DAMASCIUS

damascius, the last of the neoplatonists, was born in damascus about a.d. 480. 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 appendix to the didot edition of diogenes laertius). in 529 justinian closed the school, and damascius with six of his colleagues sought an asylum, probably in 532, at the court of chosroes