Συνουσία in Late Antique Neoplatonic Schools: A Concept between Social History, History of Education and History of Philosophy

Abstract

It is well studied that some Pythagorean principles lied at the foundations of the Late Antique Neoplatonic School. The main reason for that conclusion to be drawn is the two biographies of the Samian sage written by the Neoplatonic philosophers Porphyry of Tyre and Iamblichus of Chalcis. Accordingly, the archetypical image of Pythagoras became a major ideal for which every pagan philosopher aimed in Late Antiquity. Henceforth, masters and their disciple circles comprised a micro-society which can reasonably be analyzed as a whole. Suffice it to say that they were small and cohesive charismatic communities whose isolation from the outside world aroused a living harmony from which emerged long-standing emotional bonds. Consequently, the Pythagorically rooted κοινός βίος (Iambl. Vit. Pyth. 6.29: τὸ λεγόμενον κοινοβίους) can easily be ascertained in the biographical literature around the philosophical schools from Plotinus to Damascius (cf. Porph. Vit. Plot. 18.6-14; Procl. In Resp. passim). It is a way of life in common which was also known at the old Athenian Academy (according to Plato’s only explicit reference to Pythagoras (Resp. 600a-b: Πυθαγόρειον τρόπον τοῦ βίου) and has sometimes been defined even as “coenobitic”, in analogy with other contemporary phenomena. But from our point of view, it can be better understood through an analysis of the concept of συνουσία—that is, the meetings of philosophers with their companions (ἑταῖροι) in a specific place which turned into a sort of spiritual household. With this contribution, we aim at focusing on the redefinition of the Neoplatonic συνουσίαι as a legacy of the Platonic notion of συνουσία, stemming from Pythagorean κοινόβιοι. To sum up, we will revise this issue and the state of the art, with the redefinition of Late Antique συνουσία as a terminus technicus in the biographic literature around the Neoplatonic Schools, aiming at opening new paths for the understanding of the Pythagorean–Platonic heritage in Late Antiquity.