Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/406

 390 SORCERY AND OCCULT ARTS. were among their ordinary resources. Even the triform Hecate was subject to their spells ; they could arrest the course of nature and bring the moon to earth. The fearful rites which superstition attributed to these sorcerers are indicated in one of the charges brought against Apollonius of Tyana when tried before Domitian — that of sacrificing a child.* In Rome the gods of the nether world furnished a link between the sacred ceremonies of the priest and the incantations of the sorcerer, for while they were objects of worship to the pious, they were also the customary sources of the magician's power. Lucan's terrible witch, Erichtho, is a favorite with Erebus ; she wanders among tombs from which she draws their shades ; she works her spells with funeral-torches and with the bones and ashes of the dead; her incantations are Stygian; gluing her lips to those of a dying man, she sends her dire messages to the under-world. Hor- ace's Canidia and Sagana seek their power at the same source, and the description of their hideous doings bears a curious resemblance to much that sixteen centuries later occupied the attention of half the courts in Christendom. It is the same throughout all the al- lusions to Latin sorcery — the deities invoked are infernal, and the rites are celebrated at night. f The identity of the means em- ployed with those of modern sorcery is perfect. "When Germanicus Caesar, the idol of the empire, was doomed by the secret jealousy of Tiberius ; when his subordinate in command of the East, Cneius Piso, was commissioned to make way with him, and Germanicus was stricken with mortal illness, it reads like a passage in Gril- landus or Delrio to see that his friends, suspecting Piso's enmity, dug from the ground and the walls of his house the objects placed there to effect his destruction — fragments of human bodies, half- burned ashes smeared with corruption, leaden plates inscribed with his name, charms, and other accursed things, by which, says Tacitus, it is believed that souls may be dedicated to the infernal gods. The ordinary feats of the witch could be more easily per- 80; VI. 68, 348-50).— Luciani Philopseud. 14.— Philost. Vit. Apollon. vm. 5. t Ovid. Faster, n. 571-82.— Lucan. Pharsal. vi. 507-28, 534-7, 567-9. 766,— Appul. de Magia Orat. pp. 37, 62-4 (Ed. Bipont.).— Horat. Sat. i. viii. ; Epod. v. — Petron. Arb. Satyr. — Pauli Sentt. Receptt. v. xxxiii. 15.
 * Plin. N. H. xxx. ii. — Platon. de Repub. n. ; de Legg. i. ; ix. (Ed. Astius, IV.