Annulus

“ After a short time, the young prince of Tyre, named Apollonius, well-lettered and rich, sailing along the coast, disembarked and entered Antioch. Approaching the royal presence, he said: "Hail, oh king! I seek thy daughter in marriage." The king unwillingly heard him communicate his wishes, and fixing an earnest look upon the young man, said, "Dost thou know the conditions?" "I do," answered he boldly, "and find ample confirmation at your gates." (49) The king, enraged at his firmness, returned, "Hear, then, the question,—'I am transported with wickedness; I live upon my mother's flesh. ”

“ We are rich, and of noble lineage: choose, then, which of us shall be your son-in-law.” “You come,” replied the king, “at an unseasonable time. My daughter is unable to follow her usual pursuits, and for this reason languishes on her bed. But that I may not appear to you unnecessarily to protract your uncertainty, write each of you your names, and the settlement you will make her. She shall examine them, and choose between ye.” The suitors complied, and gave the writings to the king, who read, and sealed, and then despatched Apollonius with them to the lady. ”

“ I am thy wife, the daughter of King Altistrates; and thou art of Tyre; thou art Apollonius, my husband and Iord. Thou wert the beloved one who instructed me. Thou wert the ship-wrecked man whom I loved with pure and fond regard.” Apollonius awakening at the mention of these well-known circumstances, recollected his long-lost lady. He fell upon her neck, and wept for joy. “Blessed be the Most High, who hath restored me my wife and daughter.” “But where,” said she, “is our daughter?” Presenting Tharsia, he replied, “Behold her.” ”

“ He placed on the shrine precious gifts, and then, 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, after giving birth to this my daughter. I deposited her in a chest, with twenty gold sestertia, and committed her to the waves. ”

“ The girl, happy in the permission, approached the young man, and said, “Good friend, kindness proves nobility: if it be not troublesome, tell me your name and fortunes.” “Would you inquire my name?” replied he, “I lost it in the sea; or my nobility? I left it in Tyre.” “Speak intelligibly,” said the girl; and Apollonius then related his name and adventures. When he had made an end he wept, and the king, perceiving his tears, said to his daughter, “My dear child, you did ill to inquire the name and occurrences of the young man's life. ”

“ But the birds were always with us, and the beasts were our friends. I learned to love even the shrill cry of the reed hens, and the soft tap-tap of the wood-pecker is the sweetest music to my ear after the song of the anvil. How often have you and I stood here at the anvil, the fire heating the iron, and our hammers falling constantly! Oh, Francis, I knew that only here with God and His dumb creatures, and His wonderful healing world, all sun, and wind, and flowers, and blossoming trees, working as you used to work, as the first of men worked, would the sane wandering soul return to you. ”

“ When the king heard that Apollonius read the riddle so rightly, then he dreaded that it were too widely known; looked then with angry countenance at him, and said: "Thou young man, thou art far from right, thou errest, and what thou sayest is naught, but thou hast earned decapitation. I will now dismiss thee for a space of thirty days, that thou mayest consider the riddle aright, and thou then shalt receive my daughter to wife: and if thou doest that not, thou shalt suffer [2] the appointed doom." ”

“ Tharsia continued, “I am borne rapidly along by the tall daughter of the grove, which equally encloses an innumerable company. I glide over various paths, and leave no footstep.” “When I have answered your questions," said Apollonius, “I will show you much that you know not. Yet I am astonished that one so young should be endowed with wit so keen and penetrating. The tree enclosing a host, and passing through various ways without a trace, is a ship.”
“A person passes through circumferences and temples without injury. There is a great heat in the centre which no one removes. ”

“ Alano replied, “Most holy father, I wish to live and die in this solitary life, and never more go back to the world. Nay, I mean to return with my good abbot to his abbey, and follow up the life I have entered upon, and thus serve God.” The abbot fell on his knees, praying him to pardon him, for he had not known him, and particularly for the box on the ear which he had given him. Messer Alano said, “there is no occasion for such a thing; the father has an undoubted right to chastise his child.” They afterwards took leave of his holiness and the cardinals, and returned to the abbey. ”

“ But I, unhappy, was delivered by my remaining parent to Stranguilio and Dionysias, with the ornaments befitting a royal extract. I was by them devoted to death; but whilst I invoked the assistance of God, a number of pirates rushed in and the murderer fled. I was brought hither; and in his own good time God will restore me to my father Apollonius." (80) Here she concluded, and the royal mourner, struck with her relation, shouted with a loud voice, "Merciful God! thou who lookest over heaven and earth, and revealest that which is hidden, blessed be thy holy name." ”

“ So he sent an eunuch to buy it, who accosted the fowler and said to him, ‘Wilt thou sell this bird?’ ‘No,’ answered he; ‘it is a gift from me to the king.’ So the eunuch carried the bird to the king and told him what the man had said; and he took it and gave the fowler ten dinars, whereupon he kissed the earth and went away. Then the eunuch carried the bird to the king’s palace and placing him in a handsome cage, set meat and drink by him and hung him up. ”

“ But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, [23] who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity [to exercise his authority] . Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road ”

“ Ah how wicked a man thou art, thou who knowest that which thou askest after! Or what man is there who knoweth not that this township continueth in lamentation, because that Apollonius the prince all at once nowhere appeareth, since he came hack from Antiochus the king? ”

“ They then mounted their horses and rode from the Forum, and were seen no more. Men sought them far and wide, but no one set eyes on them again.
Then Aulus told the Romans how he had prayed to Castor and Pollux, the divine twins, and said that it could be none but they who had broken so fiercely into the enemy's camp, and had borne the news of victory with more than mortal speed to Rome. So he built the temple he had vowed to the hero gods, and gave there rich offerings as the rewards he had promised to the two who should first enter the camp of the foe. ”

“ To this charge Apollonius replied with veiled irony: “You have omitted the most serious charge that might have been urged against me: to wit, that though I really know more about the mystic rite than its hierophant, I have come here pretending to desire initiation from men knowing more than myself.” ”

“ And with alien men do I wander forlorn, an accursèd wight!
Dread ye the covenant-troth and the oaths: the Avenging Sprite
Of the suppliants dread, and the Gods’ retribution, if ever I come
To Aiêtes’ hands, amid outrage and agony meeting my doom!
No temple have I, neither tower of salvation, nor refuge beside:
You cast I before me, mine only shield in the perilous tide.
Hard hearts unrelenting and ruthless!—ye know not reverence, ye,
For the suppliant, though ye behold as I stretch despairingly
Mine hands to the knees of a stranger queen. ”

“ Thus one spake; and among them Ancaeus the helmsman, in despair at their evil case, spoke with grieving heart: "Verily we are undone by a terrible doom; there is no escape from ruin; we must suffer the cruellest woes, having fallen on this desolation, even though breezes should blow from the land; for, as I gaze far around, on every side do I behold a sea of shoals, and masses of water, fretted line upon line, run over the hoary sand. And miserably long ago would our sacred ship have been shattered far from the shore ”

“ While he beheld all this with pain, there sat an old and envious noble by the king, [who] when he saw that Apollonius sat so painfully, and beheld all things and ate nothing, then said he to the king, "Thou good king, this very man towards whom thou hast so well done, he is very envious of thy prosperity." Then said the king, "Thou art mistaken; in sooth this young man envieth nothing that he here seeth, but he showeth that he hath lost much." ”

“ Then, entering into a more detailed account of her adventures, she related what she had endured from the wretched pimp, and how the Almighty had protected her.
Athanagoras, fearing lest another might demand her in marriage, threw himself at the king's feet, and modestly intimating how instrumental he had been in promoting their happy reunion, besought him to bestow his child upon him. “I cannot deny you,” returned Apollonius, “for you have alleviated her sorrows, and been the means of my present and future happiness. Take her. ”

“ Thereupon they sat to devise some prudent counsel for their voyage, and the maiden came upon them as they pondered, but Peleus spake his word first:
“I now bid you embark while it is still night, and take with your oars the passage opposite to that which the enemy guards, for at dawn when they see their plight I deem that no word urging to further pursuit of us will prevail with them; but as people bereft of their king, they will be scattered in grievous dissension. And easy, when the people are scattered, will this path be for us on our return.” ”

“ Now our annalist wrote in the time of Theophilus (385–412) , and may therefore rank as a contemporary of Athanasius (cf. Prolegg. ch. v.) His opportunities therefore were excellent. As to his capacity, his work bears every trace of care and skill. He is no historian, nor a stylist, but as an annalist he understood what he was doing. As to agreement with other data, we remark to begin with that it was the publication of this fragment in the 18th century that first shed a ray of light on the Erebus and Chaos of the chronology of the Council of Sardica and its adjacent events ”

“ Then addressing the servants bestowed upon him, he commanded them to bear away the presents he had received to an hostelry; but the girl, who became apprehensive of losing her lover, looked sorrowfully at her parent, and said, “Best king and father, does it please you that Apollonius, whom we have so lately enriched, should leave us? The goods we have given him will be purloined by wicked men.” The king admitted this, and assigned him apartments in the palace, where he lived in great honour. ”

“ And straightway an angel of God came down and released him from his fetters, and he took him into a high place, and he sat down with the wild beasts glorifying God. And straightway Andrianus ordered his soldiers to hunt down the wild beasts that were in the mountain in which they had found Eleutherus, and they took Eleutherus to Andrianus the emperor. When they had brought him to him the emperor commanded them to give him to the lions, and when the lions came they licked the moisture from his face and feet; and all the men of Rome wondered. Now the lions had slain fifty hundred pagans. ”

“ When she had said these and similar things, the girl threw herself before Apollonius, and drawing aside his hands, embraced him. "Hear," said she, "the voice of your supplicant; regard a virgin's prayers. It is wicked in men of so much wisdom to destroy themselves. If you lament your lost wife, the mercy of God can restore her to you; if your deceased child, He can bestow another. ”

“ The wounds of the mind linger, and tears fail. In me behold the only offspring of a royal house. Contain your tears, and limit your anxiety. Look up to heaven, and raise your thoughts above. The Creator and Supporter of mankind is God; nor will He permit the (292>) tears of His virtuous servants to be shed, in vain.” As she concluded, Apollonius fixed his eyes upon the girl, and groaned deeply. “Wretched man that I am,” said he, “how long shall I struggle with my sorrows? ”

“ As he drew near, the veil of the temple was again lifted, and the aged priest came forward, bearing in his arms a singular casket of wood, ornamented with alternate bands of gold and ivory, carved with outlandish figures. The torch-bearers crowded about us in the darkness, and it was a strange spectacle to behold the smoky, fiery light shining on the men’s faces and the rich coloured dresses, or lighting up the white idol of Apollon, which stood among the laurel trees at the entrance of the temple. ”