"The Porisms. Our only source of information about the nature and contents of the Porisms is Pappus. ...With Pappus's account of Porisms must be compared the passages of Proclus on the same subject. ...Proclus's definition... agees well enough with the first, the 'older', definition of Pappus. A porism occupies a place between a theorem and a problem; it deals with something already existing, as a theorem does, but has to find it (e.g. the centre of a circle) and, as a certain operation is therefore necessary, it partakes to that extent of the nature of a problem, which requires us to construct or produce something not previously existing. ...all the positive information which we have about the nature of a porism and the contents of Euclid's Porisms ...is obscure and leaves great scope for speculation and controversy; naturally, therefore, the problem of restoring the Porisms has had a great fascination for distinguished mathematicians ever since the revival of learning. But it has proved beyond them all."
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Sir Thomas Little Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics (1921) Vol. 1, Ch. XI Euclid, "Lost Geometrical Works."
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Proclus
Lycaeus (8 February 412 – 17 April 485 AD), called the Successor, was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher. As one of the last major classical philosophers, he set forth an elaborate and fully developed system of Neoplatonism, which had a profound influence upon Western medieval philosophy. His commentary on the first book of Euclid's Elements is one of the most valuable sources we have for the history of ancient mathematics, and its Platonic account of the status of mathematical objects was also in
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