y where,
beside the officers of government, talent formed the only aristocracy,
were a very important body; and Dion, Euphrates, and Apollonius had been
useful in securing for Vespasian the allegiance of the Alexandrians.
Dion was an orator, who had been professor of rhetoric, but he had given
up that study for philosophy. His orations, or declamations, gained for
him the name of Chrysostom, or _golden-mouthed_. Euphrates, his friend,
was a platonist, who afterwards married the daughter of the prefect of
Syria, and removed to Rome. Apollonius of Tyana, the most celebrated of
these philosophers, was one of the first who gained his eminence from
the study of Eastern philosophy, which was then rising in the opinions
of the Greeks as highly worth their notice. He had been travelling in
the East; and, boasting that he was already master of all the fabled
wisdom of the Magi of Babylon and of the Gymnosophists of India, he was
come to Egypt to compare this mystic philosophy with that of the hermits
of Ethiopia and the Thebaid. Addressing himself as a pupil to the
priests, he willingly yielded his belief to their mystic claims; and,
whether from being deceived or as a deceiver, whether as an enthusiast
or as a cheat, he pretended to have learned all the supernatural
knowledge which they pretended to teach. By the Egyptians he was
looked upon as the favourite of Heaven; he claimed the power of working
miracles by his magical arts, and of foretelling events by his knowledge
of astrology. In the Thebaid he was so far honoured that at the bidding
of the priests one of the sacred trees spoke to him, as had been their
custom from of old with favourites, and in a clear and rather womanly
voice addressed him as a teacher from heaven.

It was to witness such practices as these, and to learn the art of
deceiving their followers, that the Egyptian priests were now consulted
by the Greeks. The oracle at Delphi was silent, but the oracle of Ammon
continued to return an answer. The mystic philosophy of the East had
come into fashion in Alexandria, and the priests were more celebrated as
magicians than as philosophers. They would tell a man's fortune and the
year that he was to die by examining the lines of his forehead. Some of
them even undertook, for a sum of money, to raise the dead to life, or,
rather, to recall for a time to earth the unwilling spirits, and make
them answer any questions that might be put to them. Ventriloquism was
an a