Note 583 — Chapter III
Reading edition
This statue, it has been suggested, probably represented the philosopher Apollonius or the Emperor Vespasian, and the suppliant female figure a personified city or province. Gibbon thinks it impossible that it could be intended for the poor woman mentioned in the gospel. Eusebius mentions the belief as a mere popular tradition. “They say that this statue bears the likeness of Jesus”—Τοῦτον δὲ τὸν ἀνδριάντα εἰκόνα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ φέρειν ἔλεγον.—Hist. Eccl., viii, 18.