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Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)Culture and art

Plotinus teaches in Rome: the rise of Neoplatonism

The philosopher Plotinus, born in Egypt and trained in Alexandria, taught in Rome for a quarter of a century; his treatises, edited by his pupil Porphyry as the Enneads, founded Neoplatonism — a system built on a single first principle, the One, which deeply influenced Christian, Islamic and Jewish thought.

Date
c. 244 – 270start: year known, approximate; end: year known · duration: ≈ 26 years
Place
Rometoday: Rome, Italy · Western and Central Europe
Participants
Plotinus, Porphyry of Tyre, Gallienus
Threads
Europe in the Roman age (1st–5th c.)
Also known as
School of Plotinus; Neoplatonism; Enneads; Школа Плотина; Неоплатонизм; Эннеады

Plotinus was born around 204/205 in Egypt and at the age of twenty-eight began to study philosophy in Alexandria, where he stayed with the Platonist Ammonius Saccas for eleven years. In 242 he joined Gordian III’s expedition against Persia, hoping to learn the philosophy of the Persians and Indians; after the emperor’s death he reached safety in Antioch with great difficulty and, at the age of forty, in the reign of Philip the Arab, came to Rome. There he taught for a quarter of a century, living in the house of his pupil Gemina. His circle included the philosophers Amelius and, from 262/263, Porphyry, the physician Eustochius, several senators and a number of women. The emperor Gallienus and the empress Salonina were his patrons, but his plan to refound a ruined town in Campania as “Platonopolis”, governed by Plato’s Laws, was thwarted by opposition at court.

From 253/254, the first year of Gallienus’s reign, Plotinus set down his teaching in writing; Porphyry arranged his 54 treatises into six groups of nine — the Enneads — and prefaced them with a Life of Plotinus. At the centre of the system stands the One, the utterly simple first principle beyond being, from which Intellect (Nous) and Soul emanate and to which the soul can return. Seriously ill, Plotinus left Rome for Campania, where he died in 270. Neoplatonism was developed further by Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus; through Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius it shaped Christian theology, and passages of the Enneads, circulating in Arabic as the “Theology of Aristotle”, were read by al-Kindi and Avicenna.

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Connections

Related events

  • Crisis of the Third CenturyMarch 235 – 20 November 284 · Western and Central EuropePlotinus taught in Rome through the worst decades of the crisis, under the patronage of Gallienus

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Eastern Europe

Balkans and Anatolia

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The same period

3rd century

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (English): Plotinus
  2. Wikipedia (English): Neoplatonism
  3. Wikipedia (English): Enneads
  4. Wikipedia (Russian): Плотин
  5. Wikipedia (Russian): Неоплатонизм
  6. Wikipedia (Russian): Эннеады
  7. Porphyry. On the Life of Plotinus and the Order of His Books.
  8. O’Meara D. J. Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads. — Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.