Excerpt from Apollonius of Tyana: A Study of His Life and Times Tyana's saint and sage. Nor has the spell fallen upon scholars and critics alone. Thousands of readers of Keats' Lamia have lingered curiously over the foot-note, drawn from The Anatomy of Mel/1h choly, in which Burton quotes Philostratus' account of the young philosopher whom Apollonius miraculously delivered from a lamia, or serpent, in the guise of a beautiful young gentlewoman. There are others who profess to breathe again the atmosphere of the fesculapian College at nae in Pater's Marius the Epicurean. Swedenborgians have found in Apoll'onius a Swedenborg born out of due time: and some so-called Theoso phists, on the strength of the sage's pilgrimage to the wise men of India, have claimed him for their very own. Yet his full legend in English is no longer to be bought for money. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The book extensively describes the alleged travels of Apollonius to Italy, Hispania, Nubia, Syria, Mesopotamia, and India. Some scholars view it as fiction and contend that Apollonius probably never reached any of these countries, but spent his entire life in the East of the Roman Empire. According to Philostratus, his book relies on a multiplicity of sources: A book on the youth of Apollonius, written by Maximus of Aegae Memoirs written by a disciple of Apollonius, Damis. The "Memorabilia of Apollonius of Tyana, magician and philosopher", was written by Moeragenes, although Philostratus considers that account rather unreliable. Local knowledge comes from towns like Ephesus, Tyana, Aegae, and Antioch. Apollonius' exceptional personality and his mystical way of life, which was regarded as exemplary, impressed his contemporaries and had a lasting cultural influence. Numerous legends surrounding him and accounts of his life are contained in the extensive Life of Apollonius, which collects a large part of the legendary material about Apollonius' life and work. A large part of the ancient legends of Apollonius consists of numerous reports about miracles that he was said to have performed as a wandering sage with his lifelong companion Damis. He was tried for allegedly having used magic as a means of conspiring against the emperor; after his conviction and subsequent death-penalty, his followers believed he underwent heavenly ascension] Most modern scholars of antiquity agree that Apollonius existed historically.