Antiochus of Ascalon (; ; ) was a 1st-century BC Platonist philosopher. He rejected skepticism, blended Stoic doctrines with Platonism, and was the first philosopher in the tradition of Middle Platonism.
Antiochus moved to Athens early in his life and became a pupil of Philo of Larissa at the Platonic Academy, but he went on to reject the prevailing Academic skepticism of Philo and his predecessors. This led to his resignation from the academy and the establishment of his own school, which he named the "Old Academy" as he claimed it was closer to original doctrines of Platonism that he believed had been betrayed by the skeptics of the New Academy under Philo. His students at this new institution included the Roman politicians Varro and Cicero. Antiochus was also the friend of the Roman politician and general Lucullus, whom he accompanied on a trip to North Africa and on a campaign to Armenia.
After the decline of the New Academy in the late 1st century BC, his school was the sole inheritor of the Platonic tradition in Athens, which began the period of philosophy known as Middle Platonism. Antiochus endeavoured to bring some doctrines of the Stoics and the Peripatetics into Platonism, and stated, in opposition to Philo, that the mind could distinguish true from false, following the Stoic doctrine of katalepsis. In doing so, he claimed to be reviving the doctrines of the Old Academy. Despite his emphasis on the Platonic tradition, his ideas were often more Stoic than Platonist; in particular, he gave up the Platonic philosophy of transcendence in favor of a materialistic doctrine of nature.
Life The primary surviving account of Antiochus' life is a biography of him written by Philodemus in his History of the Academy, which survives in a fragmentary papyrus recovered from the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum. However, due to the poor state of preservation of the papyrus, a significant part of the relevant section is either lost or difficult to read. Some additional biographical information comes the Academica of Cicero, who was a close friend of Antiochus, and from the later biographer Plutarch in his Life of Lucullus and Life of Cicero.
Early life and education Antiochus was born in the late 1st century BC, probably between 135 BC and 130 BC. Nothing is known about his early life, but both Strabo and Stephanus of Byzantium mention him as a notable philosopher from Ascalon. He travelled to Athens and joined the Platonic Academy, after 110 BC, when Philo of Larissa was the current scholarch of the academy. Antiochus studied under Philo for a significant portion of his career; his relationship with Philo as a student lasted longer than that of any of the scholar's other students. However, the two philosophers later became estranged, as a result of a disagreement about skepticism.
While at Athens, Antiochus also studied Stoicism, a school of Hellenistic philosophy that rivaled the academy. He studied under Mnesarchus, who had recently taken charge of the Stoa Poikile after the death of its previous scholarch Panaetius. The contact to the Stoa was probably mediated by the Stoic philosopher Sosus, who also came from Ascalon, and whom Antiochus would go on to name the title of one of his later works after. It is unclear whether Antiochus initially belonged to the Stoics and only later switched to the academy, or whether, like many other philosophers of the time, he was an academic from the start and only attended Stoic courses on the side.
The Old Academy Under the direction of Philo, who was scholarch from 110/109 to 88, the academy adhered to Academic skepticism, which had been the predominant form of Platonism since it was introduced by Arcesilaus in approximately 265 BCE, a period called the Middle Academy. This skepticism became even more strict under the New Academy of Carneades, who had been the scholarch of the academy until 137/136. Philo, who only joined the academy after Carneades' health-related resignation, represented a milder version of skepticism. Skepticism was coupled with a sharp rejection of the Stoic doctrine of katalepsis.
Antiochus tended to abandon the core theses of skepticism, which seemed untenable to him. In doing so, he came into conflict with the prevailing current in the academy, which at the time was already moderate and willing to compromise, but was still committed to the tradition of Carneades. After some time, this led to him leaving the academy and founding his own school in Athens. In an attempt to connect his school with Platonism before the introduction of skepticism, he called his school the Old Academy, which during the later Roman Empire this would be referred to as the "fifth academy", with Philo being understood as the founder of a "fourth academy".
Exile in North Africa In 88 BC, the political turmoil in Athens that would ultimately result from the First Mithridatic War caused many members of Athens' upper class, including Philo and many of his students, to flee to Rome. Antiochus, however, who was no longer a member of that school by this point, did not follow them and appears to have travelled to Alexandria instead. Either in a camp of the Romans besieging Athens, or perhaps in Alexandria itself, he met Lucullus, a Roman officer who served under Sulla. Lucullus, who later achieved prominence as a politician and general in the wars against Mithridates, became his friend and patron.
In 87 BC, Philo wrote a treatise in two books from his exile in Rome where he gave concessions on some important principles of skepticism, but did not renounce the claim to continue to be a skeptic in the tradition of Carneades, and stuck to the idea of a unified teaching tradition at the academy since it was founded. When Antiochus received these Roman books in Alexandria in the winter of 87/86, he reacted with indignation and wrote a response entitled Sosus, which was named for the Stoic philosopher Sosus of Ascalon. With the publication of Sosus, Antiochus' break with the New Academy and Philo was complete; he had disputed both the soundness of Philo's philosophical approach and the historical accuracy of his understanding of the history of philosophy.
Return to Athens Later, probably soon after the end of the conflict there, Antiochus returned to Athens, which was controlled by the Romans from March 86 onward, and resumed his teaching. Since the skeptical "New Academy" had not survived the turmoil of war – after Philo's flight apparently no new scholarch was elected – Antiochus' "Old Academy" was now the only institution that claimed to continue the tradition of Plato's Academy, emphasizing his Academy's sharp contrast to the skepticism of the New Academy. However, Antiochus did not continue the Platonic Academy as it had been maintained for most of the Hellenistic period; Antiochus did not teach on the site where the academy had been seated since Plato's time, which was destroyed in the Sack of Athens, but at the Ptolemaium, a gymnasium in the city centre, while the academy grounds were no longer used for philosophical classes.
Probably around 83 BC, the famous Roman scholar Varro stayed in Athens and studied under Antiochus. In 79, a circle of prominent Romans was gathered in the "Old Academy": Cicero, who spent six months with Antiochus, his younger brother Quintus Tullius Cicero, his cousin Lucius Tullius Cicero, his friend Titus Pomponius Atticus and the politician Marcus Pupius Piso. Atticus shared a household with Antiochus. The poet and Epicurean philosopher Philodemus of Gadara, who wrote the surviving biography of him, was also one of Antiochus' friends. Ambassadorial trips by Antiochus to Rome and "to the governors in the provinces" reported by Philodemus testify to the philosopher's prestige at this time, when he was at the height of his fame, and Strabo, in describing Ascalon, mentions his birth there as a mark of distinction for the city.Strabo, xvi.2.29. and Cicero frequently speaks of him in affectionate and respectful terms as the best and wisest of the Academics, and the most polished and acute philosopher of his age.Cicero, Academica, ii. 35; Brutus, 91.
When Antiochus' friend and patron Lucullus undertook a campaign to Armenia in the year 69 in the Third Mithridatic War, he accompanied him and was present at the battle of Tigranokerta against the troops of the Armenian king Tigranes II on October 6, 69. Regarding the course of the battle, Antiochus remarked that the sun had never seen such a battle; Tigranes suffered a catastrophic defeat; only five men were said to have fallen on the Roman side. In the following year, Antiochus died in Syria, where he had accompanied Lucullus on another campaign.Plutarch, Cicero, c. 4; Lucullus, c. 4; Cicero, Academica, ii. 19.
Philosophy While Antiochus staunchly espoused skepticism during the time he belonged to the school of Philo, after his departure and break with Philo, he fought skeptical philosophy as fiercely as he had previously defended it. All of Antiochus' writings are lost, but his philosophical doctrines can be reconstructed from the philosophical writings of Cicero, especially the Lucullus, which discusses his epistemology, and the De Finibus, which discusses ethics. In addition, there are individual statements by the Pyrrhonist skeptic Sextus Empiricus, who also transmits an Antiochus fragment quoted verbatim. It is unclear to what extent Sextus' further doxographical explanations on epistemology are based on a lost writing by Antiochus. Augustine also commented on Antiochus' philosophy, based on his reading of Varro's writings About Philosophy, which have also since been lost. All of the surviving details of Antiochus' teaching relate to the second, anti-skeptical phase.
Platonism Although he did not take up many central doctrines of Platonism, Antiochus did not see himself as an innovator who presented his own insights, but as a faithful herald of the Platonic tradition.
He saw the Stoics and the Peripatetics as being in fundamentally in agreement with Platonism; all three schools proclaimed the same truths, they just presented that truth differently. Antiochus presents himself as the intellectual heir of all three traditions and makes appeals to the "ancients"; among his authorities are not only the scholars of the older academy, but also Aristotle. However, the skepticism introduced by Arcesilaus turned away from this consensus based in truth, and the Peripatetic school had also lost their way after Aristotle in their excessive focus on natural philosophy; only the Stoics had been able to preserve any of the original authentic teachings of Platonism, the apparent differences had simply been attempts to correct some details. In epistemology, the Stoics are in fact the defenders of Platonism against Plato's own apostate school, the skeptics of the New Academy. In ethics, however, Antiochus says the Stoics stole the teachings of the Old Academy and covered it up by introducing deviant, inappropriate terminology.
Like most Ancient Greek philosophers, Antiochus divided philosophy into three branches: Logic, Physics, and Ethics. Of these, he considered ethics to be the most important branch of philosophy, as it answered the question of how to live in the right way. In second place he considered logic, especially epistemology, as a means of grasping truths on these matters. He classifies Physics, or Natural philosophy, as the least important. What he criticizes about it is that it deals with obscure, difficult questions, the clarification of which is far less important than the question of how best to live.
Epistemology