NOW the king caught sight of Apollonius approaching, for the vestibule of the Temple was of considerable length, and insisted to those by him that he recognized the sage; and when he came still nearer he cried out with a loud voice and said: "This is Apollonius, whom Megabates, my brother, said he
AND he quitted the scene of sacrifice in order not to be present at the shedding of blood. But after the sacrifice was over he approached and said: "O king, do you know the Greek tongue thoroughly, or have you a smattering of it perhaps, in order to be able to express yourself and appear polite in SINCE the king said that he was more pleased and delighted with his arrival than if he had added to his own possessions the wealth of Persia and India, and added that Apollonius must be his guest and share with him the royal roof, Apollonius remarked: "Supposing, O king, that you came to my country of Tyana and I invited you to live where I live, would you care to do so?" "Why no," answered the king, "unless I had a house to live in that was big enough to accommodate not only my escort and bodyguard, but myself as well, in a handsome manner." "Then," said the other, "I may use the same argument to you; for if I am housed above my rank, I shall be ill at ease, for superfluity distresses wise men more than deficiency distresses you. Let me therefore be entertained by some private person who has the same means as myself, and I will visit with you as often as you like." The king conceded this point, lest he should be betrayed into doing anything that might annoy him, and Apollonius took up his quarters with a gentleman of Babylon of good character and besides high-minded. But before he had finished dinner one of the eunuchs presented himself and addressed him thus: "The king," he said, "bestows upon you ten presents, and leaves you free to name them; but he is anxious that you should not ask for small trifles, for he wishes to exhibit to you and to us his generosity." Apollonius commended the message, and asked: "Then when am I to ask for them?" And the messenger replied: "To-morrow," and at once went off to all the king's friends and kinsmen AND by such devices he tried to wheedle Apollonius into not refusing to take anything he might be offered; but Apollonius, as if by way of assisting him in his argument, said: "But, O Damis, are you not going to give me some examples? Let me supply you with some: Aeschines, the son of Lysanias, went off to Dionysius in Sicily in quest of money, and Plato is said thrice to have traversed Charybdis in quest of the wealth of Sicily, and Aristippus of Cyrene, and Helicon of Cyzicus, and Phyton of Rhegium, when NOW when the eunuch arrived and summoned him before the king, he said: "I will come as soon as I have duly discharged my religious duties." Accordingly he sacrificed and offered his prayer, and then departed, and everyone looked at him and wondered at his bearing. And when he had come within, the king said: "I present you with ten gifts, because I consider you such a man as never before has come hither from Hellas." And he answered and said: "I will not, O king, decline all your gifts; but there is one which I prefer to may tens of gifts, and for that I will most eagerly solicit." And he at one told the story of the Eretrians, beginning it from the time of Datis. "I ask then," he said, "that these poor people should not be driven away from their borders and from the hill, but should be left to cultivate the span of earth, which Darius allowed them; for it is very hard if they are not to be allowed to retain the land which was substituted for their own when they were driven out of the latter." The king then consented and said: "The Eretrians were, until yesterday, the enemies of myself and of my fathers; for they once took up arms against us, and they have been neglected in order that their race might perish; but henceforth they shall be written among my friends, and they shall have, as a satrap, a good man who will judge their country justly. But why," he said, "will you not accept the other nine gifts?" "Because," he answered, "I have not yet, O king, made any friends WHILE they were thus conversing with one another a hubbub was heard to proceed from the palace, of eunuchs and women shrieking all at once. And in fact an eunuch had been caught misbehaving with one of the royal concubines just as if he were an adulterer. The guards of the harem were now dragging him along by the hair in the way they do royal slaves. The senior of the eunuchs accordingly declared that he had long before noticed he had an affection for this particular lady, and had already forbidden him to talk to her or touch her neck or hand, or assist her toilette, though he was free to wait upon all the other members of the harem; yet he had now caught him behaving as if he were the lady's lover. Apollonius thereupon glanced at Damis, as if to indicate that the argument they had conducted on the point that even eunuchs fall in love, was now demonstrated to be true; but the king remarked to the bystanders: "Nay, but it is disgraceful, gentlemen, that, in the presence of Apollonius, we should be enlarging on the subject of chastity rather than he. What then, O Apollonius, do you urge us to do with him?" "Why, to let him live, of course," answered Apollonius to the surprise of them all. Whereon the king reddened, and said: "Then you do not ONE day the king was going to hunt the animals in the parks in which the barbarians keep lions and bears and leopards, and he asked Apollonius to accompany him on the chase, but the latter replied: "You have forgotten, O king, that I never attend you, even when you are sacrificing. And moreover, it is no pleasure to me to attack animals that have been ill-treated and enslaved in violation of their nature." And the king asking him what was the most stable and secure way of governing, Apollonius answered: ONE day the king was showing to him the grotto under the Euphrates, and asked him what he though of so wonderful a thing. Apollonius in answer belittled the wonder of the work, and said: "It would be a real miracle, O king, if you went dry-shod through a river as deep as this and as unfordable." And when he was shown the walls of Ecbatana, and was told that they were the dwelling-place of gods, he remarked: "They are not the dwelling place of gods at all, and I am not sure that they are of real men either; for, O king, the inhabitants of the city of Lacedaemon do not dwell within walls, and have never fortified their city." Moreover, on one occasion the king had decided a suit for some villages and was boasting to Apollonius of how he had listened to the one suit for two whole days. "Well," said the other, "you took a mighty long time, anyhow, to find out what was just." And when the revenues from the subject country came in on one occasion in great quantities at once, the king opened his treasury and showed his wealth to the sage, to induce him to fall in love with wealth; but he admired nothing that he saw and said: "This, for you, O king, represents wealth, but to me it is mere chaff." "How, then," said the other, "and in what manner can I best make use of it?" "By spending it," he said, "for you are king."CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII
Christian Texts
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The Classics
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The Pyramid Texts: The Pyramid Texts: 25. Miscellaneous Texts Chiefly About the Deceased King's Reception and Life in Heaven, Utterances 523-533
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The Pyramid Texts: The Pyramid Texts: 53. Resurrection, Transfiguration, and Life of the King in Heaven, Utterance 676
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Hinduism
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Pacific Islander Religions
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