Political Fragments of Archytas, Charondas, Zaleucus + Hierocles

them unfolded the intention of Plato in that dialogue as much as possible—which, as Damascius well observes, was a thing of a most singular nature, and clearly demonstrates the amplitude of his conceptions. We are also informed by the same Theosebius that Hierocles once said, while expounding Plato, that the discourses of Socrates* resembled cubes, because they remained firm wherever they might fall.

The following circumstance, says Suidas, evinces the fortitude and magnanimity of Hierocles. On coming to Byzantium, he offended the prevailers (προσέκρουσε τοις κρατουσι)—that is, the Christians†—and being brought

• The discourses of Socrates in Plato.
  † For so the Christians were called by the heathens, when the religion of the latter was rapidly declining, and that of the former had gained the ascendancy. Thus Porphyry, in a passage preserved by Theodoret (in lib. i. De Curat. Graec. Superst.): "For the way which leads to the Gods is bound with chains of brass, and is arduous and rough; many paths of which were indeed discovered by the Barbarians, but the Greeks have wandered from them, and they are entirely corrupted by those who now prevail."