Philostratus · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
1| As for the Pillars, which they say Heracles planted as the boundaries of the earth, I will leave aside the legendary material and instead set out what is worth hearing and recording. Two headlands, of Europe and of Libya, enclosing a strait of sixty stadia between them, let the Ocean into the inner seas. The Libyan headland, whose name is Abinna, has lions ranging over it along the brows of the mountains that rise into view inland; it borders on the Gaetulians and the people of Tingis, both of them savage Libyan peoples, and for one sailing out into the Ocean it stretches as far as the mouth of the Salex for nine hundred stadia, and beyond that no one could reckon how far, for after this river Libya is barren of life and there are no more people. The promontory of Europe, which is called Calpis, occupies the right-hand side of the entrance, six hundred stadia in length, and ends at ancient Gadeira.
2| The turnings of the Ocean’s tide I have seen for myself among the Celts, and they are as they are reported; and having conjectured in many directions about the cause that makes so boundless a sea advance and draw back, I believe that Apollonius perceived the truth. For in a letter of his to the Indians he declares that the Ocean, impelled by undersea winds from many chasms which the earth affords beneath it and around it, moves outward and then withdraws again whenever the wind sinks back, like breath. He confirms this also from the sick around Gadeira: for during the time the water is at flood, souls do not leave the dying, which would not happen unless breath were also flowing in over the land. And what they say is seen in the moon as she is born, waxes full and wanes, this I know to hold for the Ocean, for it keeps pace with her measures, shrinking with her and filling with her.
3| Day follows night and night follows day among the Celts with the darkness or the light giving way little by little, as it does here; but around Gadeira and the Pillars they are said to strike the eyes all at once, like flashes of lightning. They say too that the Isles of the Blessed are marked off by the Libyan extremity, rising toward the uninhabited promontory.
4| Gadeira lies at the extremity of Europe, and its people are exceptionally devout in matters of religion. They have set up an altar to Old Age, and they alone of mankind sing hymns of praise to Death; there are altars there also to Poverty and to Art, and to the Egyptian Heracles, and others to the Theban. For they say that the Theban drove as far as nearby Erytheia, when he captured Geryon and his cattle, and that the Egyptian, devoting himself to wisdom, measured out the whole earth to its end. They also say that the people of Gadeira are Greek and are educated in our own manner; at any rate they esteem the Athenians above all other Greeks and sacrifice to Menestheus the Athenian; and out of admiration for the wisdom and courage of Themistocles, the victor at sea, they have set up a bronze statue of him, deep in thought, as though pondering an oracle.
5| They say too that trees can be seen there such as grow nowhere else on earth: that they are called Geryonean, that there are two of them, that they grow out of the tomb that stands over Geryon, passing from pine and fir into a form of their own, and that they drip with blood, as the poplar of the Heliads drips with gold. The island on which the temple stands is just the size of the shrine, and there is nothing rocky about it; it looks like a polished starting-sill. In the temple, they say, both Heracleses are honored, but there are no statues of them; there are two altars of the Egyptian, of bronze and without inscription, and one of the Theban — the hydras and the mares of Diomedes and the twelve labors of Heracles are carved here too, they say — which is of stone. The golden olive tree of Pygmalion is also dedicated in the Heracleum; it is worth admiring, they say, for the branches it imitates, but it would be admired still more for its fruit, which teems with emerald. They say too that a golden belt of Teucer son of Telamon is on display, but how he came to sail to the Ocean, or for what purpose, Damis says he could neither work out himself nor learn from them. The pillars in the temple, they say, are made of gold and silver melted together into a single color, and they stand more than a cubit high, of square workmanship, like anvils, and their capitals are inscribed with letters that are not Egyptian, not Indian, and not of any sort that one could make out. But Apollonius, since the priests would say nothing, said, "Heracles the Egyptian does not permit me to withhold what I know. These pillars are the bonds of earth and Ocean. He inscribed them in the house of the Fates, so that no strife might arise among the elements, and that they might not dishonor the friendship they have for one another."
6| They say too that he sailed up the river Baetis, which shows especially well the nature of Ocean: for whenever the sea is in flood, the river runs back toward its sources, since a wind of the sea, I suppose, thrusts it back. The mainland of Baetica, of which this river is the namesake, they call the best of mainlands: it is well supplied with cities and pasture, the river is led through to all the towns, and the land is full of every kind of farming and of seasons like the Attic autumn and the season of the Mysteries.
7| Damis says that Apollonius held many discussions on the things that came up there, but that these are worth recording. Once, as they were sitting in the temple of Heracles, Menippus, who had been recalling Nero, laughed aloud and said, "What are we to think of the noble fellow? In what contests, he says, has he been crowned? Do not the best of the Greeks go to the festivals with unrestrained laughter?" Apollonius said, "As I was hearing from Telesinus, the excellent Nero is afraid of the scourges of the Eleans. When his flatterers urged him to win the Olympic games and to proclaim Rome victor, he said, 'Provided the Eleans do not bewitch me with envy, for they are said to scourge, and to think themselves above me.' He also proclaimed many other things even more foolish than these. I say that Nero will win at Olympia, for who is so bold as to set himself against him? But he will not win the Olympic games, since they are not even being held in their season. For though the Olympic games belonged by ancestral custom to last year, Nero ordered the Eleans to postpone them until his own visit, so that they would sacrifice to him in preference to Zeus. And he has announced tragedy and lyre-singing to men who have neither theater nor stage for such things, but a natural stadium and everything bare; and for him to win victories at which he ought to hide his face, and to throw off the dress of Augustus and Julius and put on instead that of Amoebeus and Terpnus, what will you say of that? And he is so exact about the roles of Creon and Oedipus that he fears lest he somehow err about a door, a robe or a scepter, yet he so lapses in what concerns himself and the Romans that instead of enacting laws he sings them, and begs outside the doors, when the king ought to sit inside, giving audience about land and sea. There are many tragic actors, Menippus, among whom Nero enrolls himself. What then? If one of them, after playing Oenomaus or Cresphontes, left the theater so full of the mask that he wished to rule over others and thought himself a tyrant, what would you call him? Would he not need hellebore and the drug that purges the mind? But if the tyrant himself brings his affairs to tragic actors and craftsmen, smoothing his voice and fearing the man from Elis or the man from Delphi, or, not fearing them, yet acting his own art so badly that he does not expect to be scourged by those over whom he himself is appointed to rule, what are we to say of the unfortunate people who live under such a scoundrel? And what do you think of the Greeks, Menippus? Xerxes with his burning, or Nero with his singing?" For if you consider the provisions they have to bring in for his songs, how they are driven out of their houses, how they are not allowed to own anything of worth, either goods or slaves, what dreadful things they will suffer over their women and children when Nero picks out the forbidden pleasures from every household, and how many lawsuits will spring up, leaving aside the others, over the theaters and the songs (Did you not come to hear Nero? Or you were there but listened carelessly; you laughed; you did not applaud; you did not sacrifice for his voice that it might come to Delphi more brilliant), you will think the Greeks are living through many Iliads of suffering as his audience. As for whether the Isthmus will be cut or not (and it is being cut now, so they say), I learned that long ago when a god revealed it." Damis took this up and said, "But to me, Apollonius, the work of the cutting seems to outdo everything Nero does, for you see how great the design is." "It seems so to me too, Damis," he said, "but its being unfinished discredits him, as one who sings unfinished and digs unfinished. When I read through the deeds of Xerxes I praise the man, not for having bridged the Hellespont, but for having crossed it. Nero, however, I see neither sailing through the Isthmus nor reaching the end of the digging, and I think he will also retreat from Greece full of fear, unless the truth has perished."
8| After this one of the couriers who run the swift courses arrived at Gades and told them to sacrifice thank-offerings with singing for Nero, thrice Olympic victor. The people of Gades understood about the victory, and that there was some famous contest in Arcadia, since, as I said, they take a keen interest in Greek affairs. But the cities neighboring Gades did not know what the Olympic games were, nor what a contest or a competition was, nor for what they were sacrificing; instead they were led off into ridiculous notions, thinking this was a victory in war, and that Nero had captured some people called Olympians. They had never yet been spectators of tragedy or of lyre-singing.
9| At any rate, Damis says that the inhabitants of Hipola, which is also a city of Baetica, had an experience with a tragic actor that I too think worth mentioning. As the cities were sacrificing often for the victories, since the Pythian games had also now been reported, a tragic actor, one of those not thought worthy to compete against Nero, went about the western cities collecting money, and using his art he was well regarded among the less barbarous, first for the very fact of coming to people who had not yet heard tragedy, and then because he claimed to reproduce Nero's songs exactly. When he came forward at Hipola, he looked fearsome to them even during the time he was silent on the stage. The people saw him walking with great strides, with his mouth gaping so wide, standing on such high buskins, with the monstrous garments about him, and they were not without fear of the sight. But when he raised his voice and let it ring out, most took to flight, as if a daemon had bellowed at them. Such were the manners of the barbarians there, and so primitive.
10| The governor of Baetica earnestly wished to meet Apollonius, but Apollonius said that his meetings seemed unpleasant to those who do not practice philosophy; the governor pressed his request. As he was said to be a good man and hostile to Nero's mimes, Apollonius wrote him a letter so that he would come to Gades, and the governor, laying aside the pomp of office, came with a few of the people closest to him. They greeted one another and sent away those present, and what they said to each other no one knows, but Damis infers that they came to an understanding against Nero. For after three days of private conversation the governor went away, embracing Apollonius, and Apollonius said, "Farewell, and remember Vindex." What was this? While Nero was singing in Achaea, Vindex, a man fit to cut the strings that Nero played so unskillfully, is said to have stirred up the western nations. To the legions that had been placed under him he delivered a speech against Nero, such as a man might breathe forth against a tyrant out of truly noble philosophy. He said that Nero was anything rather than a lyre-singer, and a lyre-singer rather than an emperor. He reproached him with madness, avarice, cruelty and every kind of licentiousness, but did not reproach him with the most savage of his acts, for he had killed his mother justly, since she bore such a child. Apollonius, foreseeing that these things would happen, was lining up the governor of the neighboring province alongside Vindex, all but taking up arms himself on behalf of Rome.
11| With the regions of the west in turmoil, they turned from there toward Libya and the Tyrrhenians, traveling partly on foot and partly by ship, and put in at Sicily, where Lilybaeum is. Sailing along toward Messina and the strait, where the Tyrrhenian sea, meeting the Adriatic, makes Charybdis dangerous, they say they heard that Nero had fled and Vindex had died, and that some were laying hold of the empire from Rome itself, others from whatever province they happened to be in. When his companions asked him where these events would lead and whose the empire would finally be, he said, "Of many Thebans." For he compared the strength that Vitellius, Galba and Otho used for a short time to the strength of the Thebans, who for the briefest while were pushed to the front in Greek affairs.
12| That he foreknew such things by a movement from the divine, and that the argument of those who consider the man a sorcerer is unsound, is shown by what has been said, but let us consider the following as well. The sorcerers, whom I consider the most wretched of men, some go to the testing of phantoms, some to barbarian sacrifices, some to casting a spell or applying an ointment, and say that they change what is fated; and many of them, when brought under accusation, have confessed to being adept in such things. He, however, followed what comes from the Fates, foretold that these things must come to pass, and foreknew them not by sorcery but from what the gods revealed. On seeing among the Indians the tripods, the cupbearers and all the self-moving things which I described as going about, he neither asked by what device they worked nor sought to learn it; he praised them, but did not think them worth emulating.
13| When they arrived at Syracuse, a woman of no obscure position gave birth to a portent such as had never been delivered before. The infant had three heads, each on its own neck, but all of them belonged to a single body. Some, with crude interpretation, said that Sicily (for it is Trinacria) would be destroyed unless it were of one mind and breathed together; and indeed many of the cities were in faction against themselves and against one another, and life in good order was absent from the island. Others said that Typho, who has many heads, was threatening Sicily with revolution. Apollonius said, "Go, Damis, and look at it, to see whether it is put together in this way." For the infant had been exposed publicly for those who know how to interpret portents. When Damis reported that it had three heads and was male, Apollonius gathered his companions and said, "Three emperors of the Romans, whom I recently called Thebans. None of them will bring his rule to completion; but they will perish, some in Rome itself, one in the regions bordering Rome, once they have gained power, and they will cast off the mask more quickly than the tyrants of the tragedians." And the saying soon came to light. Galba died in Rome itself after laying hold of the empire; Vitellius also died, having dreamed of ruling; and Otho died among the western Gauls and did not even get a splendid tomb, but lies like a private man. Fortune flew through all this in a single year.
14| Going on to Catane, where the mountain Aetna is, they say they heard from the people of Catane that Typho is bound there and that fire rises from him, which smokes Aetna; but they themselves arrived at more plausible accounts, suited to those who study philosophy. Apollonius began by putting this question to his companions, "Is there any such thing as mythology?" "Certainly, by Zeus," said Menippus, "at least the kind the poets praise." "And what do you think of Aesop?" "A teller of tales and a story-maker through and through." "Which of the two are wise, the myths of the poets or his?" "Those of the poets," he said, "since they are sung as things that happened." "And what of Aesop's?" "Frogs," he said, "and donkeys, and nonsense of the sort that old women and children chew over." "And yet," said Apollonius, "it seems to me that Aesop's are better suited to wisdom." "For the tales about the heroes, to which all poetry holds, corrupt their hearers, since the poets set forth strange loves, marriages of brothers and sisters, slanders against the gods, the eating of children, ignoble villainies and lawsuits; and the fact that these are told as having happened leads the lover, the jealous man, and the man who desires to be rich or to be a tyrant, toward the very ends of the myths. Aesop, by his wisdom, first of all did not place himself in the common company of those who sing such things, but turned onto a road of his own. Then, like those who feast well on plainer dishes, he teaches great things from small matters; and having set forth his story, he adds to it the 'do this' or 'do not do this.' Then he has a closer hold on the love of truth than the poets do. For they force their stories to appear credible, whereas the man who announces a story that is false, as everyone knows, tells the truth in this very fact, that he does not speak of real events. The poet, having told his story, leaves it to the sound hearer to test whether it happened; but the one who tells a false story and adds an admonition, as Aesop does, shows that he has used the falsehood for the useful end of the hearing. It is charming of him, too, to make even the creatures without reason more pleasant and worth people's attention. For having grown up with these stories from boyhood and been nursed on them as infants, we take up opinions about each kind of animal: that some are kingly, some simple, some clever, some honest. The poet, saying 'many are the forms of the divine powers,' or something of that kind, dances off after adding it; but Aesop, after pronouncing his moral on his own story like an oracle, closes the lesson with the point he had set before it.
15| As for me, Menippus, when I was a quite small child my mother taught me a tale about the wisdom of Aesop: that Aesop was once a shepherd, and pastured his flocks near a shrine of Hermes; that he loved wisdom and prayed to the god for it; and that many others who asked the same thing also visited Hermes, one bringing gold, another silver, another an ivory herald's staff, another hanging up some such splendid offering. But Aesop was so placed that he had none of these things, and was sparing even of what he had; he poured out milk for him, as much as a ewe gave when milked, and carried a honeycomb to the altar, as much as would fill his hand. He thought to entertain the god also with myrtle berries, and set before him a very few roses or violets. 'For why, Hermes,' he used to say, 'should I weave garlands and neglect the sheep?' When the appointed day came for the distribution of wisdom, Hermes, being a god of speech and of gain, said: 'You, take philosophy,' presumably to the one who had dedicated the most; 'You, go to the ways of the orators,' to the one who had given second; 'For you, astronomy; for you, to be a musician; for you, to be a poet in heroic meter; for you, in iambic.' But when, for all his eloquence, he had unintentionally used up every portion of philosophy and had not noticed that Aesop had been left out, he recalled the Hours, who had raised him on the peaks of Olympus, and how, while he lay in swaddling clothes, they had told a story about the cow, which the cow told the man about herself and the earth, and so made him fall in love with the cattle of Apollo. And from this he gives mythology to Aesop, saying, 'Have it, the portion still left in the house of wisdom, the thing I learned first.' So the many forms of the art came to Aesop from there, and this is how the matter of mythology turned out. But perhaps I have been foolish.
16| "I intended to turn you toward accounts more natural and more true than those most people sing about Aetna, but I myself was carried off into praising fables. The digression has not been without charm; for the story that we reject is not of the kind told by Aesop, but one of the more theatrical sort, which the poets chatter about. They say that Typho or Enceladus is bound under the mountain and, struggling in death, breathes out this fire. I say that there were giants, and that bodies of such a kind are shown in many places of the earth when their tombs have burst open, but that they did not come to a contest with the gods; they may perhaps have committed outrages against their temples and statues, but to say that they leaped up to heaven and would not allow the gods to be on it is madness to say, and madness to believe. And let that other account too not be honored, although it seems more reverent, that Hephaestus has the care of forging in Aetna and that some anvil is struck there by him. For there are many other burning mountains in many places of the earth, and we would never be done attaching giants and Hephaestuses to them.
17| What, then, is the cause of mountains like these? Earth that contains a mixture of bitumen and sulphur smolders by its own nature, but does not yet give out flame; if it happens to be full of hollows and a wind runs beneath it, it lifts a blaze at once. The flame, when it has gained the upper hand, flows off the mountains like water and pours out into the plains, and goes toward the sea as a mass of fire, making outflows like those of rivers. Let the place of the Pious, around whom the fire flowed, be spoken of here too; but let us hold that for those who do holy things all the earth is a safe place, and the sea is passable, not only to those who sail but also to those who try to swim." For he always brought his discourses to rest on the useful part of the lesson.
18| When he had spent a time philosophizing in Sicily, which gave him sufficient occupation, he set out for Greece about the rising of Arcturus. The voyage was untroubled, and when he put in at Leucas, he said, "Let us get off this ship, for it is not better for it to sail to Achaea." Nobody paid attention to the remark except those who knew the man; he himself, with those who wished to sail with him, put in at Lechaeum on a ship of Leucas, and the Syracusan ship sank as it sailed into the Crisaean gulf.
19| He was initiated at Athens, the hierophant who initiated him being the one whom he himself had foretold to the previous hierophant, and there he met Demetrius the philosopher. For after the affair of Nero's bath and what he said about it, Demetrius had lived at Athens so nobly that he did not leave Greece even during the time when Nero was behaving outrageously in the contests. Demetrius said that he had met Musonius at the Isthmus, in chains and ordered to dig; that he himself spoke the fitting words of encouragement, but that Musonius, holding his mattock and striking the earth vigorously, looked up and said, "Do I grieve you, Demetrius, by digging the Isthmus for Greece? What would you have felt if you had seen me singing to the lyre, as Nero does?" And let the rest of what Musonius did, which is more and more admirable, be passed over, so that I may not seem to take liberties with the man who told them carelessly.
20| After spending the winter in all the Greek sanctuaries, Apollonius set out about spring on the road to Egypt, having rebuked the cities on many points, advised them on many, and praised them on many, for he did not hold back from praise whenever something was being done soundly. When he went down to the Piraeus, a ship was riding at anchor with sails ready, about to leave for Ionia, but the merchant would not allow him to board, saying that he was running it on a private charter. Apollonius asked, "What is the cargo?" "I am taking images of gods to Ionia," he said, "some of gold and stone, some of ivory and gold." "To set them up, or what?" "To sell to those who wish to set them up." "Are you afraid, my good man, that we shall plunder the images on the ship?" "That is not what I fear," he said, "but I think it dreadful that they should sail with many persons and be filled with base company and the way of life that sailors lead." "And yet, my excellent friend," said Apollonius, "you seem to me to be an Athenian: the gods boarded the ships that you employed against the barbarians, though these were filled with the disorder of sailors, and they did not think themselves defiled by you; and you so foolishly drive philosophers away from your ship, men in whom the gods most delight, and you the one who has made the gods an article of trade?" "The old art of making statues did not do this, nor did they go around the cities selling the gods; they merely brought along their own hands and the tools for working stone and ivory, set out the raw material in the sanctuaries themselves, and carried out their works there. But you, treating the gods like Hyrcanian and Scythian goods (and may it be far from me to say which), bringing them to harbors and marketplaces, do you think you are doing nothing impious? And besides, some people scrounge a living, hanging on themselves some image of Demeter or Dionysus, and say that they are nourished by the gods they carry. But to feed on the gods themselves, and never to have your fill of that, is a dreadful trade, and I would say folly, if you fear nothing from it." With such rebuke, he sailed on another ship.
21| Sailing down to Chios, he did not even set foot on the land, but leaped across to the ship next to his, which was advertising a voyage to Rhodes. His companions leaped across too without a word, for they practiced philosophy chiefly by following him in what he said and did. Crossing with a favorable wind, he busied himself in Rhodes as follows. Damis asked him, as he drew near the statue of the Colossus, what he thought greater than that. He said, "A man who practices philosophy soundly and without guile." At that time Canus the flute-player, who was thought the best flute-player of all men, was living in Rhodes. Apollonius called him and said, "What does the flute-player accomplish?" "Whatever," he said, "the hearer wishes." "And yet many of those who listen," said Apollonius, "would rather be rich than hear a flute. Do you make rich the people whom you perceive to desire this?" "Not at all," he said, "though I would like to." "What then? Do you make the young among your hearers handsome, since all those in the bloom of youth wish to seem fair?" "Not that either," he said, "though I have a great deal of Aphrodite in my flute." "What is it, then," said Apollonius, "that you think the hearer wishes?" "What else," said Canus, "but that the one who is grieved should have his grief put to sleep by the flute, that the one who rejoices should become more cheerful than he was, the lover more ardent, and the lover of sacrifice more inspired and more ready to sing hymns?" "Now this," said Apollonius, "Canus, does the flute itself accomplish it, because it is made of gold and brass and the shinbone of deer, or, in some cases, of asses, or is it something else that can do this?" "Something else," he said, "Apollonius. For the music, the modes, the mingling and the easy shifting of the playing, and the characters of the harmonies: these attune the hearers and shape their souls as they wish." "I understand," said Apollonius, "what your art does, Canus. For its variety and its range into all modes: this you practice and offer to those who come to you. To me, however, in addition to what you have said, the flute seems to need other things too: good breath, a good mouth, and the player's having good hands. There is good breath if the breath is clear and clean and the throat does not make a knocking sound, for that resembles an unmusical note; a good mouth, if the lips, taking in the reed of the flute, play without the face swelling; and I count a flute-player with good hands as worth much, if the wrist does not tire as it bends back and the fingers are not slow to fly over the notes, for quickness in changing from one mode to another belongs rather to those with good hands. If you provide all these things, play with confidence, Canus, for Euterpe will be with you."
22| There happened to be a young man at Rhodes, newly rich and uneducated, who was building a house and gathering for it paintings of every kind and stones from all nations. Apollonius inquired how much money he had laid out on teachers and education. "Not a drachma," he said. "And on the house, how much?" "Twelve talents," he said, "and I would spend as much again." "What do you want the house for?" "There will be splendid living for my body, for there are running tracks in it and groves, and I shall go little to the marketplace, and those who come in will greet me more pleasantly, as if visiting a sanctuary." "Are men more enviable," said Apollonius, "because of themselves or because of what surrounds them?" "Because of wealth," he said, "for money has the greatest power." "Young man," said Apollonius, "will the better guardian of money be the educated man or the uneducated?" When he fell silent, Apollonius said, "You seem to me not to possess the house, but the house to possess you. As for me, when I go into a sanctuary I would far rather see in a small one an image of ivory and gold than in a great one a cheap image of clay."
23| Seeing a young man who was fat and proud of eating the most of any man and drinking the most wine, he said, "Are you then the one who stuffs his belly?" "And I sacrifice for it," he said. "What benefit, then, have you got from this gorging?" "To be admired and stared at. For you have probably heard about Heracles, that his meals were celebrated just as much as his labors." "Heracles being what he was," said Apollonius. "But what virtue have you, you scum? For being stared at is left to you in one thing only, that you burst."
24| Such were his doings at Rhodes; and in Alexandria, when he sailed in, what happened was this. Alexandria loved him even in his absence, and longed for Apollonius, as one man for another, and upper Egypt too; both were full of theology and prayed that he would visit their ways. For since many came from here to Egypt and many came here from Egypt to mix with them, Apollonius was sung of among them and the Egyptians' ears were pricked up for him. As he went from the ship to the city, they looked upon him as upon a god and stepped aside for him in the alleys, as for those who carry sacred objects. While he was being escorted with more pomp than the governors of provinces, twelve men were being led to death, accused of robbery. He looked at them and said, "Not all of them; for one of them goes off falsely accused." And he said to the executioners who were leading them, "I tell you to slacken your pace and to come to the pit more slowly, and to kill this man last, for he has no share in the charge. And you would be doing a holy thing if you spared for a short part of the day these men, whom it were better not to kill at all." And at the same time he lingered over what he said, stretching his speech out at a length unusual for him. What he had in mind became clear at once. When eight had already had their heads cut off, a horseman rode hard to the pit shouting, "Spare Pharion!" For he was not a robber, but had falsely accused himself through fear of being tortured, and when others were tortured he had been acknowledged to be an honest man. I pass over the stir in Egypt and how much they applauded at this, being given to wonder at any rate.
25| When he went up to the sanctuary, the ornament around it and the account given for each part appeared divine and composed with wisdom; but the blood of bulls, the geese and everything else that was sacrificed he did not approve of, nor did he count such things as banquets for the gods. When the priest asked him what he had learned that made him not sacrifice in this way, he said, "Rather you answer me: what have you learned that makes you sacrifice this way?" The priest said, "And who is so clever as to set right the practices of the Egyptians?" "Everyone is wise," he said, "if he comes from India." He added, "I shall burn an ox down to coals today; you share the smoke with us, for you will not be vexed over your portion if the gods feast on that one too." As the molded figure melted, he said, "Look at the omens." "Which?" said the Egyptian, "for I see nothing here." Apollonius said, "Did the Iamids and the Telliads and the Clytiads and the oracle of the Melampodids talk nonsense, my good man, who said so much about fire and gathered so many utterances from it? Or do you think the fire from pine and the fire from cedar is prophetic and sufficient to reveal something, but that the fire from the richest and purest tear is not much more to be chosen? If you were quick to understand the wisdom of fire, you would see many things also made clear in the circle of the sun when it rises."
26| With these words he rebuked the Egyptian as ignorant of divine things. Alexandria was devoted to horses and flocked to the hippodrome for this spectacle, and they were murdering one another over it; Apollonius rebuked them for this, and going forward into the sanctuary said, "How far will you carry on dying, not for children or sanctuaries, but so that you stain the sanctuaries, coming to them full of gore, and perish inside a wall? Troy, it seems, was sacked by a single horse, which the Achaeans then contrived; but against you chariots and horses are yoked, because of which you cannot live with a gentle rein. At any rate you are being destroyed not by the Atreidae, nor by the Aeacidae, but by one another, which not even the Trojans did in their drunkenness. At Olympia, where there are prizes for wrestling, boxing and the pancratium, no one has died for athletes, although there would perhaps be some pardon if a man were over-zealous for his own kind; but here for the sake of horses you have naked swords against one another, and stones ready to throw. Fire upon such a city, where there is wailing and outrage of those who kill and are killed, and the earth flows with blood. Respect the Nile, the common mixing bowl of Egypt. But why do I mention the Nile to people who measure the risings of blood rather than of water?" He said many other things in this rebuke, as Damis relates.
27| Vespasian was planning the imperial power among the provinces bordering Egypt and advancing toward Egypt, and Dio and Euphrates, of whom I shall speak a little later, urged them to rejoice. For after the first emperor, through whom Roman affairs had been put in order, tyrannies so harsh prevailed for fifty years that not even Claudius, who ruled thirteen years in the middle of them, seemed good. And yet he came to power at fifty years of age, when the mind is soundest in men, and he was thought to be a lover of all learning; but even he, at that age, suffered many boyish things and gave up the empire as a pasturage for women, by whom he died so carelessly that, although he knew in advance what he was going to suffer, he did not guard against even what he foresaw. Apollonius rejoiced over these things in a manner similar to Euphrates and Dio, but did not hold forth on them before everyone, considering such a form of speech too rhetorical. As the emperor approached, the sacred things met him before the gates, and the magistracies of Egypt and the districts into which Egypt is divided, and philosophers likewise and all wisdom; but Apollonius took no trouble over any of these things, and was busy in the sanctuary. The emperor spoke nobly and gently, and after a short discourse said, "Is the man of Tyana in the city?" "Yes," they said, "having made us better." "How then could he meet us? For I very much need the man." Dio said, "He will meet you near the sanctuary, for he promised me this when I came here." "Let us go," said the emperor, "to pray to the gods and to meet a noble man." From this arose a story that the empire had come to weigh upon his mind while he was besieging Jerusalem, and that he sent for Apollonius to take counsel about it, but Apollonius begged off from coming to a land that its inhabitants had defiled by what they had done and what they had suffered; and so he himself came to Egypt, already holding the empire, to talk with the man about what I shall make clear:
28| After sacrificing, and before he had yet given audience to the cities in due form, he addressed Apollonius, and as if praying to him said, "Make me emperor." Apollonius said, "I have done so. For in praying already I asked the gods for an emperor just, noble and self-controlled, adorned with gray hair and the father of legitimate sons, and that, of course, was you." The emperor was delighted at this, for the crowd in the sanctuary shouted in agreement with the saying, and he said, "How did Nero's rule seem to you?" And Apollonius said, "Nero perhaps understood tuning a lyre, but he disgraced the empire through slackness and through tension." "Do you then order the ruler to be moderate?" "Not I," he said, "but the god, who has defined equality as the mean. And good advisers on these matters are these men here," pointing to Dio, and to Euphrates, who had not yet come into his quarrel with him. Then the emperor, raising his hands, said, "Zeus, may I rule over the wise, and may the wise rule over me." And turning to the Egyptians he said, "Draw, as from the Nile and from me."
29| So Egypt lifted up its head in this way, having already given up hope because of the pressures it was under. As he came down from the sanctuary, he took Apollonius by the hand and led him into the palace and said, "Perhaps I seem boyish to some, laying hold of royal power about the sixtieth year of my life. I shall therefore give an account of myself, so that you may defend me to the others. I know that I was never beaten by wealth even as a youth, and I managed the offices and the splendors that belong to the Roman empire so moderately and sensibly that I seemed neither arrogant nor cowering. I did not contemplate revolution even against Nero; but since he held the empire, even if not according to the laws, at least as received from an emperor, I yielded to him on account of Claudius, who had made me consul and an adviser in his own affairs. By Athena, whenever I saw Nero behaving shamefully, tears fell from me as I thought of Claudius, and of what a scoundrel inherited the greatest of his possessions. But seeing that even when Nero was out of the way human affairs did not change for the better, but the empire was so dishonored that it lay in the hands of Vitellius, I am now going to it with confidence, first because I wish to show myself to men as worth much, and then because the contest will be against a man in the grip of a hangover. For Vitellius bathes in perfume more than I bathe in water, and I think that if he were struck by a sword he would give out perfume rather than blood. He joins wine to wine and is mad; he gambles, afraid that the dice may trip him up, yet he plays with the empire as a stake; he lies beneath courtesans and leaps on married women, saying that love affairs with danger are sweeter. I leave aside the more licentious things, so that I do not say such things in your presence. May I never let the Romans be ruled by such a man; rather, making the gods my leaders, may I become a man like myself. For this reason, Apollonius, I make my mooring cable fast to you, for they say that you perceive more of the gods' will than anyone; and I make you my adviser in cares that concern land and sea, so that, if the signs from the gods appear favorable, I may do these things, but if they are contrary and not on my side or on that of the Romans, I may avoid troubling gods who are unwilling."
30| Apollonius, invoking the god upon the speech, said, "Capitoline Zeus, for I know you to be the arbiter of the present affairs, guard yourself for this man, and guard this man for yourself; for the temple that unjust hands burned yesterday it is fated that this man shall raise up for you." The emperor wondered at the saying, and Apollonius said, "The events themselves will make it plain, and you do not need me; carry out what you have rightly resolved." What had happened, in fact, at Rome was this: Domitian, the son of Vespasian, had been drawn up in battle against Vitellius for his father's rule, and when a siege enclosed him in the Capitol, he escaped his besiegers, but the temple was burned. This appeared to Apollonius far sooner than if it had been done in Egypt. After this much business, Apollonius went away from the emperor, saying that the ancestral customs of the Indians did not permit him to do at midday anything other than what they do; and the emperor shone out all the more, and did not let events slip away from him, but held on to them as secure and already pledged to him, because of what he had heard.
31| On the next day, about dawn, Apollonius came to the palace and inquired of the guards what the emperor was doing. They said that he had been awake for a long time and was at his letters. Hearing this, he went away, saying to Damis, "The man will rule." Coming back about sunrise, he found Dio and Euphrates at the doors; when they asked eagerly about the meeting, he went through the account of himself that he had heard from the emperor, but kept silent about his own opinions. Called in first, he said, "Emperor, Euphrates and Dio, who have long been known to you, are at the doors, not without concern for your affairs. Call them also to a common discussion, for they are wise men." "I keep my doors unlocked to wise men," he said, "and as for you, my very breast seems to you to be open."
32| When they had been called in, he said, "Gentlemen, I made my defense about my intentions yesterday to the noble Apollonius." "We heard your defense," said Dio, "and it had sense." "Today, then," he said, "my dear Dio, let us philosophize together about what has been resolved, so that I may do everything as well as possible and for the safety of mankind. For I consider first Tiberius, how he changed the empire into something inhuman and cruel; then Gaius after him, how, frenzied for Dionysus, wearing Lydian dress and winning wars that did not exist, he shamefully played the Bacchant over all the affairs of the Romans; then the good Claudius, how, overcome by women, he forgot not only to rule but to live, for he died by their hands, as they say. As for Nero, why should I attack him, when Apollonius has delivered a brief and compact speech about the slackness and tension with which Nero disgraced the empire? What could I say of the arrangements of Galba, who died in the middle of the marketplace, adopting as sons for himself Otho and Piso, men who had played the courtesan? And if we were to hand the empire to Vitellius, the most licentious of all, Nero would live again. Seeing, then, gentlemen, that rule has been discredited by the tyrannies I have named, I make you my advisers on how I might manage it, now that it has already offended mankind." To this Apollonius said, "A flute-player, one of the very wise, used to send his pupils to the poorer flute-players to learn how not to play the flute. You have learned, emperor, how not to rule, from those who ruled badly; as to how one ought to rule, let us now take that up with earnestness."
33| Euphrates had already been secretly envying Apollonius, seeing the emperor attach himself to him more than visitors attach themselves to oracles; but now, swollen beyond measure and raising his voice above his usual pitch, he said that one ought not to flatter impulses, nor be carried away senselessly along with men who act without the reins, but ought to bring them into measure, if we are philosophers. “For on matters where we ought to be seen deliberating whether it is fitting to do them at all, you bid us say in what way they will be done, though you have not yet learned whether the discussion concerns things that should be done. I, for my part, urge that Vitellius be overthrown, for I know the man to be foul and drunk with every kind of licentiousness; but knowing you to be a good man and preeminent in nobility, I say you should not set Vitellius’ affairs right while not yet knowing your own. As for how monarchies behave with insolence, you need not learn it from me, for you have said it yourself; and you would understand that youth leaping at a tyranny does what perhaps befits itself, since for the young to be tyrants is much like being drunk or being in love; and a young man who has been a tyrant is not yet thought bad, even if he seems bloodthirsty, cruel and licentious in his tyranny. But when an old man comes to a tyranny, the first charge is that he wanted such things. For even if he appears humane and orderly, people do not credit this to him, but to his age and to his having settled into things, and he will be thought to have desired it long ago, while still young, and to have failed to get it; and such failures are put down partly to misfortune, partly to cowardice. “For a man is thought either to have condemned his own fortune and to have let his intention of ruling pass, or to have given way to another who was aiming at the tyranny because he feared him, evidently, as a real man. Let the matter of misfortune be set aside; but how will you plead off the charge of cowardice, when you are thought to have feared Nero, the most cowardly and most slothful of men? For what Vindex had in mind against him, by Heracles, called you first. You had an army, and the force that you were leading against the Jews was better suited to punishing Nero. Those people have long since revolted not only from the Romans but from all mankind; for men who have discovered a way of life that cannot be shared, who have no common table with other people, no libations, no prayers, no sacrifices, are farther removed from us than Susa and Bactra and the Indians beyond them. So it was not even reasonable to punish these people for revolting, whom it would have been better not even to possess. But Nero—who would not have prayed to kill him with his own hand, a man who all but drank human blood and sang in the midst of slaughters? And yet my ears were pricked up for the reports about you, and whenever someone arrived from there saying that thirty thousand Jews had been destroyed by you, and fifty thousand in the battle that followed, I would take the newcomer aside and ask him calmly, ‘And what of the man? Nothing greater than this?’ But since you have made Vitellius an image of Nero and are marching against him, do what you have planned, for that too is a fine thing; but as for what comes after this, let it stand as follows. “For the Romans, to be governed as a democracy is worth a great deal, and many of their possessions were acquired under that form of government. Abolish monarchy, concerning which you have spoken in such terms, and give the Romans the rule of the people, and to yourself the glory of having begun their freedom.”
34| When Euphrates had said this much, Apollonius saw that Dion was agreeing with his view, since Dion showed this both by a nod and by the things he praised in the speaker; and he said, “Surely, Dion, you are not adding something to what has been said?” “By Zeus,” he said, “in some respects the same, in others different. That he would have been far better employed overthrowing Nero than setting right the affairs of the Jews, I think I too have said to you; and you seemed to be struggling that Nero should never be overthrown. For whoever arranged the confusion of that man’s affairs well was in effect strengthening him against all those against whom he had been strong in evil. But I praise the move against Vitellius; for I think it greater not even to let a tyranny grow than to put an end to one already established. As for democracy, I welcome it—for even if this constitution is inferior to aristocracy, it is nonetheless more to be chosen by sensible men than tyrannies and oligarchies—but I fear that these tyrannies, having already made the Romans tame, will make the change difficult, and that they will be unable either to act as free men or to lift their eyes to democracy, like people who after darkness look suddenly at a full blaze of light. For this reason I say that Vitellius must be thrust out of affairs, and let it be done as quickly and as well as it can be; and it seems to me best to prepare as though for war, yet not to proclaim war against him beforehand, but rather punishment, if he does not let go of the rule. And once you have captured him (and I think that will come to you without any effort), give the Romans the choice of their own government, and if they choose democracy, concede it. “For this will be greater for you than many tyrannies and many Olympiads; you will be written up everywhere in the city, and everywhere you will stand in bronze, and you will give us occasions for speeches to which neither Harmodius nor Aristogeiton will be compared. But if they should accept monarchy, to whom is there left but you for all to vote the rule? For what you already hold and will hand over to the commonwealth, they will surely give to you rather than to another.”
35| Silence followed this, and the emperor’s face showed the struggle in his mind, since he seemed, though he was transacting and doing everything as an emperor, to be led away from this plan. Then Apollonius said, “You seem to me to be making a mistake, in dissuading the emperor about matters already decided, falling into a chatter that is boyish and slower than the occasion. For if I possessed as much power as this man, and were deliberating what good I could do to people, and you were advisers in such matters, your speech would be to the point—for philosophic opinions set right those hearers who are philosophers—but when you counsel a man who is a consul and used to ruling, and for whom, once he falls from power, destruction is ready, what need is there to upbraid him if he does not push away what fortune offers, but receives it as it comes, and takes counsel how to use sensibly what he has? Just as if we saw an athlete, well equipped in spirit and in stature and fitted in the harmony of his body, already walking through Arcadia to Olympia, and came up to him and encouraged him against his opponents, but told him that when he had won at Olympia he should not be proclaimed for the victory, nor offer his head to the wild olive, we would seem to be talking nonsense or mocking the labors of others. So let us think of the man in this way: how great a spear-point surrounds him, how much bronze flashes, how great a multitude of horses, and himself how noble, sensible, and fit to hold on to what he intends; let us send him on toward what he has set out for, speaking auspicious words to him, and urging him on with words even more auspicious than these. “For you have not considered this either: that he has two sons who already command armies, and if he does not hand the rule over to them, he will find them his bitterest enemies—and what is left then but to be at war to the end with his own house? But if he accepts the rule, he will be served by his own sons, he will lean on them and they on him, and he will have bodyguards who are, by Zeus, neither hired nor compelled nor putting on a friendly face, but the most devoted and dearest. I care for no constitution, for I live under the gods; but I do not think it right that the herd of mankind should perish for want of a herdsman who is just and sensible. For just as one man preeminent in virtue changes a democracy into the rule of the one best man, so the rule of one man who looks ahead in everything to the common advantage is rule by the people. ‘You did not overthrow Nero,’ he says. And you, Euphrates? And Dion? And I? Yet no one reproaches us with this, nor thinks us cowards, if when countless philosophers have already pulled down tyrannies, we fell short of being thought to do something for freedom. And yet, as far as I was concerned, I did array myself against Nero, speaking in a good many hostile terms and cutting short the cruel Tigellinus as he listened; and what help I gave Vindex in the western regions was surely a fortress built against Nero. But I will not say on this account that I overthrew the tyrant myself, nor, since you did not do these things, will I hold you softer than befits philosophy. “A philosopher will say whatever comes into his mind, and he will, I think, take care not to say anything senseless or frenzied; but for a consul who has in mind to overthrow a tyrant, first there is need of much more counsel, so that he may approach the matter from concealment, and then of a suitable pretext so as not to seem to break his oath. For if he is going to use arms against the very man who appointed him general, and to whom he swore to counsel and do the best, he must first make his defense to the gods, as one breaking an oath in a holy manner; and he needs more friends, for such things must not be done without palisade or fence; and as much money as possible, to win over the forces; and this when he is attacking a man who holds everything over the whole earth. What delay there is in these matters, and what lengths of time! Take these things however you wish, for let us not go into an examination of what this man, as is likely, has had in mind, and which fortune has brought together for him without his even struggling. But to this what will you say? The man who yesterday was in power and was being crowned by the cities in the temples here, and was transacting business brilliantly and lavishly, this man you bid proclaim publicly today that he is henceforth a private citizen, and that he came to power out of madness? For just as, by carrying out what has been resolved, he will win over eager bodyguards, in whom he trusted when he formed this plan, so by coming to withdraw from what he resolved he will find in them an enemy, and one he cannot trust from then on.”
36| The emperor heard this gladly, and said, “If you lived in my soul, you could not have reported more clearly what I had in mind. I follow you, then, for I consider everything that comes from you divine; and teach me all that a good emperor ought to do.” And Apollonius said, “You ask me for things that cannot be taught; for kingship is the greatest of human things, but unteachable. Yet whatever I think you would do soundly in acting, that I will tell you. Count as wealth not what is stored away—for what is better about it than sand brought together from anywhere?—nor what comes in from people who lament their taxes; for gold is counterfeit and dark if it comes from tears. You would use wealth best of all emperors by helping those in need, and by giving those who own much security for their wealth. Be afraid of being permitted everything you wish, for you will then use it more sensibly. Do not cut off the tall ears of grain that rise above the rest—for the saying of Aristotle is unjust—but rather root out the ill-disposed, as one roots the thorns out of the crops; and seem formidable to those who attempt revolution not in the act of punishing but in the prospect of punishing. Let law, O emperor, rule over you too; for you will legislate more sensibly if you do not look down on the laws. Serve the gods more than before; for you have received great things from them, and you pray for great things. And what belongs to the rule, do as an emperor; what belongs to the body, as a private man.” “As for dice and drunkenness and love affairs, and setting yourself against such things, what advice could I give you, who they say did not approve of these even at the age for them? You have two sons, O emperor, and fine ones, as they say. Rule these above all, for their errors will surely bring discredit on you. Let there also be a threat toward them, that you will not hand the rule over to them unless they remain men of honor and goodness, so that they may regard the rule not as an inheritance but as a prize of virtue. As for the pleasures that have taken up citizenship in Rome, and these are many, it seems to me, O emperor, that you should check them in due measure; for it is hard to change a people all at once into soberness, but one must instill rhythm into their minds little by little, correcting some things openly and some unobserved. And as for the luxury of freedmen and slaves whom the rule gives you, let us do away with it, accustoming them to think humbly in proportion as the master they belong to is greater. What is left but to speak of the governors who go out to the provinces—not those whom you yourself will send out, for you will surely give the offices to the best men, but those who will obtain the office by lot? Of these I say that you should send those suited to the provinces they have been allotted, as the lot falls: those who speak Greek to govern Greek peoples, those who speak Latin to govern peoples of the same tongue and voice. And I will say where I got this idea. In the times when I was living in the Peloponnese, a man who did not know the affairs of the Greeks was governing Greece, and the Greeks understood nothing of him. “So he did wrong, and was himself led astray in most things; for his assessors and partners in the judgment in the courts, taking the governor in hand like a slave, kept selling the lawsuits. This, O emperor, is what occurs to me today; and if anything else comes to mind, we shall meet again. For now, do what belongs to the rule, lest you seem idle to your subjects.”
37| Euphrates said, “I agree with what has been decided; for what more could I do by teaching otherwise? But as for philosophy, O emperor—for from now on it will be addressing you—praise and welcome the kind that accords with nature, but refuse the kind that claims to listen to the gods; for by lying about the divine, such people puff us up with many foolish notions.” These words were said by him against Apollonius; but Apollonius did not turn around, and went off with his own followers, having finished what he had come to do. When Euphrates wished to say something rather bolder about him, the emperor understood, and fending him off said, “Call in those who have petitions for the government, and let the senate resume its own form.” In this way Euphrates unwittingly discredited himself; for he seemed to the emperor spiteful and insolent, and to have spoken his words on behalf of democracy not as he really thought, but to contradict Apollonius because of what Apollonius thought about the rule. The emperor, however, did not cast him off, nor did he show any anger at this. And Dion he did not praise for having sided with Euphrates’ view, yet he did not stop being fond of him; for Dion seemed charming in his discourses and avoided quarrels, and he gave his speeches a bloom like the breath that comes from temples, and he also had the ability to speak extemporaneously better than any man. The emperor not only was fond of Apollonius, but also lay at his feet as he went through old stories, told of the Indian Phraotes, described the rivers and the wild beasts that inhabit India, and foretold all the things that the gods were revealing about the rule. When he was leaving Egypt, which had been resettled and was growing young again, he made Apollonius a companion on the road; but Apollonius did not think this good, saying that he had not yet seen Egypt in all its extent, and had not yet come to conversation with the Naked Sages, being very eager to weigh the wisdom of India against that of Egypt. “Nor have I drunk of the Nile at the place where it begins.” The emperor understood that he was setting out for Ethiopia, and said, “And will you not remember us?” “By Zeus,” he said, “if you remain a good emperor and remember yourself.”
38| After this the emperor sacrificed in the temple and announced gifts for him in public. Apollonius, as though about to ask, said, “And what gifts, O emperor, will you give?” “Ten now,” he said, “and when I come to Rome, everything of mine.” And Apollonius said, “Then I must spare your goods as though they were mine, and not squander them now, when they are to be laid up for me all together. But look after these men instead, O emperor, for they seem to be in need.” He was pointing, as it turned out, to the circle of Euphrates. The emperor told them to ask with confidence; and Dion, blushing, said, “Reconcile me, O emperor, with my teacher Apollonius, for the things on which I seemed to contradict him, though I had never before contradicted the man.” The emperor praised this and said, “I asked that yesterday and it is already granted; but ask for a gift.” And Dion said, “There is a certain Lasthenes, from Apamea in the nation of the Bithynians, who philosophized with me and has fallen in love with the military cloak and a soldier’s life. Since he now says he is in love with the philosopher’s cloak again, release him from the service; he asks this himself. You will oblige me by making him a good man, and him by letting him live as he wishes.” “Let him be released,” he said, “and I give him also what is given to those who have served, since he is in love with wisdom and with you.” After him the emperor turned to Euphrates, who had composed a letter about what he was asking. He held out the letter, as though the emperor would read it by himself, but the emperor, wishing to hand over some argument against him, read it aloud to all in public. Euphrates was seen to be asking some things for himself and some for others, and of the gifts some were money and some were means of getting money. Apollonius laughed and said, “Was it then on behalf of democracy that you gave counsel, when you were about to ask the emperor for so much?”
39| Such is what I found about the difference that arose between Apollonius and Euphrates. When the emperor had set out, they attacked each other in public, Euphrates with anger and abuse, Apollonius in the manner of a philosopher and rather with refutation. All that he charged Euphrates with, as acting in a way unbecoming to philosophy, one can learn from Apollonius’ letters to him, which are quite many; I must hold back from the man, for I did not set out to slander him, but to hand down the life of Apollonius to those who do not yet know it. As for the story about the stick, it is said that Euphrates raised it against Apollonius as he was talking, but did not strike; most people ascribe this to the cleverness of the one who was to be struck, but I ascribe it to the reasoning of the one who was about to strike, through which he became master of an anger that had already prevailed.
40| Dion’s philosophy seemed to Apollonius too rhetorical and more fitted for giving pleasure; so correcting him he says, “Charm with the flute and the lyre rather than with speech,” and in many places in his letters to Dion he rebukes this kind of popular oratory.
41| Why it happened that Apollonius never again came to the emperor or met with him after Egypt, though the emperor summoned him and wrote often about it, I wish to make clear. Nero had left Greece free, having reached a more sensible decision than was his wont, and the cities returned to Dorian and Attic ways, and everything grew young again in the concord of the cities, such as Greece had not had even in old times; but Vespasian, when he came, took this from her, putting forward civil strife and other pretexts not yet worthy of so great an anger. This seemed bitter not only to those who suffered it but also to Apollonius, and harsher than suits the character of imperial rule; so he wrote to the emperor as follows. “Apollonius to the emperor Vespasian, greetings. You have enslaved Greece, as they say, and you think you have something more than Xerxes had, but you do not notice that you have less than Nero; for Nero had it and gave it up. Farewell.” To the same: “You are so ill-disposed toward the Greeks that you enslave them though they are free; what need is there of my company? Farewell.” To the same: “Nero freed the Greeks in play, but you in earnest have enslaved them. Farewell.” Such were the things that set Apollonius against Vespasian; but when he heard that Vespasian was governing well throughout the rest of his reign, he made no secret of his pleasure, and considered that a good thing was being done for himself.
42| This too was thought a wonder of Apollonius in Egypt. A man was leading a tame lion on a leash, like a dog, and it fawned not only on the man who led it but on anyone who came near. It went about collecting alms in many of the cities, and it was even admitted into the temples because it was pure: it did not lick up the blood of the victims, nor did it lunge at the sacrificial animals as they were being flayed and jointed, but it lived on honey cakes and bread and sweetmeats and boiled meat, and you could even come upon it drinking wine without its nature changing. It came up to Apollonius as he sat in the temple, whimpered against his knees and entreated him as it entreated no one else — for a reward, as most people thought. But Apollonius said, “The lion is asking me to inform you what man’s soul it has. This, then, is Amasis, the king of Egypt in the Saite nome.” When the lion heard this, it let out a pitiful, mournful roar and, sinking down on its knees, it lamented, shedding tears. Apollonius stroked it and said, “I think the lion should be sent to Leontopolis to be dedicated to the temple there; for I do not think it right that a king transformed into the most royal of the beasts should go begging like the beggars among men.” Thereupon the priests gathered and sacrificed to Amasis, and having decked the beast with a collar and ribbons, they escorted it up into Egypt, playing pipes and singing hymns and songs composed in its honor.
43| Having seen enough of affairs at Alexandria, he set out for Egypt and Ethiopia to meet the Naked Sages. Menippus, since he was by now one of those able to discourse and was formidable in speaking his mind, he left behind there to keep watch on Euphrates; and seeing that Dioscorides was not in good shape for the journey, he excused him from the trip. He gathered the rest — for after the desertions near Aricia a good many others had joined him — and spoke to them about the journey, beginning in this way: “I need to give you an Olympic proclamation, gentlemen. An Olympic proclamation would run something like this. When the Olympic festival comes round, the Eleans train the athletes for thirty days in Elis itself. And whereas, when they assemble them, the Delphian at the time of the Pythian games and the Corinthian at the time of the Isthmian say, ‘Go into the stadium and prove yourselves men who can win,’ the Eleans, when they are setting off for Olympia, address the athletes like this: ‘If you have trained in a manner worthy of coming to Olympia, and have done nothing lazy or ignoble, go forward with confidence; but those who have not trained so, go wherever you please.’” His followers understood what he meant, and about twenty stayed behind with Menippus, while the rest, ten in number, I think, prayed to the gods, offered something like a sacrifice for setting sail, and went straight for the pyramids riding on camels, keeping the Nile on their right. In many places they crossed the river by boat to learn about everything along it; for there was no city, no temple, no sacred precinct anywhere in Egypt that they passed by without a word, but they were always learning and teaching some sacred lore, and the boat that Apollonius boarded was like a sacred ship carrying a festival embassy.
Cite a passage by its number: every paragraph here has its own anchor (for example https://openscriptorium.com/read/apollonius/005-life-of-apollonius-book-v#p1), and the bracketed reference numbers link the same way.