Then, Phoebus Apollo had appeared to him in a dream; the auguries from the morning's sacrifices had all been favorable; and, before he dispatched Philostratus to fetch Melissa, he added: "It is strange! The best fortune has always come to me from a gloomy sky.

How brightly the sun shone on my marriage with the odious Plautilla! It has rained, on the contrary, on almost all my victories; and it was under a heavy storm that the oracle assured me the soul of Alexander the Great had selected this tortured frame in which to live out his too early ended years on earth.

Can such coincidence be mere chance?
Phoebus Apollo, your favorite divinity--and that, too, of the sage of Tyana--may perhaps have been angry with me.

He who purified himself from blood-guiltiness after killing the Python is the god of expiation.

I will address myself to him, like the noble hero of your book.