social life exhibited the highest moral and spiritual standards. Plotinus took up the study of philosophy at the age of twenty-eight, around the year 232 CE, and travelled to Alexandria to study. There he was dissatisfied with every teacher he encountered, until an acquaintance suggested he listen to the ideas of the self-taught Platonist philosopher Ammonius Saccas. Upon hearing Ammonius' lecture, Plotinus declared to his friend: "this is the man I was looking for", began to study intently under his new instructor, and remained with him as his student for eleven years. Besides Ammonius, Plotinus was also influenced by the philosophical works of Aristotle, the pre-Socratic philosophers Empedocles and Heraclitus, the Middle Platonist philosophers Alexander of Aphrodisias and Numenius of Apamea, along with various Stoics and Neopythagoreans. Expedition to Persia and return to Rome After having spent eleven years in Alexandria, he then decided, at the age of around thirty-eight, to investigate the philosophical teachings of the Persian and Indian philosophers. In the pursuit of this endeavor he left Alexandria and joined the army of the Roman emperor Gordian III as it marched on Persia (242–243 CE). However, the campaign was a failure, and on Gordian's eventual death Plotinus found himself abandoned in a hostile land, and only with difficulty found his way back to safety in Antioch. At the age of forty, during the reign of Emperor Philip the Arab, he came to Rome, where he stayed for most of the remainder of his life. There he attracted a number of students. His innermost circle included Porphyry, Amelius Gentilianus of Tuscany, the Senator Castricius Firmus, and Eustochius of Alexandria, a doctor who devoted himself to learning from Plotinus and attending to him until his death. Other students included: Zethos, an Arab by ancestry who died before Plotinus, leaving him a legacy and some land; Zoticus, a critic and poet; Paulinus, a doctor of Scythopolis; and Serapion from Alexandria. He had students amongst the Roman Senate beside Castricius, such as Marcellus Orontius, Sabinillus, and Rogantianus. Women were also numbered amongst his students, including Gemina, in whose house he lived during his residence in Rome, and her daughter, also Gemina; and Amphiclea, the wife of Ariston the son of Iamblichus. Finally, Plotinus was a correspondent of the philosopher Cassius Longinus. Later life While in Rome Plotinus also gained the respect of the Emperor Gallienus and his wife Salonina. At one point