Plotinus’s student Porphyry wrote the most dazzling allegory of the Odyssey of all in his treatise On the Cave of the Nymphs, which begins by quoting the description of the Ithacan cave in book 13 of the Odyssey, where Athena tells Odysseus to hide his goods. This cave is an allegory, according to Porphyry, of the physical universe—it is lovely but it is also murky. The olive tree represents the divine wisdom that informs the universe and yet is separate from it. When Athena tells Odysseus to hide his goods in the cave, Homer is saying that we need to lay aside our outward possessions in order
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