Dragons of India.
Especially remarkable are the snakes or dragons with which all India is filled and which often are of enormous size, thirty or even seventy cubits long.[1187] Those found in the marshes are sluggish and have no crests; but those on the hills and ridges move faster than the swiftest rivers and have both beards and crests.[1188] Those in the plain engage in combats with elephants which terminate fatally for both parties as we have already learned from Pliny.[1189] The mountain dragons have bushy beards, fiery crests, golden scales, and a ferocious glance.[1190] They burrow into the earth, making a noise like clashing brass, or go hissing down to the shore and swim far out to sea. Terrifying as they are, the Indians charm them by showing them golden characters embroidered on a cloak of scarlet and by incantations of a secret wisdom. They eat the dragon’s heart and liver in order to be able to understand the language and thoughts of animals.[1191]
Occult virtues of gems.
The dragons, however, are prized more for the precious stones in their heads, which the Indians quickly cut off as soon as they have bewitched them. The pupils of the eyes of the hill dragons are a fiery stone possessing irresistible virtue for many occult purposes,[1192] while in the heads of the mountain dragons are many brilliant stones of flashing colors which exert occult virtue if set in a ring, “and they say that Gyges had such a ring.”[1193] But there are many marvelous stones outside the heads of dragons. “Who does not know the habits of birds,” says Apollonius to Damis in one of his disquisitions upon natural phenomena,[1194] “and that eagles and storks will not build their nests without placing in them, the one the stone aetites, and the other the lychnites, as aids in hatching and to drive snakes away?” On parting from the Indian king Phraotes, Apollonius as usual refused to accept money presents but picked up one of the gems that were offered him with the exclamation, “O rare stone, how opportunely and providentially have I found you!”[1195] Philostratus supposes that he detected some occult and divine power in this particular stone. The Brahmans had gems so huge that from one of them a goblet could be carved large enough to slake the thirst of four men in midsummer, but in this case nothing is said of occult virtue.[1196] The Brahman Iarchas felt sure that he was the reincarnation of the hero Ganges, son of the river Ganges, because as a mere child he knew where to dig for the seven swords of adamant which Ganges had fixed in the earth.[1197] Presumably these were magic swords and their virtue in part due to the stone adamant of which they were made. Less is said in the Life of the virtues of herbs than of gems, but the Indians made a nuptial ointment or love-charm from balm distilled from trees,[1198] and drugs and poisons are mentioned more than once, mandragora being described as a soporific drug rather than a deadly poison.[1199]
Absence of number mysticism.
Considering that Apollonius was a Pythagorean, there is surprisingly little said concerning perfect numbers and their mystic significance. Aside from the seven rings and seven swords already mentioned, about the only instance is the question asked by Apollonius whether eighteen, the number of the Brahman sages at the time of his visit, had any especial importance.[1200] He remarked that eighteen was not a square, nor a number usually held in esteem and honor like ten, twelve, and sixteen. The Brahmans agreed that there was no particular significance in eighteen, and further informed him that they maintained no fixed number of members but had varied from only one to as many as seventy according to the available supply of worthy men.
Mantike or the art of divination.
If Philostratus denies that Apollonius was a magician, he does depict him as endowed with prophetic gifts, with power over demons, and with “secret wisdom.” He rather likes to give the impression that the sage foretold things by innate prophetic gift or divine inspiration, but even μαντική or the art of divination is not condemned as γοητεία
or witchcraft was. Iarchas the Brahman says that those who delight in mantike become divine thereby and contribute to the safety of mankind.[1201] Apollonius himself, when condemning wizards as pseudo-wise, made the reservation that mantike, if true in its predictions, was not a pseudo-science, although he professed ignorance whether it could be called an art or not.[1202] He denied that he practiced it, when he was examined by Tigellinus, the favorite of Nero, who was persecuting philosophers on the ground that they were addicted to mantike.[1203] His accusers before Domitian again adduced his alleged practice of divination as evidence that he was a wizard.[1204]
Divining power of Apollonius.
If Apollonius practiced neither wizardry nor mantike, the question arises how he was able to foretell the future. In his trial before Domitian he did not attempt to deny that he had predicted the plague at Ephesus, but attributed his “sense of the coming disaster” to his abstemious diet, which kept his senses clear and enabled him to see as in an unclouded mirror “all that is happening or about to occur.”[1205] For he was credited with knowledge of distant events the moment they occurred as well as with foreknowledge of the future. Thus at Ephesus he was aware of the assassination of Domitian at Rome; and at Tarsus, although he arrived after the incident had occurred, he was able to describe and to find the mad dog by whom a boy had been bitten.[1206] Iarchas told Apollonius that health and purity were requisite for divination;[1207] and Apollonius in turn, in recounting his life story to the naked sages of Egypt, represented the Pythagorean philosophy as appearing before him and promising, “And when you are pure, I will grant you the faculty of foreknowledge.”[1208]