Plotinos was subject to chronic digestive disorders; nevertheless,
he never was willing to take any remedies, on the plea that it was
unworthy of a man of his age to relieve himself by such means. Neither
did he ever take any of the then popular "wild animal remedy," because,
said he, he did not even eat the flesh of domestic animals, let alone
that of savage ones. He never bathed, contenting himself, with daily
massage at home. But when at the period of the plague, which was most
virulent,[3] the man who rubbed him died of it, he gave up the massage.
This interruption in his habits brought on him a chronic quinsy, which
never became very noticeable, so long as I remained with him; but after
I left him, it became aggravated to the point that his voice, formerly
sonorous and powerful, became permanently hoarse; besides, his vision
became disturbed, and ulcers appeared on his hands and feet. All this
I learned on my return, from my friend Eustochius, who remained with
him until his end. These inconveniences hindered his friends from
seeing him as often as they used to do, though he persisted in his
former custom of speaking to each one individually. The only solution
of this difficulty was for him to leave Rome. He retired into Campania,
on an estate that had belonged to Zethus, one of his friends who had
died earlier. All he needed was furnished by the estate itself, or
was brought to him from the estate at Minturnae, owned by Castricius
(author of a Commentary on Plato's Parmenides, to whom Porphyry
dedicated his treatise on Vegetarianism). Eustochius himself told me
that he happened to be at Puzzoli at the time of Plotinos's death,
and that he was slow in reaching the bedside of Plotinos. The latter
then said to him, "I have been waiting for you; I am trying to unite
what is divine in us[4] to that which is divine in the universe." Then
a serpent, who happened to be under Plotinos's death-bed slipped into
a hole in the wall (as happened at the death of Scipio Africanus,
Pliny, Hist. Nat. xv. 44), and Plotinos breathed his last. At that
time Plotinos was 66 years old (in 270, born in 205), according to the
account of Eustochius. The emperor Claudius II was then finishing the
second year of his reign. I was at Lilybaeum; Amelius was at Apamaea
in Syria, Castricius in Rome, and Eustochius alone was with Plotinos.
If we start from the second year of Claudius II and go back 66 years,
we will find that Plotinos's birth falls in the 18th year of Septimus
Severus (205). He never would tell the month or day of his birth,
because he did not approve of celebrating his birth-day either by
sacrifices, or banquets. Still he himself performed a sacrifice, and
entertained his friends on the birth-days of Plato and Socrates; and on
those days those who could do it had to write essays and read them to
the assembled company.