Taking a fresh look at the statement, in the original Greek, in Porphyry's Life of Plotinus that has always
been taken to show that Plotinus was a vegetarian, I am now convinced that it not only says that he was
a vegetarian, but actually that he was vegan! Here is an attempt at a literal rendering:
"...nor did he abide/bear to take the antidotes from wild animals, saying that neither did he allow/accept/approve/admit the nourishments/foods from the body of the tame/domesticated animals."
Viewed from a vegan perspective, away from the biases of the usual translations, I think that this clearly can be taken as indicating veganism, since not only flesh and meat, but also eggs, milk and dairy, honey, etc. are "nourishments/foods from the body... of animals"! It seems reasonable to suppose that Plotinus was vegan since Plato’s Timaeus is explicitly vegan and this is a text that Plotinus knew most intimately and well and refers to a number of times in the Enneads. Also, leaving aside the historical standpoint and historical and textual evidence altogether, from a spiritual and philosophical standpoint, we can be sure that Plotinus and any other true accomplished Platonist sage would be vegan since they would be able to directly and fully know the Form of Dikaiosune (Righteousness) Itself in Nous. The first aspect of Dikaiosune Itself is ahimsa; and the first aspect of ahimsa in Dikaiosune Itself is veganism.
The standard extant translations, unfortunately, do not accurately reproduce the Greek and do not adequately convey the meaning as being vegan. Besides the usual lack of literalness and faithfulness of most translations, perhaps this may also reflect lack of awareness of the whole idea of veganism and carnist bias in the translators.
For the second clause, Armstrong has, misleadingly, "...giving as his reason that he did not approve of eating the flesh even of domestic animals."
MacKenna has, "...all the more, he remarked, since he could not approve of eating the flesh of animals reared for the table."
Both of these remove the vegan aspect and use the world flesh that doesn't even appear in the Greek.
Gerson et al. is somewhat better: "...he did not, he said, want to derive nourishment from the bodies even of domesticated animals." This could more indicate the veganism, but switching the plurals and singulars of the original between nourishment and body subtly changes it by removing the idea of multiple possible forms of foods from an animal body that suggests all animal products and by products, not only just the actual flesh or meat of the body.
This, incidentally, provides yet another clear and important example about why translations cannot be relied upon and why it can be dangerous to put too much weight or burden on any particular sentence or phrase or word of a translation.
