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of Athens (*412–485 C.E.) was the most authoritative philosopher
of late antiquity and played a crucial role in the transmission
of Platonic philosophy from antiquity to the Middle Ages. For
almost fifty years, he was head or ‘successor’ (diadochos, sc.
of Plato) of the Platonic ‘Academy’ in Athens. Being an
exceptionally productive writer, he composed commentaries on
Aristotle, Euclid and Plato, systematic treatises in all
disciplines of philosophy as it was at that time (metaphysics
and theology, physics, astronomy, mathematics, ethics) and
exegetical works on traditions of religious wisdom (Orphism and
Chaldaean Oracles). Proclus had a lasting influence on the
development of the late Neoplatonic schools not only in Athens,
but also in Alexandria, where his student Ammonius became the
head of the school. In a culture dominated by Christianity, the
Neoplatonic philosophers had to defend the superiority of the
Hellenic traditions of wisdom. Conti