When reading through Professor Phillimore's admirable preface to his translation of the Apollonios of Tyana of Philostratos, the discussion of the authenticity of the memoirs of Damis suggested to me a parallel in which literary history appears to have repeated herself. Although it possesses no intrinsic importance the coincidence is perhaps sufficiently a curiosity of literature to be worth recording. Philostratos' statement about the alleged memoirs is as follows (1,3):—

‘There was one Damis, a man not without accomplishments, who at one time inhabited Old Nineveh. His studies drew him into intimacy with Apollonius, and he has left a written account of the Sage's travels (in which he claims to have shared), his maxims, his discourses, and his prophetic sayings. A person who was related to this Damis brought the originals of these memoirs, hitherto undiscovered, to the knowledge of the Empress Julia. And since I had a place in her majesty's circle (she was a great admirer and patroness of all literary studies), she laid on me the task of transcribing and editing these papers. It was her wish also that I should be responsible for the form of expression; for the Ninevite's language, though clear, was anything but a model of literary art.’