Plotinus likewise appears to have possessed a most extraordinary skill in physiognomy, as is evinced by the following circumstance. A lady named Chion, who together with her daughters resided in his house, and there happily passed a chaste widowhood, was fraudulently deprived of a very valuable necklace. In consequence of this, all the servants and domestics were summoned into the presence of Plotinus, who regarded their several countenances, selected one of them, and accused him of the theft. The man was immediately chastised, and for some time denied the fact, but at length confessed his guilt, and restored the necklace. In a similar manner (says Porphyry) he wonderfully predicted the destiny of the young men of his acquaintance; as of one Polemo, he foretold, that he would be very much addicted to love, and would live but for a short time, which happened according to his prediction. But the last instance of his sagacity, related by Porphyry, excels all the rest, both in the singular skill which it displays, and the happy consequences it produced. Porphyry, as we are informed by Eunapius in his life of him, on his first acquaintance with Plotinus, bade a final farewell to all his preceptors, and wholly applied himself to the friendship and confidence of this wonderful man. Here he filled his mind with science, and drew abundantly without satiety, from the perennial fountain, seated in the sanctuary of the soul of Plotinus. But afterwards, being vanquished as it were, by the magnitude of his doctrines, he conceived a hatred of body, and could no longer endure the fetters of mortality. ” Hence,” says Porphyry, ” I formed an intention of destroying myself, which Plotinus perceived, and as I was walking home stood before me, and said that my design was not the dictate of a sound intellect, but was the effect of a certain melancholy disease. In consequence of this, he ordered me to depart from Rome, and accordingly I went to Sicily, particularly as I heard that a certain worthy and elegant man dwelt at that time about Lilybaeum. And thus indeed I was liberated from this (deadly) intention, but was hindered from being present with Plotinus till his death.”
But the great reputation of this divine man was not confined to the senate and people of Rome: for the emperor Gallienus and his wife Salonina honoured his person and reverenced his doctrine. Indeed, so highly was he esteemed by the emperor, that relying on his benevolence, he requested that a city in Campania, which had been formerly destroyed, might be restored, and rendered a fit habitation for philosophers; and besides this that it might be governed by the laws of Plato, and called Platonopolis. The emperor indeed assented to his wishes, and the philosopher would have easily accomplished his intentions, if some of the emperor’s familiars, impelled by envy or indignation, or some other depraved cause, had not impeded its execution.
This very extraordinary man, as we are informed by Porphyry, was strenuous in discourse, and most powerful in discovering and conceiving what was appropriate; but in certain words he was incorrect. While he was speaking, however, there was an evident indication of the predominance of intellect in his conceptions. For the light of it diffused itself as far as to his countenance, which was indeed at all times lovely, but was then particularly beautiful. For then a certain attenuated and dewy moisture appeared on his face, and a pleasing mildness shone forth. Then, also, he exhibited a placid gentleness in receiving questions, and demonstrated a vigour uncommonly robust in the solution of them. When Porphyry once had interrogated him for three days, on the manner in which the soul is present with the body, he persevered in demonstrating the mode of its conjunction. And when a certain person, named Thaumasius, entered his school, for the purpose of discussing general questions in philosophy, aud premised that he wished to hear Plotinus explain the books that were read in his school, but that he was prevented by the questions and answers of Porphyry, Plotinus replied: ” Unless we dissolve the doubts of Porphyry, we shall not be able to explain any thing in the book which you wish us to make the subject of discussion.” He wrote as he spoke, strenuously1 and with abundance of intellect. His style also is concise, and abounds more with profundity of conception than copiousness of words. ” He poured forth many things,” says Porphyry, under the influence of inspiration; and was wonderfully affected with the subjects he discussed. The latent dogmas of the Stoics and Peripatetics, are mingled in his writings; and he has condensed in them the metaphysics of Aristotle. He was not ignorant of any geometrical, arithmetical, mechanical, optical, or musical theorem, though he never applied these sciences to practical purposes. The commentaries of the Platonic philosophers, Cronius, Numenius, Gaius, Atticus, &c.; as also of the Peripatetics, Aspasius, Alexander, Adrastus, &c, were read in his school; but he borrowed nothing whatever from these. For his conceptions were entirely his own, and his theory was different from theirs. In his investigations he exhibited the intellect of Ammonius. He was also rapidly filled with what he read ; and having in a few words given the meaning of a, profound theory, he arose. Having once read the treatise of Longinus ” concerning principles,” he said ” that Longinus was indeed a philologist, but by no means a philosopher.” When in the celebration of Plato’s nativity, Porphyry recited a poem which he called “the Sacred Marriage,”2 and a certain person who was present observed that Porphyry was mad, because many things were said in the poem mystically and latently, accompanied with a divine afflatus, Plotinus openly exclaimed, “You have shown yourself at the same time a poet, a philosopher, and an hierophant.” On a certain time too, an orator named Diophanes read an apology for the intoxicated Alcibíades in the Banquet of Plato, endeavouring to prove that it was proper for the sake of learning virtue, that the lover should expose himself to the object of his attachment, and not even refuse venereal congress. But while he was reading this licentious defence, Plotinus often rose from his seat, as if he would suddenly leave the assembly; but he restrained himself till it was finished. However, when he left the company, he desired Porphyry to confute the oration. But when Porphyry requested the orator to lend him his discourse for this purpose, and was refused, he answered him from recollection, and delivered his answer in the presence of the same auditors as had attended Diophanes. On this occasion Plotinus was so delighted, that he often repeated in the assembly, ” Thus write and you’ll illuminate mankind.”
In the original syntomos but from what follows, it is evident that it should be syntonos. ↩
According to the Orphic theology as we learn from Proclus, that divinity who is the cause of stable power and sameness, the supplier of being, and the first principle of conversion to all things, is of a male characteristic; but the divinity which emits from itself all-various progressions, separations, measures of life, and prolific powers, is feminine. And a communication of energies between the two, was denominated by this theology a sacred marriage. Proclus adds, ” that theologists at one time perceiving this communion in co-ordinate Cods, called it the marriage of Jupiter and Juno, Heaven and Earth, Saturn and Rhea. But at another time surveying it in the conjunction of subordinate with superior Gods, they called it the marriage of Jupiter and Ceres. And at another, perceiving it in the union of superior with inferior divinities, they denominated it the marriage of Jupiter and Proserpine.” Vid. Procl. in ” Tim.” et in ” Parmenid.” ↩