g.[315] His death took place shortly after; and
Ephesus, Rhodes, and Crete are variously mentioned as the spot at which
it occurred.[316] A temple was dedicated to him at Tyana,[317] which was
in consequence accounted one of the sacred cities, and permitted the
privilege of electing its own Magistrates.[318]

He is said to have written[319] a treatise upon Judicial Astrology, a
work on Sacrifices, another on Oracles, a Life of Pythagoras, and an
account of the answers which he received from Trophonius, besides the
memoranda noticed in the opening of our memoir. A collection of Letters
ascribed to him is still extant.[320]

3.

It may be regretted that so elaborate a history, as that which we have
abridged, should not contain more authentic and valuable matter. Both
the secular transactions of the times and the history of Christianity
might have been illustrated by the life of one, who, while he was an
instrument of the partisans of Vindex, Vespasian, and Nerva, was a
contemporary and in some respects a rival of the Apostles; and who,
probably, was with St. Paul at Ephesus and Rome.[321] As far as his
personal character is concerned, there is nothing to be lamented in
these omissions. There is nothing very winning, or very commanding,
either in his biographer's picture of him, or in his own letters. His
virtues, as we have already seen, were temperance and a disregard of
wealth; and that he really had these, and such as these, may be safely
concluded from the fact of the popularity which he enjoyed. The great
object of his ambition seems to have been to emulate the fame of his
master; and his efforts had their reward in the general admiration he
attracted, the honours paid him by the Oracles, and the attentions shown
him by men in power.

We might have been inclined, indeed, to suspect that his reputation
existed principally in his biographer's panegyric, were it not attested
by other writers. The celebrity, which he has enjoyed since the writings
of the Eclectics, by itself affords but a faint presumption of his
notoriety before they appeared. Yet, after all allowances, there remains
enough to show that, however fabulous the details of his history may be,
there was something extraordinary in his life and character. Some
foundation there must have been for statements which his eulogists were
able to maintain in the face of those who would have spoken out had they
been altogether novel. Pretensions never before adva