Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries by Brian Haughton (beginner reading books for adults txt) 📕

neoPythagorean philosophy wherever he could. He visited Nineveh and Babylon and traversed much of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey), Persia, India, and Egypt, where he visited the cataracts of the Nile. It was on these travels that he came into contact with and learned from the oriental mysticism of Magi, Brahmans, and gymnosophists, and also met his scribe and main disciple, Damis, whose records of the events in the life of the philosopher supposedly influenced Philostratus's biography.

For a time the great sage and his disciple were based at the ancient city of Ephesus (in modern Turkey), where he became well-known for condemning the idleness and materialistic lifestyle of the population. During his stay at Ephesus, Apollonius sought entry into the mysteries of the Ephesian goddess, but was violently rejected by the priests there. Before leaving the city he prophesized that a dreadful plague would infest it and that the priests would soon be begging for his help. At first they ignored this seemingly baseless warning, but soon afterward, when the deadly disease arrived, the priests had no choice but to send for the great magician. When he came, he identified the cause of the problem as an old, filthy beggar, who he instructed the crowd to stone to death immediately. Naturally, they were unwilling to perform such a cruel act, but Apollonius persisted in his accusations, and the poor man was pelted with a volley of stones. When the people removed the pile of stones to extract the body, they found the corpse of a huge black dog lying underneath. Apollonius identified this as the cause of the pestilence, which stopped at that moment. After this performance, a second request for admission into the Ephesian mysteries was immediately granted. Apparently, Apollonius was also allowed entrance into the Mysteries of the Temple of Apollo at Antioch in Syria, and became an initiate of the Eleusinian Mysteries at Eleusina, west of Athens.

An odd tale told about Apollonius involves the wedding of a former student of his, a young man called Menippus, who lived in Corinth. Menippus was about to marry a beautiful rich woman, whom he had first glimpsed in a vision. Apollonius was one of the guests at the feast and noticed that something about the bride was not right. After watching her carefully for a while, he proclaimed that she was in fact a Lamia (a kind of vampire), and used his powers to make all the luxuries of the banquet-including the guests-disappear, thus showing them to be hallucinations constructed by the girl. After this, the disguise faded and the real Lamia was revealed. This bizarre tail was used as the basis for John Keats's 1819 poem "Lamia" and has the flavor of an allegorical story, illustrating Apollonius's philosophy regarding the dangers of an overly materialistic society.

During the reign of the infamous emperor Nero (A.D. 54-A.D. 68), Apollonius and eight of his disciples were living in Rome, despite the fact that Nero was known for persecuting philosophers. It seems that Nero's consul, Telesimus, was impressed with the group, who were even allowed to assist in modifying existing temple practices. Whether it was this that incited the fury of Nero is not known, but the group was soon in danger of losing their lives. In the end, they somehow managed to escape, probably due to Tigellinus's fear of Apollonius. During his stay in Alexandria, in Egypt, the sage became friends with Vespasian, who had recently put down the Great Jewish Revolt in Jerusalem, and was to be emperor of Rome from A.D. 69 to A.D. 79. Through Vespasian's son Titus, ruler of the Roman Empire from A.D. 79 to A.D. 81, Apollonius became acquainted with many important Roman officials and seems to have been in favor of a well-run and democratic Empire. Unfortunately, Titus's successor as Roman emperor was the paranoid and reckless Titus Flavius Domitianus, who banished all philosophers from Rome, and had a host of spies and informers at work throughout the Empire. These spies soon heard of Apollonius's condemnation of Domitian's methods, and Apollonius was accused of treason. Apollonius forestalled prosecution by arriving in Rome voluntarily and was immediately arrested and flung into prison. Domitian sent for the famous philosopher with the intention of interviewing him privately and then putting him on public trial. But the imposing yet reverent steadfastness shown by Apollonius somehow won over the emperor. Either that, or he was extremely intimidated by him, and Apollonius was allowed to go free.

On one occasion, Apollonius was delivering a speech in Ephesus when his voice suddenly dropped and he seemed to be losing concentration. He then fell silent, glanced at the ground then suddenly shouted "Smite the tyrant, smite him." The huge crowd of spectators were struck dumb in bewilderment. The sage paused for a moment, and then said: "Take heart, gentlemen, for the tyrant has been slain this day." It was revealed afterward that at the very moment Apollonius had spoken his prophetic words, Emperor Domitian had been murdered in Rome.

Apollonius subsequently set up a school at Ephesus and apparently it

was in this city, during the reign of Emperor Nerva, from A.D. 96 to 98, that he died at an extremely advanced age. However, no one knows exactly where and when he died, though a shrine was built to honor him in his native town of Tyana, and it remained an object of veneration for many years. Such was his fame as a philosopher that there were also statues of him set up in many other temples throughout the Empire. The mystery of the philosopher's death encouraged much mythology and hearsay at the time. It was said that he had ascended bodily to heaven, and appeared after his death to certain people who doubted the existence of the afterlife. Philostratus perpetuated the mystery by saying, "Concerning the manner of his death, if he did die, the accounts are various." Apollonius enjoyed a reputation of considerable awe in the centuries following his death. Near the end of