[100] Tantalus is fabled to have stolen the cup of nectar from the gods; this was the amṛita, the ocean of immortality and wisdom, of the Indians.
[101] The words οὐδεν κεκτημένους ἢ τὰ πάντων, which Philostratus quotes twice in this form, can certainly not be changed into μηδὲν κεκτημένους τὰ πάντων ἔχειν without doing unwarrantable violence to their meaning.
[103] Berwick, Life of Apollonius, p. 200 _n._
[104] He also built a precinct round the tomb of Leonidas at Thermopylæ (iv. 23).
[105] A great centre of divination by means of dreams (see ii. 37).
[106] The word γυμνός (naked), however, usually means lightly clad, as, for instance, when a man is said to plough “naked,” that is with only one garment, and this is evident from the comparison made between the costume of the Gymnosophists and that of people in the hot weather at Athens (vi. 6).
[107] For they had neither huts nor houses, but lived in the open air.
[108] He spent, we are told, no less than a year and eight months with Vardan, King of Babylon, and was the honoured guest of the Indian Rājāh “Phraotes.”
[109] See i. 22 (cf. 40), 34; iv. 4, 6, 18 (cf. v. 19), 24, 43; v. 7, 11, 13, 30, 37; vi. 32; viii. 26.
[110] This expression is, however, perhaps only to be taken as rhetorical, for in viii. 8, the incident is referred to in the simple words “when he departed (ἀπῆλθε) from the tribunal.”
[111] That is to say not in a “form,” but in his own nature.
[112] See in this connection L. v. Schroeder, Pythagoras und die Inder, eine Untersuchung über Herkunft und Abstammung der pythagoreischen Lehren (Leipzig; 1884).
[113] This has reference to the preserved hunting parks, or “paradises,” of the Babylonian monarchs.
[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 Musée 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 Musée Royal Bourbon, traduit par C. J. J. (Naples; 1831), I find on p. 152 that no. 363 is a bust of Apollonius, 2¾ 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 philosopher’s cloak. The medal, however, is of very inferior workmanship, and the portrait is by no means pleasing. Visconti in his letterpress devotes an angry and contemptuous paragraph to Apollonius, “ce trop célèbre imposteur,” as he calls him, based on De Tillemont.