 Volume 1, Book 5, Chapters 1-12 of the Life of Apollonias of Tiana. The Life of Apollonias of Tiana by Flavius Philostratus, translated by F. C. Coneybear. Volume 1, Book 5, Chapters 1-12. 1. Now, in regard to the pillars, which they say Hercules fixed in the ground as limits of the earth, I shall omit mere fables, and confine myself to recording what is worthy of our hearing and of our narrating. The extremes of Europe and Libya border on a straight sixty-stadia wide, through which the ocean is admitted into the inner seas. The extremity of Libya, which bears the name of Binna, furnishes a hound to lions, who hunt their prey along the brows of the mountains, which are to be seen rising inland, and it marches with the Jettuli and Tinje, both of them wild Libyan tribes, and it extends as you sail into the ocean as far as the mouth of the river Salix, some 900 stadia, and beyond that point a further distance, which no one can compute, because when you have passed this river, Libya is a desert, which no longer supports a population. But the promontory of Erip, known as Kalpas, stretches along the inlet of the ocean on the right-hand side, a distance of 600 stadia, and terminates in the ancient city of Gadira. 2. Now, I myself have seen among the Celts the ocean types, just as they are described. And, after making various conjectures about why so vast a bulk of waters recedes in advances, I have come to the conclusion that Apollonius discerned the real truth. 4. In one of his letters to the Indians, he says that the ocean is driven by submarine influences, or spirits, out of several chasms, which the earth affords, both underneath and around it, to advance outwards and to recede again, whenever the influence or spirit, like the breath of our bodies, gives way and recedes. And this theory is confirmed by the course run by diseases in Gadira. 4. At the time of high water, the souls of the dying do not quit their bodies, and this would hardly happen, he says, unless the influence or spirit I have spoken of was advancing towards the land. They also tell you of certain phenomena of the ocean in connection with the phases of the moon, according as it is born and reaches fullness and veins. These phenomena I verified for the ocean exactly keeps pace with the size of the moon, decreasing and increasing with her. 3. And whereas the day succeeds the night, and night succeeds the day in the land of the Celts by a very slow diminution of the darkness and of the light, respectively, as in this country, in the neighborhood of Gadira, on the contrary, and of the pillars, it is said that the change bursts upon the ice all at once, like a flash of lightning. And they also say that the islands of the blessed are bounded by the limits of Libya and emerge towards the uninhabited promontory. 4. Now, the city of Gadira is situated at the extreme end of Europe, and its inhabitants are excessively given to religion, so much so that they have set up an altar to old age, and unlike any other race, they sing hymns in honor of death. And altars are found there, set up to poverty, and to art, and to Hercules of Egypt. And there are others in honor of Hercules the Theban, for they say that the latter penetrated as far as a neighboring city of Erythia, on which occasion he took captive Gerion and his cows. And that, in his devotion to wisdom, he traversed the whole earth up to its limits. They say moreover that there is a Hellenic culture at Gadira, and that they educate themselves in our own fashion. Anyhow, that they are fonder of the Athenians than of any other Hellenes, and they offer sacrifice to Menestheos the Athenian, and from admiration of the mysticlies, the naval commander, and to honor him for his wisdom and bravery, they all set up a brazen statue of him in a life-like attitude, and, as it were, pondering an oracle. Five. They say also that they saw trees here, such as are not found elsewhere upon the earth, and that these were called trees of Gerion. There were two of them, and they grew upon the mound raised over Gerion. They were a cross between the pitch tree and the pine, and formed a third species, and blood dripped from their bark, just as gold does from the Hellenic poplar. Now, the islands on which the shrine is built is of exactly the same size as the temple, and there is not a rough stone to be found in it, for the whole of it has been given the form of a polished platform. In the shrine, they say there is maintained a cult, both of one and the other Hercules, though there are no images of them. Alters, however, there are, namely to the Egyptian Hercules, two of bronze and perfectly plain, to the Theban, one of stone. On the latter, they say are engraved in relief, hydras and the mirrors of Diomedi, and the twelve labors of Hercules. And as to the golden olive of Pygmalion, it too is preserved in the temple of Hercules, and it excited their admiration by the clever way in which the branch work was imitated. And they were still more astonished at its fruit for this teemed with emeralds. And they say that the girdle of Tussra of Telemann was also exhibited there of gold, but how he ever sailed as far as the ocean, or why he did so, neither dumbest by his own admission could understand, nor ascertained from the people of the place. But he says that the pillars in the temple were made of gold and silver smelted together so as to be of one color. And they were over a qubit high of square form, resembling anvils. And their capitals were inscribed with letters which were neither Egyptian nor Indian, nor of any kind which he could decipher. But Apollonius says the priests would tell him nothing remarked. Hercules of Egypt does not permit me not to tell all I know. These pillars are ties between earth and ocean, and they were inscribed by Hercules in the house of the fates to prevent any discord arising between the elements and to save their mutual affection for one another from violation. 6. They tell also of how they sailed up the river Betis which throws no little light upon the nature of the ocean. For whenever it is high tide, the river in its course remounts towards its sources because apparently a current of air drives it away from the sea. And the mainland of Betica after which this river is called is the best by their account of any continent for it is well furnished with cities and pastures and the river in its course visits all the towns and it is very highly cultivated with all sorts of crops and it enjoys a climate similar to that of Arica in the autumn season when the mysteries are celebrated. 7. The conversations with Apollonius held about things which met his eyes were, according to Domes, many in number, but the following he said deserved to be recorded. On one occasion they were sitting in the temple of Hercules and Manipus gave a laugh for it happened that Nero had just come into his mind. And what, he said, are we to think of this splendid fellow and which of the contests has he won breaths of late want to think that self-respecting Hellenes must shake with laughter when they are on their way to the festivals? And Apollonius replied, As I have heard from Telesinus the word in Nero is afraid of the whips of the aliens for when his flatterers urged him to win at Olympia and to proclaim Rome as the victor he answered, Yes, if the aliens will only not depreciate me for they are sad to use whips and to look down upon me. And many worse bits of nonsense than this forecast fell from his lips. I, however, admit that Nero will conquer at Olympia for who is bold enough to enter the lists against him. But I deny that he will win at the Olympic festival because they are not keeping it at the right season. For custom requires that this should have been held last year but Nero has ordered the aliens to put it off until his own visit in order that they may sacrifice to him rather than to Zeus. And it is said that he has announced a tragedy and a performance on the harp for people who have neither a theater nor a stage for such entertainment but only the stadium which Nator has provided and races which are all run by athletes stripped off their clothes. He, however, is going to take the prize for performances which he ought to have hidden in the dark for he has thrown off the robes of Augustus and Julius and has dressed himself up in the garb of an amoebius and a terpness. What can you say of such a record? And then he betrays such meticulous care in playing the part of Creon and Oedipus that he is afraid of falling into some error of coming in by the wrong door or of wearing the wrong dress of using the wrong scepter but he has so entirely forgotten his own dignity and that of the Romans that instead of carrying on the work of making laws he has taken to singing and strolls like a player outside the gates within which the Emperor ought to take his seat on his throne deciding the fate of land and sea. There are, Oedipus, several troops in which Nero has inscribed himself as an actor. What next? Supposing any of these actors quitted the theater after playing Enomalus or Chris Fontis so full of his part as to want to rule others and imagine himself to be a tyrant what would you say of him? Surely you would recommend those of Hellebore and the taking of drugs of a kind to clear the intellect. Well, here is the man himself who wields absolute power throwing in his lot with actors and artists cultivating a soft voice and trembling before the people of Elis or of Delphi or if he does not tremble Yes, misrepresenting his art so thoroughly as not to anticipate he will be whipped by the people over whom he has been set to rule. What will you say of the unhappy people who have to live under such a scum? And in what light do you think the Hellenes regard him? Is it as Azersis burning their houses down or as Nero singing songs? Think of the supplies they have to collect for his songs and how they are thrust out of their houses and forbidden to own a decent bit of furniture or a slave. Think of how Nero picks out of every other house women and children to gratify his infamous desires and of the horrors they will suffer over them of the crop of prosecutions which will be brought and without dwelling upon the rest just fix your attention upon those which will arise out of his theatrical and singing ambitions. This is what you hear. You did not come to listen to Nero or you were present but you listened to him without enthusiasm you laughed or you did not clap your hands or you have not offered a sacrifice on behalf of his voice nor pray that it may be more splendid than ever at the Pythian festival. You can imagine that the Greeks will endure whole iliots of woe at these spectacles for I have long ago learned by the revelation of Heaven that the Isthmus will be cut through or will not be cut through and just now they say it is being cut. Here Damis took him up and said as for myself, O Apollonius I think this scheme of cutting through the Isthmus excels all other undertakens of Nero for you yourselves see how magnificent a project it is. I admit, he said, that it is, O Damis but it will go against him that he never could complete it that just as he never finished his songs so he never finished his digging. When I review the career of Xerces I am disposed to praise him not because he bridged the Hellespund but because he got across it but as for Nero I perceive that he will neither sail his ships through the Isthmus nor even come to an end of his digging and I believe unless truth was wholly departed from among men that he will retire from Helles in a fit of panic. Eight. At this time a swift runner arrived at Cadera and ordered them to offer sacrifices for the good tidings and to sing hymns in honor of Nero who had thrice won the prize at Olympia. In the city of Cadera indeed they understood the meaning of the victory and that there had been some famous contests in Arcadia for as I said before the people of Cadera affect Hellenic civilization but the cities in the neighborhood of Cadera neither knew what the Olympic festival was nor what a contest nor an arena meant nor did they understand what they were sacrificing for but they indulged in the most ridiculous suppositions and imagined that it was a victory in war that Nero had won and that he had taken captive some men called Olympians for they had never been spectators either of a tragedy or of a heart-playing performance. Nine. Domus indeed speaks of the singular effect which a tragic actor produced upon the minds of the inhabitants of Ipola which is a city of Betica and I think the story is worthy of being reproduced by me. The cities were multiplying their sacrifices in honor of the emperor's victories for those at the Pythian festival were already announced when an actor of tragedy who was one of those that had not ventured to contend for the prize against Nero was on a strolling tour round the cities of the west and by his histrionic talent he had won no small fame among the last barbarous of the populations for two reasons firstly because he found himself among people who had never before heard a tragedy and secondly because he pretended exactly to reproduce the melodies of Nero but when he appeared at Ipola they showed some fear of him before he ever opened his lips upon the stage and they shrank in dismay at his appearance when they saw him striding across the stage with his mouth all agape mounted on buskins extra high and clad in the most wonderful garments but when he lifted up his voice and bellowed out loud most of them took to their heels as if they had a demon yelling at them such an so old fashioned are the manners of the barbarians of that country 10. The governor of Betica was very anxious to have a conversation with Apollonius and though the latter said that his conversation must seem tedious to any but philosophers the other insisted in his demand and as he was sad to be a worthy person and to detest the minds of Nero Apollonius wrote to him a letter asking him to come to Godera and he, divesting himself of all the pomp of authority came with a few of his most intimate friends they greeted one of his friends they greeted one another and no one knows what they said to one another in an interview from which they excluded the rest of the company but Damis hazards the opinion that they formed a plot together against Nero for after three days spent in private conversations the governor went away after embracing Apollonius while the latter said farewell and do not forget Vindex now what was the meaning of this when Nero was singing in Achaia Vindex is said to have stirred up against him the nations of the west and he was a man quite capable of cutting out the strings which Nero so ignorantly twined for he addressed a speech inspired by the loftiest sentiments which a man can feel against a tyrant to the troops which he commanded and he declared in it that Nero was anything rather than a harpist and a harpist rather than a sovereign and he taxed him with madness and avarice and cruelty and wantonness of every kind though he admitted to tax him with the cruelest of his crimes for he said that he had quite rightly put to death his mother because she had born such a monster Apollonius forecasting how all this must end had accordingly brought into line with Vindex the governor of a neighboring province and so all but took up arms himself on behalf of Rome 11 But as matters in the west were in such an inflamed condition Apollonius and his friends returned then towards Libya and the Tyronian land and partly on foot and partly by sea they made their way to Sicily where they stopped at Lilibeum then they coasted along to Messina and to the Straits where the junction of the Tyronian sea with the Adriatic gives rise to the dangers of Charybdis Here they say they heard that Nero had taken to flight though Vindex was dead and that various claimants were snatching at the throne some from Rome itself and others from various countries Now when his companions asked him what would be the issue of these events and who would get possession in the end of the throne he answered many Thebans will have it for he compared the pretenders namely Battelius and Galba and Otho in view of the short lease of power which they enjoyed to Thebans for it was only during a very short time that they held dominion over the Hellenic world 12 that he was enabled to make such forecasts by some divine impulse and that it is no sound interest to infer as some people do that our hero was a wizard is clear from what I have already said but let us consider these facts wizards, home for my part I reckon to be the most unfortunate of mankind claimed to alter the course of destiny by having recourse either to the torture of lost spirits or to barbaric sacrifices or to certain incantations or anointings and many of them, when accused of such practices have admitted that they were adepts in such practices but Apollonius submitted himself to the decrees of the fates and only foretold that things must come to pass and his foreknowledge was gained not by wizardry but from what the gods revealed to him and when among the Indians he beheld their tripods and their dumb waders and other automata which I described as entering the room of their own accord he did not ask how they were contrived nor did he ask to be informed he only praised them but did not aspire to imitate them End of Volume 1, Book 5, Chapters 1-12 Chapter 13 Now when they reached Syracuse a woman of a leading family was brought to bed of such a monster as never any woman has delivered of before for her child had three heads and each had had a knack of its own but below them there was a single body of the vulgarity of the woman and of the woman and of the woman and of the woman and of the woman of the vulgar and stupid interpretations of this prodigy one was that it signified the impending ruin of Sicily for it has three headlands unless the inhabitants can pose their feuds and could live together in peace for as a matter of fact several of the cities were at variance both with themselves and with one another and such a thing as orderly life was unknown in the island another explanation was that Typho a many-headed monster was threatening Sicily with his violence but Apollonius said go Odemus and look if the child is really made up as they say for the thing was exposed to public view for the miracle-mongers to exercise their ingenuity upon it when Demus reported that it was a three-headed creature and of the male sex Apollonius got together his companions and said it signifies three emperors of Rome whom yesterday I called Thebans and not one of them shall enjoy complete dominion but two of them shall perish after holding sway in Rome itself and the third after doing so in the country's bordering upon Rome and they shall shuffle off their masks more quickly than if they were tragic actors playing the part of Tyrant and the truth of his statement was almost immediately revealed for Galba died in Rome itself just after he grasped the crown and Vitellius died after only dreaming of the crown and Otho died in western Galatia and was not even accorded a public funeral but lies buried like any private person and the whole episode was passed and over within a single year Chapter 14 Next they came to Catana where is Mount Etna and they say that they heard from the inhabitants of the city a story about Typho being bound on the spot and about fire rising from him and this fire sends up the smoke of Etna but they themselves came to more plausible conclusions and more in keeping with philosophy and they say that Apollonius began the discussion by asking his companions is there such a thing as mythology Yes, by Zeus said Menapus and I mean by it that which furnishes poets with their themes what then do you think of Aesop he is a mythologist and writer of fables and no more and which set of myths show any talent those are the poets he answered because they are represented in the poems as having taken place and what then do you think of the stories of Aesop frogs he answered and donkeys and nonsense only fit to be swallowed by old women and children and yet for my part said Apollonius I find them more conducive to wisdom than the others for those others of which all poetry is so fond and which deal with heroes positively destroy the souls of their hearers because the poet relates stories about landish passion and of incestuous marriages and repeats calamities against the gods of how they ate their own children and committed crimes of meanness and quarreled with one another and the affectation and the pretense of reality leads passionate and jealous people and miser like and ambitious persons to imitate the stories Aesop on the other hand had in the first place the wisdom never to identify himself with those who put such stories in diverse but took a line of his own and in the second like those who can dine well of the plainest dishes he made use of humble incidents to teach great truths and after telling a story he adds to it the advice to do a thing or not to do it then too he was really more attached to truth than the poets are for the latter do violence to their own stories in order to make them probable but he by announcing a story which everyone knows not to be true told the truth by the very fact that he did not claim to be relating real events and the poet after telling his story leaves a healthy minded reader cuddling his brains to know whether it really happened whereas one who like Aesop tells a story which is false and does not pretend to be anything else merely investing it with a good moral shows that he has made use of the falsehood merely for its utility to his audience and there is another charm about him namely that he puts animals in a pleasing light and makes them interesting to mankind for after being brought up from childhood with these stories and after being as it were nursed by them from babyhood we acquire certain opinions of the several animals and think of some of them as royal animals or others as silly or others as witty or others as innocent and whereas the poet after telling us that there are many forms of heavenly visitation or something of the kind dismisses his chorus and departs Aesop adds an oracle to his story and dismisses his hearers just as they reach the conclusion he wished to lead them to Chapter 15 and as for myself a menopause my mother taught me a story about the wisdom of Aesop when I was a mere child and told me that he was once a shepherd and was tending his flocks hard by a temple of Hermes and that he was a passionate lover of wisdom and prayed to Hermes that he might receive it many other people she said also resorted to the temple of Hermes asking for the same gift and one of them would hang on the altar gold another silver another a herald's wand of ivory and others other rich presence of the kind now Aesop she said was not in a position to own any of these things but he saved up what he had and poured a libation of as much milk as a sheep would give at one milking in honor of Hermes and brought a honeycomb and laid it on the altar big enough to fill the hand and he thought of regaling the god with myrtleberries or perhaps by laying just a few roses or violets at the altar for said he would you oh Hermes have me weave crowns for you and neglect my sheep now when on the appointed day they arrived for the distribution Hermes is the god of wisdom and eloquence and also of rewards said to him who as you may well suppose had made the biggest offering here is philosophy for you and to him who had made the next handsomest present he said do you take your place among the orders and to others he said you shall have the gift of astronomy or you shall be a musician or you shall be an epic poet and write a heroic meter or you shall be a writer of iambics now although he was a most wise and accomplished god he exhausted not meaning to do so all the various departments of wisdom and then found that he had quite forgotten Aesop there upon he remembered the hours by whom he himself had been nurtured on the peaks of Olympus and be thought of how once when he was still in swaddling clothes they had told him a story about the cow which had a conversation with the man about herself and about the earth and so set him aflame about the cows of Apollo accordingly he forthwith bestowed upon Aesop the art of fable called mythology for that was all that was left in the house of wisdom and said do you keep what was the first thing I learned myself Aesop then acquired the various forms of his art from that source and the issue was such as we see in the matter of mythology Chapter 16 Perhaps I have done a foolish thing when on Apollonius for it was my intention to recall you to more scientific and truer explanations than the poetical myths given by the vulgar of Etna and I have let myself be drawn into a eulogy of myths however the digression has not been without a charm of its own for the myth which we repudiate is not one of Aesop's stories but belongs to the class of dramatic stories which fill the mouths of our poets for they say that a certain typho or Enceladus lies bound under the mountain and in his death agony breathes out this fire that we see now I admit that giants have existed and that gigantic bodies are revealed all over earth when tombs are broken open nevertheless I deny that they ever come into conflict with the gods at the most they violated their temples and statues and to suppose that they scaled the heaven and chased away the gods therefrom this it is madness to relate and madness to believe nor can I any more respect that other story though it is more reverent in its tone to the effect that Hephaestus attends to his forge in Etna and that there is there an anvil on which he smites with his hammer for there are many other mountains all over the earth that are on fire and yet we should never be so rash as to assign to them giants and gods like Hephaestus Chapter 17 what then is the explanation of such mountains it is this the earth by affording a mixture of asphalt and pitch begins to smoke of its own nature but it does not yet belch out fire if however it be cavernous and hollow and there be a spirit or force circulating underneath it it at once sends up into the air as it were a torch this flame gathers force and gets hold of all around and then like water it streams off the mountains and flows out into the plains and the mass of fire reaches the sea forming mouths out of which it issues like the mouths of rivers and as for the place of the pious ones around whom the fire flowed we will allow that such exists even here but at the same time let us not forget that the whole earth affords secure ground for the doers of holiness and that the sea is safely traversed not only by people in ships but even by people attempting to swim for in this way he continually ended up his discourses with useful and pious exhortation Chapter 18 he stayed in Sicily and taught philosophy there as long as he had sufficient interest in doing so and then repaired to Greece about the rising of Arcturus after a pleasant sail he arrived at Lucas where he said let us get out of this ship for it is better not to continue in it our voyage to Ikea no one took any notice of the utterance except those who knew the sage well but he himself together with those who desired to make the voyage with him embarked on a Lucadian ship aboard of Lacan meanwhile the Syracusan ship sank as it entered the Crisean Gulf Chapter 19 at Athens he was initiated and by the same hierophant of whom he had delivered a prophecy to his predecessor here he met Demetrius the philosopher for after the episode of Nero's Bath and of his speech about it Demetrius continued to live at Athens with such noble courage he did not quit Greece even during the period when Nero was outraging Greece over the games Demetrius said that he had fallen in with Musonius at the isthmus where he was fettered and under orders to dig he consoled him as best he could with better hopes for the future but Musonius took his spade and stoutly dug it into the earth and then looking up said you are distressed Demetrius to see me digging through the isthmus of Greece but if you saw me playing the harp like Nero what would you feel then but I must pass over the fortunes of Musonius though they were many and remarkable else I shall seem impertinent like one who has carelessly repeated them Chapter 20 Apollonius spent the winter in various Hellenic temples and towards spring he embarked on the road for Egypt after administering many rebukes indeed much could counsel to the cities many of which won his approval for he never refused praise when anything was done in a right insensible way when he descended to the Piraeus he found a ship riding there with its sail set just about to start for Ionia but the owner would not allow him to embark for he wished to go on a private cruise Apollonius asked him what his fate consisted of of gods he replied whose images I am exporting to Ionia some made of gold and stone and others of ivory and gold and are you going to dedicate them or what? I am going to sell them he replied to those who desire to dedicate them then you are afraid my most excellent man lest we should steal your images on board the ship I am not afraid of that he answered but I do not think it proper that they should have to share their voyage with so many people and be defiled by such bad company as you get on board ship and may I remind you most worthy men answered Apollonius for you appear to me to be an Athenian that on ships which your countrymen employed against the barbarians although they were full of a disorderly naval crowd the gods embarked along with them it had no suspicion of being polluted thereby you however in your gross ignorance drive men who are lovers of wisdom out of your ship in whose company as in that of none others the gods delight and this although you are trafficking in the gods but the image makers of old behaved not in this way nor did they go around the city selling their gods all they did was to export their own hands and their tools for working stone and ivory and they provided the raw materials and plied their handicraft in the temples themselves but you are leading the gods into harbors and marketplaces just as if they were wares of the Hurcanians or the Scythians far be it from me to name these and do you think you are doing no impiety it is true there are babbling buffoons who hang upon their persons images of Demeter and Dionysus and pretend that they are nurtured by the gods they carry but as for feeding on the gods themselves you do without ever being surfited on this diet that is a horrible commerce and one I should say savoring of unmanliness even if you have no misgivings of your own about the consequences having administered this rebuke he took his passage on another ship Chapter 21 and when he had sailed as far as Kios without even setting foot on the shore he left across into another ship hard by his advertised to go to Rhodes and without a word his companions jumped after him for it was an essential part of their philosophic discipline to imitate his every word in action with a favorable wind he made the passage and held the following conversation in Rhodes as he approached the image of the Colossus Damus asked him if he thought anything could be greater than that and he replied yes a man who loves wisdom an innocent spirit at that time Canus was living in Rhodes who was esteemed to be the best of all flute players of his age he therefore called him and said what is the business of a flute player to do replied the other everything which his audience wants him to well but many replied Apollonius many in the audience want to be rich rather than to hear a flute played I gather then that when you find them desiring this to be rich you turn them into rich men not at all replied the other although I would like to do so well then perhaps you make the young people in your audience good-looking for all who are still enjoying youth wish to be handsome nor that either replied the other although I can play many an air of Aphrodite on my instrument what then is it set up Apollonius which you think your audience want why what else replied Canus except that the mourner may have his sorrow lulled to sleep by the flute and that they that rejoice may have their cheerfulness enhanced and the lover may wax Warner in his passion and the lover of sacrifice may become more inspired and full of sacred song this then he said okayness would you allow to be the effect of the flute itself because it is constructed of gold or brass and of the stag or perhaps the shin of a donkey or is it something else which has these effects it is something else he replied Apollonius for the music and the airs and the blending of strains and the easy variations the flute and the characters of the harmonies it is all this that composes the souls of listeners and brings them to such a state of contentment as they want I understand he replied okayness what is it that your art performs for you cultivate and exhibit to those who come to hear you the changefulness of your music and the variety of its modes but as for myself I think that your flute wants other resources in addition to those you have mentioned namely plenty of breath and a right use of the lips and manual skill on the part of the player and facility of breath consists in its being clear and distinct unmarred by any husky click in the throat for rub the sound of its musical character and facility with the lips consists in their taking in the reed of the flute and playing without blowing out the cheeks and manual skill I consider very important for the wrist must not weary from being bent nor must the fingers be slow and fluttering over the notes and manual skill is especially shown in the swift transition from mode to mode if then you have all these facilities you may play with confidence okayness for you. Chapter 22 it happened also that a young man was building a house in Rhodes who was a nouveau riche without any education and he collected in his house rare pictures and gems from different countries. Apollonius then asked him how much money he had spent upon teachers and on education not a far thing he replied and how much upon your house 12 talents replied and I mean to spend as much again upon it and what said the other is the good of your house to you why is it residence it is splendidly suited to my bodily needs for there are colonnades in it and groves and I shall seldom need to walk out into the marketplace but people will come in and talk to me with all the more pleasure just as they were visiting a temple and said Apollonius are meant to be valued more for themselves for their belongings for their wealth said the other for wealth has the most influence and said Apollonius my good youth which is the best able to keep his money an educated person or an uneducated and as the other made no answer he added my good boy it seems to me that it is not you that owns the house but the house that owns you as for myself I would far rather enter a temple no matter how small and behold in it a statue of ivory and gold then behold one of pottery and bad workmanship in a vastly larger one chapter 23 and meeting a young man who was young and fat and who prided himself upon eating more than anybody else and on drinking more wine than others he remarked then you it seems are the glutton yes and I sacrifice to the gods out of gratitude for the same and what pleasure said Apollonius do you get by gorging yourself in this way why everyone admires me and stares at me for you have probably heard of Hercules how people took as much pains to celebrate what he ate as what labors he performed yes for he was Hercules said Apollonius but as for you you scum what good points are there about you there's nothing left for you but to burst if you want to be stared at chapter 24 such were his experiences in Rhodes and others ensued in Alexandria so soon as his voyage ended there even before he arrived Alexandria was in love with him and its inhabitants long to see Apollonius as one friend longs for another and as the people of Upper Egypt are intensely religious they too prayed him to visit their several societies for owing to the fact that so many come hither and mix with us from Egypt while an equal number pass hence to visit Egypt Apollonius was already celebrated among them and the ears of the Egyptians were literally pricked up to hear him there was no exaggeration to say that as he advanced from the ship into the city they gazed upon him as if he was a God and made way for him in the alleys as they would for priests carrying the sacraments as he was being thus escorted with more pomp than if he had been a governor of the country he met twelve men who were being led to execution on the charge of being bandits he looked at them and said to him and he gave his name has been falsely accused or he would not be going with you and to the executioners by whom they were being led he said I order you to relax your pace and bring them to the ditch a little more leisurely and to put this one to death last of all for he is guiltless of the charge but you would anyhow act with more piety if you spared them for a brief portion of the day since it were better not to slay them at all with all he dwelt upon this theme at what was for him unusual length and the reason for his doing so was immediately shown for when eight of them had had their heads cut off a man on horseback rode up to the ditch and shouted spare playarian for he added he is no robber but he gave false witness against himself from fear of being wracked and others of them in their examination under torture have acknowledged that he is guiltless I need not describe the exaltation of Egypt nor how the people who were anyhow ready to admire him applauded him for this action end of chapters 13 to 24 of volume 1 book 5 the life of Apollonius of Tyanna read by Mary Schneider volume 1 book 5 chapters 25 to 34 of the life of Apollonius of Tyanna this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the life of Apollonius of Tyanna by Flavius Filistratus translated by F.C. Coneybear volume 1 book 5 chapters 25 to 34 chapter 25 and when he had gone into the temple he was struck by the orderliness of its arrangements and thought the reason given for everything thoroughly religious and wisely framed but as for the blood of bulls and the sacrifices of geese and other animals he disapproved at them nor would he consider that they constituted repasts of the gods and when a priest asked him what induced him not to sacrifice like the rest nay you he replied should rather answer me what induces you to sacrifice in this way the priest replied and who is so clever that he can make corrections in the affairs of the Egyptians anyone he answered with a little wisdom if only he comes from India and he added I will roast a bull to ashes this very day and you shall hold communion with us in the smoke it makes you cannot complain if you only get the same portion which is thought enough of a repast for the gods and as his image was being melted in the fire he said look at the sacrifice what sacrifice? said the Egyptian for I do not see anything there and Apollonius said the Lama day and the Talia day and the Colitea day and the oracle of the black footed ones have talked a lot of nonsense most excellent priest when they went on at such length about fire and pretended to gather so many oracles from it for as to the fire from pinewood and from cedar do you think it is really fraught with prophecy and capable of revealing anything and yet not a steam of fire lit from the richest and purest gum to be much preferable if then you had really any acquaintance with the lore of fire worship you would see that many things are revealed in the disc of the sun at the moment of its rising chapter 26 with these words he rebuked and silenced the Egyptian showing that he was ignorant of religion but because the Alexandrians are devoted to horses and flock into the race course to see the spectacle and murder one another in their partisanship he therefore administered a grave rebuked to them over these matters and entering the temple he said how long will you persist in meeting your deaths not in behalf of your families or of your shrines but because you are determined to pollute the sacred precincts by entering them reeking with gore and to slaughter one another within the walls and Troy it seems was ravaged and destroyed by a single horse which the Achaeans of that day had contrived but your chariots and horses are yoked to your own and leave you no chance of living in submission to the reigns of law you are being destroyed therefore not by the sons of Atreus nor by the sons of Ajax but by one another a thing that the Trojans would not have done even when they were drunk at Olympia however where there are prizes for wrestling and boxing and for the mixed athletic contests no one is slain in behalf of the athletes it is quite excusable if one should show an excess of zeal in the rivalry of human beings like himself but here I see you rushing at one another withdrawn swords and ready to hurl stones all over a horse race I would like to call down fire upon such a city as this where amidst the groans and insulting shouts of the destroyers and the destroyed the earth runs with blood can you not feel reverence for the Nile the common mixing bowl of Egypt but why mention the Nile to men whose gauges measure a rising tide of blood rather than of water and many other rebukes of the same kind he addressed to them as Deimos informs us Chapter 27 Vespasian was harboring thoughts of seizing the absolute power and was at this time in the country's bordering upon Egypt and when he advanced as far as Egypt people like Dion and Mufredes of whom I shall have something to say lower down urged that a welcome should be given to him for the first aristocrat by whom the Roman state was organized was succeeded for the space of 50 years by tyrants so harsh and cruel that not even Claudius who reigned 13 years in the interval between them could be regarded as a good ruler and that although he was 50 years of age when he succeeded to the throne an age when a man's judgment is most likely to be sane and though he had the reputation of being fond of culture of all kinds nevertheless he too in spite of his advanced age committed many youthful follies and gave up the empire to be devoured as sheep devour a pasture by silly women who murdered him because he was so indolent that though he knew beforehand what was in store for him he could not be on his guard even against what he foresaw Apollonius no less than Euphrates and Dion rejoiced in the new turn of events but he did not make vice of them as a theme of his public utterances because he considered such an argument too much in the style of a retor when the autocrat approached the city the priests met him before the gates together with the magistrates of Egypt and the representatives into which Egypt is divided the philosophers also were present and all their schools Apollonius however did not put himself forward in this way but remained conversing in the temple the autocrat delivered himself of noble and gentle sentiments and after making a short speech said is the man of Tyanna living here yes they replied and he has much improved us thereby can he then be induced to give us an interview said the emperor for I am very much in want of him he will meet you said Dion in the temple for he admitted as much to me when I was on my way here let us go on said the king at once to offer our prayers to the gods and to meet some noble a man this is how the story grew up that it was during his conduct of the siege of Jerusalem that the idea of making himself emperor suggested itself to him and that he sent for Apollonius to ask his advice on the point but that the latter declined to enter a country which its inhabitants polluted both by what they did and by what they suffered which was the reason why Vespasian came in person to Egypt as well because he now had possession of the throne as in order to hold with our sage the conversations which I shall relate Chapter 28 for after he had sacrificed and before he gave official audiences to the cities he addressed himself to Apollonius and as if making prayer he said to him do you make me king and he answered I have done so already for I have already offered a prayer for a king who should be just and noble and temperate endowed with the wisdom of gray hairs and the father of legitimate sons surely in my prayer I was asking from the gods for none other but thyself the emperor was delighted with this answer for the crowd too in the temple shoved their agreement with it what then said the emperor did you think of the reign of Nero and Apollonius answered Nero perhaps understood how to tune a lyre but he disgraced the empire both by letting the strings go too slack and by drawing them too tight then said the other you would like a ruler to observe the mean not I said Apollonius but God himself who has denned equality as consisting in the mean and these gentlemen here they too are good advisers in this matter he added pointing to Dian and Euphrates for the latter had not yet quarrelled with him there upon the king held up his hand and said O Zeus may I hold sway over wise men and wise men hold sway over me and turning himself round towards the Egyptians he said you shall draw as liberally upon me as you do upon the Nile Chapter 29 the result then was that the Egyptians regained their prosperity for they were already exhausted by the oppressions they suffered but as he went down from the temple he grasped the hand of Apollonius and taking him with him into the palace said perhaps some will think me young and foolish because I assume the reigns of kingship in the 60th year of my life I will then communicate to you my reasons for doing so in order that you may justify my actions to others for I was never the slave of wealth that I know of even in my youth and in the matter of the magistracies and the honors and the gift of the Roman sovereign I bore myself with so much soberness and moderation to avoid being thought either overbearing or on the other hand craven and cowardly nor did I cherish any but loyal feelings towards Nero but in as much as he had received the crown if not in strict accordance with the law at any rate from the autocrat I submitted to him for the sake of Claudius who made me consul and share of his councils and by Athene I never saw Nero demeaning himself without shedding tears out of Claudius and contrasted with him the wretch who had inherited the greatest of his possessions and now when I see that even the disappearance of the scene of Nero has brought no change for the better in the fortunes of humanity and that the throne has fallen to such dishonor as to be assigned to Vitelius I boldly advance to take it myself firstly because I wish to endure myself to man and win their esteem and secondly because the man I have to contend with is a mere drunkard for Vitelius uses more ointment in his bath than I do water and I believe that if you ran a sword into him more ointment would issue from the wound than blood and his continuous bouts of drinking have made him mad and one who were he dying would be full of apprehension as the pieces should play him false is yet hazard in the empire in play and though he is the slave of mistresses he nevertheless insults married women and says that he likes to spice his amours with a little danger his worst excesses I will not mention for I would rather not allude to such matters in your presence may I then never submit tamely while the Romans are ruled by such a man as he let me rather ask the gods to guide me so that I may be true to myself and this Apollonius as it were, make fast my cable to yourself for they say that you have the amplest insight into the will of the gods and why I ask you to share with me in my anxieties and aid me in plans on which rest the safety of sea and land to the end that supposing the good will of heaven show itself on my side I may fulfill my task but if heaven opposes and favors neither myself nor the Romans that I may not trouble the gods against their wills Chapter 30 Apollonius clinched his words with an appeal to heaven O Zeus said he of the capital for thou art he whom I know to be the arbiter or the present of issue do thou preserve thyself for this man and this man for thyself for this man who stands before thee is destined to raise a fresh unto thee the temple which only yesterday the hands of califactors set on fire and on the emperor expressing astonishment at his words the facts themselves he said you will reveal so do thou ask nothing of me but continue and complete that which thou hast so rightly purposed now it happened just then is a matter of fact that in Rome Diomission the son of Aspacean was matched with Vitalius in the struggle to gain the empire for his father and was engaged in the capital with the result that although he escaped the fury of the besiegers the temple was burnt down and all this was revealed to apollonius more quickly than if it had taken place in Egypt when they had held their conversation he left the emperor's presence saying that it was not permitted him by the religion of the Indians to proceed at midday in any way other than the Indians do themselves at the same time the emperor came up and with fresh enthusiasm instead of allowing matters to slip through his hands persevered in his policy convinced by apollonius's words that his future was stable and assured to him by heaven chapter 31 next day at dawn apollonius came to the palace and asked the guards what the emperor was doing from whom learning that he had long risen and was engaged in his correspondence he went off and remarked to apollonius this man shall be sovereign about sunrise he returned to find Diane and Euphrates already at the door in return to his eager inquiries concerning the interview he repeated the defense of his policy which he had heard from the emperor though at the same time he let no word escape him of his own opinions but on being summoned to enter in advance of them he said oh king Euphrates and Diane long your brothers are at your door being highly anxious for your welfare I pray you call them in also to join in our conversation for they are both of them wise men I throw my doors open he replied to wise men but to you I purpose to open my breast as well chapter 32 when they had been called in he continued in defense of my plans I said gentlemen what I had done today to apollonius our esteemed friend we have heard that defense said Diane and it was most reasonable well today he went on my dear Diane let us concert some wise conclusions in support of the councils adopted by me of a kind to ensure my general policy being both honorable and salutary to mankind for I cannot forget how Tiberius first to degrade the government into an inhuman and cruel system of how he was followed by Gaius who filled with Bacchic frenzy dressed in Lydian fashion won sham fights and by his disgraceful rebels violated all Roman institutions there followed the worthy Claudius and I remember that he was so much the thrall of women as to lose all sense of sovereignty even of self-preservation where they say he was murdered by them Nero I hardly need a sale for apollonius in brief and terse remarks has exposed the faults of over indulgence and undue severity by which he disgraced his reign nor did I dwell on the system of Galba who was slain in the middle of the form in the act of adopting those stropid sons of his Otho and Piso as for Vitellius we had rather should come to life again than betray the empire to him the most disillusioned of all perceiving then my friends that the throne has fallen into hatred and contempt by reason of the tyrants I have enumerated I would feign have you advise me how best I can restore it so that it should not remain what it has become namely a stumbling block to mankind apollonius replied as follows there was a first rate flute player it is said who used to send his pupils to much worse artists than himself that they might learn how not to pipe as then you my sovereign have learned from these your good for nothing predecessors how not to rule let us then now turn our attention to the problem how a sovereign ought to rule chapter 33 while apollonius spoke you freighties concealed the jealousy he already felt of one whose utterance is clearly interested the emperor hardly less than those of an irracula shrine interest those who repair to it for guidance but now at last his feelings overcame him raising his voice above its usual pitch he cried we must not flatter men's impulses nor allow ourselves to be carried away against our better judgment by men of unbridled ambition but we should rather if we are enamored of wisdom recall them to the rhythm of life here is a policy about the very expediency of which we should first calmly deliberate and yet you would have us prescribe a way of executing it before you know if the measures under discussion are desirable for myself I quite approve the deposition of itelius whom I know to be a ruffian drunk with every sort of profligacy nevertheless although I know you to be a worthy man in a preeminent nobility of character I deny that you ought to undertake the correction of itelius without first establishing an ideal for yourself I need not instruct you when the excess is chargeable to monarchy as such for you have yourself describe them but this I would have you recognize that whereas you sleeping into the tyrants saddle does but obey its own instincts for playing the tyrant comes as natural to young men as wine or women and we cannot reproach a young man merely for making himself a tyrant unless in pursuit of his role he shows himself a murderer a ruffian and a debauchee on the other hand when an old man makes himself a tyrant the first thing we blame him is that he ever nursed such an ambition it is no use is showing himself an example of humanity and moderation for of these qualities we shall give the credit not to himself but to his age and mature training and men will believe that he nursed the ambition long before when he was still a stripling only that he failed to realize it and such failures are attributed partly to ill luck partly to pusillanimity I mean that he will be thought to have renounced his dream of becoming a tyrant because he mistrusted his own star or that he stood aside and made way for another who entertained the same ambition and whose superior courage he dreaded as for the count of ill luck I may dismiss it but as for that of cowardice how could you avoid it how escaped the reproach of having been afraid of Nero the most cowardly and supine of rulers look at the revolt against him planned by Vindex you surely were the man of the hour and not he for you had an army at your back and the forces you were leading against the Jews would they not have been more suitably employed in chastising Nero for the Jews have long been in revolt not only against the Romans but against humanity and a race that has made its own a life apart and irreconcilable that cannot share with the rest of mankind in the pleasures of the table nor join in their libations or prayers or sacrifices separated from ourselves by a greater gulf than divides us from Susa or Bhaktra or the most distant Indies what since then or reason was there in chastising them for revolting from us whom we had better have never annexed as for Nero who would not have prayed with his own hand to slay old man well nigh drunk with human blood singing as he sat amidst the hecatomes of his victims I confess that I ever pricked up my tears when any messenger from yonder brought tidings of yourself and told us how in one battle you had slain 30,000 Jews and in the next 50,000 in such cases I would take the courier side and quietly ask him but what of the great man will he not rise to higher things than this since then you have discovered in Vitelius an image in ape of Nero and are turning your arms against him persist in the policy you have embraced for it too is a noble one only let it seek will be noble too you know how dear to Romans are popular institutions and how nearly all their conquests were one under a free polity but then an end to monarchy of which you have repeated to us so evil a record and bestow upon Romans a popular government and on yourself the glory of inaugurating for them of liberty chapter 34 throughout Euphrates long speech Apollonius noticed that Dion shared his sentiments for he manifested his approval both by gestures and the applause with which he hailed his words so he asked him if he could not add some remarks of his own to what he had just heard by heaven I can answer Dion and I should agree in part and in part disagree with his remarks for I think I have myself told you that he would have been much better employed deposing Nero than setting Jewry to write but your contention appears to be that he ought never to have been deposed on the ground that anyone who composed the disorder of his affairs merely strengthened the fellow against all the victims of his power I approve however the campaign against Vitalius for I consider it a great achievement to prevent a tyranny from ever growing up than to put an end to it when it is established and while I welcome the idea of a democracy for though this form of polity is inferior to aristocracy nevertheless moderate men will prefer it to tyrannies and oligarchies I fear lest the servility to which these successive tyrannies have reduced the Romans will render any change difficult to affect I doubt if they are able to comport themselves as free men or even to lift their eyes to a democracy any more than people who have been kept in the dark are able to look on sudden blaze of light I conclude that Vitalius ought to be driven from power and would feign see this affected as quickly and as well as can be I think however that though you should be prepared for war yet you yourself instead of declaring war against him ought rather to threaten him with his condimed punishment in case he refuses to abdicate and in case you capture him as I believe you will easily do then I would feign see you give the people of Rome the right to choose their own polity and if they choose a democracy allow it them but this will bring you greater glory than many tyrannies and many victories at Olympia your name will be inscribed all over the city and brazen statues will be erected everywhere and you will furnish us the theme for herans in which neither harmonious nor aristogitain will bear comparison with you if however they accept monarchy to whom can they all possibly decree the throne accept yourself for what you already possess and are about to resign into the hands of the public they will surely rather confer on yourself than on another this is the end of chapters 25 through 34 of volume one book five of the life of Apollonius of Tyanna read by Mary Schneider volume one book five chapters 35 through 43 of the life of Apollonius of Tyanna this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the life of Apollonius of Tyanna by Flavius Phylostratus translated by F.C. Coneybear volume one book five chapter 35 there followed a spell of silence during which the emperor's countenance betrayed contending emotions for though he was an absolute ruler both in title and in fact it looked as if they were trying to divert him from his resolution to remain such and accordingly Apollonius remarked it seems to me you are mistaken in trying to cancel a monarchial policy when it is already a foregone conclusion and that you indulge a garrulity as childish as it is in such a crisis idle were it I that had stepped into such a position of influence as he has and were I when taking counsel about what good I could do to the world treated to such advice as you now give your arguments would carry some force for philosophic Muslims might amend the philosophically minded of your listeners but as it is a console and a man accustomed to rule whom you pretend to advise one more over over whom ruin impends if he fall from power need we carp if instead of rejecting the gifts of fortune he welcomes them when they come and only deliberate how to make a discrete use of what is his own let us take a similar case suppose we saw an athlete well endowed with courage and stature and by his well-knit frame marked out as a winner in the Olympic contest suppose we approached him when he was already on his way through Arcadia and while encouraging him to face his rivals yet insisted that in the event of his winning the prize he must not allow himself to be proclaimed the victor nor consent to wear the wreath of wild olive should we not be set down as imbeciles mocking at one another's labors similarly when we regard the eminent man before us and think of the enormous army at his disposal of the glint of their brazen arms of his clouds of cavalry of his own personal qualities of his generosity self-restraint of his fitness to attain his objects ought we not to send him forward on the path that leads to his goal with favoring encouragement and with more auspicious pledges for his future than these you have recorded for there is another thing that you have forgotten that he is the father of two sons who are already in command of armies and whose deepest enmity he will incur if he does not bequeath the empire to them is he not confronted by the alternative of embroiling himself in hostilities with his own family if however he accepts the throne he will have the devoted service of his own children they will lean on him and he on them using them as his bodyguard and by his use as a bodyguard not hired by money nor levied by force nor feigning loyalty with their faces only but attached to him by bonds of natural instinct and true affection for myself I care little about constitutions seeing that my life is governed by the gods but I do not like to see the human flock perish for want of a shepherd at once just and moderate for just a single man preeminent in virtue transforms a democracy into the guise of a government of a single man who is the best so the government of one man if it provides all around for the community this popular government you did not we are told help to depose Nero and did you Euphrates or you Dion did I myself however no one finds fault with us for that nor regards us as cowardly because after philosophers have destroyed a thousand tyrannies we have missed the glory of striking a blow for liberty not but that as regards myself I did take the field against Nero and in response to several malignant accusations assailed his cut throat to gilliness to his face and the aid I rendered to Vindex in the western half of the empire was I hardly need say in the nature of a redoubt raised against Nero but I should not on that account claim for myself the honor of having pulled down that tyrant any more than I should regard yourselves as falling short of the philosophers ideal of courage and constancy because you did nothing of the sort for a man then a philosophic habit it is enough that he should say what he really thinks but he will I imagine take care not to talk like a fool or a madman for a council on the other hand who designs to depose a tyrant the first plenty of deliberation with a view to conceal his plans till they are ripe for action and the second is a suitable pretense to save him from the reproach of breaking his oath for before he dreams of resorting to arms against the man who appointed him general and whose welfare he swore to safeguard in the council chamber and on the field he must surely in self defense furnish heaven with proof and verges himself in the cause of religion he will also need many friends if he is not to approach the enterprise unfenced and unfortified and also all the money he can get so as to be able to win over the men in power the more so as he attacks a man who commands the resources of the entire earth all this demands no end of care no end of time and you may take all this as you like for we are not called upon to sit in judgment on ambitions which he may possibly have entertained but in which fortune refused to second him even when he came to fight for them what answer however will you make to the following proposition here is one who yesterday assumed the throne who accepted the crown offered by the cities here in the temples around us whose rescripts are as brilliant as they are ungrudging do you bid him issue a proclamation today to the effect that for the future he retires into private life and only assumed the reigns of government in an access of madness as if he carries through the policy on which he is resolved he will confirm the loyalty of the guards relying on whom he first entertained it so if he falters and departs from it he will find me in everyone whom from that moment he must mistrust chapter 36 the emperor listened gladly to the above and remarked if you were the tenant of my breast you could not more accurately report my inmost thoughts tis yourself then I will follow for every word which falls from your lips I regard as inspired therefore destruct me I pray in all the duties of a good king apolonius answered you ask of me a lore which cannot be imparted by any teacher for kingship is at once the greatest of human attainments and not to be talked however I will mention you all the things which if you do them you will in my opinion do wisely look not on that which is laid by his wealth for how is it better than so much sand drifted no matter from wence nor on what flows into your coffers from populations wracked by the tax gatherer for gold lacks luster and is mere dross if it be rung from men's tears if you make better use of your wealth than your sovereign did if you employ it in securing the poor at the same time that you render your wealth secure for the rich tremble before the very absoluteness of your prerogative for so you will exercise it with the greater moderation mow not down the loftier stocks which overtop the rest for this maximum of Aristotle's is unjust but try rather to pluck dissatisfaction out of men's hearts as you would tears out of the cornfields and inspire awe of yourself in revolutionists less by actual punishment than by showing them that they will not go unpunished let the law govern you as well as them oh king for you will be all the wiser as a legislator for so holding the laws in respect reverence the gods more than ever before for you have received great blessings at their hands and have still great ones to pray for in what appertains to your prerogative act sovereign in what to your own person as a private citizen about dice and drink and dissipation and the necessity of pouring these vices why need I tender you any advice who they say never approved of them even in youth you have my sovereign two sons both they say of generous disposition let them before all obey your authority for your faults will be charged to your account let your disciplining of them even proceed to the length of threatening not to be quith them your throne unless they remain good men and honest otherwise they will be prone to regard it not as a reward of excellence so much as a mere heritage as for the pleasures which have made of Rome their home many I would advise you my sovereign to use much discretion in suppressing them for it is not easy to convert an entire people on a sudden to a wisdom and temperance but you must feel your way and instill order and rhythm in their characters step by step partly by open partly by secret correction let us put an end to pride and luxury on the part of the freedmen and slaves whom your high position assigns to you by to think all the more humbly of themselves because their master is so powerful there remains only one topic to address you on it concerns the governors sent out to rule the provinces of those you will yourself select I need say nothing for I am sure you will assigned commands by merit I only refer to those who will acquire them by lot in their case too I maintain those only should be sent out to the various provinces so obtained who are in sympathy so far as the symptom of appointing by lot allows of it with the populations they will rule I mean that over Hellenists should be set men who can speak Greek and Romans over those who can speak that language or dialects allied to it I will tell you what made me think of this during the period in which I lived in the Peloponnese Hellas was governed by a man who knew as little of the Hellenists and their affairs as they understood of his what was the result he was in his mistakes as much sinned against as sinner for his assessors and those who shared with him judicial authority trafficked us and abused his authority as if he had been not their governor but their slave this my sovereign is all that occurs to me today but if anything else should come into my mind we can hold another interview so now apply yourself to the duties of your throne lest your subjects accuse you of indolence Chapter 37 Euphrates declared his assent to all these conclusions 4 said he what can I gain by continuing to oppose such teaching but oh my sovereign I have only one thing left to say and that is that while you approve and countenance that philosophy which accords with nature you should have nothing to do with that which affects a secret intercourse with the gods for we are easily puffed up by the many absurdities this lying philosophy falsely ascribes to providence the above remark was aimed at Apollonius who however without paying any attention to it departed with his companions as soon as he had ended his discourse and Euphrates would have taken further liberties with his character only the emperor noticed it and put him aside by saying call in those who have business with a government and let my council resume its usual form thus Euphrates failed to see that he only prejudiced himself and gained with the emperor the reputation of being a jealous and insolent fellow who aired these sentiments in favor of democracy not because he really entertained them but only by way of contradicting the opinions of Apollonius held in regard to the empire notwithstanding the emperor did not cast him off or show any resentment at his opinions as for Dion he did not cease to be fond of him though he regarded his seconding the opinions of Euphrates for Dion was a delightful conversationalist and always declined to quarrel he moreover imparted to his discourses a sort of charm which exhales from the perfumes at a sacrifice and he had also better than any living man the talent to exempt poor oratory Apollonius the emperor not merely loved for his own sake but was ever ready to listen to his accounts of antiquity to his descriptions of the Indian Freyotes and to his graphic stories of the rivers of India and of the animals that inhabit it above all to the forecasts and revelations imparted to him by the gods concerning the future of the empire on quitting Egypt after settling and rejuvenating the country he invited Apollonius to share his voyage but after the latter declined on the ground that he had not yet seen the whole extent of Egypt and had not yet visited or conversed with the naked sages of that land he was very anxious to compare with that of India nor, he added have I drunk of the sources of the Nile the emperor understood that he was about to set out for Ethiopia and said will you not bear me in mind I will indeed replied the sage if you continue to be a good sovereign and mindful of yourself Chapter 38 thereafter the emperor offered his sacrifices in the temple and publicly promised him presents but Apollonius as if he had a favor to ask said and what presents, oh king, will you give me he replied ten now and when you have come to Rome everything I have and Apollonius answered that I must husband your riches as if they were my own and I wonder in the present what is hereafter to be reserved to me in its entirety but I pray you oh king to attend rather to these gentlemen here for they look as if they wanted something and, suiting his words he pointed to you Frades and his friends the emperor accordingly pressed them to ask boldly what they desired whereupon Dion with a blush said reconcile me oh king I am not my teacher for that I lately ventured to oppose him in argument for never till now have I ventured to contradict him the emperor approving said as long ago as yesterday I asked for this favor and it is already granted but do you ask for some gift Lasthanes replied Dion of Apemia a Pythenean city was my companion in philosophy fell in love with a uniform and took to a soldier's life now he says he longs afresh to wear the sage's cloak so would you let him off for the service for that is the extent of his own request and you will confer on me the privilege of turning him into a saint and on him the liberty of living as he wishes to let him be released the emperor but I confer on him the rights of a veteran since he is equally fond of wisdom and of yourself next the emperor turned to Euphrates who had drawn up a letter embodying his requests and held it out in expectation that his sovereign would peruse it in private but the latter was determined to expose him to criticism so he read it out loud before everyone he was bound to contain various petitions some for himself some for others and of the presence asked some consisted of cash down and others of credit notes whereupon apelonius with a laugh remarked then your intention of asking a monarch for all this did not prevent you from giving him that good advice in favor of democracy chapter 39 such I find was the occasion of the quarrel between apelonius and Euphrates and after the emperor had departed they openly attacked one another Euphrates in his anger resorting to coarse insults which his antagonists met in a philosophical spirit only refuting him his accusations of Euphrates to the effect that his conduct violated the decencies of the philosophical life can be learned from the epistles addressed to him for they are not a few for myself I herewith dismiss this gentleman for it is no part of my scheme to say ill of him but only to furnish with a life of apelonius those who are as yet ignorant as to the tale of the stick which he is said to have brandished against apelonius when he was discoursing though without applying it most people attribute his having to the ending dignity of the man he was about to strike but I prefer to set it down to the good sense of the would-be striker and to think that it was that which enabled him to overcome an angry impulse which had all but over-mastered him Chapter 40 Dion's philosophy struck apelonius as being too rhetorical and over much adapted to please and flatter addressed to him by way of correction the words you should use a pipe and a lyre if you want to tickle men's senses and not speech and in many passages of his letters to Dion he censures his use of words to captivate the crowd Chapter 41 I must also explain how it came about that he never approached the emperor again nor visited him after their encounter although the latter invited him and wrote often to him in that sense the fact is Nero restored the liberties of Helus with a wisdom and moderation quite alien to his character and the cities regained their dork and attic characteristics and a general rejuvenessence accompanied the institution among them of a peace and harmony such as not even ancient Helus ever enjoyed the Spasian however on his arrival in the country took away her liberty alleging their factiousness and other pretexts hardly justifying such extreme severity this policy seemed not only to those who suffered by it but to Apollonius as well of a harshness quite out of keeping with a royal temper and character and accordingly he addressed the following letters to the emperor Apollonius to the emperor of the Spasian greeting you have they say enslaved Helus and you imagine you have excelled Xerxes you are mistaken you have only fallen below Nero for the latter held our liberties in his hand and respected them farewell to the same you have taken such a dislike to the Hellenus that you have enslaved them although they were free what then do you want with my company? farewell to the same Nero freed the Hellenus in play but you have enslaved them in all seriousness farewell such were the grounds of Apollonius taking a dislike to the Spasian however when he heard of the excellence of his subsequent acts of government he made no attempt to conceal his satisfaction but looked at it in the light of a benefaction conferred on himself Chapter 42 the following incident also of Apollonius's stay in Egypt was thought remarkable there was a man led a tame lion about by a string as if it had been a dog and the animal not only fond upon him but on anyone who approached it it went collecting alms all around the towns it was admitted even in the temples being a pure animal for it never licked up the blood of the victims nor pounced upon them when they were being flayed and cut up but lived upon honey cakes and bread and dried fruits and cooked meats and you also came on it drinking wine without changing its character one day it came up to Apollonius when he was sitting in the temples and whined and fond at his knees he gave him more earnestly than it had ever done of anybody the bystanders imagined it wanted some solid reward but Apollonius exclaimed this lion is begging me to make you understand that a human soul is within him the soul namely of Amasis the king of Egypt in the province of Seis and when the lion heard that he gave a piteous and plaintive power and crouching down began to lament shedding tears thereupon Apollonius stroked him and said I think the lion ought to be sent to Leontopolis and dedicated to the temple there for I consider it wrong that a king who has been changed into the most kingly of beasts should go about begging like any human mendicant in consequence the priests met and offered sacrifice to Amasis and having decorated the animal with a collar and ribbons they conveyed him upcountry into Egypt with pipings, hymns and songs composed in his honor chapter 43 having had enough of Alexandria the sage set out for Egypt and Ethiopia to visit the naked sages Menepus then as he was by now a qualified disputant and remarkably outspoken he left behind to watch Euphrates and perceiving that Dioscorides had not a strong enough constitution for foreign travel he dissuaded him from undertaking the journey the rest of the company he mustered for though some had left him in Erychia many others had subsequently joined him and he explained to them about his impending journey and began as follows I must needs preface in Olympic wise my address to you my brave friends and the following is an Olympic Exordium when the Olympic games are coming on the people of Elz train the athletes for 30 days in their own country likewise when the Pythian games approach the natives of Delphi and when the Isthmian the Corinthians assemble and say go now into the arena and prove yourselves men worthy of victory the aliens however on their way to Olympia address the athletes thus if you have labored so hard as to be entitled to go to Olympia and have banished all sloth and cowardice from your lives boldly on but as for those who have not so trained themselves let them depart with or so ever they like the companions of the sage understood his meaning and about 20 of them remained with Manipus but the rest 10 in number I believe offered prayer to the gods and having sacrificed such an offering as men offer when they embark for a voyage they departed straight for the pyramids mounted on camels and keeping the Nile on their right hand in several places they took boats across the river in order to visit every site on it for there was not a city feign or sacred site in Egypt that they passed by without discussion for at each they either learned or taught some holy story so that any ship on which Apollonius embarked resembled the sacred galley of a religious legation end of book 5 chapters 35 through 43 end of volume 1