Alexander of Abonoteichus

Alexander of Abonoteichus , also called Alexander the Paphlagonian , was a Greek mystic and oracle, and the founder of the Glycon cult that briefly achieved wide popularity in the Roman world. The contemporary writer Lucian reports that he was an utter fraud the god Glycon was supposedly constructed out of a glove puppet. The vivid narrative of his career given by Lucian might be taken as fictitious but for the corroboration of certain coins of the emperors Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius and of a statue of Alexander, said by Athenagoras to have stood in the forum of Parium.

Sometime before 160 CE Alexander formed a cult around the worship of a new snakegod, Glycon, and headquartered it in Abonoteichus. Having circulated a prophecy that the son of Apollo was to be born again, he contrived that there should be found in the foundations of the temple to Aesculapius, then in course of construction at Abonoteichus, an egg in which a small live snake had been placed. In an age of superstition no people had so great a reputation for credulity as the Paphlagonians, and Alexander had little difficulty in convincing them of the second coming of the god under the name of Glycon. A large tame snake with a false human head, wound round Alexanders body as he sat in a shrine in the temple, gave autophones, or oracles unasked. The numerous questions asked of the oracle were answered by Alexander in metrical predictions. In his most prosperous year he is said to have delivered nearly 80,000 replies, concerning bodily, mental, and social afflictions, for each of which he re

Source: Wikipedia