[95] According to some, Apollonius would be now about sixty-eight years of age. But if he were still young (say thirty years old or so) when he left for India, he must either have spent a very long period in that country, or we have a very imperfect record of his doings in Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and Spain, after his return.
[96] For the most recent study in English on the subject of Æsculapius see The Cult of Asclepios, by Alice Walton, Ph.D., in No. III. of The Cornell Studies in Classical Philology (Ithaca, N.Y.; 1894).
[97] He evidently wrote the notes of the Indian travels long after the time at which they were made.
[98] This shows that Philostratus came across them in some work or letter of Apollonius, and is therefore independent of Damis’ account for this particular.
[99] I—arχas, arχa(t)s, arhat.
[100] Tantalus is fabled to have stolen the cup of nectar from the gods; this was the amṛita, the ocean of immortality and wisdom, of the Indians.
[101] The words οὐδεν κεκτημένους ἢ τὰ πάντων, which Philostratus quotes twice in this form, can certainly not be changed into μηδὲν κεκτημένους τὰ πάντων ἔχειν without doing unwarrantable violence to their meaning.
[102] See Tacitus, Historia, ii. 3.
[103] Berwick, Life of Apollonius, p. 200 n.
[104] He also built a precinct round the tomb of Leonidas at Thermopylæ (iv. 23).