Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Elder

by Pliny the Elder

  The dried craw of poultry, a part that is generally thrown away, is beaten up in wine, and injected warm, for suppurations of the ears; the same, too, with the grease of poultry.

  On pulling off the head of a black beetle, it yields a sort of greasy substance, which, beaten up with rose oil, is marvellously good, they say, for affections of the ears: care must be taken, however, to remove the wool very soon, or else this substance will be speedily transformed into an animal, in the shape of a small grub. Some writers assert that two or three of these insects, boiled in oil, are extremely efficacious for the ears; and that they are good, beaten up and applied in linen, for contusions of those organs.

  This insect, also, is one of those that are of a disgusting character; but I am obliged, by the admiration which I feel for the operations of Nature, and for the careful researches. of the ancients, to enter somewhat more at large upon it on the present occasion. Their writers have described several varieties of it; the soft beetle, for instance, which, boiled in oil, has been found by experience to be a very useful liniment for warts. Another kind, to which they have given the name of “mylœcon,” is generally found in the vicinity of mills: deprived of the head, it has been found to be curative of leprosy — at least Musa and Picton have cited instances to that effect. There is a third kind, again, odious for its abominable smell, and tapering at the posterior extremities. Used in combination with pisselæon, it is curative, they say, of ulcers of a desperate nature, and, if kept applied for one-and-twenty days, for scrofulous sores and inflamed tumours. The legs and wings being first removed, it is employed for the cure of bruises, contusions, cancerous sores, itch-scabs, and boils — remedies, all of them, quite disgusting even to hear of. And yet, by Hercules! Diodorus tells us that he has administered this remedy internally, with resin and honey, for jaundice and hardness of breathing; such unlimited power has the medical art to prescribe as a remedy whatever it thinks fit!

  Physicians who keep more within bounds, recommend the ashes of these insects to be kept for these various purposes in a box made of horn; or else that they should be bruised and injected in a lavement for hardness of breathing and catarrhs. At all events, that, applied externally, they extract foreign substances adhering to the flesh, is a fact well known.

  Honey, too, in which the bees have died, is remarkably useful for affections of the ears. Pigeons’ dung, applied by itself, or with barley-meal or oat-meal, reduces imposthumes of the parotid glands; a result which is equally obtained by injecting into the ear an owlet’s brains or liver, mixed with oil, or by applying the mixture to the parotid glands; also, by applying millepedes with one-third part of resin; by using crickets in the form of a liniment; or by wearing crickets attached to the body as an amulet. The other kinds of maladies, and the several remedies for them, derived from the same animals or from others of the same class, we shall describe in the succeeding Book.

  SUMMARY. — Remedies, narratives, and observations, six hundred and twenty-one.

  ROMAN AUTHORS QUOTED. — M. Varro, L. Piso, Flaccus Verrius, Antias, Nigidius, Cassius Hemina, Cicero, Plautus, Celsus, Sextius Niger who wrote in Greek, Cæci- lius the physician, Metellus Scipio, the Poet Ovid, Licinius Macer.

  FOREIGN AUTHORS QUOTED. — Homer, Aristotle, Orpheus, Palæphatus, Democritus, Anaxilaiis.

  MEDICAL AUTHORS QUOTED. — Botrys, Apollodorus, Archi- demus, Aristogenes, XenocrDemo, Democrates, Diodorus, Chrysippus the philosopher, Horus, Nicander, Apollonius Of Pitanæ.

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  BOOK XXX. REMEDIES DERIEVED FROM LIVING CREATURES.

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  CHAP. 1. (1.)

  THE ORIGIN OF THE MAGIC ART.

  IN former parts of this work, I have had occasion more than. once, when the subject demanded it, to refute the impostures of the magic art, and it is now my intention to continue still further my exposure thereof. Indeed, there are few subjects on which more might be profitably said, were it only that, being, as it is, the most deceptive of all known arts, it has exercised the greatest influence in every country and in nearly every age. And no one can be surprised at the extent of its influence and authority, when he reflects that by its own energies it has embraced, and thoroughly amalgamated with itself; the three other sciences which hold the greatest sway upon the mind of man.

  That it first originated in medicine, no one entertains a doubt; or that, under the plausible guise of promoting health, it insinuated itself among mankind, as a higher and more holy branch of the medical art. Then, in the next place, to promises the most seductive and the most flattering, it has added all the resources of religion, a subject upon which, at the present day, man is still entirely in the dark. Last of all, to complete its universal sway, it has incorporated with itself the astrological art; there being no man who is not desirous to know his future destiny, or who is not ready to believe that this knowledge may with the greatest certainty be obtained, by observing the face of the heavens. The senses of men being thus enthralled by a three-fold bond, the art of magic has attained an influence so mighty, that at the present day even, it holds sway throughout a great part of the world, and rules the kings of kings in the East.

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  CHAP. 2.

  WHEN AND WHERE THE ART OF MAGIC ORIGINATED: BY WHAT PERSONS IT WAS FIRST PRACTISED.

  There is no doubt that this art originated in Persia, under Zoroaster, this being a point upon which authors are generally agreed; but whether there was only one Zoroaster, or whether in later times there was a second person of that name, is a matter which still remains undecided. Eudoxus, who has endeavoured to show that of all branches of philosophy the magic art is the most illustrious and the most beneficial, informs us that this Zoroaster existed six thousand years before the death of Plato, an assertion in which he is supported by Aristotle. Hermippus, again, an author who has written with the greatest exactness on all particulars connected with this art, and has commented upon the two millions of verses left by Zoroaster, besides completing indexes to his several works, has left a statement, that Agonaces was the name of the master from whom Zoroaster derived his doctrines, and that he lived five thousand years before the time of the Trojan War. The first thing, however, that must strike us with surprise, is the fact that this art, and the traditions connected with it, should have survived for so many ages, all written commentaries thereon having perished in the meanwhile; and this, too, when there was no continuous succession of adepts, no professors of note, to ensure their transmission.

  For how few there are, in fact, who know anything, even by hearsay, about the only professors of this art whose names have come down to us, Apusorus and Zaratus of Media, Marmarus and Arabantiphocus of Babylonia, and Tarmoendas of Assyria, men who have left not the slightest memorials of their existence. But the most surprising thing of all is, that Homer should 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 with 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 themselves even, from foreign lands. 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 literary knowledge, has entitled one of his Comedies “The Thessalian 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.

  The first person, so far as I can ascertain, who wrote upon magic, and whose works are still in existence, was Osthanes, who accompanied Xerxes, the Persian king, in his expedition against Greece. It was he who first disseminated, as it were, the germs of this monstrous art, and tainted therewith all parts of the world through which the Persians passed. Authors who have made diligent enquiries into this subject, make mention of a second Zoroaster, a native of Proconnesus, as living a little before the time of Osthanes. That it was this same ‘Osthanes, more particularly, that inspired the Greeks, not with a fondness only, but a rage, for the art of magic, is a fact beyond all doubt: though at the same time I would remark, that in the most ancient times, and indeed almost invariably, it was in this branch of science, that was sought the highest point of celebrity and of literary renown. At all events, Pythagoras, we find, Empedocles, Democritus, and Plato, crossed the seas, in order to attain a knowledge thereof, submitting, to speak the truth, more to the evils of exile than to the mere inconveniences of travel. Returning home, it was upon the praises of this art that they expatiated — it was this that they held as one of their grandest mysteries. It was Democritus, too, who first drew attention to Apollobeches of Coptos, to Dardanus, and to Phœnix: the works of Dardanus he sought in the tomb of that personage, and his own were composed in accordance with the doctrines there found. That these doctrines should have been received by any portion of mankind, and transmitted to us by the aid of memory, is to me surprising beyond anything I can conceive. All the particulars there found are so utterly incredible, so utterly re- 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 fascinating men’s minds with these attractive chimeras.

  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 tile 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, Jannes, and Lotapea, Jews by birth, but many thousand years posterior to Zoroaster: and as much more recent, again, is the branch of magic cultivated in Cyprus. 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, evidently, beyond all doubt, travelled over every part of the world.

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  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 introduction of magic into Italy; in our laws of the Twelve Tables for instance; besides other convincing proofs, which I have already noticed in a preceding Book. At last, in the year of the City 657, Cneius Cornelius Lentulus and P. Licinius Crassus being consuls, a decree forbidding human sacrifices was passed by the senate; from which period the celebration of these horrid rites ceased in public, and, for some time, altogether.

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  CHAP. 4.

  THE DRUIDS OF THE GALLIC PROVINCES.

  The Gallic provinces, too, were pervaded by the magic art, and that even down to a period within memory; for it was the Emperor Tiberius that put down their Druids, and all that tribe of wizards and physicians. But why make further mention of these prohibitions, with reference to an art which has now crossed the very Ocean even, and has penetrated to the void recesses of Nature? At the present day, struck with fascination, Britannia still cultivates this art, and that, with ceremonials so august, that she might almost seem to have been the first to communicate them to the people of Persia. To such a degree are nations throughout the whole world, totally different as they are and quite unknown to one another, in accord upon this one point!

  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 his flesh was to secure the highest blessings of health.

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  CHAP. 5. (2.)

  THE VARIOUS BRANCHES OF MAGIC.

  According to what Osthanes tells us, there are numerous sorts of magic. It is practised 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, however, have been proved by the Emperor Nero, in our own day, to be so many false and chimærical 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 suspicions, 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 superstition, however barbarous and ferocious the rites which it sanctions, that is not more tolerant than the imaginations which he conceived, and owing to which, by a series of bloodstained crimes, our abodes were peopled with ghosts.

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  CHAP. 6.

  THE SUBTERFUGES PRACTISED BY THE MAGICIANS.

  The magicians, too, have certain modes of evasion, as, for instance, that the gods will not obey, or even appear to, persons who have freckles upon the skin. Was this perchance the obstacle in Nero’s way? As for his limbs, there was nothing deficient in them. And then, besides, he was at liberty to make choice of the days prescribed by the magic ritual: it was an easy thing for him to make choice of sheep whose colour was no other than perfectly black: and as to sacrificing human beings, there was nothing in the world that gave him greater pleasure. The Magian Tiridates was at his court, having repaired thither, in token of our triumph over Armenia, accompanied by a train which cost dear to the provinces through which it passed. For the fact was, that he was unwilling to travel by water, it being a maxim with the adepts in this art that it is improper to spit into the sea or to profane that element by any other of the evacuations that are inseparable from the infirmities of human nature. He brought with him, too, several other Magi, and went so far as to initiate the emperor in the repasts of the craft; and yet the prince, for all he had bestowed a kingdom upon the stranger, found himself unable to receive at his hands, in return, this art.

  We may rest fully persuaded then, that magic is a thing detestable in itself. Frivolous and lying as it is, it still bears, however, some shadow of truth upon it; though reflected, in reality, by the
practices of those who study the arts of secret poisoning, and not the pursuits of magic. Let any one picture to himself the lies of the magicians of former days, when he learns what has been stated by the grammarian Apion, a person whom I remember seeing myself when young. He tells us that the plant cynocephalia, known in Egypt as “osiritis,” is useful for divination, and is a preservative against all the malpractices of magic, but that if a person takes it out of the ground entire, he will die upon the spot. He asserts, also, that he himself had raised the spirits of the dead, in order to make enquiry of Homer in reference to his native country and his parents; but he does not dare, he tells us, disclose the answer he received.

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  CHAP. 7. (3.)

  OPINIONS OF THE MAGICIANS RELATIVE TO THE MOLE. FIVE REMEDIES DERIVED FROM IT.

  Let the following stand as a remarkable proof of the frivolous nature of the magic art. Of all animals it is the mole that the magicians admire most! a creature that has been stamped with condemnation by Nature in so many ways; doomed as it is to perpetual blindness, and adding to this darkness a life of gloom in the depths of the earth, and a state more nearly resembling that of the dead and buried. There is no animal in the entrails of which they put such implicit faith, no animal, they think, better suited for the rites of religion; so much so, indeed, that if a person swallows the heart of a mole, fresh from the body and still palpitating, he will receive the gift of divination, they assure us, and a foreknowledge of future events. Tooth-ache, they assert, may be cured by taking the tooth of a live mole, and attaching it to the body. As to other statements of theirs relative to this animal, we shall draw attention to them on the fitting occasions, and shall only add here that one of the most probable of all their assertions is, that the mole neutralizes the bite of the shrew-mouse; seeing that, as already stated, the very earth even that is found in the rut of a cart-wheel, acts as a remedy in such a case.