Apollonius of Tyana, the Philosopher-Reformer of the First Century A.D Part 12

[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 Muse 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 Muse Royal Bourbon, traduit par C. J. J. (Naples; 1831), I find on p. 152 that no. 363 is a bust of Apollonius, 2 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 philosophers cloak. The medal, however, is of very inferior workmans.h.i.+p, and the portrait is by no means pleasing.

Visconti in his letterpress devotes an angry and contemptuous paragraph to Apollonius, ce trop clbre imposteur, as he calls him, based on De Tillemont.

[116] See Cha.s.sang, 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 Scotts 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.

[121] Cha.s.sang (op. cit., pp. 395 sqq.) gives a French translation of them.

[122] Art. Apollonius, Smiths Dict. of Cla.s.s. Biog.

[123] That is to say, a philosopher of 600 years ago.

[124] That is to expiate blood-guiltiness with blood-sacrifice.

[125] Chaignet (A. .), in his Pythagore et la Philosophie pythagoricienne (Paris; 1873, 2nd ed. 1874), cites this as a genuine example of Apollonius philosophy.

[126] That is his idea of death.

[127] The text of the last sentence is very obscure.

[128] The full t.i.tle is given by Eudocia, Ionia; ed. Villoison (Venet.; 1781), p. 57.

[129] See Zeller, Phil. d. Griech, v. 127.

[130] Prparat. Evangel., iv. 12-13; ed. Dindorf (Leipzig; 1867), i. 176, 177.

[131] A play on the meanings of ?????, which signifies both reason and word.

[132] Psyche, I. ii. 5.

[133] Noack, ibid.

[134] See Noack, Porphr. Vit. Pythag., p. 15.

[135] Ed. Amstelod., 1707, cc. 254-264.