Alexander the False Prophet (33)

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.

Then after a few days the boy died, and Alexander was at his wit’s end, with nothing to say to his critics, as the oracle had been shown up so obviously. But Rutilianus himself, good soul, made haste to defend the oracle by saying that the god had predicted precisely this outcome, and on account of it had bidden him to select as his tutor nobody then alive, but rather Pythagoras and Homer, who died long ago, with whom, no doubt, the lad was then studying in Hades. What fault, then, should we find with Alexander if he thought fit to amuse himself at the expense of such homunculi?