Books: Lives of the Necromancers

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INVASION OF XERXES INTO GREECE.

It is particularly suitable in this place to notice the events which
took place at Delphi upon occasion of the memorable invasion of Xerxes
into Greece. This was indeed a critical moment for the heathen
mythology. The Persians were pointed and express in their hostility
against the altars and the temples of the Greeks. It was no sooner
known that the straits of Thermopylae had been forced, than the priests
consulted the God, as to whether they should bury the treasures of the
temple, so to secure them against the sacrilege of the invader. The
answer of the oracle was: "Let nothing be moved; the God is sufficient
for the protection of his rights." The inhabitants therefore of the
neighbourhood withdrew: only sixty men and the priest remained. The
Persians in the mean time approached. Previously to this however, the
sacred arms which were placed in the temple, were seen to be moved by
invisible hands, and deposited on the declivity which was on the
outside of the building. The invaders no sooner shewed themselves,
than a miraculous storm of thunder and lightning rebounded and flashed
among the multiplied hills which surrounded the sacred area, and
struck terror into all hearts. Two vast fragments were detached from
the top of mount Parnassus, and crushed hundreds in their fall. A
voice of warlike acclamation issued from within the walls. Dismay
seized the Persian troops. The Delphians then, rushing from their
caverns, and descending from the summits, attacked them with great
slaughter. Two persons, exceeding all human stature, and that were
said to be the demigods whose fanes were erected near the temple of
Apollo, joined in the pursuit, and extended the slaughter. [94] It has
been said that the situation of the place was particularly adapted to
this mode of defence. Surrounded and almost overhung with lofty
mountain-summits, the area of the city was inclosed within crags and
precipices. No way led to it but through defiles, narrow and steep,
shadowed with wood, and commanded at every step by fastnesses from
above. In such a position artificial fires and explosion might imitate
a thunder storm. Great pains had been taken, to represent the place as
altogether abandoned; and therefore the detachment of rocks from the
top of mount Parnassus, though effected by human hands, might appear
altogether supernatural.

Nothing can more forcibly illustrate the strength of the religious
feeling among the Greeks, than the language of the Athenian government
at the time of the second descent of the Persian armament upon their
territory, when they were again compelled to abandon their houses and
land to the invader. Mardonius said to them: "I am thus commissioned
by the king of Persia, he will release and give back to you your
country; he invites you to choose a further territory, whatever you
may think desirable, which he will guarantee to you to govern as you
shall judge fit. He will rebuild for you, without its costing you
either money or labour, the temples which in his former incursion he
destroyed with fire. It is in vain for you to oppose him by force, for
his armies are innumerable." To which the Athenians replied, "As long
as the sun pursues his course in the heavens, so long will we resist
the Persian invader." Then turning to the Spartan ambassadors who were
sent to encourage and animate them to persist, they added, "It is but
natural that your employers should apprehend that we might give way
and be discouraged. But there is no sum of money so vast, and no
region so inviting and fertile, that could buy us to concur in the
enslaving of Greece. Many and resistless are the causes which induce
us to this resolve. First and chiefest, the temples and images of the
Gods, which Xerxes has burned and laid in ruins, and which we are
called upon to avenge to the utmost, instead of forming a league with
him who made this devastation. Secondly, the consideration of the
Grecian race, the same with us in blood and in speech, the same in
religion and manners, and whose cause we will never betray. Know
therefore now, if you knew not before, that, as long as a single
Athenian survives, we will never swerve from the hostility to Persia
to which we have devoted ourselves."

Contemplating this magnanimous resolution, it is in vain for us to
reflect on the absurdity, incongruity and frivolousness, as we
apprehend it, of the pagan worship, inasmuch as we find, whatever we
may think of its demerits, that the most heroic people that ever
existed on earth, in the hour of their direst calamity, regarded a
zealous and fervent adherence to that religion as the most sacred of
all duties. [95]

DEMOCRITUS.

The fame of Democritus has sustained a singular fortune. He is
represented by Pliny as one of the most superstitious of mortals. This
character is founded on certain books which appeared in his name. In
these books he is made to say, that, if the blood of certain birds be
mingled together, the combination will produce a serpent, of which
whoever eats will become endowed with the gift of understanding the
language of birds. [96] He attributes a multitude of virtues to the
limbs of a dead camelion: among others that, if the left foot of this
animal be grilled, and there be added certain herbs, and a particular
unctuous preparation, it will have the quality to render the person
who carries it about him invisible. [97] But all this is wholly
irreconcileable with the known character of Democritus, who
distinguished himself by the hypothesis that the world was framed from
the fortuitous concourse of atoms, and that the soul died with the
body. And accordingly Lucian, [98] a more judicious author than Pliny,
expressly cites Democritus as the strenuous opposer of all the
pretenders to miracles. "Such juggling tricks," he says, "call for a
Democritus, an Epicurus, a Metrodorus, or some one of that temper, who
should endeavour to detect the illusion, and would hold it for certain,
even if he could not fully lay open the deceit, that the whole was a
lying pretence, and had not a spark of reality in it."

Democritus was in reality one of the most disinterested characters on
record in the pursuit of truth. He has been styled the father of
experimental philosophy. When his father died, and the estate came to
be divided between him and two brothers, he chose the part which was
in money, though the smallest, that he might indulge him [Errata:
_read_ himself] in travelling in pursuit of knowledge. He visited
Egypt and Persia, and turned aside into Ethiopia and India. He is
reported to have said, that he had rather be the possessor of one of
the cardinal secrets of nature, than of the diadem of Persia.

SOCRATES.

Socrates is the most eminent of the ancient philosophers. He lived in
the most enlightened age of Greece, and in Athens, the most illustrious
of her cities. He was born in the middle ranks of life, the son of a
sculptor. He was of a mean countenance, with a snub nose, projecting
eyes, and otherwise of an appearance so unpromising, that a
physiognomist, his contemporary, pronounced him to be given to the
grossest vices. But he was of a penetrating understanding, the simplest
manners, and a mind wholly bent on the study of moral excellence. He
at once abjured all the lofty pretensions, and the dark and recondite
pursuits of the most applauded teachers of his time, and led those to
whom he addressed his instructions from obvious and irresistible data
to the most unexpected and useful conclusions. There was something in
his manner of teaching that drew to him the noblest youth of Athens.
Plato and Xenophon, two of the most admirable of the Greek writers,
were among his pupils. He reconciled in his own person in a surprising
degree poverty with the loftiest principles of independence. He taught
an unreserved submission to the laws of our country. He several times
unequivocally displayed his valour in the field of battle, while at
the same time he kept aloof from public offices and trusts. The
serenity of his mind never forsook him. He was at all times ready to
teach, and never found it difficult to detach himself from his own
concerns, to attend to the wants and wishes of others. He was
uniformly courteous and unpretending; and, if at any time he indulged
in a vein of playful ridicule, it was only against the presumptuously
ignorant, and those who were without foundation wise in their own
conceit.

Yet, with all these advantages and perfections, the name of Socrates
would not have been handed down with such lustre to posterity but for
the manner of his death. He made himself many enemies. The plainness
of his manner and the simplicity of his instructions were inexpressibly
wounding to those (and they were many), who, setting up for professors,
had hitherto endeavoured to dazzle their hearers by the loftiness of
their claims, and to command from them implicit submission by the
arrogance with which they dictated. It must be surprising to us, that
a man like Socrates should be arraigned in a country like Athens upon
a capital accusation. He was charged with instilling into the youth a
disobedience to their duties, and propagating impiety to the Gods,
faults of which he was notoriously innocent. But the plot against him
was deeply laid, and is said to have been twenty years in the
concoction. And he greatly assisted the machinations of his
adversaries, by the wonderful firmness of his conduct upon his trial,
and his spirited resolution not to submit to any thing indirect and
pusillanimous. He defended himself with a serene countenance and the
most cogent arguments, but would not stoop to deprecation and intreaty.
When sentence was pronounced against him, this did not induce the
least alteration of his conduct. He did not think that a life which he
had passed for seventy years with a clear conscience, was worth
preserving by the sacrifice of honour. He refused to escape from
prison, when one of his rich friends had already purchased of the
jailor the means of his freedom. And, during the last days of his life,
and when he was waiting the signal of death, which was to be the return
of a ship that had been sent with sacrifices to Delos, he uttered those
admirable discourses, which have been recorded by Xenophon and Plato
to the latest posterity.

But the question which introduces his name into this volume, is that
of what is called the demon of Socrates. He said that he repeatedly
received a divine premonition of dangers impending over himself and
others; and considerable pains have been taken to ascertain the cause
and author of these premonitions. Several persons, among whom we may
include Plato, have conceived that Socrates regarded himself as
attended by a supernatural guardian who at all times watched over his
welfare and concerns.

But the solution is probably of a simpler nature. Socrates, with all
his incomparable excellencies and perfections, was not exempt from the
superstitions of his age and country. He had been bred up among the
absurdities of polytheism. In them were included, as we have seen, a
profound deference for the responses of oracles, and a vigilant
attention to portents and omens. Socrates appears to have been
exceedingly regardful of omens. Plato tells us that this intimation,
which he spoke of as his demon, never prompted him to any act, but
occasionally interfered to prevent him or his friends from proceeding
in any thing that would have been attended with injurious consequences.
[99] Sometimes he described it as a voice, which no one however heard
but himself; and sometimes it shewed itself in the act of sneezing. If
the sneezing came, when he was in doubt to do a thing or not to do it,
it confirmed him; but if, being already engaged in any act, he sneezed,
this he considered as a warning to desist. If any of his friends
sneezed on his right hand, he interpreted this as a favourable omen;
but, if on his left, he immediately relinquished his purpose. [100]
Socrates vindicated his mode of expressing himself on the subject, by
saying that others, when they spoke of omens, for example, by the
voice of a bird, said the bird told me this, but that he, knowing that
the omen was purely instrumental to a higher power, deemed it more
religious and respectful to have regard only to the higher power, and
to say that God had graciously warned him. [101] One of the examples
of this presage was, that, going along a narrow street with several
companions in earnest discourse, he suddenly stopped, and turned
another way, warning his friends to do the same. Some yielded to him,
and others went on, who were encountered by the rushing forward of a
multitude of hogs, and did not escape without considerable
inconvenience and injury. [102] In another instance one of a company
among whom was Socrates, had confederated to commit an act of
assassination. Accordingly he rose to quit the place, saying to
Socrates, "I will be back presently." Socrates, unaware of his purpose,
but having received the intimation of his demon, said to him earnestly,
"Go not." The conspirator sat down. Again however he rose, and again
Socrates stopped him. At length he escaped, without the observation of
the philosopher, and committed the act, for which he was afterwards
brought to trial. When led to execution, he exclaimed, "This would
never have happened to me, if I had yielded to the intimation of
Socrates." [103] In the same manner, and by a similar suggestion, the
philosopher predicted the miscarriage of the Athenian expedition to
Sicily under Nicias, which terminated with such signal disaster. [104]
This feature in the character of Socrates is remarkable, and may shew
the prevalence of superstitious observances, even in persons whom we
might think the most likely to be exempt from this weakness.

ROME.

VIRGIL.

From the Greeks let us turn to the Romans. The earliest examples to
our purpose occur in the Aeneid. And, though Virgil is a poet, yet is
he so correct a writer, that we may well take for granted, that he
either records facts which had been handed down by tradition, or that,
when he feigns, he feigns things strikingly in accord with the manners
and belief of the age of which he speaks.

POLYDORUS.

One of the first passages that occur, is of the ghost of the deceased
Polydorus on the coast of Thrace. Polydorus, the son of Priam, was
murdered by the king of that country, his host, for the sake of the
treasures he had brought with him from Troy. He was struck through
with darts made of the wood of the myrtle. The body was cast into a
pit, and earth thrown upon it. The stems of myrtle grew and flourished.
Aeneas, after the burning of Troy, first attempted a settlement in this
place. Near the spot where he landed he found a hillock thickly set
with myrtle. He attempted to gather some, thinking it might form a
suitable screen to an altar which he had just raised. To his
astonishment and horror he found the branches he had plucked, dropping
with blood. He tried the experiment again and again. At length a voice
from the mound was heard, exclaiming, "Spare me! I am Polydorus;" and
warning him to fly the blood-stained and treacherous shore.

DIDO.

We have a more detailed tale of necromancy, when Dido, deserted by
Aeneas, resolves on self-destruction. To delude her sister as to her
secret purpose, she sends for a priestess from the gardens of the
Hesperides, pretending that her object is by magical incantations
again to relumine the passion of love in the breast of Aeneas. This
priestess is endowed with the power, by potent verse to free the
oppressed soul from care, and by similar means to agitate the bosom
with passion which is free from its empire. She can arrest the
headlong stream, and cause the stars to return back in their orbits.
She can call up the ghosts of the dead. She is able to compel the
solid earth to rock, and the trees of the forest to descend from their
mountains. To give effect to the infernal spell, Dido commands that a
funeral pyre shall be set up in the interior court of her palace, and
that the arms of Aeneas, what remained of his attire, and the marriage
bed in which Dido had received him, shall be heaped upon it. The pyre
is hung round with garlands, and adorned with branches of cypress. The
sword of Aeneas and his picture are added. Altars are placed round the
pyre; and the priestess, with dishevelled hair, calls with terrific
charms upon her three hundred Gods, upon Erebus, chaos, and the
three-faced Hecate. She sprinkles around the waters of Avernus, and
adds certain herbs that had been cropped by moonlight with a sickle of
brass. She brings with her the excrescence which is found upon the
forehead of a new-cast foal, of the size of a dried fig, and which
unless first eaten by the mare, the mother never admits her young to
the nourishment of her milk. After these preparations, Dido, with
garments tucked up, and with one foot bare, approached the altars,
breaking over them a consecrated cake, and embracing them successively
in her arms. The pyre was then to be set on fire; and, as the
different objects placed upon it were gradually consumed, the charm
became complete, and the ends proposed to the ceremony were expected
to follow. Dido assures her sister, that she well knew the unlawfulness
of her proceeding, and protests that nothing but irresistible necessity
should have compelled her to have recourse to these unhallowed arts.
She finally stabs herself, and expires.

ROMULUS.

The early history of Rome is, as might be expected, interspersed with
prodigies. Romulus himself, the founder, after a prosperous reign of
many years, disappeared at last by a miracle. The king assembled his
army to a general review, when suddenly, in the midst of the ceremony,
a tempest arose, with vivid lightnings and tremendous crashes of
thunder. Romulus became enveloped in a cloud, and, when, shortly after,
a clear sky and serene heavens succeeded, the king was no more seen,
and the throne upon which he had sat appeared vacant. The people were
somewhat dissatisfied with the event, and appear to have suspected
foul play. But the next day Julius Proculus, a senator of the highest
character, shewed himself in the general assembly, and assured them,
that, with the first dawn of the morning, Romulus had stood before him,
and certified to him that the Gods had taken him up to their celestial
abodes, authorising him withal to declare to his citizens, that their
arms should be for ever successful against all their enemies. [105]

NUMA.

Numa was the second king of Rome: and, the object of Romulus having
been to render his people soldiers and invincible in war, Numa, an old
man and a philosopher, made it his purpose to civilise them, and
deeply to imbue them with sentiments of religion. He appears to have
imagined the thing best calculated to accomplish this purpose, was to
lead them by prodigies and the persuasion of an intercourse with the
invisible world. A shield fell from heaven in his time, which he
caused to be carefully kept and consecrated to the Gods; and he
conceived no means so likely to be effectual to this end, as to make
eleven other shields exactly like the one which had descended by
miracle, so that, if an accident happened to any one, the Romans might
believe that the one given to them by the divinity was still in their
possession.[106]

Numa gave to his people civil statutes, and a code of observances in
matters of religion; and these also were inforced with a divine
sanction. Numa met the goddess Egeria from time to time in a cave; and
by her was instructed in the institutions he should give to the Romans:
and this barbarous people, awed by the venerable appearance of their
king, by the sanctity of his manners, and still more by the divine
favour which was so signally imparted to him, received his mandates
with exemplary reverence, and ever after implicitly conformed
themselves to all that he had suggested. [107]

TULLUS HOSTILIUS.

Tullus Hostilius, the third king of Rome, restored again the policy of
Romulus. In his time, Alba, the parent state, was subdued and united
to its more flourishing colony. In the mean time Tullus, who during
the greater part of his reign had been distinguished by martial
achievements, in the latter part became the victim of superstitions.
A shower of stones fell from heaven, in the manner, as Livy tells us,
of a hail-storm. A plague speedily succeeded to this prodigy. [108]
Tullus, awed by these events, gave his whole attention to the rites of
religion. Among other things he found in the sacred books of Numa an
account of a certain ceremony, by which, if rightly performed, the
appearance of a God, named Jupiter Elicius, would be conjured up. But
Tullus, who had spent his best days in the ensanguined field, proved
inadequate to this new undertaking. Some defects having occurred in
his performance of the magical ceremony, not only no God appeared at
his bidding, but, the anger of heaven being awakened, a thunderbolt
fell on the palace, and the king, and the place of his abode were
consumed together. [109]

ACCIUS NAVIUS.

In the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome, another
famous prodigy is recorded. The king had resolved to increase the
number of the Roman cavalry. Romulus had raised the first body with
the customary ceremony of augury. Tarquinius proposed to proceed in
the present case, omitting this ceremony. Accius Navius, the chief
augur, protested against the innovation. Tarquin, in contempt of his
interference, addressed Accius, saying, "Come, augur, consult your
birds, and tell me, whether the thing I have now in my mind can be
done, or cannot be done." Accius proceeded according to the rules of
his art, and told the king it could be done. "What I was thinking of,"
replied Tarquinius, "was whether you could cut this whetstone in two
with this razor." Accius immediately took the one instrument and the
other, and performed the prodigy in the face of the assembled people.
[110]

SERVIUS TULLIUS.

Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome, was the model of a
disinterested and liberal politician, and gave to his subjects those
institutions to which, more than to any other cause, they were indebted
for their subsequent greatness. Tarquinius subjected nearly the whole
people of Latium to his rule, capturing one town of this district
after another. In Corniculum, one of these places, Servius Tullius,
being in extreme youth, was made a prisoner of war, and subsequently
dwelt as a slave in the king's palace. One day as he lay asleep in the
sight of many, his head was observed to be on fire. The bystanders,
terrified at the spectacle, hastened to bring water that they might
extinguish the flames. The queen forbade their assiduity, regarding
the event as a token from the Gods. By and by the boy awoke of his own
accord, and the flames at the same instant disappeared. The queen,
impressed with the prodigy, became persuaded that the youth was
reserved for high fortunes, and directed that he should be instructed
accordingly in all liberal knowledge. In due time he was married to
the daughter of Tarquinius, and was destined in all men's minds to
succeed in the throne, which took place in the sequel. [111]

In the year of Rome two hundred and ninety one, forty-seven years
after the expulsion of Tarquin, a dreadful plague broke out in the
city, and carried off both the consuls, the augurs, and a vast
multitude of the people. The following year was distinguished by
numerous prodigies; fires were seen in the heavens, and the earth
shook, spectres appeared, and supernatural voices were heard, an ox
spoke, and a shower of raw flesh fell in the fields. Most of these
prodigies were not preternatural; the speaking ox was probably
received on the report of a single hearer; and the whole was invested
with exaggerated terror by means of the desolation of the preceding
year. [112]

THE SORCERESS OF VIRGIL.

Prodigies are plentifully distributed through the earlier parts of the
Roman history; but it is not our purpose to enter into a chronological
detail on the subject. And in reality those already given, except in
the instance of Tullus Hostilius, do not entirely fall within the
scope of the present volume. The Roman poets, Virgil, Horace, Ovid and
Lucan, give a fuller insight than the Latin prose-writers, into the
conceptions of their countrymen upon the subject of incantations and
magic.

The eighth eclogue of Virgil, entitled Pharmaceutria, is particularly
to our purpose in this point. There is an Idyll of Theocritus under
the same name; but it is of an obscurer character; and the enchantress
is not, like that of Virgil, triumphant in the success of her arts.

The sorceress is introduced by Virgil, giving direction to her female
attendant as to the due administration of her charms. Her object is to
recal Daphnis, whom she styles her husband, to his former love for her.
At the same time, she says, she will endeavour by magic to turn him
away from his wholesome sense. She directs her attendant to burn
vervain and frankincense; and she ascribes the highest efficacy to the
solemn chant, which, she says, can call down the moon from its sphere,
can make the cold-blooded snake burst in the field, and was the means
by which Circe turned the companions of Ulysses into beasts. She
orders his image to be thrice bound round with fillets of three
colours, and then that it be paraded about a prepared altar, while in
binding the knots the attendant shall still say, "Thus do I bind the
fillets of Venus." One image of clay and one of wax are placed before
the same fire; and as the image of clay hardens, so does the heart of
Daphnis harden towards his new mistress; and as the image of wax
softens, so is the heart of Daphnis made tender towards the sorceress.
She commands a consecrated cake to be broken over the image, and
crackling laurels to be burned before it, that as Daphnis had
tormented her by his infidelity, so he in his turn may be agitated
with a returning constancy. She prays that as the wanton heifer
pursues the steer through woods and glens, till at length, worn out
with fatigue, she lies down on the oozy reeds by the banks of the
stream, and the night-dew is unable to induce her to withdraw, so
Daphnis may be led on after her for ever with inextinguishable love.
She buries the relics of what had belonged to Daphnis beneath her
threshold. She bruises poisonous herbs of resistless virtue which had
been gathered in the kingdom of Pontus, herbs, which enabled him who
gave them to turn himself into a hungry wolf prowling amidst the
forests, to call up ghosts from the grave, and to translate the
ripened harvest from the field where it grew to the lands of another.
She orders her attendant to bring out to the face of heaven the ashes
of these herbs, and [Errata: _dele_ and] to cast them over her
head into the running stream, and at the same time taking care not to
look behind her. After all her efforts the sorceress begins to despair.
She says, "Daphnis heeds not my incantations, heeds not the Gods." She
looks again; she perceives the ashes on the altar emit sparkles of
fire; she hears her faithful house-dog bark before the door; she says,
"Can these things be; or do lovers dream what they desire? It is not
so! The real Daphnis comes; I hear his steps; he has left the deluding
town; he hastens to my longing arms!"

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