The intellectual or mental gods (the paternal triad, the immaculate triad, the discerning seventh deity). 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 AD. Coming from a wealthy family from Lycia, he studied at the best educational centers of his time, Alexandria, Constantinople, Athens.

There he came into contact with the Athenian Neoplatonic Academy, which he was definitively captivated by and became its director after the death of his teacher, Syrianus. He died in Athens on April 17, 485 AD and was buried near Lycabettus.

Living in a time of syncretic chaos, he would synthesize the entire preceding Neoplatonic philosophical tradition into a single and complex system, influenced by Pythagorean, Aristotelian, and Stoic elements. In his system, he would conjoin the one god, the supposed and mental substances, magic, and various beings of a demonic character, and in this form, he would pass it down to the scholastic Middle Ages.

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