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Olympiodorus

Olympiodorus

c. 500 CE–c. 570 CE · Alexandria

Olympiodorus the Younger (c. 500-after 565 CE) was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher who taught at Alexandria, among the last leaders of the pagan philosophical school there. He lectured on Plato and Aristotle, and several of his commentaries survive, including ones on Platonic dialogues, preserving much of the late Alexandrian philosophical tradition. He is a key witness to philosophy in 6th-century Alexandria.

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AlexandriaEgypt

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About Alexandria

Alexandria is the main Mediterranean port of northern Egypt and the country's second city. Founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE, it became the capital of the Ptolemies, whose Museum and Great Library made it the leading centre of Hellenistic learning. It also held one of the largest Jewish communities of antiquity, where the Greek Bible translation known as the Septuagint was produced and Philo wrote. Church tradition traces its patriarchate to Mark the Evangelist, and its catechetical school was led by Clement and Origen. Arab forces under Amr ibn al-As took the city in 641, and it remained a commercial and scholarly hub of the Islamic world; the Sufi master Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari was born there.

In Alexandria at the same time

Ammonius, Eutocius, John Philoponus, David the Invincible, Elias Neoplatonicus

Across the traditions, in Alexandria at the same time

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In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Olympiodorus’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Olympiodorus’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(3)