Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries (51 page)

Apollonius of Tyana by Jean-Jacques Boissard,
probably late 16th century.

Apollonius of Tyana was a first century neo-Pythagorean, a charismatic
philosopher, teacher, vegetarian, and
miracle worker. He was perhaps the
most famous philosopher of the GrecoRoman world and a contemporary of
Jesus, with whom he has frequently
been compared. Apollonius traveled
extensively for his time; he visited

Syria, Egypt, and India, among other
places, and was credited with many
wonders and much wisdom. During his
lifetime and afterward, he achieved
almost mythical fame, and his teachings have been an influence on both
scientific and spiritual thought for
more than 2,000 years.

During his life, Apollonius wrote
numerous books and treatises on various subjects, including philosophy, science, and medicine, but unfortunately
none of these survived. There are brief
mentions of him in ancient works by
Christian authors such as St. Jerome
and St. Augustine, but the main source
for Apollonius is the Life of Apollonius
written by the Athenian author
Flavius Philostratus (c. A.D. 170-A.D.
245). Composed in Greek in A.D. 216,
this work consists of eight books and
is the only surviving biography of the
great sage. It is apparently based on a
journal kept by Apollonius's companion, Damis, and was commissioned by
Julia Domna of Syria, second wife of
the Emperor Septimius Severus, and
Caracalla's mother. One reason that
has been suggested for Julia requesting such a work was to counter the influence of Christianity on Roman
civilization. Indeed, some have even
seen it as an attempt to construct a
miracle-working rival to Jesus Christ.
The work itself is an odd mixture of
historical truth and outright romantic
fiction, which is one of the reasons why
so little is known about Apollonius. In
fact, there are so many miraculous occurrences in the book that many
people believed Apollonius of Tyana
to be a completely fictitious character.
Even today, there are a few people of
this opinion.

Apollonius was born around A.D. 2
in Tyana (modern day Bor in southern
Turkey), in the Roman province of
Cappadocia. He was born into a
wealthy and respected Cappadocian
Greek family, and received the best
education, studying grammar and
rhetoric in Tarsus, learning medicine
at the temple of Aesculapius at Aegae,

and philosophy at the school of
Pythagoras. At the age of 16 he adopted
the discipline of the Pythagorean
School and pursued its austere
lifestyle. He allowed his hair to grow
long; abstained from marriage, wine,
and animal flesh; wore only linen
clothing; never shaved; and slept on
the bare earth. Before long, Apollonius
became well-known for his habits and
also for his severe criticism of the
Pagan practice of sacrificing animals
to the gods. He later gave most of his
family inheritance to his elder brother,
and the remaining to his poor relations, retaining only enough to meet
his basic needs. He then began a five
year period of complete silence. This
silence seems to have enhanced the
deeply spiritual aura already surrounding him and increased his reputation as a knowledgeable seer.
Philostratus describes Apollonius as
a superhuman, who possessed knowledge of all languages without studying, could read people's minds,
understood the language of birds and
animals, and had the ability to predict
the future.

Fascinated by the secret doctrines
of the religions of the world, and devoted to the purification of the numerous cults throughout the Roman
Empire, Apollonius embarked on a
quest to discover, understand, reform,
and teach his own unique brand of neoPythagorean philosophy wherever he
could. He visited Nineveh and Babylon
and traversed much of Asia Minor
(modern day Turkey), Persia, India,
and Egypt, where he visited the cataracts of the Nile. It was on these travels that he came into contact with and
learned from the oriental mysticism of
Magi, Brahmans, and gymnosophists, and also met his scribe and main disciple, Damis, whose records of the
events in the life of the philosopher
supposedly influenced Philostratus's
biography.

For a time the great sage and his
disciple were based at the ancient city
of Ephesus (in modern Turkey), where
he became well-known for condemning the idleness and materialistic
lifestyle of the population. During his
stay at Ephesus, Apollonius sought
entry into the mysteries of the
Ephesian goddess, but was violently
rejected by the priests there. Before
leaving the city he prophesized that a
dreadful plague would infest it and
that the priests would soon be begging
for his help. At first they ignored this
seemingly baseless warning, but soon
afterward, when the deadly disease
arrived, the priests had no choice but
to send for the great magician. When
he came, he identified the cause of the
problem as an old, filthy beggar, who
he instructed the crowd to stone to
death immediately. Naturally, they
were unwilling to perform such a cruel
act, but Apollonius persisted in his
accusations, and the poor man was
pelted with a volley of stones. When
the people removed the pile of stones
to extract the body, they found the
corpse of a huge black dog lying underneath. Apollonius identified this as
the cause of the pestilence, which
stopped at that moment. After this
performance, a second request for admission into the Ephesian mysteries
was immediately granted. Apparently,
Apollonius was also allowed entrance
into the Mysteries of the Temple of
Apollo at Antioch in Syria, and became
an initiate of the Eleusinian Mysteries at Eleusina, west of Athens.

An odd tale told about Apollonius
involves the wedding of a former student of his, a young man called
Menippus, who lived in Corinth.
Menippus was about to marry a beautiful rich woman, whom he had first
glimpsed in a vision. Apollonius was
one of the guests at the feast and noticed that something about the bride
was not right. After watching her carefully for a while, he proclaimed that
she was in fact a Lamia (a kind of vampire), and used his powers to make all
the luxuries of the banquet-including
the guests-disappear, thus showing
them to be hallucinations constructed
by the girl. After this, the disguise
faded and the real Lamia was revealed.
This bizarre tail was used as the basis
for John Keats's 1819 poem "Lamia"
and has the flavor of an allegorical
story, illustrating Apollonius's philosophy regarding the dangers of an
overly materialistic society.

During the reign of the infamous
emperor Nero (A.D. 54-A.D. 68),
Apollonius and eight of his disciples
were living in Rome, despite the fact
that Nero was known for persecuting
philosophers. It seems that Nero's consul, Telesimus, was impressed with
the group, who were even allowed to
assist in modifying existing temple
practices. Whether it was this that incited the fury of Nero is not known,
but the group was soon in danger of
losing their lives. In the end, they
somehow managed to escape, probably
due to Tigellinus's fear of Apollonius.
During his stay in Alexandria, in
Egypt, the sage became friends with
Vespasian, who had recently put down
the Great Jewish Revolt in Jerusalem,
and was to be emperor of Rome from
A.D. 69 to A.D. 79. Through Vespasian's son Titus, ruler of the Roman Empire
from A.D. 79 to A.D. 81, Apollonius became acquainted with many important
Roman officials and seems to have been
in favor of a well-run and democratic
Empire. Unfortunately, Titus's successor as Roman emperor was the paranoid and reckless Titus Flavius
Domitianus, who banished all philosophers from Rome, and had a host of
spies and informers at work throughout the Empire. These spies soon
heard of Apollonius's condemnation of
Domitian's methods, and Apollonius
was accused of treason. Apollonius
forestalled prosecution by arriving in
Rome voluntarily and was immediately arrested and flung into prison.
Domitian sent for the famous philosopher with the intention of interviewing him privately and then putting him
on public trial. But the imposing yet
reverent steadfastness shown by
Apollonius somehow won over the
emperor. Either that, or he was extremely intimidated by him, and
Apollonius was allowed to go free.

On one occasion, Apollonius was
delivering a speech in Ephesus when
his voice suddenly dropped and he
seemed to be losing concentration. He
then fell silent, glanced at the ground
then suddenly shouted "Smite the tyrant, smite him." The huge crowd of
spectators were struck dumb in bewilderment. The sage paused for a moment, and then said: "Take heart,
gentlemen, for the tyrant has been
slain this day." It was revealed afterward that at the very moment
Apollonius had spoken his prophetic
words, Emperor Domitian had been
murdered in Rome.

Apollonius subsequently set up a
school at Ephesus and apparently it

was in this city, during the reign of
Emperor Nerva, from A.D. 96 to 98, that
he died at an extremely advanced age.
However, no one knows exactly where
and when he died, though a shrine was
built to honor him in his native town
of Tyana, and it remained an object of
veneration for many years. Such was
his fame as a philosopher that there
were also statues of him set up in many
other temples throughout the Empire.
The mystery of the philosopher's death
encouraged much mythology and hearsay at the time. It was said that he had
ascended bodily to heaven, and appeared after his death to certain
people who doubted the existence of
the afterlife. Philostratus perpetuated
the mystery by saying, "Concerning the
manner of his death, if he did die, the
accounts are various." Apollonius enjoyed a reputation of considerable awe
in the centuries following his death.
Near the end of the third century, during the final stages of the hostile
struggle between Christianity and
Paganism, some anti-Christians attempted to establish Apollonius as a
rival to Jesus of Nazareth. They were
helped in this by the many existing
temples and shrines erected to the
sage in Ephesus and other parts of
Asia Minor, and also by stories of the
miracles he had performed, especially
in connection with his renowned influence over evil spirits, such as the
Lamia. Philostratus's Life was used by
a provincial governor in Diocletian's
empire (named Hierocles) as antiChristian ammunition, and thus began
a hostile debate between Pagans
and Christians. The Christian historian Eusebius wrote a discourse in
answer to Hierocles, claiming that
Apollonius was a charlatan, and that if he possessed any powers at all they
must have been achieved with the help
of evil spirits.

More recently, Apollonius of Tyana
became an important influence in the
occult revival of the 19th century.
French occultist Eliphas Levi (18101875) even tried to conjure up the
spirit of the great sage. Apparently
when visiting London in 1854, Levi was
asked by a mysterious lady in black to
attempt to raise Apollonius's phantom,
as there were some vital questions she
wished to learn the answers to. Levi's
preparations for the ritual included
two weeks without eating meat and a
week of fasting and meditation on the
subject of Apollonius. The ritual was
to take part in a chamber in the lady's
house, with four concave mirrors on
the walls, and a marble table on which
were placed two metal dishes. After
the necessary preparations, Levi,
wearing a white robe and carrying a
sword, lit fires in the dishes and began to invoke the sage. His incantations continued for hours, until the
room began to shake beneath him and
a vague shape of a man appeared in
the smoke, only to quickly dissolve
again. He repeated his incantations,
and this time the shape turned into
an apparition of a beardless man
wrapped from head to foot in a gray
shroud. As the shape advanced toward
him, Levi turned cold and was unable
to speak. The phantom brushed
against his ritual sword, and Levi's
arm suddenly went numb and he lost
consciousness. In his book Transcendental Magic (1865), where he describes this incident in detail, Levi
relates that his arm was painful for
days afterward. He does not claim that
he actually invoked the shade of

Apollonius, but he does mention that
he received answers to the lady's questions telepathically, though he never
discloses the questions.

Engraving ofApollonius from the book
Antiquity Unveiled by Jonathan M.
Roberts (1892).