City and School in Late Antique Athens and AlexandriaThis lively and wide-ranging study of the men and ideas of late antique education explores the intellectual and doctrinal milieux in the two great cities of Athens and Alexandria from the second to the sixth centuries to shed new light on the interaction between the pagan cultural legacy and Christianity. While previous scholarship has seen Christian reactions to pagan educational culture as the product of an empire-wide process of development, Edward J. Watts crafts two narratives that reveal how differently education was shaped by the local power structures and urban contexts of each city. Touching on the careers of Herodes Atticus, Proclus, Damascius, Ammonius Saccas, Origen, Hypatia, and Olympiodorus; and events including the Herulian sack of Athens, the closing of the Athenian Neoplatonic school under Justinian, the rise of Arian Christianity, and the sack of the Serapeum, he shows that by the sixth century, Athens and Alexandria had two distinct, locally determined, approaches to pagan teaching that had their roots in the unique historical relationships between city and school. |
Contents
Athenian Education in the Second through Fourth Centuries | 24 |
Prohaeresius and the Later Fourth Century | 48 |
4 | 79 |
The Closing of the Athenian Schools | 111 |
Alexandrian Intellectual Life in the Roman Imperial Period | 143 |
The Shifting Sands of FourthCentury Alexandrian Cultural Life | 169 |
Alexandrian Schools of the Fifth Century | 204 |
9 | 232 |
Conclusion | 257 |
| 263 | |
| 281 | |
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Common terms and phrases
activities Alexan Alexandria in Late Alexandrian Christian Ammonius Ammonius’s anti-Chalcedonian Antony Archiades Aristotle’s Arius Asclepiodotus Athanasius Athanassiadi Athenian Agora Athenian school Athenian teachers Athens bishop chair Chris Christian intellectual Christian students Christian teachers city’s classical commentary cultural curriculum Cyril Damascius Damascius’s described Despite Didymus discussion divine doctrines emperor Eunapius Eunapius’s exile fifth century fourth century Greek Gregory Hegias Hellenic Hermeias Herodes hetairoi Hierocles Horapollon Hypatia Iamblichan Iamblichus Ibid ideas imperial inner circle Isidore John Philoponus John’s Julian Julianus’s Late Antiquity later letter Libanius Libanius’s Malalas Marinus Marinus’s Mouseion Neoplatonic Neoplatonic school Olympiodorus Origen pagan pagan teachers Paralius Peter Mongus philo philoponoi philosophical teaching Philostratus Platonic Plotinus Plutarch political Porphyry Proc Proclus Proclus’s proconsul Prohaeresius prominent response rhetoric rhetorician role Roman scholarch seems Serapeum Severus Soph sophist successor suggests Synesius Syrianus taught Theagenes Theon theurgy tian tion traditional Zacharias