INTRODUCTION

The Life of Apollonius of Tyana has only been translated into English once in its entirety, as far back as 1811, by an Irish clergyman named E. Berwick. It is therefore to be hoped that the present translation will be acceptable to the English-reading public, as the work is very readable and written in a light style. We do not know much about its author, Philostratus, beyond what can be gathered from his own writings. These suggest that he was born on the island of Lemnos around 172 AD, and that he traveled to Athens as a young man to study rhetoric, later moving to Rome. In Rome, he gained a reputation as a sophist A professional teacher of philosophy and rhetoric in ancient Greece. and was drawn into the circle of the literary and philosophic Empress Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus. She placed into his hands certain memoirs of Apollonius, the sage of Tyana, who had died in extreme old age nearly