Political Fragments of Archytas, Charondas, Zaleucus + Hierocles

by Suidas, Damascius*, and Æneas Gazæus. From the last of these, we learn that he flourished about the end of the fifth century of the Christian era; and from the other two, that he was a Platonic philosopher of Alexandria. His conceptions were magnificent, and his genius sublime. He was very eloquent, astonished his listeners by the beauty and copiousness of his language, and contended with Plato himself in elegance of diction and fertility of intellect. One of his students was Theosebius, a man of great insight, who twice heard Hierocles orally explain the Gorgias of Plato at different times. Though, upon comparing the latter explanation with the former, he found nothing in one that was identical to the other, yet each of

• In the fragments of his Life of Isidorus the Platonist, preserved by Photius. The greater part of what Suidas has said about Hierocles is taken from these memoirs of Isidorus.