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And he announced his intention to his followers, who were seven in number; but when they tried to persuade him to adopt another plan, in hopes of drawing him off from his resolution, he said: "I have taken the gods into counsel and have told you their decision; and I have made trial of you to see if you are strong enough to undertake the same things as myself. Since therefore you are so soft and effeminate, I wish you very good health and that you may go on with your philosophy; but I must depart whither wisdom and the gods lead me."
Having said this he quitted Antioch with two attendants, who belonged to his father's house, one of them a shorthand writer and the other a calligraphist.
19. And he reached the ancient city of Nineveh, where he found an idol set up of barbarous aspect, and it is, they say, Io, the daughter of Inachus, with little horns budding on her temples. While he was staying there and forming wiser conclusions about the image than could the priests and prophets, one Damis, a native of Nineveh, joined him as a pupil, the same, as I said at the beginning, who became the companion of his wanderings abroad and his fellow-traveller and associate in all wisdom, and who has preserved to us many particulars of the sage.
He admired him, and having a taste for the road, said: "Let us depart, Apollonius, you follow God, and I you; for I think you will find that I can serve you. I may not know much else, but at least I've been to Babylon, and I know all the cities there are, because I have been up there not long ago, and also the villages in which there is much good to be found; and moreover, I know the languages of the various barbarous races, and there are several, for example the Armenian tongue, and that of the Medes and Persians, and that of the Kadusii, and I am familiar with all of them."
"And I," said Apollonius, "my good friend, understand all languages, though I never learnt a single one."
The native of Nineveh was astonished at this answer, but the other replied: "You need not wonder at my knowing all human languages; for, to tell you the truth, I also understand all the secrets of human silence."
Thereupon the Assyrian worshipped him, when he heard this, and regarded him as a supernatural being; and he stayed with him, increasing in wisdom and committing to memory whatever he learnt. This Assyrian's language, however, was of a mediocre quality, for he had not the gift of expressing himself, having been educated among the barbarians; but to write down a discourse or a conversation and to give impressions of what he heard or saw and to put together a journal of such matters - that he was well able to do, and carried it out as well as the best. At any rate the volume which he calls his scrap-book, was intended to serve such a purpose by Damis, who was determined that nothing about Apollonius should be passed over in silence, nay, that his most casual and negligent utterances should also be written down.
And I may mention the answer which he made to one who caviled and found fault with this journal. It was a lazy fellow and malignant who tried to pick holes in him, and remarked that he recorded well enough a lot of things, for example, the opinions and ideas of his hero, but that in collecting such trifles as these he reminded him of dogs who pick up and eat the fragments which fall from a feast. Damis replied thus: "If banquets there be of gods, and gods take food, surely they must have attendants whose business it is that not even the parcels of ambrosia that fall to the ground should be lost."
20. Such was the companion and admirer that he had met with, and in common with him most of his travels and life were passed. And as they fared on into Mesopotamia, the tax-gatherer who presided over the Bridge at Zeugma led them into the registry and asked them what they were taking out of the country with them. And Apollonius replied: "I am taking with me temperance, justice, virtue, continence, valor, discipline."
And in this way he strung together a number of feminine nouns or names. The other, thinking of his own profit, said: "You must then write down in the register these female slaves."
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