SAPERE XXXIV: On happiness

Introduced, translated and provided with interpretative essays by Matthias Becker, John Dillon, Udo Hartmann, Christoph Helmig, Irmgard Männlein-Robert a.o. Edited by Irmgard Männlein-Robert with the assistance of Oliver Schelske.

The writing On Happiness: The Life of Proclus, written by the Neoplatonic philosopher Marinos, is a remarkable text of the late 5th century AD that amalgamates traditional biographical, hagiographical and philosophical themes and motifs with current contemporary discourses of late antiquity. The long-time head of the Neoplatonists in Athens, the philosopher Proclus, is staged as a leading figure and pagan saint in an increasingly Christianised society. Marinos uses his Proclus figure to illustrate the virtues and ideals of the Neoplatonic philosophers and, in doing so, programmatically portrays the (Neo)Platonic ethics and conception of happiness. In the introduction as well as in the seven essays of this volume, literary, philosophical, religious-philosophical, astronomical as well as ancient historical and social-historical topics of this text - which is translated into German here for the first time - are illuminated.

Becker, Matthias; Dillon, John; Hartmann, Udo; Helmig, Christoph; Männlein-Robert, Irmgard; O’Meara, Dominic; Schorn, Stefan; Topp, Benjamin
Composite volume; German, Ancient Greek
Published 2019
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck Verlag: Tübingen
ISBN: 978-3-16-157638-6