XXVI

THE fifth and sixth miracles however in this book  do not stand in need of much argument and discussion, so thoroughly do they prove our writer's easy credulity. For Apollonius, as they say, drives out one demon with the help of another. The first of the demons is expelled from an incorrigible youth, while the second disguises itself by assuming the form of a woman : and the latter our clever author calls by no other names than those of Empusa and  Lamia. As for the damsel whom he is said subsequently to have brought back again to life in Rome after she had died, the story clearly impressed Philostratus himself as being extremely incredible, and we may safely reject it. Anyhow he hesitates and doubts, whether after all a spark of life might have not lingered on in the girl unnoticed by her attendants. For he says that according to report "it was raining at the time, and a vapour exhaled from the face of the girl." Anyhow if such a miracle had really been wrought in Rome itself, it could not have escaped the notice first of the emperor and after him of his subordinate magistrates, and least of all of the philosopher Euphrates who at the time was in the country and was staying in Rome, who indeed, as we learn later on, is related to have launched against Apollonius the accusation of being no other than a wizard. It would certainly too, had it actually occurred, have been included by the accuser among the other charges levelled against him. Well, just these and no more are the more particular and special achievements of Apollonius, although there are a myriad other cases in the book in which his sooth-sayings and prophecies are set down to his gift of foreknowledge ; and we learn that at Athens, when he desired to be initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, the priest there would not admit him, and declared that he would never initiate a wizard nor throw open the Eleusinian mysteries to a man who was addicted to impure rites. We also hear about a lewd fellow who went begging about Rome, rehearsing the songs of Nero on his lyre for pay; and we are told that this most philosophic of teachers out of fear of Nero  ordered his companions to bestow alms on him in recognition of his clever accomplishments.