PHILO OF

See also:

• LARISSA (Turk. Yeni Shehr, " new town ")

LARISSA  , Greek philosopher of the first half of the 1st century B.C . During the Mithradatic wars he left Athens and took up his residence in Rome . He was a pupil of Clitomachus, whom he succeeded as head of the Third or New Academy . According to Sextus Empiricus, he was the founder of the Fourth Academy, but other writers refuse to admit the separate existence of more than three academies (see ACADEMY, GREEK) . In Rome he lectured on rhetoric and philosophy, and collected around him many eminent pupils, amongst whom Cicero was the most famous and the most enthusiastic . None of his works is extant; our knowledge of his views is derived from Numenius, Sextus Empiricus and Cicero . In general, his philosophy was a reaction against the sceptic or agnostic position of the Middle and New Academy in favour of the dogmatism of Plato . See Grysar, Die Akademiker Philo and Antiochus (1849) ; Hermann, De Philone Larissaeo (Gottingen, 1851 and 1855) .