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"The Buried Classic" from Ancient Greece,
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Web Publication by
Mountain Man Graphics, Australia
in the Southern Spring of 1995
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"The Buried Classic" from Ancient Greece,
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Web Publication by
Mountain Man Graphics, Australia
in the Southern Spring of 1995
|
He admired him, and having a taste for the road, said: "Let us depart, Apollonius, you follow God, and I you; for I think you will find me of considerable value. For, if I know nothing else, I have at least been to Babylon, and I know all the cities there are, because I have been up there not long ago, and also the villages in which there is much good to be found; and moreover, I know the languages of the various barbarous races, and there are several, for example the Armenian tongue, and that of the Medes and Persians, and that of the natives of Kadus, and I am familar with all of them."
"And I," said Apollonious, "my good friend, understand all languages, though I never learnt a single one."
The native of Nineveh was astonished at this answer, but the other replied:
"You need not wonder at my knowing all human languages; for, to tell you the truth, I also understand all the secrets od human silence."
Thereupon the Assyrian worshipped him, when he heard this, and regarded him as a demon; and he stayed with him increasing in wisdom and committing to memory whatever he learnt. This Assyrian's language, however, was of a mediocre quality, for he had not the gift of expressing himself, having been educated among the barbarians; but he kept a journal of their intercourse, and recorded in it whateveer he heard or saw, and he was very well able to put together a memoir of such matters and managed this better than anyone else could do.
At any rate the volume which he calls his scrap-book, was intended to serve such a purpose by Damis, who was determined that nothing about Apollonius should be passed over in silence, nay, that his very solecisms and negligent utterances should slo be written down.
And I may mention the answer which he made to one who cavilled and found fault with this journal. It was a lazy fellow and malignant who tried to pick holes in him, and remarked that he recorded well enough a lot of things, for example, the opinions and ideas of his hero, but that in collecting such trifles as these he reminded him of dogs who pick up and eat the fragments which fall from a feast.
Damis replied thus: "If the banquets are those of gods, and it is gods who are being fed, surely they must have attendants whose business it is that not even the parcels of ambrosia that fall to the ground should be lost."
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"The Buried Classic" from Ancient Greece,
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Web Publication by
Mountain Man Graphics, Australia
in the Southern Spring of 1995
|