Editing Plotinus (section)

=== Later life ===
[[File:Roman sarcophagus of a reader identified to Plotinus and disciples.jpg|thumb|240px|right|Presumed depiction of Plotinus and [[Disciples of Plotinus|his disciples]] on a [[Ancient Roman sarcophagi|Roman sarcophagus]] in the Museo Gregoriano Profano, [[Vatican Museums]], Rome]]

While in Rome, Plotinus also gained the respect of the Emperor [[Gallienus]] and his wife [[Cornelia Salonina|Salonina]]. At one point Plotinus attempted to interest Gallienus in rebuilding an abandoned settlement in [[Campania]], known as the 'City of Philosophers', where the inhabitants would live under the constitution set out in [[Plato]]'s ''Laws''. An Imperial subsidy was never granted, for reasons unknown to Porphyry, who reports the incident.

Plotinus subsequently went to live in [[Sicily]]. He spent his final days in seclusion on an estate in Campania which his friend Zethos had bequeathed him. According to the account of Eustochius, who attended him at the end, Plotinus' final words were: "Try to raise the divine in yourselves to the divine in the all."<ref>Mark Edwards, ''Neoplatonic Saints: The Lives of Plotinus and Proclus by Their Students'', Liverpool University Press, 2000, p. 4 n. 20.</ref> Eustochius records that a snake crept under the bed where Plotinus lay, and slipped away through a hole in the wall; at the same moment the philosopher died.

Plotinus wrote the essays that became the ''[[Enneads]]'' (from Greek ἐννέα (''ennéa''), or group of nine) over a period of several years from c. 253 until a few months before his death seventeen years later. Porphyry makes note that the ''Enneads'', before being compiled and arranged by himself, were merely the enormous collection of notes and essays which Plotinus used in his lectures and debates, rather than a formal book. Plotinus was unable to revise his own work due to his poor eyesight, yet his writings required extensive editing, according to Porphyry: his master's handwriting was atrocious, he did not properly separate his words, and he cared little for niceties of spelling. Plotinus intensely disliked the editorial process, and turned the task to Porphyry, who polished and edited them into their modern form.