ether these Greek students of the Eastern mysticism
were deceivers or deceived, whether they were led by a love of notoriety
or of knowledge, is in most cases doubtful, but they were surrounded by
a crowd of credulous admirers, who formed a strange contrast with the
sceptics and critics of the museum.

Among the Alexandrian grammarians of this reign was Apollonius Dyscolus,
so called perhaps from a moroseness of manner, who wrote largely on
rhetoric, on the Greek dialects, on accents, prosody, and on other
branches of grammar. In the few pages that remain of his numerous
writings, we trace the love of the marvellous which was then growing
among some of the philosophers. He tells us many remarkable stories,
which he collected rather as a judicious inquirer than as a credulous
believer; such as of second sight; an account of a lad who fell asleep
in the field while watching his sheep, and then slept for fifty-seven
years, and awoke to wonder at the strangeness of the changes that had
taken place in the meanwhile; and of a man who after death used from
time to time to leave his body, and wander over the earth as a spirit,
till his wife, tired of his coming back again so often, put a stop to it
by having his mummy burnt. He gives us for the first time Eastern tales
in a Greek dress, and we thus learn the source from which Europe gained
much of its literature in the Middle Ages. The Alexandrian author of
greatest note at this time was the historian Appian, who tells us that
he had spent some years in Rome practising as a lawyer, and returned to
Egypt on being appointed to a high post in the government of his native
city. There he wrote his Roman history.

In this reign the Jews, forgetful of what they had just suffered under
Trajan, again rose against the power of Rome; and, when Judaea rebelled
against its prefect, Tinnius Rufus, a little army of Jews marched out of
Egypt and Libya, to help their brethren and to free the holy land
(130 A.D.). But they were everywhere routed and put down with resolute
slaughter.

[Illustration: 099.jpg VOCAL STATUE OF AMENHOTHES]

Travellers, on reaching a distant point of a journey, or on viewing any
remarkable object of their curiosity, have at all times been fond of
carving or scribbling their names on the spot, to boast of their
prowess to after-comers; and never had any place been more favoured with
memorials of this kind than the great statue of Amenhothes at Thebes.
This colossal