Bodies of Knowledge in Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius

Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius uses the transmigration of the soul to tie the present to the past through corporal metaphors of cultural preservation. These metaphors are laced throughout Apollonius’ visits to Indian Brahmans and Ethiopian naked sages (Gymnoi), two wisdom groups who respectively celebrate and deny the embodied knowledge of the past that reincarnation allows. This somatic line of thinking culminates in a debate over the Gymnoi’s eponymous nudity, which Apollonius critiques on two counts: it wrongly suggests that the Gymnoi can divest themselves of their past and creates a false dichotomy between clothes and body, ornament and essence.