¹ See e.g. Bidez, J., Vie de Porphyre (Ghent, 1913)Google Scholar; Harder, R., ‘Eine Neue Schrift Plotins’, Hermes 64 (1936), 1–10Google Scholar; Rist, J. M., Plotinus: The Road to Reality (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 2–20Google Scholar; Igal, J., La Cronologia de la Vida de Plolino de Porfirio (Deusto, 1972)Google Scholar; Edwards, M. J., ‘Two Episodes from Porphyry's Life of Plotinus’, Historia 40 (1991), 456–64Google Scholar.

² See e.g. Barnes, T. D., ‘The Chronology of Plotinus’ Life’, GRBS 17 (1976), 65–70Google Scholar; Brisson, L. (ed.), La Vie de Plotin: Travaux Préliminaires (Paris, 1982)Google Scholar; Potter, D., Prophecy and History in the Crisis of the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1990), esp. p. 210Google Scholar on the death of Gordian. de Blois, L., The Policy of the Emperor Gallienus (Leiden, 1976)Google Scholar, has fallen into unfortunate speculations, which he ought to have corrected by a perusal of the Enneads.

³ One illegitimate use of the chapter as historical evidence is illustrated by L'Orange, P., “The Portrait of Plotinus’, Cahiers Archéologiques 5 (1951). 15–30Google Scholar and ‘Plotinus-Paul’, Byzantion 27 (1957), 473—86Google Scholar. L'Orange argues that a portrait from the third century must be a representation of Plotinus because of the obvious greatness of the subject's intellect, his ‘transcendental gaze’ and his oriental appearance. The first was not so obvious to all Plotinus' contemporaries as it is to us; the second may, like the brow of Mona Lisa, be a consequence of decay in the artist's materials; as for the third, I observe in the present article that we know nothing of Plotinus' origins, and it follows that we know nothing of his appearance.

⁴ Thus VP 1.1–4; 3.1–5. Eunapius, , Vitae Philosophorum p. 455.32ffGoogle Scholar Boissonade, names Lyco (perhaps Lycopolis, as in the Suda?) as his birthplace, inspiring e.g. Zucker, F., ‘Plotin und Lycopolis’, Sitzungberichte der Deulschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Klasse für Sprachen, Literatur und Kunst (1950), pp. 3–20Google Scholar. But on the inaccuracy of Eunapius see Goulet, R., ‘Variations Romanesques sur la Mélancolie de Porphyre’, Hermes 110 (1982), 443–57Google Scholar.

⁵ See Phaedo 64a. On the importance of the deathbed see Owen, G. E. L., ‘Philosophical Invective’, OSAP 1 (1983), 12Google Scholar and cf. Phaedo 59a. Porphyry, like Plato, is embarrassed by his absence from the deathbed of Plotinus (VP 11.18–19 etc.). There may be some assimilation of the death of Plotinus to that of Socrates if the snake who leaves the house on the arrival of the human doctor Eustochius (VP 2.25–30) is the god Asclepius (cf. Phaedo 118a for the dying philosopher's sacrifice to Asclepius, and Porphyry, , Vita Pythagorae p. 24.11–14Google Scholar Nauck for the attendance of a physician at the deathbed of Pythagoras).

⁶ Though other reasons for the concealment of the birthday are suggested by VP 10, in which a magician attempts to injure Plotinus through the power of the stars. Despite his eventual denigration of astrology (Enneads II.2), Plotinus made a close study of horoscopes (VP 15.21–6) and celebrated the birthdays of Plato and Socrates (VP 2.37–42). He apparently did not believe, like Origen(Horn, in Levit. 8.3) that only the wicked know their birthdays.

⁷ Anonymi, Vita Platonis, p. 6.12–15Google Scholar Westermann; on records of the birth of Plato see Riginos, A., Platonica (Leiden, 1976), pp. 9–34Google Scholar.

⁸ Not at least a convention of biography, unless Plutarch's Sulla (noted below) be taken to imply one. The novel, perhaps a new genre of the imperial epoch, regularly opens with a picture or static scene (Longus, Achilles Tatius, Heliodorus).

⁹ Porphyry's edition of the Enneads, prepared some thirty years after Plotinus’ death, may have had precursors and rivals. Eustochius was a much older friend of Plotinus and, as his doctor, an intimate: on his edition of the Enneads see now Brisson, L., ‘Amélius, sa vie, son oeuvre, sa doctrine, sa style’, ANRW II 36.2 (1987), 805–10Google Scholar.

¹⁰ See e.g. the scornful remarks of Marius at Sallust, Jugurtha 85 and Propertius 1.5.24.

¹¹ See e.g. the Rhodiacus of Dio Chrysostom, quoted below.

¹² See e.g. Millar, F., ‘The Imperial Cult and the Persecutions’, Entretiens Hardt 22: Culte des Souverains (Geneva, 1972), 148–75Google Scholar on the statue in the Imperial cult, and on its importance to the Christians as a symbol of worldly depravity.

¹³ See L'Orange, P., Apotheosis in Ancient Portraiture (Oslo, 1947)Google Scholar; Cox, P., Biography in Late Antiquity: A Quest for the Holy Man (Berkeley, 1983), pp. 12–16Google Scholar on physiognomy in political biography.

¹⁴ On Dio's speech to the Rhodians see Jones, C. P., The Roman World of Dio Chrysostom (Cambridge, 1978), pp. 26–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar, where the purpose of the speech is deemed to be rather ethical than political, though it is not entirely devoid of political significance.

¹⁵ For the reputation of Proteus see also Lucian, , Fugitivi 1ffGoogle Scholar, Peregrinus 5–6 and 15, Demonax 21; Tatian, , Oratio ad Graecos 25.1Google Scholar; Tertullian, , Ad Martyras 4.5Google Scholar; Gellius, Aulus, Nodes Atticae VIII.3, XII.11Google Scholar; Philostratus, , Vitae Sophistarum II.1.33.Google Scholar Of the pagans only Aulus Gellius fails to disown him.

¹⁶ Quoted in Bidez (op. cit. no. 1), Appendix III, p. 47.7; for other examples of altars raised to men see Aristotle Fr. 673 Rose and Virgil, Eclogues 1.7–8.

¹⁷ For comments on Moralia 17f and 346f see Zanker, G., ‘Enargeia in the Ancient Criticism of Poetry’, RhMus 124 (1981), 297–311, esp. 311Google Scholar, Mossman, J. M., ‘Plutarch's use of Statues’, in Georgica: Greek Studies in Honour of George Cawkwell, BICS Supplement 58 (1991), 98–119Google Scholar is the only article known to me which attempts a comprehensive survey of Plutarch's use of statues in biography.

¹⁸ Maximus of Tyre, Philosophumena II Hobein. In his fifth discourse the same essayist defends the poets against the more austere of the theologians, and at IX.7i he claims to have seen Asclepius and Heracles. For the De Statuis see Appendix I to Bidez (1913), pp. 1–23. On the representation of gods in dreams and statuary see Fox, R. Lane, Pagans and Christians (Harmondsworth, 1986), pp. 102–67Google Scholar.

¹⁹ So Watson, G., ‘Discovering the Imagination: Platonists and Stoics on phantasia’, in Dillon, J. M. and Long, A. A. (edd.), The Question of Eclecticism (California, 1988), pp. 211–12Google Scholar. The theory may call for support upon Dillon, J. M., The Middle Platonists (London, 1977) pp. 91–6Google Scholar, who maintains that for Antiochus of Ascalon, Cicero's master, the Ideas were immanent in the observing mind. The contrast between phantasia and mimesis, decided in favour of phantasia, in Philostratus, , Vita Apollonii VI. 19Google Scholar, may also be compared, though the relation between Porphyry and Philostratus is obscure.

²⁰ See pp. 1–3 Bidez.

²¹ On Republic X and the consistency of Plato's aesthetic theory see e.g. Nehamas, A., ‘Plato on Imitation and Poetry in Republic 10’, in Moravcsik, J. and Temko, P. (edd.), Plato on Beauty, Wisdom and the Arts (Totowa, NJ, 1982), pp. 000Google Scholar.

²² Rep. 592a; see further Osborne, C., ‘The Repudiation of Representation in Plato's Republic and its Repercussions’, PCPhS 33 (1987), 53–73, esp. 70–71Google Scholar.

²³ Cf. Gorgias 254e–255b on rhetoric as the demiurge of the plausible, unfavourably contrasted with the other crafts, see Gorgias 254e–255b.

²⁴ On the use and criticism of the notion of Forms as paradigms in Plato see Owen, G. E. L., ‘Plato on the Undepictable’, Phronesis supp. vol. 1 (1973), 349–61Google Scholar.

²⁵ On the Phaedrus as an essay in self-knowledge see 230a and Griswold, C. L., Self-Knowledge in Plato's Phaedrus (New Haven, 1986)Google Scholar. As Nussbaum, M. C., The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 200–233Google Scholar observes, this dialogue reverses the assumptions of the Symposium, in which the only love is that of the lower for the higher. Her account, however, seems to me inadequate, since she does not observe that this is merely a different form of a question which pervades the major dialogues: thus the difficulty to which the Timaeus responds is that of explaining why and how the beauty of the noetic realm imparts itself to matter, and the Republic asks how the man who is once illuminated can be induced to return for the good of his fellows in the Cave.

²⁶ Porphyry, VP 4.23. Harder (art. cit. n. 1) produced the conclusive proof that Porphyry's order is the right one.

²⁷ Armstrong, A. H.ad loc. (ed. and trans., London and Cambridge, MA, 1966)Google Scholar observes that ‘chiselling your own statue’ is a reference to Phaedrus 252d.

²⁸ For commentary see Hackforth, R., Plato's Phaedrus (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 107–9Google Scholar.

²⁹ See esp. Enneads V.5.12; Rist(op.cit. n, l)pp. 53–66; Armstrong, ad loc. On the inferiority of the Beautiful to the Good see Enneads 1.6.9; White, F. D., ‘Love and Beauty in Plato's Symposium’, JHS 109 (1989), 149–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Meredith, A., ‘The Good and the Beautiful in Gregory of Nyssa’, in Eisenberger, H. (ed.) HERMENEUMATA: Festschrift Hömer (Heidelberg, 1990)Google Scholar; Edwards, M. J., ‘Middle Platonism on the Beautiful and the Good’, Mnemosyne 44 (1991), 161–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁰ Enneads II.9.17.27, and perhaps Enneads 1.6.8.

³¹ The argument that the painter creates the copy of a copy (though not the phrase eidōlon eidōlou) is found at Rep. 597a–598a. A parallel to this passage in VP is found in the Acts of John 27–9, where a portrait of the Apostle, secretly painted, causes great surprise to the subject, who has never seen his own face. The two works may be roughly contemporary.

³² A thought as old as Pindar, , Nemean V. l–4Google Scholar, On the famous maxim of Simonides, that painting is silent poetry and the poem a speaking picture, see Zanker (art. cit. n. 17), 311; on the verisimilitude of silent images see the remarks of the loquacious women in Herodas, Mime IV and Theocritus, Idyll XV.78–83, with Armstrong, A. H., ‘Platonic Mirrors’, Eranos Jahrbuch 55 (1988), 147–81, esp. 152–3Google Scholar.

³³ See Rich, A. M., ‘Plotinus and the Theory of Artistic Imitation’, Mnemosyne 13 (1960), 233–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Osborne (art. cit. n. 21) 63–4.

³⁴ Notwithstanding the sarcasms of Plato at Rep. 596c, the Enneads use the action of a mirror as a simile for the representation of the Forms in matter: see Deck, A. N., Nature, Contemplation and the One (Toronto, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Schroeder, F. M., ‘Representation and Reflection in Plotinus’, Dionysius 4 (1980), 37–60Google Scholar; Armstrong (art. cit. n. 32).

³⁵ See Watson, G., Phantasia in Classical Thought (Galway, 1988), pp. 98–133Google Scholar. For phantasia as occurring in the soul see Enneads III.6.4.19. On the irrationality of phantasia see Enneads 1.8.15.18; Watson, op. cit. pp. 98–99. On the liability to error of the perceiving faculty see Enneads 1.1.9.10–12 and Blumenthal, H. J., The Psychology of Plotinus (The Hague, 1971), p. 106CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A remark on the distinction between the exercise of phantasia and of the intellect occurred at an early point in Damascius' Vita Isidori (sec. 13 in Photius' summary).

³⁶ See Dillon, J. M., ‘Plotinus and the Transcendental Imagination’, in Mackey, J. P. (ed.), Religious Imagination (Edinburgh, 1986), pp. 58–64Google Scholar.

³⁷ Cf. G.Watson (op. cit. n. 35), p. 103, citing Enneads VI.8.3.10ff, where Plotinus ‘understands phantasia mainly to mean that which is stirred up by the affections of the body’. See Bregmann, J., Synesius of Cyrene (Berkeley, 1982) 145–54Google Scholar for discussion of a treatise On Dreams containing a more favourable account of phantasia, whose traces may be embedded in the work of that name by Synesius. He argues that the Christian dilettante was indebted to the discussion of the impressions which the soul retains in its earthly abode at Sententiae pp. 17.11–20.6 Lamberz. Cf. Watson, , op. cit., pp. 107–116Google Scholar.

³⁸ The corresponding verb describes the impact on the soul of physical beauty at Phaedrus 250a and 254b. For the association of the word with tragedy see Phaedrus 268c and Aristotle, Poetics 1455a and 1456b. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.2.3 representsekplēxis as an affection of the fallen creative principle, the mother of the Demiurge, in the system of the heretic Valentinus.

³⁹ At Sententiae p. 54.17ff the ascent by way of the senses and phantasia to a pure intuition of nous is described by the verb anichneuein. Cf. De Antro, p. 58.15 and Plotinus, Enneads 1.8.11.17. Cox (op. cit. n. 13), pp. 121–31 divines the importance of the footprint as an image in VP, though I confess that I find much of her exegesis whimsical.

⁴⁰ On Amelius and his relation to Porphyry see Brisson (art. cit. n. 9).

⁴¹ VP 23.13 and Igal (op. cit. n. 1), p. 121. It may not be unimportant that Porphyry had by this point reached his master's age at death.