Life
Ammonius' father, Hermias, died when he was a child, and his mother, Aedesia, raised him and his brother, Heliodorus, in Alexandria. When they reached adulthood, Aedesia accompanied her sons to Athens where they studied under Proclus. Eventually, they returned to Alexandria, where Ammonius, as head of the Neoplatonist school in Alexandria, lectured on Plato and Aristotle for the rest of his life. According to Damascius, during the persecution of the pagans at Alexandria in the late 480's, Ammonius made concessions to the Christian authorities so that he could continue his lectures. Damascius, who scolds Ammonius for the agreement that he made, does not say what the concessions were, but it may have involved limitations on the doctrines he could teach or promote. He was still teaching in 515, since Olympiodorus heard him lecture on Plato's Gorgias in that year. He also taught Asclepius of Tralles, John Philoponus, Damascius and Simplicius.
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