The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus

The position of Plotinus was this: a leap of faith in Plato that cared nothing for the problem of originality, nor for historical accuracy.

Plotinus, though recognizing for every dialogue an autonomous and distinct existence, nevertheless formed a global interpretation of them.

He was, it is said, ashamed to be in a body and almost never talked about himself.

The Platonists, as we read in an important text,40 are the third race of men (Plotinus distinguishes in a descending hierarchy Platonists, Stoics, and Epicureans)

his metaphysical system, centered on the procession of plurality from the One

Plotinus himself insisted that he was a simple “exegete” and continuator of Plato

Returning to Antioch, Plotinus, now forty, and having attained full maturity as a philosopher, decided to remove himself to Rome, where he arrived in 244 A.D.

As for the cultural origins of Ammonius, Porphyry always maintained that he was born and educated in a Christian family, but, dedicating himself to philosophy, had reverted to paganism.

was, at twenty-eight years old, led to the school of Ammonius by a friend. When he met Ammonius he exclaimed, “this is the man I have been seeking” and he stayed with him until he was thirty-nine.

Ammonius Saccas, the teacher of Plotinus, who lived at Alexandria between the second and third centuries A.D.