Guthrie – VIDA DE PLOTINO

LIFE OF PLOTINOS, Porphyry (translation Guthrie)

I. PLOTINOS, LIKE PORPHYRY, DESPISED HIS PHYSICAL NATURE, BUT A PICTURE OF HIM WAS SECURED.

Plotinos the philosopher, who lived recently, seemed ashamed of having a body. Consequently he never spoke of his family or home (Lycopolis, now Syput, in the Thebaid, in Egypt). He never would permit any body to perpetuate him in a portrait or statue. One day that Amelius begged him to allow a painting to be made of him, he said, “Is it not enough for me to have to carry around this imagef, in which nature has enclosed us? Must I besides transmit to posterity the image of this image as worthy of attention?” As Amelius never succeeded in getting Plotinos to recon sider his refusal, and to consent to give a sitting, Amelius begged his friend Carterius, the most famous painter of those times, to attend Plotinos s lectures, which were free to all. By dint of gazing at Plotinos, Carterius so filled his own imagination with Plotinos s features that he succeeded in painting them from memory. By his advice, Amelius directed Carterius in these labors, so that this portrait was a very good likeness. All this occurred without the knowledge of Plotinos.