h is about fifty miles south and east from Constaintinople.

One can speak of no Illyrian cycle; rather only of the Crest-Wave
dropping a number of strong men there as it trailed eastward
towards West Asia. The intellect of the empire, in that third
century, and the spiritual force, all incarnated in the Roman
West-Asian seats; in Egypt, Asia Minor, and Syria, as we shall
see in a moment. But you not how bueautifully orderly, in a
geographical sense, are the movements of the Wave in Roman world
and epoch: beginning in Italy in the first century B.C.; going
west to Spain about A.D. 1,--and to Gaul too, though there
kindling chiefly material and industrial greatness; passing
through Italy again in the late first and in the second century,
in the time of the Glavians and the five Good Emperors; then in
the third like a swan flying eastward, with one wing, the
material one, stretched over Illyria raising up mighty soldiers
and administrators there, and the other, the spiritual wing, over
Egypt, there fanning (as we shall see) the fires of esotericism
to flame.

For it was in that third century, while disaster on disaster was
engulfing the power and prestige of Rome, that the strongest
spiritual movement of all the Roman period came into being.
History would not take much note of the year in which a porter in
Alexandria was born; so the birth-date of the man we come to now
is unknown. It would have been, however, not later than 180;
since he had among his pupils one man at least born not later
than 185. According to Eusebius, he was born a Christian; and
H.P. Blavatsky, in _The Key to Theosophy,_ seems to accept, or at
least not to contradict, this view. I think she often did allow
popular views on non-essentials to pass, for lack of time and
immediate need to contradict them. But Eusebius (of who she has
much to say, and none of it complimentary to his truthfulness)
is, I believe, the sole authority for it; and scholars since
have found good reason for supposing that he was mixing this man
with another of the same name, who _was_ a Christian; whereas
(it is thought) this man was not. Be that as it may, we know
almost nothing about him; except that he began life as a porter,
with the job of carrying goods in sacks; whence he got the
surname Sakkophoros, latter shortened to Saccas;--from which you
will have divined by this time that his personal name was
Ammonius. We know also that early in the third century he h