Proclus in the context of "Neoplatonism and Christianity"

Euclid (/ˈjuːklɪd/; Ancient Greek: Εὐκλείδης; fl. 300 BC) was an ancient Greek mathematician active as a geometer and logician. Considered the "father of geometry", he is chiefly known for the Elements treatise, which established the foundations of geometry that largely dominated the field until the early 19th century. His system, now referred to as Euclidean geometry, involved innovations in combination with a synthesis of theories from earlier Greek mathematicians, including Eudoxus of Cnidus, Hippocrates of Chios, Thales and Theaetetus. With Archimedes and Apollonius of Perga, Euclid is generally considered among the greatest mathematicians of antiquity, and one of the most influential in the history of mathematics.

Very little is known of Euclid's life, and most information comes from the scholars Proclus and Pappus of Alexandria many centuries later. Medieval Islamic mathematicians invented a fanciful biography, and medieval Byzantine and early Renaissance scholars mistook him for the earlier philosopher Euclid of Megara. It is now generally accepted that he spent his career in Alexandria and lived around 300 BC, after Plato's students and before Archimedes. There is some speculation that Euclid studied at the Platonic Academy and later taught at the Musaeum; he is regarded as bridging the earlier Platonic tradition in Athens with the later tradition of Alexandria.

The Aithiopis (/iːˈθaɪəpɪs/; Ancient Greek: Αἰθιοπίς, romanized: Aithiopís), also spelled Aethiopis, is a lost epic of ancient Greek literature. It was one of the Epic Cycle, which told the entire history of the Trojan War in epic verse. The story of the Aethiopis lands chronologically after the Homeric Iliad, and could be followed by that of the Little Iliad. The Aethiopis was often attributed by ancient writers to Arctinus of Miletus who lived in the 8th century BC (see Cyclic poets). The poem comprised five books of verse in dactylic hexameter. Very few fragments of the Aethiopis survive today; Proclus's summary of the poem's contents establishes the narrative framework of the epic.

Stasinus (Ancient Greek: Στασῖνος, romanized: Stasînos) of Cyprus was a semi-legendary early Greek poet. He is best known for his lost work Cypria, which was one of the poems belonging to the Epic Cycle that narrated the War of Troy.

The Cypria, presupposing an acquaintance with the events of the Homeric poem, confined itself to what preceded the Iliad, and has been described as an introduction. The poem contained an account of the Judgement of Paris, the elopement of Helen, the abandonment of Philoctetes on the island of Lemnos, the landing of the Achaeans on the coast of Asia Minor, and the first engagement before Troy. Proclus, in his Chrestomathia, gave an outline of the poem (preserved in Photius, cod. 239).

Arctinus of Miletus or Arctinus Milesius (Ancient Greek: Ἀρκτῖνος Μιλήσιος) was a Greek epic poet whose reputation is purely legendary, as none of his works survive. Traditionally dated between 775 BC and 741 BC, he was said to have been a pupil of Homer. His father was Teleus son of Nauteus.Phaenias of Eresus placed him in the 7th century BC and claimed that he was defeated by Lesches of Pyrrha in competition. One of the "cyclic poets", Arctinus composed the epics Aethiopis and Sack of Troy, which were contributions to the Trojan War cycle, and possibly Naupactia.

These poems are lost, but an idea of the first two can be obtained from the Chrestomathy ascribed (probably wrongly) to Proclus the Neo-Platonist of the 5th century AD.

Lesches (Ancient Greek: Λέσχης) is a semi-legendary early Greek poet and the reputed author of the Little Iliad. According to the usually accepted tradition, he was a native of Pyrrha in Lesbos, and flourished about 660 BC (others place him about 50 years earlier). Proclus refers to him as "Lesches of Mytilene". Mytilene and Lesbos are names of the same Greek island used interchangeably.

The lost epic Little Iliad, in four books, was commonly attributed to Lesches. It took up the story of the Homeric Iliad, and, beginning with the contest between Telamonian Ajax and Odysseus for the arms of Achilles, carried it down to the feast of the Trojans over the captured Trojan Horse, according to the epitome in Proclus, or to the Fall of Troy, according to Aristotle. Some ancient authorities ascribe the work to a Spartan named Cinaethon, and even to Homer.

Ammonius Hermiae (/əˈmoʊniəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἀμμώνιος ὁ Ἑρμείου, romanized: Ammōnios ho Hermeiou, lit. 'Ammonius, son of Hermias'; c. 440 – between 517 and 526) was a Greek philosopher from Alexandria in the eastern Roman empire during Late Antiquity. A Neoplatonist, he was the son of the philosophers Hermias and Aedesia, the brother of Heliodorus of Alexandria and the grandson of Syrianus. Ammonius was a pupil of Proclus in Roman Athens, and taught at Alexandria for most of his life, having obtained a public chair in the 470s.

According to Olympiodorus of Thebes's Commentaries on Plato's Gorgias and Phaedo texts, Ammonius gave lectures on the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Porphyry of Tyre, and wrote commentaries on Aristotelian works and three lost commentaries on Platonic texts. He is also the author of a text on the astrolabe published in the Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum, and lectured on astronomy and geometry. Ammonius taught numerous Neoplatonists, including Damascius, Olympiodorus of Thebes, John Philoponus, Simplicius of Cilicia, and Asclepius of Tralles. Also among his pupils were the physician Gessius of Petra and the ecclesiastical historian Zacharias Rhetor, who became the bishop of Mytilene.

The great chain of being is a hierarchical structure of all matter and life, thought by medieval Christianity to have been decreed by God. The chain begins with God and descends through angels, humans, animals and plants to minerals.

The great chain of being (from Latin scala naturae 'ladder of being') is a concept derived from Plato, Aristotle (in his Historia Animalium), Plotinus and Proclus. Further developed during the Middle Ages, it reached full expression in early modern Neoplatonism.