Page:Modern Greek folklore and ancient Greek religion - a study in survivals.djvu/275

 to anyone who had dealings with genii or familiar spirits, and more vaguely to wizards in general. Thus the famous magician Apollonius of Tyana is described as a 'Pythagorean philosopher with power over genii' ([Greek: philosophos Pythagoreios stoicheiômatikos]) ; and two out of his many miracles may be taken as typical of his exercise of the power. Once, it is recorded, he was summoned to Byzantium by the inhabitants and there 'he charmed ([Greek: estoicheiôsen]) snakes and scorpions not to strike, mosquitoes totally to disappear, horses to be quiet and not to be vicious either towards each other or towards man; the river Lycus also he charmed ([Greek: estoicheiôsen]) not to flood and do damage to Byzantium .' In the first part of this passage the verb is undoubtedly used in a very lax sense, for snakes, scorpions, mosquitoes, and horses can hardly have been conceived to have their own several genii or guardian-spirits upon whom magic could be exercised; but the charming of the river Lycus certainly suggests the restraining of the [Greek: stoicheion] or genius of the river within settled bounds. This stricter sense of the word however comes out more clearly in relation to good genii who were settled by magical charms in any given object or place. Hence even the word [Greek: stoicheion] reverted to a material sense, and was sometimes employed to mean a 'talisman '—an object, that is, in which resided a genius capable of averting wars, pestilences, and suchlike. Genii of this kind, we are told, were settled by the same Apollonius in the statues throughout Constantinople, where the belief in their efficacy seems to have been generally accepted; for there was to be seen there a cross in the middle of which was 'the fortune of the city, namely a small chain having its ends locked together and possessed of power to keep the city abounding in all manner of goods and to give her victory ever over the nations (or heathen), that they should have strength no more to approach and draw nigh thereto, but should hold further aloof from her and retreat as though they had been vanquished. And the key of the chain was buried in the foundations of the pillars ' on which the crosspro eo quod [Greek: telesma] (whence by Arabic corruption our 'talisman ') vocant Graeci, usurpant alii. Du Cange, ibid.]