Apollonius flourished in the first Christian century, during the reigns of Nero and of the succeeding emperors up to Nerva, who appears to have been in very close relations with him. The accounts of Philostratus regarding the adventures of our hero, based as they are upon the early authorities accessible to him, absolutely create the impression that heathen antiquity meant in Apollonius to set a counterpart of Christ. According to ancient reports, a supernatural apparition visited his mother, apprizing her that she would bear a god, and after his death Apollonius appeared to his disciples to announce to them the immortality of the soul. The time between the birth and death of the Tyanian was spent by him in restless wanderings over the then known world. Wherever he went he conversed on the deepest subjects with priests and cultured laymen, and upon request he also performed miracles of various kinds. Naturally, we are only interested in the medical performances of the wandering philosopher, and of these he is credited with a considerable number. He cured the lame simply by stroking the affected limbs; with equal facility he gave sight to the blind—in fact, he even attended to obstetrical cases without fear and trepidation. For instance, when the husband of a woman who had borne seven children, but always with the greatest difficulty, came to Apollonius, sadly telling him that his wife was again in labor and nobody was able to help her, the man of miracles told him to be of good cheer. Without even examining the woman for a possible narrow pelvis, or for some other obstacle to birth, he simply advised the husband to procure, as soon as possible, a living hare, and, with this hare in his arms, to walk round and round the woman in labor, and then allow the hare to run away. This one sample of his medical activity is sufficient to characterize Apollonius as a charlatan of the most contemptible class. When we learn, further, that he raised the dead without any difficulty, nobody will probably accuse us of an unjust opinion if we pronounce this philosopher, who was revered as a god by the heathen, a magician of the worst kind.