Zenodotus (; el, Ζηνόδοτος; fl. late 5th century AD) was a

Neoplatonist Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some id ...

philosopher who lived and taught in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

. He was described as "the darling of Proclus." Zenodotus served under

Marinus of Neapolis Marinus ( grc, Μαρῖνος ὁ Νεαπολίτης; born c. 440 AD) was a Neoplatonist philosopher, mathematician and rhetorician born in Flavia Neapolis (modern Nablus), Palestine. He was a student of Proclus in Athens. His survivin ...

when Marinus succeeded Proclus as the head (''

scholarch A scholarch ( grc, σχολάρχης, ''scholarchēs'') was the head of a school in ancient Greece. The term is especially remembered for its use to mean the heads of schools of philosophy, such as the Platonic Academy in ancient Athens. Its fir ...

'') of the school (c. 485). He was a teacher of

Damascius Damascius (; grc-gre, Δαμάσκιος, 458 – after 538), known as "the last of the Athenian Neoplatonists," was the last scholarch of the neoplatonic Athenian school. He was one of the neoplatonic philosophers who left Athens after laws ...

when he came to Athens to learn philosophy (c. 492). Whereas Marinus taught mathematics and

scientific Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

courses to Damascius, Zenodotus taught the more conventional philosophy courses.Photius, ''Bibl.'' cod. 181 He was an important philosopher in Athens during the time when Marinus and Hegias were contending for the leadership of the school, but he seems to have been overlooked as a possible scholarch on more than one occasion.

Notes

References

*Edward Jay Watts (2006), ''City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria''. University of California Press. pp. 116–123. {{DEFAULTSORT:Zenodotus 5th-century Greek philosophers Neoplatonists in Athens 5th-century Byzantine people