Political Fragments of Archytas, Charondas, Zaleucus + Hierocles

the depth of these writings, but to the merely verbal critic is a circumstance involved in Cimmerian darkness Referring to the mythical land of perpetual gloom; i.e., completely obscure..

Regarding this subject, see Iamblichus in his Treatise on the Mysteries, and Proclus at the beginning of the second book of his Commentary on the Timæus of Plato. See also the Introduction to the second Alcibiades, in Vol. 4 of my translation of Plato, and the Notes to my translation of Maximus Tyrius, where the reader will find what Iamblichus, Proclus, and Hierocles have said on this subject. That Hierocles was not consummately accurate in his knowledge will be evident by comparing what he says in his aforementioned Commentary about that middle order of beings called the illustrious heroes, with what Iamblichus and Proclus have most admirably unfolded concerning them. This will appear even more plainly from what he says about the celebrated tetrad (or tetractys) of the Pythagoreans, on pages 166 and 170 of the same Commentary. For in both these places, he clearly asserts that this tetrad is the same as the Demiurgus (or Maker of the Universe). Thus, in the former place, he writes: original: "και την τετραδα πηγην της αιδιου διακοσμησεως, αποφαινεται την αυτην ουσαν τω δημιουργω θεῳ." "And the author of these verses shows that the tetrad, which is the fountain of the perpetual orderly distribution of things, is the same with the God who is the Demiurgus." And in the latter passage: original: "εστι γαρ ως εφαμεν, δημιουργος των ολων και αιτια η τετρας, θεος νοητος, αιτιος του ουρανιου και αισθητου θεου." "For as we have said, the tetrad is the Demiurgus and cause of the wholes of the universe, being an intelligible God, the source of the celestial and sensible God." The tetrad, however, or the animal itself (to autozōon) of Plato—who, as Syrianus justly observes, was the best of the Pythagoreans—subsists at the extremity of the intelligible triad, as is most satisfactorily