Pythagorass range of miracles Pythagoras the son of Mnesarchus came after these
he worked on mathematics and numbers, but later on he involved himself also in Pherecydes's miracle-mongering. When a cargo ship was coming to harbor at Metapontum and those at hand were praying that it should come in safely on account of its freight, Pythagoras, who was standing by, said Then you will see a dead body sailing the boat And again in Caulonia, as Aristotle says. lt The same Aristotle gt tells many stories about Pythagoras. He tells that Pythagoras killed a snake of deadly bite in...
The tradition and lore of the mages I have repeatedly been exposing the
claims made by the mages in the foregoing part of this work, whenever this was demanded by the case and the theme, and I go on to reveal it again now. The subject is one among few requiring further development, for the very reason that this most fraudulent of crafts has exercised the greatest power all over the world for many centuries. It is no wonder that it has been so influential, since it alone has encompassed three other crafts that exercise the strongest control over the human mind and...
Eurycles the possessing prophetic demon Now people pay attention if you like
advice. The poet now wants to censure his audience. For he says that he is the victim of an undeserved wrong after conferring many benefits upon them. Initially he did not do this openly, but secretly, by helping other poets. In imitation of the prophetic method of Eurycles, he entered their stomachs and poured out lots of comedy. But after this he openly ventured out on his own, in chariots drawn by his own Muses rather than other people's. Scholiast R Eurycles was a prophet who manifested...
Eurycles the possessing prophetic demon Eleatic visitor [Those who forbid us to
things by other names do not need people to confute them, for they go round all the time with their enemy and opponent in their own house, as it is said, speaking from inside, just as if they were carrying round the bizarre Eurycles. Scholium adloc. Eurycles was the name proverbially given to those who prophesied to their own misfortune. For Eurycles was believed to have a demon in his stomach, which inspired him to speak about the future. Hence he was also called a ventriloquist engastrimuthos...
An old Chaldaean revives a dead girl They flee away from there and come across
being taken out to burial, and they run up to watch. Later ii A.D. An old Chaldaean arrives and halts the burial with the claim that the girl is still breathing. And it is shown to be so. He predicts also to Rhodanes that he will be a hero. Iamblichus novelist Babyloniaka at Photius Bibliotheca 74b Rhodanes IS the NOVEL'S HERO. IN restoring a person from death the Chaldaean performs a similar trick to that of Lucian's 49 . An almost identical tale is told of Apollonius 61 . 51 A Syrian from...
Persian mages Pythagoras Numa and lecanomancy Even Numa himself to whom no
prophet was sent by god, nor any early v A.D. holy angel, was compelled to perform hydromancy water-divination to see images Augustine i B.C of gods in water, or rather the deceptions of demons, by whom he was told what Varro sacred rites and observances he should establish. Varro again says that this variety Augustine City of God of divination was brought over from the Persians, and he reports that it was em-7.35, citing Vairo ployed both by Numa himself and subsequently by the philosopher...
Hermotimus of Clazomenae Soulprojection The following sort of thing is reported
Hermotimus of Clazomenae. They say his soul would wander from his body and stay away for many years. Visiting places, it would predict what was going to happen, for example torrential rains or droughts, and in addition earthquakes and pestilences and the suchlike. His body would just lie there, and after an interval his soul would return to it, as if to its shell, and arouse it. He did this frequently, and whenever he was about to go on his travels he gave his wife the order that no one,...
Egyptians
The notion that there was a special association between magic and Egypt is already found in the seventh-century B.C. Odyssey 74 , but it came to thrive particularly in Graeco-Roman literature in the A.D. period, reflecting in part, no doubt, the culture of the Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri. In particular, it was held that, just like the Greek shamans, the Egyptians derived their wisdom from protracted sojourns in underground chambers or inner crypts. Accordingly, Pythagoras was said to have...
Medea
Female sorcerers, or witches, are far more prominent than their male counterparts in mainstream classical literature, which is not to say that women were more inclined than men to turn to sorcery in reality. Two related, all-round witch figures above all flourished in Greek myth and Greek and Latin literature, Medea and Circe. Both of them are very ancient figures and were developed in the early epics. No early epic account of Medea survives, although there is perhaps a very dim reflection of...
The Deianeira Tradition
For Deianeira see also 94 importantly . 76 Deianeira kills Heracles with a bogus love potion 36. While he was making his way Heracles arrived at the river Evenus and came across the centaur Nessus ferrying people across the river for a fee. He ferried Deianeira across the river first, fell in love with her because of her beauty, and so tried to rape her. But she shouted out to her husband and Heracles shot the centaur. Nessus, in the midst of congress and dying almost at once because of the...
Circe
72 Circe, Greek literature's first witch, and Odysseus 133. We sailed on from there grieved in heart, glad to escape from death ourselves, but having lost dear companions. We arrived at the island of Aeaea. There lived Circe of the beautiful tresses, a terrible goddess, endowed with speech. She was the full sister of Aeetes of the destructive mind. Both were born of the Sun that shines on mortals and from their mother Perse, the daughter sired by Ocean. We beached the ship in a harbor suitable...
The sorcerers apprentice [Eucrates speaks Ill tell you another story one in
participant, not one I heard from someone else. When you hear this, Tychiades, perhaps even you will be persuaded of the truth of the narrative. I was in Egypt at the time. I was still a young man, and had been sent there by my father for my education. I was eager to sail up to Coptus and from there to go to the statue of Memnon to hear the marvelous sound it makes before the rising sun. The common experience is to hear some meaningless voice from it, but Memnon actually gave me a prophecy,...
A comic representation of Socrates as an evocator Chorus of Birds Beside the
feet Skiapodes there is a lake unfit for washing in where unwashed Socrates evocates souls. Thither came Pisander asking to see the spirit that had deserted him while he was alive. He had a camel-heifer to sacrifice. He cut its throat, just like Odysseus, and then went off. And then there came up for him from below, for the slaughtered blood of the camel, Chaerephon the bat. This COMPLEX PASSAGE PARODIES AESCHYLUS'S Psuchagogoi 25 . The term aloutos is ambivalent it is semantically and...
Alexander Of Abonouteichos
Lucian Alexander False Prophet 9-18, 26 9. From that point Alexander and Cocconas began to decide on first the location and second the form their scheme should take, and how they should start it off. Cocconas thought Calchedon an opportune and fertile place, neighboring Thrace and Bithynia, not far from Asia i.e., the Roman province of that name or Galatia and all the peoples who lived further inland. But Alexander chose in preference his own homeland, since, as he rightly said, they needed...
BC Uxc
Euripides Hippolytus 476-81 and 507-18 83 An imaginary and confused love spell 476. Nurse to Phaedra You re in love, so endure it. This is the will of a god. Since you are sick with love, turn the disease to your advantage. There are incantations and bewitching words. A drug pharmakon will be found for this disease. Men would be slow to find solutions, if we women didn t. 507. Nurse You should not be erring thus, but since you do, take my advice. This will be the next best thing you can do for...
A collection of ancient sources for ventriloquism Ventriloquist [engastrimuthos
prophet engastrimantis . Some people now call this a Python, Sophocles uses the word chest-prophet sternomantis and Plato the philosopher Eurycles, after a prophet of this sort called Eurycles. Aristophanes says in the Wasps in imitation of the prophetic method of Eurycles. Philochorus says in the third book of his On Divination that women too are ventriloquists. These called up the souls of the dead. Saul used one of these, who called up the soul of the prophet Samuel. v B.C. Sophocles iii...
Pythagoras Egyptian crypts Chaldaeans and mages He was in Egypt when Polycrates
Diogenes Laertius 8 3 celling in virtue, and he associated with Chaldaeans and mages. And then in Crete he went down into the Idaean cave with Epimenides, and in Egypt he also descended into crypts aCuta . He learned the secrets of the gods. Then he returned to Samos, and, finding his homeland under the tyranny of Polycrates, departed to Croton in Italy. There he laid down laws for the Greeks in Italy and he and was held in high regard, along with his pupils. There were almost three hundred of...
Hippocrates attacks the mages cure for epilepsy I think that the first people to
have projected this disease epilepsy as sacred were men like those who are now mages magoi and purifiers kathartai and beggar-priests agurtai and vagrant-charlatans alazones . These people purport to be extremely reverent of the gods and to know something more than the rest of us. 11. They use the divine to hide behind and to cloak the fact that they have nothing to apply to the disease and bring relief. So that their ignorance should not become manifest, they promoted the belief that this...
The Telchines Their evil eye Rhodes used to be called Ophioussa and Stadia and
chinis, after the Telchines that occupied the island. Some say that they are evil-eye-ers baskanoi and sorcerers goefes , who pour the waters of the Styx with sulphur or with envy to destroy plants and animals. Others say, to the contrary, that, because they excelled in their crafts, they were evil-eye-ed baskanfhenai by competing craftsmen and were consequently branded with this ill repute. They say that they came first from Crete to Cyprus, and then moved on to Rhodes. They were the first to...
Canidia And Erictho
The Epodes and Satires are Horace s earliest books of poems. Both were complete by 30 B.C. Within these a cycle is devoted to the horrid witch Canidia and her colleagues. Passing mentions of her in poems beyond those printed here use her name as a byword for poisoning Epodes 3, where Horace compares garlic to her poisons Satires 2.1.48, where Canidia threatens people she does not like with the poison of Albucius and Satires 2.8.95, where Fundanius runs from an elaborate feast as if Canidia had...
Simaetha And Her Tradition
One of the most famous and distinctive descriptions of magical practice in ancient literature is the monologue composed as an Idyll by the Hellenistic poet Theocritus for Simaetha as she performs erotic magic to recover her supposedly errant lover Delphis. It is reproduced here together with a text from which it may be derived 88 and a text derived from it 90 . 88 Women claiming to drive out the goddess Put plural the table down as it is. Take a salt lump in the hand and put bay leaves around...