Study and interpretation of the criticism that Plato imposes on poetry, especially on Homer. Proclus' effort aims to prove that the Platonic doctrines are not in substantial opposition to the Homeric poetic mythology.

Proclus, one of the last great thinkers of Neoplatonic philosophy and of ancient Greek philosophical thought in general, was born in Constantinople on February 8, 412 A.D. Coming from a wealthy family from Lycia, he studied in the best educational centers of his time, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Athens. There he came into contact with the Athenian Neoplatonic Academy, which captivated him definitively, and of which he became the director after the death of his teacher, Syrianus.

He died in Athens on April 17, 485 A.D. and was buried near Lycabettus. Living in a time of syncretic chaos, he would compose a unified and complex system of his entire preceding Neoplatonic philosophical tradition, influenced by Pythagorean, Aristotelian, and Stoic elements. In his system, he would integrate the One God, intelligible and intelligible realities, magic, and various demonic beings, and in this form, he would pass it on to the scholastic Middle Ages.

His work is a fundamental source for any scholar of Neoplatonic philosophy, as well as for Plato himself, whose interpretations he often proposes as original and extremely interesting.