“Question 24: If God is the maker and master of creation, how do the consecrated objects[5] of Apollonius have power in the [various] orders of that creation? For, _as we see_, they check the fury of the waves and the power of the winds and the inroads of vermin and attacks of wild beasts.”[6] Dion Cassius in his history,[7] which he wrote A.D. 211-222, states that Caracalla (Emp. 211-216) honoured the memory of Apollonius with a chapel or monument (_heroum_). It was just at this time (216) that Philostratus composed his Life of Apollonius, at the request of Domna Julia, Caracalla’s mother, and it is with this document principally that we shall have to deal in the sequel. Lampridius, who flourished about the middle of the third century, further informs us that Alexander Severus (Emp. 222-235) placed the statue of Apollonius in his _lararium_ together with those of Christ, Abraham, and Orpheus.[8] Vopiscus, writing in the last decade of the third century, tells us that Aurelian (Emp. 270-275) vowed a temple to Apollonius, of whom he had seen a vision when besieging Tyana. Vopiscus speaks of the Tyanean as “a sage of the most wide-spread renown and authority, an ancient philosopher, and a true friend of the Gods,” nay, as a manifestation of deity. “For what among men,” exclaims the historian, “was more holy, what more worthy of reverence, what more venerable, what more god-like than he? He, it was, who gave life to the dead. He, it was, who did and said so many things beyond the power of men.”[9] So enthusiastic is Vopiscus about Apollonius, that he promises, if he lives, to write a short account of his life in Latin, so that his deeds and words may be on the tongue of all, for as yet the only accounts are in Greek.[10] Vopiscus, however, did not fulfil his promise, but we learn that about this date both Soterichus[11] and Nichomachus wrote Lives of our philosopher, and shortly afterwards Tascius Victorianus, working on the papers of Nichomachus,[12] also composed a Life. None of these Lives, however, have reached us. It was just at this period also, namely, in the last years of the third century and the first years of the fourth, that Porphyry and Iamblichus composed their treatises on Pythagoras and his school; both mention Apollonius as one of their authorities, and it is probable that the first 30 sections of Iamblichus are taken from Apollonius.[13]