Agapius (philosopher)

Agapios of Athens ( † after 511 ) was a late ancient Greek philosopher ( Neoplatonist ). He is known only from scattered mentions. About his teachings nothing is handed down from his works nothing has been preserved.

Agapios lived in his home town of Athens. He belonged to the local Neo-Platonic school. The Egyptian poet Christodoros of Koptos, a contemporary of Agapios, praised him in the lost poem about the hearers of the great Proclus, from which only a single verse has been handed down by a quote. In this verse Christodoros Agapios referred to as the ( temporal) last, but ( in rank ) first among the disciples of the philosopher Proclus, of the 485 deceased head of the school.

Damascius, the last head of the school, Agapios mentioned several times in his lost, 517-526 written biography of the philosopher and headmaster Isidor. Some fragments obtained from this plant, which are preserved in the Suda, and another fragment in the library of the Byzantine scholar Photius provide scant information about Agapios. Damascius took on Agapios ' activity as a literary critic respect and praised his scholarship, which was also appreciated in Constantinople and Alexandria Opel. Moreover, Damascius mentioned that Agapios after the death of Proclus the teaching of his successor Marinos and visited by Emperor Zeno ( 474-491 ) was arrested along with other philosophers. This was apparently in connection with a state persecution of non-Christian philosophers.

A disciple of Agapios was John Lydos. He reports in his work De magistratibus that he participated as a twenty-one in the year 511 the lessons at the Agapios on the teachings of Plato and Aristotle.