1 From a fragment of The Cretans. See Lobeck’s Aglaophamus, p. 622.

2 Pronounced Týǎna, with the accent on the first syllable and the first a short.

3 Alexander sive Pseudomantis, vi.

4 De Magia, xc. (ed. Hildebrand, 1842, ii. 614).

5 τελέσματα. Telesma was “a consecrated object, turned by the Arabs into telsam (talisman)”; see Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon, sub voc.

6 Justin Martyr, Opera, ed. Otto (2nd ed.; Jena, 1849), iii. 32.

7 Lib. lxxvii. 18.

8 Life of Alexander Severus, xxix.

9 Life of Aurelian, xxiv.

10 “Quæ qui velit nosse, græcos legat libros qui de ejus vita conscripti sunt.” These accounts were probably the books of Maximus, Mœragenes, and Philostratus.

11 An Egyptian epic poet, who wrote several poetical histories in Greek; he flourished in the last decade of the third century.

12 Sidonius Apollinaris, Epp., viii. 3. See also Legrand d’Aussy, Vie d’Apollonius de Tyane (Paris; 1807), p. xlvii.

13 Porphyry, De Vita Pythagoræ, section ii., ed. Kiessling (Leipzig; 1816). Iamblichus De Vita Pythagorica, chap. xxv., ed. Kiessling (Leipzig; 1813); see especially K.’s note, pp. 11 sqq. See also Porphyry, Frag., De Styge, p. 285, ed. Holst.

14 See Duchesne on the recently discovered works of Macarius Magnes (Paris; 1877).

15 The most convenient text is by Gaisford (Oxford; 1852), Eusebii Pamphili contra Hieroclem; it is also printed in a number of editions of Philostratus. There are two translations in Latin, one in Italian, one in Danish, all bound up with Philostratus’ Vita, and one in French printed apart (Discours d’Eusèbe Evêque de Cesarée touchant les Miracles attribuez par les Payens à Apollonius de Tyane, tr. by Cousin. Paris; 1584, 12mo, 135 pp.).

16 Lactantius, Divinæ Institutiones, v. 2, 3; ed. Fritsche (Leipzig; 1842), pp. 233, 236.

17 Arnobius, Adversus Nationes, i. 52; ed. Hildebrand (Halle; 1844), p. 86. The Church Father, however, with that exclusiveness peculiar to the Judæo-Christian view, omits Moses from the list of Magi.

18 John Chrysostom, Adversus Judæos, v. 3 (p. 631); De Laudibus Sancti Pauli Apost. Homil., iv. (p. 493 D.; ed. Montfauc.).

19 Hieronymus, Ep. ad Paulinum, 53 (text ap. Kayser, præf. ix.).

20 August., Epp., cxxxviii. Text quoted by Legrand d’Aussy, op. cit., p. 294.

21 Isidorus Pelusiota, Epp., p. 138; ed. J. Billius (Paris; 1585).

22 See Arnobius, loc. cit.

23 Sidonius Apollinaris, Epp., viii. 3. Also Fabricius, Bibliotheca Græca, pp. 549, 565 (ed. Harles). The work of Sidonius on Apollonius is unfortunately lost.

24 Amplissimus ille philosophus (xxiii. 7). See also xxi. 14; xxiii. 19.

25 τι θεῶν τε καὶ ἀνθρώπου μέσον, meaning thereby presumably one who has reached the grade of being superior to man, but not yet equal to the gods. This was called by the Greeks the “dæmonian” order. But the word “dæmon,” owing to sectarian bitterness, has long been degraded from its former high estate, and the original idea is now signified in popular language by the term “angel.” Compare Plato, Symposium, xxiii., πᾶν τὸ δαιμόνιον μεταξύ ἐστι θεοῦ τε καὶ θνητοῦ, “all that is dæmonian is between God and man.”

26 Eunapius, Vitæ Philosophorum, Proœmium, vi.; ed. Boissonade (Amsterdam; 1822), p. 3.

27 Réville, Apollonius of Tyana (tr. from the French), p. 56 (London; 1866). I have, however, not been able to discover on what authority this statement is made.

28 Insignis philosophus; see his Chronicon, written down to the year 519.

29 In his Chronographia. See Legrand d’Aussy, op. cit., p. 313.

30 Chiliades, ii. 60.

31 Cited by Legrand d’Aussy, op. cit., p. 286.

32 φιλόσοφος Πυθαγόρειος στοιχειωματικός—Cedrenus, Compendium Historiarium, i. 346; ed. Bekker. The word which I have rendered by “adept” signifies one “who has power over the elements.”

33 Legrand d’Aussy, op. cit., p. 308.

34 If we except the disputed Letters and a few quotations from one of Apollonius’ lost writings.

35 Philostratus de Vita Apollonii Tyanei Libri Octo, tr. by A. Rinuccinus, and Eusebius contra Hieroclem, tr. by Z. Acciolus (Venice; 1501-04, fol.). Rinucci’s translation was improved by Beroaldus and printed at Lyons (1504?), and again at Cologne, 1534.

36 F. Baldelli, Filostrato Lemnio della Vita di Apollonio Tianeo (Florence; 1549, 8vo).

37 B. de Vignère, Philostrate de la Vie d’Apollonius (Paris; 1596, 1599, 1611). Blaise de Vignère’s translation was subsequently corrected by Frédéric Morel and later by Thomas Artus, Sieur d’Embry, with bombastic notes in which he bitterly attacks the wonder-workings of Apollonius. A French translation was also made by Th. Sibilet about 1560, but never published; the MS. was in the Bibliothèque Imperiale. See Miller, Journal des Savants, 1849, p. 625, quoted by Chassang, op. infr. cit., p. iv.

38 F. Morellus, Philostrati Lemnii Opera, Gr. and Lat. (Paris; 1608).

39 G. Olearius, Philostratorum quæ supersunt Omnia, Gr. and Lat. (Leipzig; 1709).

40 C. L. Kayser, Flavii Philostrati quæ supersunt, etc. (Zurich; 1844, 4to). In 1849 A. Westermann also edited a text, Philostratorum et Callistrati Opera, in Didot’s “Scriptorum Græcorum Bibliotheca” (Paris; 1849, 8vo). But Kayser brought out a new edition in 1853 (?), and again a third, with additional information in the Preface, in the “Bibliotheca Teubneriana” (Leipzig; 1870).

41 For a general summary of opinions prior to 1807, of writers who mention Apollonius incidentally, see Legrand d’Aussy, op. cit., ii. pp. 313-327.

42 L’Histoire d’Apollone de Tyane convaincue de Fausseté et d’Imposture (Paris; 1705).

43 An Account of the Life of Apollonius Tyaneus (London; 1702), tr. out of the French, from vol. ii. of Lenain de Tillemont’s Histoire des Empereurs (2nd ed., Paris; 1720): to which is added Some Observations upon Apollonius. De Tillemont’s view is that Apollonius was sent by the Devil to destroy the work of the Saviour.

44 A Critical and Historical Discourse upon the Method of the Principal Authors who wrote for and against Christianity from its Beginning (London; 1739), tr. from the French of M. l’Abbé Houtteville; to which is added a “Dessertation on the Life of Apollonius Tyanæus, with some Observations on the Platonists of the Latter School,” pp. 213-254.

45 Anti-Hierocles oder Jesus Christus und Apollonius von Tyana in ihrer grossen Ungleichheit, dargestellt v. J. B. Lüderwald (Halle; 1793).

46 Phileleutherus Helvetius, De Miraculis quæ Pythagoræ, Apollonio Tyanensi, Francisco Asisio, Dominico, et Ignatio Lojolæ tribuuntur Libellus (Draci; 1734).

47 See Legrand d’Aussy, op. cit., ii. p. 314, where the texts are given.

48 The Two First Books of Philostratus concerning the Life of Apollonius Tyaneus (London; 1680, fol.). Blount’s notes (generally ascribed to Lord Herbert) raised such an outcry that the book was condemned in 1693, and few copies are in existence. Blount’s notes were, however, translated into French a century later, in the days of Encyclopædism, and appended to a French version of the Vita, under the title, Vie d’Apollonius de Tyane par Philostrate avec les Commentaires donnés en Anglois par Charles Blount sur les deux Premiers Livres de cet Ouvrage (Amsterdam; 1779, 4 vols., 8vo), with an ironical dedication to Pope Clement XIV., signed “Philalethes.”

49 Philosophiam Practicam Apollonii Tyanæi in Sciagraphia, exponit M. Io. Christianus Herzog (Leipzig; 1709); an academical oration of 20 pp.

50 Philostratus is a difficult author to translate, nevertheless Chassang and Baltzer have succeeded very well with him; Berwick also is readable, but in most places gives us a paraphrase rather than a translation and frequently mistakes the meaning. Chassang’s and Baltzer’s are by far the best translations.

51 This would have at least restored Apollonius to his natural environment, and confined the question of the divinity of Jesus to its proper Judæo-Christian ground.

52 I am unable to offer any opinion on Nielsen’s book, from ignorance of Danish, but it has all the appearance of a careful, scholarly treatise with abundance of references.

53 Réville’s Pagan Christ is quite a misrepresentation of the subject, and Newman’s treatment of the matter renders his treatise an anachronism for the twentieth century.

54 Consisting of eight books written in Greek under the general title Τὰ ἐς τὸν Τυανέα Ἀπολλώνιον.

55 ἡ φιλόσοφος, see art. “Philostratus” in Smith’s Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Biog. (London; 1870), iii. 327b.

56 The italics are Gibbon’s.

57 More correctly Domna Julia; Domna being not a shortened form of Domina, but the Syrian name of the empress.

58 She died a.d. 217.

59 The contrary is held by other historians.

60 Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, I. vi

61 I use the 1846 and 1870 editions of Kayser’s text throughout.

62 A collection of these letters (but not all of them) had been in the possession of the Emperor Hadrian (a.d. 117-138), and had been left in his palace at Antium (viii. 20). This proves the great fame that Apollonius enjoyed shortly after his disappearance from history, and while he was still a living memory. It is to be noticed that Hadrian was an enlightened ruler, a great traveller, a lover of religion, and an initiate of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

63 Nineveh.

64 τὰς δέλτους, writing tablets. This suggests that the account of Damis could not have been very voluminous, although Philostratus further on asserts its detailed nature (i. 19).

65 One of the imperial secretaries of the time, who was famous for his eloquence, and tutor to Apollonius.

66 A town not far from Tarsus.

67 ὡς ὑποθειάζων τὴν φιλοσοφίαν ἐγένετο. The term ὑποθειάζων occurs only in this passage, and I am therefore not quite certain of its meaning.

68 This Life by Mœragenes is casually mentioned by Origenes, Contra Celsum, vi. 41; ed. Lommatzsch (Berlin; 1841), ii. 373.

69 λόγοις δαιμονίοις.

70 Seldom is it that we have such a clear indication, for instance, as in i. 25; “The following is what I have been able to learn ... about Babylon.”

71 See E. A. Schwanbeck, Megasthenis Indica (Bonn; 1846), and J. W. M’Crindle, Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian (Calcutta, Bombay, London; 1877), The Commerce and Navigation of the Erythræan Sea (1879), Ancient India as described by Ktesias (1882), Ancient India as described by Ptolemy (London; 1885), and The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great (London; 1893, 1896).

72 Another good example of this is seen in the disquisition on elephants which Philostratus takes from Juba’s History of Libya (ii. 13 and 16).

73 Perhaps a title, or the king of the Purus.

74 Not that Philostratus makes any disguise of his embellishments; see, for instance, ii. 17, where he says: “Let me, however, defer what I have to say on the subject of serpents, of the manner of hunting which Damis gives a description.”

75 Legends of the wonderful happenings at his birth were in circulation, and are of the same nature as all such birth-legends of great people.

76 ἀρρήτῳ τινὶ σοφία ξυνέλαβε.

77 Sci., than his tutor; namely, the “memory” within him, or his “dæmon.”

78 This æther was presumably the mind-stuff.

79 That is to say presumably he was encouraged in his efforts by those unseen helpers of the temple by whom the cures were wrought by means of dreams, and help was given psychically and mesmerically.

80 “Where are you hurrying? Are you off to see the youth?”

81 Compare Odyssey, xx. 18.

82 I am inclined to think, however, that Apollonius was still a youngish man when he set out on his Indian travels, instead of being forty-six, as some suppose. But the difficulties of most of the chronology are insurmountable.

83 φήσας οὐκ ἀνθρώπων ἑαυτῷ δεῖν, ἀλλ’ ἀνδρῶν.

84 ἰδιότροπα.

85 τoὺς oὕτω φιλοσοφοῦντας.

86 That is to say, presumably, spend the time in silent meditation.

87 That is the Brāhmans and Buddhists. Sarman is the Greek corruption of the Sanskrit Shramaṇa and Pâli Samaṇo, the technical term for a Buddhist ascetic or monk. The ignorance of the copyists changed Sarmanes first into Germanes and then into Hyrcanians!

88 This shows that Apollonius was still young, and not between forty and fifty, as some have asserted. Tredwell (p. 77) dates the Indian travels as 41-54 a.d.

89 See especially iii. 15, 41; v. 5, 10; vii. 10, 13; viii. 28.

90 ἐκφατνίσματα.

91 See especially vii. 13, 14, 15, 22, 31.

92 The list is full of gaps, so that we cannot suppose that Damis’ notes were anything like complete records of the numerous itineraries; not only so, but one is tempted to believe that whole journeys, in which Damis had no share, are omitted.

93 Here at any rate they came in sight of the giant mountains, the Imaus (Himavat) or Himālayan Range, where was the great mountain Meros (Meru). The name of the Hindu Olympus being changed into Meros in Greek had, ever since Alexander’s expedition, given rise to the myth that Bacchus was born from the thigh (meros) of Zeus—presumably one of the facts which led Professor Max Müller to stigmatise the whole of mythology as a “disease of language.”

94 Referring to his instructors he says, “I ever remember my masters and journey through the world teaching what I have learned from them” (vi. 18).

95 According to some, Apollonius would be now about sixty-eight years of age. But if he were still young (say thirty years old or so) when he left for India, he must either have spent a very long period in that country, or we have a very imperfect record of his doings in Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and Spain, after his return.

96 For the most recent study in English on the subject of Æsculapius see The Cult of Asclepios, by Alice Walton, Ph.D., in No. III. of The Cornell Studies in Classical Philology (Ithaca, N.Y.; 1894).

97 He evidently wrote the notes of the Indian travels long after the time at which they were made.

98 This shows that Philostratus came across them in some work or letter of Apollonius, and is therefore independent of Damis’ account for this particular.

99 I—arχas, arχa(t)s, arhat.

100 Tantalus is fabled to have stolen the cup of nectar from the gods; this was the amṛita, the ocean of immortality and wisdom, of the Indians.

101 The words οὐδεν κεκτημένους ἢ τὰ πάντων, which Philostratus quotes twice in this form, can certainly not be changed into μηδὲν κεκτημένους τὰ πάντων ἔχειν without doing unwarrantable violence to their meaning.

102 See Tacitus, Historia, ii. 3.

103 Berwick, Life of Apollonius, p. 200 n.

104 He also built a precinct round the tomb of Leonidas at Thermopylæ (iv. 23).

105 A great centre of divination by means of dreams (see ii. 37).

106 The word γυμνός (naked), however, usually means lightly clad, as, for instance, when a man is said to plough “naked,” that is with only one garment, and this is evident from the comparison made between the costume of the Gymnosophists and that of people in the hot weather at Athens (vi. 6).

107 For they had neither huts nor houses, but lived in the open air.

108 He spent, we are told, no less than a year and eight months with Vardan, King of Babylon, and was the honoured guest of the Indian Rājāh “Phraotes.”

109 See i. 22 (cf. 40), 34; iv. 4, 6, 18 (cf. v. 19), 24, 43; v. 7, 11, 13, 30, 37; vi. 32; viii. 26.

110 This expression is, however, perhaps only to be taken as rhetorical, for in viii. 8, the incident is referred to in the simple words “when he departed (ἀπῆλθε) from the tribunal.”

111 That is to say not in a “form,” but in his own nature.

112 See in this connection L. v. Schroeder, Pythagoras und die Inder, eine Untersuchung über Herkunft und Abstammung der pythagoreischen Lehren (Leipzig; 1884).

113 This has reference to the preserved hunting parks, or “paradises,” of the Babylonian monarchs.

114 Reading φιλοσόφῳ for φιλοσοφῶν.

115 Rathgeber (G.) in his Grossgriechenland und Pythagoras (Gotha; 1866), a work of marvellous bibliographical industry, refers to three supposed portraits of Apollonius (p. 621). (i) In the Campidoglio Museum of the Vatican, Indicazione delle Sculture (Roma; 1840), p. 68, nos. 75, 76, 77; (ii) in the Musée Royal Bourbon, described by Michel B. (Naples; 1837), p. 79, no. 363; (iii) a contorniate reproduced by Visconti. I cannot trace his first reference, but in a Guide pour le Musée Royal Bourbon, traduit par C. J. J. (Naples; 1831), I find on p. 152 that no. 363 is a bust of Apollonius, 2¾ feet high, carefully executed, with a Zeus-like head, having a beard and long hair descending onto the shoulders, bound with a deep fillet. The bust seems to be ancient. I have, however, not been able to find a reproduction of it. Visconti (E. Q.) in the atlas of his Iconographie Grecque (Paris; 1808), vol. i. plate 17, facing p. 68, gives the reproduction of a contorniate, or medal with a circular border, on one side of which is a head of Apollonius and the Latin legend APOLLONIVS TEANEVS. This also represents our philosopher with a beard and long hair; the head is crowned, and the upper part of the body covered with a tunic and the philosopher’s cloak. The medal, however, is of very inferior workmanship, and the portrait is by no means pleasing. Visconti in his letterpress devotes an angry and contemptuous paragraph to Apollonius, “ce trop célèbre imposteur,” as he calls him, based on De Tillemont.

116 See Chassang, op. cit., p. 458, for a criticism on this statement.

117 This was before Vespasian became emperor.

118 This was a staff, or baton, used as a cypher for writing dispatches. “A strip of leather was rolled slantwise round it, on which the dispatches were written lengthwise, so that when unrolled they were unintelligible; commanders abroad had a staff of like thickness, round which they rolled their papers, and so were able to read the dispatches.” (Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon sub voc.) Hence scytale came to mean generally a Spartan dispatch, which was characteristically laconic in its brevity.

119 See i. 7, 15, 24, 32; iii. 51; iv. 5, 22, 26, 27, 46; v. 2, 10, 39, 40, 41; vi. 18, 27, 29, 31, 33; viii. 7, 20, 27, 28.

120 I.e., Cynic.