Chap. 2.] WHO FIRST PEACTISED MAGIC. 423 



Homer sliould be totally silent upon this art in his account^^ of 

 the Trojan War, while in his story of the wanderings of 

 Ulysses, so much of the work should be taken up w*ith it, that 

 we may justly conclude that the poem is based upon nothing 

 else ; if, indeed, we are willing to grant that his accounts of 

 Proteus and of the songs of the Sirens are to be understood in 

 this sense, and that the stories of Circe and of the summoning 

 up of the shades below, ^- bear reference solely to the practices 

 of sorcerers. And then, too, to come to more recent times, no 

 one has told us how the art of sorcery reached Telmessus,^^ a 

 city devoted to all the services of religion, or at what period it 

 came over and reached the matrons of Thessaly ; whose name'* 

 has long passed, in our part of the world, as the appellation of 

 those who practise an art, originally introduced among them- 

 selves even, from foreign lands J^ For in the days of the Trojan 

 War, Thessaly was still contented with such remedies'^ as she 

 owed to the skill of Chiron, and her only ''^ lightnings were the 

 lightnings hurled by Mars.'^ Indeed, for my own part, I am 

 surprised that the imputation of magical practices should have so 

 strongly attached to the people once under the sway of Achilles, 

 that Menander even, a man unrivalled for perception in lite- 

 rary knowledge, has entitled one of his Comedies '' The Thes- 

 salian Matron," and has therein described the devices practised 

 by the females of that country in bringing down the moon 

 from the heavens.'^* I should have been inclined to think 

 that Orpheus had been the first to introduce into a country so 

 near his own, certain magical superstitions based upon the 

 practice of medicine, were it not the fact that Thrace, his 

 native land, was at that time totally a stranger to the magic 

 art. 



^1 One amon^ the many proofs, Ajasson says, that the Iliad and tlie 

 Odyssey belong to totally different periods. 



^- In reference to the Tenth Book of the Odyssey. 



^3 See B. V. cc. 28, 29. Cicero mentions a college of Aruspices estab- 

 lished at this city. 



•^ The name "Thessala" was commonly used by the Romans to signify 

 an enchantress, sorceress, or witch. See the story of Apiileius, Books i. 

 and iii. '^ The countries of the East. 



16 Purely medicinal remedies. 



'7 In contradistinction to lightnings elicited by the practice of Magic. 



^** A poetical figure, alluding to the " thunderbolts of war," as wielded 

 probably by Achilles and other heroes of Thessaly. 



i»* See B. ii. c. 9. 



