Against Celsus 3.26

Let us see also what Celsus says next, citing from histories marvels that seem incredible in themselves but are not disbelieved by him, as far as his words go. First, the story of Aristeas of Proconnesus, about whom he says this: “Then Aristeas of Proconnesus, who vanished from among men in so divine a way and appeared again clearly, and many years later visited many parts of the world and reported wonderful things, and whom Apollo commanded the Metapontines to count among the gods: this man no one any longer considers a god.” He seems to have taken the story from Pindar and Herodotus. It is enough now to cite Herodotus's words from the fourth book of his Histories, which run thus about him: “I have said where Aristeas, who said these things, came from; I shall now tell the story I heard about him in Proconnesus and Cyzicus. They say that Aristeas, who was inferior in birth to none of the citizens, went into a fuller's shop in Proconnesus and died; and the fuller locked the workshop and went to tell the dead man's relatives. When the report had already spread through the city that Aristeas was dead, a man of Cyzicus who had come from the town of Artace disputed with those who said so, declaring that he had met him going toward Cyzicus and spoken with him. While he was vehemently disputing, the dead man's relatives came to the fuller's shop with what was needed to take up the body; but when the building was opened, Aristeas was seen neither alive nor dead. In the seventh year afterward he appeared in Proconnesus and composed those verses which the Greeks now call the Arimaspea, and having composed them he vanished a second time. So these cities say; but I know that this happened to the Metapontines in Italy two hundred and forty years after the second disappearance of Aristeas, as I found by reckoning in Proconnesus and Metapontum. The Metapontines say that Aristeas himself appeared in their country and commanded them to (set up) an altar to Apollo and to set beside it a statue bearing the name of Aristeas of Proconnesus; for he said that Apollo had come to their country alone of the Italiots, and that he, who was now Aristeas, had followed him; but then, when he followed the god, he was a raven. Having said this he vanished; and the Metapontines say they sent to Delphi and asked the god what the apparition of the man might be. The Pythia bade them obey the apparition, saying that if they obeyed it would be better for them. They accepted this and carried it out. And now a statue bearing the name of Aristeas stands beside the image of Apollo itself, with laurels around it; and the image is set up in the marketplace. Let this much be said about Aristeas.”