The Life of Apollonius of Tyana: Book IV: Chapters 1-10

CHAPTER II

The first discourse then which he delivered was to the Ephesians from the platform of their temple, and its tone was not that of the Socratic school; for he dissuaded and discouraged them from other pursuits, and urged them to fill Ephesus with real study rather than with idleness and revelry such as he found around him there; for they were devoted to dancers and taken up with pantomimes, and the whole city was full of pipers, and full of effeminate rascals, and full of noise. So, though the Ephesians had come over to him, he determined not tot wink at such things, but cleared them out and made them odious to most of them.

CHAPTER III

His other discourses he delivered under the trees which grow hard by the cloisters; and in these he dealt with the question of communism, and taught that they ought to support and be supported by one another. While he was doing so on one occasion, sparrows were sitting quite silent upon the trees, but one of them suddenly set to chirping as it flew up, just as if he had some

CHAPTER V

But when he came to Smyrna the Ionians went out to meet him, for they were just celebrating the pan-Ionian sacrifices. And he there read a decree of the Ionians, in which they besought him to take part in their solemn meeting; and in it he met with a name which had not at all an Ionian ring, for a certain Lucullus had signed the resolution. He accordingly sent a letter to their council expressing his astonishment at such an instance of barbarism;

CHAPTER VII

And remarking the zeal with which the people of Smyrna devoted themselves to all sorts of compositions, he encouraged them and increased their zeal, and urged them to take pride rather in themselves than in the beauty of their city; for although they had the most beautiful of cities under the sun, and although they had a friendly sea at their doors, which held the springs of the zephyr, nevertheless, it was more pleasing for the city to be crowned with men than with porticos and pictures, or even with gold in excess of what they needed. For, he said,

CHAPTER VIII

And in his discussions, moreover, with the people of Smyrna he wisely taught them also how best to guarantee the security of those who live in the cities, for he saw that they were at issue with one another and did not agree in their ideals. He accordingly told them that for a city to be rightly conducted by its inhabitants, you need a mixture of concord with party spirit; and as this utterance seemed inadmissible and hardly logical, Apollonius realizing that most of them did not follow his argument, added: "White and black can never be one and the same, nor can bitter be wholesomely blended