Priscian: Answers to King Khosroes of Persia

Priscian of Lydia was one of the seven pagan Athenian philosophers who took refuge with King Khosroes I of Persia for eighteen months, after the Christian Emperor Justinian closed the Athenian Neoplatonist school in 529 CE. Priscian recorded the philosophical conversations of the exiled Athenians with the king and, although the conversations start with subjects close to their hearts, the human soul, sleep and visions, they also move to physical matters: the seasons, celestial zones, medical effects of heat and cold, the tides, displacement of the four elements, the effect of regions on living things, why only reptiles are poisonous and winds.The work survives only in a Latin version which in many places obscures the original train of thought. This English translation is accompanied by an introduction and comprehensive commentary notes, which clarify and discuss the meaning and implications of the original philosophy. Part of the "Ancient Commentators on Aristotle" series, the edition makes this philosophical work accessible to a modern readership and includes additional scholarly apparatus such as a bibliography, glossary of translated terms and a subject index.