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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
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Apollonius then and his party were brought before this satrap, who had just set up the awning on his wagon and was driving out to go somewhere else. When he saw a man so dried up and parched, he began to bawl out like a cowardly woman and hid his face, and could hardly be induced to look up at him. "Whence do you come to us," he said, "and who sent you?" as if he was asking questions of a spirit. And Apollonius replied:
"I have sent myself, to see whether I can make men of you, whether you like it or not."
He asked a second time who he was to come, trespassing like that into a king's country, and Apollonius said:
"All the earth is mine, and I have a right to go all over it and through it."
Whereupon the other said: "I will torture you, if you don't answer my questions."
"And I hope," said the other, "that you will do it with you own hands, so that you may catch it well, if you touch a true man."
Now the eunuch was astonished to find that Apollonius needed no interpreter, but understood what he said without the least trouble or difficulty. "By the gods," he said, "who are you?" this time altering his tone to a whine of entreaty.
And Apollonius replied:
"Since you have asked me civilly this time and not so rudely as before, listen, I will tell you who I am: I am Apollonius of Tyana, and my road leads me to the king of India, because I want to acquaint myself with the country there; and I shall be glad to meet your king, for those who have associated with him say that he is this Vardan who has lately recovered the empire which he had lost."
"He is the same," replied the other, "O divine Apollonius; for we have heard of you a long time ago, and in favour of so wise a man as you he would I am sure, step down off his golden throne and send your party to India, each of you mounted on a camel. And I myself now invite you to be my guest, and I beg to present you with these treasures."
And at the moment he pointed out a store of gold to him saying: "Take as may handfuls as you like, fill your hands, not once, but ten times."
And when Apollonius refused the money he said: "Well, at any rate you will take some of the Babylonian wine, in which the kind pledges us, his ten satraps. Take a jar of it, with some roast steaks of bacon and venison and some meal and bread and anything else you like. For the road after this, for many stades, leads through villages which are ill-stocked with provision."
And here the eunuch caught himself up and said: "Oh! ye gods, what have I done? For I have heard that this man never eats the flesh of animals, nor drinks wine, and here I am inviting him to dine in a gross and ignorant manner."
"Well," said Apollonius, "you can offer me a lighter repast and give me bread and dried fruits."
"I will give you," said the other, "leavened bread and palm dates, like amber and of good size. And I will also supply you with vegetables, the best which the gardens of the Tigris afford."
"Well," said Apollonius, "the wild herbs which grow free are nicer than those which are forced and artificial."
"They are nicer," said the satrap, "I admit, but our land in the direction of Babylon is full of wormwood so that the herbs which grow in it are disagreeably bitter."
In the end Apollonius accepted the satrap's offer, and as he was on the point of going away, he said:
"My excellent fellow, don't keep your good manners to the end another time, but begin with them."
This by way of rebuking him for saying that he would torture him, and for the barbaric language which he had heard to begin with.
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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
|