The Preface.
ſome credulous ears, and this ſudden Larum may procure him Entertainment: but had theſe Admirers peruſed his Hiſtory, they had not betray’d ſo much weakneſs, as to allow him any ſober Character. It is true, Philoſtratus attributes many ſtrange performances to him, as that he ſhould raiſe the Dead, free himſelf from Priſon, and ſhake off his Chains, with as much Divinity as S. Peter himſelf: Nay, that pleading with Domitian in a full Senate, he ſhould ſuddenly vaniſh away, and be tranſlated in a moment from Rome to Puteoli. Truly theſe are great effects; but if we conſider only what Philoſtratus himſelf will confeſs, we ſhall quickly find that all theſe things are but his Inventions. For in the Beginning of his Romance, where he would give his Readers an Accompt of his Materials, and from what hands he received them, he tells us, that Damis, who was Apollonius his fellow-traveller, did write his Life, and all the Occurrences thereof: but theſe Commentaries of Damis (ſaith he) were never publiſhed by Damis himſelf, only a friend of his, a Some-body, προήκων τὶς, a certain familiar of Damis did communicate
them
