Alexander the False Prophet (31-35)

Having many powerful friends, he went about not only telling what he had heard from his messengers but adding still more on his own account. So he flooded and convulsed the city, and agitated most of the court, who themselves at once hastened to go and hear something that concerned them.

To all who came, Alexander gave a very cordial reception, made them think well of him by lavish entertainment and expensive presents, and sent

At the same time, however, the plaguy scoundrel devised a trick which was really clever and not what one would expect of your ordinary swindler. In opening and reading the forwarded scrolls, if he found anything dangerous and venturesome in the questions, he would keep them himself and not send them back, in order to hold the senders in subjection and all but in slavery because of their fear, since they remembered what it was that they had asked. You understand what questions are likely to be put by men who are rich and very powerful. So he used to derive much gain from those men, who knew that he had them in his net.

I should like to tell you some of the responses that were given to Rutilianus. Asking about his son by a former marriage, who was then in the full bloom of youth, he enquired who should be appointed his tutor in his studies, The reply was:

Be it Pythagoras; aye, and the good bard, master of warfare.

At another time, when Rutilianus enquired whose soul he had inherited, the reply was:

Peleus’ son wert thou at the first; thereafter Menander,

Then what thou seemest now, and hereafter shalt turn to a sunbeam.

Four score seasons of life shall be given thee over a hundred.

This oracle too was one of the autophones. When one time he enquired about getting married, Alexander said explicitly:

Take Alexander’s daughter to wife, who was born of Selene.