Anne Deborah Raphael Sheppard

After introducing the main Platonic issues in the field of literary theory and aesthetics, the author discusses Proclus’ relationship to the study of literature in late antiquity; his own literary theory and his use of allegorical interpretation; and the wider context of Proclus’ Neoplatonist aesthetics. She shows how his aesthetics pans out in his view of visual art, as referring to higher realities via Homer’s poetry, and of music, including a form of inspired music. The author then moves on to Proclus’ metaphysics of beauty itself, and the relation between transcendent Beauty and the beauty of the universe. She concludes by pointing out the relevance of Proclus’ literary theory and aesthetics for his metaphysics.

Plato's Republic covers a very wide range of philosophical topics, many of them also addressed in other Platonic dialogues. The papers in this volume, arising from the Institute of Classical Studies research seminar in ancient philosophy in 2007-2008, illustrate the range and diversity of responses to the Republic in antiquity. These responses show, for example, how in criticizing the doctrine of the tripartite soul Aristotle is as much concerned with the Timaeus as with the Republic, how Cicero regarded the Republic and the Laws as complementing one another, and how Proclus treated the discussion of music in the Republic alongside the account of cosmic music in the Timaeus. Other papers examine the interpretations of the myth of Er offered by the Middle Platonist Alcinous and by Porphyry, and Proclus' place in the ancient reception of the Republic.

Theurgy, the religious magic practised by the later Neoplatonists, has been commonly regarded as the point at which Neoplatonism degenerates into magic, superstition and irrationalism.1 A superficial glance at the ancient lives of the Neoplatonists, and in particular at Eunapius’ Lives of the Sophists, reveals a group of people interested in animating statues, favoured with visions of gods and demons, and skilled in rain-making. But when we look more closely at the works of the Neoplatonists themselves, rather than the stories biographers tell about them, we find a considerable diversity of attitudes towards theurgy and a number of attempts to fit theurgy into their philosophical system