Cover -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS -- I: THE DIVINE HOMER AND THE BACKGROUND OF NEOPLATONIC ALLEGORY -- A. Homer's Pretensions -- B. Interpretation, Allegory, and the Critics of Homer -- C. Homer as Theologos -- D. The Pythagoreans -- II: MIDDLE PLATONISM AND THE INTERACTION OF INTERPRETIVE TRADITIONS -- A. Philo of Alexandria -- B. Numenius -- C. Clement and Origen -- III: PLOTINIAN NEOPLATONISM -- A. Plotinus -- B. Porphyry -- C. Julian and Sallustius -- IV: THE INTERACTION OF ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION AND DELIBERATE ALLEGORY -- V: PROCLUS -- A. Introduction -- B. Language as a System of Meaning -- C. Myths or Texts? -- D. The Major Exegesis of Homer in the Commentary on the Republic -- E. The Meaning of the Iliad and Odyssey -- VI: THE TRANSMISSION OF THE NEOPLATONISTS' HOMER TO THE LATIN MIDDLE AGES -- A. The Paths of Transmission -- B. The Arabic Tradition -- C. The Greek East -- D. The Latin Tradition -- E. The Late Middle Ages and Dante -- AFTERWORD: PRECONCEPTION AND UNDERSTANDING: THE ALLEGORISTS IN MODERN PERSPECTIVE -- APPENDIX 1 An Interpretation of the Modest Chariclea from the Lips of Philip the Philosopher -- APPENDIX 2 Proclus's Commentary on the Timaeus of Plato, 1.341.25-343.15. -- APPENDIX 3 A Sampling of Proclus's Use of Homer -- APPENDIX 4 The History of the Allegory of the Cave of the Nymphs -- WORKS CITED: ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL AUTHORS -- MODERN AUTHORS -- ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL PASSAGES CITED -- INDEX OF GREEK TERMS -- GENERAL INDEX -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z.