Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/528

Rh, its reputed founder, although it is probable that the system had been set on foot, and had begun to take shape, before his time. Some years elapsed before Plotinus made the acquaintance of this philosopher, and during that time his soul was disquieted by the thirst of knowledge unappeased. He found peace so soon as he was introduced to Ammonius, whose devoted disciple he became, and to whose instructions he listened assiduously for eleven years.

4. In his thirty-ninth year, Plotinus, being anxious to extend his knowledge by a more intimate acquaintance with the philosophy of the East, joined an expedition which the Roman Emperor Gordian had equipped for the invasion of Persia. The issue of the expedition was disastrous. Gordian was assassinated in Mesopotamia, and Plotinus with difficulty escaped with his life. This expedition having brought him into close relations with the Romans, he betook himself to Rome in the fortieth year of his age. Here he resided until his death, expounding the Alexandrian philosophy, of which he has a better title than Ammonius to be regarded as the originator. At any rate, he amplified it greatly, and by him it has been handed down to posterity. He had a project of founding a city in Campania, on the model of Plato's republic, but the ministers of the Emperor wisely refused to give any encouragement to the scheme. He died at Rome in his sixty-sixth year, A.D. 270.