“I know,” said Plotinus, “that the expenses of administering an empire must necessarily be prodigious.  I am aware that the principal generals are only kept to their allegiance by enormous bribes.  I well understand that the Empress must have pearls, and that the Roman populace must have panthers; and that, since Egypt has revolted, the hippopotamus is worth his weight in gold.  I am further aware that the proposed colossal statue of your Majesty in the same metal, including a staircase, with room in the head for a child, like another Pallas in the brain of Zeus, must alone involve very considerable outlay.  But I am encouraged by your Majesty’s wise and statesmanlike measure of debasing the currency; since, money having become devoid of value, there can be no difficulty in devoting any amount of it to any purpose required.”

“Plotinus,” said Gallienus, “in this age the devil is taking the hindmost, and we are the hindmost.  There are tidings to-day of a new earthquake in Bithynia, and three days’ darkness, also of outbreaks of pestilence, and incursions of the barbarians, too numerous as well as too disagreeable to mention.  At this moment some revolted legion is probably forcing the purple upon some reluctant general; and the Persian king, a great equestrian, is doubtless mounting his horse by the aid of my father’s back.  If I had been an old Roman, I should by this time have avenged my father, but I am a man of my age.  Take the money for thy city, and see that it yields me some amusement at any rate.  I assume, of course, that thou wilt exercise severe economy, and that cresses and spring water will be the diet of thy philosophers.  Farewell, I go to Gaul to encounter Postumus.  Willingly would I leave him in peace in Gaul if he would leave me in peace in Italy; but I foresee that if I do not attack him there he will attack me here.  As if the Empire were not large enough for us all!  What an ass the fellow must be!”

And so Gallienus changed his silk for steel, and departed for his Gallic campaign, where he bore himself more stoutly than his light talk would have led those who judged him by it to expect.  Plotinus, provided with an Imperial rescript, undertook the regulation of his philosophical commonwealth in Campania, where a brief experience of architects and sophists threw him into an ecstasy, not of joy, which endured an unusually long time.

II

On awakening from his long trance, Plotinus’s first sensation was one of bodily hunger, the second of an even keener appetite for news of his philosophical Republic.  In both respects it promised well to perceive that his chamber was occupied by his most eminent scholar, Porphyry, though he was less gratified to observe his disciple busied, instead of with the scrolls of the sages, with an enormous roll of accounts, which appeared to be occasioning him much perplexity.

“Porphyry!” cried the master, and the faithful disciple was by his couch in a moment.