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== Biography ==
Porphyry believed Plotinus was sixty-six years old when he died in 270, the second year of the reign of the emperor [[Claudius II]], thus giving us the year of his teacher's birth as around [[205]]. Plotinus had an inherent distrust of materiality (an attitude common to [[Platonism]]), holding to the view that phenomena and forms were a poor image or mimicry (mimesis) of something "higher and intelligible" [VI.I] which was the "truer part of genuine Being". This distrust extended to the body, including his own; it is reported by Porphyry that at one point he refused to have his portrait painted, presumably for much the same reasons of dislike. Likewise Plotinus never discussed his ancestry, childhood, or his place or date of birth. [[Eunapius]] however reports that he was born in the [[Lycopolis (Delta)|Deltaic Lycopolis]] ([[Latin]]: Lyco) in [[Egypt]], as he may have been a [[Hellenized]] [[Ancient Egypt | Egyptian]]. From all accounts his personal and social life exhibited the highest moral and spiritual standards.
Plotinus took up the study of [[philosophy]] at the age of twenty-seven, around the year [[232]], and travelled to [[Alexandria]] to study. There Plotinus was dissatisfied with every teacher he encountered until an acquaintance suggested he listen to the ideas of [[Ammonius Saccas]]. Upon hearing Ammonius lecture, he declared to his friend, "this was the man I was looking for," and began to study intently under his new instructor. Besides Ammonius, Plotinus was also influenced by the works of [[Alexander of Aphrodisias]],[[Numenius (person) | Numenius]], and various Stoics.
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Porphyry subsequently went to live in [[Sicily]], where word reached him that his former teacher had died. The philosopher spent his final days in seclusion on an estate in [[Campania]] which his friend Zethos had bequeathed him. According to the account of Eustochius, who attended him at the end, Plotinus' final words were: "Strive to give back the Divine in yourselves to the Divine in the All." Eustochius records that a snake crept under the bed where Plotinus lay, and slipped away through a hole in the wall; at the same moment the philosopher died.
Plotinus wrote the essays that became the ''Enneads'' over a period of several years from ''[[Circa | ca.]]'' [[253]] until a few months before his death seventeen years later. Porphyry makes note that the Enneads, before being compiled and arranged by himself, were merely the enormous collection of notes and essays which Plotinus used in his lectures and debates, rather than a formal book. Plotinus was unable to revise his own work due to his poor eyesight, yet his writings required extensive editing, according to Porphyry: his master's handwriting was atrocious, he did not properly separate his words, and he cared little for niceties of spelling. Plotinus intensely disliked the editorial process, and turned the task to Porphyry, who not only polished them but put them into the arrangement we now have.
== Plotinus' theory ==
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