tude were much struck with the beauty and modesty of the mother, but they thought her appearance too mortified. Apollonius, however, knew her not; and bending with his son and daughter before the shrine[1], as the angel had ordained, he commenced his history. "I was born," said he, "a king. I am of Tyre, and my name is Apollonius. I solved the riddle of the impious Antiochus, who sought to slay me as the detector of his wickedness. I fled, and by the kindness of king Altistrates, was espoused to his daughter. On the death of Antiochus, I hastened with my wife to ascend his throne; but she died on the passage. I deposited her in a chest, with twenty gold sestertia, and committed her to the waves. I placed my daughter under the care of those whose subsequent conduct was base and villainous; and I departed to the higher parts of Egypt. After fourteen years I returned to see my daughter. They
- ↑ The original says, "misit se ad pedes ejus," that is, at his wife's feet. But as we have no intimation that she had commenced divinity, the act seems incongruous. There is, however, a sad jumble of the tenets of Christianity and Polytheism.
