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Saturninius Secundus Salutius
Saturninius Secundus Salutius ( 355–367) was a Roman official and Neoplatonist author. A native of Gaul, he had a successful career as a provincial governor and officer at the imperial court, becoming a close friend and adviser of the Emperor Julian. Salutius was well versed in Greek philosophy and rhetoric, and had a reputation for competence and incorruptibility in office. He authored a Neoplatonic religious treatise titled ''On the Gods and the Cosmos'', in support of Julian's pagan reaction against Christianity. Life Salutius's official name was Saturninius Secundus, as he is called in inscriptions and official documents. The , or informal name, 'Salutius', sometimes 'Salustius', was otherwise the main way to refer to him. He was born to a non-senatorial family in Roman Gaul, and was a pagan.'' Brill's New Pauly'',Secundus His career included governorships of Gallia Aquitania and Africa, as well as the position of ''magister memoriae'' at the imperial court. He probably hel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emperor Julian
Julian ( la, Flavius Claudius Julianus; grc-gre, Ἰουλιανός ; 331 – 26 June 363) was Roman emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplatonic Hellenism in its place, caused him to be remembered as Julian the Apostate in Christian tradition. A nephew of Constantine, Julian was one of few in the imperial family to survive the purges and civil wars during the reign of Constantius II, his cousin. Julian became an orphan as a child after his father was executed in 337, and spent much of his life under Constantius's close supervision.''Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity'', "Julian the Apostate", p. 839 However, the emperor allowed Julian to freely pursue an education in the Greek-speaking east, with the result that Julian became unusually cultured for an emperor of his time. In 355, Constantius II summoned Julian to court and appointed him to rule Gaul. Despite his inexperience, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flavius Sallustius
Flavius Sallustius was a career Roman official whom the emperor Julian appointed praetorian prefect of Gaul shortly after he proclaimed himself emperor. Some experts identify him with the Neoplatonist Sallustius. Julian rewarded his loyalty by making Sallustius his colleague as consul for the year 363 AD. G. W. Bowersock explains that Julian left Sallustius in Gaul when he marched out of Gaul to contest the empire with his cousin Constantius II "to ensure the loyalty of the West to the new Augustus." Sallustius played one more part in the life of the emperor Julian. When the emperor was engaged in his final campaign against the Persians, and was supervising his troops preparing to cross the Khabur river, he received a letter from Sallustius begging him to leave off his campaign, "for having not prayed to the gods for protection he was exposing himself to inevitable destruction." This was but one of many inauspicious omens later remembered after Julian's death in combat. It is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Otto Seeck
Otto Karl Seeck (2 February 1850 – 29 June 1921) was a German classical historian who is perhaps best known for his work on the decline of the ancient world. He was born in Riga. He first began studying chemistry at the University of Dorpat but transferred to the University of Berlin to study classical history under Theodor Mommsen. Seeck earned his doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1872 after writing his thesis on the ''Notitia Dignitatum'', a document enumerating the roles and responsibilities of administrative officials of the later Roman empire c. 400 AD. He habilitated under Mommsen in Berlin in 1877 and, with the help of Mommsen, secured a post at the University of Greifswald in 1881, where he taught Roman History and Archaeology. There he met Karl Julius Beloch. In 1907 he went to the University of Münster where he continued teaching and writing. Seeck wrote many influential works on late antiquity and social Darwinism. He was widely published in such academi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Taylor (neoplatonist)
Thomas Taylor (15 May 17581 November 1835) was an English translator and Neoplatonist, the first to translate into English the complete works of Aristotle and of Plato, as well as the Orphic fragments. Biography Thomas Taylor was born in the City of London on 15 May 1758, the son of a staymaker Joseph Taylor and his wife Mary (born Summers). He was educated at St. Paul's School, and devoted himself to the study of the classics and of mathematics. After first working as a clerk in Lubbock's Bank, he was appointed Assistant Secretary to the Society for the Encouragement of Art (precursor to the Royal Society of Arts), in which capacity he made many influential friends, who furnished the means for publishing his various translations, which besides Plato and Aristotle, include Proclus, Porphyry, Apuleius, Ocellus Lucanus and other Neoplatonists and Pythagoreans. His aim was the translation of all the untranslated writings of the ancient Greek philosophers. Taylor was an admire ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Collection Budé
The ''Collection Budé'', or the ''Collection des Universités de France'', is an editorial collection comprising the Greek and Latin classics up to the middle of the 6th century (before Emperor Justinian). It is published by Les Belles Lettres, and is sponsored by the Association Guillaume Budé. Each title of the series includes an introduction, notes and a critical apparatus, as well as a facing-page French translation, comparable to the Loeb Classical Library in the English-speaking world, but with considerably more detailed introductions, apparatus, and critical or explanatory annotations. Some titles even comprise full-scale commentaries. The Greek authors in the series can be recognized by a yellow cover on which Athena's little owl can be seen, the Latin ones by a red one where one finds a she-wolf reminiscent of the Capitoline Wolf. A new series, called "Classiques en poche" and aimed at students, has been added: it reproduces the text and translation of the standard ed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gilbert Murray
George Gilbert Aimé Murray (2 January 1866 – 20 May 1957) was an Australian-born British classical scholar and public intellectual, with connections in many spheres. He was an outstanding scholar of the language and culture of Ancient Greece, perhaps the leading authority in the first half of the twentieth century. He is the basis for the character of Adolphus Cusins in his friend George Bernard Shaw's play ''Major Barbara'', and also appears as the chorus figure in Tony Harrison's play '' Fram''. He served as President of the Ethical Union (now Humanists UK) from 1929 to 1930 and was a delegate at the inaugural World Humanist Congress in 1952 which established Humanists International. He was a leader of the League of Nations Society and the League of Nations Union, which promoted the League of Nations in Britain. Early life Murray was born in Sydney, Australia. His father, Sir Terence Aubrey Murray, who died in 1873, had been a Member of the New South Wales Parliamen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories, and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, whose coming as the messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible (called the Old Testament in Christianity) and chronicled in the New Testament. Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the 1st century Hellenistic Judaism in the Roman province of Judea. Jesus' apostles and their followers spread around the Levant, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the South Caucasus, Ancient Carthage, Egypt, and Ethiopia, despite significant initial persecution. It soon attracted gentile God-fearers, which led to a departure from Jewish customs, and, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theurgy
Theurgy (; ) describes the practice of rituals, sometimes seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action or evoking the presence of one or more deities, especially with the goal of achieving henosis (uniting with the divine) and perfecting oneself. Definitions *Proclus (c. 480): theurgy is "a power higher than all human wisdom embracing the blessings of divination, the purifying powers of initiation and in a word all the operations of divine possession" * Keith Thomas: "Spiritual magic or theurgy was based on the idea that one could reach God in an ascent up the scale of creation made possible by a rigorous course of prayer, fasting and devotional preparation." * Pierre A. Riffard: "Theurgy is a type of magic. It consists of a set of magical practices performed to evoke beneficent spirits in order to see them or know them or in order to influence them, for instance by forcing them to animate a statue, to inhabit a human being (such as a mediu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pythagoreanism
Pythagoreanism originated in the 6th century BC, based on and around the teachings and beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans. Pythagoras established the first Pythagorean community in the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek colony of Crotone, Kroton, in modern Calabria (Italy). Early Pythagorean communities spread throughout Magna Graecia. Pythagoras' death and disputes about his teachings led to the development of two philosophical traditions within Pythagoreanism. The ''akousmatikoi'' were superseded in the 4th century BC as a significant mendicant school of philosophy by the Cynicism (philosophy), Cynics. The ''mathēmatikoi'' philosophers were absorbed into the Platonic Academy, Platonic school in the 4th century BC. Following political instability in Magna Graecia, some Pythagorean philosophers fled to mainland Greece while others regrouped in Rhegium. By about 400 BC the majority of Pythagorean philosophers had left Italy. Pythagorean ideas exercised a m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Platonism
Platonism is the philosophy of Plato and philosophical systems closely derived from it, though contemporary platonists do not necessarily accept all of the doctrines of Plato. Platonism had a profound effect on Western thought. Platonism at least affirms the existence of abstract objects, which are asserted to exist in a third realm distinct from both the sensible external world and from the internal world of consciousness, and is the opposite of nominalism." Philosophers who affirm the existence of abstract objects are sometimes called platonists; those who deny their existence are sometimes called nominalists. The terms "platonism" and "nominalism" have established senses in the history of philosophy, where they denote positions that have little to do with the modern notion of an abstract object. In this connection, it is essential to bear in mind that modern platonists (with a small 'p') need not accept any of the doctrines of Plato, just as modern nominalists need not accept ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
