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And he replied: "I can advise you of what, under the circumstances, will be most valuable to you; for I suppose you want to get well."
"Yes, by Zeus," answered the other, "I want the health which Asclepius promises, but never gives."
"Hush," said the other, "for he gives to those who desire it, but you do things that irritate and aggravate your disease, for you give yourself up to luxury, and you accumulate delicate viands upon your water-logged and worn-out stomach, and as it were, choke water with a flood of mud."
This was a clearer response, in my opinion, than Heraclitus, in his wisdom, gave. For he said when he was visited by this affection that what he needed was someone to substitute a drought for a rainy weather, a very unintelligible remark, it appears to me, and by no means clear; but the sage restored the youth to health by a clear interpretation of wise law.
10. One day he saw a flood of blood upon the altar, and there were victims laid out upon it, Egyptian bulls that had been sacrificed and great hogs, and some of them were being flayed and others were being cut up; and two gold vases had been dedicated set with jewels, the rarest and most beautiful that India can provide. So he went to the priest and said: "What is all this; for someone is making a very handsome gift to the god?"
And the priest replied: "You may rather be surprised at a man's offering all this without having first put up a prayer in our fane, and without having stayed with us as long as other people do, and without having gained his health from the god, and without obtaining all the things he came to ask for. For he appears to have come only yesterday, yet he is sacrificing on this lavish scale. And he declares that he will sacrifice more victims, and dedicate more gifts, if Asclepius will hearken to him. And he is one of the richest men in existence; at any rate he owns in Cilicia an estate bigger than all the Cilicians together possess. And he is supplicating the god to restore to him one of his eyes that has fallen out."
But Apollonius fixed his eyes upon the ground, as he was accustomed to do in later life, and asked: "What is his name?"
And when he heard it, he said: "It seems to me, O Priest, that we ought not to welcome this fellow in the Temple: for he is some ruffian who has come here, and that he is afflicted in this way is due to some sinister reason: nay, his very conduct in sacrificing on such a magnificent scale before he has gained anything from the god is not that of a genuine votary, but rather of a man who is begging himself off for the penalty of some horrible and cruel deed."
This was what Apollonius said: and Asclepius appeared to the priest by night, and said: "Send away so and so at once with all his possessions, and let him keep them, for he deserves to lose the other eye as well."
The priest accordingly made inquiries about the Cilician and learned that his wife by a former marriage had borne a daughter, and he had fallen in love with the maiden and had seduced her, and was living with her in open sin. For the mother had surprised the two in bed, and had put out both her eyes and one of his by stabbing them with her brooch-pin.
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