We are pleased to announce two new volumes currently in press and hopefully in print in early 2018. These are:
 
Elias and David, Introductions to Philosophy, with Olympiodorus, Introduction to Logic, translated by Sebastian Gertz
 
Ammonius (445-517/26 AD) set up a new teaching programme in Alexandria with up to six introductions to the philosophy curriculum, which made it far more accessible, and encouraged its spread from Greek to other cultures. From Olympiodorus, his pupil, we have an introduction to Aristotle’s Philosophy, an introduction to Logic and an introduction to Aristotle’s Categories. Olympiodorus’ students, Elias and David, both wrote introductions to Philosophy, which start with six definitions of Philosophy, to which David adds replies to the sceptical question whether there is such a thing as Philosophy. All these are translated here. From Ammonius we have an Introduction to Logic, to Aristotle’s Philosophy, and to Aristotle’s Categories, all translated earlier as the prooemium to Ammonius’ commentary on Aristotle’s Categories. Ammonius also wrote a commentary on an earlier introduction, Porphyry’s Isagoge (Introduction), and prefaced this with a further introduction. If we count in Porphyry’s Introduction itself, which has been translated elsewhere, this makes six introductions to the Philosophy curriculum. The texts translated by Sebastian Gertz go a long way towards completing our picture of what it would have been like to sit in a first year Philosophy course in Ancient Alexandria.
 
Hermias, On Plato Phaedrus 227A-245E, translated by Dirk Baltzly & Michael Share
 
This commentary records, through notes taken by Hermias, Syrianus’ seminar on Plato’s Phaedrus, one of the world’s most influential celebrations of erotic beauty and love. It is the only Neoplatonic commentary on Plato's Phaedrus to have survived in its entirety. Further interest comes from the recorded interventions by Syrianus’ pupils – including those by Proclus, his eventual successor as head of the Athenian school, who went on to teach Hermias’ father, Ammonius.
 
The first of two volumes of Hermias’ commentary, the chapters translated here discuss the argument that the soul can be proved immortal as being the self-moving source of eternal motion. Aristotle explicitly disagreed with Plato on this treatment of the soul and Syrianus, having previously (in a commentary on the Metaphysics) criticised Aristotle severely when he disagreed with Plato, feels obliged here, too, to address the apparent disagreement. This new translation is thus vital for understanding Syrianus’ attitude to Aristotle.

We are pleased to announce four volumes due out in 2016. These are the second edition of Aristotle Transformed and its sequel Aristotle Re-Interpreted, the second half of Michael Griffin's translation of Olympiodorus, On Plato Alcibiades, and, previously unannounced here, Priscian's Answers to King Khosroes of Persia. This last volume has involved retro-translation of the, in places incomprehensible, Latin text into ancient Greek in order to produce a meaningful English translation.

Priscian of Lydia was one of the Athenian philosophers who took refuge in 531 AD with King Khosroes I of Persia, after the Christian Emperor Justinian stopped the teaching of the pagan Neoplatonist school in Athens. This was one of the earliest examples of the sixth-century diffusion of the philosophy of the commentators to other cultures.

Tantalisingly, Priscian fully recorded in Greek the answers provided by the Athenian philosophers to the king's questions on philosophy and science. But these answers survive only in a later Latin translation which understood both the Greek and the subject matter very poorly. Our translators have often had to reconstruct from the Latin what the Greek would have been, in order to recover the original sense.

The answers start with subjects close to the Athenians' hearts: the human soul, on which Priscian was an expert, and sleep and visions. But their interest may have diminished when the king sought their expertise on matters of physical science: 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. At any rate, in 532 AD, they moved on from the palace, but still under Khosroes' protection. This is the first translation of the record they left into English or any modern language.

Forthcoming in 2016: a new edition of Richard Sorabji’s Aristotle Transformed, with a new introduction: Aristotle Transformed: The Ancient Commentators and Their Influence.

This book brings together twenty articles giving a comprehensive view of the work of the Aristotelian commentators. First published in 1990, the collection is now brought up to date with a new introduction by Richard Sorabji. New generations of scholars will benefit from this reissuing of classic essays, including seminal works by major scholars, and the volume gives a comprehensive background to the work of the project on the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle, which has published 100 volumes of translations since 1987 and has disseminated these crucial texts to scholars worldwide.

The importance of the commentators is partly that they represent the thought and classroom teaching of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonist schools and partly that they provide a panorama of a thousand years of ancient Greek philosophy, revealing many original quotations from lost works. Even more significant is the profound influence – uncovered in some of the chapters of this book – that they exert on later philosophy, Islamic and Western. Not only did they preserve anti-Aristotelian material which helped inspire Medieval and Renaissance science, but they present Aristotle in a form that made him acceptable to the Christian church. It is not Aristotle, but Aristotle transformed and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators that so often lies behind the views of later thinkers.

Also forthcoming is a new companion volume to Aristotle Transformed: Aristotle Re-Interpreted: New Findings on Seven Hundred Years of the Ancient Commentators.

This volume presents collected essays – some brand new, some republished, and others newly translated – on the ancient commentators on Aristotle and showcases the leading research of the last three decades. Through the work and scholarship inspired by Richard Sorabji in his series of translations of the commentators started in the 1980s, these ancient texts have become a key field within ancient philosophy. Building on the strength of the series, which has been hailed as 'a scholarly marvel', 'a truly breath-taking achievement' and 'one of the great scholarly achievements of our time' and on the widely praised edited volume brought out in 1990 (Aristotle Transformed) this new book brings together critical new scholarship that is a must-read for any scholar in the field.

With a wide range of contributors from across the globe, the articles look at the commentators themselves, discussing problems of analysis and interpretation that have arisen through close study of the texts. Richard Sorabji introduces the volume and himself contributes two new papers. A key recent area of research has been into the Arabic, Latin and Hebrew versions of texts, and several important essays look in depth at these. With all text translated and transliterated, the volume is accessible to readers without specialist knowledge of Greek or other languages, and should reach a wide audience across the disciplines of Philosophy, Classics and the study of ancient texts.

We are pleased to announce a new volume currently in the final stages of production and due for publication in 2016. This is the second half of Michael Griffin’s translation of Olympiodorus on Plato’s First Alcibiades: Olympiodorus: On Plato First Alcibiades 10–28.

Olympiodorus (AD c. 500–570), possibly the last non-Christian teacher of philosophy in Alexandria, delivered 28 lectures as an introduction to Plato. This volume translates lectures 10–28, following from the first nine lectures and a biography of the philosopher published in translation in a companion volume, Olympiodorus: Life of Plato and On Plato First Alcibiades 1–9 (Bloomsbury, 2014).

For us, these lectures can serve as an accessible introduction to late Neoplatonism. Olympiodorus locates the First Alcibiades at the start of the curriculum on Plato, because it is about self-knowledge. His pupils are beginners, able to approach the hierarchy of philosophical virtues, like the aristocratic playboy Alcibiades. Alcibiades needs to know himself, at least as an individual with particular actions, before he can reach the virtues of mere civic interaction. As Olympiodorus addresses mainly Christian students, he tells them that the different words they use are often symbols of truths shared between their faiths.