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Rh. Many a time, as he discourses, he forgets the severe morality which he professes, so that in one of his sermons he goes so far as to exculpate perjury.

These critical remarks must be understood to apply solely to the Apollonius of Philostratus, for before we proceed to discuss the authenticity of the man and his history, we must state at once our belief that the historian has drawn largely upon his imagination for the description of a hero whom he wished to represent, no doubt, as the ideal of human perfection. Philostratus was a man of great genius, though his style is bombastic. The society of which he was a member, and for which he wrote, contained in its ranks men of the greatest eminence in the state. Apparently, the faults which to us are so glaring, more especially in a religious reformer, were more leniently viewed by the people of the period; with this, however, we have nothing to do. What we have to do now is to give a brief historical sketch of the work which was written by the favourite of Julia Domna, and to determine its real value.