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 NECROMANCY NECROSIS 205 of their fictions. On the other hand, necro- mancy or the calling up of the dead appears to have been a practice and a profession from the earliest historical times. In Greece the necro- manteum (yeapofjiavreiov) was a place conse- crated to the performance of necromantic rites. There were several such places, as the cave of Trophonius in Boeotia, the banks of the Ache- ron in Epirus inhabited by the Thesprotians, various localities in Thessaly, Hierapolis in Phrygia, and wherever the Cabiric associations prevailed in the East or West, Heraclea on the Propontis, and the shores of Lake Avernus in southern Italy. It has been conjectured, from Deut. xviii. 10, 11, that there were also many in Palestine and the neighboring countries, while Endor is indicated in 1 Sam. xxviii. The most ancient Greek poets devote to necyo- mancy or the descent into Hades some of their most remarkable compositions, thence called veKviat, their counterparts being termed v6oroi, ''returns." Homer, Hesiod, JEschylus, Euri- pides, Aristophanes, and Lucian among the Greeks, and Virgil and Seneca among the Ro- mans, employ necyomancy as a principal part of their machinery, and some of them devote whole poems exclusively to it. Horace in sa- tire 8, book i., and Lucan in his Pharsalia, describe forms of evocation. The calling up of Samuel by the witch of Endor, and of Melissa, queen of Corinth, at the instance of her husband Periander, are the first instances of necromancy mentioned in history. It is commonly admit- ted that its practice was frequent in all known countries at the dawn of Christianity. Ter- tullian, in the treatise mentioned above, dis- cusses in the light of Christian revelation the prevailing pagan practice of necromancy and the belief underlying it. He speaks of dead bodies reanimated by demons and delivering ora- cles through the magic arts of sorcerers, as well as of the evocation of departed spirits. This demoniac agency, he contends, was employed by the Egyptian magicians, Simon Magus and Elymas, to deceive the multitude ; and he main- tains that this same agency was employed by the witch of Endor. He concludes by assert- ing that it is the exclusive prerogative of the Creator to recall the departed soul to its body ; and that similar prodigies performed by de- mons are mere illusions. Necromantic prac- tices were forbidden under severe penalties by Constantine; and, as forming a part of the magic art, they had been rigorously proscribed under the republic and the pagan emperors. They were half encouraged and half censured by Julian the Apostate, who reproached the sick Christians with sleeping near the monu- ments of the martyrs in the hope of having a remedy for their ills revealed to them. The professional necromancers (-tyvxayuyoi) contin- ued to be proscribed by the successors of Julian, as well as by the canons of the west- ern and oriental churches. Of the practice of necyomancy among the pagan northern nations, we have one striking indication in the Ssemun- j die Edda, in which is narrated the descent of i Odin to the Scandinavian hell in order to con- j suit the prophetess Angarbodi. In the prac- tice of necromancy, founded as it is in the belief of a future life in which the departed spirits preserve their identity and associate with each other, while holding a certain com- munion with their living kindred on earth, certain ritualistic forms have been handed down from age to age with slight or no sub- stantial variation. The poetic forms of the necromantic ritual, reflecting more or less truly the national belief of the writers, are to be found in the Odyssey of Homer, books x. and xi., the " Frogs " of Aristophanes, the " Persae " of JSschylus, the "Menippus" or "Necyo- manteia " of Lucian, and from Virgil, Lucan, and Horace as above quoted. It is said that colleges of the necromantic art existed in Spain throughout the middle ages and as late as the 16th century ; but absolutely nothing deserving to be considered as fact can be gathered from contemporary authors. The reports made to the inquisitorial courts, or said to be gathered from their archives, are found upon close ex- amination to be unworthy of serious belief. That necromantic and other magical practices always existed in some localities in every Christian land, is probable ; but that the rites, forms, and incantations attributed to necro- mancers, and printed in various compilations, are genuine, cannot be regarded as proved. NECROSIS (Gr. vtitpuaiG, from ve/c/avv, to cause to die), a term employed to denote the death or mortification of bony tissue. It bears the same relation to the bones that gangrene does to the soft parts ; the part of the bone affected with necrosis becoming a foreign body, like the eschar in gangrene, which, by the efforts of nature or of art, must be removed. Necrosis is the result of inflammation of bone (ostitis), caused by injury or arrest of nutrition; it frequently follows ill-treated or badly per- formed amputations, and is more apt to occur in scrofulous and debilitated subjects. (See AMPUTATION.) Inflammation of bone does not, however, always end in necrosis ; for reso- lution may take place, or superficial suppura- tion. The bones of the lower extremity, par- ticularly the femur and tibia, are those most fre- quently attacked, although persons engaged in making lucifer matches, or otherwise exposed to the fumes of phosphorus, often have ne- crosis of the jaw bones. (See MATCH.) Ne- crosis may be traumatic (from mechanical in- jury) or ideopathic (without immediate exci^ ting cause) ; and the inflammation from which it arises may be either acute or chronic. The progress of the necrosis itself (that is, the sep- aration of bone) is more or less slow. The ex- tent varies; sometimes a mere leaf of bone may perish on the external surface, a process termed exfoliation ; or a large exterior section or the cancellated interior may perish. (See BONE.) The dead portion is called a sequestrum, its position depending upon whether the ne-