APOLLONIUS AND THE RULERS OF THE EMPIRE.
But not only did Apollonius vivify and reconsecrate the old centres of religion for some inscrutable reason, and do what he could to help on the religious life of the time in its multiplex phases, but he took a decided, though indirect, part in influencing the destinies of the Empire through the persons of its supreme rulers.
This influence, however, was invariably of a moral and not of a political nature. It was brought to bear by means of philosophical converse and instruction, by word of mouth or letter. Just as Apollonius on his travels conversed on philosophy, and discoursed on the life of a wise man and the duties of a wise ruler, with kings,108 rulers, and magistrates, so he endeavoured to advise for their good those of the emperors who would listen to him.
Vespasian, Titus, and Nerva were all, prior to their elevation to the purple, friends and admirers of Apollonius, while Nero and Domitian regarded the philosopher with dismay.
During Apollonius’ short stay in Rome, in 66 a.d., although he never let the slightest word escape him that could be construed by the numerous informers into a treasonable utterance, he was nevertheless brought before Tigellinus, the infamous favourite of Nero, and subjected to a severe cross-examination. Apparently up to this time Apollonius, working for the future, had confined his attention entirely to the reformation of religion and the restoration of the ancient institutions of the nations, but the tyrannical conduct of Nero, which gave peace not even to the most blameless philosophers, at length opened his eyes to a more immediate evil, which seemed no less than the abrogation of the liberty of conscience by an irresponsible tyranny. From this time onwards, therefore, we find him keenly interested in the persons of the successive emperors.
Indeed Damis, although he confesses his entire ignorance of the purpose of Apollonius’ journey to Spain after his expulsion from Rome, would have it that it was to aid the forthcoming revolt against Nero. He conjectures this from a three days’ secret interview that Apollonius had with the Governor of the Province of Bætica, who came to Cadiz especially to see him, and declares that the last words of Apollonius’ visitor were: “Farewell, and remember Vindex” (v. 10).
It is true that almost immediately afterwards the revolt of Vindex, the Governor of Gaul, broke out, but the whole life and character of Apollonius is opposed to any idea of political intrigue; on the contrary, he bravely withstood tyranny and injustice to the face. He was opposed to the idea of Euphrates, a philosopher of quite a different stamp, who would have put an end to the monarchy and restored the republic (v. 33); he believed that government by a monarch was the best for the Empire, but he desired above all other things to see the “flock of mankind” led by a “wise and faithful shepherd” (v. 35).
So that though Apollonius supported Vespasian as long as he worthily tried to follow out this ideal, he immediately rebuked him to his face when he deprived the Greek cities of their privileges. “You have enslaved Greece,” he wrote. “You have reduced a free people to slavery” (v. 41). Nevertheless, in spite of this rebuke, Vespasian in his last letter to his son Titus, confesses that they are what they are solely owing to the good advice of Apollonius (v. 30).
Equally so he journeyed to Rome to meet Domitian face to face, and though he was put on trial and every effort made to prove him guilty of treasonable plotting with Nerva, he could not be convicted of anything of a political nature. Nerva was a good man, he told the emperor, and no traitor. Not that Domitian had really any suspicion that Apollonius was personally plotting against him; he cast him into prison solely in the hope that he might induce the philosopher to disclose the confidences of Nerva and other prominent men who were objects of suspicion to him, and who he imagined had consulted Apollonius on their chances of success. Apollonius’ business was not with politics, but with the “princes who asked him for his advice on the subject of virtue” (vi. 43).
Section XII.
APOLLONIUS THE PROPHET AND WONDER-WORKER.
We will now turn our attention for a brief space to that side of Apollonius’ life which has made him the subject of invincible prejudice. Apollonius was not only a philosopher, in the sense of being a theoretical speculator or of being the follower of an ordered mode of life schooled in the discipline of resignation; he was also a philosopher in the original Pythagorean meaning of the term—a knower of Nature’s secrets, who thus could speak as one having authority.
He knew the hidden things of Nature by sight and not by hearing; for him the path of philosophy was a life whereby the man himself became an instrument of knowing. Religion, for Apollonius, was not a faith only, it was a science. For him the shows of things were but ever-changing appearances; cults and rites, religions and faiths, were all one to him, provided the right spirit were behind them. The Tyanean knew no differences of race or creed; such narrow limitations were not for the philosopher.
Beyond all others would he have laughed to hear the word “miracle” applied to his doings. “Miracle,” in its Christian theological sense, was an unknown term in antiquity, and is a vestige of superstition to-day. For though many believe that it is possible by means of the soul to effect a multitude of things beyond the possibilities of a science which is confined entirely to the investigation of physical forces, none but the unthinking believe that there can be any interference in the working of the laws which Deity has impressed upon Nature—the credo of Miraculists.
Most of the recorded wonder-doings of Apollonius are cases of prophecy or foreseeing; of seeing at a distance and seeing the past; of seeing or hearing in vision; of healing the sick or curing cases of obsession or possession.
Already as a youth, in the temple at Ægæ, Apollonius gave signs of the possession of the rudiments of this psychic insight; not only did he sense correctly the nature of the dark past of a rich but unworthy suppliant who desired the restoration of his eyesight, but he foretold, though unclearly, the evil end of one who made an attempt upon his innocence (i. 12).
On meeting with Damis, his future faithful henchman volunteered his services for the long journey to India on the ground that he knew the languages of several of the countries through which they had to pass. “But I understand them all, though I have learned none of them,” answered Apollonius, in his usual enigmatical fashion, and added: “Marvel not that I know all the tongues of men, for I know even what they never say” (i. 19). And by this he meant simply that he could read men’s thoughts, not that he could speak all languages. But Damis and Philostratus cannot understand so simple a fact of psychic experience; they will have it that he knew not only the language of all men, but also of birds and beasts (i. 20).
In his conversation with the Babylonian monarch Vardan, Apollonius distinctly claims foreknowledge. He says that he is a physician of the soul and can free the king from the diseases of the mind, not only because he knows what ought to be done, that is to say the proper discipline taught in the Pythagorean and similar schools, but also because he foreknows the nature of the king (i. 32). Indeed we are told that the subject of foreknowledge (προγνώσεως), of which science (σοφία) Apollonius was a deep student, was one of the principal topics discussed by our philosopher and his Indian hosts (iii. 42).
In fact, as Apollonius tells his philosophical and studious friend the Roman Consul Telesinus, for him wisdom was a kind of divinizing or making divine of the whole nature, a sort of perpetual state of inspiration (θειασμός) (iv. 40). And so we are told that Apollonius was apprised of all things of this nature by the energy of his dæmonial nature (δαιμoνίως) (vii. 10). Now for the student of the Pythagorean and Platonic schools the “dæmon” of a man was what may be called the higher self, the spiritual side of the soul as distinguished from the purely human. It is the better part of the man, and when his physical consciousness is at-oned with this “dweller in heaven,” he has (according to the highest mystic philosophy of ancient Greece) while still on earth the powers of those incorporeal intermediate beings between Gods and men called “dæmons”; a stage higher still, the living man becomes at-oned with his divine soul, he becomes a God on earth; and yet a stage higher he becomes at one with the Good and so becomes God.
Hence we find Apollonius indignantly rejecting the accusation of magic ignorantly brought against him, an art which achieved its results by means of compacts with those low entities with which the outermost realm of inner Nature swarms. Our philosopher repudiated equally the idea of his being a soothsayer or diviner. With such arts he would have nothing to do; if ever he uttered anything which savoured of foreknowledge, let them know it was not by divination in the vulgar sense, but owing to “that wisdom which God reveals to the wise” (iv. 44).
The most numerous wonder-doings ascribed to Apollonius are instances precisely of such foreknowledge or prophecy.109 It must be confessed that the utterances recorded are often obscure and enigmatical, but this is the usual case with such prophecy; for future events are most frequently either seen in symbolic representations, the meaning of which is not clear until after the event, or heard in equally enigmatical sentences. At times, however, we have instances of very precise foreknowledge, such as the refusal of Apollonius to go on board a vessel which foundered on the voyage (v. 18).
The instances of seeing present events at a distance, however—such as the burning of a temple at Rome, which Apollonius saw while at Alexandria—are clear enough. Indeed, if people know nothing else of the Tyanean, they have at least heard how he saw at Ephesus the assassination of Domitian at Rome at the very moment of its occurrence.
It was mid-day, to quote from the graphic account of Philostratus, and Apollonius was in one of the small parks or groves in the suburbs, engaged in delivering an address on some absorbing topic of philosophy. “At first he sank his voice as though in some apprehension; he, however, continued his exposition, but haltingly, and with far less force than usual, as a man who had some other subject in his mind than that on which he is speaking; finally he ceased speaking altogether as though he could not find his words. Then staring fixedly on the ground, he started forward three or four paces, crying out: ‘Strike the tyrant; strike!’ And this, not like a man who sees an image in a mirror, but as one with the actual scene before his eyes, as though he were himself taking part in it.”
Turning to his astonished audience he told them what he had seen. But though they hoped it were true, they refused to believe it, and thought that Apollonius had taken leave of his senses. But the philosopher gently answered: You, on your part, are right to suspend your rejoicings till the news is brought you in the usual fashion; “as for me, I go to return thanks to the Gods for what I have myself seen” (viii. 26).
Little wonder, then, if we read, not only of a number of symbolic dreams, but of their proper interpretation, one of the most important branches of the esoteric discipline of the school. (See especially i. 23 and iv. 34.) Nor are we surprised to hear that Apollonius, relying entirely on his inner knowledge, was instrumental in obtaining the reprieve of an innocent man at Alexandria, who was on the point of being executed with a batch of criminals (v. 24). Indeed, he seems to have known the secret past of many with whom he came in contact (vi. 3, 5).
The possession of such powers can put but little strain on the belief of a generation like our own, to which such facts of psychic science are becoming with every day more familiar. Nor should instances of curing disease by mesmeric processes astonish us, or even the so-called “casting out of evil spirits,” if we give credence to the Gospel narrative and are familiar with the general history of the times in which such healing of possession and obsession was a commonplace. This, however, does not condemn us to any endorsement of the fantastic descriptions of such happenings in which Philostratus indulges. If it be credible that Apollonius was successful in dealing with obscure mental cases—cases of obsession and possession—with which our hospitals and asylums are filled to-day, and which are for the most part beyond the skill of official science owing to its ignorance of the real agencies at work, it is equally evident that Damis and Philostratus had little understanding of the matter, and have given full rein to their imagination in their narratives. (See ii. 4; iv. 20, 25; v. 42; vi. 27, 43.) Perhaps, however, Philostratus in some instances is only repeating popular legend, the best case of which is the curing of the plague at Ephesus which the Tyanean had foretold on so many occasions. Popular legend would have it that the cause of the plague was traced to an old beggar man, who was buried under a heap of stones by the infuriated populace. On Apollonius ordering the stones to be removed, it was found that what had been a beggar man was now a mad dog foaming at the mouth (iv. 10)!
On the contrary, the account of Apollonius’ “restoring to life” a young girl of noble birth at Rome, is told with great moderation. Our philosopher seems to have met the funeral procession by chance; whereupon he suddenly went up to the bier, and, after making some passes over the maiden, and saying some inaudible words, “waked her out of her seeming death.” But, says Damis, “whether Apollonius noticed that the spark of the soul was still alive which her friends had failed to perceive—they say it was raining lightly and a slight vapour showed on her face—or whether he made the life in her warm again and so restored her,” neither himself nor any who were present could say (iv. 45).
Of a distinctly more phenomenal nature are the stories of Apollonius causing the writing to disappear from the tablets of one of his accusers before Tigellinus (iv. 44); of his drawing his leg out of the fetters to show Damis that he was not really a prisoner though chained in the dungeons of Domitian (vii. 38); and of his “disappearing” (ἠφανίσθη) from the tribunal (viii. 5).110
We are not, however, to suppose that Apollonius despised or neglected the study of physical phenomena in his devotion to the inner science of things. On the contrary, we have several instances of his rejection of mythology in favour of a physical explanation of natural phenomena. Such, for instance, are his explanations of the volcanic activity of Ætna (v. 14, 17), and of a tidal wave in Crete, the latter being accompanied with a correct indication of the more immediate result of the occurrence. In fact an island had been thrown up far out to sea by a submarine disturbance as was subsequently ascertained (iv. 34). The explanation of the tides at Cadiz may also be placed in the same category (v. 2).
Section XIII.
HIS MODE OF LIFE.
We will now present the reader with some general indications of the mode of life of Apollonius, and the manner of his teaching, of which already something has been said under the heading “Early Life.”
Our philosopher was an enthusiastic follower of the Pythagorean discipline; nay, Philostratus would have us believe that he made more superhuman efforts to reach wisdom than even the great Samian (i. 2). The outer forms of this discipline as exemplified in Pythagoras are thus summed up by our author.
“Naught would he wear that came from a dead beast, nor touch a morsel of a thing that once had life, nor offer it in sacrifice; not for him to stain with blood the altars; but honey-cakes and incense, and the service of his song went upward from the man unto the Gods, for well he knew that they would take such gifts far rather than the oxen in their hundreds with the knife. For he, in sooth, held converse with the Gods and learned from them how they were pleased with men and how displeased, and thence as well he drew his nature-lore. As for the rest, he said, they guessed at the divine, and held opinions on the Gods which proved each other false; but unto him Apollo’s self did come, confessed, without disguise,111 and there did come as well, though unconfessed, Athena and the Muses, and other Gods whose forms and names mankind did not yet know.”
Hence his disciples regarded Pythagoras as an inspired teacher, and received his rules as laws. “In particular did they keep the rule of silence regarding the divine science. For they heard within them many divine and unspeakable things on which it would have been difficult for them to keep silence, had they not first learned that it was just this silence which spoke to them” (i. 1).
Such was the general declaration of the nature of the Pythagorean discipline by its disciples. But, says Apollonius in his address to the Gymnosophists, Pythagoras was not the inventor of it. It was the immemorial wisdom, and Pythagoras himself had learnt it from the Indians.112 This wisdom, he continued, had spoken to him in his youth; she had said:
“For sense, young sir, I have no charms; my cup is filled with toils unto the brim. Would anyone embrace my way of life, he must resolve to banish from his board all food that once bore life, to lose the memory of wine, and thus no more to wisdom’s cup befoul—the cup that doth consist of wine-untainted souls. Nor shall wool warm him, nor aught that’s made from any beast. I give my servants shoes of bast and as they can to sleep. And if I find them overcome with love’s delights, I’ve ready pits down into which that justice which doth follow hard on wisdom’s foot, doth drag and thrust them; indeed, so stern am I to those who choose my way, that e’en upon their tongues I bind a chain. Now hear from me what things thou’lt gain, if thou endure. An innate sense of fitness and of right, and ne’er to feel that any’s lot is better than thy own; tyrants to strike with fear instead of being a fearsome slave to tyranny; to have the Gods more greatly bless thy scanty gifts than those who pour before them blood of bulls. If thou art pure, I’ll give thee how to know what things will be as well, and fill thy eyes so full of light, that thou may’st recognise the Gods, the heroes know, and prove and try the shadowy forms that feign the shapes of men” (vi. 11).
The whole life of Apollonius shows that he tried to carry out consistently this rule of life, and the repeated statements that he would never join in the blood-sacrifices of the popular cults (see especially i. 24, 31; iv. 11; v. 25), but openly condemned them, show not only that the Pythagorean school had ever set the example of the higher way of purer offerings, but that they were not only not condemned and persecuted as heretics on this account, but were rather regarded as being of peculiar sanctity, and as following a life superior to that of ordinary mortals.
The refraining from the flesh of animals, however, was not simply based upon ideas of purity, it found additional sanction in the positive love of the lower kingdoms and the horror of inflicting pain on any living creature. Thus Apollonius bluntly refused to take any part in the chase, when invited to do so by his royal host at Babylon. “Sire,” he replied, “have you forgotten that even when you sacrifice I will not be present? Much less then would I do these beasts to death, and all the more when their spirit is broken and they are penned in contrary to their nature” (i. 38).113
But though Apollonius was an unflinching task-master unto himself, he did not wish to impose his mode of life on others, even on his personal friends and companions (provided of course they did not adopt it of their own free will). Thus he tells Damis that he has no wish to prohibit him from eating flesh and drinking wine, he simply demands the right of refraining himself and of defending his conduct if called on to do so (ii. 7). This is an additional indication that Damis was not a member of the inner circle of discipline, and the latter fact explains why so faithful a follower of the person of Apollonius was nevertheless so much in the dark.
Not only so, but Apollonius even dissuades the Rājāh Phraotes, his first host in India, who desired to adopt his strict rule, from doing so, on the ground that it would estrange him too much from his subjects (ii. 37).
Three times a day Apollonius prayed and meditated; at daybreak (vi. 10, 18; vii. 31), at mid-day (vii. 10), and at sun-down (viii. 13). This seems to have been his invariable custom; no matter where he was he seems to have devoted at least a few moments to silent meditation at these times. The object of his worship is always said to have been the “Sun,” that is to say the Lord of our world and its sister worlds, whose glorious symbol is the orb of day.
We have already seen in the short sketch devoted to his “Early Life” how he divided the day and portioned out his time among his different classes of hearers and inquirers. His style of teaching and speaking was the opposite of that of a rhetorician or professional orator. There was no art in his sentences, no striving after effect, no affectation. But he spoke “as from a tripod,” with such words as “I know,” “Methinks,” “Why do ye,” “Ye should know.” His sentences were short and compact, and his words carried conviction with them and fitted the facts. His task, he declared, was no longer to seek and to question as he had done in his youth, but to teach what he knew (i. 17). He did not use the dialectic of the Socratic school, but would have his hearers turn from all else and give ear to the inner voice of philosophy alone (iv. 2). He drew his illustrations from any chance occurrence or homely happening (iv. 3; vi. 3, 38), and pressed all into service for the improvement of his listeners.
When put on his trial, he would make no preparation for his defence. He had lived his life as it came from day to day, prepared for death, and would continue to do so (viii. 30). Moreover it was now his deliberate choice to challenge death in the cause of philosophy. And so to his old friend’s repeated solicitations to prepare his defence, he replied:
“Damis, you seem to lose your wits in face of death, though you have been so long with me and I have loved philosophy e’en from my youth;114 I thought that you were both yourself prepared for death and knew full well my generalship in this. For just as warriors in the field have need not only of good courage but also of that generalship which tells them when to fight, so too must they who wisdom love make careful study of good times to die, that they may choose the best and not be done to death all unprepared. That I have chosen best and picked the moment which suits wisdom best to give death battle—if so it be that any one should wish to slay me—I’ve proved to other friends when you were by, nor ever ceased to teach you it alone” (vii. 31).
The above are some few indications of how our philosopher lived, in fear of nothing but disloyalty to his high ideal. We will now make mention of some of his more personal traits, and of some of the names of his followers.
Section XIV.
HIMSELF AND HIS CIRCLE.
Apollonius is said to have been very beautiful to look upon (i. 7, 12; iv. 1);115 but beyond this we have no very definite description of his person. His manner was ever mild and gentle (i. 36; ii. 22) and modest (iv. 31; viii. 15), and in this, says Damis, he was more like an Indian than a Greek (iii. 36); yet occasionally he burst out indignantly against some special enormity (iv. 30). His mood was often pensive (i. 34), and when not speaking he would remain for long plunged in deep thought, during which his eyes were steadfastly fixed on the ground (i. 10 et al.).
Though, as we have seen, he was inflexibly stern with himself, he was ever ready to make excuses for others; if, on the one hand, he praised the courage of those few who remained with him at Rome, on the other he refused to blame for their cowardice the many who had fled (iv. 38). Nor was his gentleness shown simply by abstention from blame, he was ever active in positive deeds of compassion (cf. vi. 39).
One of his little peculiarities was a liking to be addressed as “Tyanean” (vii. 38), but why this was so we are not told. It can hardly have been that Apollonius was particularly proud of his birth-place, for even though he was a great lover of Greece, so that at times you would call him an enthusiastic patriot, his love for other countries was quite as pronounced. Apollonius was a citizen of the world, if there has ever been one, into whose speech the word native-land did not enter, and a priest of universal religion in whose vocabulary the word sect did not exist.
In spite of his extremely ascetic life he was a man of strong physique, so that even when he had reached the ripe age of four-score years, we are told, he was sound and healthy in every limb and organ, upright and perfectly formed. There was also a certain indefinite charm about him that made him more pleasant to look upon than even the freshness of youth, and this even though his face was furrowed with wrinkles, just as the statues in the temple at Tyana represented him in the time of Philostratus. In fact, says his rhetorical biographer, report sang higher praises over the charm of Apollonius in his old age than over the beauty of Alcibiades in his youth (viii. 29).
In brief, our philosopher seems to have been of a most charming presence and lovable disposition; nor was his absolute devotion to philosophy of the nature of the hermit ideal, for he passed his life among men. What wonder then that he attracted to himself many followers and disciples! It would have been interesting if Philostratus had told us more about these “Apollonians,” as they were called (viii. 21), and whether they constituted a distinct school, or whether they were grouped together in communities on the Pythagorean model, or whether they were simply independent students attracted to the most commanding personality of the times in the domain of philosophy. It is, however, certain that many of them wore the same dress as himself and followed his mode of life (iv. 39). Repeated mention is also made of their accompanying Apollonius on his travels (iv. 47; v. 21; viii. 19, 21, 24), sometimes as many as ten of them at the same time, but none of them were allowed to address others until they had fulfilled the vow of silence (v. 43).
The most distinguished of his followers were Musonius, who was considered the greatest philosopher of the time after the Tyanean, and who was the special victim of Nero’s tyranny (iv. 44; v. 19; vii. 16), and Demetrius, “who loved Apollonius” (iv. 25, 42; v. 19; vi. 31; vii. 10; viii. 10). These names are well known to history; of names otherwise unknown are the Egyptian Dioscorides, who was left behind owing to weak health on the long journey to Ethiopia (iv. 11, 38; v. 43), Menippus, whom he had freed from an obsession (iv. 25, 38; v. 43), Phædimus (iv. 11), and Nilus, who joined him from Gymnosophists (v. 10 sqq., 28), and of course Damis, who would have us think that he was always with him from the time of their meeting at Ninus.
On the whole we are inclined to think that Apollonius did not establish any fresh organisation; he made use of those already existing, and his disciples were those who were attracted to him personally by an overmastering affection which could only be satisfied by being continually near him. This much seems certain, that he trained no one to carry on his task; he came and went, helping and illuminating, but he handed on no tradition of a definite line, and founded no school to be continued by successors. Even to his ever faithful companion, when bidding him farewell for what he knew would be the last time for Damis on earth, he had no word to say about the work to which he had devoted his life, but which Damis had never understood. His last words were for Damis alone, for the man who had loved him, but who had never known him. It was a promise to come to him if he needed help. “Damis, whenever you think on high matters in solitary meditation, you shall see me” (viii. 28).
We will next turn our attention to a consideration of some of the sayings ascribed to Apollonius and the speeches put into his mouth by Philostratus. The shorter sayings are in all probability authentically traditional, but the speeches are for the most part manifestly the artistic working-up of the rough notes of Damis. In fact, they are definitely declared to be so; but they are none the less interesting on this account, and for two reasons.
In the first place, they honestly avow their nature, and make no claim of inspiration; they are confessedly human documents which endeavour to give a literary dress to the traditional body of thought and endeavour which the life of the philosopher built into the minds of his hearers. The method was common to antiquity, and the ancient compilers of certain other series of famous documents would have been struck with amazement had they been able to see how posterity would divinise their efforts and regard them as immediately inspired by the source of all wisdom.
In the second place, although we are not to suppose that we are reading the actual words of Apollonius, we are nevertheless conscious of being in immediate contact with the inner atmosphere of the best religious thought of the Greek mind, and have before our eyes the picture of a mystic and spiritual fermentation which leavened all strata of society in the first century of our era.
Section XV.
FROM HIS SAYINGS AND SERMONS.
Apollonius believed in prayer, but how differently from the vulgar. For him the idea that the Gods could be swayed from the path of rigid justice by the entreaties of men, was a blasphemy; that the Gods could be made parties to our selfish hopes and fears was to our philosopher unthinkable. One thing alone he knew, that the Gods were the ministers of right and the rigid dispensers of just desert. The common belief, which has persisted to our own day, that God can be swayed from His purpose, that compacts could be made with Him or with His ministers, was entirely abhorrent to Apollonius. Beings with whom such pacts could be made, who could be swayed and turned, were not Gods but less than men. And so we find Apollonius as a youth conversing with one of the priests of Æsculapius as follows:
“Since then the Gods know all things, I think that one who enters the temple with a right conscience within him should pray thus: ‘Give me, ye Gods, what is my due!’” (i. 11).
And thus again on his long journey to India he prayed at Babylon: “God of the sun, send thou me o’er the earth so far as e’er ’tis good for Thee and me; and may I come to know the good, and never know the bad nor they know me” (i. 31).
One of his most general prayers, Damis tells us, was to this effect: “Grant me, ye Gods, to have little and need naught” (i. 34).
“When you enter the temples, for what do you pray?” asked the Pontifex Maximus Telesinus of our philosopher. “I pray,” said Apollonius, “that righteousness may rule, the laws remain unbroken, the wise be poor and others rich, but honestly” (iv. 40).
The belief of the philosopher in the grand ideal of having nothing and yet possessing all things, is exemplified by his reply to the officer who asked him how he dared enter the dominions of Babylon without permission. “The whole earth,” said Apollonius, “is mine; and it is given me to journey through it” (i. 21).
There are many instances of sums of money being offered to Apollonius for his services, but he invariably refused them; not only so but his followers also refused all presents. On the occasion when King Vardan, with true Oriental generosity, offered them gifts, they turned away; whereupon Apollonius said: “You see, my hands, though many, are all like each other.” And when the king asked Apollonius what present he would bring him back from India, our philosopher replied: “A gift that will please you, sire. For if my stay there should make me wiser, I shall come back to you better than I am” (i. 41).
When they were crossing the great mountains into India a conversation is said to have taken place between Apollonius and Damis, which presents us with a good instance of how our philosopher ever used the incidents of the day to inculcate the higher lessons of life. The question was concerning the “below” and “above.” Yesterday, said Damis, we were below in the valley; to-day we are above, high on the mountains, not far distant from heaven. So this is what you mean by “below” and “above,” said Apollonius gently. Why, of course, impatiently retorted Damis, if I am in my right mind; what need of such useless questions? And have you acquired a greater knowledge of the divine nature by being nearer heaven on the tops of the mountains? continued his master. Do you think that those who observe the heaven from the mountain heights are any nearer the understanding of things? Truth to tell, replied Damis, somewhat crestfallen, I did think I should come down wiser, for I’ve been up a higher mountain than any of them, but I fear I know no more than before I ascended it. Nor do other men, replied Apollonius; “such observations make them see the heavens more blue, the stars more large, and the sun rise from the night, things known to those who tend the sheep and goats; but how God doth take thought for human kind, and how He doth find pleasure in their service, and what is virtue, righteousness, and common-sense, that neither Athos will reveal to those who scale his summit nor yet Olympus who stirs the poet’s wonder, unless it be the soul perceive them; for should the soul when pure and unalloyed essay such heights, I swear to thee, she wings her flight far far beyond this lofty Caucasus” (ii. 6).
So again, when at Thermopylæ his followers were disputing as to which was the highest ground in Greece, Mt. Œta being then in view. They happened to be just at the foot of the hill on which the Spartans fell overwhelmed with arrows. Climbing to the top of it Apollonius cried out: “And I think this the highest ground, for those who fell here for freedom’s sake have made it high as Œta and raised it far above a thousand of Olympuses” (iv. 23).
Another instance of how Apollonius turned chance happenings to good account is the following. Once at Ephesus, in one of the covered walks near the city, he was speaking of sharing our goods with others, and how we ought mutually to help one another. It chanced that a number of sparrows were sitting on a tree hard by in perfect silence. Suddenly another sparrow flew up and began chirping, as though it wanted to tell the others something. Whereupon the little fellows all set to a-chirping also, and flew away after the new-comer. Apollonius’ superstitious audience were greatly struck by this conduct of the sparrows, and thought it was an augury of some important matter. But the philosopher continued with his sermon. The sparrow, he said, has invited his friends to a banquet. A boy slipped down in a lane hard by and spilt some corn he was carrying in a bowl; he picked up most of it and went away. The little sparrow, chancing on the scattered grains, immediately flew off to invite his friends to the feast.
Thereon most of the crowd went off at a run to see if it were true, and when they came back shouting and all agog with wonderment, the philosopher continued: “Ye see what care the sparrows take of one another, and how happy they are to share with all their goods. And yet we men do not approve; nay, if we see a man sharing his goods with other men, we call it wastefulness, extravagance, and by such names, and dub the men to whom he gives a share, fawners and parasites. What then is left to us except to shut us up at home like fattening birds, and gorge our bellies in the dark until we burst with fat?” (iv. 3).
On another occasion, at Smyrna, Apollonius, seeing a ship getting under weigh, used the occasion for teaching the people the lesson of co-operation. “Behold the vessel’s crew!” he said. “How some have manned the boats, some raise the anchors up and make them fast, some set the sails to catch the wind, how others yet again look out at bow and stern. But if a single man should fail to do a single one of these his duties, or bungle in his seamanship, their sailing will be bad, and they will have the storm among them. But if they strive in rivalry each with the other, their only strife being that no man shall seem worse than his mates, fair havens shall there be for such a ship, and all good weather and fair voyage crowd in upon it” (iv. 9).
Again, on another occasion, at Rhodes, Damis asked him if he thought anything greater than the famous Colossus. “I do,” replied Apollonius; “the man who walks in wisdom’s guileless paths that give us health” (v. 21).
There is also a number of instances of witty or sarcastic answers reported of our philosopher, and indeed, in spite of his generally grave mood, he not unfrequently rallied his hearers, and sometimes, if we may say so, chaffed the foolishness out of them (see especially iv. 30).
Even in times of great danger this characteristic shows itself. A good instance is his answer to the dangerous question of Tigellinus, “What think you of Nero?” “I think better of him than you do,” retorted Apollonius, “for you think he ought to sing, and I think he ought to keep silence” (iv. 44).
So again his reproof to a young Crœsus of the period is as witty as it is wise. “Young sir,” he said, “methinks it is not you who own your house, but your house you” (v. 22).
Of the same style also is his answer to a glutton who boasted of his gluttony. He copied Hercules, he said, who was as famous for the food he ate as for his labours.
“Yes,” said Apollonius, “for he was Hercules. But you, what virtue have you, midden-heap? Your only claim to notice is your chance of being burst” (iv. 23).
But to turn to more serious occasions. In answer to Vespasian’s earnest prayer, “Teach me what should a good king do,” Apollonius is said to have replied somewhat in the following words:
“You ask me what can not be taught. For kingship is the greatest thing within a mortal’s reach; it is not taught. Yet will I tell you what if you will do, you will do well. Count not that wealth which is stored up—in what is this superior to the sand haphazard heaped? nor that which comes from men who groan beneath taxation’s heavy weight—for gold that comes from tears is base and black. You’ll use wealth best of any king, if you supply the needs of those in want and make their wealth secure for those with many goods. Be fearful of the power to do whate’er you please, so will you use it with more prudence. Do not lop off the ears of corn that show beyond the rest and raise their heads—for Aristotle is not just in this116—but rather weed their disaffection out like tares from corn, and show yourself a fear to stirrers up of strife not in ‘I punish you’ but in ‘I will do so.’ Submit yourself to law, O prince, for you will make the laws with greater wisdom if you do not despise the law yourself. Pay reverence more than ever to the Gods; great are the gifts you have received from them, and for great things you pray.117 In what concerns the state act as a king; in what concerns yourself, act as a private man” (v. 36). And so on much in the same strain, all good advice and showing a deep knowledge of human affairs. And if we are to suppose that this is merely a rhetorical exercise of Philostratus and not based on the substance of what Apollonius said, then we must have a higher opinion of the rhetorician than the rest of his writings warrant.
There is an exceedingly interesting Socratic dialogue between Thespesion, the abbot of the Gymnosophist community, and Apollonius on the comparative merits of the Greek and Egyptian ways of representing the Gods. It runs somewhat as follows:
“What! Are we to think,” said Thespesion, “that the Pheidiases and Praxiteleses went up to heaven and took impressions of the forms of the Gods, and so made an art of them, or was it something else that set them a-modelling?”
“Yes, something else,” said Apollonius, “something pregnant with wisdom.”
“What was that? Surely you cannot say it was anything else but imitation?”
“Imagination wrought them—a workman wiser far than imitation; for imitation only makes what it has seen, whereas imagination makes what it has never seen, conceiving it with reference to the thing it really is.”
Imagination, says Apollonius, is one of the most potent faculties, for it enables us to reach nearer to realities. It is generally supposed that Greek sculpture was merely a glorification of physical beauty, in itself quite unspiritual. It was an idealisation of form and features, limbs and muscles, an empty glorification of the physical with nothing of course really corresponding to it in the nature of things. But Apollonius declared it brings us nearer to the real, as Pythagoras and Plato declared before him, and as all the wiser teach. He meant this literally, not vaguely and fantastically. He asserted that the types and ideas of things are the only realities. He meant that between the imperfection of the earth and the highest divine type of all things, were grades of increasing perfection. He meant that within each man was a form of perfection, though of course not yet absolutely perfect. That the angel in man, his dæmon, was of God-like beauty, the summation of all the finest features he had ever worn in his many lives on earth. The Gods, too, belonged to the world of types, of models, of perfections, the heaven-world. The Greek sculptors had succeeded in getting in contact with this world, and the faculty they used was imagination.
This idealisation of form was a worthy way to represent the Gods; but, says Apollonius, if you set up a hawk or owl or dog in your temples, to represent Hermes or Athena or Apollo, you may dignify the animals, but you make the Gods lose dignity.
To this Thespesion replies that the Egyptians dare not give any precise form to the Gods; they give them merely symbols to which an occult meaning is attached.
Yes, answers Apollonius, but the danger is that the common people worship these symbols and get unbeautiful ideas of the Gods. The best thing would be to have no representations at all. For the mind of the worshipper can form and fashion for himself an image of the object of his worship better than any art.
Quite so, retorted Thespesion, and then added mischievously: There was an old Athenian, by-the-by—no fool—called Socrates, who swore by the dog and goose as though they were Gods.
Yes, replied Apollonius, he was no fool. He swore by them not as being Gods, but in order that he might not swear by the Gods (iv. 19).
This is a pleasant passage of wit, of Egyptian against Greek, but all such set arguments must be set down to the rhetorical exercises of Philostratus rather than to Apollonius, who taught as “one having authority,” as “from a tripod.” Apollonius, a priest of universal religion, might have pointed out the good side and the bad side of both Greek and Egyptian religious art, and certainly taught the higher way of symbolless worship, but he would not champion one popular cult against another. In the above speech there is a distinct prejudice against Egypt and a glorification of Greece, and this occurs in a very marked fashion in several other speeches. Philostratus was a champion of Greece against all comers; but Apollonius, we believe, was wiser than his biographer.
In spite of the artificial literary dress that is given to the longer discourses of Apollonius, they contain many noble thoughts, as we may see from the following quotations from the conversations of our philosopher with his friend Demetrius, who was endeavouring to dissuade him from braving Domitian at Rome.
The law, said Apollonius, obliges us to die for liberty, and nature ordains that we should die for our parents, our friends, or our children. All men are bound by these duties. But a higher duty is laid upon the sage; he must die for his principles and the truth he holds dearer than life. It is not the law that lays this choice upon him, it is not nature; it is the strength and courage of his own soul. Though fire or sword threaten him, it will not overcome his resolution or force from him the slightest falsehood; but he will guard the secrets of others’ lives and all that has been entrusted to his honour as religiously as the secrets of initiation. And I know more than other men, for I know that of all that I know, I know some things for the good, some for the wise, some for myself, some for the Gods, but naught for tyrants.
Again, I think that a wise man does nothing alone or by himself; no thought of his so secret but that he has himself as witness to it. And whether the famous saying “know thyself” be from Apollo or from some sage who learnt to know himself and proclaimed it as a good for all, I think the wise man who knows himself and has his own spirit in constant comradeship, to fight at his right hand, will neither cringe at what the vulgar fear, nor dare to do what most men do without the slightest shame (vii. 15).
In the above we have the true philosopher’s contempt for death, and also the calm knowledge of the initiate, of the comforter and adviser of others to whom the secrets of their lives have been confessed, that no tortures can ever unseal his lips. Here, too, we have the full knowledge of what consciousness is, of the impossibility of hiding the smallest trace of evil in the inner world; and also the dazzling brilliancy of a higher ethic which makes the habitual conduct of the crowd appear surprising—the “that which they do—not with shame.”
Section XVI.
FROM HIS LETTERS.
Apollonius seems to have written many letters to emperors, kings, philosophers, communities and states, although he was by no means a “voluminous correspondent”; in fact, the style of his short notes is exceedingly concise, and they were composed, as Philostratus says, “after the manner of the Lacedæmonian scytale”118 (iv. 27 and vii. 35).
It is evident that Philostratus had access to letters attributed to Apollonius, for he quotes a number of them,119 and there seems no reason to doubt their authenticity. Whence he obtained them he does not inform us, unless it be that they were the collection made by Hadrian at Antium (viii. 20).
That the reader may be able to judge of the style of Apollonius we append one or two specimens of these letters, or rather notes, for they are too short to deserve the title of epistles. Here is one to the magistrates of Sparta:
“Apollonius to the Ephors, greeting!
“It is possible for men not to make mistakes, but it requires noble men to acknowledge they have made them.”
All of which Apollonius gets into just half as many words in Greek. Here, again, is an interchange of notes between the two greatest philosophers of the time, both of whom suffered imprisonment and were in constant danger of death.
“Apollonius to Musonius, the philosopher, greeting!
“I want to go to you, to share speech and roof with you, to be of some service to you. If you still believe that Hercules once rescued Theseus from Hades, write what you would have. Farewell!”
“Musonius to Apollonius, the philosopher, greeting!
“Good merit shall be stored for you for your good thoughts; what is in store for me is one who waits his trial and proves his innocence. Farewell.”
“Apollonius to Musonius, greeting!
“Socrates refused to be got out of prison by his friends and went before the judges. He was put to death. Farewell.”
“Musonius to Apollonius, the philosopher, greeting!
“Socrates was put to death because he made no preparation for his defence. I shall do so. Farewell!”
However, Musonius, the Stoic, was sent to penal servitude by Nero.
Here is a note to the Cynic Demetrius, another of our philosopher’s most devoted friends.
“Apollonius, the philosopher, to Demetrius, the Dog,120 greeting!
“I give thee to Titus, the emperor, to teach him the way of kingship, and do you in turn give me to speak him true; and be to him all things but anger. Farewell!”
In addition to the notes quoted in the text of Philostratus, there is a collection of ninety-five letters, mostly brief notes, the text of which is printed in most editions.121 Nearly all the critics are of opinion that they are not genuine, but Jowett122 and others think that some of them may very well be genuine.
Here is a specimen or two of these letters. Writing to Euphrates, his great enemy, that is to say the champion of pure rationalistic ethic against the science of sacred things, he says:
17. “The Persians call those who have the divine faculty (or are god-like) Magi. A Magus, then, is one who is a minister of the Gods, or one who has by nature the god-like faculty. You are no Magus but reject the Gods (i.e., are an atheist).”
Again, in a letter addressed to Criton, we read:
23. “Pythagoras said that the most divine art was that of healing. And if the healing art is most divine, it must occupy itself with the soul as well as with the body; for no creature can be sound so long as the higher part in it is sickly.”
Writing to the priests of Delphi against the practice of blood-sacrifice, he says:
27. “Heraclitus was a sage, but even he123 never advised the people of Ephesus to wash out mud with mud.”124
Again, to some who claimed to be his followers, those “who think themselves wise,” he writes the reproof:
43. “If any say he is my disciple, then let him add he keeps himself apart out of the Baths, he slays no living thing, eats of no flesh, is free from envy, malice, hatred, calumny, and hostile feelings, but has his name inscribed among the race of those who’ve won their freedom.”
Among these letters is found one of some length addressed to Valerius, probably P. Valerius Asiaticus, consul in a.d. 70. It is a wise letter of philosophic consolation to enable Valerius to bear the loss of his son, and runs as follows:125
“There is no death of anyone, but only in appearance, even as there is no birth of any, save only in seeming. The change from being to becoming seems to be birth, and the change from becoming to being seems to be death, but in reality no one is ever born, nor does one ever die. It is simply a being visible and then invisible; the former through the density of matter, and the latter because of the subtlety of being—being which is ever the same, its only change being motion and rest. For being has this necessary peculiarity, that its change is brought about by nothing external to itself; but whole becomes parts and parts become whole in the oneness of the all. And if it be asked: What is this which sometimes is seen and sometimes not seen, now in the same, now in the different?—it might be answered: It is the way of everything here in the world below that when it is filled out with matter it is visible, owing to the resistance of its density, but is invisible, owing to its subtlety, when it is rid of matter, though matter still surround it and flow through it in that immensity of space which hems it in but knows no birth or death.
“But why has this false notion [of birth and death] remained so long without a refutation? Some think that what has happened through them, they have themselves brought about. They are ignorant that the individual is brought to birth through parents, not by parents, just as a thing produced through the earth is not produced from it. The change which comes to the individual is nothing that is caused by his visible surroundings, but rather a change in the one thing which is in every individual.
“And what other name can we give to it but primal being? ’Tis it alone that acts and suffers becoming all for all through all, eternal deity, deprived and wronged of its own self by names and forms. But this is a less serious thing than that a man should be bewailed, when he has passed from man to God by change of state and not by the destruction of his nature. The fact is that so far from mourning death you ought to honour it and reverence it. The best and fittest way for you to honour death is now to leave the one who’s gone to God, and set to work to play the ruler over those left in your charge as you were wont to do. It would be a disgrace for such a man as you to owe your cure to time and not to reason, for time makes even common people cease from grief. The greatest thing is a strong rule, and of the greatest rulers he is best who first can rule himself. And how is it permissible to wish to change what has been brought to pass by will of God? If there’s a law in things, and there is one, and it is God who has appointed it, the righteous man will have no wish to try to change good things, for such a wish is selfishness, and counter to the law, but he will think that all that comes to pass is a good thing. On! heal yourself, give justice to the wretched and console them; so shall you dry your tears. You should not set your private woes above your public cares, but rather set your public cares before your private woes. And see as well what consolation you already have! The nation sorrows with you for your son. Make some return to those who weep with you; and this you will more quickly do if you will cease from tears than if you still persist. Have you not friends? Why! you have yet another son. Have you not even still the one that’s gone? You have!—will answer anyone who really thinks. For ‘that which is’ doth cease not—nay is just for the very fact that it will be for aye; or else the ‘is not’ is, and how could that be when the ‘is’ doth never cease to be?
“Again it will be said you fail in piety to God and are unjust. ’Tis true. You fail in piety to God, you fail in justice to your boy; nay more, you fail in piety to him as well. Would’st know what death is? Then make me dead and send me off to company with death, and if you will not change the dress you’ve put on it,126 you will have straightway made me better than yourself.”127
Section XVII.
THE WRITINGS OF APOLLONIUS.
But besides these letters Apollonius also wrote a number of treatises, of which, however, only one or two fragments have been preserved. These treatises are as follows:
a. The Mystic Rites or Concerning Sacrifices.128 This treatise is mentioned by Philostratus (iii. 41; iv. 19), who tells us that it set down the proper method of sacrifice to every God, the proper hours of prayer and offering. It was in wide circulation, and Philostratus had come across copies of it in many temples and cities, and in the libraries of philosophers. Several fragments of it have been preserved,129 the most important of which is to be found in Eusebius,130 and is to this effect: “’Tis best to make no sacrifice to God at all, no lighting of a fire, no calling Him by any name that men employ for things of sense. For God is over all, the first; and only after Him do come the other Gods. For He doth stand in need of naught e’en from the Gods, much less from us small men—naught that the earth brings forth, nor any life she nurseth, or even any thing the stainless air contains. The only fitting sacrifice to God is man’s best reason, and not the word131 that comes from out his mouth.
“We men should ask the best of beings through the best thing in us, for what is good—I mean by means of mind, for mind needs no material things to make its prayer. So then, to God, the mighty One, who’s over all, no sacrifice should ever be lit up.”
Noack132 tells us that scholarship is convinced of the genuineness of this fragment. This book, as we have seen, was widely circulated and held in the highest respect, and it said that its rules were engraved on brazen pillars at Byzantium.133
b. The Oracles or Concerning Divination, 4 books. Philostratus (iii. 41) seems to think that the full title was Divination of the Stars, and says that it was based on what Apollonius had learned in India; but the kind of divination Apollonius wrote about was not the ordinary astrology, but something which Philostratus considers superior to ordinary human art in such matters. He had, however, never heard of anyone possessing a copy of this rare work.
c. The Life of Pythagoras. Porphyry refers to this work,134 and Iamblichus quotes a long passage from it.135
d. The Will of Apollonius, to which reference has already been made, in treating of the sources of Philostratus (i. 3). This was written in the Ionic dialect, and contained a summary of his doctrines.
A Hymn to Memory is also ascribed to him, and Eudocia speaks of many other (καὶ ἄλλα πολλά) works.
We have now indicated for the reader all the information which exists concerning our philosopher. Was Apollonius, then, a rogue, a trickster, a charlatan, a fanatic, a misguided enthusiast, or a philosopher, a reformer, a conscious worker, a true initiate, one of the earth’s great ones? This each must decide for himself, according to his knowledge or his ignorance.
I for my part bless his memory, and would gladly learn from him, as now he is.
Section XVIII.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES.
NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE ON APOLLONIUS.
Jacobs (F.), Observationes in ... Philostrati Vitam Apollonii (Jena; 1804), purely philological, for the correction of the text.
Legrand d’Aussy (P. J. B.), Vie d’Apollonius de Tyane (Paris; 1807, 2 vols.).
Bekker (G. J.), Specimen Variarum Lectionum ... in Philost. Vitæ App. Librum primum (1808); purely philological.
Berwick (E.), The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, translated from the Greek of Philostratus, with Notes and Illustrations (London; 1809).
Lancetti (V.), Le Opere dei due Filostrati, Italian trs. (Milano; 1828-31); in “Coll. degli Ant. Storici Greci volgarizzati.”
Jacobs (F.), Philostratus: Leben des Apollonius von Tyana, in the series “Griechische Prosaiker,” German trs. (Stuttgart; 1829-32), vols. xlviii., lxvi., cvi., cxi., each containing two books; a very clumsy arrangement.
Baur (F. C.), Apollonius von Tyana und Christus oder das Verhältniss des Pythagoreismus zum Christenthum (Tübingen; 1832); reprinted from Tübinger Zeitschrift für Theologie.
Second edition by E. Zeller (Leipzig; 1876), in Drei Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der alten Philosophie und ihres Verhältnisses zum Christenthum.
Kayser and Westermann’s editions as above referred to in section v.
Newman (J. H.), “Apollonius Tyanæus—Miracles,” in Smedley’s Encyclopædia Metropolitana (London; 1845), x. pp. 619-644.
Noack (L.), “Apollonius von Tyana ein Christusbild des Heidenthums,” in his magazine Psyche: Populärwissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für die Kentniss des menschlichen Seelen- und Geistes-lebens (Leipzig; 1858), Bd. i., Heft ii., pp. 1-24.
Müller (I. P. E.), Commentatio qua de Philostrati in componenda Memoria Apoll. Tyan. fide quæritur, I.-III. (Onoldi et Landavii; 1858-1860).
Müller (E.), War Apollonius von Tyana ein Weiser oder ein Betrüger oder ein Schwärmer und Fanatiker? Ein Culturhistorische Untersuchung (Breslau; 1861, 4to), 56 pp.
Chassang (A.), Apollonius de Tyane, sa Vie, ses Voyages, ses Prodiges, par Philostrate, et ses Lettres, trad. du grec. avec Introd., Notes et Eclaircissements (Paris; 1862), with the additional title, Le Merveilleux dans l’Antiquité.
Réville (A.), Apollonius the Pagan Christ of the Third Century (London; 1866), tr. from the French. The original is not in the British Museum.
Priaulx (O. de B.), The Indian Travels of Apollonius of Tyana, etc. (London; 1873), pp. 1-62.
Mönckeberg (C.), Apollonius von Tyana, ein Weihnachtsgabe (Hamburg; 1877), 57 pp.
Pettersch (C. H.), Apollonius von Tyana der Heiden Heiland, ein philosophische Studie (Reichenberg; 1879), 23 pp.
Nielsen (C. L.), Apollonios fra Tyana og Filostrats Beskrivelse af hans Levnet (Copenhagen; 1879); the Appendix (pp. 167 sqq.) contains a Danish tr. of Eusebius Contra Hieroclem.
Baltzer (E.), Apollonius von Tyana, aus den Griech. übersetzt u. erläutert (Rudolstadt i/ Th.; 1883).
Jessen (J.), Apollonius von Tyana und sein Biograph Philostratus (Hamburg; 1885, 4to), 36 pp.
Tredwell (D. M.), A Sketch of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, or the first Ten Decades of our Era (New York; 1886).
Sinnett (A. P.), “Apollonius of Tyana,” in the Transactions (No. 32) of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society (London; 1898), 32 pp.
The student may also consult the articles in the usual Dictionaries and Encyclopædias, none of which, however, demand special mention. P. Cassel’s learned paper in the Vossische Zeitung of Nov. 24th, 1878, I have not been able to see.
SOME INDICATIONS OF THE LITERATURE ON THE RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS AMONG THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.
Böckh (A.), Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener (1st ed. 1817). For older literature, see i. 416, n.
Van Holst, De Eranis Veterum Græcorum (Leyden; 1832).
Mommsen (T.), De Collegiis et Sodaliciis Romanorum (Kiel; 1843).
Mommsen (T.), “Römische Urkunden, iv.—Die Lex Julia de Collegiis und die lanuvinische Lex Collegii Salutaris,” art. in Zeitschr. für geschichtl. Rechtswissenschaft (1850), vol. xv. 353 sqq.
Wescher (C.), “Recherches épigraphiques en Grèce, dans l’Archipel et en Asie Mineure,” arts. in Le Moniteur of Oct. 20, 23, and 24, 1863.
Wescher (C.), “Inscriptions de l’Île de Rhodes relatives à des Sociétés religieuses”; “Notice sur deux Inscriptions de l’Île de Théra relatives à une Société religieuse”; “Note sur une Inscription de l’Île de Théra publiée par M. Ross et relative à une Société religieuse”; arts. in La Revue archéologique (Paris; new series, 1864), x. 460 sqq.; 1865, xii. 214 sqq.; 1866, xiii. 245 sqq.