confuted in the _Acts_. Far more prudent and modest was the aim of
Apsethus, the Libyan, who tried to get himself thought a god in
Libya. And as the story of Apsethus is not very dissimilar to the
ambition of the foolish Simon, it will not be unseemly to repeat
it, for it is quite in keeping with Simon's endeavour.

8. Apsethus, the Libyan, wanted to become a god. But in spite of
the greatest exertions he failed to realize his longing, and so he
desired that at any rate people should _think_ that he had become
one; and, indeed, for a considerable time he really did get people
to think that such was the case. For the foolish Libyans sacrificed
to him as to some divine power, thinking that they were placing
their confidence in a voice that came down from heaven.

Well, he collected a large number of parrots and put them all into
a cage. For there are a great many parrots in Libya and they mimic
the human voice very distinctly. So he kept the birds for some time
and taught them to say, "Apsethus is a god." And when, after a long
time, the birds were trained and could speak the sentence which he
considered would make him be thought to be a god, he opened the
cage and let the parrots go in every direction. And the voice of
the birds as they flew about went out into all Libya, and their
words reached as far as the Greek settlements. And thus the
Libyans, astonished at the voice of the birds, and having no idea
of the trick which had been played them by Apsethus, considered him
to be a god.

But one of the Greeks, correctly surmising the contrivance of the
supposed god, not only confuted him by means of the self-same
parrots, but also caused the total destruction of this boastful and