And thus he had rendered virtues of this kind familiar to himself, while he frequented the philosopher Syrianus, and evolved and studied the commentaries of the ancients. But he received from the mouth of his preceptor certain small seeds, as it were, of the Orphic and Chaldaic theology; because he was prevented from hearing the complete interpretation of his master on the Orphic verses. For Syrianus left to the choice of Proclus and one Domninus[62], a philosopher of the Syrian nation, and who afterwards succeeded Syrianus, the exposition of the Orphic writings, or the oracles. But they were by no means unanimous in their choice; for Domninus preferred the interpretation of the Orphic verses, and Proclus that of the oracles. But our philosopher did not perfect his undertaking, because the death of the great Syrianus happened not long after. Having therefore, as I have said, received the outlines from the mouth of his master, he applied himself with the greatest diligence to the written commentaries of Syrianus upon Orpheus; and being assiduously nourished with the copious lucubrations of Porphyry and Jamblichus on the oracles, and similar writings of the Chaldeans, he arrived, as much as is possible to man, to the top of those highest virtues, which the divine Jamblichus was accustomed to call after a truly divine manner, theurgic. He laboured therefore, not without exquisite judgment, in collecting the expositions of philosophers prior to his time; and contracted into one, other Chaldaic hypotheses, and the most excellent of the commentaries on the divine oracles, completing this great work in the space of five years; concerning which this divine vision appeared to him in his sleep. For he saw the great Plutarch approach to him, affirming that he should live so many years as he had composed tetrads or quaternions on the oracles. Afterwards, having collected the number of these, he found they amounted to seventy. But that this was a divine dream, was sufficiently evinced by the last part of his life; for though he lived seventy-five years, as we have mentioned above, yet he had not the perfect use of his powers, in the five last. But his body, though naturally of the best constitution, being debilitated by that hard and scarcely tolerable kind of diet which he used, and by so many frequent labours and fastings, began to languish exactly at his seventieth year, so that he then became much more remiss in all his energies than before. Yet, even at this period, and thus affected, he composed orations and hymns: he also writ some things, and conversed with his friends; but his ancient vigour was wanting in each. Hence the memory of the dream excited his wonder, and he every where said, that he had only lived seventy years. But while he laboured under this infirmity of body, a certain youth, named Hegias, rendered him more alert in the business of interpretation. This young man, who already