Damascius, the last of the Neoplatonists, was born in Damascus about AD 480. Neoplatonism (also Neo-Platonism) was a school of philosophy beginning in the 3rd century A.D. It was based on the teachings of Plato and Platonists; but it interpreted Plato in many new ways, such that Neoplatonism was quite different from what Plato taught, though not many Neoplatonists would admit... Damascus by night, pictured from Jabal Qasioun; the green spots are minarets Damascus (Arabic officially دمشق Dimashq, colloquially ash-Sham الشام) is the capital city of Syria and is the oldest inhabited city in the world. ... Events Odoacer defeats an attempt by Julius Nepos to recapture Italy, and has Julius killed; Odoacer also captured Dalmatia. ...

In his early youth he went to Alexandria, where he spent twelve years partly as a pupil of Theon, a rhetorician, and partly as a professor of rhetoric. He then turned to philosophy and science, and studied under Hermeias and his sons, Ammonius and Heliodorus. Later on in life he migrated to Athens and continued his studies under Marinus, the mathematician, Zenodotus, and Isidore, the dialectician. He became a close friend of Isidore, succeeded him as head of the school in Athens, and wrote his biography, part of which is preserved in the Bibliotheca of Photius; see the appendix to the Didot edition of Diogenes Laertius. Antiquity and modernity stand cheek-by-jowl in Egypts chief Mediterranean seaport (This template has been listed for deletion) Located on the Mediterranean Sea coast, Alexandria (in Arabic, الإسكندرية, transliterated al-ʼIskandariyyah) is the chief seaport in Egypt, and that countrys second largest city, and the capital of the... Aelius Theon was a mid-1st millennium Alexandrian sophist and author of a collection of preliminary exercises (pro-gymnasmata) for the training of orators. ... Rhetoric (from Greek ρητωρ, rhêtôr, orator) is one of the three original liberal arts or trivium (the other members are dialectic and grammar) in Western culture. ... Philosophy is a discipline or field of study involving the investigation, analysis, and development of ideas at a general, abstract, or fundamental level. ... The Acropolis in central Athens, one of the most important landmarks in world history. ... Marinus, neo-Platonist philosopher, was born in Palestine and was early converted to the old Greek religion. ... Zenodotus, Greek grammarian and critic, pupil of Philetas of Cos, was a native of Ephesus. ... Isidore of Alexandria was a Greek philosopher and one of the last of the Neoplatonists. ... Photius (b. ... Diogenes Laërtius, the biographer of the Greek philosophers, is supposed by some to have received his surname from the town of Laerte in Cilicia, and by others from the Roman family of the Laërtii. ...

In 529 Justinian I closed the school, and Damascius with six of his colleagues sought an asylum, probably in 532, at the court of Khosrau I of Persia. They found the conditions intolerable, and when the following year Justinian and Khosrau concluded a peace treaty, it was provided that the philosophers should be allowed to return. It is believed that Damascius returned to Alexandria and there devoted himself to the writing of his works. The date of his death is not known. For other uses, see number 529. ... Justinian I depicted on a Byzantine mosaic Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus or Justinian I (May 11, 483–November 13/14, 565), was Eastern Roman Emperor from AD August 1, 527 until his death. ... Events January 11 - Nika riots in Constantinople; the cathedral is destroyed. ... Khosrau I, the Blessed (Anushirvan), (531 - 579) was the favourite son and successor of Kavadh I, and the most famous of the Sassanid kings. ...

His chief treatise is entitled Difficulties and Solutions of First Principles (ἀπορίαι καὶ λύσεις περὶ τῶν πρώτων ἀρχῶν). It examines the nature and attributes of God and the human soul. This examination is, in two respects, in striking contrast to that of certain other Neoplatonist writers. It is conspicuously free from that Oriental mysticism which stultifies so much of the later pagan philosophy of Europe. Secondly, it contains no polemic against Christianity, to the doctrines of which, in fact, there is no allusion. Hence the charge of impiety which Photius brings against him. His main result is that God is infinite, and as such, incomprehensible; that his attributes of goodness, knowledge and power are credited to him only by inference from their effects; that this inference is logically valid and sufficient for human thought. He insists throughout on the unity and the indivisibility of God, whereas Plotinus and Porphyry had admitted not only a Trinity, but even an Ennead (nine-fold personality). The soul according to many religious and philosophical traditions, is the ethereal substance — spirit (Hebrew:rooah or nefesh) — particular to a unique living being. ... Mysticism, from the Greek (mueo, to conceal), is the pursuit of achieving communion with, or conscious awareness of ultimate reality, the divine, spiritual truth, or God through direct, personal experience (intuition or insight) rather than discursive thought; the belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that... Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament writings of his early followers. ... Plotinus Plotinus (ca. ... (For other meanings of Porphyr, see Porphyry) Porphyry (c. ... The Trinity is God, according to the teaching of the churches which represent the majority of Christians. ... The Ennead (a word derived from Greek, meaning the nine) were the nine most important gods and goddesses in the early Egyptian mythology of Heliopolis. ...

Interesting as Damascius is in himself, he is still more interesting as the last in the long succession of Greek philosophers.

This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain. Supporters contend that the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) represents, in many ways, the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...