Iamblichus . (d. c. AD 330), 1. Neo-platonist philosopher with an interest in magic, born in Syria, who studied under Porphyry in Rome or Sicily. Later he founded his own school in Syria. Among his surviving writings are an ‘Exhortation to Philosophy’ (Protreptikos logos) largely comprising extracts from earlier philosophical works and valuable as a source-book, a work on Pythagoreanism, and a defence of ritualistic magic, De mysteriis (‘on mysteries’), interesting for the light it throws on fourth-century superstition. A number of his commentaries (now lost) on Plato and Aristotle are much quoted by Proclus.
2. Author of a Greek novel (of the second century AD), which has not survived.
