History of Rome and of the Roman people, from its origin to the Invasion of the Barbarians; . isions, was then at Alexandria. Hisvoyages to the mysterious land of theBrahmins, his constant journeyings over thewhole Empire, aroused wherever he mighttarry a curiosity which he was very carefulnot to exhaust by too long a stay. If hewas not already regarded as a god, ascontemporaries of Alexander Severus declare,he at least was thought to foretell thefuture. Vespasian sought an opportunity of hearing him ; morethan that, he himself had visions sent from on high, and. to com-plete the resemblance t
History of Rome and of the Roman people, from its origin to the Invasion of the Barbarians; . isions, was then at Alexandria. Hisvoyages to the mysterious land of theBrahmins, his constant journeyings over thewhole Empire, aroused wherever he mighttarry a curiosity which he was very carefulnot to exhaust by too long a stay. If hewas not already regarded as a god, ascontemporaries of Alexander Severus declare,he at least was thought to foretell thefuture. Vespasian sought an opportunity of hearing him ; morethan that, he himself had visions sent from on high, and. to com-plete the resemblance to the king promised to the East —thefrequent topic of the popular imagination—he performed miracles;he healed, in ])ublic assembly, a blind man and a paralytic. Inthe East the marvellous is always necessary. It is the means ofaction which most seldom fails of its end, and the mind lendsitself so r(nidily to it that th(^ one wlio practises it often becomesth(> dupe of his own artifice or visions. Then the language, sofull of boldness and of metaphors, adds tlie exaggeration of words. Serapis carryiiiy a Modius. ^ TaC; Hist., iv. 3. This is the famous lev rr/ia. t]io toxt of wliioli has boen recovered andis now everywhere accessible. Cf. Ordh. vol. i. p. .jGr. ^ Rust of white npate, Iwo and tlircf-tciitlis inclus liinh ( ((thinrt dp France, No. 278\ VESPASIAN, (iD TO 7!) 643 to tlic exaggoration of things, so that an act is very speedilvtransferred from the natural order of things to the truth, hidden under this double covering which the eye ofthe people never penetrates, is rarely discovered again, and itmatters little. Let Vespasian work miracles ; let even the Alex-andrians, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Dion, believe that he performedthem ; and we may remark that in this country and amid suchoccurrences this conduct was skilful, not doubtless such skill as weadmire, but that which always succeeds. Serapis also, the greatdeity of the Alexandrians
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