Page:The place of magic in the intellectual history of Europe.djvu/109

101] is not utterly forgotten nor harmony neglected; among some men, though their number may not be great, the motion of the world and stars is still a matter of consideration; there are not a few of those skilled in numbers.

This is not all. "Besides these things they cherish the science which reveals the decrees of fate."

The Emperor Julian was continually inspecting entrails of victims and interpreting dreams and omens, and even proposed to reopen a prophetic fountain which Hadrian was said to have blocked up for fear that others, like himself, might win the imperial throne through obedience to its predictions. The mention of such practices of Julian leads Ammianus in another passage to attempt a justification of divination as a science worthy of the study and respect of the most erudite and intelligent. He says:

Inasmuch as to this ruler, who was a man of culture and an inquirer into all branches of learning, malicious persons have attributed the use of evil arts to learn the future, we shall briefly indicate how a wise man is able to acquire this by no means trivial variety of knowledge. The spirit behind all the elements, seeing that it is incessantly and everywhere active in the prophetic movement of everlasting bodies, bestows upon us the gift of divination by those methods which we acquire through divers studies; and the forces of nature, propitiated by various rites, as from exhaustless springs provide mankind with prophetic utterances.