PLOTINUS (205–270), founder of Neoplatonism. The Life of Plotinus, philosopher and mystic, was written by his pupil, Porphyry, who edited his master's lectures into six groups of nine treatises (Enneads). Completed in 309, the work comprises ethics, physics, the human and world souls, the Three Principal Hypostases (the One, the Nous, the Soul), and logical categories.

Plotinus was born in Lycopolis, now Asyut, in Upper Egypt. He studied in from 232 to 243 under Ammonius in Alexandria where a revival of interest in metaphysics and human non-bodily destiny had been influenced by Philo, the Middle Platonists, and the Neo-Pythagoreans in contrast to stoicism, epicureanism, and skepticism. Longing to study Persian and Indian thought, Plotinus joined an expedition of the Emperor Gordian against Persia. When the emperor was assassinated by his soldiers, Plotinus escaped to Antioch, then to Rome, where in 244 he began to teach what he learned from Ammonius. After ten years...