That the name of Apollonius was regarded with the greatest veneration during the centuries following his death is abundantly evident. Caracalla (Roman Emperor 211-216 A.D.) honoured his memory with a chapel or monument (_heroum_). Alexander Severus (Emperor 225-235 A.D.) placed his statue in his _lararium_ along with those of Christ, Abraham, and Orpheus. Aurelius is stated to have vowed a temple to the sage of Tyana, of whom he had seen a vision. Vopiscus at the end of the third century speaks of him as “a sage of the most widespread renown and authority, an ancient philosopher and a true friend of the gods.” “He it was,” says Vopiscus, “who gave life to the dead. He it was who did and said so many things beyond the power of men.” In the work entitled _Quaestiones et Responsiones ad Orthodoxos_, attributed (though apparently in error) to Justin Martyr, occurs among other of these “questions” the following: “If God is the maker and master of creation how do the _telesmata_ of Apollonius have power in the 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.” These _telesmata_ or talismans were articles that had been, or were supposed to have been, consecrated or magnetised, with some religious ceremony, by Apollonius.[2] We see, then, that around the name of this philosopher gathered, as time went on, a mass of more or less incredible miraculous tradition. And, as happens too often in such cases, the real work of this great religious reformer was lost sight of amid this accumulation of legend that impressed the popular eye, which was too dull to appreciate or understand the deeper significance of the life-work and esoteric teaching of the sage. Orthodox religion in the Roman Empire had indeed at this time fallen into very much the same sort of discredit as orthodox Christianity has among ourselves to-day. Two definite attempts were made to resuscitate these old religions of Greece and Rome by reviving the understanding of the essential spiritual truths which they enshrined; the first by Apollonius of Tyana, who was above all else a reformer of the ancient Greek religion from within, and the other, an abortive one three hundred years later, by Julian the so-called Apostate. These classical faiths were, however, too much overlaid with mythological stories of an unedifying character ever again to recover their ascendancy over the popular imagination, and the ascetic life and esoteric interpretation which appealed to the isolated religious communities which Apollonius visited in his extensive travels throughout the countries bordering the Mediterranean, and as far east as Persia and India, could not in their very nature make a popular appeal to the average man. We see now that the triumph of Christianity was due to the universality of its appeal, and that however uncertain the issue of the