Editing Apollonius of Tyana (section)

==Biography==
===Historical facts===
With the exception of the [[Adana Archaeology Museum|Adana]] Inscription from the 3rd or 4th century AD,<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/630745 C. P. Jones, An Epigram on Apollonius of Tyana, The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 100, Centenary Issue (1980), pp. 190-194]</ref> little can be derived from sources other than [[Philostratus]].

The [[Adana Archaeology Museum|Adana]] Inscription has been translated by C.P. Jones as: "This man, named after Apollo, and shining forth from Tyana, extinguished the faults of men. The tomb in Tyana (received) his body, but in truth, heaven received him so that he might drive out the pains of men (or: drive pains from among men)." It is thought to have been brought from [[Cilicia]], perhaps [[Aegae (Cilicia)]]. However, Miroslav Marcovich translates part of the text as: "Sure enough, Apollonius was born in Tyana, but the full truth is that he was a heaven-sent sage and healer, a new Pythagoras."<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/20186237 Miroslav Marcovich,  The Epigram on Apollonius of Tyana, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, Bd. 45 (1982), pp. 263-265]</ref>

As James Francis put it, "the most that can be said ... is that Apollonius appears to have been a wandering [[ascetic]]/philosopher/wonderworker of a type common to the eastern part of the early empire."<ref>{{cite journal|last=Francis|first=James A.|year=1998|title=Truthful Fiction: New Questions to Old Answers on Philostratus' Life of Apollonius|journal=American Journal of Philology|volume=119|issue=3|pages=419–441|doi=10.1353/ajp.1998.0037|s2cid=162372233}} p.&nbsp;419.</ref> What we can safely assume is that he was indeed a [[Pythagoreanism|Pythagorean]] and as such, in conformity with the Pythagorean tradition, opposed animal sacrifice and lived on a frugal, strictly vegetarian diet.<ref>Johannes Haussleiter: ''Der Vegetarismus in der Antike'', Berlin 1935, pp.&nbsp;299–312.</ref> A minimalist view is that he spent his entire life in the cities of his native [[Asia Minor]] ([[Turkey]]) and of northern [[Syria]], in particular his home town of Tyana, [[Ephesus]], [[Aigai (Aeolis)|Aegae]] and [[Antioch]],<ref>Dzielska pp. 51–79.</ref> though the letters suggest wider travels, and there seems no reason to deny that, like many wandering philosophers, he at least visited Rome. As for his philosophical convictions, we have an interesting, probably authentic fragment of one of his writings (''On sacrifices''), in which he expresses his view that God, who is the most beautiful being, cannot be influenced by prayers or sacrifices and has no wish to be worshipped by humans, but can be reached by a spiritual procedure involving ''[[nous]]'' (intellect), because he himself is pure nous, and nous is the greatest faculty of humankind.<ref>Dzielska pp.&nbsp;139–141.</ref>

=== Miracles ===
Philostratus implies on one occasion that Apollonius had [[extra-sensory perception]] (Book VIII, Chapter XXVI). When emperor [[Domitian]] was murdered on 18&nbsp;September AD&nbsp;96, Apollonius was said to have witnessed the event in Ephesus "about midday" on the day it happened in Rome, and told those present "Take heart, gentlemen, for the tyrant has been slain this day ...". Both Philostratus and renowned historian [[Cassius Dio]] report this incident, probably on the basis of an oral tradition.<ref>Cassius Dio 67.18.1</ref> Both state that the philosopher welcomed the deed as praiseworthy [[tyrannicide]].<ref>Cassius Dio 67.18; Philostratus, ''Vita Apollonii'' 8.26–27. See also Dzielska pp.&nbsp;30–32, 41.</ref>

=== Journey to India ===
Philostratus devoted two and a half of the eight books of his ''Life of Apollonius'' (1.19–3.58) to the description of a journey of his hero to [[India]]. It's possible that the sage of Tyana indeed traveled to India, and it's also "entirely plausible" that he was attributed with this journey even before Philostratus.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Flinterman |first=Jaap-Jan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B7-pEAAAQBAJ |title=Power, Paideia & Pythagoreanism: Greek Identity, Conceptions of the Relationship between Philosophers and Monarchs and Political Ideas in Philostratus' Life of Apollonius |date=2023-01-16 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-52574-0 |pages=86–87 |language=en}}</ref>

According to Philostratus' ''Life'', en route to the Far East, Apollonius reached Hierapolis Bambyce ([[Manbij]]) in Syria (not [[Nineveh]], as some scholars believed), where he met Damis, a native of that city who became his lifelong companion. [[Pythagoras]], whom the [[Neopythagoreanism|Neo-Pythagoreans]] regarded as an exemplary sage, was believed to have traveled to India. Hence such a feat made Apollonius look like a good Pythagorean who spared no pains in his efforts to discover the sources of oriental piety and wisdom. As some details in Philostratus' account of the Indian adventure seem incompatible with known facts, modern scholars are inclined to dismiss the whole story as a fanciful fabrication, but not all of them rule out the possibility that the Tyanean actually did visit India.<ref>Graham Anderson: ''Philostratus'', London 1986, pp.&nbsp;199–215; Flinterman pp.&nbsp;86–87, 101–106.</ref> Philostratus has him meet [[Phraotes]], the Indo-Parthian king of [[Taxila]], a city located in northern Ancient India in what is now northern [[Pakistan]], around AD 46. And the description that Philostratus provides of Taxila comports with modern archaeological excavations at the ancient site.<ref>John Marshall, ''A Guide to Taxila'', 4th edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960, pp. 28-30, 69, and 88-89.</ref>

What seemed to be independent evidence showing that Apollonius was known in India has now been proven a forgery. In two [[Sanskrit]] texts quoted by Sanskritist Vidhushekhara Bhattacharya in 1943<ref>Bhattacharya, ''The Āgamaśātra of Gaudapāda'' (University of Calcutta Press) 1943 (reprint Delhi 1989).</ref> he appears as "Apalūnya", in one of them together with Damis (called "Damīśa"), it is claimed that Apollonius and Damis were Western yogis, who later on were converted to the correct [[Advaita]] philosophy.<ref>Bhattacharya (1943) 1989, pp.&nbsp;LXXII–LXXV.</ref> Some have believed that these Indian sources derived their information from a [[Sanskrit]] translation of Philostratus' work (which would have been a most uncommon and amazing occurrence), or even considered the possibility that it was really an independent confirmation of the historicity of the journey to India.<ref>''The Cambridge History of Classical Literature'', vol.&nbsp;1, ed. [[P. E. Easterling]] and [[B. M. W. Knox]], Cambridge 1985, p.&nbsp;657; Dzielska p.&nbsp;29; Anderson p.&nbsp;173; Flinterman p.&nbsp;80 n.&nbsp;113.</ref> Only in 1995 were the passages in the Sanskrit texts proven to be interpolations by a late 19th-century forger.<ref>Simon Swain: "Apollonius in Wonderland", in: ''Ethics and Rhetoric'', ed. Doreen Innes, Oxford 1995, pp.&nbsp;251–54.</ref>