The Classical Accounts of India c17.2

c17.2

Philostratus, the biographer of Apollonius, was born in the island of Lemnos about A.D. 172. He was a reputed sophist and became a distinguished member of the salon of the Empress Julia Domna, a great patron of philosophers and literary men, and the wife of the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus (A.D. 193-211). "Realizing the need of finding a historical figure fitted to counter the propaganda of subversive gospels, she sought particularly to revive the memory of a hero of pagan hagiology, Apollonius of Tyana."² For, chancing to come upon the memoirs of Damis, a Babylonian and companion of Apollonius in his Indian travels, which gave a detailed account of that sage, she was very much impressed by the favourable light in which the character of Apollonius was presented. The Empress entrusted the memoirs of Damis to Philostratus with a request to write the life of Apollonius. Besides the memoirs of Damis Philostratus utilised an account of the career of Apollonius at Aegae written by Maximus and also many letters of Appollonius which were then in circulation. The Empress, however, did not live to see the book which was published in or some time after A.D. 217.³