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all bondage to theories, a condition which is followed, like a shadow, by that imperturbable state of mind which is the foundation of true happiness. Pyrrho’s doctrine was followed by the Middle and New Academies (see above}, represented by arcesilaus of Pitane (316-241) and car-neades of Gyrene (214-129) respectively, in their attacks on the Stoics, for asserting a criterion of truth in our knowledge; although they considered that what they were maintaining was a genuine tenet of Socrates and Plato. The latest Academics, such as antiochus of Ascalon (about 80 b.c.), fused with Platonism certain Peripatetic and many Stoic dogmas, thus making way for Eclecticism, to which all later antiquity tended after Greek philosophy had spread itself over the Roman world. After the Christian era Pythagoreanism, in a resuscitated form, again takes its place among the more important systems; but the pre-eminence belongs to Platonism, which is notably represented in the works of plutarch of ChseronSa and the physician galen, while Scepticism is maintained by another physician, sextus empir!cus.
The closing period of Greek philosophy is marked in the 3rd century a.d. by the establishment in Rome, under plotinus of Lyc5p8lis in Egypt (205-270), of Neopla-tonism, a scientific philosophy of religion, in which the doctrine of Plato is fused with the most important elements in the Aristotelian and Stoic systems and with Oriental speculations. At the summit of existences stands the One or the Good, as the source of all things. It generates from itself, as if from the reflexion of its own being, reason, •wherein is contained the infinite store of ideas. Soul, the copy of the reason, is generated by and contained in it, as reason is in the One, and, by informing matter in itself nonexistent, constitutes bodies whose existence is contained in soul. Nature therefore is a whole, endowed with life and soul. Soul, being chained to matter, longs to escape from the bondage of the body and return to its original source. In virtue and philosophic thought it has the power to elevate itself above the reason into a state If ecstasy, where it can behold, or ascend dp to, that one good primary Being whom reason cannot know. To attain this union with the Good, or God, is the true function of man, to whom the external world should be absolutely indifferent. Plotinus’ most important disciple, the Syrian porphyr!us, contented himself with popularising his
master’s doctrine. But the school of iam-blichus, a disciple of Porphyrius, effected a change in the position of Neoplatonism, which now took up the cause of polytheism I against Christianity, and adopted for this purpose every conceivable form of superstition, especially those of the East. Foiled in the attempt to resuscitate the old beliefs, its supporters then turned with fresh ardour to scientific work, and especially to the study of Plato and Aristotle, in the interpretation of whose works they rendered great services. The last home of philosophy was at Athens, where PR5CLUS (411-485), sought to reduce to a kind of system the whole mass of philosophic tradition, till in 529 a.d. the teaching of philosophy at Athens was forbidden by Justinian.
(II) roman philosophy is throughout founded on the Greek. Interest in the subject was first excited at Rome in 155 b.c. by an Athenian embassy, consisting of the Academic Carneades, the Stoic Diogenes, and the Peripatetic CrltSlaus. Of more permanent influence was the work of the Stoic Pansetius, the friend of the younger Scipio and of Lselius ; but a thorough study of Greek philosophy was first introduced in the time of cicero and varro. In a number of works they endeavoured to make it accessible even to those of their countrymen who were outside the learned circles. Cicero chiefly took it up in a spirit of Eclecticism; but among his contemporaries Epicureanism is represented in the poetical treatise of lucretius on the nature of things, and Pythagoreanism by NlGlDIUS FlGULUS. In imperial times Epicureanism and Stoicism were most popular, especially the latter, as represented by the writings of seneca, cornctus, and the emperor marcus adrelius; while Eclectic Platonism was taken up by ApuLEIus of Madaura. One of the latest philosophical writers of antiquity is boethius, whose writings were the chief sourceof information as to Greek philosophy during the first centuries of the Middle Ages. [The original authorities on ancient philosophy are collected in Ritter and Preller’s Historia Philosophies Grcecos ei Romance, ex Fontium Loot’s contcxta.}
Philostratua. (1) Flavins Philostratustht elder, a Greek Sophist, of Lemnos, son of a celebrated Sophist of the same name. He taught first in Athens, then at Rome till the middle of the 3rd century a.d. By order of his great patroness JuliaDomna, the learned wife of the emperor Septlmlus Severus, he wrote (a) the romantic Life of ApoUonlm of
