Simplicius of Cilicia was a disciple of Ammonius Hermiae and Damascius, and was one of the last of the Neoplatonists. He was among the pagan philosophers persecuted by Justinian in the early 6th century, and was forced for a time to seek refuge in the Persian court, before being allowed back into the empire. He wrote extensively on the works of Aristotle. Although his writings are all commentaries on Aristotle and other authors, rather than original compositions, his intelligent and prodigious learning makes him the last great philosopher of pagan antiquity. His works have preserved much information about earlier philosophers which would have otherwise been lost.
The Emperor Justinian ordered the closure of the Neoplatonic academy.
Commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo by Simplicius. This 14th-century manuscript is signed by a former owner, Basilios Bessarion.
A page of the copy of Simplicius' Commentary on Aristotle's Physics made by Theodora Rhaulaina between 1261 and 1282. Moscow, State Historical Museum, Codex 3649, fol. 221r.
Ammonius Hermiae 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.
First page of the first edition of the Isagoge commentary, Venice 1500