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In texts like the Timaeus Commentary, Proclus argues that sensible particulars, which are characterized as divisible and partitioned, contain in themselves a “partless form” (ἀμερές εἶδος: cf. III.34.12–15 [Van Riel]/II.25.6–9 [Diehls]) from which divisible, separate qualities, matching the divided character of bodies, come to be.

traditional but possibly false assumption, my paper will consider the best reason, apart from
Socrates’ disinterest in natural science, for distinguishing the views of Plato from those
expressed in Timaeus: the contrasting views on women found in Republic and Timaeus, two
dialogues that Plato clearly linked. But despite the fact that the summary of the Republic at the
beginning of Timaeus leaves out a great deal of the former, it emphasizes the role of women as
guardians, and thus their equality with respect to courage and justice in particular. It is therefore

This paper seeks to elucidate Porphyry’s engagement with Plato’s claim that plants are animals, participating in the third part of the soul (Tim. 76e7-77c5), as part of the third century Neoplatonist’s embryology in his To Gaurus on the Ensoulment of Embryos 4-9 (a text assigned to Galen in the single surviving manuscript but now universally accepted as Porphyrian). The basic thesis of this treatise is that ensoulment in a proper sense occurs upon the parturition of the infant, not at conception or at some point during gestation.

There has yet to be a comprehensive study of Plotinus’ elemental theory. Due in large part to the elements playing an important role in only a few treatises dealing with the sensible world, this component of Plotinus’ thought is generally treated as being entirely downstream of the model of the elements given by Aristotle and other Peripatetic philosophers. Despite this, there have been some challenges to this assumption; in particular, the recognition that Plotinus rejects the existence of the fifth element in treatise II.1.

Scholars of Greek history have long debated the bifurcation between sacred and public wealth in the Greek polis (e.g., Fouchard 1998; Jacquemin 1998; Macé 2012; Rousset 2013; Sassu 2014). However, our use of the term “sacred wealth” entails an under-examined conceptual leap. Philosophical writing may speak of sacred wealth as an abstract category, but epigraphic sources tend to conceive of wealth as sacred to a specific deity rather than sacred in a more general sense.

In recent decades, attempts to quantify the expenditures of the Roman Imperial state have reached a consensus figure of per annum outlays near 1 billion sesterces during the 2nd century CE (Duncan-Jones 1994; Wolters 1999; Scheidel 2015).

The study of institutional diffusion and isomorphism is an undertheorized topic of inquiry in ancient history, partially due to endemic data scarcity. The traditional narratives of diffusion primarily operate on a center-periphery model, assume one-way diffusion from the center to the periphery through coercion, and neglect any mode of local adaptions of or reactions to the institutions imposed by imperial systems.

This paper investigates the (largely unexplored) intersection between animals in late antique Christian literature and paradoxography, by analyzing the Life of Makarios the Roman (ed. Vassiliev). It argues that the Life uses paradoxographical marveling – a cognitive response to the world’s vastness and the limits of human understanding of it – to express the unfathomable aspects of sanctity. It also argues that the representation of animals is central to this process.

In Longus’ 2nd century BCE novel Daphnis and Chloe, the boundaries between humans and animals are porous. Both protagonists are suckled by animals (a goat and a sheep) in infancy; one character, Dorcon, disguises himself as a wolf in an attempt to rape Chloe; and most notably, the humans who populate Longus’ bucolic setting often compare one another to animals, making sense of human interactions and status through observation of the animals around them (Bowie 2005; Epstein 1995). This porosity, however, is not simply a result of the novel’s bucolic setting.

Ambrose of Milan’s Hexameron, a series of sermons on the six days of creation originally delivered to a congregation participating in a fast for holy week, is preoccupied with questions of food, edibility, and poison. Within these homilies, Ambrose’s “zoological imagination” (Cox Miller, 2018) extends to a fascination with what animals eat: starlings consume poison hemlock (Hex. 3.9), lions hate having leftovers for dinner (6.14), and tortoises season their diet of serpents with marjoram (6.19).