XI

AND in just keeping with his visits to the Arabians  were the studies he undertook among the Persians also, according to the account given by the same author. For after forbidding Damis, so we are told, to go to the magi, though Damis was his only pupil and companion, he went alone to school with them at midday and about midnight; alone in order not to have as his companion in the study of magic one who was clearly without a taste for such things. And again when he came to converse with Vardan the Babylonian king, it is related that he addressed him as follows : "My system of wisdom is that of Pythagoras, a man of Samos, who taught me to worship the gods in this way and to recognize them, whether they are seen or unseen, and to be regular in converse with the gods." Who can possibly allow this to be true of him, seeing that Pythagoras himself has left no scripture of the kind, nor any secret writings, such that we can even suspect him to have had such resources at his disposal ? As for his teacher of the Pythagorean philosophy, it is testified that he was in no way better than the Epicureans by Philostratus himself, who speaks of him as follows: "He had as a teacher of the system of Pythagoras not a very good man, nor one who put his philosophy into practice ; for he was the slave of his belly and his desires and modelled his life on that of Epicurus. And this man was Euxenus of Heraclea in Pontus. But he had a good acquaintance with the tenets of Pythagoras, just as birds have of what they learn to say from men." What ridiculous nonsense to pretend that Apollonius can have derived from this man, his gift of conversing with the gods. But let us for the moment admit that there were other expounders of the system from whom he may have learned, although the author anyhow gives no hint of any such thing. Still we must ask : was there then ever any one of these teachers that professed either to know himself, by having learnt from Pythagoras personally, or to teach others., how to recognize and frequent in their conversations gods, whether seen or unseen ? Why, even the famous Plato, although more than anyone else he shared in the philosophy of Pythagoras, and Archytas too, and Philolaus the one man who has handed down to us in writing the conversations of Pythagoras, and any others who were disciples of the philosopher and have handed down to his posterity his  opinions and tenets in writing,  --  none of these ever boasted of any such form of wisdom. It follows then that he learnt these things not from Pythagoras, but from other sources ; and with a wilful affectation of solemnity he only labels himself with the philosopher's name But admitting, though it is against all probability, that he is not lying, but telling the truth, we are still at a loss to know, how he can pretend to have acquired this lore from the Samian himself above mentioned, inasmuch as the latter deceased some thousand years before him. Therefore we must reckon among the Arabians this teacher also who communicated to him a knowledge of the gods of so mysterious character as he imagines this to be. If then he was of a divine nature, it follows that the story of his teachers is a pure fiction. On the other hand if the story was true, then the legend was false, and the allegation in the book that he was divine is devoid of all truth.