CHAPTER VIII

PHILOSTRATUS S LIFE OF APOLLONIUS OF TYANA
Compared
with
Apuleius.
Compared with Apuleius — Philostratus's sources — Time and space covered — Philostratus's audience — Object of the Life — Apollonius charged with magic — A confusion of terms — The Magi and magic — Apollonius and the Magi — Philostratus on wizards — Apollonius and wizards — Quacks and old-wives — The Brahmans — Marvels of the Brahmans — Magical methods of the Brahmans — Medicine of the Brahmans — Some signs of astrology — Interest in natural science — Nat- ural law or special providence? — Cases of scepticism — Anecdotes of animals — Dragons of India — Occult virtues of gems — Absence of num- ber mysticism — Mantike or the art of divination — Divining power of Apollonius — Dreams — Interpretation of omens — Animals and divina- tion— Divination by fire — Other so-called predictions — Apollonius and the demons — Not all demons are evil — Philostratus's faith in demons — The ghost of Achilles — Healing the sick and raising the dead — Other marvels — Golden wrynecks and the iunx — Why named iunx? — Apollonius in the middle ages.
Some fifty years after the birth of Apuleius occurred that of Philostratus, whose career and interests were some- what similar, although he came from the Aegean island of Lemnos instead of the neighborhood of Carthage and wrote in Greek rather than Latin. But like Apuleius he was a student of rhetoric and went first to Athens and then to Rome, The resemblance is perhaps closer between Apuleius and Apollonius of Tyana, whose life Philostratus wrote and of whom we know more than of his biographer. Like Apu- leius Apollonius had to defend himself in court against the accusation of magic, and Philostratus gives us what pur- ports to be his apology on that occasion. Two centuries afterwards Augustine in one of his letters ^ names Apollo- nius and Apuleius as examples of men who were addicted to the magic art and who, the pagans said, performed greater
' Ep. 136. 242
CHAP. VIII APOLLO NWS OF TV AN A 243
miracles than Christ did. A century before Augustine Lactantius states ^ that a certain philosopher who had "vomited forth" three books "against the Christian religion and name" had compared the miracles of Apollonius favor- ably with those of Christ; Lactantius marvels that he did not mention Apuleius as well. Like Apuleius, Apollonius was a man of broad learning who traveled widely and sought initiation into mysteries and cults. Apuleius was a Platonist ; Apollonius, a Pythagorean. We may also note a resemblance between the Metamorphoses and the Life of Apollonius. Both seem to elaborate earlier writings and both have much to say of transformations, wizards, demons, and the occult. The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, however, must be taken more seriously than the Metamorphoses. If the African's work is a rhetorical romance embodying a certain auto- biographical element, a Milesian tale to which personal re- ligious experiences are annexed, then the work by Philos- tratus is a rhetorical biography with a tinge of romance and a good deal of sermonizing.
Philostratus ^ composed the Life of Apollonius about Phiio- 217 A. D, at the request of the learned wife of the emperor stratus's
. . ^ ^ sources.
Septimius Severus, to whose literary circle he belonged. The empress had come into possession of some hitherto unknown memoirs of Apollonius by a certain Damis of Nineveh, who had been his disciple and had accompanied him upon many of his travels. Some member of Damis's family had brought these documents to the empress's atten- tion. Some scholars incline to the view that she was de- ceived by an impostor, but it hardly seems that there would be sufficient profit in the venture to induce anyone to take the pains to forge such memoirs. Also I can see no reason why a contemporary of Apollonius should not have said and believed everything which Philostratus represents Damis as saying; on the contrary it seems to me just what would be
^Divin. Instit., V, 2-3. named Philostratus and which
^ works should be assigned to each,
Concerning other writers see Schmid (1913) 608-20.
244 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
said by a naif, gullible, and devoted disciple, who was in- clined to exaggerate the abilities and achievements of his master and to take literally everything that Apollonius ut- tered ironically or figuratively. Other accounts of Apollo- nius were already in existence by a Maximus of Aegae, where Apollonius had spent part of his life, and by Moera- genes, but the memoirs of Damis seem to have offered much new material. Philostratus accordingly wrote a new life based largely upon Damis, but also making use of the will and epistles of Apollonius, many of which the emperor Ha- drian had earlier collected, and of the traditions still current in the cities and temples which Apollonius had frequented and which Philostratus now took the trouble to visit. It has sometimes been suggested, chiefly by Christian writers intent upon discrediting the career of Apollonius, that Phil- ostratus invented Damis and his memoirs. But Philostratus seems straightforward in describing the pains he has been to in preparing the Life, and certainly is more explicit and systematic in stating his sources than other ancient biogra- phers like Plutarch and Suetonius are. He appears to fol- low his sources rather closely and not to invent new inci- dents, although he may, like Thucydides and other ancient historians, have taken liberties with the speeches and argu- ments put into his characters' mouths. And through the work, despite his belief in demons and marvels, he now and then gives evidence of a moderate and sceptical mind, at least for his times. Time and Apollonius lived in the first century of our era and died
covered. during the reign of Nerva well advanced in years. It is therefore of a period over a century before his own that Phil- ostratus writes. He is said to commit a number of errors in history and geography,^ but we must remember that mis- takes in geography were a failing of the best ancient his-
* See article on Apollonius of that he came to the conclusion that Tyana in Pauly-Wissowa. Priaulx, either Apollonius never visited In- The Indian Travels of Apollonius dia, or, if he did, that Damis of Tyana, London, 1873, p. 62, "never accompanied him but fab- found the geography of Apollo- ricated the journal Philostratus nius's Indian travels so erroneous speaks of."
VIII APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 245
torians such as Polybius, and the general picture drawn of the emperors and poHtics of Apollonius's time is not far wrong. It is true that Philostratus also makes use of tra- dition which has gradually formed since the death of Apol- lonius, and introduces explanations or comments of his own on various matters. It is, however, not the facts either of Apollonius's career or of his times that concern us but the beliefs and superstitions which we find in Philostratus's Life of him. Whether these are of the first, second, or early third century is scarcely necessary or possible for us to distinguish. If Damis records them, Philostratus accepts them, and the probability is that they apply not only to all three centuries but to a long period before and after. The territory covered in the Life is almost as extensive ; it ranges all over the Roman Empire, alludes occasionally to the Celts and Scythians, and opens up Ethiopia and India ^ to our gaze. Apollonius was a great traveler and there are many inter- esting and informing passages concerning ships, sailing, pi- lots, merchants and sea-trade.^
If we ask further, for what class of readers was the philo^- Life intended, the answer is, for the intellectual and learned. aiKjJ^nce Apollonius himself was distinctly a Hellene. Philostratus represents him as often quoting Homer and other bygone Greek authors, or mentioning names from early Greek his- tory such as Lycurgus and Aristides. One of his aims was to restore the degenerate Greek cities of his own day to their ancient morality. Furthermore, Apollonius never cared for many disciples, and neither required them to observe all the rules of life which he himself followed, nor admitted them to all his interviews with other sages and his initiations into sacred mysteries. This aloofness of the sage is somewhat reflected in his biographer. The Life is an attempt not to
^ Priaulx, however, regarded its Indian merchants — Alexandria," statements concerning India as or from earHer authors, such as might have been "easily- collected at that great mart for ^III, 23, 35; IV, 9, 32; V, 20; Indian commodities and resort for VI, 12, 16; VII, 10, 12, 15-16.
246
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Object of the Life.
Apollonius charged with magic.
popularize the teachings of Apollonius but to justify him before the learned world.
The charge had been frequently made that Apollonius came illegitimately by his wisdom and acquired it violently by magic. Philostratus would restore him to the ranks of true philosophers who gained wisdom by worthy and licit methods. He declares that he was not a wizard, as many suppose, but a notable Pythagorean, a man of broad culture, an intellectual and moral teacher, a religious ascetic and re- former, probably even a prophet of divine and superhuman nature. It is not now so generally held by Christian writers as it used to be that Philostratus wrote the Life with the Gospel story of Christ in mind, and that his purpose was to imitate or to parody or to oppose a rival narrative to the Christian story and teaching. At no point in the Life does Philostratus betray unmistakably even a passing acquaint- ance with the Gospels, much less display any sign of animus against them. Moreover, the Christian historian and apolo- gist, Eusebius, who lived in the century following Philos- tratus and was familiar with his Life of Apollonius, in writ- ing a reply to a treatise in which Hierocles, a provincial gov- ernor under Diocletian, had compared Apollonius with Jesus, distinctly states that Hierocles was the first to sug- gest such an idea.^ Such similarities then as may exist be- tween the Life and the Gospels must be taken as examples of beliefs common to that age.
Apollonius was accused of sorcery or magic during his lifetime by the rival philosopher Euphrates. The four books on Apollonius written by Moeragenes also portrayed him as a wizard ; ^ and Eusebius in his reply to Hierocles ascribed the miracles wrought by Apollonius to sorcery and the aid of evil demons.^ Earlier the satirist Lucian de-
^ See the treatise of Eusebius Against Apollonius. Lactantius (Divin. Inst., V, 2-3) probably had reference to Hierocles in speaking of a philosopher who had written three books against Christianity and declared the
miracles of Apollonius as wonder- ful as those of Christ.
' So Origen says (Against Cel- sus, VI, 41) and Philostratus im- plies (I, 3).
' See the Against Apollonius, caps. 31, 35.
VIII APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 247
scribed Alexander the pseudo-prophet as having been in his youth an apprentice to "one of the charlatans who deal in magic and mystic incantations, ... a native of Tyana, an associate of the great Apollonius, and acquainted with all his heroics." ^
In defending his hero against these charges Philostratus A con- is guilty himself both of some ambiguous use of terms and of terms of some loose thinking. The same ambiguous terminology, however, will be found in other discussions of magic. In a few passages Philostratus denies that Apollonius was a /xd7os but much oftener exculpates him from the charge of being a 76:7s or yoijTrjs. With the latter word or words there is no difficulty. It means a wizard, sorcerer, or en- chanter, and is always employed in a sinister or disreputable sense. With the term fxayos the case is different, as with the Latin magus. It may signify an evil magician, or it may refer to one of the Magi of the East, who are generally re- garded as wise and good men. This delicate distinction, however, is not easy to maintain and Philostratus fails to do so, while Mr. Conybeare in his English translation - makes confusion worse confounded not only by translating nayos as "wizard" instead of "magician," but by sometimes doing this when it really should be rendered as "one of the Magi." It may also be noted that Philostratus locates the Magi in Babylonia as well as in Persia.
To begin with, in his second chapter Philostratus says The Magi that some consider Apollonius a magician "because he con- ^" magic sorted with the Magi of the Babylonians, and the Brahmans of the Indians, and the Gymnosophists in Egypt." But they are wrong in this. "For Empedocles and Pythagoras him- self and Democritus, although they associated with the Magi and spake many divine utterances, yet did not stoop to the art" (of magic). Plato, too, he goes on to say, although
* 'AXf^avSpos, V xPevSo/xavTis, cap. 5. text in the recent Loeb Qassical
In the passage quoted I have used Library edition, both racy and ac-
Fowler's translation. curate, and have employed it in a
" In other respects, however, I number of the quotations which
have usually found this transla- follow, tion, which accompanies the Greek
248
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
he visited Egypt and its priests and prophets, was never re- garded as a magician. In this passage, then, Philostratus closely associates the Magi with the magic art, and I am not sure whether the last "Magi" should not be "magicians." On the other hand his acquittal of Democritus and Pythag- oras from the charge of magic does not agree with Pliny, who ascribed a large amount of magic to them both.
Apollonius himself evidently did not regard the Magi whom he met in Babylon and Susa as evil magicians. One of the chief aims of his scheme of oriental travel "was to acquaint himself thoroughly with their lore." He wished to discover whether they were wise in divine things, as they were said to be.^ Sacrifices and religious rites were per- formed under their supervision.^ Apollonius did not permit Damis to accompany him when he visited the Magi at noon and again about midnight and conversed with them.^ But Apollonius himself said that he learned some things from them and taught them some things ; he told Damis that they were "wise men, but not in all respects" ; on leaving their country he asked the king to give the presents which the monarch had intended for Apollonius himself to the Magi, whom he described then as "men who both are wise and wholly devoted to you." *
Quite different is the attitude towards witchcraft an*! wizards of both Apollonius and his biographer. In the opin- ion of Philostratus wizards are of all men most wretched.^ They try to violate nature and to overcome fate by such methods as inquisition of spirits, barbaric sacrifices, incan- tations and besmearings. Simple-minded folk attribute great powers to them ; and athletes desirous of winning vic- tories, shopkeepers intent upon success in business ventures, and lovers in especial are continually resorting to them and apparently never lose faith in them despite repeated failures, despite occasional exposure or ridicule of their methods in
* I, 32. "1,29. *I. 26.
* I, 40. »V, 12.
VIII APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 249
books and writing, and despite the condemnation of witch- craft both by law and nature.^ Apollonius was certainly no wizard, argues Philostratus, for he never opposed the Fates but only predicted what they would bring to pass, and he acquired this foreknowledge not by sorcery but by divine revelation.^
Nevertheless Apollonius is frequently accused of being Apollonius a wizard by others in the pages of Philostratus. At Athens ^i2ar(js he was refused initiation into the mysteries on this ground,^ and at Lebadea the priests wished to exclude him from the oracular cave of Trophonius for the same reason.^ When the dogs guarding the temple of Dictynna in Crete fawned upon him instead of barking at his approach, the guardians of the shrine arrested him as a wizard and would-be temple robber who had bewitched the dogs by something that he had given them to eat.^ Apollonius also had to defend him- self against the accusation of witchcraft in his hearing or trial before Domitian.^ He then denied that one is a wizard merely because one has prescience, or that wearing linen gar- ments proves one a sorcerer. Wizards shun the shrines and temples of the gods ; they make use of trenches dug in the earth and invoke the gods of the lower world. They are greedy for gain and pseudo-philosophers. They possess no true science, depending for success in their art upon the stupidity of their dupes and devotees. They imagine what does not exist and disbelieve the truth. They work their sorcery by night and in darkness when those employing them cannot see or hear well. Apollonius himself was accused to Domitian of having sacrificed an Arcadian boy at night and consulted his entrails with Nerva in order to determine the latter's prospects of becoming emperor."^ When before his trial Domitian was about to put Apollonius in fetters, the sage proposed the dilemma that if he were a wizard he could not be kept in bonds, or that if Domitian were able
'VII, 39. "VIII, 30.
Tv/'i8. 'VIII, 7.
*VIII, 19. "VII, 20.
250
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap^
Quacks and old- wives.
The Brahmans.
to fetter him, he was obviously no wizard.^ This need not imply, however, that Apollonius believed that wizards really could free themselves, for he was at times ironical. If so, Domitian replied in kind by assuring him that he would at least keep him in fetters until he transformed himself into water or a wild beast or a tree.
Closely akin to the goetes or wizards are the old hags and quack-doctors who offer one Indian spices or boxes sup- posed to contain bits of stone taken from the moon, stars, or depths of earth.^ Likewise the divining old-wives who go about with sieves in their hands and pretend by means of their divination to heal sick animals for shepherds and cowherds.^ We also read that Apollonius expelled from the cities along the Hellespont various Egyptians and Chaldeans who were collecting money on the pretense of offering sacrifices to avert the earthquakes which were then occurring.'*
We have heard Philostratus mention the Brahmans of India in the same breath with the Magi of Persia and imply that Apollonius's association with them contributed to his reputation as a magician.^ In another passage ^ Philostratus places goetes and Brahmans in unfortunate juxtaposition, and, immediately after condemning the wizards and defend- ing Apollonius from the charge of sorcery, goes on to say that when he saw the automatic tripods and cup-bearers of the Indians, he did not ask how they were operated. "He applauded them, it is true, but did not think fit to imitate them." But of course Apollonius should not even have ap- plauded these automatons, which set food and poured wine before the guests of the Brahmans, if they were the con- trivances of wizards. And in another passage,'^ where he defends the signs and wonders wrought by the Brahmans against the aspersions cast upon them by the Gymnosophists of Ethiopia, Apollonius explains their practice of levitation
'VII, 34. 'VII, 39. "VI, II ; III, 43. 'VI, 41.
'I, 2.
'V, 12.
VI, II.
VIII APOLLONWS OF TYANA 251
as an act of worship and communion with the sun god, and hence far removed from the rites performed in deep trenches and hollows of the earth to the gods of the lower world which we have heard him mention before as a practice char- acteristic of wizards.
Nevertheless the feats ascribed to the Brahmans are cer- Marvels tainly sufficiently akin to magic to excuse Philostratus for Brahmans. mentioning them along with the Magi and wizards and to justify us in considering them. Indeed, modern scholarship informs us that in the Vedic texts the word "brahman" in the neuter means a "charm, rite, formulary, prayer," and "that the caste of the Brahmans is nothing but the men who have hrdhman or magic power. ^ In marked contrast to the taciturnity of Apollonius as to his interviews with the Magi of Babylon and Susa is the long account repeated by Phi- lostratus from Damis of the sayings and doings of the sages of India. As for Apollonius himself, "he was always re- counting to everyone what the Indians said and did." ^ They knew that he was approaching when he was yet afar off and sent a messenger who greeted him by name.^ lar- chas, their chief, also knew that Apollonius had a letter for him and that a delta was missing in it, and he told Apol- lonius many events of his past life. "We see, O Apollo- nius," he said, "the signs of the soul, tracing them by a myriad symbols." ^ The Brahmans lived in a castle con- cealed by clouds, where they rendered themselves invisible at will. The rocks along the path up to their abode were still marked by the cloven feet, beards, faces, and backs of the Pans who had tried to scale the height under the lead- ership of Dionysus and Heracles, but had been hurled down headlong.^ Here too was a well for testing oaths, a purify-
*J. E. Harrison, Themis, Cam- from the sacrificial lore of the
bridge, 1912, p. 72. "The Buddha Vedas : "E. B. Havell, A Hand-
himself condemned as worthless book of Indian Art, 1920, p. 6, and
the whole system of Vedic sacri- see p. 32 for the birth of Buddha
fices, including in his ban astrol- under the sign Taurus,
ogy, divination, spells, omens, and ^VI, 10.
witchcraft; but in the earliest 'III, 12.
Buddhist stupas known to us, the *III, 16.
symbolism is entirely borrowed " III, 13.
252
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
ing fire, and the jars in which the winds and rain were bot- tled up. Magical When the messenger of the Brahmans greeted Apollonius
of^\he^^ by name, the latter remarked to the astounded Damis, "We Brahmans. have Come to men who are wise without art (drexvccs), for they seem to have the gift of foreknowledge." ^ As a mat- ter of fact, however, most of the subsequent wonders wrought by the Brahmans were not performed without the use of paraphernalia and rites very similar to those of magic. Each Brahman carries a staff — or magic wand — and wears a ring, which are both prized for their occult virtue by which the Brahmans can accomplish anything they wish.^ They clothe themselves in sacred garments made of "a. wool that springs wild from the ground" (cotton?) and which the earth will not permit anyone else to pluck. larchas also showed Apollonius and Damis a marvelous stone called Pan- tarhe, which attracted and bound other stones to itself and which, although only the size of his finger-nail and formed in earth four fathoms deep, had such virtue that it broke the earth open.^ But it required great skill to secure this gem. "We only," said the Brahman, "can obtain this pan- tarhe, partly by doing things and partly by saying things," in other words by incantations and magical operations. Be- fore performing their rite of levitation tTiey bathed and anointed themselves with a certain drug. "Then they stood like a chorus with larchas as leader and with their rods up- lifted struck the earth, which heaving like the sea-wave raised them up in the air two cubits high." * The metallic tripods and cup-bearers which served the king of the coun- try when he came to visit the Brahmans appeared from no- where laden with food and wine exactly as if by magic.^
The medical practice, if we may so call it, of the Brah- mans was tinged, to say the least, with magic. A dislocated hip, indeed, they appear to have cured by massage, and a
* III, 12. Rut perhaps the trans- lation should be, "men who are ex- ceedingly wise."
'HI, IS.
=■111, 46-47. *III, 17. Mil, 27.
VIII APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 253
blind man and a paralytic are healed by unspecified methods.^ But a boy is cured of inherited alcoholism by chewing owl's eggs that have been boiled; a woman who complains that her sixteen-year-old son has for two years been vexed by a demon is sent away with a letter full of threats or incan- tations to employ against the spirit; and another woman's sufferings in childbirth are prevented by directing her hus- band to enter her chamber with a live hare concealed in his bosom and to release the hare after he has walked around his wife once. larchas, indeed, attributed the origin of medicine to divination or divine revelation.^ His theory was that Asclepius, as the son of Apollo, learned by oracles what drugs to employ for the different diseases, in what amounts to mix the drugs, what the antidotes for poisons were, and how to use even poisons as remedies. This last especially he affirmed that no one would dare attempt with- out foreknowledge.
The Brahmans seem to have made some use of astrology Some in working their feats of magic. Damis at any rate said that astrology when Apollonius bade farewell to the sages, larchas made him a present of seven rings named after the planets, which he wore in turn upon the appropriate days of the week.^ Perhaps, too, the seven swords of adamant which larchas had rediscovered as a child had some connection with the planets.^ Moeragenes ascribed four books on foretelling the .^t^
future by the stars to Apollonius himself, but Philostratus v/sf
was unable to find any such work by Apollonius extant in .;.^
his day.^ And unless it be an allusion to Chaldeans which '
we have already noted, there is no further mention of as- trology in Philostratus's Life — a rather remarkable fact con- sidering that he wrote for the court of Septimius Severus, the builder of the Septizonium.
The philosopher Euphrates, who is represented by Philos- Interest
tratus as jealous of Apollonius, once advised the emperor science
Vespasian, when Apollonius was present, to embrace natural
^III, 38-40. "Ill, 21.
Mil, 44.
'Ill, 41. mi, 41.
254 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
philosophy — or a philosophy in accordance with natural law — but to beware of philosophers who pretended to have secret intercourse with the gods.^ There was justification in the latter charge against Apollonius, but it should not be assumed that his mysticism rendered him unfavorable to natural science. On the contrary he is frequently represented by Philostratus as whiling away the time along the road by discussing with Damis such natural problems as the delta of the Nile or the tides at the mouth of the Guadalquivir. He was especially interested in the habits of animals and the properties of gems. Vespasian was fond of listening to "his graphic stories of the rivers of India and the animals" of that country, as well as to "his statements of what the gods revealed concerning the empire." ^ Some of the ques- tions which Apollonius put to the Brahmans concerned na- ture.^ He asked of what the world was composed, and when they said, "Of elements," he asked if there were four. They believed, however, in a fifth element, ether, from which the gods had been generated and which they breathe as men breathe air. They also regarded the universe as a living animal. He further inquired of them whether land or sea predominated on the earth's surface,* and this same attitude of scientific inquiry and of curiosity about natural forces and objects is frequently met in the Life.
Apollonius believed, as we shall see, in omens and por- tents, and interpreted an earthquake at Antioch as a divine warning to the inhabitants.^ The Brahman sages, moreover, regarded prolonged drought as a punishment visited by the world soul upon human sinfulness.^ On the other hand, Apollonius gave a natural explanation of volcanoes and de- nied the myths concerning Enceladus being imprisoned un- der Mount Aetna and the battle of the gods and giants.'^ And in the case of the earthquake the people had already accepted it as a portent and were praying in terror, when
'V, 37- 'VI, 38.
'V, 2,7. eTTT ,.
•Ill, 34. ' ^^'
Mil, 7,7. ^V. 17.
VIII APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 255
Apollonius took the opportunity to warn them to cease from their civil factions. As a matter of fact, both Apollonius and Philostratus appear to regard portents as an extraordi- nary sort of natural phenomena. A knowledge of natural science helps in recognizing them and in interpreting them. When a lioness of enormous size with eight whelps in her is slain by hunters, Apollonius at once recognizes the event as portentous because as a rule lionesses have whelps only thrice and only three of them on the first occasion, two in the second litter, and finally but a single whelp, "but I be- lieve a very big one and preternaturally fierce." ^ Here Apollonius is not in strict agreement with Pliny and Aris- totle ^ who say that the lioness produces five whelps at the first birth and one less every succeeding year.
The scepticism of Apollonius concerning the Aetna Cases of myth is not an isolated instance. At Sardis he ridiculed the scepticism notion that trees could be older than earth,^ and he was one of the few ancients to question the swan's song.* He de- nied "the silly story that the young of vipers are brought into the world without mothers" as "consistent neither with na- ture nor experience," ^ and also the tale that the whelps of the lioness claw their way out into the world.® In India Apollonius saw a wild ass or unicorn from whose single horn a magic drinking horn was made.' A draught from this horn was supposed to protect one for that day from dis- ease, wounds, fire, or poison, and on that account the king
*I, 22. sonitum rauci per stagna loquacia
' NH, VIII, 17; Hist. Anim., cygni. This concrete explanation
VI, 31. is quite inadequate; it is beyond
^VI, 37. a doubt that the swan's song (Hke
*The ancient authorities, pro the halcyon's) veiled, and still
and con, will be found listed in hides, some mystical allusion."