Aġānīs. In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 1, Paris 1989, pp. 60-62.
  4. ^ Jacques Schamp: Biographie de l'écrivain. V. Agapios. In: Michel Dubuisson, Jacques Schamp (eds.): Jean le Lydien: Des magistratures de l'état romain , vol. 1, part 1, Paris 2006, pp. XXI – XXVII, here: pp. XXVI and note 48; Polymnia Athanassiadi (ed.): Damascius: The Philosophical History , Athens 1999, p. 257, note 278.
  5. ^ Jacques Schamp: Biographie de l'écrivain. V. Agapios. In: Michel Dubuisson, Jacques Schamp (eds.): Jean le Lydien: Des magistratures de l'état romain , Vol. 1, Part 1, Paris 2006, pp. XXI – XXVII, here: XXII.
  6. ↑ Polymnia Athanassiadi (ed.): Damascius: The Philosophical History , Athens 1999, p. 257 and note 278.
  7. ^ Henri Dominique Saffrey, Alain-Philippe Segonds (ed.): Marinus: Proclus ou Sur le bonheur , Paris 2001, pp. XXII f. Note 3.
  8. ^ Jacques Schamp: Biographie de l'écrivain. V. Agapios. In: Michel Dubuisson, Jacques Schamp (eds.): Jean le Lydien: Des magistratures de l'état romain , vol. 1, part 1, Paris 2006, pp. XXI – XXVII, here: XXII – XXIV.
personal data
SURNAME Agapios
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Agapios of Athens
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek philosopher and philologist
DATE OF BIRTH at 460
DATE OF DEATH after 511