[44] This epithet is likewise ascribed by Onomacritus to the Moon, as may be seen in his hymn to that deity; and the reason of which we have given in our notes to that hymn. [45] Divine visions, and extraordinary circumstances, may be fairly allowed to happen to such exalted geniuses as Proclus; but deserve ridicule when ascribed to the vulgar. [46] What glorious times! when it was considered as an extraordinary circumstance for a teacher of rhetoric to treat a noble and wealthy pupil as his domestic. When we compare them with the present, we can only exclaim, _O tempora! O mores!_ Philosophy sunk in the ruins of ancient Greece and Rome. [47] Fabricius rightly observes, that this Olympiodorus is not the same with the Philosopher of that name, whose learned commentaries, on certain books of Plato, are extant in manuscript, in various libraries. As in these, not only Proclus himself, but Damascius, who flourished long after Proclus, is celebrated. [48] Concerning the various mathematicians of this name, see Fabricius in Bibliotheca Græca. [49] The word in the original is λογικὰ, which Fabricius rightly conjectures has in this place a more extensive signification than either Logic, or Rhetoric: but I must beg leave to differ from that great critic, in not translating it simply _philosophical_, as I should rather imagine, Marinus intended to confine it to that part of Aristotle’s works, which comprehends only logic, rhetoric, and poetry. For the verb ἐξεμάνθανω, or _to learn_, which Marinus uses on this occasion, cannot with propriety be applied to the more abstruse writings of Aristotle. [50] Hence Proclus was called, by way of eminence, διάδοχος Πλατωνικός, or the Platonic Successor. [51] Concerning Polletes, see Suidas; and for Melampodes, consult Fabricius in Bibliotheca Græca. [52] This Syrianus was indeed a most excellent philosopher, as we may be convinced from his commentary on the metaphysics of Aristotle, a Latin translation only of which, by one Hieronimus Bagolinus, was published at Venice in 1558. The Greek is extant, according to Fabricius, in many of the Italian libraries, and in the Johannean library at Hamburg. According to Suidas, he writ a commentary on the whole of Homer in six books; on Plato’s politics, in four books; and on the consent of Orpheus, Pythagoras, and Plato, with the Chaldean Oracles, in ten books. All these are unfortunately lost; and the liberal few, are by this means deprived of treasures of wisdom, which another philosophical age, in some distant revolution, is alone likely to produce. [53] Socrates, in the 6th book of Plato’s Republic, says, that from great geniuses nothing of a middle kind must be expected; but either great good, or great evil. [54] The reader will please to take notice, that this great man is not the same with Plutarch the biographer, whose works are so well known; but an Athenian philosopher of a much later period.