Page:Apollonius of Tyana - the pagan Christ of the third century.pdf/42

Rh the hand before they could fully believe that it was real flesh and blood and not a spectre they beheld. From that time his passion was ended, and the glories of his triumph begin. On his return to Greece, Apollonius finds the whole population ready to fall at his feet. But he wishes to descend into the lower world, or, in other words, to receive the only initiation which he had not undergone as yet, that which was usually sought in the cave of Trophonius. In spite of the priests, he penetrated into the cave, through the aid and encouragement of Trophonius himself, with whom he conversed for seven whole days. He entered the subterranean world at Lebadea, in Bœotia, and came out of it in Aulis. He had asked the god of the lower world which was the queen of all philosophies: like the wise men of the upper regions, the god answered, "That of Pythagoras."

Apollonius died in Asia Minor. At Ephesus he was enabled by his power of second-sight to witness the murder of Domitian as though he had been present at it, and he described it in such minute