INTRODUCTION

aretalogi Ancient wandering storytellers who recounted miracles. of that age, set out to embellish the life of his master and exaggerate his wisdom and supernatural powers. If so, more than one of the striking stories told by Philostratus may have already stood in the pages of Damis.

However this may be, the evident aim of Philostratus is to restore the reputation of Apollonius and defend him from the charge of being a charlatan or a wizard addicted to evil magical practices. This accusation had been leveled against the sage during his lifetime by a rival sophist named Euphrates, and not long after his death by the author already mentioned, Moeragenes. Unfortunately, the speeches of Euphrates have perished, and we know little of the work of Moeragenes. Origen, the Christian father, writing against Celsus around the year 240, informs us that he had read it and that it attacked Apollonius as a magician addicted to sinister practices. It is certain that the accusations of Euphrates were of a similar tendency. One only needs to read a few pages of this work by Philostratus to see that his chief interest is to prove to the world that these accusations were ill-founded and that Apollonius was a divinely inspired sage and prophet, and a reformer of the pagan religion along Pythagorean lines.