Damascius

Damascius (Greek: Δαμάσκιος, c. 462 – after 538) was the last scholarch of the neoplatonic Athenian school. He was one of the neoplatonic philosophers who left Athens after laws confirmed by emperor Justinian I forced the closure of the Athenian school in c. 529 AD. After he left Athens, he may have sought refuge in the court of the Persian King Chrosroes, before being allowed back into the Byzantine Empire. His surviving works consist of three commentaries on the works of Plato, and a metaphysical text entitled Difficulties and Solutions of First Principles.

Quotes

• Ζωσίμη ἡ πρὶν ἐοῦσα μόνῳ τῷ σώματι δούλη
  καὶ τῷ σώματι νῦν εὗρεν ἐλευθερίην.
  • Zosime who was never a slave but in body, has now gained freedom for her body too.
  • Anthologia Palatina, VII, 553 (W. R. Paton, Greek Anthology, II, p. 298)
  • J. A. Symonds Jr., "Epitaph of a Slave", Studies of the Greek Poets (1873), p. 357:

    She who was once but in her flesh a slave
    Hath for her flesh found freedom in the grave.

  • Earl of Cromer, "Freedom in Death", Paraphrases and Translations from the Greek (1903), p. 61:

    Zosime, cursed with serfdom from the womb,
    Found Life in Death, and freedom in the tomb.

  • J. A. Pott, "A Slave Girl", Greek Love Songs and Epigrams (1911), p. 134:

    O Zôzima, your soul was ever free,
    And now your body too hath liberty.

  • G. B. Grundy, "Free Among the Dead", Ancient Gems in Modern Settings (1913), p. 295:

    She, when she lived, in nought but body was a slave;
    But when she died her body too found freedom in the grave.