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"And who," asked the other, "attracted you to us?"
"These gentlemen here, who are both Gods and wise men."
"And about myself, O stranger"; said the king, "what is said among Hellenes?"
"Why, as much," said Apollonius, "as is said about the Hellenes here."
"As for myself, I find nothing in the Hellenes," said the other, "that is worth speaking of."
"I will tell them that," said Apollonius, "and they will crown you at Olympia."
30. And stooping towards Iarchas he said: "Let him go on like a drunkard, but do you tell me why do you not invite to the same table as yourself, nor hold worthy of other recognition those who accompany this man, though they are his brother and son, as you tell me?"
"Because," said Iarchas", they reckon to be kings one day themselves, and by being made themselves to suffer disdain they must be taught not to disdain others."
And remarking that the sages were eighteen in number, he again asked Iarchas, what was the meaning of their being just so many and no more. "For," he said, "the number eighteen is not a square number, nor is it one of the numbers held in esteem and honour, as are the numbers ten and twelve and sixteen and so forth."
In reply the Indian said: "Neither are we beholden to number nor number to us, but we owe our superior honour to wisdom and virtue; and sometimes we are more in number than we now are, and sometimes fewer. And indeed I have heard that when my grandfather was enrolled among these wise men, the youngest of them all, they were seventy in number but when he reached his 130th year, he was left here all alone, because not one of them survived him at that time, nor was there to be found anywhere in India a nature that was either philosophic or noble. The Egyptians accordingly wrote and congratulated him warmly on being left alone for four years in his tenure of this throne, but he begged them to cease reproaching the Indians for the paucity of their sages.
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