This biography of a first-century C.E. holy man has become one of the most widely discussed literary works of later antiquity. With an engaging style, Philostratus portrays a charismatic teacher and religious reformer from Tyana in Cappadocia (modern central Turkey) who travels across the known world, from the Atlantic to the Ganges. His miracles, which include extraordinary cures and mysterious disappearances, together with his apparent triumph over death, caused pagans to make Apollonius a rival to Jesus of Nazareth.
In a new two-volume Loeb Classical Library edition of Philostratus's third-century work, Christopher Jones provides a freshly edited Greek text and a stylish translation with full explanatory notes. "Apollonius of Tyana" is by far the longest biography that survives from antiquity. Jones in his Introduction asks how far it is history and how far fiction, and discusses its survival from Late Antiquity to modern times.