Chap. 3.] WHETHER MAGIC WAS EYER PRACTISED IN ITALY. 425 



volting, that those even who admire Democritus in other 

 respects, are strong in their denial that these works were really 

 written by him. Their denial, however, is in vain ; for it 

 was he, beyond all doubt, who had the greatest share in fas- 

 cinating men's minds with these attractive chimaeras. 



There is also a marvellous coincidence, in the fact that the 

 two arts medicine, I mean, and magic were developed 

 simultaneously : medicine by the writings of Hippocrates, and 

 magic by the works of Democritus, about the period of the 

 Peloponnesian War, which was waged in Greece in the year 

 of the City of Rome 300. 



There is another sect, also, of adepts in the magic art, who 

 derive their origin from Moses, 26 Jannes, 27 and Lotapea, 28 Jews 

 by birth, 29 but many thousand years posterior to Zoroaster : and 

 as much more recent, again, is the branch of magic culti- 

 vated in Cyprus. 30 In the time, too, of Alexander the Great, 

 this profession received no small accession to its credit from 

 the influence of a second Osthanes, who had the honour of 

 accompanying that prince in his expeditions, and who, evi- 

 dently, beyond all doubt, travelled 81 over every part of the 

 world. 



CHAP. 3. WHETHER MAGIC WAS EVER PRACTISED IN ITALY. AT 



WHAT PERIOD THE SENATE FIRST FORBADE HUMAN SACRIFICES. 



It is clear that there are early traces still existing of the 



26 Moses, no doubt, was represented by the Egyptian priesthood as a 

 magician, in reference more particularly to the miracles wrought by him 

 before Pharaoh. From them the Greeks would receive the notion. 



27 In 2 Tim. iii. 8, we find the words, " Now as Jannes and Jambres 

 withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth." Eusebius, in his Pra- 

 phratio Evangelica, B. ix., states that Jannes and Jambres, or Mambres, 

 were the names of Egyptian writers, who practised Magic, and opposed 

 Moses before Pharaoh. This contest was probably represented by the 

 Egyptian priesthood as merely a dispute between two antagonistic schools 

 of Magic. 



28 Of this person nothing is known. The former editions mostly have 

 " Jotapea." " Jotapata" was the name of a town in Syria, the birthplace 

 of Josephus. 



29 He is mistaken hefe as to the nation to which Jannes belonged. 



30 By some it has been supposed that this bears reference to Christianity, 

 as introduced into Cyprus by the Apostle Barnabas Owing to the miracles 

 wrought in, the infancy of the Church, the religion of the Christians was 

 very generally looked upon as a sort of Magic. The point is very doubtful. 



31 His itinerary, Ajasson remarks, would have been a great curiosity. 



