Following in the steps of her teacher John Dillon, the author of a very influential and pioneering collection of the Neoplatonic reports on Iamblichus' Platonic commentaries (1973, reprinted with corrections 2010), W. is now performing a similar service for another Neoplatonic philosopher, Syrianus (d. c. 437). The successor of Plutarchus, the first diadochos of the Athenian school of Platonism (c. 350–431/2), he commented on Homer, Orpheus, Plato, Aristotle, the Chaldean oracles and the orator Hermogenes (if the extant commentary really belongs to him), and gave oral instruction in philosophy to young members of the school and, first of all, to his most talented student and future successor, Proclus (412–485), whose voluminous Platonic commentaries provide the bulk of information on his opinions.
The collection is limited in its scope: it is only concerned with Syrianus' teaching on Plato's Timaeus and Parmenides, extracted, with the exception of a few fragments, from Proclus' commentaries on these dialogues. Having promised to expand the collection in a future study, W. discusses other relevant material, found in such texts as Proclus' Platonic Theology, in her commentaries on the selected fragments.
W.'s aim is ‘to determine Syrianus’ metaphysics based on the writings of Proclus and Damascius' (p. 20). In her introduction W. summarises the biographical data and tries to put Syrianus on the Neoplatonic ‘map’. This is continued in her detailed comments on individual fragments. Since we are dealing with a collection of fragments of a relatively unknown author, the book, in my opinion, would have better achieved its goal as a reference work if introduced by a more substantial and less specialised piece of writing.
Technically speaking the texts collected are not ‘fragments’: the available material consists of a series of reports about Syrianus' teaching found, mostly, in Proclus' Platonic commentaries. We cannot be certain whether Syrianus composed formal commentaries on Platonic dialogues or, as is visible from the notes on the Phaedrus (ed. P. Couvreur, 19712) written down apo phōnēs by his student Hermias, whether he adopted a more informal method of oral instruction, a combination of lectures and dialogue (cf. In Ti. fr. 7, p. 81, where certain ‘Orphic seminars’ are mentioned). The texts in Proclus could testify to the latter: in various places of his commentaries on Timaeus and Parmenides he says that this ‘is the judgment of our Master’ (and the passages W. identifies as ‘fragments’ often begin or end with similar phrases) and then continues in a more diffusive way so that the subject discussed gradually dissolves into his own thoughts and the extent of the ‘fragment’ (as W. admits) is virtually impossible to determine.
Still, a close look at the texts allows attentive readers to isolate a good deal of teaching which could, with various degrees of certainty, be specifically ascribed to Syrianus. The arguments chosen by W. are mostly convincing and the illustrative passages are generally well selected, but sometimes they are less successful.
I have space for just one example. Proclus (In Ti. 1.51.13–52.2 = Syrianus, In Ti. fr. 2 W.), referring to his teacher, says: ‘One should take into consideration that, even if it is not true that souls are not emitted with sperm, the distribution of bodies is according to merit. For all souls are not established in bodies by chance, but each soul [is placed] into the body that suits it’. Then, after a reference to a symbolic practice in theurgy, he repeats the same idea: ‘It is this that the statesman [cf. Rep. 456a] understands correctly, and thus takes great account of dissemination and of the whole question of natural suitability [ἐπιτηδειότητος], in order that the best souls may come to be in the best natures’.
The evidence is unique and the most obvious point of departure is Porphyry, but as far as the testimony from Iamblichus (Porphyry, fr. 266F Smith; Iamblichus, De anima fr. 31 Finamore–Dillon) is concerned, the translation given by W. is misleading. The text: Κατὰ δ’ Ἱπποκράτην … ὅταν πλασθῇ τὸ σπέρμα … κατὰ δὲ Πορφύριον ἐν τῇ πρώτῃ ἀπογεννήσει τοῦ τικτομένου πρώτως ἡ κατ’ ἐνέργειαν ζωοποιία καὶ παρουσία τῆς ψυχῆς φύεται (Stobaeus 1.49.41; 1.381.2–6) plainly states that ‘according to Hippocrates … life is actually created and the soul becomes present when the sperm is formed into an embryo … while according to Porphyry it is as soon as the child is born’ (tr. Finamore–Dillon), not ‘according to Hippocrates … the soul is enformed in the embryo … according to Porphyry, it is in the first stage of generation rather than at birth that it actually receives life and that the soul might be present’ (p. 49), while in To Gaurus 2.2, to which W. refers (p. 49 n. 10), Porphyry simply lists other peoples' opinions.
Then W. says that ‘in ad Gaurum … two somewhat differing views on the subject are accredited to Porphyry’ (pp. 48–9) and later: ‘… this accords with a better known fragment Kalbfleisch identifies as Porphyry's …’ (p. 50). This is equally misleading. The To Gaurus, On How Embryos are Ensouled is a small treatise by Porphyry, not fragments, and the views he expresses are quite consistent. The text, wrongly ascribed in a single and badly damaged manuscript to Galen, but long ago identified as Porphyrian and edited by K. Kalbfleisch (1895), was first translated into French by A.-J. Festugière (1953) and more recently by L. Brisson, T. Dorandi, et al. (2012) and, independently, translated into English by J. Wilberding (2011). Here Porphyry advocates a view, somewhat exceptional among the ancients, according to which the foetus lives only potentially and becomes a living being only after its birth and, building upon Alexander (cf. his commentary on Aristotle's De anima 36.19ff., and other places), distinguishes between two senses of potentiality (first, a thing is capable of receiving quality, although it has not yet received it, and second, a thing, which has received a quality, does not act according to it) and formulates this distinction as a starting point of his argumentation, reserving for these two types of potentiality the terms ἐπιτηδειότης and ἕξις, respectively. Following Proclus, W. rightly notes that the technical term ἐπιτηδειότης is ‘often used to refer to a theurgic object's ability to receive divine power’ (p. 51 n. 18, with references to Iamblichus), but it is equally clear that both conceptually and terminologically the report ultimately depends on Porphyry's argumentation, possibly through Iamblichus. Everywhere in his treatise Porphyry insists that each individual soul has been naturally attuned (or made suitable) to a specific body before it enters it at birth (most clearly at To Gaurus 11.2, 13.7, 16.6–8). Proclus closely mirrors the Porphyrian argumentation, which should have been noticed.
Minor mistakes are few but visible throughout the book. So we see misprints at pp. 2, 21, 63, 64, 83, 342, etc.; ‘Plato's Commentary on the Parmenides’ for ‘Proclus’ Commentary on the Parmenides' (p. 217 n. 6), very irregular references to the sources and use of commas in the bibliography (passim). Iamblichus' De vita Pythagorica is better rendered On the Pythagorean Life, or On the Pythagorean Way of Life, not just the Life of Pythagoras (p. 42); finally, it is odd that W. omits the subdivisions introduced by the editors into the texts and translations of Proclus' and Damascius' commentaries, which is very inconvenient for such long passages as In Parm. fr. 5 (pp. 252–61).
This is a very useful book, which expands our knowledge of the Platonic tradition and, along with the recent translation of Syrianus' On Aristotle's Metaphysics (Books Β, Γ, Μ and Ν) by J. Dillon and D. O'Meara (2006 and 2008), and the substantial collection of studies edited by A. Lango (Syrianus et la métaphysique de l'antiquité tardive [2009]), should stimulate further research in the field.
