of the Gymnosophists of India, he was come to Egypt to compare this mystic philosophy with that of the hermits of Ethiopia and the Thebaid.  Addressing himself as a pupil to the priests, he willingly yielded his belief to their mystic claims; and, whether from being deceived or as a deceiver, whether as an enthusiast or as a cheat, he pretended to have learned all the supernatural knowledge which they pretended to teach.  By the Egyptians he was looked upon as the favourite of Heaven; he claimed the power of working miracles by his magical arts, and of foretelling events by his knowledge of astrology.  In the Thebaid he was so far honoured that at the bidding of the priests one of the sacred trees spoke to him, as had been their custom from of old with favourites, and in a clear and rather womanly voice addressed him as a teacher from heaven.

It was to witness such practices as these, and to learn the art of deceiving their followers, that the Egyptian priests were now consulted by the Greeks.  The oracle at Delphi was silent, but the oracle of Ammon continued to return an answer.  The mystic philosophy of the East had come into fashion in Alexandria, and the priests were more celebrated as magicians than as philosophers.  They would tell a man’s fortune and the year that he was to die by examining the lines of his forehead.  Some of them even undertook, for a sum of money, to raise the dead to life, or, rather, to recall for a time to earth the unwilling spirits, and make them answer any questions that might be put to them.  Ventriloquism was an art often practised in Egypt, and perhaps invented there.  By this the priests gained a power over the minds of the listeners, and could make them believe that a tree, a statue, or a dead body, was speaking to them.

The Alexandrian men of letters seldom erred by wrapping themselves up in pride to avoid the fault of meanness; they usually cringed to the great.  Apollonius was wholly at the service of Vespasian, and the emperor repaid the philosopher by flattery as well as by more solid favours.  He kept him always by his side during his stay in Egypt; he acknowledged his rank as a prophet, and tried to make further use of him in persuading the Egyptians of his own divine right to the throne.  Vespasian begged him to make use of his prayers that he might obtain from God the empire which he had as yet hardly grasped; but Apollonius, claiming even a higher mission from Heaven than Vespasian was granting to him, answered, with as much arrogance as flattery, “I have myself already made you emperor.”  With the intimacy between Vespasian and Apollonius begins the use of gnostic emblems on the Alexandrian coins.  The imperial pupil was not slow in learning from such a master; and the people were as ready to believe in the emperor’s miracles as in the philosopher’s.  As Vespasian was walking through the streets of Alexandria, a man well known as having a disease in his eyes threw himself at his feet and begged of him to heal his blindness.