In an age when the Humanities are being neglected more than perhaps than at any time since the Middle Ages, and when men's minds are turning more than ever before to the practical and material, it does not suffice to make pleas, however eloquent and convincing, for the safeguarding and further enjoyment of our greatest heritage from the past.
Means must be found to place these treasures within the reach of all who care for the finer things of life. The mechanical and social achievements of our day must not blind our eyes to the fact that, in all that relates to man, his nature and aspirations, we have added little or nothing to what has been so finely said by the great men of old.
Of its author, Philostratus, we do not know much apart from his own works, from which we may gather that he was born in the island of Lemno about the year 172 of our era, that he went to Athens as a young man to study rhetoric, and later on to Rome. Here he acquired a reputation as a sophist, and was drawn into what we may call the salon of the literary and philosophic Empress Julia Domna, the wife of Septemius Severus. She put into his hands certain memoirs of Apollonius, the sage of Tyana, who had died in extreme old age nearly 100 years before during the reign of the Emperor Nerva, and she begged him to use them for the composition of a literary life of the sage in question.
These memoirs had been composed by a disciple and companion of Apollonius named Damis, a native of the city of Ninevah, whose style, Philostatus says, like that of the most Syrian Greeks, was heavy and wanted in polish. Besides these memoirs Philostratus used for his work a history of the career of Apollonius at Aegae, written by an admirer of the name of Maximus. He also used the many letters of Apollonius which were in circulation. His collection of these agreed partly but not wholly, with those which are preserved to us and translated below. He tells us further that the Emperor Hadrian had a collection of these letters in his villa at Antium. Philostratus also possessed various treatises of Apollonius which have not come down to us. Beside making use of the written sources here enumerated Phiostratus had travelled about, not only to Tyana, where there was a temple specially dedicated to the cult of Apollonius, but to other cities where the sage's memory was held in honour in order to collect such traditions of the sage as he found still current.
From these sources then the work before us was drawn, for although Philostratus also knew the four books of a certain Moeragenes upon Apollonius, he tells us he paid no attention to them, because they displayed an ignorance of many things which concerned the sage. The learned Empress seems never to have lived to read the work of Philostratus, for it was not dedicated to her and cannot have been published before the year 217.
It has been argued that the work of Damis never really existed, and that he was a mere man of straw invented by Philostratus. This view was adopted as recently as the year 1910 by Professor Brigg, in his history on the origins of Christianity. But it seems unnecessarily skeptical. It is quite true that Philostratus puts into the mouth of the sage, on the authority of Damis, conversations and ideas which, as they recur in the Lives of the Sophists of Philostratus, can hardly have been reported by Damis. But because he resoted to this literary trick, it can hardly have been invented as late as the year 217, when the life was completed and given to the literary world.
It is rather to be supposed that Damis himself was not altogether a credible writer, but one who, like the so-called aretalogi of that age, set himself to embellish the life of his master, to exaggerate his wisdom and his supernatural powers; if so, more than one of the striking stories told by Philostratus may have already stood in the pages of Damis.
However this is to be, the evident aim of Philostratus is to rehabilitate the reputation of Apllonius, and defend him from the charge of having been a charlatan or wizard addicted to evil magical practices. This accusation had been levelled against the sage during his lifetime by a rival sophist Euphrates, and not long after his death by the author already mentioned, Moeragenes. Unfortunately the orations of Euphrates have perished, and we know little of the work of Moeragenes. Origen, the Christian father, in his work against Celsus, written about the year 240, informs us that he had read it, and that it attacked Apollonius as a magician addicted to sinister practices. It is certain also that the accusations of Euphrates were of a similar tendency, and we only need to read a very few pages of this work of Philostratus to see that his chief interest is to prove to the world that these accusations were ill-founded, and that Apollonius was a divinely-inspired sage and prophet, and a reformer along Pythagorean lines of the Pagan religion. It is possible that some of the stories told by Byzantine writers of Apollonius, notably by John Tzetzes, derived from Moeragenes.
The story of the life of Apollonius as narrated by Philostratus is briefly as follows. He was born towards the beginning of the Christian era at Tyana, in Cappadocia, and his birth was attended according to popular tradition with miracles and portents. At the age of sixteen he set himself to observe in the most rigid fashion the most minastic rule ascribed to Pythagoras, renouncing wine, rejecting the married estate, refusing to eat any sort of flesh, and in particular condemning the sacrifice of animals to the gods, which was in the ancient world furnished the occasion, at any rate for the poor people, of eating meat.
For we must not forget that in antiquity hardly any meat was eaten which had not previously been consecrated by sacrifice to a god, and that subsequently the priest was the butcher of a village and the butcher the priest. Like other votaries of the Neo-Pythagorean philosophy or discipline, Apollonius went without shoes or only wore shoes of bark, he allowed his hair to grow long, and never let a razor touch his chin, and he took care to wear on his person nothing but linen, for it was accounted by him, as by Brahmans, an impurity to allow anydress made of the skin of dead animals to touch the person.
Before long he set himself up as reformer, and betaking himself to the town of Aegae, he took up his abode in the temple of Aesculapius, where he rapidly acquired such a reputation for sanctity that sick people flocked to him askinh him to heal them. On attaining his majority, at the death of his father and mother, he gave the greater patt of his patrimony to his elder brother, and what was left to his poor relations. He then set himself to spend five years in complete silence, traversing, it would seem, Asia Minor, in all directions, but never opening his lips.
The more than Trappist vow of silence which he thus enforced upon himself seems to have further enhanced his reputation for holiness, and his mere appearance on the scene was enough to hush the noise of warring factions in the cities of Cilicia and Pamphylia. If we may believe his biographer he professed to know all languages without having learned them, to know the inmost thoughts of men, to understand the language of birds and animals, and to have the power of predicting the future. He also remembered his former incarnation, for he shared the Pythagorean belief of the migration of human souls from body to body, both of animals and of human beings. He preached a rigid asceticism, and condemned all dancing and other diversions of the kind; he would carry no money on his person and recommended to others to spend their money in the relief of the poorer classes.
He visited Persia and India, where he consorted with the Brahmans; he subsequently visited Egypt, and went up the Nile in order to acquaint himself with those precursors of the monks of the Thebaid called in those days the Gymnosophists or naked philosophers. He visited the cataracts of the Nile, and returning to Alexandria held long converstaion withs with Vespasian and Titus soon after the siege and capture of Jerusalem by the latter. He had a few years before, in the course of a visit to Rome, incurred the wrath of Nero, whose minister Tigellinus however was so intimidated by him as to set him at liberty. After the death of Titus he was again arrested, this time by the Emperor Domitian, as a fomenter of sedition, but was apparently acquitted. He died at an advanced age in the reign of Nerva, who befriended him; and according to popular tradition he ascended bodily to heaven, appearing after death to certain persons who entertained doubts about future life.
Towards the end of the third century when the struggle between Christianity and decadent Paganism had reached its last and bitterest stage, it occurred to some of the enemies of the new religion to set up Apollonius, to whom temples and shrines had been erected in various parts of Asia Minor, as a rival to the founder of Christianity. The many miracles which were recorded of Apollonius, and in particular his eminent power over evil spirits or demons, made him a formidable rival in the minds of Pagans to Jesus Christ.
And a certain Hierocles, who was a provincial governor under Emperor Diocletian, wrote a book to show that Apollonius had been as great a sage, as remarkable a worker of miracles, and as potent an exorcist as Jesus Christ. His work gave great offence to the missionaries of the Christian religion, and Eusebius the Christian historian wrote a treatise in answer, in which he alleges that Apollonius was a mere charlatan, and if a magician at all, then one of very inferior powers; he also argues that if he did achive any remarkable results, it was thanks to the evil spirits with whom he was in league. Eusebius is careful, however, to point out that before Hierocles, no anti-Christian writer had thought of putting forward Apollonius as the rival or equal of Jesus of Nazareth.
It is possible of course that Hierocles took his cue from the emperor Alexander Severus (AD 205-235), who instead of setting up images of the gods in his private shrine, established therein, as objects of his veneration, statues of Alexander the Great, Orpheus, Apollonius of Tyana, Abraham, and Christ. This story however in no way contradicts the statement of Eusebius, and it is a pity that this significant caution of the latter has been disregarded by Christian writers of the last three centuries, who have unanimously adopted a view that is utterly unwarranted, namely, that Philostatus intended his life of Apollonius as a counterblast to that of the Christian gospel.
The best scholars of the present generation [Ed: 1912] are opposed to this view, for they realise that demoniac possession was a common feature in the ancient landscape, and that the exorcist driving demons out of the afflicted human beings by the use of threats and invocations of mysterious names was as familiar a figure in old Pagan society as he was in the early church.
We read that wherever Apollonius travelled, he visited the temples, and undertook to reform the cults which he there found in vogue. His reform seems to have ben consistent in this, that he denounced as derogatory to the gods the practice of sacrificing to them animal victims and tried to persuade the priests to abandon it. In this respect he prepared the ground for Christianity and was working along the same lines as many of the Christian missionaries. In the third century Porphyry the philosopher and the enemy of Christianity was as zealous in his condemnation of blood- offerings, as Apollonius had been in the first. Unquestionably the neo-Pythagorean propaganda did much to discredit ancient paganism, and Apollonius and its other missionaries were all unwittingly working for that ideal of bloodless sacrifice which, after the destruction of the Jewish Temple, by an inexorable logic imposed itself on the Christian church.
It is well to conclude this all too brief notice of Apollonius with a passage cited by Eusebius from his lost work concerning sacrifice. There is no good reason for doubting its authenticity, and it is an apt summary of his religious beliefs:-
"In no other manner, I believe, can one exhibit a fitting respect for the divine being, beyond any other men make sure of being singled out as an object of his favour and good-will, than by refusing to offer to God whom we termed First, who is One and separate from all, as subordinate to whom we must recognise all the rest, any victim at all; to Him we must not kindle fire or make promise unto him of any sensible object whatsoever.
For He needs nothing even from beings higher than ourselves.
Nor is there any plant or animal which earth sends up or nourished, to which some pollution is not incident.
We should make use in relation to him solely of the higher speech, I mean of that which issues not by the lips; and from the noblest of beings we must ask for blessings by the noblest faculty we possess, and that faculty is intelligence, which needs no organ.
On these principals then we ought not on any account to sacrifice victims to the mightly and supreme God."
He replied: "I have not yet kept silence".
And forthwith he began to hold his tongue from a sense of duty, and kept absolute silence, though his eyes and his mind were taking note of many a thing, and though most things were being stored in his memory. Indeed, when he reached the age of a hundred, he still surpassed Simonides in point of memory, and he used to chant a hymn addressed to memory, in which it is said that everything is worn and withered away by time, whereas time itself never ages, but remains immortal because of memory.
Nevertheless his company was not without charm during the period of his silence; for he would maintain a conversation by the expression of his eyes, by gestures of his hands and nodding his head; nor did he strike men as gloomy or morse; for he retained his fondness for company and cheerfulness.
This part of his life he says was the most uphill work he knew, since he practised silence for five whole years;
for he says he often had things to say and could not do so, and he was often
obliged not to hear things the hearing of which would have enraged him, and
often when he was moved and inclined to break out in a rebuke to others, he
said to himself: "Bear up then, my heart and tongue;" and when reasoning
offended him he had to give up for the time the refuting of it.
Whenever, however, he came on a city engaged in civil conflict (and many were divided into fractions over spectacles of a low kind), he would advance and show himself, and by indicating part of his intended rebuke by manual gesture or by look on his face, he would put an end to all the disorder, and people hushed their voices, as if they were engaged in the mysteries.
Well, it is not so very difficult to restrain those who have started a quarrel about dances and horses, for those who are rioting about such matters, if they turn their eyes to a real man, blush and check themselves and easily recover their senses; but a city hard pressed by famine is not so tractable, nor so easily brought to a better mood by persuasive words and its passion quelled. But in the case of Apollonius, mere silence on his part was enough for those so affected.
Anyhow, when he came to Aspendus in Pamphylia (and this city is built on the river Eurymendon along with two others), he found nothing but vetch on sale in the market, and the citizens were feeding upon this and anything else they could get; for the rich men had shut up all the corn and were holding it up for export from the country.
Consequently an excited crowd of all ages had set upon the governor, and wee lighting a fire to burn him alive, although he was clinging to the statues of the Emperor, which were more dreaded at that time and more invoilable than the Zeus in Olympia; for they were statues of Tiberius, in whose reign a master is said to have been held guilty of impiety, merely because he struck his own slave when he had on his person a silver drachma coined with the image of Tiberius.
Appollonius then went up to the governor and with a sing of his hand asked him what was the matter; and he answered that he had done no wrong, but was indeed being wronged quite as much as the populace; but, he said, if he could not get a hearing, he would perish along with the populace.
Apollonius then turned to the bystanders, and beckoned to them that they must listen; and they not only held their tongues from wonderment at him, but hey laid the fire they had kindled on the altars which were there.
The governor then plucked up courage and said: "This man and that man," and he named several, "are to blame for the famine which has arisen; for they have taken away the corn and are keeping it, one in one part of the country and another in another." The inhabitant of Aspendus thereupon passed the word to one another to make for these men's estates, but Apollonius signed with his head, that they should do no such thing, but rather summon those who were to blame and obtain the corn from them with their consent.
And when, after a little time the guilty parties arrived, he very nearly broke out in speech against them, so much was he affected by the tears of the crowd; for the children and women had all flocked together, and the old men were groaning and moaning as if they were on the point of dying by hunger.
However, he respected his vow of silence and wrote on a writing board his indictment of the offenders and handed it to the governer to read out aloud; and his indictment ran as follows:
"Apollonius to the corn-dealers of Aspendus. The earth is mother of us all, for she is just; but you, because you are unjust have pretended that she is your mother alone; and if you do not stop, I will not permit you to remain upon her."
They were so terrified by these words, that they filled the market-place with corn and the city revived.
Neither did he indulge in subtleties, nor spin out his discourses; nor did anyone ever hear him dissembling to an ironical way, nor addressing to his audience methodical arguments; but when he conversed he would assume an oracular manner and use the expressions, "I know," or "It is my opinion," or, "Where are you drifting to?" or, "You must know."
And his sentences where short and crisp, and his words were telling and closely fitted to the things he spoke of, and his words had a ring about them as of the dooms delivered by a sceptred king. And when a certain quibbler asked him, why he asked no questions of him, he replied:
"Because I asked questions when I was a stripling; and it is not my business to ask questions now, but to teach people what I have discovered."
"How then," the other asked him afresh, "O Apollonius, should the sage converse?"
"Like a law-giver," he replied, "for it is the duty of the law-giver to deliver to the many the
instructions of whose truth he has persuaded himself." This was the line he
pursued during his stay in Antioch, and he converted to himself the most
unrefined people.
But he made a great deal of the Magi, who live in Babylon and Susa. For, he said, he was determined to acquaint himself thoroughly with their lore, even if it cost him a journey.
And he announced his intention to his followers, who were seven in number; but when they tried to persuade him to adopt another plan, in hopes of drawing him off from his resolution, he said:
"I have taken the gods into counsel and have told you their decision; and I have made trial of you to see if you are strong enought to undertake the same things as myself. Since therefore you are so soft and effeminate, I wish you very good health and that you may go on with your philosophy; but I must depart whither wisdom and the gods lead me."
Having said this he quitted
Antioch with two attendants, who belonged to his father's house, one of them
a shorthand writer and the other a calligraphist.
He admired him, and having a taste for the road, said: "Let us depart, Apollonius, you follow God, and I you; for I think you will find me of considerable value. For, if I know nothing else, I have at least been to Babylon, and I know all the cities there are, because I have been up there not long ago, and also the villages in which there is much good to be found; and moreover, I know the languages of the various barbarous races, and there are several, for example the Armenian tongue, and that of the Medes and Persians, and that of the natives of Kadus, and I am familar with all of them."
"And I," said Apollonious, "my good friend, understand all languages, though I never learnt a single one."
The native of Nineveh was astonished at this answer, but the other replied:
"You need not wonder at my knowing all human languages; for, to tell you the truth, I also understand all the secrets od human silence."
Thereupon the Assyrian worshipped him, when he heard this, and regarded him as a demon; and he stayed with him increasing in wisdom and committing to memory whatever he learnt. This Assyrian's language, however, was of a mediocre quality, for he had not the gift of expressing himself, having been educated among the barbarians; but he kept a journal of their intercourse, and recorded in it whateveer he heard or saw, and he was very well able to put together a memoir of such matters and managed this better than anyone else could do.
At any rate the volume which he calls his scrap-book, was intended to serve such a purpose by Damis, who was determined that nothing about Apollonius should be passed over in silence, nay, that his very solecisms and negligent utterances should slo be written down.
And I may mention the answer which he made to one who cavilled and found fault with this journal. It was a lazy fellow and malignant who tried to pick holes in him, and remarked that he recorded well enough a lot of things, for example, the opinions and ideas of his hero, but that in collecting such trifles as these he reminded him of dogs who pick up and eat the fragments which fall from a feast.
Damis replied thus: "If the banquets are those of gods, and it is gods who are being fed,
surely they must have attendants whose business it is that not even the parcels
of ambrosia that fall to the ground should be lost."
The Official Registrar at the Border Post and the bridge into Mesopotamia ...
And as they fared on into Mesopotamia, the tax-gatherer who presided over the Bridge (Zeugma) led them into the registry and asked them what they were taking out of the country with them.
And Apollonius replied:
"I am taking with me temperance, justice, virtue, continence, valour, discipline."
And in this way he strung together a number of feminine nouns or names.
The other, already scenting his own perquisites, said:
"You must then write down in the register these female slaves."
Apollonius answered:
"Impossible, for they are not female slaves that I am taking out with me, but ladies of quality."
Apollonius then and his party were brought before this satrap, who had just set up the awning on his wagon and was driving out to go somewhere else. When he saw a man so dried up and parched, he began to bawl out like a cowardly woman and hid his face, and could hardly be induced to look up at him. "Whence do you come to us," he said, "and who sent you?" as if he was asking questions of a spirit. And Apollonius replied:
"I have sent myself, to see whether I can make men of you, whether you like it or not."
He asked a second time who he was to come, trespassing like that into a king's country, and Apollonius said:
"All the earth is mine, and I have a right to go all over it and through it."
Whereupon the other said: "I will torture you, if you don't answer my questions."
"And I hope," said the other, "that you will do it with you own hands, so that you may catch it well, if you touch a true man."
Now the eunuch was astonished to find that Apollonius needed no interpreter, but understood what he said without the least trouble or difficulty. "By the gods," he said, "who are you?" this time altering his tone to a whine of entreaty.
And Apollonius replied:
"Since you have asked me civilly this time and not so rudely as before, listen, I will tell you who I am: I am Apollonius of Tyana, and my road leads me to the king of India, because I want to acquaint myself with the country there; and I shall be glad to meet your king, for those who have associated with him say that he is this Vardan who has lately recovered the empire which he had lost."
"He is the same," replied the other, "O divine Apollonius; for we have heard of you a long time ago, and in favour of so wise a man as you he would I am sure, step down off his golden throne and send your party to India, each of you mounted on a camel. And I myself now invite you to be my guest, and I beg to present you with these treasures."
And at the moment he pointed out a store of gold to him saying: "Take as may handfuls as you like, fill your hands, not once, but ten times."
And when Apollonius refused the money he said: "Well, at any rate you will take some of the Babylonian wine, in which the kind pledges us, his ten satraps. Take a jar of it, with some roast steaks of bacon and venison and some meal and bread and anything else you like. For the road after this, for many stades, leads through villages which are ill-stocked with provision."
And here the eunuch caught himself up and said: "Oh! ye gods, what have I done? For I have heard that this man never eats the flesh of animals, nor drinks wine, and here I am inviting him to dine in a gross and ignorant manner."
"Well," said Apollonius, "you can offer me a lighter repast and give me bread and dried fruits."
"I will give you," said the other, "leavened bread and palm dates, like amber and of good size. And I will also supply you with vegetables, the best which the gardens of the Tigris afford."
"Well," said Apollonius, "the wild herbs which grow free are nicer than those which are forced and artificial."
"They are nicer," said the satrap, "I admit, but our land in the direction of Babylon is full of wormwood so that the herbs which grow in it are disagreeably bitter."
In the end Apollonius accepted the satrap's offer, and as he was on the point of going away, he said:
"My excellent fellow, don't keep your good manners to the end another time, but begin with them."
This by way of rebuking him for saying that he would torture him, and for the barbaric language which he had heard
to begin with.
"This is Apollonius, whom Megabates, my brother, said he saw in Antioch, the admired and respected of serious people; and he depicted him to me at that time just such a man as now comes to us."
And when Apollonius approached and saluted him, the king addressed him in the Greek language and invited him to sacrifice with hi; and it chanced that he was on the point of sacrificing to the Sun as a victim a horse of the true Nisaean breed, which he had adorned with trappings as if for a triumphal procession.
But Apollonius replied:
"Do you, O king, go on with your sacrifice, in your own way, but permit me to sacrifice in mine."
And he took up a handful of frankincense and said:
"O thou Sun, send me as far over the earth as is my pleasure and thine, and may I make the acquaintance of good men, but never hear anything of bad ones, nor they of me."
And with these words he threw the frankincense into the fire, and watched to see how the smoke of it curled upwards, and how it grew turbid, and in how many points it shot up; and in a manner he caught the meaning of the fire, and watched how it appeared of good omen and pure.
Then he said:
"Now, O king, go on with your sacrifice in accordance with your own traditions, for my traditions are such as you see."
And he quitted the scene of sacrifice in order not to be present at the shedding
of blood.
"But," answered the other, "O Apollonius, a child could tell you. For inasmuch as the operation has deprived them of the faculty, they are freely admitted into those apartments, no matter how far their wishes may go."
"But do you suppose the operation has removed their desires or the further aptitude?"
"Both," replied Damis, "for if you extinguish in a man the unruly member that lashes the body to madness, the fit of passion will come on him no more."
After a brief pause, Apollonius said: "To-morrow, Damis, you shall learn that even eunuchs are liable to fall in love, and that the desire which is contracted through the eyes is not extinguished in them, but abides alive and ready to burst into a flame; for that will occur which will feture your opinion. And even if there were really any human art of such tyrannic force that it could expel such feelings from the heart, I do not see how we could ever attribute to them any chastity of character, seeing that they would have no choice, having been by sheer force and artificially deprived of the faculty of falling in love. For chastity consists in not yielding to passion when the longing an impulse is felt, and in the abstinence which rises superior to this form of madness."
Accordingly Damis answered and said: "Here is a thing that we will examine another time, O Apollonius; but we had better consider now that answer you can make to-morrow to the king's magnificent offier. For you will perhaps asks for nothing at all, but you should be careful and be on your guard lest you should seem to decline any gift the king may offer, as they say, out of mere empty pride, for you see the land that you are in and that we are wholly in his power. And you must be on your guard against the accusation of treating him with contempt, and understand, that although we have sufficient means to carry us to India, yet what we have will not be sufficient to bring us back thence, and we have no other supply to fall back upon."
Now when the eunuch arrived and summoned him before the king, he said:
"I will come as soon as I have duly discharged my religious duties."
Accordingly he sacrificed and offered his prayer, and then departed, and everyone looked at him and wondered at his bearing. And when he had come within, the king said: "I present you with ten gifts, because I consider you such a man as never before has come higher from Hellas."
And he answered and said:
"I will not, O king, decline all your gifts; but there is one which I prefer to may tens of gifts, and for that I will most eagerly solicit."
And he at one told the story of the Eretrrians, beginning it from the time of Datis. [ED: This story referes to a tribe of people who were descended from an original expeditionary group of Greeks from hundreds of years before, and who now dwelt on a hill within the King's domains]
"I ask then," he said, "that these poor people should not be driven out of the latter."
The king then consented and said: "The Eretrians were, until yestereday, the enemies of myself and of my fathers; for they once took up arms against us, and they have been neglected in order that their race might perish; but henceforth they shall be written among my friends, and they shall have, as a satrap, a good man who will judge their country justly.
But why," he said, "will you not accept the other nine gifts?"
"Because," he answered, "I have not yet, O king, made any friends here."
"And do you yourself require nothing?" said the king.
"Yes," he said, "I need dried fruits and bread, for that is a repast which delights me and which I find magnificent."
While they were thus conversing with one another a hubbug was heard to proceed from the palace, of eunuchs and women shrieking all at once. And in fact an eunuch had been caught misbehaving with one of the royal concubines just as if he were an adulterer. The guards of the harem were now dragging him along by the hair in the way they do royal slaves. The senior of the eunuchs accordingly declared that he had long before noticed he had an affection for this particular lady, and had already forbidden him to talk to her or touch her neck or hand, or assist her toilette, though he was free to wait upon all the other members of the harem; yet he had now caught him behaving as if he were the lady's lover.
Apollonius thereupon glanced at Damis, as if to indicate that the argument they had conducted on the point that even eunuchs fall in love, was now demonstrated to be true; but the king remarked to the bystanders: "Nay, but it is disgraceful, gentlemen, that, in the presence of Apollonius, we should be enlarging on the subject of chastity rather than he.
What then, O Apollonius, do you urge us to do with him?"
"Why, to let him live, of course," answered Apollonius to the suprise of them all.
Whereon the king reddenced, and said: "Then you do not think he deserves to die may times for thus tryping to usurp my rights?"
"Nay, but my answer, O king, was suggested not by any wish to condone his offence, but rather to mete out to him a punishment which will wear him out. For if he lives with this disease of impotence on him, and can never take pleasure in eating or drinking, nor in the spectacles which delight you and your companions, and if his heart will throb as he often leaps up in his leep, as they say is particularly the case of people in love, - is there any form of consumption so wasting as this, any form of hunger so likely to enfeeble his bowels? Indeed, unless he be one of those who are ready to live at any price, he will entreat you, O king, before long even to slay him, or he will slay himsel, deeply deploring that he was not put to death straight away this very day."
Such was the answer rendered on this occasion by Apollonius, one so
wise and humane, that the king was moved by it to spare the life of his
eunuch.
"It would be a real miracle, O king, if you went dry-shod through a river as deep as this and as unfordable."
And when he was shown the walls of Ecbatana, and was told that they were the dwelling-place of gods, he remarked:
They are not the dwelling place of gods at all, and I am not sure that they are of real men either; for, O king, the inhabitants of the city of Lacedaemon do not dwell within walls, and have never fortified their city."
Moreover, on one occasion the king had decided a suit for some villages and was boasting to Apollonius of how he had listened to the one suit for two whole days.
"Well," said the other, "you took a mighty long time, anyhow, to find out what was just."
And when the revenues from the subject country came in on once occasion in great quantities at once, the king opened his treasurey and showed his wealth to the sage, to induce him to fall in love will wealth; but he admired nothing that he saw and said:
"This, for you, O king, represents wealth, but to me it is mere chaff."
"How, then," said the other, "and in what manner can I best make use of it?"
"By spending it," he said, "for you are king."
"O excellent king, I have in no way renumerated my host and I owe a great reward to the Magi; do you therefore attend to them, and oblige me by bestowing your favours on men who are both wise and wholly devoted to yourself."
The king then was more than delighted, and said: "I will show you tomorrow how much I value them and what great rewards I hold them to have earned; but since you ask for nothing that is mine, I hope you will at least allow these gentlemen to accepts from me whatever money they like", and he pointed to Damis and his companions. And when they too declined the offer, Apollonius said:
"You see, O king, how many hands I have, and how closely they resemble one another."
"But do you anyhow take a guide," said the king, "and camels on which to ride; for the road is too long by far for you to walk the whole of it."
"Be it so," said Apollonius, " O king: for they say that the road is a difficult one for him who is not mounted, and moreover this animal is easily fed and finds his pasture easily where there is no fodder. And methinks, we must lay in a supply of water also, and take it in bottles, like wine."
"Yes," said the king, "for after three days the country is waterless, but after that there are plenty of rivers and springs; but you must take the road over the Caucasus, for there you will find plenty of the necessities of life and the country is friendly."
And the king then asked him what he would bring back to him from his destination; and he answered:
"A graceful gift, O king, for if I am turned into a wiser man by the society of people yonder, I shall return to you here a better man than I now am."
When he said this the king embrased him and said: "May you come back, for that will indeed be a great gift."
"Tell me," he said, "where we were yesterday."
And he replied: "On the plain."
"And to-day, O Damis, where are we?"
"In the Caucasus," said he, "if I mistake not."
"Then when were you lower down than you are now?" he asked again, and Damis replied: "That's a question hardly worth asking. For yesterday we were travelling through the valley below, while to-day we are close up to heaven."
"Then you think," said the other, "O Damis, that our road yesterday lay low down, whereas our road to-day lies high up?"
"Yes, by Zeus," he replied, "unless at least I'm mad."
"In what respect then," said Apollonius, "do you suppose that our roads differ from one another, and what advantage has to-days's path for you over that of yesterday?"
"Because," said Damis, "yesterday I was walking along where a great many people go, but to-day, where are very few."
"Well," said the other, "O Damis, can you not also in a city turn out of the main street and walk where you will find very few people?"
"I did not say that," replied Damis, "but that yesterday we were passing through villages and populations, whereas to-day we are ascending through an untrodden and divine region: for you heard our guide say that the barbarians declare this tract to be the home of the gods." And with that he glanced up to the summit of the mountain.
But Apollonius recalled his attention to the original question by saying:
"Can you tell me then, O Damis, what understanding of divine mystery you get by walking so near the heavens?"
"None whatever," he replied.
"And yet you ought," said Apollonius. "When your feet are placed on a platform so divine and vast as this, you ought at one to utther thoughts of the clearest kind about the heaven and about the sun and moon, which you probably think you could touch from a vantage ground so close to heaven."
"Whatever," said he, "I knew about God's nature yesterday," I equally know to-day, and so far no fresh idea has occurred to me concerning him."
"So then," replied the other, "you are, O Damis, still below, and have won nothing from being high up, and you are as far from heaven as you were yesterday. And my question which I asked you to begin with was a fair one, although you thought that I asked it in order to make fun of you."
"The truth is," replied Damis, ''that I thought I should anyhow go down from the mountain wiser than I came up it, because I had heard, O Apollonius, that Anaxagoras of Clazomenae observed the heavenly bodies from the mountain Mimas in Ionia, and Thales of Miletus from Mycale which was close by his home; and some are said to have used as their observation mount Pangaeus and others Athos. But I have come up a greater height than any of these, and yet shall go down again no wiser than I was before."
"For neither did they," replied Apollonius: "and such stargazings show you indeed a bluer heaven and bigger stars and the sun rising out of the night; but all these phenomena were manifest long ago to sheperds and goatherds, but neither Athos will reveal to those who climb up it, nor Olympus, so much extolled by the poets, in what way God cares for the
human race and how he delights to be worshipped by them, nor reveal the
nature of virtue and of justice and temperance , unless the soul scan these
matters narrowly, and the soul, I should say, if it engages on the task pure and
undefiled, will sour much higher than this summit of Caucasus."
"Damis, what is the business of a good horeseman?"
"Why, what else," he replied, "than to sit firm upon the horse, and control it, and turn it with the bit, and punish it when it is unruly, and to take care that the horse does not plunge into a chasm or a ditch or a hole, especially when he is passing over a marsh or a clay bog?"
"And shall we require nothing else, Damis, of a good horseman?" said Apollonius.
"Why, yes," he said, "when the horse is galloping up a hill he must slacken the bit; and when he is going down hill he must not let the horse have his way, but hold him in; and he must caress his ears and man; and in my opinion a clever rider nevers uses a whip, and I should commend any one who rode in this way."
"And what is needful for a soldier who rides a charger?"
"The same things," he said, "O Apollonius, and in addition the ability to inflict and parry blows and to purseue and to retire, and crowd the enemies together without letthing his horse be frightened by the rattling of shields or the flashing of the helmets, or by the noise made when the men raise their war-cry and give a whoop; this, I think all belongs to good horsemanship."
"What then will you say of this boy who is riding the elephant?"
"He is much more wonderful, Apollonius. For it seems to me a superhuman feat for such a tiny mite to manage so huge an animal and guide it with the crook, which you see him digging into the elephant like an anchor, without fearing either the look of the brute or its height, or its enormous strength; and I would not have believed it possible, I swear by Athene, if I had heard another telling it, and had not seen it."
"Well then," said Apollonius, "if anyone wanted to sell us this boy, would you buy him, Damis?"
"Yes, by Zeus," he said, "and I would give everything I have to possess him. For it seems to me the mark of a liberal and splendid nature, to be able to capture like a citadel the greatest animal which earth sustains, and then govern it as its master."
"What then would you do with the boy," said the other, "unless you bought the elephant as well?"
"I would set him," said Damis, "To preside over my household and over my servants, and he would rule them much better than I can."
"And are you not able," said Apollonius, "to rule your own servants?"
"About as able to do so," replied Damis, "as you are yourself, Apollonius. For I have abandoned my property, and am going about, like yourself, eager to learn and to investigate things in foreign countries."
"But if you did actually buy the boy, and if you had two horses, one of them a racer, and the other a charger, would you put him, O Damis, on these horses?"
"I would perhaps," he answered, "upon the racer, for I see others doing the same, but how could he ever mount a war-horse accustomed to carry armour? For he could not either carry a shield, as kinghts must do; or wear a breast-plate or helmet; and how could he wield a javelin, when he cannot use the shaft of a bolt or of an arrow, but he would in military matters be like a stammerer."
"Then," said the other, "there is, Damis, something else which controls and guides this elephant, and not the driver alone, whom you admire almost to the point of almost worshipping."
Damis replied: "What can that be, Apollonius? For I see nothing else upon the animal except the boy."
"This animal," he answered, " is docile beyond all others; and when he has once been broken in to serve man, he will put up with anything at the hands of man, and he makes it his business to be tractable and obedient to him, and he loves to eat out of his hands, in the way little dogs do; and when his master approaches he fondles him with his trunk, and he will allow him to thrust his head into his jaws, and he holds them as wide open as his master likes, as we have seen among the nomads.
But of a night the elephant is said to lament his state of slavery, yest by heven, not by trumpeting in his ordinary way, but by wailing mournfully and piteously. And if a man comes upon him when he is lamenting in this way, the elephant stops his dirge at once as if he were ashamed.
Such control, O Damis, has he over himself, and it is his instinctive obedience which actuates him rather than the man who sits upon and directs him."
This Juba is of opinion that the tusks are horns, because they grow just where the temples are, and because they need no sharpening of any kind, and remain as they grew and do not, like teeth, fall out and then grow afresh.
But I cannot accept this view; for horns, if not all, at any reate those of stags, do fall out and grow afresh, but the teeth, although in the case of men those which may fall out, will in every case grow again, on the other hand there is not a single animal whose tusk or dog-tooth falls out naturally, nor in which, when it has fallen out, it will come again. For nature implants these tusks in their jaws for the sake of defence. And moreover, a circular ridge is formed year by year at the base of the horns, as we see in the case of goats and sheep and oxen; but a tusk grows out quite smooth, and unless something breaks it, it always reminas so, for it consists of a material and substance as hard as stone.
Morever the carrying of horns is confined to animals with cloven hoofs, but this animal has five nails and the sole of his foot has many furrows in it, and not being confined by hoofs, it seems to stand on a soft, flabby foot.
And in the case of all animals that have horns, nature supplies cavernous bones and causes the horn to grow from outwards, whereas she makes the elephant tusk full and equally massive throughtout; and when in the lathe you lay bare the interior, you find a very thin tube piercing the centre of it, as is the case with teeth.
Now the tusks of the marsh elephants are dark in colour and porous and difficult to work, because they are hollowed out into many cavities, and often knots are formed in them which oppose difficulties to the craftsman's tool; but the tusks of the mountain kind, though smaller than these, are very white and there is nothing about them difficult to work; but best of all are the tusks of the elephants of the plain, for these are very large and very white and so pleasant to turn and carve that the hand can shape them into whatever it likes.
If I may also describe the characters of these elephants; those which come
from the marshes, and are taken there, are considered to be stupid and idle by
the Indians; but those which come from the mountains they regard as wicked
and treacherous and, unless they want something, not to be relied upon by
man; but the elephants of the plain are said to be good and tractable, and fond
of learning tricks; for they will write and dance, and will sway themselves to
and fro and leap up and down from the ground to the sound of the flute.
"No one, O Damis, has instructed them to do this, but they act of their own instinctive wisdom and cleverness; and you see how, like baggage-porters, they have picked up their young, and have them bound fast on, and so carry them along."
"I see," he said, "Apollonius, how cleverly and with what sagacity they do this. What then is the sense of this silly speculation indulged in by those who idly dispute whether the affection of animals for their young is natural or not, when these very elephants, by their conduct, proclaim that it is so, and that it comes to them by nature? For they have certainly not learnt to do so from men, as they have other things; for these have never yet shared the life of men, but have been endowed by nature with their love of their offspring, and this is why they provide for them and feed their young."
"And," said Apollonius, "you need not, Damis, confine your remarks to elephants; for this animal is only second to man, in my opinion, in understanding and foresight; but I am thinking rather of bears, for they are the fiercest of all animals, and yet they will do anything for their whelps; and also of wolves, amoung which, although they are so addicted to plunder, yet the female protects its young ones, and the male brings her food in order to save the life of the whelps.
And I also equally have in mind the panther, which, from the warmth of its temperament, delights to become a mother, for that is the time when it is determined to rule the male and be mistress of the household; and the male puts up with anything and everything from her, subordinating everything to the welfare of the offspring.
And there is also told the story of the lioness, how she will make a lover of the panther and receive him in the lion's lair in the plain; but when she is going to bring forth her young she flees into the mountains to the haunts of the panthers; for she brings forth young ones that are spotted, and that is why she hides her young and she is spending the day out hunting. For if the lion detected the trick, he would tear the whelps in pieces and claw her offspring as illegitimate. You have read not doubt, also, of one of Homer's lions, and of how he made himself look terrible in behalf of his own whelps and steeled himself to do battle for them.
And they say the tigress, although she is the cruellest animal in this country, will approach the ships on the Red Sea, to demand back her whelps; and if she gets them back, she goes off mightily delighted; but if the ships sail away, they say that she howls along the sea-coast and somethimes dies outright.
And who does not know the ways of birds, how that the eagles and the cranes will not build their nests until they have fixed in them, the one an eagle-stone, and other a stone of light, to help the hatching out of the eggs and to drive away the snakes.
And if we look at creatures in the sea, we need not wonder at the dolphins loving their offspring, for they are superior creatures; but shall we not admire the whales and seals and the vivparious species? For I once saw a seal that was kept shut up at Aegae in the circus, and she mourned so deeply for her whelp, which had died after being born in confinement, that she refused food for three days together, although she is the most voracious of animals.
And the whale takes up its young ones into the cavities of its throat, whenever it is fleeing from a creature bigger than itself. And a viper has been seen licking the serpents which it had borened, and caressing them with her tongure, which she shoots out for the purpose.
But we need not entertain, Damis, the silly story that the young of vipers are brought into the world without mothers; for that is a thing which is consistent neither with nature nor with experience."
Damis then resumed the conversation by saying: "You will allow me then to praise Euripides, for this iambic line which he puts into the mouth of Andromache.
"Then you would like," said Damis, "O Apollonius, to rewrite the line so that we might sing it as follows:
and I agree with you, for it is better so."
"Why certainly," he replied, "we did say so, Damis; for if intelligence did not govern this animal, neither would it subsist, nor the populations among which it lived."
"Why then," said Damis, "do they conduct their passage over the river in a way so stupid and inconvenient to themselves? For as you see, the smallest one is leading the way, and he is followed by a slightly larger one, then comes another still larger than he, and the biggest ones come last of all. But surely they ought to travel in the opposite fashion, and make the biggest ones a wall and rampart in front of themselves."
"But," replied Apollonius, "in the first place they appear to running away from men who are pursuing them, and whom we shall doubtless come across, as they follow the animals' tracks; and they must and ought to use their best strength to fortify their rear against attack, as is done in war; so that you may regard the elephant as the best tactician to be found among animals.
Secondly, as they are crossing a river, if their biggest ones went first, that would not enable the rest of the herd to judge whether the water is shallow enough for all to pass; for the tallest ones would find the passage practicable and easy, but the others would find it dangerous and difficult, because they would not rise above the level of the stream.
But the fact that the smallest is able to get across is a sign in itself
to the rest that there is no difficultry. And morever, if the bigger ones went in
first, they would deepen the river for the small ones, for the mud is forced to
settle down into ruts and trenches, owing to the heaviness of the animal and
the thickness of his feet; whereas the larger ones are in no way prejudiced by
the smaller ones, crossing in front, because they sink in less deeply."
So the Indian was regarded by Apollonius as a philospher, and addressing him through an interpreter, he said:
"I am delighted, O king, to find you living like a philospher. And," said Apollonius, "is this customary among you, or was it you yourself established your government on so modest a scale?"
"Our customs," said the king, "are dictated by moderation, and I am still more moderate in my carrying them out; and though I have more than other men, yet I want little, for I regard most things as belonging to my own friends."
"Blessed are you then in your treasure," said Apollonius, "if you rate your friends more highly than gold and silver, for out of them grows up for you a harvest of blessings."
"Nay more," said the king, "I share my wealth also with my enemies. For the barbarians who live on the border of this country were perpetually quarrelling with us and making raids into my territories, but I keep them quiet and control them with money, so that my country is patrolled by them, and instead of their invading my dominions, they themselves keep off the barbarians that are on the other side of the frontier, and are difficult people to deal with."
And when Apollonius asked him, whether Porus also had paid them subsidy, he replied: "Porus was as fond of war as I am of peace."
By expressing such sentiments he quite disarmed Apollonius, who was so captivated by him, that once, when he was rebuking Euphrates for his want of philosophic self-respect, he remarked: "Nay, let us rather reverence Phraotes the Indian," for this was the name of the Indian.
And when a satrap, for the great esteem in which he held the monarch, desired to bind on his brow a golden mitre adorned with various stones, he said: "Even if I were an admirer of such things, I should decline them now, and cast them off my head, because I have met with Apollonius. And how can I now adorn myself with ornaments which I never before deigned to bind upon my head, without ignoring my guest and forgetting myself?"
Apollonius also asked him about his diet, and he replied: "I drink just as much wine as I pour out in libation to the Sun; and whatever I take in the chase I give to others to eat, for I am satisfied with the exercise I get.
But my own meal consists of vegetables and of the pith and fruit of date palms, and of all that a well-watered garden yields in the way of fruit. And a great deal of fruit is yielded to me by the trees which I cultivate with these hands."
When Apollonius heard this, he was more than gratified, and kept glancing at Damis.
"Those were the Oxydrakae," he said, "but this race has always been independent and well equipped for war; and they say that they attempted, yet never acquired any real knowledge of wisdom.
But the genuine sages live between the Hyphasis and the Ganges, in a country which Alexander never reached; not I imagine because he was afraid of what was in it, but, I think, because the omens warned him against it. But if he had crossed the Hyphasis, and had been able to take the surrounding country, he could certainly hever have taken possession of their castle in which they live, not even if he had had ten thousand like Achilles, and thirty thousand like Ajax behind him; for they do not do battle with those who approach them, but they repulse them with prodigies and thunderbolts which they send forth, for they are holy men and beloved of the gods.
It is related, anyhow, that Hercules of Egypt and Dionysus after they had overrun the Indian people with their arms, at last attached them in company, and that they constructed engines of war, and tried to take the place by assault; but the sages, instead of taking the field against them, lay quiet and passive, as it seemed to the enemy; but as soon as the latter approached they were driven off by rockets of fire and thunderbolts which were hurled obliquely from above and fell upon their armour."
It was on that occasion, they say, that Hercules lost his golden shield, and the sages dedicated it as an offering, partly out of respect for Hercules' reputation, and partly because of the reliefs upon the shield. For in these Hercules is represented fixing the frontier of the world at Gadira, and turning the mountains into pillars, and confining the ocean within its bounds.
Thence it is clear that it was not the Theban Hercules, but the Egyptian one, that came to Gadira, and fixed the limits of the world."
"For," he said, "I don't imagine you are asleep, since you drink water and despise wine."
Said the other: "Then you don't think that those who drink water go to sleep?"
"Yes," said the king, "they sleep, but with a very light sleep, which just sits upon the tips of their eyelids, as we say, but not upon their minds."
"Nay with both do they sleep," said Apollononius, "and perhaps more with the mind than with the eyelids. For unless the mind is thoroughly composed, the eyes will not admit of sleep either. For note how madmen are not able to go to sleep because their mind leaps with excitement, and their thoughts run coursing hither and thither, so that their glances are full of fury and morbid impulse, like those of the dragons who never sleep.
Since then, O king," he went on, "we have clearly intimated the use and function of sleep, and what it signifies for men, let us examine whether the drinker of water need sleep less soundly than the drunkard."
"Do not quibble," said the king, "for if you put forward the case of a drunkard, he, I admit, will not sleep at all, for his mind is in a state of revel, and whirls him about and fills him with uproar. All, I tell you, who try to go to sleep when in drink seem to themselves to be rushed up on the roof, and then to be dashed down to the ground, and to fall into a whirl, as they say happened to Ixion. Now I do not put the case of a drunkard, but of a man who has merely drunk wine, but remains sober; I wish to consider whether he will sleep, and how much better he will sleep than a man who drinks no wine."
Apollonius then summoned Damis, and said:
"Tis a clever man with whom we are discussing and one thoroughly trained in argument."
"I see it is so, " said Damis, "and perhpas this is what is meant by the phrase 'catching a Tartar'.
But the argument excites me very much, of which he has delivered himsellf; so it is time for you to wake up and finish it."
Apollonius then raised his head slightly and said:
"Well I will prove, out of your own lips and following your own argument, how much advantage we who drink water have in that we sleep more sweetly. For you have clearly stated and admitted that the minds of drunkards are disordered and are in a condition of madness; for we see those who are under the spell of drink imagining that they see two moons at once and two suns, while those who have drunk less, even though they are quite sober, while they entertain no such delusions as these, are yet full of exultation and pleasure; and this fit of joy often falls upon them, even though they have not had any good luck, and men in such a condition will plead cases, although they neve opened their lips before in a law-court, and they will tell you they are rich, although they have not a farthing in their pockets.
Now these, O king, are the affections of a madman. For the mere pleasure of drinking disturbs their judgement, and I have known many of them who were so firmly convinced that they were well off, that they were unable to sleep, but leapt up in their slumbers, and this is the meaning of the saying that 'good fortune itself is a reason for being anxious.'
Men have also devised sleeping draughts, by drinking or anointing themselves with which, people at once stretch themselves out and go to sleep as if they were dead; but when they wake up from such sleep it is with a sort of forgetfulness, and they imagine that they are anywhere rather than where they are.
Now these draughts are not exactly drunk, but I would rather say that they drench the sould and body; for they do not induce any sound or proper sleep, but the deep coma of a man half dead, or the light and distracted sleep of men haunted by phantoms, even though they be wholesome ones; and you will, I think, agree with me in this, unless you are disposed to quibble rather than argue seriously.
But those who drink water, as I do see things as they really are, and they do not record in fancy things that are not; and they were never found to be giddy, nor full of drowsiness, or of silliness, nor unduly elated; but they are wide awake and thoroughly rational, and always the same, whether late in the evening or early in the morning when the market is crowded; for these men never nod, even though they pursue their studies far into the night.
For sleep does not drive them forth, pressing down like a slave-holder upon their necks, that are bowed down by the wine; but you find them free and erect, and they go to bed with a clear, pure sould and welcome sleep, and are neither buoyed up by the bubbles of their own private luck, nor scared out of their wits by any adversity.
For the soul meets both alternatives with equal clam, if it be sober and not overcome by either feeling; and that is why it can sleep a delightful sleep untouched by the sorrows which startle others from their couches.
And more than this, as a faculty of divination by means of dreams, which is the divinest and most god-like of human faculties, the soul detects the truth all lthe more easily when it is not muddied by wine, but accepts the message unstained and scans it carefully. Anyhow, the explainers of dreams and visions, those whom the poets call interpreters of dreams, will never undertake to explain any vision to anyone without having first asked the time when it was seen.
For if it was at dawn and in the sleep of morning-tide, they calculate its meaning on the assumption that the soul is then in a condition to divine soundly and healthily, because by then it has cleansed itself of the stains fo whine. But if the vision was seen in the first sleep or at midnight, when the soul is still immersed in the lees of wine and muddied thereby, they decline to make any suggestions, if they are wise.
And that the gods also are of this opinion, and that they commit the faculty of oracular response to souls which are sober, I will clearly show. There was, O king, a seer among the Greeks called Amphiaraus."
"I know," said the other; "for you allude, I imagine, to the son of Oecles, who was swallowed up alive by the earth on his way back from Thebes."
"This man, O king," said Apollonius, "still divines in Attica, inducing dreams in those who consult him, and the priests take a man who wishes to consult him, and they prevent his eating for one day, and from drinking wine for three, in order that he may imbibe the oracles with his soul in a condition of utter transparence. But if wine were a good drug of sleep, then the wise Amphiaraus would have bidden his votaries to adopt the opposite regimen, and would have had them carried into his shrine as full of wine as leathern flagons.
And I could mention may oracles, held in repute by Greeks and barbarians alike, where the priest utters his responses from the tripod after imbibing water and not wine. So you may consider me also as a fit vehicle of the god, O king, along with all who drink water. For we are rapt by the nymphs and are bacchantic revellers in sobriety."
"Well, then," said the king, "you must make me too, O Apollonius, a member of your religious brotherhood."
"I would do so," said the other, "provided only you will not be esteemed vulgar and held cheap by your subjects. For in the case of a king a philosphy that is at once moderate and indulgent makes a good mixture, as is seen in your own case; but an excess of rigour and severity would seem vulgar, O king, and beneath your august station; and it might be construed by the envious as due to pride."
"You then, O king, must attend to the business of state, but let me go and devote this hour to the Sun, for I must needs offer up to him my accustomed prayer."
"And I pray he may hear your prayer," said the king, "for he will bestow his grace on all who find pleasure in your wisdom; but I will wait for you until you return for I have to decide some cases in which your presence will very greatly help me."
Apollonius then returned, when the day was already for advanced and asked the king about the cases which he was judging; the king answered: "Today I have not judged any, for the omens did not allow me."
Apollonius then replied and said: "It is the case then that you consult the omens in such cases as these, just as you do when you are setting out on a journey or a campaign."
"Yes, by Zeus," he said, "for there is a risk in this case of one who is a judge straying from the right line."
Apollonius felt that what he said was true, and asked him again what the suit was wich he had to decide; "For I see," he said, "that you have given your attention to it and are perplexed what verdict to give."
"I admit," said the king, "that I am perplexed; and that is why I want your advice; for one man has sold to another land, in which there lay a trreasure as yet undiscovered, and some time afterwards the land, being broken up, revealed a certain chest, which the person who sold the land says belongs to him rather than the other, for that he would never have sold the land, if he had known beforehand that he had a fortune thereon; but the purchaser claims that he acquired everything that he found in land, which thenceforth was his. And, both their contentions are just; and I shall seem ridiculous if I order them to share the gold between them, for any old woman could settle the matter in that way."
Apollonius thereupon replied as follows:
"The fact that they are quarrelling about gold shows that these two men are no philosophers; and you will, in my opinion, give the best verdict if you bear this in mind, that the gods attach the first importance and have most care for those who live a life of philosophy together with moral excellence, and only pay secondary attention to those who have committed no faults and were never found unjust.
Now they entrust to philosophers the taks of rightly discerning things divine and human as they should be discerned, but to those who merely re of good character they give enought to live upon, so hat they may never be rendered unjust by actual lack of the necessaries of life.
It seems then to me, O king, right to weight these men in the balance, as it were, and to examine their respective lives; for I cannot believe that the gods would deprive the one even of this land, unless he was a bad man, or that they would, on the other hand, bestow on the other even what was under the land, unless he was better than the man who sold it."
The two claimants came back the next day, and the seller was convicted of being a ruffian who had neglected the sacrifices, which it was his bounden duty to sacrifice to the gods on that land; but the other was found to be a decent man and a most
devout worshipper of the gods. Accordingly, the opinion of Apollonius prevailed, and the better of the two men quitted the court as one on whom the gods had bestowed this boon.
" But," said the other, " the law does not yet speak to you thus, for you can remain on the morrow, since you came after midday.
"I am delighted," said Apollonius, "with your hospitality, and indeed you seem to me to be straining the law for my sake."
"Yes indeed,: and I would I could break it," said the king, "in your behalf; but tell me this, Apollonius, did not the camels bring you from Babylon which they say you were riding ?"
"They did," he said, "and Vardan gave them us."
"Will they then be able to carry you on, after they have come already so many stades from Babylon?"
Apollonius made no answer, but Damis said: "O king, our friend here does not understand anything about our journey, nor about the races among which we shall find ourselves in future; but he regards our passage into India as mere child's play, under the impression that he will everywhere have you and Vardan to help him. I assure you, the true condition of the camels has not been acknowledged to you; for they are in such an evil state that we could carry them rather than they us, and we must have others. For if they collapse anywhere in the wilderness of India, we," he continued, " shall have to sit down and drive off the vultures and wolves from the camels, and as no one will drive them off from us we shall perish too."
The king answered accordingly and said: "I will remedy this, for I will give you other camels, and you need four I think, and the satrap ruling the Indus will send bak four others to Babylon. But I have a herd of camels on the Indus, all of them white."
"And," said Damis, " will you not also give us a guide, O king?"
"Yes, of course," he aswered, "and I will give a camel to the guide and provisions, and I will write a letter to Iarchas, the oldest of the sages, praying him to welcome Apollonius as warmly as he did myself, and to welcome you also as philosophers and followers of a divine man."
And forthwith the Indian gave them gold and precious stones and linen and a thousand other such things. And Apollonius said that he had enough gold already, because Vardan had given it to the guide on the sly; but that he would accept the linen robes, because they were like the cloaks worn by the ancient and genuine inhabitants of Attica.
And he took up one of the stones and said: "0 rare stone, how opportunely have I found you, and how providentially !" detecting in it, I imagine, some secret and divine virtue. Neither would the companions of Damis accept for themselves the gold; nevertheless they took good handfuls of the gems, in order to dedicate them to the gods, whenever they should regain their own country.
So they remained the next day as well, for Indian would not let them go, and he gave them a letter for Iarchas, written in the following terms:-
"King Phroates to Iarchus his master and to his companløns, all hail !
Apollonius, wisest of men, yet accounts you still wiser than himself, and is come to learn your lore. Send him away therefore when he knows all that you know yourselves, assured that nothing of your teachings will pelish, for in discourse and memory he excels all men. And let him also see the throne, on which I sat, when you, Father Iarchas, bestowed on me the kingdom. And his followers too deserve commendation for their devotion to such a master. Farewell to yourself and your companions."
And having crossed the river Hydraotes and passed by several tribes, they reached the Hyphasis, and thirty stades away from this they came on altars bearing this inscription:
"To Father Ammon and Heracles his brother,
and to Athena Providence and to Zeus of Olympus
and to the Cabeiri of Samothrace
and to the Indian Sun and to the Delphian Apollo."
And they say there was also a brass column dedicated, and inscribed as follows:
"Alexander stayed his steps at this point."
The altars we may suppose to be due to Alexander who so honoured the limit of his Empire; but I fancy the lndians beyond the Hyphasis erected the column, by way of expressing their pride at Alexander's having gone no further.
There is also a creature in this river which resembles a white worm. By melting down they make an oil, and from this oil, it appears, there is given off a flame such that nothing but glass can contain it. And this creature may be caught by the king alone, who utilises it for the capture of cities; for as soon as the fat in question touches the battlements, a fire is kindled which defies all the ordinary means : devised by men against combustibles.
AND they say that wild asses are also to be captured in these marshes, and these creatures have a horn upon the forehead, with which they butt like a bull and make a noble fight of it; the Indians make this horn into a cup, for they declare that no one can ever fall sick on the day on which he has drunk out of it, nor will any one who has done so be the worse for being wounded, and he will be able to pass through fire unscathed, and he is even immune from poisonous draughts which others would drink to their harm. Accordingly, this goblet is reserved for kings, and the king alone may indulge in the chase of this creature.
And Apollonius says that he saw this animal, and admired its natural features; but when Damis asked him if he believed the story about the goblet, he answered:
"I will believe it, if I find the king of the Indians hereabout to be immortal; for surely a man who can offer me or anyone else a draught potent against disease and so wholesome, he not be much more likely to imbibe it himself, and take a drink out of this horn every day even at the risk of intoxication? For no one, I conceive, would blame him for exceeding in such cups."
AT this place they say that they also fell in with a woman who was black from her head to her bosom, but was altogether white from her bosom down to her feet; and the rest of the party fled from her believing her to be a monster, but Apollonius clasped the woman by the hand and understood what she was; for in fact such a woman in India is consecrated to Aphrodite, and a woman is born piebald in honour of this goddess, just as is Apis among the Egyptians.
After crossing the top of the mountain, they say they saw a smooth plain seamed with cuts and ditches full of water, some of which were carried crosswise, whilst others were straight; these are derived from the river Ganges, and serve both for boundaries and also are distributed over the plain, when the soil is dry. But they say that this soil is the best in India, and constitutes the greatest of the territorial divisions of that country, extending in length towards the Ganges a journey of fifteen days and of eighteen from the sea to the mountain of the apes along which it skirts. The whole soil of the plain is black and fertile of everything; for you can see on it standing corn as high as reeds and you can also see beans three times as large as the Egyptian kind, as well as sesame and millet of enormous size. And they say that nuts also grow there, of which many are treasured up in our temples here as objects of curiosity. But the vines which grow there are small, like those of the Lydians and Maeones; their vintage however is not only drinkable, but has a fine bouquet from the first. They also say that they came upon a tree there resembling the laurel, upon which there grew a cup or husk resembling a very large pomegranate; and inside the cup there was a kernel as blue as the cups of the hyacinth, but sweeter to the taste than any of the fruits the seasons bring.
AND the dragons along the foothills and the mountain crests make their way into the plains after their quarry, and prey upon all the creatures in the marshes; for indeed they reach an extreme length, and move faster than the swiftest rivers, so that nothing escapes them. These actually have a crest, of moderate extent and height when they are young; but as they reach their full size, it grows with them and extends to a considerable height, at which time also they turn red and get serrated backs. This kind also have beards, and lift their necks on high, while their scales glitter like silver; and the pupils of their eyes consist of a fiery stone, and they say that this has an uncanny power for many secret purposes. The plain specimen falls the prize of the hunters whenever it draws upon itself an elephant; for the destruction of both creatures is the result, and those who capture the dragons are rewarded by getting the eyes and skin and teeth. In most respects they resemble the largest swine, but they are slighter in build and 'flexible, and they have teeth as sharp and indestructible as those of the largest fishes.
Now the dragons of the mountains have scales of a golden colour, and in length excel those of the plain, and they have bushy beards, which also are of a golden hue; and their eyebrows are more prominent than those of the plain, and their eye is sunk deep under the eyebrow, and emits a terrible and ruthless glance. And they give off a noise like the clashing of brass whenever they are burrowing under the earth, and from their crests, which are all fiery red there flashes a fire brighter than a torch. They also can catch the elephants, though they are themselves caught by the Indians in the following manner. They embroider golden runes on a scarlet cloak, which they lay in front of the animal's burrow after charming them to sleep with the runes; for this is the only way to overcome the eyes of the dragon, which are otherwise inflexible, and much mysterious lore is sung by them to overcome him. These runes induce the dragon to stretch his neck out of his burrow and fall asleep over them: then the lndians fall upon him as he lies there, and despatch him with blows of their axes, and having cut off the head they despoil it of its gems. And they say that in the heads of the mountain dragons there are stored away stones of flowery colour, which flash out all kinds of hues, and possess a mystical power if set in a ring; like that which they say belonged to Gyges. But often the Indian, in spite of his axe and his cunning, is caught by the dragon, who carries him off into his burrow and almost shakes the mountains as he disappears. These are also said to inhabit the mountains in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea, and they say that they heard them hissing terribly and that they saw them go down to the shore and swim far out into the sea. It was impossible however to ascertain the number of years that this creature lives, nor would my statements be believed. This is all I know about dragons.
THEY tell us that the city under the mountain is of great size and is called Parax, and that in the centre of it are stored up a great many heads of dragons, for the Indians who inhabit it are trained from their boyhood in this form of sport. And they are also said to acquire an understanding of the language and ideas of animals by feeding either on the heart or the liver of the dragon.
FROM this point their road led for four days across a rich and well cultivated country, till they approached the castle of the sages, when their guide bade his camel crouch down, and leapt off it in such an agony of fear that he was bathed in perspiration. Apollonius however quite understood where he was come to, and smiling at the panic of the Indian, said:
"It seems to me that this fellow, were he a mariner who had reached harbour after a long sea voyage, would worry at being on land and tremble at being in dock."
And as he said this he ordered his camel to kneel down, for indeed he was by now well accustomed to do so. And it seems that what scared the guide so much was that he was now close to the sages; for the Indians fear these people more than they do their own king, because the very king to whom the land is subject consults them about everything that he has to say or do, just as people who send to an oracle of a god; and the sages indicate to him what it is expedient for him to do, and what is inexpedient, and dissuade and warn him off with signs.
AND they were about to halt in the neighbouring village, which is hardly distant a single stade from the eminence occupied by the sages, when they saw a youth run up to them, the blackest Indian they ever saw; and between his eyebrows was a crescent shaped spot which shone brightly. But I learn that at a later time the same feature was remarked in the case of Menon the pupil of Herod the Sophist, who was an Ethiop; it showed while he was a youth, but as he grew up to man's estate its splendour waned and finally disappeared with his youth. But the Indian also wore, they say, a golden anchor, which is affected by Indians as a herald's badge, because it holds all things fast.
THEN he ran up to Apollonius and addressed him in the Greek tongue; and so far this did not seem so remarkable, because all the inhabitants of the village spoke the Greek tongue. But when he addressed him by name and said " Hail so and so," the rest of the party were filled with astonishment, though our sage only felt the more confidence in his mission: for he looked to Damis and said:
"We have reached men who are unfeignedly wise, for they seem to have the gift of foreknowledge."
The word Masters at once had a Pythagorean ring for the ears of Apollonius and he gladly followed the messenger. Now the hill the summit of which is inhabited by 'the sages is, according to the account of our travellers, of about the same height as the Acropolis of Athens; and it rises: straight up from the plain, though its natural position equally secures it from attack for the rock surrounds it on all sides. On many parts of this rock you see traces of cloven feet and outlines of beards and of faces, and here and there impressions of backs as of persons who had slipt - and rolled down. For they say that Dionysus, when he was trying to storm the place together with Hercules, ordered the Pans to attack it, thinking that they would be strong enough to take it by assault; but they were thunderstruck by the sages and fell one, one way, and another, another; and the rocks as it were took the print of the various postures in which they fell and failed. And they say that they saw a cloud floating round the eminence on which the Indians live and render themselves visible or invisible at will. Whether there were any other gates to the eminence they say they did not know; for the cloud around it did not anywhere allow them to be seen, whether there was an opening in the rampart, or whether on the other hand it was a close-shut fortress.
APOLLONIUS says that he himself ascended mostly on the south side of the ridge, following the Indian, and that the first thing he saw was a well four fathoms deep, above the mouth of which there rose a sheen of deep blue light; and at midday when the sun was stationary about it, the sheen of light was always drawn up on high by the rays, and in its ascent assumed the look of a glowing rainbow. But he learnt afterwards that the soil underneath the well was composed of realgar, but that they regarded the water as holy and mysterious, and no one either drank it or drew it up, but it was regarded by the whole land of India all around as binding in oaths. And near this there was a crater, he says, of fire, which sent up a lead-coloured flame, though it emitted no smoke or any smell, nor did this crater ever overflow, but emitted just matter enough not to bubble over the edges of the pit. It is here that the Indians purify themselves of involuntary sins, wherefore the sages call the well, the well of testing, and the fire, the fire of pardon. And they say that they saw there two jars of black stone, of the rains and of the winds respectively. The jar of the rains, they say, is opened in case the land of India is suffering from drought, and sends up clouds to moisten the whole country; but if the rains should be in excess they are stopped by the jar being shut up. But the jar of the winds plays, I imagine, the same role as the bag of Aeolus: for when they open this jar ever so little, they let out one of the winds, which creates a seasonable breeze by which the country is refreshed. And they say that they came upon statues of Gods, and they were not nearly so much astonished at finding Indian or Egyptian God as they were by finding the most ancient of the Greek Gods, a statue of Athene Polias and of Apollo of Delos and of Dionysus of Limnae and another of him Amyclae, and others of similar age. These were set up by these Indians and worshipped with Greek rites. And they say that they are met with in the heart of India. Now they regard the summit of this hill as the navel of the earth, and on it they worship fire with mysterious rites, deriving the fire, according to their own account, from the rays of the sun; and to the Sun they sing a hymn every day at midday.
APOLLONIUS himself describes the character of these sages and of their settlement upon the hill; for in one of his addresses to the Egyptians he says:
"l saw Indian Brahmans living upon the earth and yet not on it, and fortified without fortifications, and possessing nothing, yet having the riches of all men."
He may indeed be thought to have here written with too much subtlety; but we have anyhow the account of Damis to effect that they made a practice of sleeping the ground, and that they strewed the ground with such grass as they might themselves prefer; and, what is more, he says that he saw them levitating themselves two cubits high from the ground, not for the sake of' miraculous display, for they disdain any such ambition; but they regard any rites they perform, in thus quitting earth and walking with the Sun, as acts of homage acceptable to the God. Moreover, they neither burn upon an altar nor keep in stoves the fire which they extract from the sun's rays, although it is a material fire; but like the rays of sunlight when they are refracted in water, so this fire is seen raised aloft in the air and dancing in the ether. And further - they pray to the Sun who governs the seasons by his might, that the latter may succeed duly in the land, so that India may prosper; but of a night they intreat the ray of light not to take the night amiss, but. to stay with them just as they have brought it down. Such then was the meaning of the phrase of Apollonius, that "the Brahmans are upon earth and yet not upon earth."
And his phrase "fortified without fortifications or walls," refers to the air or vapour under which they bivouac, for though they seem to live in the open air, yet they raise up a shadow and veil themselves in it, so that they are not made wet when it rains and they enjoy the sunlight whenever they choose.
And the phrase "without possessing anything they had the riches of all men," is thus explained by Damis: All the springs which the Bacchanals see at leaping up from the ground under their feet, whenever Dionysus stirs them and earth in a common convulsion, spring up in plenty for these Indians also when they are entertaining or being entertained. Apollonius therefore was right in saying that people provided as they are with all they want offhand and without having prepared anything, possess what they do not possess. And on principle they grow their hair long, as the Lacedaemonians did of old and the people of Thunum and Tarentum, as well as the Melians and all who set store by the fashions of Sparta; and they bind a white turban on their heads, and their feet are naked for walking and they cut their garments to resemble the exomis. But the material of which they make their raiment is a wool that springs wild from the ground, white like that of the Pamphylians, though it is of softer growth, and a grease like olive oil distils from off it. This is what they make their sacred vesture of, and if anyone else except these Indians tries to pluck it up, the earth refuses to surrender its wool. And they all carry both a ring and a staff of which the peculiar virtues can effect all things, and the one and the other, so we learn, are prized as secrets.
"Why," replied the latter, "how can you ask, when it is sufficiently shown by the fact that I have taken a joumey to see you which was never till now accomplished by any of the inhabitants of my country."
"And what do you think we know more than yourself?"
"I," replied the other, "consider that your lore is profounder and much more divine than our own; and if I add nothing to my present stock of knowledge while I am with you, I shall at least have learned. that I have nothing more to learn."
Thereupon the Indian replied and said: "Other people ask those who arrive among them, who they are that come, and why, but the first display we make of our wisdom consists in showing that we are not ignorant who it is that comes. And you may test this point to begin with." And to suit his word he forthwith recounted the whole story of Apollonius' family both on his father's and his mother's side, and he related all his life in Aegae, and how Damis had joined him, and any conversations that they had had on the road, and anything they had found out through the conversation of others with them. All this, just as if he had shared their voyage with them, the Indian recounted straight off, quite clearly and without pausing for breath. And when Apollonius was astounded and asked him how he came to know it all, he replied: "And you too are come to share in this wisdom, but you are not yet an adept."
"Will you teach me, then," said the other, "all this wisdom?"
"Aye, and gladly, for that is a wiser course than grudging and hiding matters of interest; and moreover, O Apollonius, I perceive that you are well endowed with memory, a goddess whom we love more than any other of the divine beings."
" Well," said the other, "you have certainly discerned by your penetration my exact disposition."
" We," said the other, "O Apollonius, can see all spiritual traits, for we trace and detect them by a thousand signs. But as it is nearly mid day, and we must get ready our offerings for the Gods, let us now employ ourselves with that, and afterwards let us converse as much as you like; but you must take part in all our religious rites."
"By Zeus," said Apollonius, "I should be wronging the Caucasus and the Indus; both of which I have crossed in order to reach you, if I did not enjoy your rites to the full."
"Do so," said the other, "and let us depart."
ACCORDINGLY they betook themselves to a spring of water, which Damis, who saw it subsequently, says resembles that of Dirce in Boeotia; and first they stripped, and then they anointed their heads with an amber-like drug, which imparted such a warmth to these Indians, that their bodies steamed and the sweat ran off them as profusely as if they were washing themselves with fire; next they threw themselves into the water and, having so taken their bath, they betook themselves to the temple with wreaths upon their heads and full of sacred song. And they stood round in the .form of a chorus, and having chosen Iarchas as conductor they struck the earth, uplifting their rods, and the earth arched itself like a billow of the sea and raised them up two cubits high into the air. But they sang a song resembling the paean of Sophoeles which they sing at Athens in honour of Asclepius. But when they had alighted upon the ground, Iarchas called the stripling who carried the anchor and said: "Do you look after the companions of Apollonius." And he went off swifter than the quickest of the birds, and coming back again said: "I have looked after them." Having fulfilled then the most of their religious rites, they sat down to rest upon their seats, but Iarchas said to the stripling: "Bring out the throne of Phraotes for the wise Apollonius that he may sit upon it to converse with us."
"Ask whatever you like, for you find yourself among people who know everything."
Apollonius then asked him whether they knew themselves also, thinking that he, like the Greeks, would regard self-knowledge as a difficult matter.
But the other, contrary to Apollonius' expectations, corrected him and said: "We know everything, just because we begin by knowing ourselves; for no one of us would be admitted to this philosophy unless he first knew himself."
And Apollonius remembered what he had heard Phraotes say, and how he who would become a philosopher must examine himself before he undertakes the task; and he therefore acquiesced in this answer, for he was convinced of its truth in his own case also.
He accordingly asked a fresh question, namely, who they considered themselves to be; and the other answered " We consider ourselves to be Gods."
Apollonius asked afresh: "Why ?"
"Because," said the other, "we are good men."
This reply struck Apollonius as so instinct with trained good sense that he subsequently mentioned it to Domitian in his defence of himself.
"That," replied the other, "which Pythagoras imparted to you, and which we imparted to the Egyptians."
"Would you then say," said Apollonius, "that as Pythagoras declared himself to be Euphorbus, so you yourself, before you entered your present body, were one of the Trojans or Achaeans or someone else? "
And the Indian replied: "Those Achaean sailors were the ruin of Troy, and your talking so much about it is the ruin of you Greeks. For you imagine that the campaigners against Troy were the only heroes that ever were, and you forget other heroes both more numerous and more divine, whom your own country and that of the Egyptians and that of the Indians have produced. Since then you have asked me about my earlier incarnation, tell me, whom you regard as the most remarkable of the assailants or defenders of Troy."
"I," replied Apollonius, "regarid Achilles, the son of Peleus and Thetis, as such, for he and no other is celebrated by Homer as excelling all the Achaeans in personal beauty and size, and he knows of mighty deeds of his. And he also rates very highly such men as Ajax and Nireus, who were only second to him in beauty and courage, and are celebrated as such in his poems."
"With him," said the other, "O Apollonius, I would have you compare my own ancestor, or rather my ancestral body, for that was the light in which Pythagoras regarded Euphorbus.
From this remark Apollonius realised that the king in question was not only inferior to Phraotes in a few details, but in tbe whole of philosophy; and as he saw that the sages did not bestir themselves to make any preparations or provide for the king's wants, though he was come at midday, he said: "Where is the king going to stay?"
"Here," they replied, "for we shall discuss by night the objects for which he is come, since that is the best time for taking counsel."
"And will a table be laid for him when he comes," said Apollonius.
"Why, of course," they answered, " a rich table too, furnished with everything which this place provides".
"Then," said he, "you live richly?"
"We," they answered, "live in a slender manner, for although we might eat as much as we like, we are contented with little; but the king requires a great deal, for his his plewsure. But he will not eat any living creature, for it is wrong to do here, but only dried fruits and roots and the seasonable produce of the Indian land at this time of year, and whatever else the new year's seasons will provide."
"But see," said he, " here he is."
And just then the king advanced together with his brother and his son, ablaze with gold and jewels. And Apollonius was about to rise and retire, when Iarchas checked him from leaving his throne, and explained to him that it was not their custom for him to do so. Damis himself says that he was not present on this occasion, because on that day he was staying in the village, but he heard from Apollonius what happened and wrote it in his book. He says then that when they had sat down, the king extended his hand as if in prayer to the sages and they nodded their assent as if they were conceding his request; and he was transported with joy at the promise, just as if he had come to the oracle of a God. But the brother of the king and his son, who was a very pretty boy, were not more considered than if they had been the slaves of the others, that were mere retainers. After that the Indian rose from his place, and in a formal speech bade the king take food, and he accepted the invitation and that most cordially. Thereupon four tripods stepped forth like Rhose of the Pythian Temple, but of their own accord, like those which advanced in Homer's poem, and upon them were cupbearers of black brass resembling the figures of Ganymede and of Pelops amoung the Greeks.
And the earth strewed beneath them grass softer than any mattress. And dried fruits and bread and vegetables and the dessert of the season all came in, served in order, and set before them more agreeably that if cooks and waiters had provided it; now two of the tripods flowed with wine, but the other two supplied, the one of them a jet of warm water and the other of cold. Now the precious stones imported from India are employed in Greece for necklaces and rings because they are so small, but among the Indians they are turned into decanters and wine coolers, because they are so large, and into goblets of such size that from a single one of them four persons can slake their thirst at midsummer. But the cupbearers of bronze drew a mixture, he says, of wine and water made in due proportions; and they pushed cups round, just as they do in drinking bouts. The sages, however, reclined as we do in a common banquet, not that any special honour was paid to the king, although great importance would be attached to him among Greeks and Romans, but each took the first place that he chanced to reach.
"Quite, right," he answered, "and true is what you heard: for it is Phraotes who entertains him here also."
"What," asked the king, "is his mode of life and pursuit?"
"Why, what else," replied Iarchas, "except that of that king himself?"
"It is no great compliment you have paid him," answered the king, "by saying that he has embraced a mode of life which has denied even to Phraotes the chance of being a noble man."
Thereupon Iarchas remarked: "You must judge more reasonably, O king, both about philosophy and about Phraotes: for as long as you were a stripling, your youth excused in you such extravagances. But now that you have already reached man's estate, let us avoid foolish and facile utterances."
But Apollonius, who found an interpreter in Iarchas said:
"And what have you gained, O king, by refusing to be a philospher?"
"What have I gained? Why, the whole of virtue and the identification of myself with the Sun."
Then the other, by way of checking his pride and muzzling him, said:
"If you were a philosopher, you would not entertain such fancies."
"And you," replied the king, "since you are a philosopher, what is your fancy about yourself, my fine fellow ?"
"That I may pass," replied Apollonius, "for being a good man, if only I can be a philosopher."
Thereupon the king stretched out his hand to heaven and exclaimed:
"By the Sun, you come here full of Phraotes."
But the other hailed this remark as a godsend, and catching him up said:
"I have not taken this long journey in vain, if I am become full of Phraotes. But if you should meet him presently, you will certainly say that he is full of me; and he wished to write to you in my behalf, but since he declared that you were a good man, I begged him not to take the trouble of writing, seeing that in his case no one sent a letter commending me."
THIS put a stop to the incipient folly of the king for having heard that he himself was praised by Phraotes he not only dropped his suspicions, but lowering his tone he said: "Welcome, goodly stranger."
But Apollonius answered: "And my welcome to you also, O king, for you appear to have only just arrived."
"And who," asked the other, "attracted you to us ?"
"These gentlemen here, who are both Gods and wise men."
"And about myself, O stranger"; said the king, "what is said among Hellenes?"
"Why, as much," said Apollonius, "as is said about the Hellenes here."
"As for myself, I find nothing in the Helenes," said the other, "that is worth speaking of."
"I will tell them that," said Apollonius, "and they will crown you at Olympia."
"Let him go on like a drunkard, but do you tell me why do you not invite to the same table as yourself, nor hold worthy of other recognition those who accompany this man, though they are his brother and son, as you tell me?"
"Because," said Iarchas", they reckon to be kings one day themselves, and by being made, themselves a to suffer disdain they must be taught not to distain others."
And remarking that the sages were eighteen in number, he again asked Iarchas, what was the meaning of their being just so many and no more.
"For," he said, "the number eighteen is not a square number, nor is it one of the numbers held in esteem and honour, as are the numbers ten and twelve and sixteen and so forth."
Thereupon the Indian took him up and said: "Neither are we beholden to number nor number to us, but we owe our superior honour to wisdom and virtue; and sometimes we are more in number than we now are, and sometimes fewer. And indeed I have heard that when my grandfather was enrolled among these wise men, the youngest of them all, they were seventy in number but when he reached his 130th year, he was left here all alone, because not one of them survived him at that time, nor was there to be found anywhere in India a nature that was either philosophic or noble.
The Egyptians accordingly wrote and congratulated him warmly on being left alone for four years in his tenure of this throne, but he begged them to cease reproaching the Indians for the paucity of their sages. Now we, O Apollonius, have heard from the Egyptians of the custom of the Elians, and that the Hellanodicae, who preside over the Olympic games, are ten in number; but we do not approve of the rule imposed in the case of these men; for they leave the choice of them to the lot, and the lot has no discernment, for a worse man might be as easity chosen by lot as a better one. On the other hand would they not make a mistake; if they had made merit the qualification and chosen them by vote? Yes, a parallel one, for if you are on no account to exceed the number ten, there may more than ten just men, and you will deprive some of the rank which their merits entitle them to, while if on the other hand there are not so many as ten, then restriction of the number is meaningless. Wherefore the Elians would be much wiser-minded if they allowed the number to fluctuate, merely insisting on justice as a qualification for all alike".
"We are discussing matters important and held in great repute among the Hellenes; though you would think of them but slightly, for you say that you detest everything Hellenic."
"I do certainly detest them," he said, "but nevertheless I want to hear; for I imagine you are talking about those Athenians the slaves of Xerxes."
But Apollonius replied:
"Nay we are discussing other things; but since you have alluded to the Athenians in a manner both absurd and false, answer me this question: Have you, O King, any slaves?"
"Twenty thousand," said the other, "and not a single one of them did I buy myself, but they were all born in my household."
Thereupon Apollonius, using Iarchas as his interpreter, asked him afresh whether he was in the habit of running away from his slaves or his slaves from him.
And the king by way of insult answered him: "Your very question is worthy of a slave, nevertheless I will answer it: a man who runs away is not only a slave but a bad one to boot, and his master would never run away from him, when he can if he likes both torture and card him."
"In that case," said Apo]lonius, "O king, Xerxes has been proved out of your mouth to have been a slave of the Athenians, and like a bad slave to have run away from them; for when he was defeated by them in the naval action in the Straits, he was so anxious about his bridge of boats over the Hellespont that he fled in a single ship.
"Yes, but he anyhow burned Athens with his own hands," said the king.
And Apollonius answered: "And for that act of audacity, O king, he was punished as never yet was any other man. For he had to run away from those whom he imagined he had destroyed; and when I contemplate the ambitions with which Xerxes set out on his campaign I can conceive that some were justified in exalting him and saying that he was Zeus; but when I contemplate his flight, I arrive at the conviction that he was the most illstarred of men. For if he had fallen at the hands of the Hellenes, no one would have earned a brighter fame than he. For to whom would the Hellenes have raised and dedicated a loftier tomb? What jousts of armed men, what contests of musicians would not have been instituted in honour of him? For, if men like Melicertes and Pilaemon and Pelops the Lydian immigrant, the former of whom died in childhood at the breast, while Pelops enslaved Arcadia and Argolis and the land within the Isthtus, -- if these were commemorated by the Greeks as Gods, what would not have been done for Xerxes by men who are by nature more enthusiastic admirers of the virtues, and who consider that they praise themselves in praising those whom they have defeated?"
THESE words of Apollonius caused the king to burst into tears, and he said: "Dearest friend, in what an heroic light do you represent these Hellenes to me."
"Why then, O king, were you so hard upon them?"
"The visitors who come hither from Egypt, O guest," replied the king, "malign the race of Hellenes, and while declaring that they themselves are holy men and wise, and the true law-givers who fixed all the sacrifices and rites of initiation which are in vogue among the Greeks, they deny to the latter any and every sort of good quality, declaring them to be ruffians, and a mixed herd addicted to every sort of anarchy, and lovers of legend and miracle mongers, and though indeed poor, yet making their poverty not a title of dignity, but a mere excuse for stealing. But now that I have heard this from you and understand how fond of honour and how worthy the Hellenes are, I am reconciled for the future to them and I engage both that they shall have my praise and that I will pray all I can for them, and will never set trust in another Egyptian."
But Iarchas remarked: "I too, O king, was aware that your mind had been poisoned by these Egyptians; but I would not take the part of the Hellenes until you met some such counsellor as this. But since you have been put right by a wise man, let us now proceed to quaff the good cheer provided by Tantalus, and let us sleep over the serious issues which we have to discuss tonight. But at another time I will fill you full with Hellenic arguments, and no other race is so rich in them; and you will delight in them whenever you come hither."
And forthwith he set an example to this fellow guests, by stooping the first of them all to the goblet which indeed furnished an ample draught for all; for the stream refilled itself plenteously, as if with spring waters welling up from the ground; and Apollonius also drank, for this cup is instituted by the Indians as a cup of friendship; and they feign that Tantalus is tbe wine-bearer who supplies it, because he is considered to have been the most friendly of men.
But he commended him for his kindness, nevertheless he excused himself from inflicting himself upon one with whom he was on no sort of equality; moreover, he said that he had been longer abroad than he liked, and that he scrupled to give his friends at home cause to think they were being neglected.
The king thereupon said that he entreated him, and assumed such an undignified attitude in urging his request, that Apollonius said:
"A king who insists upon his request in such terms at the expense of his dignity, is laying a trap."
Thereupon Iarchas intervened and said:
"You wrong, O king, this sacred abode by trying to drag away from it a man against his will; and moreover, being one of those who can read the future, he is aware that his staying with you would not conduce to his own good, and would probably not be in any way profitable to yourself."
THE king accordingly went down into the village, for the law of the sages did not allow a king to be with them more than one day; but Iarchas said to the messenger: " We admit Damis also hither to our mysteries; so let him come; but do you look after the rest of them in the village."
And when Damis arrived, they sat down together, as they were wont to do, and they allowed Apollonius to ask questions; and he-asked them of-what they thought the comsos was composed; but they replied:
"Of elements."
"Are there then four" he asked.
"Not four," said Iarchas, "but five."
"And how can there be a fifth," said Apollonius, "alongside of water and air and earth and fire ?"
"There is the ether", replied the other, "which we must regard as the stuff of which gods are made; for just as all mortal creatures inhale tbe air, so do immortal and divine natures inhale the ether."
Apollonius again asked which was the first of the elements, and Iarchas answered:
"AII are simultaneous, for a living creature is not born bit by bit."
"Am I," said Apollonius, "to regard the universe as a living creature?"
"Yes," said the other, "if you have a sound knowledge of it, for it engenders all living things."
"Shall I then," said Apollonius, "call the universe female, or of both the male and the opposite gender ?"
"Of both genders," said the other, "for by commerce with itself it fulfils the role both of mother and father in bringing forth living creatures; and it is possessed by a love for itself more intense than any separate being has for its fellow, a passion which knits it together into harmony. And it is not illogical to suppose that it cleaves unto itself; for as the movement of an animal is obtained by use of its hands and feet, and as there is a soul in it by which it is set in motion, so we must regard the parts of the universe also as adapting themselves through its inherent soul to all creatures which are brought forth or conceived.
For example, the sufferings so often caused by drought are visited on us in accordance with the soul of the universe, whenever justice has fallen into disrepute and is disowned by men; and this animal shepherds itself not with a single hand only, but with many mysterious ones, which it has at its disposal; and though from its immense size it is controlled by no others yet it moves obediently to the rein and is easily guided."
"And the subject is so vast and so far transcends our mental powers, that I do not know any example adequate to illustrate it; but we will take that of a ship, such as the Egyptians construct for our seas and launch for the exchange of Egyptian goods against Indian wares. For there is an ancient law in regard to the Red Sea, which the king Erythras laid down, when he held sway over that sea, to the effect that the Egyptians should not enter it with a vessel of war, and indeed should employ only a single merchant ship.
This regulation obliged the Egyptians to contrive a ship equivalent to several at once of those which other races have; and they ribbed the sides of this ship with bolts such as hold a ship together, and they raised its bulwarks and its mast to a great height, and they constructed several compartments, such as are built upon the timber balks which run athwart a ship, and they set several pilots in this boat and subordinated them to the oldest and wisest of their number, to conduct the voyage; and there were several officers on the prow and excellent and handy sailors to man the sails; and in the crew of this ship there was a detachment of armed men, for it is necessary to equip the ship and protect it against the savages of the Gulf that live on the right hand as you enter it, in case they should ever attack and plunder it on the high seas. Let us apply this imagery to the universe, and regard it in the light of a naval construction; for then you must apportion the first and supreme position to God. the begetter of this animal and subordinate posts to the gods who govem its parts; and we may well assent to the statements of the poets, when they say that there are many gods in heaven and many in the sea, and many in the fountains and streams, and many round about the earth, and that there are some even under the earth. But we shall do well to separate from the universe the region under the earth, if there is one, because the poets represent it as an abode of terror and corruption.
As the Indian concluded this discourse, Damis says that he was transported with admiration and applauded loudly; for he could never have thought that a native of India could show such mastery of the Greek tongue, nor even that, supposing he understood that language, he could have used it with so much ease and elegance. And he praises the look and smile of larchas, and the inspired air with which he expressed his ideas, admitting that Apollonius, although he had a delivery as graceful as it was free from bombast, nevertheless gained a great deal by contact with this Indian, and he says that whenever he sat down to discuss a theme, as he very often did, he resembled Iarchas.
As the rest of the company praised, no less, the contents of Iarchas' speech than the tone in which he spoke, Apollonius resumed by asking him which they considered the bigger, the sea or the land; and Iarchas replied:
"If the land be compared with the sea it will be found to be bigger, for it includes the sea in itself; but if it be considered in relation to the entire mass of water, we can show that the earth is the lesser of the two, for it is upheld by the water."
"This child of mine is extremely good-looking, and therefore the devil is amorous of him and will not allow him to retain his reason, nor will he permit him to go to school, or to learn archery, nor even to remain at home, but drives him out into desert places and the boy does not even retain his own voice, but speaks in a deep hollow tone, as men do; and he looks at you with other eyes rather than with his own. As for myself I weep over all this and I tear my cheeks, and I rebuke my son so far as I well may; but he does not know me. And I made my mind to repair hither, indeed I planned to, do so a year ago; only the demon discovered himself using my child as a mask, and what he told me was this, that he was the ghost of man, who fell long ago in battle, but that at death he was passionately attached to his wife. Now he had been dead for only three days when his wife insulted their union by marrying another man, and the consequence was that he had come to detest the love of women, and had transferred himself wholly into this boy. But he promised, if I would only not denounce him to yourselves, to endow the child with many noble blessings. As for myself, I was influenced by these promises; but he has put me off and off for such a long time now, that he has got sole control of my household, yet has no honest or true intentions."
Here the sage asked afresh, if the boy was at hand; and she said not, for, although she had done all she could to get him to come with her, the demon had threatened her with steep places and precipices and declared that he would kill her son, "in case", she added, "I haled him hither for trial."
"Take courage," said the sage, "for he will not slay him when he has read this"
And so saying he drew a letter out of his bosom and gave it to the woman; and the letter, it appears, was addressed to the ghost and contained threats of an alarming kind.
THERE also arrived a man who was lame. He already thirty years old was a keen hunter of lions; but a lion had sprung upon him and dislocated his hip so that he limped with one leg. However when they massaged with their hands his hip, the youth immediately recovered his upright gait. And another man had had his eyes put out, and he went away having recovered the sight of both of them.
Yet another man had his hand paralysed; but left their presence in full possession of the limb. And a certain woman had suffered in labour already seven times, but was healed in the following way through the intercession of her husband. He bade the man, whenever his wife should be about to bring forth her next child, to enter her chamber carrying in his bosom a live hare; then he was to walk once round her and at the same moment to release the hare; for that the womb would be expelled together with the fetus, unless the hare was at once driven out.
AND again a certain man who was a father said that he had had several sons, but, that they had died the moment they began to drink wine.
Iarchas took him up and said:
"Yes, and it is just as well they did die; for they would inevitably have gone mad, having inherited, as it appears, from their parents too warm a temperament. Your children," he added, " must therefore abstain from wine, but in order that they may be never led even to desire wine, supposing you should have another boy, and I perceive you had one only six days ago, you must carefully watch the hen owl and find where it builds its nest; then you must snatch its eggs and give them to the child to chew after boiling them properly; for if it is fed upon these, before it tastes wine, a distaste for wine will be bred in it, and it will keep sober by your excluding from its temperament any but natural warmth."
With such lore as this then they surfeited themselves, and they were astonished at the many sided wisdom of the company, and day after day they asked all sorts of questions, and were themselves asked many in turn.
As to the subject of foreknowledge, they presently had a talk about it, for Apollonius was devoted to this kind of lore, and turned most of their conversations on to it. For this Iarchas praised him and said:
"My good friend Apollonius, those who take pleasure in divination, are rendered divine thereby and contribute to the salvation of mankind. For here we have discoveries which we must go to a divine oracle in order to make; yet these, my good friend we foresee of our unaided selves and foretell to others things which they know not yet. This I regard as the gift of one thoroughly blessed and endowed with the same mysterious - power as the Delphic Apollo. Now the ritual insists that those who visit a shrine with a view to obtaining a response, must purify themselves first, otherwise they will be told to "depart from the temple." Consequently I consider that one who would foresee events must be healthy in himself, and must not have his soul stained with any sort of defilement nor his character scarred with the wounds of any sins; so he will pronounce his predictions with purity, because he will understand himself and the sacred tripod in his breast, and with ever louder and clearer tone and truer import will he utter his oracles.
Therefore you need not be surprised, if you comprehend the science, seeing that you carry in your soul so much ether."
And with these words he turned to Damis and said playfully:
"And you, O Assyrian, have you no foreknowledge of anything, especially as you associate with such a man as this ?"
"Yes, by Zeus,!" answered Damis, "at any rate of the things that are necessary for myself; for when I first met with Apollonius here, he at once struck me as full of wisdom and cleverness and sobriety and of true endurance; but when I saw that he also had a good memory, and that he was very learned and entirely devoted to the love of learning, he became to me something superhuman; and I came to the conclusion that if I stuck to him I should be held a wise man instead of an ignoramus and a dullard, and an educated man instead of a savage; and I saw that, if I followed him and shared his pursuits, I should visit the Indians and visit you, and that I should be turned into a Hellene by him and be able to mix with the Hellenes. Now of course you set your oracles, as they concern important issues, on a level with those of Delphi and Dodona and of any other shrine you like; as for my own premonitions, since Damis is the person who has them, and since his foreknowledge concerns himself alone, we will suppose that they resemble the guesses of an old beggar wife foretelling what will happen to sheep and such like."
ALL the sages laughed of course at this sally, and when their laughter had subsided, Iarchas led back the argument to the subject of divination, and among the many blessings which that art had conferred upon mankind, he declared the gift of healing to be the most important.
"For," said he, "the wise sons of Asclepius would have never attained
to this branch of science, if Asclepius had not been the son of Apollo;
and as such had not in accordance with the latter's responses and
oracles concocted and adapted different drugs to different diseases;
these he not only handed on to his own sons, but he taught his companions
what herbs must be applied to running wounds, and what to inflamed and
dry wounds, and in what doses to administer liquid drugs for drinking by
means of which dropsical patients are drained and bleeding is checked,
and diseases of decay and the cavities due to their ravages are put an
end to. And who," he said, " can deprive tbe art of divination of the
credit of discovering simples which heal the bites of venomous creatures,
and in particular of using the virus itself as a cure for many diseases?
For I do not think that men without the forecasts of a prophetic wisdom
would ever have ventured to mingle with medicines that save life these
most deadly of poisons."
"And what have you heard about the make of this animal? For it is probable that there is some account given of its shape."
"There are," replied Apollonius, "tall stories current which I cannot believe; for they say that the creature has four feet, and that his head resembles that of a man, but that in size it is comparable to a lion; while the tail of this animal puts out hairs a cubit long and sharp as thorns, which it shoots like arrows at those who hunt it."
And he further asked about the golden water which they say bubbles up from a spring, and about the stone which behaves like a magnet, and about the men who live underground and the pigmies also and the shadow-footed men; and larchas answered his questions thus:
"What have I to tell you about animals or plants or fountains which you have seen yourself on coming here ? For by this time you are as competent to describe these to other people as I am; but I never yet heard in this country of an animal that shoots arrows or of springs of golden water. However about the stone which attracts and binds to itself other stones you must not be sceptical; for you can see the stone yourself if you like, and admire its properties. For the greatest specimen is exactly of the size of this finger nail," and here he pointed to his own thumb, "and it is conceived in a hollow in the earth at a depth of four fathoms; but it is so highly endowed with spirit, that the earth swells and breaks open in many places when the stone is conceived in it. But no one can get hold of it, for it runs away, unless it is scientifically attracted; but we alone can secure, partly by performance of certain rites and partly by certain forms of words, this pantarbe, for such is the name given to it. Now in the night-time it glows like the day just as fire might, for it is red and gives out rays; and if you look at it in the daytime it smites your eyes with a thousand glints and gleams. And the light within it is a spirit of mysterious power, for it absorbs to itself everything in its neighbourhood. And why do I say in its neighbourhood? Why you can sink anywhere in river or in sea as many stones as you like, and these not even near to one another, but here there; and everywhere; and then if you let down this stone among them by a string it gathers them all together by the diffusion of its spirit, and the stones yield to its influence and cling to it in bunch, like a swarm of bees."
AND having said this he showed the stone itself and all that it was capable of effecting. And as to the pigmies, he said that they lived underground, and that they lay on the other side of the Ganges and lived in the manner which is related by all. As to men that are shadow-footed or have long heads, and as to the other poetical fancies which the treatise of Scylax recounts about them, he said that they didn't live anywhere on the earth, and least of all in India".
As to the gold which the griffins dig up, there are rocks which are spotted with drops of gold as with sparks, which this creature can quarry because of the strength of its beak.
"For these animals do exist in India," he said, "and are held in veneration as being sacred to the Sun; and the Indian artists, when they represent the Sun, yoke four of them abreast to draw the images; and in size and strength they resemble lions but having this advantage over them that they have wings, they will attack them, and they get the better of elephants and of dragons. But they have no great power of flying, not more than have birds of short flight; for they are not winged as is proper with birds, but the palms of their feet are webbed with red membranes, such that they are able to revolve them, and make a flight and fight in the air; and the tiger alone is beyond their powers of attack, because in swiftness it rivals the winds."
"And the phoenix," he said, "is the bird which visits Egypt every five hundred yenrs, but the rest of that time it flies about in India; and it is unique in that it gives out rays of sunlight and shines with gold, in size and appearance like an eagle; and it sits upon the nest; which is made by it at the springs of the Nile out of spices. The story of the Egyptians about it, that it comes to Egypt, is testified to by the Indians also, but the latter add this touch to the story, that the phoenix which is being consumed in its nest sings funeral strains for itself. And this is also done by the swans according to the account of those who have the wit to hear them."
And having embraced Apollonius and declared that he would be esteemed a god by the many, not merely after his death, but while he was still alive, they turned back to their place of meditation, though ever and anon they turned towards him, and showed by their action that they parted from him against their will.
And Apollonius keeping the Ganges on his right hand, but the Hyphasis on his left, went down towards the sea a journey of ten days from the sacred ridge. And as they went down they saw a great many ostriches, and many wild bulls, and many asses and lions and pards and tigers, and another kind of apes than those which inhabit the pepper trees, for these were black and bushy-haired and were dog-like in features and as big as small men. And in the usual discussion of what they saw they reached the sea, where small factories had been built, and passenger ships rode in them resembling those of the Tyrrllenes. And they say that the sea called Erythra or "red" is of a deep blue colour, but that it was so named from a king Erythras, who gave his own name to the sea in question.
HAVING reached this point, Apollonius sent back the camels to Iarchas together with the following letter:
Apollonius to Iarchas and the other sages greeting.
I came to you on foot, and yet you presented me with the sea;
but by sharing with me the wisdom which is yours,
you have made it mine even to travel through the heavens.
All this I shall mention to the Hellenes;
and I shall communicate my words to you as if you were present,
unless I have in vain drunk the draught of Tantalus.
Farewell, ye goodly philosophers."