Snippets from THE LIFE OF APOLLONIUS OF TYANA

The Life of Apollonius of Tyana begins with Pythagoras, mostly because Apollonius began in the tradition Pythagoras started. While many of you know that I didn’t enjoy reading the introduction of my biased translation of Philostratus’s Life, the narrative is working out well thus far. However, I would like to take a break from my reading to highlight some passages that I find particularly interesting.

Firstly, at the beginning of Book I, Philostratus explains some aspects of Pythagorean practice that many of us are familiar with:

They say that he [Pythagoras] declined to wear apparel made from dead animal products and, to guard his purity, abstained from all flesh diet, and from the offering of animals in sacrifice. For that he would not stain the altars with blood; nay, rather the honey-cake and frankincense and the hymn of praise, these they say were the offerings made to the Gods by this man, who realized that they welcome such tribute more than they do the hecatombs and the knife laid upon the sacrificial basket.

Descriptions of sacrifice in ancient texts make me happy. I enjoy going over them in my head and imagining the motions of laying the honey-cakes on the sacrificial altar to be burned in fire. I love envisioning the smell of fresh frankincense resin, and I delight in imagining the sung poetry of ancient choruses.

Much later in the narrative, Apollonius and his disciple, Damis, are in Babylon. While walking into the palace, they have the following conversation:

“You asked me yesterday what was the name of the Pamphylian woman who is said to have been intimate with Sappho, and to have composed hymns which they sing in honor of Artemis of Perga, in the Aeolian and Pamphylian modes.”
“Yes, I did ask you,” said Damis, “but you did not tell me her name.”
“I did not tell you it, my good fellow, but I explained to you about the keys in which the hymns are written, and I told you about the names; and how the Aeolian strains were altered into the highest key of all, that which is peculiar to the Pamphylians. After that we turned to another subject, for you did not ask me again about the name of the lady. Well, she is called—this clever lady is—Damophyle, and she is said, like Sappho, to have had girlfriends and to have composed poems, some of which were love songs and other hymns. The particular hymn to Artemis was transposed by her, and the singing of it derives from Sapphic odes.”

To keep my self mentally sharp, I am currently reading something called Sapphistries by Leila J. Rupp, and I had just passed the section on women’s love in Ancient Greece. Initially, this passage caught my attention for the references to female same-sex love. However, as I started thinking about why I felt so responsive to the text, I realized something: I enjoy finding traces of named women in antiquity. We have so few texts from women—a consequence of the fragile papyrus medium and Christian selection of “acceptable” texts—that any mention of women composing hymns or love poetry is welcome to me. It proves that women did write and did engage in cultural discourse that impacted more than just the women’s quarters of a household.