Born Byzantium (Istanbul, Turkey), circa 411
Died Athens, (Greece), 17 April 485
Head of the Athens Academy in the 5th century, Proclus promoted astronomy in mathematics, cosmology, physics; in empirical observation and instrumentation; and in higher education, proposing that celestial objects have their own self‐movement in free space, that our system can be heliocentric, and that cosmic space consists of pure light. He was the last major thinker of Antiquity, and also the one who systematized Greek knowledge in the form it was transmitted to Islam and western Europe.
Proclus' Greek–speaking parents, Patricius and Marcella, moved from Byzantium to Xanthus, a district of Lycia in Asia Minor, probably by 415. Proclus studied rhetoric, Roman law, and Latin at Alexandria. He visited Byzantium at the time of the revival of advanced schools inspired by the Athenian‐born Empress Eudocia (425). There he experienced a momentous conversion to Athenian philosophy. On his return to Alexandria,...
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Selected References
Allatius, L. (ed.) (1635). Paraphrase of Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos (in Greek and Latin). Leiden. (English translation by J. Ashmand. London, 1822. Based on Ptolemy's chief astrological work; unconfirmed attribution to Proclus.)
Anon. (1559). Anonymous Commentary on the Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy (in Greek and Latin). Basel. (Astrological commentary on Ptolemy; unconfirmed attribution to Proclus.)
Marinus (1896). Le Commentaire de Marinus aux Data d'Euclide, edited and translated into French by M. Michaux. Louvain, 1947; Greek text in Euclidis opera omnis, edited by J. L. Heiberg and H. Menge. Vol. 6, p. 234. Leipzig: Teubner.
——— (2001). Proclus ou sur bonheur, edited by H. D. Saffrey and A. Ph. Segonds, with Concetta Luna. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. (Greek text and French translation.)
O'Meara, Dominic J. (1989). Pythagoras Revived: Mathematics and Philosophy in Late Antiquity. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Proclus (1899). Eighteen Arguments on the Eternity of the World against the Christians (in Greek). In De aeternitate mundi contra Proclum, by John Philoponus, edited by Hugo Rabe. Leipzig: Teubner. (Reprint, Hildesheim: Olms, 1984.) (On the celestial objects and cosmology).
——— (1903–1906). In Platonis Timaeum commentaria (Commentary on Plato's Timaeus). 3 Vols. Edited by E. Diehl. Leipzig: Teubner. (Reprint, Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1965. [Greek text]; French translation: Commentaire sur le Timée, edited by A. J. Festugière. 5 Vols. Paris: Vrin, 1966–1968; English translation by Thomas Taylor. 1810. Reprint, with corrections and Greek text pagination, Frome, Somerset: Prometheus Trust, 1998. [Source material on cosmology.])
——— (1909). Hypotyposis astronomicarum positionum (Outline of the astronomical hypotheses), edited and translated by C. Manitius. Leipzig: Teubner. (Reprint, Stuttgart, 1974.) (Parallel Greek text and German translation; critical examination of Ptolemy's Planetary Hypotheses, and source for astronomical references.)
——— (1912). Institutio physica (The elements of physics), edited by A. Ritzenfeld. Leipzig: Teubner. (Parallel Greek text and German translation); (English translation by Thomas Taylor. 1831. Teaching manual consolidating Aristotle's Physics books 6 and 7 and On the Heavens book 1 in a demonstrative method.)
——— (1970). A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements, translated by Glenn R. Morrow. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. (Reprint, with foreword by I. Mueller, 1992; Greek text: In primum Euclidis Elementorum librum commentarii, edited by G. Friedlein. Leipzig: Teubner, 1873. [On the value of mathematical sciences, including astronomy.])
Segonds, A. Ph. (1987). “Proclus: Astronomie et philosophie.” In Proclus, lecteur et interprète des anciens, edited by J. Pépin and H. D. Saffrey, pp. 319–334. Paris: CNRS.
Simplicius (1882–1895). In Aristotelis Physicorum commentaria (Commentary on Aristotle's Physics), edited by H. Diels. Vols. 9–10 of Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca. Berlin: Reimer. (Greek text; fragments and reports on Proclus); English translations in Ancient Commentators on Aristotle Series: Corollaries on Time and Place, edited by J. O. Urmson and L. Siorvanes. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1992 and Against Philoponus on the Eternity of the World, edited by C. Wildberg. London: Duckworth, 1991.
——— (1894). In Aristotelis De caelo commentaria (Commentary on Aristotle's On the heavens), edited by J. L. Heiberg. Vol. 7 of Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca. Berlin: Reimer. (Greek text; fragments and reports on Proclus.)
Siorvanes, Lucas (1996). Proclus: Neo‐Platonic Philosophy and Science. New Haven: Yale University Press. (Comprehensive account and new research; Chap. 5 on astronomy, Chap. 4 on matter, space, motion, etc.)
Tihon, Anne (1976). “Notes sur l'astronomie grecque au Ve siècle de notre ère (Marinus de Naplouse – Un commentaire au Petit commentaire de Théon).” Janus 63: 167–184.
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Siorvanes, L. (2007). Proclus. In: Hockey, T., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_1124
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