Philosophy of the era of empire. Neopythagoreanism, Middle Platonism, Eudorus and Plutarch, Neoplatonism, Plotinus
In the first century BC, the Roman Republic completed its conquest of the Mediterranean region and the Middle East. The Diadochi were replaced by Roman rule, and now the West and the East were welded together by the power of the Roman legions. A new era of world history began. However, the republic, which had conquered the entire world, was itself shaken by bloody slave rebellions and civil wars during the first century BC. The senatorial aristocracy of the republic was powerless to hold on to power; claimants for sole rule were constantly appearing, and the dying republic could do almost nothing to counter them. The death of thousands of citizens, the crumbling economy, and the loss of faith in the original Roman ideals changed the psychology of the Roman citizen. He tried to escape the bloody nightmare into his private life, and sought to find a replacement for the dying gods of his ancestors in new deities, which the East had been supplying him with since a certain time. The intensity of religious life, which Roman formalism had kept for a time within the strict framework of serving state interests, is growing. In this changing society, a demand arises for some new philosophy, which, however, had to appear as a well-forgotten old one.