436

more like the unsatisfactory

, and might equally have been an attempt to
render the prex-less form. Naturally there are other emendations whose correctness
> at
one may legitimately doubt, such as the addition of <
747.20, for while the construction of a single term indicating the Idea of a privation is
not without parallel, it is certainly clumsy and the argument is intelligible without it.
The restoration of
for
at 735.5 could be right but is a tactic of
last resort, and the alleged forward reference of
to 774.25
. Inevitably not all textual cruces are
seems to come unstuck over the word
solved, such as the locus nondum sanatus at 752.34, where I suggest < >
<
>
< >.
This edition comes with a readable English preface and important appendices,
giving a list of passages relevant to orthography, a list of variations within MSS of the
principal Greek tradition, an 18-page list of the Latins disagreements with the Greek
MSS, and a collection of scholia. Select parallels are oered at the foot of the text,
usually involving Platonic dialogues, but without further comment the degree of
helpfulness varies, as when SVF 2.1027 (306.1921) is cited in relation to those who
connect the Ideas with spermatikoi logoi. It is important that elements of the
Peripatetic and Stoic theories treated at 731.1526 inuenced the Platonic and
Neopythagorean tradition in the early Roman Empire, and that Thrasyllus
spermatikos logos (T23.1112 = Porphyry, Harm. p.12.11f.) in particular does play a
role closely related to the Platonic Ideas, alongside the Aristotelian theory of
abstraction from repeated sensation (T23.2533, Harm. pp. 1314).
Small reservations are almost inevitable, and nothing said above detracts from my
view that this volume does the scholarly world great service, that it deserves a place in
any serious collection on late antique philosophy, and that one must look forward
greatly to the completion of this OCT project.
University of Newcastle, Australia

HAROLD TARRANT
harold.tarrant@newcastle.edu.au

PROCLUS AGAIN
T ( H . ) (ed., trans.) Proclus: Commentary on Platos
Timaeus. Volume I. Book 1: Proclus on the Socratic State and Atlantis.
Pp. xii + 346. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Cased,
65, US$120. ISBN: 978-0-521-84659-2.
B ( D. ) (ed., trans.) Proclus: Commentary on Platos Timaeus.
Volume III. Book 3, Part 1: Proclus on the Worlds Body. Pp. xii + 205.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Cased, 45, US$85.
ISBN: 978-0-521-84595-3.
doi:10.1017/S0009840X08000541

We believe that the philosophy of late antiquity now stands where Hellenistic
philosophy did in the early 1970s. It is, at least for the anglo-analytic tradition in the
history of philosophy, the new unexplored territory. Harold Tarrant and Dirk Baltzly
make this claim in their note on this new translation of Proclus Commentary on
Platos Timaeus (p. viii), and, like this reviewer, many will agree. The lucid translations
in these rst two volumes of Proclus commentary may rightfully claim their place
among the important publications of recent years in the eld of late antique
The Classical Review vol. 58 no. 2 The Classical Association 2008; all rights reserved

437

philosophy, and they oer a good starting point for scholars and philosophers who
wish to understand the signicance of the Neoplatonic commentary tradition.
Proclus commentary is arguably the masterpiece of Neoplatonic exegesis, dealing
with the Timaeus, a favourite dialogue of the Neoplatonists. Moreover, this translation of In Timaeum will be of signicant interest to scholars working on four
further, often interrelated elds: (a) the interpretation of Platos Timaeus, cosmology
and physics; (b) Middle Platonism; (c) ancient and modern theories of interpretation
and hermeneutics; and (d) the HellenicChristian intellectual conict. Proclus work
is a true mine of information, intuition and inspiration; its stunning literary qualities,
speculative techniques and virtuosity are as the pioneer Valentin Rose noted
comparable only to those of Hegel.
For dierent reasons Proclus commentary is now as provocative as it presumably
was in late antiquity: the work contrasts sharply both with its immediate historical
context, that is the Christianised Empire, and with our own modern interpretative
approaches to Platos text. In the context of fth-century Athens, In Timaeum reects
a Neoplatonicpagan world-view, one threatened to the level of extinction by hoi
polloi. On the other hand, in the eyes of the typical modern classicist struggling to
reconstruct Platos arguments, Proclus gigantic treatise may easily appear to be a
frustratingly introvert magma of bizarre theological speculations and interpretative
leaps. Fortunately, the valuable General Introduction by T. and B. guides the
uninitiated reader into an understanding of how the teaching of Plato and Platonic
exegesis evolved in the late antique context into a spiritual exercise related to pagan
religious Platonism, yet still of great interest and signicance for us today. A
particularly successful part of the introduction deals with explaining away widespread
modern misconceptions about the Neoplatonic interpretation of Plato, while
exploring the dierences between the hermeneutical principles of late antique and
modern interpreters (pp. 1013). Standing within a long tradition that identied the
interpretation of Plato with philosophy par excellence, Proclus would indeed be truly
shocked by any hint of accusation that he merely utilised Plato for the elaboration of
his own Neoplatonist philosophy. If we take into account Proclus conception of
himself as an exegete, then our well-worn distinctions between Platos philosophy,
Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism correspond to nothing more than a handy
anachronism.
Book 1 of Proclus commentary, translated by T., deals with the two aspects of the
prelude of the Timaeus, that is, with the summary of the Socratic state and with the
famous account of the battle between the Athenians and the Atlanteans (1.1204
Diehl). What makes Proclus commentary appealing to historians of Platonism is his
inclusion of previous interpretations and his constant dialogue with key men such as
Crantor, Atticus, Numenius, Amelius, Origenes, Porphyry, Longinus, Iamblichus and
Syrianus. Given the richness and variety of the material it is transmitting and
consolidating, this dialogues multifarious linguistic, ethical, psychological and
physical interpretations of the Timaeus will fascinate the historian of ancient
philosophy.
This dialogue within Platonism is also highly interesting in itself. Its
phenomenology, that is, the manner and tropes through which it is articulated,
sharply contrasts with the methods by means of which Proclus contemporary
Christians constructed their concepts of religious orthodoxy and hairesis. The aim
of Proclan exegesis is not the formulation of an exclusive set of Platonist canonical
doctrines that would condemn the interpretations of his predecessors as noncanonical, but rather an exegesis that would ideally encompass all partial or specic

438

interpretations of Plato. Take, for example, the war between Atlantis and Athens. This
was interpreted literally by Longinus, that is, as a narrative without any deeper
meaning, constructed in the interests of articial pleasure. T. is right in noting that
there is hardly any evidence that there was ever an interpreter who was convinced that
the story of the conict between Athens and Atlantis was historically true in our
sense (p. 80). Numenius, Porphyry, Amelius and Origenes promoted various
allegorical readings in terms of ethical or psychological interpretations of the battle.
After all, the Egyptians too, whom he [Plato] makes the fathers of this story, put the
secrets of nature into riddles through myths, so that the allegorical unveiling of this
narrative would also suit the character who is telling it (1.129.2932). In reply to the
opposed trends of literal vs allegorical interpretation, Iamblichus, Syrianus and
Proclus argue that rivalry and division correspond to a universal pattern pervading all
levels of the cosmos, be it moral, psychological, physical, or that of myth and
narrative. For his part, Proclus explains Socrates summary of the ideal state and the
Atlantis story as having a complementary function, with an eye on the skopos of the
Timaeus, that is, the explanation of the physical universe: the Socratic state reects the
unifying quality of the cosmos, whereas the account of the war stands as a symbol of
the cosmic rivalry that pervades all levels of the universe (1.205.412). But no partial
allegorical interpretation necessarily invalidates one that stays for whatever reason
at the lexis of Platos narrative, as Longinus does. Words, numbers, shapes, images
and symbols are hermeneutical tools that have enabled only specic and limited
unveilings of the universal truth concealed in Platos text.
Seen in this light, I think that the interpretations oered by Proclus predecessors
are haireseis in the Hellenic as opposed to the Christian meaning of the word:
hermeneutical choices that reect successive stages of a single exegetical tradition or
organism, growing and dying in an endeavour to ascend to those arcane conceptions
at which Plato too aimed. I suspect that Neoplatonic hermeneutical pluralism is not
independent from either Hellenic mythological pluralism or pagan religious
pluralism.
The second volume to appear in the series, translated by B., corresponds to the rst
part of Book 3 of Proclus commentary (2.1102 Diehl). Here Proclus is concerned
with Tim. 31b34a, where Plato describes the body of the universe and provides an
excellent example of the Neoplatonic art of utilising geometrical, mathematical and
physical knowledge in order to ascend from Platonic lexis to a unied and
contradiction-free system. Analysing Platos account of the activity of the demiurge,
Proclus discerns a decad of gifts that the demiurge is bestowing upon the cosmos in
order to complete the creation. Six out of the ten gifts are explained in the part of
Book 3 translated here: the cosmos made perceptible through the four elements; the
bond (desmos) that holds together the elements through proportion (analogia); its
constitution as a whole of wholes; its spherical shape; its self-suciency; its motion,
which is appropriate to intellect. Discussing the rst gifts, Proclus oers an original
theory regarding the four elements and their union by proportion that also functions
as a critique of Aristotles theory of ve elements.
Following Platos text, according to which the cosmos is a visible and blessed god
(Tim. 34b), Proclus rejects any interpretation of the Timaeus that would see matter as
evil in itself. The cosmos is characterised by a philia towards itself, which stems from
the proportionality of the four elements in its body and ensures its perpetuity. I think
this is another instance where the Hellenic world-view represented here by Proclus
tacitly invites us to challenge per contrapositionem the Judaeo-Christian one. Proclus
physico-theological speculations are world-arming, celebrating the divinity of the

439

cosmos that is correlated both to the worlds soul and to its visible and tangible body.
As B. notes in his introduction, according to Proclus when we seek the happy life by
assimilating ourselves to the moral model of the cosmos (Tim. 90d), we must
understand not only the psychic-mathematical aspects of it, but we must also
understand it physically, for the dialogue concerns both these aspects (p. 27).
The translation in both volumes follows the Greek text of Diehl (Leipzig: Teubner,
19035). It is clear and accurate, and successfully reects, according to the translators
priorities, contemporary ways of approaching ancient philosophy. The notes are
extensive, taking into account current research on Neoplatonism and helping readers
to nd their way through the labyrinth of Proclan argumentation. Both volumes
feature carefully compiled EnglishGreek glossaries and Greek word indexes that will
be of help to readers with knowledge of Greek but no immediate access to Diehls
edition, as well as to Greekless readers wishing to become familiar with the technical
Neoplatonic vocabulary. If there is anything that T. and B. might have written more
about in their introduction, this would be the idiosyncratic English translation of In
Timaeum, published by Thomas Taylor, the English pagan, in 1820 (reprinted
Frome, 1998). The translators acknowledge in a footnote that Taylors translations
constitute a considerable achievement adding they cannot compare well with
modern scholarly editions (vol. I, p. viii, n. 3), a judgement with which, of course, I
do not disagree. Yet it is interesting that Taylor worked from within the Neoplatonic
tradition, rather than as a professional scholar. Persuaded that a greater good than
the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle was never imparted by divinity to man, Taylor
translated Proclus under the guidance of his intuition as a Neoplatonist philosopher
and the conviction that I was acting rightly, and therefore in a way pleasing to
divinity, as he notes in his introduction to In Timaeum. Readers interested not only in
the skopos of Platos philosophy but also in the skopoi of modern translations may
enjoy glancing from time to time at Taylors intuitive translation while studying the
scholarly one by T. and B.
University of Cambridge

NIKETAS SINIOSSOGLOU
sinios@cantab.net

PLOTINUS ON INTELLECT
E ( E . K . ) Plotinus on Intellect. Pp. viii + 232. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2007. Cased, 35. ISBN: 978-0-19-928170-1.
doi:10.1017/S0009840X08000553

Plotinus brought to fruition trends in imperial Platonism and Aristotelianism which

united Platonic forms and Aristotles divine
and derived both from the
transcendent One beyond being and thought. Much of the best recent work on
Plotinus has wrestled with the philosophical diculties spawned by these revisions
of classical noetic theory. Emilsson, the author of the excellent Plotinus on
Sense-perception (1988), makes them his exclusive concern, and for that we can be
grateful. He brings to the task the sensitivity and surehandedness that come only from
many years of intimate contact with the Enneads. Particularly where Plotinus is
notoriously obscure and elliptical in expressing his thoughts on the deepest matters,
E.s diligent attention reveals hidden nuances in recalcitrant texts. As he wisely notes,
the student of Plotinus must be willing to accept that on many delicate issues it is as if
The Classical Review vol. 58 no. 2 The Classical Association 2008; all rights reserved