Damascius

462 CE – 538 CE

Damascus

Last head of the Athenian Neoplatonic school, born in Damascus, whose aporetic first-principles metaphysics tests what language, thought, and theology can say about the ineffable.

Iamblichus of Chalcis

245 CE – 325 CE

Chalcis ad Belum, Coele-Syria, probably near modern Qinnasrin

Syrian Greek Neoplatonist of Chalcis whose theurgy, Pythagorean curriculum, Platonic commentary, mathematics, soul theory, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion shaped later Syrian and Athenian Neoplatonism.

Philodemus of Gadara

110 BCE – 35 BCE

Gadara (Decapolis)

Epicurean philosopher and poet from Gadara whose Herculaneum papyri preserve work on rhetoric, poetry, music, sign inference, piety, death, frank criticism, passions, vices, and Epicurean book culture.

Porphyry

234 CE – 305 CE

Tyre (Phoenicia)

Neoplatonic philosopher of Tyre, logic, the Isagoge, predicables, universals, Porphyrian Tree, soul purification, vegetarian ethics, Homeric allegory, Aristotle commentary, and anti-Christian polemic.

Posidonius of Apamea

135 BCE – 51 BCE

Apamea (Orontes)

Middle Stoic philosopher of Apamea and Rhodes, cosmic sympathy, fate, divination, passions, Stoic physics, geography, tides, Canopus, earth measurement, meteorology, history, and Roman reception.

Qusta ibn Luqa

820 CE – 912 CE

Baalbek (Heliopolis)

Christian Arabic polymath and translator from Baalbek whose work joins medicine, mathematics, astronomy, mechanics, spirit-soul psychology, classification of sciences, and Latin scholastic reception.