Abstract

The centrality of sacrifice in ancient life has elicited a steady stream of scholarship on the subject that continues unabated. Treatments of the ritual in the works of the philosophical authors of this period and, in particular, within Late Platonism are less prevalent. The occasional references to θυσία in modern studies tend to be chronologically front-loaded and to focus primarily on Porphyry of Tyre (c. 234c.e.–c. 305c.e.) and Iamblichus of Chalcis (third–fourth centuriesc.e.), two of the initial philosophers in the tradition. The official resurgence of the practice under the emperor Julian (reigned 360–3c.e.) in the wake of the limitations on and outright bans of the practice by Constantine and his sons, along with the brief explication of sacrifice by Julian's comrade, Sallustius, have also received some scholarly attention. The fortunes of the ritual in the Platonic Academy of fifth-century Athens have come under even less scrutiny. This essay seeks to make its own contribution to the study of sacrifice in Late Platonic philosophy.