Such was the general declaration of the nature of the Pythagorean discipline by its disciples. But, says Apollonius in his address to the Gymnosophists, Pythagoras was not the inventor of it. It was the immemorial wisdom, and Pythagoras himself had learnt it from the Indians.[112] This wisdom, he continued, had spoken to him in his youth; she had said: “For sense, young sir, I have no charms; my cup is filled with toils unto the brim. Would anyone embrace my way of life, he must resolve to banish from his board all food that once bore life, to lose the memory of wine, and thus no more to wisdom’s cup befoul--the cup that doth consist of wine-untainted souls. Nor shall wool warm him, nor aught that’s made from any beast. I give my servants shoes of bast and as they can to sleep. And if I find them overcome with love’s delights, I’ve ready pits down into which that justice which doth follow hard on wisdom’s foot, doth drag and thrust them; indeed, so stern am I to those who choose my way, that e’en upon their tongues I bind a chain. Now hear from me what things thou’lt gain, if thou endure. An innate sense of fitness and of right, and ne’er to feel that any’s lot is better than thy own; tyrants to strike with fear instead of being a fearsome slave to tyranny; to have the Gods more greatly bless thy scanty gifts than those who pour before them blood of bulls. If thou art pure, I’ll give thee how to know what things will be as well, and fill thy eyes so full of light, that thou may’st recognise the Gods, the heroes know, and prove and try the shadowy forms that feign the shapes of men” (vi. 11). The whole life of Apollonius shows that he tried to carry out consistently this rule of life, and the repeated statements that he would never join in the blood-sacrifices of the popular cults (see especially i. 24, 31; iv. 11; v. 25), but openly condemned them, show not only that the Pythagorean school had ever set the example of the higher way of purer offerings, but that they were not only not condemned and persecuted as heretics on this account, but were rather regarded as being of peculiar sanctity, and as following a life superior to that of ordinary mortals. The refraining from the flesh of animals, however, was not simply based upon ideas of purity, it found additional sanction in the positive love of the lower kingdoms and the horror of inflicting pain on any living creature. Thus Apollonius bluntly refused to take any part in the chase, when invited to do so by his royal host at Babylon. “Sire,” he replied, “have you forgotten that even when you sacrifice I will not be present? Much less then would I do these beasts to death, and all the more when their spirit is broken and they are penned in contrary to their nature” (i. 38).[113]