"The Buried Classic" from Ancient Greece, and the roots of the Western World .... The Life of Apollonius of Tyana Philostratus {220 AD} His Manner of Conversation ...
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia in the Southern Spring of 1995

On his Manner of Conversation ...

Neither did he indulge in subtleties, nor spin out his discourses; nor did anyone ever hear him dissembling to an ironical way, nor addressing to his audience methodical arguments; but when he conversed he would assume an oracular manner and use the expressions, "I know," or "It is my opinion," or, "Where are you drifting to?" or, "You must know."

And his sentences where short and crisp, and his words were telling and closely fitted to the things he spoke of, and his words had a ring about them as of the dooms delivered by a sceptred king. And when a certain quibbler asked him, why he asked no questions of him, he replied:

"Because I asked questions when I was a stripling; and it is not my business to ask questions now, but to teach people what I have discovered."

"How then," the other asked him afresh, "O Apollonius, should the sage converse?"

"Like a law-giver," he replied, "for it is the duty of the law-giver to deliver to the many the instructions of whose truth he has persuaded himself." This was the line he pursued during his stay in Antioch, and he converted to himself the most unrefined people.

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"The Buried Classic" from Ancient Greece, and the roots of the Western World .... The Life of Apollonius of Tyana Philostratus {220 AD} His Manner of Conversation ...
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia in the Southern Spring of 1995