Plato's Philosopher King in the Political Thought of Sixth-Century Byzantium

Abstract

The substance of this paper will be the fragments of an Anonymous dialogue entitled On Politica Science which was written probably in Constantinople during Justinian’s time from the viewpoint of the senatorial class. On the basis of internal evidence, the dramatic date of the work can be more securely placed at the beginning of Justinian's reign, certainly before the Nika Riot of A.D. 532. Nothing is known about the author. He probably received his higher education in Plato's Academy in fifth-century Athens where he was taught the late Neoplatonic philosophy by the best known head of the Academy, Proclus (died ca. A.D. 485). The author was a Christian philosopher who presented his ideas in terms of contemporary Neoplatonism.