Abstract

For the life of Hierocles, there are only two chronological points of reference. Both derive from his treatise On Providence, which has been preserved in short summaries and extracts by Photius, the 9th-century Byzantine scholar and Patriarch of Constantinople, in his monumental compendium of learning, the Bibliotheca. According to Photius, Hierocles dedicated On Providence to the historian Olympiodorus of Thebes, whose work is in turn dedicated to the Emperor Theodosius II and covers the years AD 407 to 425. In 412, Olympiodorus led a successful embassy to the Huns, and he generally enjoyed such renown among the barbarians that in around AD 418 he was invited to visit the Blemmyes. These events appear to be incorporated in the praise given him by Hierocles. On Providence should therefore be dated to some time after AD 418. The second date comes from the seventh and last book of On Providence, in which Hierocles covers the school of Ammonius.