After taking breath at Puteoli, the sage resumed his travels and
revisited Greece, Asia Minor, etc. At Ephesus he established his
celebrated school, and then, once more returning to Crete, happened to
give his old friends, the Cretans, great offence, and was shut up in the
temple Dictymna to be devoured by famished dogs; but the next morning
was found perfectly unharmed in the midst of the docile animals, who had
already made considerable progress in the Pythagorean philosophy, and
were gathered around the philosopher, seated on their hind legs, with
open mouths and lolling tongues, intently listening to him while he
lectured them in the canine tongue. So devoted had they become to their
eloquent instructor, and so enraged were they at the interruption when
the Cretans re-opened the temple, that they rushed out upon the latter
and made a breakfast of a few of the leading men.

This is one of the last of the remarkable incidents that we find
recorded of the mighty Apollonius. How he came to his end is quite
uncertain, but some veracious chroniclers declare that he simply dried
up and blew away. Others aver that he lived to the good old age of
ninety-seven, and then quietly gave up the ghost at Tyana, where a
temple was dedicated to his memory.

However that may be, he was subsequently worshiped with divine honors,
and so highly esteemed by the greatest men of after days, that even
Aurelian refused to sack Tyana, out of respect to the philosopher's
ashes.

Dion Cassius, the historian, records one of the most remarkable
instances of his clairvoyance or second sight. He states that
Apollonius, in the midst of a discourse at Ephesus, suddenly paused, and
then in a different voice, exclaimed, to the astonishment of all:--"Have
courage, good Stephanus! Strike! strike! Kill the tyrant!" On that same
day, the hated Domitian was assassinated at Rome by a man named
Stephanus. The humdrum interpretation of this "miracle" is simply that
Apollonius had a foreknowledge of the intended attempt upon the tyrant's
life.

Long afterwards, Cagliostro claimed that he had been a fellow-traveler
with Apollonius, and that his mysterious companion, the sage Athlotas,
was the very same personage, who, consequently, at that time, must have
reached the ripe age of some 1784 years--a lapse of time beyond the
memory of even "the oldest inhabitant," in these parts, at least!

THE END.

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