VI

THE HOUSE OF FLAVIA


It was in those days that the nebulous figure of Apollonius of
Tyana appeared and disappeared in Rome. His speech, a commingling
of puerility and charm, Philostratus has preserved. Rumor had
preceded him. It was said that he knew everything, save the
caresses of women; that he was familiar with all languages; with
the speech of bird and beast; with that of silence, for silence is
a language too; that he had prayed in the Temple of Jupiter
Lycoeus, where men lost their shadows, their lives as well; that
he had undergone eighty initiations of Mithra; that he had
perplexed the magi; confuted the gymnosophists; that he foretold
the future, healed the sick, raised the dead; that beyond the
Himalayas he had encountered every species of ferocious beast,
except the tyrant, and that it was to see one that he had come to
Rome.

Nero was quite free from prejudice. Apart from a doll which he
worshipped he had no superstitions. He had the plain man's dislike
of philosophy; Seneca had sickened him of it, perhaps; but he was
sensitive, not that he troubled himself particularly about any
lies that were told of him, but he did object to people who went
about telling the truth. In that respect he was not unique; we are
all like him, but he had ways of stilling the truth which were
imperial and his own.