On awakening from his long trance, Plotinus’s first sensation was one
of bodily hunger, the second of an even keener appetite for news of his
philosophical Republic. In both respects it promised well to perceive
that his chamber was occupied by his most eminent scholar, Porphyry,
though he was less gratified to observe his disciple busied, instead of
with the scrolls of the sages, with an enormous roll of accounts, which
appeared to be occasioning him much perplexity.
“Porphyry!” cried the master, and the faithful disciple was by his
couch in a moment.
We pass over the mutual joy, the greetings, the administration of
restoratives and creature comforts, the eager interrogations of
Porphyry respecting the things his master had heard and seen in his
trance, which proved to be unspeakable.
“And now,” said Plotinus, who with all his mysticism was so good a man
of business that, as his biographers acquaint us, he was in special
request as a trustee, “and now, concerning this roll of thine. Is it
possible that the accounts connected with the installation of a few
abstemious lovers of wisdom can have swollen to such a prodigous bulk?
But indeed, why few? Peradventure all the philosophers of the earth
have flocked to my city.”
“It has, indeed,” said Porphyry evasively, “been found necessary to
incur certain expenses not originally foreseen.”
“For a library, perhaps?” inquired Plotinus. “I remember thinking, just
before my ecstasy, that the scrolls of the divine Plato, many of them
autographic, might require some special housing.”
“I rejoice to state,” rejoined Porphyry, “that it is not these volumes
that have involved us in our present difficulties with the
superintendent of the Imperial treasury, nor can they indeed, seeing
that they are now impignorated with him.”
“Plato’s manuscripts pawned!” exclaimed Plotinus, aghast. “Wherefore?”
“As part collateral security for expenses incurred on behalf of objects
deemed of more importance by the majority of the philosophers.”
“For example?”
“Repairing bath and completing amphitheatre.”
“Bath! Amphitheatre!” gasped Plotinus.
“O dear master,” remonstrated Porphyry, “thou didst not deem that
philosophers could be induced to settle in a spot devoid of these
necessaries? Not a single one would have stayed if I had not yielded to
their demands, which, as regarded the bath, involved the addition of
exedrae and of a sphaeristerium.”
“And what can they want with an amphitheatre?” groaned Plotinus.
“They _say_ it is for lectures,” replied Porphyry;
“I trust there is no truth in the rumour that the head of the Stoics is
three parts owner of a lion of singular ferocity.”
“I must see to this as soon as I can get about,” said Plotinus, turning
to the accounts. “What’s this? To couch and litter for head of
Peripatetic school!”
“Who is so enormously fat,” explained Porphyry, “that these
conveniences are really indispensable to him. The Peripatetic school is
positively at a standstill.”
“And no great matter,” said Plotinus; “its master Aristotle was at best
a rationalist, without perception of the supersensual. What’s this? To
Maximus, for the invocation of demons.”
“That,” said Porphyry, “is our own Platonic dirty linen, and I heartily
wish we were washing it elsewhere. Thou must know, dear master, that
during thy trance the theurgic movement has attained a singular
development, and that thou art regarded with disdain by thy younger
disciples as one wholly behind the age, unacquainted with the higher
magic, and who can produce no other outward and visible token of the
Divine favour than the occasional companionship of a serpent.”
“I would not assert that theurgy may not be lawfully undertaken,”
replied Plotinus, “provided that the adept shall have purified himself
by a fast of forty months.”
“It may be from neglect of this precaution,” said Porphyry, “that our
Maximus finds it so much easier to evoke the shades of Commodus and
Caracalla than those of Socrates and Marcus Aurelius; and that these
good spirits, when they do come, have no more recondite information to
convey than that virtue differs from vice, and that one’s grandmother
is a fitting object of reverence.”
“I fear this must expose Platonic truth to the derision of Epicurean
scoffers,” remarked Plotinus.
“O master, speak not of Epicureans, still less of Stoics! Wait till
thou hast regained thy full strength, and then take counsel of some
oracle.”
“What meanest thou?” exclaimed Plotinus, “I insist upon knowing.”
Porphyry was saved from replying by the hasty entrance of a bustling
portly personage of loud voice and imperious manner, in whom Plotinus
recognised Theocles, the chief of the Stoics.
“I rejoice, Plotinus,” he began, “that thou hast at length emerged from
that condition of torpor, so unworthy of a philosopher, which I might
well designate as charlatanism were I not so firmly determined to speak
no word which can offend any man. Thou wilt now be able to reprehend
the malice or obtuseness of thy deputy, and to do me right in my
contention with these impure dogs.”
“Which be they?” asked Plotinus.
“Do I not sufficiently indicate the followers of Epicurus?” demanded
the Stoic.
“O master,” explained Porphyry, “in allotting and fitting up apartments
designed for the respective sects of philosophers I naturally gave heed
to what I understood to be the principles of each. To the Epicureans,
as lovers of pleasure and luxury, I assigned the most commodious
quarters, furnished the same with soft cushions and costly hangings,
and provided a liberal table. I should have deemed it insulting to have
offered any of these things to the frugal followers of Zeno, and
nothing can surpass my astonishment at the manner in which the austere
Theocles has incessantly persecuted me for choice food and wine,
stately rooms and soft couches.”
“O Plotinus,” replied Theocles, “let me make the grounds of my conduct
clear to thee. In the first place, the honour of my school is in my
keeping. What will the vulgar think when they see the sty of Epicurus
sumptuously adorned, and the porch of Zeno shabby and bare? Will they
not deem that the Epicureans are highly respected and the Stoics made
of little account? Furthermore, how can I and my disciples manifest our
contempt for gold, dainties, wine, fine linen, and all the other
instruments of luxury, unless we have them to despise? Shall we not
appear like foxes, vilipending the grapes that we cannot reach? Not so;
offer me delicacies that I may reject them, wine that I may pour it
into the kennel, Tyrian purple that I may trample upon it, gold that I
may fling it away; if it break an Epicurean’s head, so much the
better.”
“Plotinus,” said Hermon, the chief of the Epicureans, who had meanwhile
entered the apartment, “let this hypocrite have what he wants, and send
him away. I and my followers are perfectly willing to remove at once
into the inferior apartments, and leave ours for his occupation with
all their furniture, and the reversion of our bill of fare. Thou
should’st know that the imputations of the vulgar against our sect are
the grossest calumnies. The Epicurean places happiness in tranquil
enjoyment, not in luxury or sensual pleasures. There is not a thing I
possess which I am not perfectly willing to resign, except the society
of my female disciple.”
“Thy female disciple!” exclaimed the horrified Plotinus. “Thou art
worse than the Stoic!”
“Plotinus,” said the Epicurean, “consider well ere, as is the manner of
Platonists, thou committest thyself to a proposition of a transparently
foolish nature. Thou desirest to gather all sorts of philosophers
around thee, but to what end, if they are restrained from manifesting
their characteristic tenets? Thou mightest as well seek to illustrate
the habits of animals by establishing a menagerie in which panthers
should eat grass, and antelopes be dieted on rabbits. An Epicurean
without his female companion, unless by his own choice, is no more an
Epicurean than a Cynic is a Cynic without his rags and his impudence.
Wilt thou take from me my Pannychis, an object pleasing to the eye, and
leave yonder fellow his tatters and his vermin?”
The apartment had gradually filled with philosophers, and Hermon was
pointing to a follower of Diogenes whose robe so fully bespoke his
obedience to his master’s precepts that his skin seemed almost clean in
comparison.
“Consider also,” continued the Epicurean, “that thou art thyself by no
means exempt from scandal.”
“What does the man mean?” demanded Plotinus, turning to Porphyry.
“Get them away,” whispered the disciple, “and I will tell thee.”
Plotinus hastily conceded the point raised with reference to the
interesting Pannychis, and the philosophers went off to effect their
exchange of quarters. As soon as the room was clear, he repeated:
“What _does_ the man mean?”
“I suppose he is thinking of Leaena,” said Porphyry.
“The most notorious character in Rome, who, finding her charms on the
wane, has lately betaken herself to philosophy?”
“The same.”
“What of her?”
“She has followed thee here. She affects the greatest devotion to thee.
She vows that nothing shall make her budge until thou hast recovered
from thy ecstasy, and admitted her as thy disciple. She has rejected
numerous overtures from the philosopher Theocles; entirely for thy
sake, she affirms. She comes three times a day to inquire respecting
thy condition, and I fear it must be acknowledged that she has once or
twice managed to get into thy chamber.”
“O ye immortal Gods!” groaned Plotinus.
“Here she is!” exclaimed Porphyry, as a woman of masculine stature and
bearing, with the remains of beauty not unskilfully patched, forced an
entrance into the room.
“Plotinus,” she exclaimed, “behold the most impassioned of thy
disciples. Let us celebrate the mystic nuptials of Wisdom and Beauty.
Let the claims of my sex to philosophic distinction be vindicated in my
person.”
“The question of the admission of women to share the studies and
society of men,” rejoined Plotinus, “is one by no means exempt from
difficulty.”
“How so? I deemed it had been determined long ago in favour of
Aspasia?”
“Aspasia,” said Plotinus, “was a very exceptional woman.”
“And am not I?”
“I hope, that is, I conceive so,” said Plotinus. “But one may be an
exceptional woman without being an Aspasia.”
“How so? Am I inferior to Aspasia in beauty?”
“I should hope not,” said Plotinus ambiguously.
“Or in the irregularity of my deportment?”
“I should think not,” said Plotinus, with more confidence.
“Then why does the Plato of our age hesitate to welcome his Diotima?”
“Because,” said Plotinus, “you are not Diotima, and I am not Plato.”
“I am sure I am as much like Diotima as you are like Plato,” retorted
the lady. “But let us come to our own time. Do I not hear that that
creature Pannychis has obtained the freedom of the philosophers’ city,
and the right to study therein?”
“She takes private lessons from Hermon, who is responsible for her.”
“The very thing!” exclaimed Leaena triumphantly. “I take private
lessons from thee, and thou art responsible for me. Venus! what’s
that?”
The exclamation was prompted by the sudden appearance of an enormous
serpent, which, emerging from a chink in the wall, glided swiftly
towards the couch of Plotinus. He reached forward to greet it, uttering
a cry of pleasure.
“My guardian, my tutelary dæmon,” he exclaimed, “visible manifestation
of Æsculapius! Then I am not forsaken by the immortal gods.”
“Take away the monster,” cried Leaena, in violent agitation, “the nasty
thing! Plotinus, how can you? Oh, I shall faint! I shall die! Take it
away, I say. You must choose between it and me.”
“Then, Madam,” said Plotinus, civilly but firmly, “I choose _it_.”
“Thank Æsculapius we are rid of her,” he added, as Leaena vanished from
the apartment.
“I wish I knew that,” said Porphyry.
And indeed after no long time a note came up from Theocles, who was
sure that Plotinus would not refuse him that privilege of instructing a
female disciple which had been already, with such manifest advantage to
philosophical research, accorded to his colleague Hermon. No objection
could well be made, especially as Plotinus did not foresee how many
chambermaids, and pages, and cooks, and perfumers, and tiring women and
bath attendants would be required, ere Leaena could feel herself
moderately comfortable. How unlike the modest Pannychis! who wanted but
half a bed, which need not be stuffed with the down of hares or the
feathers of partridges, without which sleep refused to visit Leaena’s
eyelids.
It was natural that Plotinus should appeal to Gallienus, now returned
from the Gallic expedition, but he could extract nothing save
mysterious intimations that the Emperor had his eye upon the
philosophers, and that they might find him among them when they least
expected it. Plotinus’s spirits drooped, and Porphyry was almost glad
when he again relapsed into an ecstasy.