 Porphyry was born in Tyre in Phoenicia (now in Lebanon), probably in 234 C.E. His name was ‘Malcus’, ‘king’ in his native tongue, hence he became ‘Basileus’ (‘king’) in Greek. He, however, calls himself Porphyry, which supposedly was a common name in Tyre, the city of purple, and is generally known under that name. Little is known with certainty about his life, except what can be gleaned from his own account of Plotinus’ life, The Life of Plotinus. There is an account of his life in Eunapius’ Lives of Philosophers and Sophists but this account clearly depends on the The Life of Plotinus and has little reliable to add. Before he came to study with Plotinus in Rome in 263 C.E. he studied with the Middle Platonist Longinus in Athens. In Rome he stayed for some five years and converted to Plotinus’ version of Platonism. On Plotinus’ advice he left Rome for Sicily in order to recover from a bout of depression in 268 C.E. He must have stayed there for some time, even beyond Plotinus’ death in 270 C.E. There are some untrustworthy reports about a school of Porphyry in Rome after Plotinus’ death. In reality we do not know anything with certainty about where he lived in the latter half of his life. He may have been Iamblichus’ teacher. The evidence for this, however, is not beyond dispute. It is clear, though, that Iamblichus was strongly influenced by Porphyry, even if he turned vehemently against him. Towards the end of his life (301 C.E.), Porphyry edited Plotinus’ writings, the Enneads, dividing them into six books of nine treatises each, which he prefaced with his Life of Plotinus. The latter is the most reliable and the most informative source about his life and attitudes. He married fairly late an older wife, for whom one of his extant writings, the Letter to Marcella, is written.