of his person and his early wisdom, that his biographer traces to him a proverb of the neighborhood, "Whither run you so fast? Is it to see the young man?" Having observed the five years' silence prescribed to the disciples of Pythagoras, he set out on his travels. At Nineveh he was joined by Damis, afterwards his biographer. Babylon, which other authorities represent to have been then in desolation, he found to be still a royal capital, with walls a hundred and fifty feet high, and nearly a hundred in thickness. In India, he received instruction from divine sages, who dwelt on the summit of a mountain, surrounded by mists and miracles. Returning thence, the fame of his wisdom went before him. He converted Ephesus to philosophy and virtue, and restored concord to divided Smyrna. The people of the former city, being afflicted with the plague, sent messengers to Smyrna for Apollonius. He transferred himself to Ephesus in a moment, and drove away the plague by a treatment equally strange and energetic. The evil spirit which occasioned the disease appeared in the form of an old beggar. Apollonius directed that this person should be stoned to death in the theatre; and, when the heap of stones was removed, there appeared under it, not the murdered beggar, but a living dog. One might fancy that this story had its foundation in Apollonius having taught the Ephesians to guard their city from the plague by sternly excluding the squalid poverty in whose rags the infection lay concealed.

Apollonius soon after visited the site of ancient Troy, where he called up the shade of Achilles, and received from him satisfactory answers to several questions. It is pleasant for us to know, on this unquestionable authority, that Polyxena was not sacrificed by the Greeks, but slew herself on the tomb of her lover. We are sorry to find, however, that Achilles, though so long dead, retained his hatred of the Trojans; so that he warned Apollonius to dismiss from his company one of his disciples, because he was descended from Priam. It is not to the sage's honor that he obeyed the admonition.

In Corinth, Apollonius opened the eyes of an enamored

youth to the fact that his bride was an evil spirit; and caused the marriage feast, with its gold and silver vessels, cupbearers and cooks, to vanish into air. This story presents a good illustration of the growth of the marvellous. Accord ing to Philostratus (book iv. chap. 35), the sage said to the bridegroom, "You cherish a serpent, and a serpent cherishes you." This figurative expression was interpreted by Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," to mean that the evil spirit had actually tenanted the form of a serpent; and Keats, in his poem of "Lamia," takes the story, thus altered, and adds to it yet further, by telling us how and why Mercury changed the serpent into a woman. We will let the poet tell the story of Apollonius's miracle:

"Fool! fool!' repeated he, while his eyes still
Relented not, nor moved: from every ill

Of life have I preserved thee to this day,
And shall I see thee made a serpent's prey?'

Then Lamia breathed death-breath; the sophist's eye,
Like a sharp spear, went through her utterly, —
Keen, cruel, perceant, stinging; she, as well
As her weak hand could any meaning tell,
Motioned him to be silent: vainly so.
He looked and looked again a level 'No.'
'A serpent!' echoed he: no sooner said,
Than with a frightful scream she vanished;
And Lycius' arms were empty of delight,

As were his limbs of life, from that same night.

On the high couch he lay ! — his friends came round, –
Supported him, -no pulse or breath they found,

And, in his marriage robe, the heavy body wound.”

At Athens, a youth irreverently laughing at Apollonius's instructions, the sage pronounced him possessed by a demon, and ejected it forthwith; the demon proving his presence by overthrowing a statue.

More credibly, and highly to his honor, he is related to have censured the gladiatorial combats of the Athenians. "He refused going to their assembly when invited, saying the place was impure, and polluted with blood." With the Pythagoreans generally, he offered only bloodless sacrifices; and abstained from animal food, and even from clothing of whose fabric any animal growth formed a part.

From Olympia, he wrote to the Ephori of Sparta, who had sent him a deputation, and enjoined them to restore the ancient simplicity of manners. The magistrates, more submissive to good advice than magistrates usually are, complied at once, and were favored with a truly laconic letter of commendation.

Subsequently, on a visit to Sparta, he heard of a young man who was to be tried on the charge of neglecting the affairs of the republic for his own commercial pursuits. He visited him, and by rousing his pride of ancestry, and representing to him the ignoble character of mercantile transactions, brought him to tears of repentance, and induced him to give up a life of honest and manly enterprise, as degrading, if not criminal. He then obtained his pardon from the Ephori. The false morality, and ruinous political economy, involved in this story, are not the things that throw doubt upon its truth, but the representation that the Ephori of Sparta exercised a censorship over its wealthy citizens in the reign of Claudius. Long before that time, the laws of Lycurgus were buried too deep for any philosopher to summon them back to life.

After advising the Lacedemonians how to answer Claudius, who had written to them in displeasure, our philosopher visited Crete, and, shortly after, sailed thence to Rome. Nero had by this time succeeded to the empire, was raging against philosophers, and disgracing himself by exhibitions of frivolity. Authentic history, however, tells us that the first five years of Nero's reign were marked by wise government and becoming deportment, under the guidance of Seneca and Burrhus. Apollonius, approaching Rome, is warned of the danger he incurs by a panic-stricken philosopher; and is deserted by all but eight of his thirty-four companions. To those who remained faithful, he made an address, in which he referred to Nero's murder of his mother as a past event. They then entered the city, where Apollonius was received with profound respect by the consul Telesinus; and even the infamous Tigellinus, after examining him, dismissed him with reverence as a favorite of the gods, too strong to be subject to his authority."

At Rome, Apollonius met the funeral of a young maiden, and, commanding the attendants to set down the bier, touched the girl, pronounced a few words over her, and awakened her from her seeming death. While other circumstances of this story seem derived from the miracle at Nain, the doubt expressed by the biographer whether death had actually taken place, reminds us of the Saviour's expression in relation to the daughter of Jairus, "The maiden is not dead, but sleepeth." The relations of the girl presented Apollonius with a hundred and fifty thousand drachmas, which he settled on her as a marriage portion.

As Nero at length banished all philosophers from Rome, Apollonius left that city, accompanied by "all his friends; and we next find him at Gades, - the present Cadiz, -observing, with philosophic eye, the ebb and flow of the ocean. The cause of these phenomena he pronounced to be winds, blowing from caves by the side of the ocean, and drawn in again alternately like human breath. It is curious to find in old Philostratus the fancy which is still cherished by superstition, that, "at the time of the flowing of the tide, the breath never leaves the dying man."

In Spain, Apollonius encouraged the rebellion of Vindex against Nero. Returning eastward to Syracuse, he was informed of a recent prodigy, in the birth of a child with three heads. From this he foretold the accession and transient reigns of three emperors; soon after verified in the persons of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius.

After many wise instructions given in Greece, Apollonius reached Alexandria some time before the arrival of Vespasian in that city. That conqueror had already sent for him to come to him in Judæa; but the philosopher had "declined going into a country which its inhabitants had defiled, both by what they did and by what they suffered." Vespasian's first inquiry in Alexandria was for the Tyanean; and, learning that he was in the temple, he visited him there, sought his advice in regard to the acceptance of the empire, and yielded to his counsel, not to restore the republic, but to ascend the throne. Apollonius at the same time informed him of the

burning of the capitol at Rome, which had taken place only the day before.

The Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls was exemplified in a lion, which Apollonius saw in Egypt, and declared to be animated by the spirit of the ancient king Amasis. The lion wept while Apollonius told his story, and the philosopher comforted him with royal honors.

Apollonius next visited Ethiopia, whose inhabitants are so long lived, that they lament the early death of Memnon, who yet reigned during five generations of common men. Our traveller's chief object was to visit the Gymnosophists, philosophers of dark color and very scanty clothing, with whom he held a long discussion on the respective merits of the Indian sages and themselves. In the addresses of the Tyanean, here as elsewhere, the pronoun of the first person singular bore a prominent part.

Titus having now taken Jerusalem, and being associated with his father in the empire, was as attentive to Apollonius, and received as much courtesy from him, as Vespasian himself. But Domitian, the brother and successor of Titus, did not hold the sage in the same high honor. Apollonius was on terms of intimacy with Nerva and others, whom he แ encouraged to stand forth in defence of the common liberty." Once, in the presence of many hearers, he said, addressing a statue of Domitian, "Thou fool, how little understandest thou the decrees of fate and necessity! For he whom they appoint to reign, will reign: though you should put him to death, he will come to life again to obey their laws." Domitian, being informed of this by Euphrates, a rival of Apollonius in philosophy, sent to arrest the sage of Tyana; but the latter anticipated his intention by hastening at once to Rome. After imprisonment and other ill treatment, he was examined before the emperor. He appeared with dignity, even with haughtiness; defended himself against the charges brought; but admitted that men called him a god, and declared that every good man was entitled to that appellation. Such is the account of Philostratus (book viii. chap. 5). In the speech, however, which he afterwards