Iamblichus was educated in Babylon, and didn’t become acquainted with the Greek language until later in his life. After having lived at Babylon for a number of years, he was taken prisoner and sold as a slave to a Syrian, who, however, appears to have set him free again. He is said to have acquired such a perfect knowledge of Greek that he even distinguished himself as a rhetorician.[4] For a time, he lived in Armenia, when it was ruled by the Roman Client King; his fellow Emesene and distant relative Sohaemus.[5]