Plutarch of Athens

Plutarch of Athens — not to be confused with the earlier essayist Plutarch of Chaeronea — was the first head of the Neoplatonic Academy as it was revived at Athens in the late fourth and early fifth centuries. He gave the Athenian school the form it would keep through its golden age.

He commented on Aristotle's On the Soul and on Plato's Parmenides and Phaedo, and he fixed the principle, followed by the whole school, that the student should master Aristotle as a preparation before ascending to the deeper mysteries of Plato.

His pupils were Syrianus, who succeeded him, and the young Proclus, whom he taught in his own old age. Through these two the line he began would produce the grandest systems of late Neoplatonism.