Skip to content
Wellsprings
Alexander of Aphrodisias

Alexander of Aphrodisias

c. 165 CE–c. 220 CE · Athens

Alexander of Aphrodisias was a Greek philosopher active around 200 CE who held a public chair of Aristotelian philosophy, probably at Athens. He is the most important ancient commentator on Aristotle, earning the later title 'the Exegete,' and he also wrote independent treatises, including an influential work on the soul and a defense of fate and free will. His commentaries deeply shaped how Aristotle was understood in later antiquity and the medieval world.

See Alexander of Aphrodisias’s journey on the map →

Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→

Stop 1 of 1

AthensAttica (Greece)

We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.

About Athens

The intellectual capital of the Greek world, where Socrates questioned in the agora and four great schools—Plato's Academy, Aristotle's Lyceum, the Stoa, and Epicurus' Garden—took root within a single square mile.

In Athens at the same time

Alcinous, Lucian of Samosata, Julius Pollux, Philostratus Sophista, Philostratus the Athenian, Dexippus

Across the traditions, in Athens at the same time

See other sages who lived in Athens→

In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Alexander of Aphrodisias’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Alexander of Aphrodisias’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(11)