XXVIII

AND a little lower down in the book he  brings a flute-player upon the stage, and he relates at length how Apollonius delivered himself with great gravity of long essays upon the different modes maker of playing the flute, as if it were the most important and clever of the sciences. And he relates how the Emperor Vespasian offered him prayers just as if he were a god, for we learn that Vespasian said in a tone of prayer: "Do thou make me Emperor," whereupon Apollonius answered: " I have made you so." What else can anyone do but loathe this utterance for its boastfulness, so nearly does it approach downright madness, for one who was the pilot of a ship in Egypt to boast of being himself a god already and a maker of kings ? For Apollonius himself has informed us a little before in the course of his conversation with the Indian that his soul had previously been that of a pilot.