Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/407

 ROMAN MAGIC. 391 formed. A simple incantation would blight the harvest or dry the running fountain, would destroy the acorn on the oak and the ripening fruit on the bough. The figurine, or waxen image, of the person to be assailed, familiar to Hindu, Egyptian, and Greek sorcery, assumes in Eome the shape in which we find it in the Middle Ages. Sometimes the name of the victim was traced on it in letters of red wax. If a mortal disease was to be induced in any organ, a needle was thrust in the corresponding part of the image ; or if he was to waste away in an incurable malady, it was melted with incantations at a fire. The victim could moreover be transformed into a beast — a feat which St. Augustin endeavors to explain by daemonic delusion.* It is observable that the terrible magician is almost always an old woman — the saga, strix, or volatica — the wise-woman or nocturnal bird or night-fiver — correspond- ing precisely with the hag who in mediaeval Europe almost mo- nopolized sorcery. But the male sorcerer, like his modern de- scendant, had the power of transforming himself into a wolf, and was thus the prototype of the wer-wolves, or loups-garoux, who form so picturesque a feature in the history of witchcraft, f The philtres, charms, and ligatures for exciting desire or pre- venting its fruition, or for arousing hatred, which meet us at every step in modern sorcery, were equally prevalent in that of Rome. The virtual insanity of Caligula was attributed to power- ful drugs administered to him in a love-potion by Caesonia, whom he married after the death of his sister and concubine Drusilla, and so firm was the conviction of this that when he was assassi- nated she was likewise put to death for having thus brought the greatest calamities on the republic. That such a man as Marcus Aurelius could be supposed to have caused his wife Faustina to bathe in the blood of the luckless gladiator who was the object of her affections before seeking his own embraces, while doubtless in- vented to account for the character of his son Commodus, shows the profound belief accorded to such arts. Appuleius found this to his cost when he was tried for his life on the charge of having Heroic!, vi. 90-2.— Horat. Sat. i. viii. 29-32, 42-3.— August, de Civ. Dei xvm. 18. t Festus s. v. Strigae.— Virg. Eclog. viii. 97.— August, de Civ. Dei xvm. 17. —Paul JEginet. Instit. Medic, in. 16.— Gervas. Tilberiens. Otia Imperial. Decis. in. c. 120.— Cf. Volsunga Saga v., vm.
 * Tacit Annal. n. 69; in. 13.— Sueton. Calig. 3.— Ovid. Amor. in. vii. 29-34 ;