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Concept
Antiochus of Ascalon
Summary
Antiochus of Ascalon (ænˈtaɪəkəs; Άντίοχος ὁ Ἀσκαλώνιος; c. 135/130 – c. 68 BC) was an 1st century BC Platonism philosopher who rejected skepticism and blended Stoic doctrines with Platonism as the first philosopher in the tradition of Middle Platonism.
Antiochus moved to Athens early in his life and became a pupil of Philo of Larissa at the Platonic Academy, but he went on to reject the prevailing Academic skepticism of Philo and his predecessors. This led to his resignation from the academy and the establishment of his own school, which he named the "Old Academy" as he claimed it was closer to original doctrines of Platonism that he believed had been betrayed by the skeptics of the New Academy under Philo. His students at this new institution included the Roman politicians Varro and Cicero. Antiochus was also the friend of the Roman politician and general Lucullus, whom he accompanied on a trip to North Africa and on a campaign to Armenia.
After the decline of the New Academy in the late 1st century BC, his school was the sole inheritor of the Platonic tradition in Athens, which began the period of philosophy known as Middle Platonism. Antiochus endeavoured to bring some doctrines of the Stoics and the Peripatetics into Platonism, and stated, in opposition to Philo, that the mind could distinguish true from false, following the Stoic doctrine of katalepsis. In doing so, he claimed to be reviving the doctrines of the Old Academy. Despite his emphasis on the Platonic tradition, his ideas were often more Stoic than Platonist; in particular, he gave up the Platonic philosophy of transcendence in favor of a materialistic doctrine of nature.
The primary surviving account of Antiochus' life is a biography of him written by Philodemus in his History of the Academy, which survives in a fragmentary papyrus recovered from the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum., However, due to the poor state of preservation of the papyrus, a significant part of the relevant section is either lost or difficult to read.
Official source
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