Listed 4 sub titles with search on: Biographies for wider area of: "LYKOPOLIS Ancient city EGYPT" .
LYKOPOLIS (Ancient city) EGYPT
A Greek philosopher, born A.D. 205 at Lycopolis, in Egypt. In the
twentyeighth year of his life he applied himself to philosophy, and attended the
lectures of the most celebrated men of that time in Alexandria. But none of these
was able to satisfy him, until in Ammonius Saccas, the founder of Neo-Platonism,
he discovered the teacher whom he had sought. With him he stayed for eleven years;
then, in 243, he joined the expedition of the emperor Gordian against the Persians,
in order to learn the Persian philosophy. In this object he failed, owing to the
unsuccessful issue of the undertaking; he was even obliged to flee for his life
to In 244 he went to Rome, where he worked till 269 with great success, and gained
the emperor Gallienus himself and his wife Salonina as converts to his teaching,
so that he even dared to conceive the idea of founding an ideal city in Campania,
with the approval and support of the emperor: this city was to be called Platonopolis,
and its inhabitants were to live according to the laws of Plato. Gallienus was
not disinclined to enter into the plan; but it was thwarted by the opposition
of the imperial counsellors.
Plotinus died in 270, on the estate of a friend in Campania. With
the fiftieth year of his age he had begun to reduce his teaching to a written
form; the fifty-four treatises, which have been preserved to us, were published
after his death by his pupil and biographer Porphyry, who revised their style
and arranged them in order. They were published in six Enneads, or sets of nine
books. Plotinus was the first to give a systematic development to the Neo-Platonic
doctrine, or, at least, the first to put it forth in writing, not indeed with
the charm of the Platonic dialogues, [p. 1279] still less with their dialectic
force, but nevertheless with depth of thought and in pithy, though at times careless
and incorrect, language. It is true that there appears even in him a mystical
tendency, especially in his doctrine of the ecstatic elevation of the soul to
the divine being, to which he himself (according to the testimony of Porphyry)
attained on four occasions; but he is still completely free from the fantastic
and superstitious character of the later Neo-Platonism.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited July 2003 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
205 - 270
Plotinus studied philosophy in Alexandria,
Egypt. He then joined a military
campaign against Persia,
in the hope of learning Persian and Indian philosophy. Around 244 he went to Rome
at a time when Christian churches competed with Oriental religions. Plotinus,
under the influence of these events, developed his own philosophic ideas. He believed
that man should reject material things and should purify his soul and to lift
it up to a communion with a higher spirit.
Plotinus became the founder of the Neo-platonic school of philosophy,
which became the most formidable rival of Christianity in the ancient world.
This text is cited July 2003 from the Hyperhistory Online URL below.
Coluthus (Kolouthos), one of the late Greek epic poets, was a native of Lycopolis in Upper Egypt, and flourished under the emperor Anastasius, at the beginning of the sixth century of our era. He wrote laudatory poems (enkomia di' epon), an heroic poem, in six books, entitled Kaludonika, and another entitled Persika. These are all lost, but his poem on "The Rape of Helen" (Elenes harpage) was discovered, with Quintus Smyrnaeus, by the Cardinal Bessarion in Calabria. It was first printed by Aldus (no date): more accurately, with ingenious conjectural emendations, by H. Stephens in his Poetae Graeci Principes, Par. 1566. Several Latin versions and reprints of the text appeared in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the most important of which is the edition of Io. Dan. Lennep, Leoward. 1747. The latest and best editions are those of Bekker, Berl. 1816, and Schaefer, Lips. 1825. The poem, as it now stands, consists of 392 hexameter lines, and is an unsuccessful imitation of Homer.
Receive our daily Newsletter with all the latest updates on the Greek Travel industry.
Subscribe now!
