[164] Proclus, like Plotinus, acted the part of a father to all the young people of his acquaintance. Porphyry, somewhat late in life, married a widow named Marcella, stating that he only did so in order to fulfil the paternal office towards her children. Yet fornication was not a Neoplatonic sin, and even Proclus resorted to it restrainedly. A letter of Porphyry to Marcella, a condensed manual of ethics, is extant, and has recently appeared in an English dress.
[165] Or literally, "the hierophant of the whole world."
[166] Marinus also informs us that he was on terms of great cordiality with Pan, but according to another authority this god had died some centuries previously. Plutarch (De Defect. Orac., 17) tells us, on the report of "a well-known man of very sound character," that a vessel sailing in the Ambracian Gulf touched one evening at the Isle of Paxae. Shortly, a voice from the land thrice summoned Thames the Egyptian, one of the crew, and gave him the injunction, "When you come to Paloda, announce that the Great Pan is dead." The mandate was obeyed, they put in at a deserted spot, and Thames, standing in the bows, shouted the required information. Immediately the whole ship's company heard "a deep groan, proceeding as it were from a multitude of men." The news was carried to Rome, and Tiberius, after interviewing Thames, decided to hold an inquest. All the savants of the Court sat on the deceased, and, without viewing the body, pronounced him to be Pan, the son of Hermes and Penelope. The witness in this case was doubtless of the same class as those who from time to time contribute marvels to the reports of the Psychical Society and the Occult Review.
[167] The alumni of the school went and taught in other places; for instance, Agapius, a hearer of Proclus, under whom Jn. Lydus studied (De Magist., iii, 26), the same, perhaps, who was the "big wig" of the medical faculty at CP., about that time, and made a large fortune, as related by Damascius and Suidas. Damascius (Vit. Isidori) gives an account of the practice of Jacob Psychristus, an eminent physician of the latter part of the fifth century. He trusted chiefly to purgations, baths, and diets, used the knife and cautery sparingly, and repudiated bleeding. On visiting CP. he found the profession there neither experienced nor learned, but relying on a routine derived from their predecessors, which they followed in a blind and careless manner. Pamprepius, one of the ablest disciples of Proclus, deserted the Academy for the Byzantine court, and attached himself to Illus, the great rebel in the reign of Zeno; but ultimately he was executed by his patron for having ventured on predictions which were falsified by the event; Suidas, sb. nom. (Malchus); Theophanes, an. 5976, etc.
[168] Marinus, op. cit., ad fin.
[169] Of this period there is a sort of chronicle extant in the form of a life of Isidore of Gaza, who became scholarch next after Marinus. The whole work has been abridged from the original of Damascius by Photius (Cod. 242), and portions of it are given by Suidas, apparently in full, under various biographical headings, e.g. Aedesia, Archiadas, Asclepiodotus, Domninus, Hegias, Hermeias, Hierocles, Pamprepius, Salustius, Serapion, etc., all philosophers of this later time. The narrative is stuffed with nonsense to an even greater extent than the life by Marinus, and gives instances of prophecy by crystal-gazing, of casting out of devils, etc. Curiously enough, it contains some of the earliest recorded observations of electric phenomena, viz. an ass of Tiberius and a horse of Severus that emitted sparks; that fire issued from the body of Walamir, father of Theodoric the Goth, without singeing his clothing, etc.
[170] Syrianus had devoted himself particularly to this task, and his extant commentaries are a necessary part of the armament of the modern Aristotelian.
[171] Jn. Malala, xviii, 451. Alemannus (op. cit., p. 459) cites an anonymous Greek chronicle, in which astronomy as well as philosophy is prohibited.
[172] Marinus, op. cit., ad fin.
[173] Jn. Ephes. Com., p. 249.