 Volume 2, Book 6, chapters 1 through 10 of the Life of Apollonius of Tiana. 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 Tiana by Flavius Philostratus, translated by FC Coneybear. Volume 2, Book 6. Chapter 1 Ethiopia covers the western ring of the entire earth under the sun, just as India does the eastern wing. And at Menro, it adjoins Egypt. And after skirting a part of Libya in Cognita, it ends at the sea, which the poets call by the name of the ocean. That being the name they applied to the mass of water which surrounds the earth. This country supplies Egypt with the river Nile, which takes its rise at the cataracts and brings down from Ethiopia all Egypt, the soil of which, in flood time, it inundates. Now, in size, this country is not worthy of comparison with India, nor, for that matter, is any other one of the continents that are famous among men. And even if you put together all Egypt with Ethiopia, and we may regard the river as so combining the two, we could not compare the two together with India, so vast is the standard of comparison. However, their respective rivers, the Indus and the Nile, resemble one another, if we consider their natures. For they both spread their moisture over their land in the summer season, when the earth most wants it. And unlike all other rivers, they produce the crocodile and the river horse, and the religious rites celebrated over them correspond with one another, for many of the religious invocations of the Indians are repeated in the case of the Nile. We have a proof of the similarity of the two countries in the spices which are found in them, also in the fact that the lion and the elephant are captured and confined in both the one and the other. They are also the haunts of animals not found elsewhere, and of black men, a feature not found in other continents. And we meet in them with races of pygmies and of people who bark in various ways instead of talking, and other wonders of the kind. And the griffins of the Indians and the ants of the Ethiopians, though they are dissimilar in form, yet, from what we hear, play similar parts, for in each country they are, according to the tales of poets, the guardians of gold, and devoted to the gold reefs of the two countries. But we will not pursue this subject, for we must resume the course of our history and follow in the sages' footsteps. Chapter 2 For when he arrived at the confines of Ethiopia and Egypt, and the name of the places Sikaminus, he came across a quantity of uncoined gold, and linen, and an elephant, and various roots, and myrrh, and spices, which were all lying without anyone to watch them at the crossways. I will explain the meaning of this, for the same custom still survives among ourselves. It was a marketplace to which the Ethiopians bring all the products of their country, and the Egyptians, in their turn, take them all away, and bring to the same spot their own wares of equal value, so bartering what they have got for what they have not. Now the inhabitants of the marches are not yet fully black, but are half-breeds in matter of color, for they are partly not so black as the Ethiopians, yet partly more so than the Egyptians. Apollonius, accordingly, when he realized the character of the market remarked, Contrast our good helens. They pretend they cannot live unless one penny begets another, and unless they can force up the price of their goods by chaffering or holding back. And one pretends that he has got a daughter whom it is time to marry, and another that he has got a son who has just reached manhood, and a third that he has to pay his subscription to his club, and a fourth that he is having a house built for him, and a fifth that he would be ashamed of being a worse man of business than his father was before him. What a splendid thing it would be if wealth were held in less honor, and equality flourished a little more, and if the black iron were left to rust in the ground, for then all men would agree with one another, and the whole earth would be like one brotherhood. Chapter 3 With such conversations, the occasions providing as usual the topics he talked about, he turned his steps towards Memnon, an Egyptian boy showed them the way, of whom Damus gives the following account. Timassion was the name of the stripling, who was just emerging from boyhood, and was now in the prime of life and strength. He had a stepmother who had fallen in love with him, and when he rejected her overtures, she set upon him, and by way of spiting him had poisoned his father's mind against him, condescending to a lower intrigue than ever Phaedra had done, for she accused him of being effeminate, and of finding his pleasure in favorites rather than in women. He had accordingly abandoned Naucratus, for it was there that all this happened, and was living in the neighborhood of Memphis, and he had acquired and manned a boat of his own, and was plying as a water-man on the Nile. He then was going down the river when he saw Apollonius sailing up it, and he concluded that the crew consisted of wise men, because he judged them by the cloaks they wore, and the books they were hard at work studying. So he asked them whether they would allow one who was so passionately fond of wisdom as himself to share their voyage, and Apollonius said, This youth is wise, my friends, so let him be granted his request. And he further related the story about the stepmother to those of his companions who were nearest to him, in a low tone while the stripling was still sailing towards them. But when the ships were alongside of one another, Tomasius stepped out of his boat, and after dressing a word or two to his pilot about the cargo in his own boat, he greeted the company. Apollonius then ordered him to sit down under his eyes, and said, You, stripling of Egypt, for you seem to be one of the natives, tell me what you have done of evil or what of good, for in the one case you shall be forgiven by me in consideration of your youth. But in the other you shall reap my condemnation, and become a fellow student of philosophy with me and with these gentlemen. Then, noticing that Tomasius blushed and checked his impulse to speak, and hesitated whether to say or not what he had been going to say, he pressed his question and repeated it, just as if he had no foreknowledge of the youth at his command. Then Tomasius plucked up courage and said, O heavens, how shall I describe myself, for I am not a bad boy, and yet I do not know whether I ought to be considered a good one, for there is no particular merit in having abstained from wrong. But Apollonius cried, Bravo, my boy, you answer me just as if you were a sage from India, for this was just the sentiment of the divine Iarchus. But tell me how you came to form these opinions, and how long ago, for it strikes me that you have been on your guard against some sin. The youth then began to tell them of his stepmother's infatuation for himself, and of how he had rejected her advances, and when he did so, there was a shout in recognition of the divine inspiration under which Apollonius had foretold these details. Tomasius, however, caught them up and said, Most excellent people, what is the matter with you, for my story is one which calls as little for your admiration, I think, as for your ridicule. But Deimos said, It was not that we were admiring, but something else which you don't know about yet. As for you, my boy, we praise you because you do not think you did anything very remarkable. And Apollonius asked, Do you sacrifice to Aphrodite, my boy? And Tomasius answered, Yes, by Zeus, every day, for I consider that this goddess has great influence in human and divine affairs. Therefore, Apollonius was delighted beyond measure and cried, Let us, gentlemen, vote a crown to him for his continents, rather than to Hippolytus, the son of Thaceus, for the latter insulted Aphrodite, and that perhaps is why he never fell a victim to the tender passion, and why love never ran riot in his soul. But he was allotted an austere and unbending nature. But our friend here admits that he is devoted to the goddess, and yet did not respond to his stepmother's guilty overtures, but went away in terror of the goddess herself, in case he were not on his guard against another's evil passions. And the mere aversion to any one of the gods, such as Hippolytus, entertained in regard to Aphrodite, I do not class as a form of sobriety. For it is a much greater proof of wisdom and sobriety to speak well of all the gods, especially at Athens, where altars are set up in honor even of unknown gods. So great was the interest which he took into Macion. Nevertheless he called him Hippolytus, for the eyes with which he looked at his stepmother. It seemed also that he was a young man who was particular about his person, and enhanced its charms by attention to athletic exercises. Chapter 4 Under his guidance, they say, they went on to the sacred enclosure of Memnon, of whom Deimos gives the following account. He says that he was the son of the dawn, and that he did not meet his death in Troy, where indeed he never went, that he died in Ethiopia after ruling the land for five generations. But his countrymen, being the longest lived of men, still mourn him as a mere youth, and deplore his untimely death. But the place in which his statue is set up resembles, they tell us, an ancient marketplace, such as remain in cities that were long ago inhabited, and where we come on the remains of columns delicately worked and fine traces of walls and of seats and of the jams of doors and images of hermes, some destroyed by the hand of men, others by that of time. Now this statue, says Deimos, was turned towards the sunrise, and was that of a youth still unbearded, and it was made of a black stone, and the two feet were joined together after the style in which statues were made in the time of Daedalus, and the hands were thrust down, supporting the body upright upon its seat. For though the figure was still sitting up, it was represented in the very act and impulse of rising up. We hear much of this attitude of the statue, and of the expression of its eyes, and of how the lips seem about to speak, but they say that they had no opportunity of admiring these effects until they saw them realized. For when the sun's rays fell upon the statue, and this happened exactly at dawn, they could not restrain their admiration. For the lips spoke immediately, the sun's rays touched them, and the eyes seemed to stand out and gleam against the light, as do those of men who love to bask in the sun. Then they say they understood that the figure was of one in the act of rising, and making obeisance to the sun, in the way those do who worship the powers above, standing erect. They accordingly offered a sacrifice to the sun of Ethiopia, and to Memnon of the dawn. For this the priests recommended them to do, explaining that the one name was derived from the words signifying to burn and be warm, and the other from his mother. Having done this, they set out upon camels for the home of the naked philosophers. Chapter 5 On the way they met a man wearing the garb of the inhabitants of Memphis, but who was wandering about, rather than wending his steps to a fixed point. So Damus asked him who he was, and why he was roving about like that. But Timasion said, You had better ask me, and not him, for he will never tell you what is the matter with him, because he is ashamed of the plight in which he finds himself. But as for me, I know the poor man, and pity him, and I will tell you all about him. For he has slain unwittingly a certain inhabitant of Memphis, and the laws of Memphis prescribe that a person exiled an involuntary offense of this kind, and the penalty is exile, should remain with the naked philosophers until he has washed away the guilt of bloodshed, and then he may return home as soon as he is pure, though he must first go to the tomb of the slain man and sacrifice there some trifling victim. Until now he has been received by the naked philosophers, so long he must roam about these marches until they take pity upon him as if he were a supliant. Apollonius, therefore, put the question to Timasion. What do the naked philosophers think of this particular exile? And he answered, I do not know anything more than that this is the seventh month that he has remained here as a supliant, and that he has not yet obtained redemption. Said Apollonius, You don't call men wise who refused to purify him, and they are not aware that Phylliscus, whom he slew, was a descendant of Themis, the Egyptian, who long ago laid waste to the country of these naked philosophers. There at, Timasion said in surprise, What do you mean? I mean, said the other, my good youth, that was actually the fact. For this Themis, once on a time, was intriguing against the inhabitants of Memphis, and these philosophers detected his plot and prevented him. And he, having failed in his enterprise, retaliated by laying waste all the land upon which they live, for by his brigand edge, he tyrannized the country round Memphis. I perceive that Phylliscus, whom this man slew, was the thirteenth in descent from this Themis, and was obviously an object of execration to those whose country the latter so thoroughly ravaged at the time in question. Where, then, is their wisdom? Here is a man that they ought to crown, even if he had slain the other intentionally, and yet they refused to purge him of a murder which he committed involuntarily on their behalf. The youth, then, was astounded, and said, Stranger, who are you? And Apollonius replied, He whom you shall find among these naked philosophers. But, as it is not allowed me by my religion to address one so stained with blood, I would ask you, my good boy, to encourage him, to tell him that he will at once be purged of guilt if he will come to the place where I am lodging. And when the man in question came, Apollonius went through the rites over him which Empedocles and Pythagoras prescribe for the purification of such offenses, and told him to return home, for that he was now pure of guilt. Chapter 6 Thence they rode out at sunrise and arrived before midday at the academy of the naked sages. Who dwell, they relate, upon a moderate-sized hill, a little way from the bank of the Nile. And, in point of wisdom, they fall short of the Indians, rather more than they excel the Egyptians. And they wear, next to no clothes, in the same way as people do at Athens in the heat of summer. And in their district there are few trees, and a certain grove of no great size to which they resort when they meet for the transaction of common affairs. But they do not build their shrines in one and the same place as Indian shrines are built. But one is in one part of the hill, and another in another, all worthy of observation, according to the accounts of the Egyptians. The Nile is the chief object of their worship, for they regard this river as land and water at once. They have no need, however, of hut or dwelling, because they live in the open air directly under the heaven itself. But they have built a hospice to accommodate strangers. And it is a portigo of no great size, about equal in length to those of Elis, beneath which the athletes await the sound of a midday trumpet. Chapter 7 At this place, Damus records an action of Euphrates, which, if we do not regard it as juvenile, unworthy of the dignity of a philosopher. Euphrates had heard Apollonius often say that he wished to compare the wisdom of India with that of Egypt. So he sent up to the Naked Sages one Thrasybulus, a native of Nancratus, to take away our Sages character. Thrasybulus, at the same time that he pretended to have come there in order to enjoy their society, told them that the Sage of Tiana also would presently arrive, and that they would have no little trouble with him, because he esteemed himself more highly than the Sages of India did themselves, though he extolled the ladder whenever he opened his mouth. And he added that Apollonius had contrived a thousand pitfalls for them, and that he would not allow any sort of influence, either to the sun, or to the sky, or to the earth, but pretended to move and juggle and rearrange these forces for whatever end he chose. Chapter 8 Having concocted these stories, the man of Nacratus went away, and they, imagining they were true, did not indeed decline to meet Apollonius when he arrived, but pretended that they were occupied with important business, and were so intent upon it that they could only arrange an interview with him if they had time, and if they were informed first of what he wanted and of what attracted him thither, and a messenger from them bade them stay and lodge in the portico. But Apollonius remarked, We do not want to hear about a house for ourselves, for the climate here is such that anyone can live naked. An unkind reference this to them, as it implied that they went without clothes not to show their endurance, but because it was too hot to wear any. And he added, I am not surprised indeed at their not yet knowing what I want and what I am come here for, though the Indians never asked me these questions. Chapter 9 Accordingly, Apollonius lay down under one of the trees, and let his companions who were there with him ask whatever question they pleased. But Damus took Tamaceon apart and asked him the question in private. About these naked sages, my good fellow, as you have lived with them and in all probability know, tell me what their wisdom comes to. It is, answered the other, manifold and profound. And yet, said Damus, their demeanor towards us does not invent any wisdom, my fine fellow, for when they refuse to converse about wisdom with so great a man as our master and assume all sorts of errors against him, what can I say of them, except they are too vain and proud? Pride and vanity, said the other, I have already come among them twice, and I never saw any such thing about them, for they were always very modest towards those who came to visit them. At any rate, a little time ago, perhaps a matter of fifty days, one Thrasybulus was staying here, who achieved nothing remarkable in philosophy, and they received him with open arms, merely because he said he was a disciple of Euphrates. Then Damus cried, What's that you say, my boy? Then you saw Thrasybulus of Naucratus in this academy of theirs. Yes, and what's more, answered the other, I conveyed him hence when he went down the river in my own boat. Now I have it by Athena, cried Damus in a loud tone of indignation. I warrant he has played some dirty trick. Tomasian then replied, Your master, when I asked him yesterday who he was, would not answer me at once, but kept his name a secret. But do you, unless this is a mystery, tell me who he is? For then I could probably help you to find what you seek. And when he heard from Damus that it was the sage of Tyanna, he said, You have put the matter in a nutshell. For Thrasybulus, as he descended the Nile with me, in answer to my question, that he had gone up there for, explained to me that his love of wisdom was not genuine, and said that he had filled these naked sages here with suspicion of Apollonius, to the end that, whenever he came here, they might flout him, and what his quarrel is with him I know not. But anyhow it is, I think, worthy of a woman or of a vulgar person to backbite him as he has done. But I will address myself to these people, and ascertain their real disposition, for they are friendly to me. And about Eventide, to Macion returned, though without telling Apollonius any more than that he had interchanged words with them. However, he told Damus in private that they meant to come the next morning, primed with all that they had learned from Thrasybulus. Chapter 10 They spent that evening conversing about trifles which are not worth recording, and then they lay down to sleep on the spot where they had sucked. But at daybreak, Apollonius, after adoring the sun according to his custom, had set himself to meditate upon some problem when Nylous, who was the youngest of the naked philosophers, running up to him exclaimed, We are coming to you. Apollonius said, Quite right, for to get to you I have made this long journey to the sea all the way here. And with these words, he followed Nylous. So, after exchanging greetings with the sages, and they met him close to the portico, Apollonius said, Where shall we hold the interview? Here, said Thespasion, pointing to the grove. Now Thespasion was the eldest of the sect, and presided over them all. And they followed him with an orderly and leisurely step, as the jury of the athletic sports at Olympia follow the eldest of their number. And when they had sat down, which they did anyhow, and without observing their previous order, they all fixed their eyes on Thespasion, as the one who should regale them with a discourse, which he proceeded to do as follows. They say, Apollonius, that you have visited the Pythian and Olympic festivals, for this was reported of you here by Stratocles of Farros, who says that he met you there. Now those who come to the Pythian festival are, they say, escorted with sound of pipe and song and lyre, and are honored with shows of comedies and tragedies. And then, last of all, they are presented with an exhibition of games and races run by naked athletes. At the Olympic festival, however, these superfluities are omitted as inappropriate and unworthy of the place. And those who go to the festival are only provided with a show of naked athletes originally instituted by Heracles. You may see the same contrast between the wisdom of the Indians and our own, for they, like those who invite others to the Pythian festival, appeal to the crowd with all sorts of charms and wizardry. But we, like the athletes of Olympia, go naked. Here, the earth strews for us snow couches, nor does it yield us milk or wine as if we were bockens, nor does the air uplift us and sustain us aloft. But the earth beneath us is our only couch, and we live by partaking of its natural fruits, which we would have it yield to us gladly and without being tortured against its will. But you shall see that we are not unable to work tricks if we like. Hey, you tree yonder, he cried pointing to an elm tree, the third in the row from that under which they were talking. Just salute the wise Apollonius, will you? And forthwith the tree saluted him as it was bidden to do in accents which were articulate and like those of a woman. Now he wrought this sign to discredit the Indians, and in the belief that by doing so he would wean Apollonius of his excessive estimate of their powers, for he was always recounting to everybody what the Indians said and did. Then the Egyptian added these precepts. He said that it is sufficient for the sage to abstain from eating all flesh of living animals and from the roving desires which mount up into the soul through the eyes, and from envy which ends by teaching injustice to hand and will, and that truth stands not in need of miracle-mongering and sinister arts. He said, for look at Apollo of Delphi, who keeps the center of Hellas for the utterance of his oracles. There, then, as you probably know yourself, a person who desires a response puts his questions briefly, and Apollo tells what he knows without any miraculous display. And yet it would be just as easy for him to convulse the whole mountain of Parnasus and to alter the springs of the Castilian fountain so that it should run with wine, and to check the river Kethisus and to stay its stream. But he reveals the bare truth without any of this show or ostentation. Nor must we suppose that it is by his will that so much gold and showy offering enter his treasury, nor that he would care for his temple even if it were made twice as large as it already is. For once on a time this god Apollo dwelt in quite a humble habitation, and a little hut was constructed for him to which the bees are said to have contributed their honeycomb and wax and the birds their feathers. For simplicity is the teacher of wisdom and the teacher of truth, and you must embrace it if you would have men think you really wise and forget all your legendary tales that you acquired among the Indians. For what need is there to beat the drum over such simple matters as do this or do not do it, or I know it, or I do not know it, or it is this and not that? What do you want with thunder? Nay, I would say what do you want to be thunderstruck for? You have seen in picture books the representation of Hercules by Pradecus. In it, Hercules is represented as a youth who has not yet chosen the life he will lead. And vice and virtue stand on each side of him, plucking his garments and trying to draw him to themselves. Vice is adorned with gold and necklaces and with purple rain-met, and her cheeks are painted and her hair delicately plated and her eyes underlined with henna. And she also wears golden slippers, for she is pictured strutting about in these. But virtue, in the picture, resembles a woman worn out with toil with a pinch to look. And she has chosen for her adornment rough squalor, and she goes without shoes and in the plainest of rain-met. And she would have appeared naked if she had not too much regard for feminine decency. Now figure yourself, Apollonius, as standing between Indian wisdom on one side and our own humble wisdom on the other. Imagine that you hear the one telling you how she will strew flowers under you when you lie down to sleep. Yes, by heaven, how she will regale you upon milk and nourish you on honeycomb. And how she will supply you with nectar and wings whenever you want them. And how she will wheel in tripods whenever you drink and golden thrones. And you shall have no hard work to do, but everything will be flung unsopped into your lap. But the other discipline insists that you must lie on the bare ground in squalor and be seen to toil naked like ourselves. And that you must not find dear or sweet anything which you have not won by hard work. And that you must not be boastful nor hunt after vanities and pursue pride. And that you must be on your guard against all dreams and visions which lift you off the earth. If then you really make the choice of Hercules and steal your will resolutely neither to dishonor truth nor to decline the simplicity of nature, then you may say that you have overcome many lions and have cut off the heads of many hydras and monsters like Gurion and Nessos and have accomplished all his other labors. But if you embrace the life of a strolling juggler you will flatter men's eyes and ears but they will thank you no wiser than anybody else and you will become the vanquished of any naked philosopher of Egypt. End of Volume 2, Book 6, Chapters 1-10 Volume 2, Book 6, Chapters 11-20 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 Philostratus translated by F. Coneybear Volume 2, Book 6, Chapter 11 When he ended, all turned to their eyes upon Apollonius, his own followers knowing well that he would reply while Thespesion's friends wondered what he could say in answer. But he, after praising the fluency and vigor of the Egyptian, merely said, Have you anything more to say? Said the other, No, by Zeus, for I have said all I have to say. Then he said afresh and has not any one of the rest of the Egyptians anything to say? Answered his antagonist, I am their spokesman and you have heard them all. Apollonius accordingly paused for a minute and then, fixing his eyes, as it were, on the discourse he had heard, he spoke as follows. You have very well described and in a sound philosophic spirit the choice which Pratechus declares Hercules to have made as a young man. But ye wise men of the Egyptians, it does not apply in the least to myself. For I am not come here to ask your advice how to live in so much as I long ago made choice of the life which seemed best to myself. And as I am older than any of you, except Thespesion, I myself am better qualified. Now I have got here to advise you how to choose wisdom if I did not find that you had already made the choice. Being, however, as old as I am and so far advanced in wisdom as I am, I shall not hesitate, as it were, to make you the auditors of my life and motives and teach you that I rightly chose this life of mine than which no better one has ever suggested itself to me. For I discerned a certain sublimity in the discipline of Pythagoras, and how a certain secret wisdom enabled him to know not only who he was himself, but also who he had been. And I saw that he approached the altars in purity and suffered not his belly to be polluted by partaking of the flesh of animals and that he kept his body pure of all garments woven of dead animal refuse and that he was the first of mankind to restrain his tongue inventing a discipline of silence described in the proverbial phrase an ox sits upon it. I also saw that his philosophical system was, in other respects, oracular and true. So I ran to embrace his teachings not choosing one form of wisdom rather than another of two presented to me as you, my excellent thespecion, advise me to do. For philosophy marshaled before me her various points of view investing them with the adornment proper to each and she commanded me to look upon them and make a sound choice. Now they were all possessed of an August and divine beauty and some of them were of such dazzling brightness that you might well have closed your eyes. However, I fixed my eyes firmly upon all of them for they themselves encouraged me to do so by moving towards me and telling me beforehand how much they would give me. Well, one of them professed that she would shower upon me a swarm of pleasures without any toil on my part and another that she would give me rest after toil and a third that she would mingle mirth and merriment in my toil. And everywhere I had glimpses of pleasures and of unrestrained indulgence in the pleasures of the table and it seemed that I had only to stretch out my hand to be rich and that I needed not to set any bridle upon my eyes but love and loose desire and such like feelings were freely allowed me. One of them, however, said that she would restrain me from such things but she was bold and abusive and in an unabashed manner elbowed all others aside and I beheld the ineffable form of wisdom which long ago conquered the soul of Pythagoras and she stood, I may tell you, not among the many but kept herself apart and in silence and when she saw that I ranged not myself with the rest though as yet I knew not what were her wares she said, young man, I am unpleasing and a lady full of sorrows for if anyone betakes himself to my abode he must of his own choice put away all dishes which contain the flesh of living animals and he must forget wine nor make muddy therewith the cup of wisdom which is set in the souls of those that drink no wine nor shall blanket keep him warm nor wool shorn from a living animal but I allow him shoes of bark and he must sleep anywhere and anyhow and if I find my votaries yielding to sensual pleasures I have precipices to which justice that waits upon wisdom carries them and pushes them over and I am so harsh to those who make choice of my discipline that I have bits ready to restrain their tongues but learn from me what rewards you shall reap by enduring all this temperance and justice unsought and at once and the faculty to regard no man with envy and to be dreaded by tyrants rather than cringe at them and to have your humble offerings appear sweeter to the gods than the offerings of those who pour out before them the blood of bowls and when you are pure I will grant you the faculty and foreknowledge and I will so fill your eyes with light that you shall distinguish a god and recognize a hero and detect and put to shame the shadowy phantoms which disguise themselves in the form of men this was the life I chose ye wise of the Egyptians it was a sound choice and in the spirit of Pythagoras and in making it I neither deceived myself nor was deceived for I have become all that a philosopher should become and all that she promised to bestow upon the philosopher that is mine for I have studied profoundly the problem of the rise of the art and once it draws its first principles and I have realized that it belongs to men of transcendent religious gifts who have thoroughly investigated the nature of the soul the wellsprings of whose existence lie back in the immortal and in the unbegotten now I agree that this doctrine was wholly alien to the Athenians for when Plato in their city lifted up his voice and discoursed upon the soul full of inspiration and wisdom they cavilled against him and adopted opinions of the soul opposed there to and altogether false and one may well ask whether there is any city where not one more and another less but wherein men of all ages alike will enunciate the same doctrine of the soul and I myself because my youth and inexperience so inclined me began by looking up to yourselves because you had the reputation of an extraordinary knowledge of most things but when I explained my views to my own teacher he interrupted me and said as follows supposing you were in a passionate mood and being of an impressionable age were inclined to form a friendship and suppose you met a handsome youth and admired his looks and you asked who son he was and suppose he were the son of a knight or a general and that his grandparents had been furnishers of a chorus if then you dubbed him the child of some skipper or policeman do you suppose that you would thereby be the more likely to captivate his affections and that you would not rather make yourself odious to him by refusing to call him by his father's name and giving him instead that of some ignoble and asperious parent if then you were enamored of the wisdom which the Indians discovered would you call it not by the name which its natural parents bore but by the name of its adoptive sires and so confer upon the Egyptians a greater boon then if that were to happen over again which their own poets relate namely if the Nile on reaching its full were found to be with honey blend it was this which turned my steps to the Indians rather than to yourselves for I reflected that they were more subtle in their understanding because such men as they live in contact with a pure daylight and entertain truer opinions of nature and of the gods because they are near unto the latter and live on the edge and confines of that thermal essence which quickens all unto life and when I came among them their message made the same impression upon me as the talent of Escalus is said to have made upon the Athenians for he was a poet of tragedy and finding the art to be rude and in co-hate and as yet not in the least elaborated he went to work and curtailed the prolixity of the chorus and invented dialogues for the actors discarding the long monodies of the earlier time and he hit upon a plan of killing people behind the stage instead of there being slain before the eyes of the audience well if we cannot deny his talent in making all these improvements we must nevertheless admit that they might have suggested themselves equally well to an inferior dramatist but his talent was twofold on the one hand as a poet he set himself to make his diction worthy of tragedy on the other hand as a manager to adapt his stage to sublime rather than to humble and groveling themes accordingly he devised masks which represented the forms of the heroes and he mounted his actors on bus skins so that their gate might correspond to the characters they played and he was the first to devise stage dresses which might convey an adequate impression to the audience of the heroes and heroines they saw for all these reasons the Athenians accounted him to be the father of tragedy and even after his death they continued to invite him to represent his plays at the Dionysiac festival for in accordance with public decree the plays of Aescalus continue to be put upon the stage and win the prize anew and yet the gratification of a well-staged tragedy is insignificant for its pleasures last a brief day as brief as is the season of the Dionysiac festival but the gratification of a philosophic system devised to meet the requirements of a Pythagoras and also breathing the inspiration in which Pythagoras was anticipated by the Indians lasts not for a brief time but for an endless and incalculable period it is then not unreasonable on my part, I think to have devoted myself to a philosophy so highly elaborated and to one which, to use a metaphor from the stage the Indians mount as it deserves to be mounted upon a lofty and divine mechanism and then wheel it forth upon the stage and that I was right to admire them and that I am right in considering them to be wise and blessed it is now time to convince you I beheld men dwelling upon the earth and yet not upon it I beheld them fortified without fortifications I beheld them possessed of nothing and yet possessed of all things you will say that I have taken two riddles but the wisdom of Pythagoras allows of this for he taught us to speak in riddles when he discovered that the word is the teacher of silence and there was a time when you yourselves took counsel with Pythagoras and were advocates of this same wisdom that was in the time when you could say nothing too good of the Indian philosophy for to begin with and of old you were Indians subsequently because your soil was wrath with you you came hither and then ashamed of the reasons owing to which you quitted it you tried to get men to regard you as anything rather than Ethiopians who had come from India hither and you took every pains to a face your past this is why you stripped yourselves of the apparel in which you came thence as if you were anxious to doff along with it your Ethiopia nationality this is why you have resolved to worship the gods in Egyptian rather than in your own fashion and why you have set yourselves to disseminate unflattering stories of the Indians as if in maligning them you did not foul your own nest and in this respect you have not yet altered your tone for the batter for only today you have given here an exhibition of your propensities for abuse and satire pretending that the Indians are no better employed than in startling people and in pandering to their eyes and ears and because as yet you are ignorant of my wisdom you show yourselves indifferent to the fame which crowns it well in defense of myself I do not mean to say anything for I am content to be what the Indians think me but I will not allow them to be attacked and if you are so sound and sane as to possess any tincture of the wisdom of the man of Haimira who composed in honor of Helen a poem which contradicted a former one and called it a palanode it is high time for you also to use the words he used and say this discourse of ours is not true so changing your opinion and adopting one better than you at present entertain about these people but if you have not the wit to recant you must at least spare men to whom the gods vouchsafe as worthy of them their own prerogatives and whose possessions they do not disdain for themselves you have also the special made some remarks about the simplicity and freedom from Pomp which characterizes the Pythian Oracle and by way of example you instanced the temple composed of wax and feathers but I do not myself find that even this devoid of Pomp for we have the line Oh birds bring hither your wings and bees your wax such language betokens a carefully prepared home and the form of house and the God I believe regarded even this as too humble and below the dignity of his wisdom and therefore desire to have another and yet another temple big ones these and a hundred feet in breadth and from one of them it is said that golden figures of Reineck were hung up which possessed in a manner the charm of the sirens and the God collected the most precious of the offerings into the Pythian temple for ornament nor did he reject works of statuary when their authors brought him to his temple colossal figures both of gods and men and also of horses oxen and other animals nor did he refuse the gift which Glaucus brought thither of a stand for a goblet nor the picture of the taking of the citadel of Ilium which Polygnotus painted there for I imagine he did not consider that the gold of Lydia really beautified the Pythian fame but he admitted it on behalf of the Helens themselves by way of pointing out to them, I believe the immense riches of the barbarians and inducing them to covet that rather than continue to ravage one another's lands and he accordingly adopted the Greek fashion of art which suited his peculiar wisdom and adorned his shrine therewith and I believe that it was by way of adornment that he also puts his oracles into metrical form for if he did not wish to make a show in this matter he would surely make his responses in such forms as the following do this or do not do that and go or do not go or choose allies or do not choose them for here are short formulas or as you call it naked ones but in order to display his mastery of the grand style and in order to please those who came to consult his oracle he adopted the poetical form and he does not allow that anything exists which he does not know but claims to have counted the sands of the sea and to know their number and also to have fathomed the depths of the sea but I suppose you will call it miracle-mongering that Apollo dictates his oracles with such proud dignity and elation of spirit but if you will not be annoyed thespecion at what I say there are certain old women who go about with sieves in their hands to shepherds sometimes to cowherds pretending to heal their flocks when they are sick by divination as they call it and they claim to be called wise women yay wiser than those who are unfainedly prophets it seems to me that you are in the same case when I contrast your wisdom with that of the Indians for they are divine and have trimmed and adorned their science after the manner of the pithian oracle but you however I will say no more for modesty in speech is as dear to me as it is dear to the Indians and I would be glad to have it at once to attend upon and to guide my tongue seeking to compass what is in my power when I am praising those to whom I am so devoted but leaving alone what is too high for me to attain unto without bespattering it with petty disapproval but you no doubt delight in the story which you have read in Homer about the Cyclops how their land, all unsown and unplowed nourished the most fearless and most lawless of beings and if it is some Edoni or Lydians who are conducting their Bacchic revels you are quite ready to believe that the earth will supply them with fountains of milk and wine and give them to drink thereof but you would deny to these Indians lovers of all wisdom as enthusiastic as ever Bacchets were the unsought bounties which earth offers them moreover, tripods gifted with wills of their own attend the banquets of the gods also and Aries ignorant and hostile as he was to Hephaistus yet never accused him merely for making them nor is it conceivable that the gods ever listened to such an indictment as this you commit an injustice oh Hephaistus and adorning the banquet of the gods and encompassing it with miracles nor was Hephaistus ever sued for constructing handmaids of gold nor accused of debasing the metals because he made the gold to breathe for every art is interested to adorn and the very existence of the arts was a discovery made in behalf of adornment moreover a man who goes without shoes and wears a philosopher's cloak and hangs a wallet on his back is a creature of adornment nay more even the nakedness which you affect in spite of its rough and plain appearance has for its object adornment and decoration though here too there is not absent a certain element of what they call empty pride we must judge by the same standard the religion of the sun and the national rights of the Indians and any cult in which the god delights for the subterranean gods will always prefer deep trenches and ceremonies conducted in the hollows of the earth but the air is the chariot of the sun and those who would sing his praise in a fitting manner must rise from the earth and soar aloft with the god and this everyone would like to do but the Indians alone are able to do it Chapter 12 Damus says that he breathed afresh and heard this address for that the Egyptians were so impressed by Apollonius's words that Thesposion in spite of the blackness of his complexion visibly blushed while the rest of them seemed in some way stunned by the vigorous and fluent discourse which they listened to but the youngest of them whose name was Nylos leapt up from the ground he says in admiration and passing over to Apollonius shook hands with him and besought him to tell him about the interviews which he had had with the Indians and Apollonius he says replied I should not grudge you anything for you are ready to listen as I see and are ready to welcome wisdom of every kind but I should not care to pour out the teachings I gathered there upon Thesposion or on anyone else who regards the lore of the Indians as so much nonsense where upon Thesposion said but if you were a merchant or a seafarer and you brought to us some cargo or other from over there would you claim merely because it came from India to dispose of it untested and unexamined refusing us either the liberty of looking at it or tasting it but Apollonius replied as follows I should furnish it to those who asked for it but if the moment my ship had reached the harbor someone came down to the beach and began to run down my cargo and abuse myself and say that I came from a country which produces nothing worth having and if he reproached me for sailing with a cargo of shoddy goods and tried to persuade the rest who think like himself do you suppose that one would after entering such a harbor cast anchor or make his cables fast and not rather hoist his sails and put out to see afresh entrusting his goods more gladly to the winds than to such undiscerning and inhospitable people Nylous said well I anyhow laid hold on your cables and entreat you, my skipper to let me share your goods that you bring hither and I would gladly embark with you on your ship as a super cargo and a clerk to check your merchandise Chapter 13 Thespesion however was anxious to put a stop to such propositions so he said I am glad, Apollonius, that you are annoyed at what we said to you for you can the more readily condone our annoyance at the misrepresentation you made of our local custom long before you had gained any experience of its quality Apollonius was for a moment astonished at these words for he had heard nothing as yet of the intrigues of Thracebolus and Euphrates but as was his want he guessed the truth and said the Indians, O Thespesion would never have behaved as you have nor have given ear to these insinuations dropped by Euphrates for they have a gift of prescience now I never had any quarrel of my own with Euphrates I only tried to warn him of his passion for money and cure his propensity to value everything by what he could make out of it but I found that my advice was not congenial to him nor in his case practical nay he merely takes it as a tacit reproach and never loses any opportunity of intriguing against me but since you have found his attacks upon my character so plausible I may as well tell you that it is you rather than myself that he has columniated for though, as is clear to me the victims of columni incur considerable dangers since they are I suppose sure to be disliked without having done any wrong yet neither are those who incline to listen to the columnis free from danger for in the first place they will be convicted of paying respect to lies and giving them as much attention as they would to the truth and secondly they are convicted of levity and credulity faults which it is disgraceful even for a stripling to fall into and they will be thought envious because they allow envy to teach them to listen to unjust tittle-tattle and they expose themselves all the more to columni because they think it true of others for man is by nature inclined to commit a fault which he does not discredit when he hears it related of others heaven forbid that a man of these inclinations should become a tyrant or even president of a popular state for in his hands even a democracy would become a tyranny nor let him be made a judge for surely he will not ever discern the truth nor let him be captain of a ship for the crew would mutiny nor general of an army for that would bring luck to the adversary nor let one of his disposition attempt philosophy for he would not consider the truth in forming his opinions but Euphrates has deprived you of even the quality of wisdom for how can those on whom he has imposed with his falsehoods claim wisdom for themselves have they not deserted from it to take sides with one who has persuaded them of improbabilities here Thespion tried to calm him and remarked enough of Euphrates and of his small-minded affairs for we are quite ready even to reconcile you with him since we consider it the proper work of a sage to be umpire in the disputes of other sages but said Apollonius who shall reconcile me with you for the victim of lies must surely be driven into hostility by the falsehood be it so said Apollonius and let us hold a conversation for that will be the best way of reconciling us Chapter 14 And Nylus as he was passionately anxious to listen to Apollonius said and what's more it behooves you to begin the conversation to tell us all about the journey you made to the people of India and about the conversations which you held there I have no doubt on the most brilliant topics and I too said Thespion long to hear about the wisdom of Freyotes for you are said to have brought from India some examples of his arguments Apollonius accordingly began by telling them about the events which occurred in Babylon and told them everything and they gladly listened to him spellbound by his words but when it was midday they broke off the conversation for at this time of the day the naked sages like others attend to the ceremonies of religion Chapter 15 Apollonius and his comrades were about to die when Nylus presented himself with vegetables and bread and dried fruits some of which he carried himself his friends carried the rest and very politely he said the sages send these gifts of hospitality not only to yourselves but to me for I mean to share in your repast not uninvited as they say but inviting myself it is a delightful gift of hospitality said Apollonius which you bring to us, oh youth in the shape of yourself and of your disposition for you are evidently a philosopher without guile and an enthusiastic lover of the doctrines of the Indians and of Pythagoras so lie down here and eat with us I will do so, said the other but your dishes will not be ample enough to satisfy me it seems to me, said the other that you are a gourmand and an appalling eater none like me, said the other for although you have set before me so ample and so brilliant a repast I am not sated and after a little time I am come back again to eat afresh what then can you call me but an insatiable cormorant eat your fill, said Apollonius and as for topics of conversation some you must yourself supply and I will give you others Chapter 16 So when they had dined, Nylus said I, until now, have been camping together with the naked sages and joined my forces with them as with certain light-armed troops or slingers but now I intend to put on my heavy armor and it is your shield that shall adorn me but, said Apollonius I think, my good Egyptian that you will incur the censure of Vespasion and his society for two reasons firstly, that after no further examination and testing of yourselves you have left them and secondly, that you give the preference to our manners and discipline with more precipitancy than is admissible where a man is making choice of how he shall live I agree with you, said the young man but if I am to blame for making this choice I might also be to blame if I did not make it and anyhow they will be most open to rebuke if they make the same choice as myself for it will be more justly reprehensible in them as they are both older and wiser than myself not to have made the choice long ago which I make now for with all their advantages they will have failed to choose what in practice would so much rebound to their advantage a very generous sentiment indeed, my good youth is this which you have expressed, said Apollonius but beware, lest the mere fact of their being so wise and aged should give them an appearance at any rate of being right in choosing as they have done and of having good reason for rejecting my doctrine and lest you should seem to take up a very bold position in setting them to rights rather than in following them but the Egyptian turned short round upon Apollonius and countering his opinion, said so far as it was right for a young man to agree with his elders I have been careful to do so for so long as I thought that these gentlemen were possessed of a wisdom which belonged to no other set of men I attached myself to them and the motive which actuated me to do so was the following my father once made a voyage on his own initiative to the Red Sea for he was, I may tell you, captain of the ship which the Egyptians send to the Indies and after he had had intercourse with the Indians of the seaboard he brought home stories of the wise men of that region closely similar to those which you have told us and his account which I heard was somewhat as follows namely that the Indians are the wisest of mankind but that the Egyptians are colonists sent from India who follow their forefathers in matters of wisdom and fix their eyes on the institutions of their home well I, having reached my teens surrendered my patrimony to those who wanted it more than myself and frequented the society of these naked sages naked myself as they in the hope of picking up the teaching of the Indians or at any rate teaching allied to theirs and they certainly appeared to me to be wise though not after the manner of India but when I asked them point blank why they did not teach the philosophy of India they plunged into abuse of the natives of that country very much as you have heard them do in their speeches this very day now I was still young as you see so they made me a member of their society because I imagine they were afraid I might hastily quit them and undertake a voyage to the Red Sea as my father did before me and I should certainly have done so yes by heaven I would have pushed on until I reached the hill of the sages unless someone of the gods had sent you hither to help me and enabled me without either making any voyage over the sea or adventuring to the inhabitants of the Gulf to taste the wisdom of India it is not today therefore for the first time that I shall make my choice but I made it long ago though I did not obtain what I hoped to obtain for what is there to wonder at if a man who has missed what he was searching for returns to the search and if I should convert my friends yonder to this point of view and persuade them to accept the convictions which I have adopted myself should I tell me be guilty of any hardy hood for you must not reject the claim that youth makes that in some way it assimilates an idea more easily than old age and anyone who counsels another to adopt the wisdom and teaching which he himself has chosen anyhow escapes the imputation of trying to persuade others of things he does not believe himself and anyone who takes the blessings bestowed upon him by fortune into a corner and there enjoys them by himself violates their character as blessings for he prevents their sweetness from being enjoyed by as many as possible Chapter 17 When Nylos had finished these arguments and juvenile enough they were Apollonius took him up and said if you are in love with my wisdom had you not better, before I begin discuss with me the question of my reward let us discuss it answered Nylos and do you ask whatever you like I ask you, he said to be content with the choice you have made and not to annoy the naked sages by giving them advice which they will not take I consent, he said and let this be agreed upon as draw reward this then was the substance of their conversation and when Nylos at its close asked him how long a time he would stay among the naked sages he replied so long as the quality of their wisdom justifies anyone in remaining in their company and after that I shall take my way to the cataracts in order to see the springs of the Nile for it will be delightful not only to behold the sources of the Nile but also to listen to the roar of its waterfalls CHAPTER 18 after they had held this discussion and listened to some recollections of India they lay down to sleep upon the grass but at daybreak having offered their accustomed prayers they followed Nylos who led them into the presence of Thespecion they accordingly greeted one another sitting down together in the grove they began a conversation in which Apollonius led as follows how important it is said he not to conceal wisdom is proved by our conversation of yesterday for because the Indians taught me as much of their wisdom as I thought it proper for me to know I not only remember my teachers but I go about instilling into others what I heard from them and you too will be richly rewarded by me if you send me away with a knowledge of your wisdom as well for I shall not cease to go about and repeat your teachings to the Greeks while to the Indians I shall write them CHAPTER 19 ask they said for you know question comes first and argument follows on it and Apollonius said it is about the gods that I would like to ask you a question first namely what induced you to impart as your tradition to the people of this country forms of the gods that are absurd and grotesque in all but a few cases in a few cases do I say I would rather say that in a very few are the gods images fashioned in a wise and godlike manner for the mass of your shrines seem to have been erected in honor rather of irrational and ignoble animals than of gods Vespasion resenting these remarks said and your own images in Greece how are they fashioned in the way he replied in which it is best and most reverent to construct images of the gods I suppose you allude said the other to the statue of Zeus in Olympia and to the image of Athena and to that of this needy and goddess and to that of the Argyve goddess and to the other images equally beautiful and full of charm not only to these replied Apollonius but without exception I maintain that whereas in other lands the statue area has scrupulously observed decency and fitness you rather make ridicule of the gods than really believe in them your artists then like Phidias said the other and like Praxiteles went up I suppose to heaven and took a copy of the forms of the gods and then reproduced these by their art or was there any other influence which presided over and guided their molding there was said Apollonius and an influence pregnant with wisdom and genius what was that said the other for I do not think you can adduce any except imitation Apollonius said imagination wrought these works a wiser and subtler artist by far than imitation for imitation can only create as its handiwork what it has seen but imagination equally what it has not seen for it will conceive of its ideal with reference to the reality and imitation is often baffled by terror but imagination by nothing for it marches undismayed to the goal which it has itself laid down when you entertain a notion of Zeus you must I suppose envisage him along with heaven and seasons and stars as Phidias in his day endeavored to do and if you would fashion an image of Athena you must image in your mind armies and cunning and handicrafts and how she left out of Zeus himself but if you make a hawk or an owl or a wolf or a dog and put it in your temples instead of Hermes or Athena or Apollo your animals and your birds may be esteemed and of much price as likeness but the gods will be very much lowered in their dignity I think said the other that you criticize our religion very superficially for if the Egyptians had any wisdom they show it by their deep respect and reverence in the representation of the gods and by the circumstance that they fashion their forms as symbols of a profound inner meaning so as to enhance their solennity and August character Apollonius thereupon merely laughed and said my good friends you have indeed greatly profited by the wisdom of Egypt and Ethiopia if your dog and your ibis and your goat seem particularly August and godlike for this is what I learn from the special in the sage but what is there that is August or awe-inspiring in these images it is not likely that perjurers and temple thieves and all the rabble of low gestures will despise such holy objects rather than dread them and if they are to be held August for the hidden meanings which they convey surely the gods in Egypt would have met with much greater reverence if no images of them had ever been set up at all and planned your theology along other lines wiser and more mysterious for I imagine you might have built temples for them and have fixed the altars and laid down rules about what to sacrifice and what not and when and on what scale and with what liturgies and rights without introducing any image at all but leaving it to those who frequented the temples to imagine the images of the gods for the mind can more or less delineate and figure them to itself better than can any artist but you have denied the gods the privilege of beauty both of the outer eye and of inner suggestion the special replied and said there was a certain Athenian called Socrates a foolish old man like ourselves who thought that the dog and the goose and the plain tree were gods and used to swear by them he was not foolish said Apollonius but a divine and unfainly wise man for he did not swear by these objects on the understanding that they were gods but to save himself from swearing by the gods Chapter 20 there upon the special as if anxious to drop this subject put some questions to Apollonius about the scourging in Sparta and asked if the Lassa daimonians were smitten with rods in public yes answered the other as hard O the special as men can smite them and it is especially men of noble and distinguished birth among them that are so treated then what did they do to the menials he asked when they do wrong they do not kill them nowadays said Apollonius as Lysergos formally allowed but the same whip is used to them too and what judgment does Hellas pass upon the matter they flock he answered to see the spectacle with pleasure and utmost enthusiasm as if to the festival of Hyacinthus or to that of the naked boys then these excellent Helens are not ashamed either to behold those publicly whipped who air while governed them or to reflect that they were governed by men who are whipped before the eyes of all and how is it that you did not reform this abuse for they say that you are interested yourself in the affairs of the Lassa daimonians as of other people so far as anything could be reformed I gave them my advice and they readily adopted it for they are the freest of the Helens but at the same time they will only listen to one who gives them good advice now the custom of scourging is a ceremony in honor of the Scythian Artemis so they say as was prescribed by oracles and to oppose the regulations of the gods is in my opinion utter madness Tis a poor wisdom Apollonius he replied which you attribute to the gods of the Helens if they countenance scourging as a part of the discipline of freedom it's not the scourging he said but the sprinkling of the altar with human blood that is important for the Scythians too held the altar to be worthy thereof but the Lassa daimonians modified the ceremony of sacrifice because of its implacable cruelty and turned it into a contest of endurance undergone without any loss of life and yet securing to the goddess as first fruits an offering of their own blood why then said the other do they not sacrifice strangers right out to Artemis as the Scythians formally considered it right to do because he answered it is not congenial to any of the Greeks to adopt in their full rigor the manners and customs of barbarians and yet said the other it seems to me that it would be more humane to sacrifice one or two of them than to enforce as they do a policy of exclusion against all foreigners let us not assail said the other O thesspecion the law giver Lysurgus but we must understand him and then we shall see that his prohibition to strangers to settle in Sparta and live there was not inspired on his part by mere boorish exclusiveness but by a desire to keep the institutions of Sparta in their original purity by preventing outsiders from mingling in her life well said the other I should allow the men of Sparta to be what they claim to be if they had ever lived with strangers and yet had faithfully adhered to their home principles for it was not by keeping true to themselves in the absence of strangers but by doing so in spite of their presence that they needed to show their superiority but they although they enforced this policy of excluding strangers corrupted their institutions and were found doing exactly the same as did those of the Greeks whom they most detested anyhow their subsequent naval program and policy of imposing tribute was modeled entirely upon that of Athens and they themselves ended by committing acts which they had themselves regarded as a just Cassus Belli against the Athenians whom they had no sooner beaten in the field than they humbly adopted as if they were the beaten party their pet institution and the very fact that the goddess was introduced from Taurus and Scythia was the action of men who embraced alien customs but if an oracle prescribed this what want was there of a scourge what need to feign an endurance only fit for slaves had they wanted to prove the disdain that Lassidimonians felt for death they had I think done better to sacrifice a youth of Sparta with his own consent upon the altar for this would have been a real proof of the superior courage of the Spartans and would have disciplined Helens from ranging herself in the opposite camp to them but you will say that they had to save their young men for the battlefield well in that case the law which prevails among the Scythians and sentences all men of sixty years of age to death would have been more suitably introduced and followed among the Lassidimonians than among the Scythians supposing that they embraced death in its grim reality and not as a mere parade these remarks of mine are directed not so much against the Lassidimonians as against yourself, oh Apollonius for if ancient institutions whose whorey age defies our understanding of their origins are to be examined in an unsympathetic spirit and the reason why they are pleasing to heaven subjected to cold criticism such a line of speculation will produce a crop of odd conclusions for we could attack the mystery rite of Eleusis in the same way and ask why it is this and not that and the same with the rites of the Samothracians for in their ritual they avoid one thing and insist on another and the same with the Dionysiac ceremonies and their phallic symbol and the figure erected in Selene and before we know where we are we shall be picking holes in everything let us choose therefore any other topic you like but respect the sentiment of Pythagoras which is also our own for it is better if we can't hold our tongue about everything at any rate to preserve silence about such matters as these Apollonius replied and said if Othespecion you had wished to discuss the topic seriously you had a found that the Lassidimonians have many excellent arguments to advance in favor of their institutions proving that they are sound and superior to those of other Helens but since you are so averse to continue the discussion and even regard it as impious to talk about such things let us proceed to another subject of great importance as I am convinced for it is about justice that I shall now put a question End of chapters 11 through 20 Volume 2, book 6, chapters 21 through 30 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 Philostratus translated by F. C. Coneybear Volume 2, book 6 Chapter 21 let us, said the Specion, tackle the subject for it is one very suitable to men whether they are wise or not but lest we should drag in the opinions of Indians and so confuse our discussion and go off without having formed any conclusions do you first impart to us the views held by the Indians concerning justice for you probably examined their views on the spot and if their opinion is proved to be correct we will adopt it but if we have something wiser to put in its place you must adopt our view for that too is plain justice said Apollonius your plan is excellent and most satisfactory to me so do you listen to the conversation which I held there for I related to them how I had once been the captain of a large ship in the period when my soul was in command of another body and I thought myself extremely just because when robbers offered me a reward if I would betray my ship by running it into roads where they were going to lie and wait for it in order to seize the cargo I agreed and made the promise just to save them from attacking us but intending to slit by them and get beyond the place agreed upon the special said and did the Indians agree that this was justice no they laughed at the idea he replied for they said that justice was something more than not being unjust it was very sensible said the other of the Indians to reject such a view for good sense is something more than not entertaining nonsense justice courage is something more than not running away from the ranks and so temperance is something more than the avoidance of adultery and no one reserves his praise for a man who has simply shown himself to be not bad for because a thing no matter what is equidistant between praise and punishment it is not on that account to be reckoned offhand to be virtue how then oh the special said Apollonius are we to crown the just man and for what actions could you have discussed justice more completely and more opportunity said the other than when the sovereign of so large and so flourishing a country intervened in your philosophic discussion of the art of kingship a thing intimately connected with justice if it had been Freyotis said Apollonius who turned up on that occasion you might rightly blame me for not gravely discussing the subject of justice in his presence but you know from the account which I gave of him yesterday a man is a drunkard and an enemy of all philosophy what need therefore was there to inflict on him the trouble why should we try to in credit for ourselves in the presence of a Sibarite who thinks of nothing but his own pleasures but in as much as it is incumbent upon wise men like ourselves to explore and trace out justice more so than on kings and generals let us proceed to examine the absolutely just man for though I thought myself just in the affair of the ship and thought others just too because they did not practice injustice you deny that this in itself constitutes them just or worthy of honor and rightly so said the other for whoever heard of a decree being drafted by Athenians Lassadimonians in favor of crowning so and so because he is not a libertine or of granting the freedom of a city to so and so because the temples have not been robbed by him who then is the just man and what are his actions for neither did I hear of anyone being crowned merely for his justice nor of a decree being proposed over a just man to the effect that so and so shall be crowned because such and such actions of his show him to be just for anyone who considers the fate of Palamedes and Troy or of Socrates and Athens will discover that even justice is not sure of success among men for assuredly these men suffered most unjustly being themselves most just still they at least were put to death on the score of acts of injustice imputed to them and the verdict was a distortion of the truth whereas in the case of Aristides the son of Lysimachus it was very justice that was the undoing of him for he in spite of his integrity was banished merely because of his reputation for this very virtue and I am sure that justice will appear in a very ridiculous light for having been appointed by Zeus and by the fates to prevent from being unjust to one another she has never been able to defend herself against injustice and the history of Aristides is sufficient to me to show the difference between one who is not unjust and one who is really just for tell me is not this the same Aristides of whom your Hellenic compatriots when they come here tell us that he undertook a voyage to the islands to fix the tribute of the allies and after settling it on a fair basis returned again to his country still wearing the same cloak in which he left it it is he answered Apollonius who made the love of poverty once to flourish now said the other let us suppose that there were at Athens two public orators passing an encomium upon Aristides just after he had returned from the allies one of them proposes that he shall be crowned because he has come back again without enriching himself or amassing any fortune but the poorest of the Athenians poorer than he was before and the other orator we will suppose drafts his motion somewhat as follows whereas Aristides has fixed the tribute of the allies according to their ability to pay and not in excess of the resources of their respective countries and whereas he has endeavored to keep them loyal to the Athenians and to see that they shall feel it no grievance to pay upon this scale it is hereby resolved to crown him for justice do you not suppose that Aristides would himself have opposed the first of these resolutions as an indignity to his entire life seeing that it only honored him for not doing injustice whereas he might perhaps have supported the other resolution as a fair attempt to express his attentions and policy for I imagine it was with an eye to the interest of Athenians and subject stakes alike that he took care to fix the tribute on a fair and moderate basis and in fact his wisdom in this matter was conclusively proved after his death for when the Athenians exceeded his valuations and imposed heavier tributes upon the islands their naval supremacy at once went to pieces though it more than anything else had made them formidable on the other hand the prowess of the Lassodimonians passed on to the sea itself and nothing was left of Athenian supremacy for the whole of the subject states rushed into revolution and made good their escape it follows then, oh Apollonius, that rightly judged it is not the man who abstains from injustice that is just but the man who himself does what is just and also influences others not to be unjust and from such justice as his there will spring up a crop of other virtues especially those of the law court and of the legislative chamber for such a man as he will make a much fairer judge than people who take their oaths upon the dissected parts of victims and his legislation will be similar to that of Solon and of Lysurgus for assuredly these great legislators were inspired by justice to undertake their work Chapter 22 Such, according to Deimos, was the discussion held by them with regard to the just man and Apollonius, he says, assented to their argument for he always agreed with what was reasonably put they also had a philosophic talk about the soul proving its immortality and about nature along much the same lines which Plato follows in his Timaeus and after some further remarks and discussions of the laws of the Helens Apollonius said for myself I have come all this way to see yourselves and visit the springs of the Nile for a person who only comes as far as Egypt may be excused if he ignores the latter but if he advances as far as Ethiopia, as I have done he will be rightly reproached if he neglects to visit them and to draw, as it were, from their well springs some arguments of his own Farewell then, said the other and pray to the springs for whatever you desire for they are divine but I imagine you will take as your guide Timaeusion who formerly lived at Neuratus but is now at Memphis for he is well acquainted with the springs of the Nile and he is not so impure as to stand in need of further lustrations but as for you, O Nileus we would like to have a talk to you by ourselves the meaning of this sally was clear enough to Apollonius for he well understood their annoyance at Nileus's preference for himself but to give them an opportunity of speaking to him apart he left them to prepare and pack up for his journey for he meant to start at Daybreak and after a little time Nileus returned but did not tell them anything of what they had said to him though he laughed a good deal to himself and no one asked him what he was laughing about but they respected his secret Chapter 23 they then took their supper and after a discussion of certain trifles they laid them down to sleep where they were but at Daybreak they said goodbye to the naked sages and started off along the road which leads to the mountains keeping the Nile on their right side and they saw the following spectacles deserving of notice the Cata Dupi are mountains formed of good soil about the same size as the hill of the Lydians called Tumulus and from them the Nile flows rapidly down washing with it the soil of which it creates Egypt but the roar of the stream as it breaks down in a cataract from the mountains and hurls itself noisily into the Nile is terrible and intolerable to the ears and many of those who have approached it too close have returned with the loss of their hearing Chapter 24 Apollonius however and his party pushed on till they saw some round shaped hills covered with trees and leaves and bark and gum of which the Ethiopians regard as of great value and they also saw lions close to the path and leopards and other such wild animals but they were not attacked by any of them for they fled from them in haste as if they were scared at the sight of men and they also saw stags and gazelles and ostriches and asses the latter in great numbers and also many wild bulls and ox-goats so called the former of these two animals being a mixture of the stag and the ox that latter of the creatures from which its name is taken they found moreover on the road the bones and half-eaten carcasses of these for the lions when they have gorged themselves with fresh prey care little of what is left over of it because I think they feel sure of eating fresh quarry whenever they want it Chapter 25 it is here that the nomad Ethiopians live in a sort of colony upon wagons and not far from them the elephant hunters who cut up these animals and sell the flesh and are accordingly called by a name which signifies the selling of elephants and the nasamones and the man-eaters and the pygmies and the shadow-footed people are also tribes of Ethiopia and they extend as far as the Ethiopian ocean which no mariners ever enter except castaways who do so against their will Chapter 26 as our company were discussing these animals and talking learnedly about the food which nature supplies in their different cases they heard a sound as a thunder not a crashing sound but of thunder as it is when it is still hollow and concealed in the cloud and Timasion said a cataract is at hand gentlemen the last for those who are descending the river but the first to meet you on your way up and after they had advanced about ten states he says that they saw a river discharging itself from the hillside quite as big as the Marcius and the Mayander at their first confluence and he says that after they had put up a prayer to the Nile they went on till they no longer saw any animals at all for the latter are naturally afraid of noise and therefore live by calm waters rather than by those which rush headlong with a noise and after fifteen states they heard another cataract which this time was horrible and unbearable to the senses for it was twice as loud as the first one and it fell from much higher mountains and Damus relates that his own ears and those of one of his companions were so stunned by the noise that he himself turned back and besought Apollonius not to go any further however he along with Timasion and Nileus boldly pressed on to the third cataract of which he made the following report on his return peaks there over hang the Nile at the most eight states in height but the eminence faces the mountains namely a beatling brow of rocks mysteriously cut away as if in a quarry and the fountains of the Nile cling to the edge of the mountain till they over balance and fall on to the rocky eminence from which they pour into the Nile as an expanse of whitening billows but the effect produced upon the senses by this cataract which is many times greater than the earlier ones and the echo which leaps up there from against the mountains render it impossible to hear what your companions tell you about the river but the further road which leads up to the first springs of the river was impracticable they tell us and impossible to think of for they tell many stories of the demons which haunt it stories similar to those which Pindar in his wisdom puts into verse about the demon whom he sets over these springs to preserve the due proportions of the Nile after passing the cataracts they halted in a village of the Ethiopians of no great size and they were dining towards the evening mingling in their conversation the grave with the gay when all on a sudden they heard the woman of the village screaming and calling to one another to join in the pursuit and catch the thing they also summoned their husbands to help them in the matter and the latter caught up sticks and stones and anything which came handy and called upon one another to avenge the insult to their wives and it appears that for ten months the ghost of a satyr had been haunting the village who was mad after the woman and was said to have killed two of them to whom he was supposed to be specially attached the companions then of Apollonius were frightened out of their wits till Apollonius said you need not be afraid for it is only a satyr that is running a muck here yes, by Zeus, said Nileus it's the one that we naked sages have found insulting us for a long time past and we could never stop his jumps and leaps but, said Apollonius I have a remedy against these hellhounds which Midas is said once to have employed for Midas himself had some of the blood of the satyrs in his veins as was clear from the shape of his ears and a satyr once, trespassing on his kinship with Midas made merry at the expense of his ears not only singing about them but piping about them well, Midas, I understand had heard from his mother that when satyr is overcome by wine he falls asleep and at such times comes to his senses and will make friends with you so, he mixed wine which he had in his palace in a fountain and let the satyr get at it and the latter drank it up and was overcome and to show that the story is true let us go to the head man of the village if the villagers have any wine we will mix it with water for the satyr and he will share the fate of Midas's satyr they thought it a good plan so he poured four Egyptian jars of wine into the trough out of which the village cattle drank and then called the satyr by means of some secret rebuke or threat and though as yet the latter was not visible the wine sensibly diminished as if it was being drunk up and when it was quite finished Apollonius said and with these words he led the villagers to the cave of the nymphs which was not quite a furlong away from the village and he showed them the satyr lying fast asleep in it but told them not to hit him or abuse him he said such was this exploit of Apollonius and by heavens we may call it not an incidental work in passing but a masterwork of his passing by and if you read the sages epistle in which he wrote to an insolent young man that he had sobered even a satyr demon in Ethiopia you will perforce call to mind the above story but we must not disbelieve that satyrs both exist and are susceptible to the passion of love for I knew a youth of my own age in Lemnos whose mother was said to be visited by a satyr as he well might to judge by this story for he was represented as wearing on his back a fawn skin that exactly fitted him the front paws of which were drawn around his neck and fastened over his chest but I must not go further into this subject but anyhow credit is due as much to experience of facts as it is to myself Chapter 28 when he had come down from Ethiopia the breach with Euphrates grew wider and wider especially on account of daily disputes and discussions though he left them to many bus and Nileus to conduct and seldom himself attacked Euphrates being much too busy with the training of Nileus Chapter 29 after Titus had taken Jerusalem and when the country all round was filled with corpses the neighboring races offered him a crown but he disclaimed any such honor to himself saying that it was not he himself that had accomplished this exploit but that he had merely lent his arms to God who had so manifested his wrath and Apollonius praised his action for therein he displayed a great deal of judgment and understanding of things human and divine and it showed great moderation on his part that he refused to be crowned because he had shed blood accordingly Apollonius indicted to him a letter which he sent by the hand of Damus and of which the text was as follows Apollonius sends greeting to Titus the Roman general whereas you have refused to be proclaimed for success in war and for shedding the blood of your enemies I myself assign to you the crown of temperance and moderation because you thoroughly understand what deeds really merit the crown Farewell Now Titus was overjoyed with this epistle and replied In my own behalf I thank you no less than in behalf of my father and I will not forget your kindness for although I have captured Jerusalem you have captured me Chapter 30 and after Titus had been proclaimed autocrat in Rome and rewarded with the mead of his valor he went away to become the colleague in empire of his father but he did not forget Apollonius and thinking that even a short interview with him would be precious to himself he besought him to come to Tarsus and when he arrived he embraced him saying My father has told me by letter everything in respect of which he consulted you and lo, here is his letter in which you are described as his benefactor and the being to whom we owe all that we are Now, though I am only just thirty years of age I am held worthy of the same privileges to which my father only attained at the age of sixty I am called to the throne and to rule perhaps before I have learnt myself to obey and I therefore dread lest I am undertaking a task beyond my powers Thereupon, Apollonius after stroking his neck for he had as stout a neck as any athlete in training said and who will you force so sturdy a bold neck as yours under the oak He that from my youth up reared me as a calf answered Titus, meaning his own father and implying that he could only be controlled by the latter who had accustomed him from childhood to obey himself I am delighted then, said Apollonius in the first place to see you prepared to subordinate yourself to your father whom, without being his natural children so many are delighted to obey and next to see you rendering to his court an homage in which others will associate yourself When youth and age are paired in authority is there any liar or any flute that will produce so sweet a harmony and so nicely blended for the qualities of old age will be associated with those of youth with the result that old age will gain in strength and youth in discipline End of volume 2, book 6, chapters 21 through 30