When the Greek philosophers who had fled Justinian's 529 AD closure of the Athenian Academy wanted to return to Roman territory in 532, the Persian king Khusrau I insisted on a specific protective provision in the Treaty of Eternal Peace. What did the provision do?
The seven senior philosophers under Damascius had spent about a year at Khusrau's court at Ctesiphon. They had found Sasanian court life culturally alienating — Zoroastrian state religion as hostile to Greek paganism as Christianity had been, court ceremonial requiring undignified obeisance, elite endogamous marriages offensive to Greek sensibility. They asked to leave. Khusrau agreed but insisted Justinian guarantee their safety in the 532 peace treaty — without it, their return would have exposed them to immediate prosecution. Damascius died at Emesa around 538; Simplicius continued Aristotelian commentary work at Carrhae for two more decades.
Read the full story →When the Emperor Justinian closed the Athenian Academy in 529 AD, the surviving senior pagan philosophers led by Damascius migrated east to the court of the Sasanian Persian king Khusrau I. Khusrau received them with substantial honour, supported their philosophical work for several years, and eventually negotiated their safe return to the Roman Empire in 532.
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