ABSTRACT
Apollonius' revered Indian sage has not heard of pugnacious porcupines or gold washed down by water, yet he is perfectly familiar with the habits of the non-existent Phoenix! With informants like these, the sage might be better employed hunting the Snark or the labberwock. Moreover, few will place implicit trust in a biographer who appears to make an Indian reject shadowfooted men as incredible, yet accepts them without any comment whatsoever in his account of Ethiopia three books further on!2 But the matter is not so simple, and it is here most of all that we have to notice that what is in accord with 'sophistic' taste is not always as improbable as it seems.
