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The auditor Thaumasius in the Vita Plotini

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Richard Lim
Richard Lim
Affiliation:
Department of History Smith College, Northampton, Mass
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Extract

In his Vita Plotini, Porphyry recounts a colourful episode which, for a brief moment, brings to life the dynamics within the lecture room of Plotinus in Rome. The author explains how he was in the habit of posing questions to Plotinus frequently and persistently while his teacher was conducting his philosophical discourse before a mixed body of listeners. On one occasion, such an exchange between the two over the issue of the connexion between the soul and the body continued intermittently over a period of some three days, with the following outcome (Porph. V. Plot. xiii 12-15):

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 113 , November 1993 , pp. 157 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1993

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References

1 Creuzer, F., Marsilius, F., Moser, G.H. and Wyttenbach, D., ed., Πλωτίνου ἄπαντα. Plotini opera omnia i (Oxford 1835).Google Scholar

2 Les Ennéades de Plotin i (Paris 1857; reprinted Frankfurt 1968) 14.

3 Plotinus: the ethical treatises, being the treatises of the first Ennead with Porphyry's Life of Plotinus (London 1917; reprinted London/Boston 1926) 13.

4 Plotin. Ennéades i (Paris 1924) 15.

5 Plotins Schriften V. Porphyrios: Über Plotins Leben und über die Ordnung seiner Schriften (Leipzig 1937; reprinted Hamburg 1958) 31.

6 Plotinus i (Cambridge, Mass. 1966) 39.

7 In Studia Patristica xv (1984) 414–431.

8 Brisson, L., Goulet-Cazé, M.-O., Goulet, R. and O'Brien, D., ed., Porphyre: la vie de Plotin i (Paris 1982) 85–86Google Scholar, 268 and n.1.

9 Cf. Demougin, S., ‘Un nouveau procurator summarum rationum’, ZPE xxi (1976) 135–145.Google Scholar

10 These examples are drawn from Mason, H.J., Greek terms for Roman institutions, a lexicon and analysis (Toronto 1974) 58Google Scholar, s.v. ‘οί καθόλου λόγοι’.

11 Cf. Elias, , In Aristotelis categorias commentarium. Busse, A., ed., Comm. in Arist. Graeca xviii (Berlin 1900) 132, 26–27.Google Scholar

12 Cf. Szlezák, T., Pseudo-Archytas über die Kategorien (Berlin 1972) esp. 29–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Larsen, B.B., Jamblique de Chalcis, exégète et philosophe i (Aarhus 1972) 233–301.Google Scholar

13 Boethius, In categorias Aristotelis 1, in Migne, PL lxiv 162A.

14 Cf. Plut. De recte ratione audiendi 10, where the author discusses the undesirability of making frequent interjections at philosophical lectures.

15 I wish to thank Mark Edwards, Robert Lamberton, Alan Sommerstein and an anonymous reader for the journal for their detailed and helpful comments.