I. PLOTINOS, LIKE PORPHYRY, DESPISED HIS PHYSICAL NATURE, BUT A PICTURE OF HIM WAS SECURED.
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Plotinus and Guthrie, Kenneth Sylvan
Plotinos the philosopher, who lived recently, seemed ashamed of having a body. Consequently he never spoke of his family or home (Lycopolis, now Syout, in the Thebaid, in Egypt). He never would permit anybody to perpetuate him in a portrait or statue. One day that Amelius1 begged him to allow a painting to be made of him, he said, "Is it not enough for me to have to carry around this image2, in which nature has enclosed us? Must I besides transmit to posterity the image of this image as worthy of attention?" As Amelius never succeeded in getting Plotinos to reconsider his refusal, and to consent to give a sitting, Amelius begged his friend Carterius, the most famous painter of those times, to attend Plotinos's lectures, which were free to all. By dint of gazing at Plotinos, Carterius so filled his own imagination with Plotinos's features that he succeeded in painting them from memory. By his advice, Amelius directed Carterius in these labors, so that this portrait was a very good likeness. All this occurred without the knowledge of Plotinos.