Ad CAGLIOSTRO OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 433 
society was possessed, they rose, many of them, into 
positions of extraordinary influence and consequence. 
Asia Minor seems to have been their chief breeding 
ground, where Eastern magic came in contact with 
Greck eivilization, and imposture was able to dis- 
guise itself in the phrases of philosophy. 
Apollonius of Tyana was the most remarkable 
of these adventurers, His life, unfortunately, had 
been written by believers in his pretensions; and we 
have no knowledge of what he looked like to cool 
observers. "The Apollonius of Philostratus is a 
heathen saviour, who claimed a commission from 
heaven to teach a pure and reformed religion, and in 
attestation of his authority went about healing the 
sick, raising dead men to life, casting out devils, and 
prophesying future events which came afterwards to 
pass. The interesting fact about Apollonius is the 
extensive recognition which he obtained, and the 
oase with which his pretensions found acceptance in 
the existing condition of the popular ınind. Out of 
the legends of him little can be gathered, save the 
barest outline of his history. He was born four 
years before the Christian era in Tyana, a city of 
Cappadocia. His parents sent him to be educated 
at Tarsus in Cilicia, a place of considerable wealth 
and repute, and he must have been about beginning 
VOL. IV,