re is an
interval of almost twenty years in which nothing important happens, in a
part also of his life unconnected with any public events to fix its
chronology, it is highly probable that the date of his birth is put too
early. Philostratus says that accounts varied, making him live eighty,
ninety, or one hundred years; see viii. 29. See also ii. 12, where, by
some inaccuracy, he makes him to have been in India twenty years
_before_ he was at Babylon.--Olear. _ad locum et praefat. ad vit._ The
common date of his birth is fixed by his biographer's merely accidental
mention of the revolt of Archelaus against the Romans, as taking place
before Apollonius was twenty years old; see i. 12.

[287] Philostr. i. 19.

[288] Philostr. i. 27-41.

[289] Ibid. ii. 1-40. Brucker, vol. ii. p. 110.

[290] Ibid. iii. 51.

[291] Ibid. iv. 1. Acts xiii. 8; see also Acts viii. 9-11, and xix.
13-16.

[292] Ibid. iv. 11, _et seq._

[293] When denied at the latter place he forced his way in.--Philostr.
viii. 19.

[294] Ibid. iv. 35. Brucker (vol. ii. p. 118) with reason thinks this
prohibition extended only to the profession of magic.

[295] Ibid. iv. 40, etc.

[296] Brucker, vol. ii. p. 120.

[297] Philostr. v. 10.

[298] Astrologers were concerned in Libo's conspiracy against Tiberius,
and punished. Vespasian, as we shall have occasion to notice presently,
made use of them in furthering his political plans.--Tacit. Hist. ii.
78. We read of their predicting Nero's accession, the deaths of
Vitellius and Domitian, etc. They were sent into banishment by Tiberius,
Claudius, Vitellius, and Domitian. Philostratus describes Nero as
issuing his edict _on leaving the Capital_ for Greece, iv. 47. These
circumstances seem to imply that astrology, magic, etc, were at that
time of considerable service in political intrigues.

[299] Philostr. v. ii, etc.

[300] Ibid. v. 20, etc.

[301] Philostr. v. 27.

[302] Tacitus relates, that when Vespasian was going to the _Serapeum,
ut super rebus imperii consuleret_, Basilides, an Egyptian, who was at
the time eighty miles distant, suddenly appeared to him; from his name
the emperor drew an omen that the god sanctioned his assumption of the
Imperial power.--Hist. iv. 82. This sufficiently agrees in substance
with the narrative of Philostratus to give the latter some probability.
It was on this occasion that the famous cures are said to have been
wrought.

[303] As Egypt supplied Rome with