Hermias of Alexandria

Life and Historical Context

Hermias of Alexandria was a 5th‑century Neoplatonist philosopher associated with the late antique schools of Athens and Alexandria. Very little is known about his life, and almost all biographical information is reconstructed from later testimonies and internal evidence in his surviving work. He is usually dated to the first half of the 5th century CE.

Ancient sources indicate that Hermias studied in Athens under the influential Neoplatonist Syrianus, who was also the teacher of Proclus. This places Hermias within the main Athenian line of systematic Platonism that synthesized Plato with Aristotle and later Platonist commentators. After his period of study in Athens, Hermias is reported to have returned to Alexandria, where he taught philosophy. His teaching activity forms part of the early phase of the Alexandrian Neoplatonic school, which would later include figures such as Olympiodorus the Younger and Ammonius son of Hermias, who is often identified as his son.

The broader context of Hermias’ life was one of religious and intellectual transformation in the late Roman Empire. Christianity had become the dominant imperial religion, while pagan philosophical schools continued to operate, especially in Athens and Alexandria. Hermias appears to have belonged to the pagan Neoplatonic tradition, but his surviving work gives little explicit evidence of his religious practices, focusing instead on technical exegesis of Plato.

Works and Sources

Hermias is known chiefly through a single work that has survived:

• Commentary on Plato’s Phaedrus (In Platonis Phaedrum Commentaria)

This commentary is important partly because it preserves, often explicitly, the teaching of Syrianus. Modern scholars view large portions of the work as a record of Syrianus’ lectures on the Phaedrus, filtered and occasionally supplemented by Hermias. As a result, it is both a document of Hermias’ own exegetical activity and a crucial witness to the Athenian school’s interpretation of Plato.

The commentary is written in Greek and follows the typical late antique scholastic format: it proceeds sequentially through the Platonic dialogue, offering paraphrase, clarification of vocabulary, and extended doctrinal discussions where the dialogue touches on central metaphysical or theological issues. The style is more technical than literary, indicating its origin in a teaching context.

No other complete works of Hermias are securely attested. Some scholars have speculated about additional writings—on other Platonic dialogues or on Aristotelian texts—on the basis of parallels or later references, but none have survived. Consequently, interpretation of Hermias’ thought depends almost entirely on the Phaedrus commentary and on fragmentary information about his role as a teacher in Alexandria.

Philosophical Themes

Although limited in extent, Hermias’ surviving work illustrates key features of late Neoplatonic philosophy and the way in which Plato’s dialogues were integrated into a comprehensive metaphysical system.

Neoplatonic framework

Hermias reads the Phaedrus within a fully developed hierarchical ontology characteristic of later Neoplatonism. Reality is structured in levels emanating from the One, through Intellect (Nous) and Soul (Psyche), down to the material world. The dialogue’s treatment of love, soul, and rhetoric is systematically correlated with this layered universe.

The famous myth of the charioteer soul and its heavenly journey becomes, for Hermias, a symbolic account of the soul’s descent and re-ascent. The soul is portrayed as originally oriented toward the intelligible Forms but encumbered by embodiment and irrational impulses. Philosophical eros—love directed toward the beautiful and the good—is interpreted as the power that draws the soul back upward toward the intelligible realm.

Exegesis of eros and the soul

One of Hermias’ major concerns is to give a philosophical interpretation of eros. Building on earlier Platonist readings, he treats erotic desire not primarily as a psychological passion, but as a cosmic and spiritual principle. At the human level, erotic attraction to sensible beauty is explained as a response to traces of intelligible Beauty in the material world. When properly guided by philosophy, this attraction can be transformed into a movement of the entire soul toward its divine source.

The wings of the soul in the Platonic myth symbolize, in Hermias’ analysis, the soul’s capacity for intellectual contemplation and its participation in higher realities. The loss and regrowth of the wings represent the alternation between descents into embodiment and the gradual restoration of the soul’s contemplative powers through philosophical practice.

Rhetoric and philosophical pedagogy

The Phaedrus also raises questions about rhetoric, writing, and the proper way to lead souls by speech. Hermias, following Syrianus, treats rhetoric not merely as a practical art, but as a subordinate science that must be ordered under philosophy. True rhetoric, he argues, presupposes knowledge of the soul’s nature and of the hierarchical structure of reality, because only such knowledge allows a speaker to guide souls appropriately.

The commentary often pauses to ask what kind of pedagogical and therapeutic role philosophical discourse should play. Hermias distinguishes between lower forms of persuasion aimed at opinion and higher philosophical discourse oriented toward the purification and conversion of the soul. In this sense, his interpretation of the Phaedrus offers a theory of philosophical education framed in Neoplatonic terms.

Use of allegory and symbolism

Characteristic of late Neoplatonism, Hermias employs allegorical and symbolic interpretation. Mythical elements in Plato—such as the banquet of the gods, the circling of souls around the intelligible realm, and the vision of Forms—are treated as veiled presentations of systematic doctrines about:

• orders of divine beings (gods, intelligences, and daemons),
• the procession and return of souls,
• and the gradations of virtue and knowledge.

Proponents of this kind of reading maintain that it protects the philosophical depth of Plato’s myths and integrates them with metaphysics. Critics, including some modern historians of philosophy, argue that such interpretation sometimes over-systematizes the dialogues, projecting later doctrinal schemes back onto earlier texts.

Reception and Significance

Hermias of Alexandria occupies a relatively modest but significant place in the history of ancient philosophy. His Phaedrus commentary is not as influential as the works of Proclus or Simplicius, yet it has several distinctive roles.

First, it serves as an important link between Athens and Alexandria. Through Hermias, the teachings of Syrianus were transmitted to the Alexandrian school, shaping the intellectual environment in which later figures such as Ammonius and Olympiodorus worked. This transmission helped ensure the continuity of the Neoplatonic commentary tradition in a city that would remain a major center of learning well into the Byzantine period.

Second, the commentary is one of the few extensive ancient expositions of the Phaedrus that survive. It therefore plays a crucial role in reconstructing how late antique Platonists understood this dialogue, especially regarding its treatment of love, soul, and rhetoric. For historians of Platonism, Hermias’ work provides a snapshot of doctrinal positions that might otherwise be known only indirectly.

Modern scholarship on Hermias tends to focus on:

• the degree to which the commentary reflects Syrianus’ original teaching,
• its contribution to the development of a Neoplatonic theory of eros,
• and its place within the broader corpus of late antique commentaries on Plato.

While his own originality remains debated, Hermias is widely regarded as a faithful transmitter and interpreter of the Athenian Neoplatonic system. His surviving work illustrates how, in late antiquity, Plato’s dialogues functioned simultaneously as literary texts, metaphysical treatises, and guides for the philosophical life.

In contemporary study of ancient philosophy, Hermias is thus valued less as a creative system-builder and more as a crucial witness to the doctrinal evolution and pedagogical methods of the late Neoplatonic schools. His commentary stands as a representative example of how complex metaphysical and theological structures were read into—and out of—Plato’s rich and enigmatic Phaedrus.