Le “cicale”, immagine del thèios anèr nell'esegesi neoplatonica di Ermia alessandrino

In Platonic myth of the cicadas, contained in the Phaedrus, the melodious song of these insects represents the paradigm of philosophizing and of the ways in which philosophical life is expressed. Since, as states in Phaedon, philosophy is the most beautiful music, the cicadas, as “prophetesses” of the Muses, are the emblem of bìos philòsophos. In fact, once discovered music, they became so passionate and seduced by it until to die for starvation. In the same way, the true philosopher does not let himself be carried away to sleep and idleness by the heat of midday and the pleasantness of the countryside, like Odysseus from the sirens, but he does not cease to construct reasoning and speeches as beautiful as songs because they are full of philosophical truth. It is therefore a psychagogical myth, which aims to lead the young Phaedrus to abandon all that is sensible and that deceives and obnubilates his mind, like Lysias’ beautiful but empty speech, in order to seek the true beauty to which only philosophical love can lead. In late antiquity, when the neoplatonic philosophers would aim to make systematic the Platonic thought and interpret it in a theological sense, the platonic myths would be read in this key, acquiring a further semantic and hermeneutic value. Even the myth of the cicadas, although not comparable in terms of fascination and iconicity to other Platonic metaphors or analogies, will arouse a certain interest among commentators and will assume an important role in conveying the image of a particular bìos philòsophos, that of a theîos anèr. This paper analyzes, in comparison with the original Platonic version, the interpretation of the myth of the cicadas given by the alexandrian neoplatonist Hermias, former pupil of Syrian, co-disciple of Proclus at the school of Athens and teacher of Ammonius, who taught philosophy at the Neoplatonic school of Alexandria in the 6th century AD.