INTRODUCTION

He practiced a rigid asceticism and condemned all dancing and similar diversions. He would carry no money on his person and encouraged others to spend their wealth on the relief of the poor. He visited Persia and India, where he consorted with the Brahmans Ancient Indian philosophers or priests.; he subsequently visited Egypt and traveled up the Nile to acquaint himself with the forerunners of the monks of the Thebaid A region in Upper Egypt known for early Christian monasticism., known in those days as the Gymnosophists, or "naked philosophers." He visited the cataracts of the Nile and, upon returning to Alexandria, held long conversations with the emperors Vespasian and Titus shortly after the latter’s siege and capture of Jerusalem.

A few years prior, during a visit to Rome, he had incurred the wrath of the Emperor Nero, whose minister, Tigellinus, was so intimidated by him that he set him at liberty. After the death of Titus, Apollonius was arrested again—this time by the Emperor Domitian—as a fomenter of sedition, but he was apparently acquitted. He died at an advanced age during the reign of Nerva, who had befriended him. According to popular tradition, he ascended bodily to heaven, appearing after his death to certain people who harbored doubts about the afterlife.

Towards the end of the third century, when the struggle between Christianity and decadent Paganism...