we call the late ancient philosophers of the third to sixth centuries BC Neoplatonists because they were followers of Plato, but also had a lot of “new” ideas which modern scholars do not find in Plato. For them one of the biggest influences was the tradition of Pythagoras, whom they saw as an ultimate source of Plato’s own ideas. Thus Pythagoras, one of the very earliest Greek thinkers, became one of the most important authorities and intellectual heroes of the Greek thinkers in late antiquity, a full millenium later.
