Chap. 5.] THE VAiuoirs BIIA.XCHES OF MAGIC. 427 



Such being the fact, then, we cannot too highly appreciate 

 the obligation that is due to the Roman people, for having put 

 an end to those monstrous rites, in accordance with which, to 

 murder a man was to do an act of the greatest devoutness, and 

 to eat 40 his flesh was to secure the highest blessings of health. 



CHAP. 5. (2.) THE VARIOUS BKAtfCHES OF MAGIC. 



According to what Osthanes tells us, there are numerous 

 sorts of magic. It is practised 41 with water, for instance, with 

 balls, by the aid of the air, of the stars, of lamps, basins, hatchets, 

 and numerous other appliances ; means by which it engages 

 to grant a foreknowledge of things to come, as well as converse 

 with ghosts and spirits of the dead. All these practices, how- 

 ever, have been proved by the Emperor Nero, in our own day, 

 to be so many false and chimaerical illusions ; entertaining as 

 he did a passion for the magic art, unsurpassed even by his 

 enthusiastic love for the music of the lyre, and for the songs of 

 tragedy ; so strangely did his elevation to the highest point 

 of human fortune act upon the deep-seated vices of his mind ! 

 It was his leading desire to command the gods of heaven, and 

 no aspiration could he conceive more noble than this. Never 

 did person lavish more favours upon any one of the arts ; and 

 for the attainment of this, his favourite object, nothing was 

 wanting to him, neither riches, nor power, nor aptitude at 

 learning, and what not besides, at the expense of a suffering 

 world. 



It is a boundless, an indubitable proof, I say, of the utter 

 falsity of this art, that such a man as Nero abandoned it ; and 

 would to heaven that he had consulted the shades below, and 

 any other spirits as well, in order to be certified in his sus- 

 picions, rather than commissioned the denizens of stews and 

 brothels to make those inquisitions of his [with reference to 

 the objects of his jealousy]. For assuredly there can be no 



40 Ajasson seems inclined to suggest that this may possibly bear reference 

 to the Christian doctrines of redemption and the Sacrament of the Lord's 

 Supper. 



41 These kinds of divination, rather than magic, were called hydromancy, 

 sphaeromancy, aeromancy, astromancy, lychnomancy, lecanomancy, and 

 axinomancy. See Eabelais, B. iii. c. 25, where a very full account is given 

 of the Magic Art, as practised by the ancients. Coffee-grounds, glair of 

 eggs, and rose-leaves, are still used in France for purposes of divination 

 by the superstitious. 



