Porphyry c.232-c.305AD
Neoplatonist philosopher

Born of Syrian parents, probably in Tyre, where he spent his boyhood, he studied at Athens and gained a reputation as a polymathic scholar, 'a living library and a walking museum'. He went to Rome (c.263AD) where he became a disciple of Plotinus, and later his biographer and editor. He is probably most important as a popularizer of Plotinus's thought, but his own works include a celebrated treatise Against the Christians, of which only fragments remain, commentaries on Plato, Plotinus and Aristotle, De Abstinentia (a vegetarian tract), and a moral address to his wife, Marcella. His most influential work was the Isagoge, a commentary on Aristotle's Categories, which was translated into Latin by Boethius and was widely used in the Middle Ages.