Belief in Magic in the Empire
Having shown reason for believing that the Natural History is a fairly accurate mirror of the science of the past, we come now to examine Pliny’s own age and to observe to what extent his attitude towards magic was characteristic of it. “His own age,” I say, but this is only roughly speaking, for it is the general period of the Roman Empire that we shall now consider, with the exception of the closing century which we reserve for later discussion. We shall have now to speak first of the general attitude towards magic in the Empire, and then in particular of two or three men or works that corroborate the rich evidence which Pliny, for the most part unconsciously, gave of the place of magic in the intellectual life of the time.
I. General attitude
At the start, just as in our discussion of the Natural History, we find it necessary to distinguish the position of men towards what they called “magic.” Pliny’s condemnation of the magi and of all their beliefs as a matter of general principle was probably the regular attitude. A stigma seems to have been attached to the word “magicand magi seem to have been regarded as dangerous characters. In his history Dio Cassius represents Maecenas as warning Octavius Caesar that while the practice of divination is necessary, and augury by sacrifices and flight of birds an art to be encouraged, magicians ought to be entirely done away with. For, telling the truth in some cases 65] 65 but lying in more, they incite many persons to revolt.[143] The prejudice in the Empire against magic is further illustrated by the fact that pagan and Christian controversialists seldom failed to impute to the opposing religion the practice of this malign art.
Now and then some learned man like Eudoxus might hold that the doctrines of the magi of Persia called for eulogy rather than reproach. Thus Apuleius, in his Defense against the accusation of magic brought against him, explained that magus in the Persian language was equivalent to the Latin sacerdos or priest, and that, among the four greatest men of the realm selected to educate the heir to the Persian throne, one had the task of instructing him in the magic of Zoroaster. This magic dealt with “the rules of ceremonial, the due observance of things sacred, the law of religious rites.”[144] It was the cult of the gods.
Do you hear, you who rashly charge me with magic, that this art is acceptable to the immortal gods, consists of celebrating and reverencing them, is pious and prophetic, and long since was held by Zoroaster and Oromagus, its authors, to be noble and divine? Nay, it is included among the chief studies of royalty, and the Persians no more think of rashly allowing any one to become a magician than to become a king.[145]
But if his accusers mean magic in the popular sense, that is, Apuleius grants, a different matter.
Even educated men, however, probably more often, like Pliny, regarded the magi as all one with other magicians. Philostratus, in his life of Apollonius of Tyana, seems to approximate much closer to this position than to that taken by Apuleius, although one would expect a biographer of that mystic personage to view the magi with favor. Philostratus declares that Apollonius was no magician, although he did associate with the magi of Babylonia, the Brahmins of India, and the gymnosophists of Egypt. For he was like Empedocles, Pythagoras, Democritus and Plato who frequented those sects and yet did not embrace the (magic) art.[146]
Of what we should call magic, however, there was a plenty in the Roman Empire, as in fact the words of Dio Cassius have indicated.[147] Besides the general acceptance of divination there was a great deal of superstitious medicine. There seems to be little room for doubt that Pliny’s diatribes against the medical art were justifiable, and that his own trust in marvelous medicinal properties of animals and plants was often equalled. Men of the highest eminence in public life, whom one would expect to have had at their disposal the best medical talent of the time, are reported to have employed the most absurd remedies. Suetonius tells us that the Emperor Augustus wore seal’s skin, his successor Tiberius laurel leaves, as a protection against lightning.[148] Pliny recounts how M. Servilius Nonianus, princeps civitatis, fearing opthalmia, had fastened to his neck a piece of linen containing some paper on which were written the Greek letters p and a. This was done before any mention of the disease was allowed to be made to him or by him. Mucianus, thrice consul, carried a live fly around in a bit of white linen for a similar purpose, and of course both men attributed their escape from disease to these bizarre methods.[149] Moreover, much magic has been supposed to have been involved in the numerous Mysteries to which men sought initiation and in the Oriental cults which became so popular. Astrology was seemingly as universally cultivated as in the Middle Ages, and that, too, though perhaps in Roman times it was in appearance less of a science and more of a superstition.
There were occasional imperial edicts against astrologers, it is true, and even sporadic persecution of them. But the explanation of such measures is belief, not scepticism, and they denote not disbelief in the art itself but disapproval of the use to which it was put — such as revealing the fate of the present and the name of the coming ruler. Almost every emperor had an astrologer at his court, and the historians of the period delighted in telling stories of astrologers who foretold their own deaths, or of monarchs who in vain attempted to thwart the decrees of fate.[150] Alexander Severus is said to have founded chairs of astrology salaried by the state and with provision for scholarships for students.[151] Occasional persecution perhaps made the mathematici more highly valued, and the jibes of the satirists against astrologers and their followers attest rather than disprove the popularity of the art. Pliny the Elder and Tacitus asserted its great currency.[152]
The best science of the Empire reflected to a considerable extent these superstitions sanctioned by public opinion, as our discussion of Seneca and Ptolemy will indicate in some detail. For the present we may observe how the great Galen — whose authority reduced to a single school the many quarreling medical sects of his day, was later implicitly accepted by the Arabs, and then dominated European medicine to the time of Paracelsus — was not above astrological medicine or the use of fantastical remedies. He displayed trust in amulets and believed that such things as the ashes of frogs or “hippocampi” have remedial power.[153] He held that the critical days of disease are largely influenced by the moon, and affirmed that we receive “the force of all the stars above.”[154] It should be noted moreover that in one passage, in giving expression to his zeal for astronomy as the handmaid of the healing art, Galen accused many physicians of paying no attention to the stars. But he asserted that in this neglect they were no true followers of the great Hippocrates, whom they extolled but never imitated, for Hippocrates had maintained that astronomy had no small bearing on the art of the physician and that geometry was its indispensable precursor.[155]
Philosophy as well as science was not unfavorable to some varieties of magic. Neo-Platonism, the most prominent school of philosophy in the Empire, probably led men on to belief in magic more than any previous classical system. Nature was looked upon as real only in so far as it was soul, and its process were regarded as the expression of the world-soul’s mysterious working. The investigation of nature thus tended to become an inquiry concerning spirits and demons, a study into the strange and subtle relations existing between things united, as all things are, by bonds of spiritual sympathy. True, the earlier Alexandrines are said to have condemned magic arts,[156] but we have seen that such condemnation need not amount to much. Plotinus attacked only the most extreme pretensions of astrology, and was ready to grant that the stars were celestial characters and signs of the future. He even conceded that prediction might be made from birds. But to him astrology and augury seemed of comparatively small importance, for he believed everything to be joined to and dependent upon every other thing and that in any object the wise man might see signs of everything else.[157] Succeeding Neo-Platonists, at any rate, were often devoted to magic. The name of Iamblichus, for instance, is one of the most prominent in the field of the occult.
Moreover, in the time of the Empire a tendency was noticeable to confuse philosophy with magic. If this tendency was not justifiable, it is at least suggestive. Dio Cassius, in the passage above quoted, represents Maecenas as saying that not a few of those who pretend to be philosophers practice magic.[158] Apuleius, accused of magic, stated in his Apologia that he was undertaking not only his own defense but that of philosophy.[159] The accusation against him also suggests similar charges brought against mediaeval men of learning during their lives or reputations which they won after death. Apuleius, having married a rich widow older than himself, was charged by some sycophant, jealous rival or other personal enemy with having obtained her affections by use of sorcery. Apuleius seems to have studied medicine, if no other branch of physical science, for he asserts that certain verses laid to his charge by the accuser deal with nothing more harmful than a recipe for making tooth-powder, and that a woman whom he was said to have bewitched had merely fallen into an epileptic fit while consulting him concerning an ear-ache.[160] This might be taken to show that the pursuit of science was already liable to give one a bad reputation as a wizard; but it should be said that the love-verses of Apuleius, as well as his poetical prescriptions, were used to support the accusation, and that the purchase of fish was also brought forward as a suspicious circumstance. Apuleius affirms in his oration that “philosophers” have always been subjected to such charges. He says, however, that the investigators of physical causes like Anaxagoras, Leucippus, Democritus and Epicurus generally have the epithet atheist cast in their teeth, while it is the seekers into the mysteries of theology and religion like Epimenides, Orpheus, Pythagoras and Ostanes who are reputed to be magi.[161]
II. Philo of Alexandria and allegorical interpretation
Allegorical interpretation, unless of a very mild character, is usually a fantastic and mystical method of deriving information or inspiration. Even if an author intended to conceal secret mysteries beneath the letter of his text, there is very slight chance that the far-fetched and intricate mode of solution employed by the interpreter will be the one which the writer had in mind. In most cases, however, after due allowance has been made for figures of speech and play of poetical imagination, it is an erroneous and absurd assumption to suppose that an author did not mean what his language indicates and no more. Therefore the believer in allegorical interpretation would seem to be accepting something quite like a magical doctrine. Indeed, allegorical interpretation is liable to lead one into a belief that words, besides possessing a mystical significance with which the thought of their writer had endowed them, have in and of themselves great power. It borders upon the occult reveries of the Cabalists and upon that magic power of words which we have seen upheld by Roger Bacon, John Reuchlin and Henry Cornelius Agrippa.
This allegorical interpretation of literature has played a great part in human history. It was rife in the age of the Roman Empire, when Philo Judaeus of Alexandria (approximate date, 30 b. c. to 54 a. d.) was perhaps its greatest exponent, as he was also the chief member of the Jewish-Alexandrian school of philosophy.
Philo carried allegorical interpretation to an absurd extreme even if he did not go quite so far as Reuchlin and Agrippa. Not only did he make such assertions as that by Hagar was typified “encyclical education” that Ishmael was her “sophist son,” and that Sarah stood for “the ruling virtue,”[162] but in general he tried to read into the Old Testament all the doctrines of Greek philosophy and science. He declared that all knowledge, whether in religion, philosophy or natural science, might be acquired by allegorical interpretation of the Pentateuch. Now we can say without manifesting any semblance of irreverence towards true religion, that to endeavor to gain from the books of the Old Testament — especially by the methods which Philo employed — either the key to all philosophy or adequate knowledge of natural science and extensive control of the forces of nature, would, if possible, be as marvelous a feat, and is as fallacious and fantastic a proceeding, as to try to coin gold from copper, or to learn the future from the stars, or even to obtain a solution of the problems of philosophy and a knowledge and control of nature by invoking demons to instruct and to assist you. The very notion that some man like Moses a thousand or more years ago had at his command all the knowledge that can ever be got is magical itself. Moses must have been a magician to know so much. Philo, moreover, if he did not believe in a magic power of words, at least showed that they seemed to him to have a most extraordinary significance. In his treatise, De Mutatione Nominum, he relates with great unction the just punishment of hanging which overtook an impious scoffer who derided the notion that the change in the names of Abraham and of Sarah had any profound meaning.[163] As one would naturally expect from what has been said about Philo thus far, he regarded knowledge as something sacred and esoteric. In his writings he liked to talk of mysteries and to request the uninitiated to withdraw. This attitude, while in itself-not exactly magic, is as has been already suggested, the product of a mind attuned to magic. Finally, Philo, following Pythagoras, attached great significance to numbers.
Philo not only represents a widespread tendency during the Roman Empire, but probably well illustrates the influence of that tendency upon later times. His numerous works were apparently much consulted by the church fathers, and thereby exerted a strong influence upon the Middle Ages. It is needless to enlarge upon the prominence of allegorical interpretation in the works of mediaeval ecclesiastical writers. The conception of knowledge as esoteric was also prevalent then, though perhaps to a less extent. To give an early instance from patristic literature, Clement of Alexandria, in his Stromata, insists upon the necessity of veiling divine truth in allegories, and has a long discussion in favor of mysticism in learning, citing as examples Greek philosophers as well as Hebrew writers.[164] Moreover, to Philo as source we may trace back the disquisitions upon the mystic, if not magic, properties of six and other numbers which we find in Augustine[165] and apparently in almost every mediaeval writer who had occasion to speak of the six days of creation and of the seventh day of rest.
III. Seneca’s Problems of Nature and divination
We shall next consider the Problems of Nature — or Natural Questions, if one prefers merely to transcribe the Latin — of Seneca, who was practically a contemporary of Pliny. Seneca impresses one as a favorable representative of ancient science. He tells us that already in his youth he had written a treatise on earthquakes and their causes.[166] His aim is to inquire into the natural causes of phenomena; he wants to know why things are so. He is aware that his own age has only entered the vestibule of the knowledge of natural phenomena and forces, that it has but just begun to know five of the many stars, that “there will come a time when our descendants will wonder that we were ignorant of matters so evident.”[167]
One must admit, however, that along with Seneca’s consciousness of the very imperfect knowledge of his own age there goes a tendency to esotericism. The following language would come fittingly from the mouth of a magician:
There are sacred things which are not revealed all at once. Eleusis reserves sights for those who revisit her. Nature does not disclose her mysteries in a moment. We think ourselves initiated; we stand but at her portal. Those secrets open not promiscuously nor to every comer. They are remote of access, enshrined in the inner sanctuary.[168]
Seneca seems to regard scientific research as a sort of religious exercise. His enthusiasm in the study of natural forces appears largely due to the fact that he believes them to be of a sublime and divine character, and above the petty affairs of men.
Indeed, the phenomena which he discusses are mainly meteorological manifestations, such as winds, rain, hail, snow, comets, rainbows, and — what he regards as allied subjects — earthquakes, springs and rivers. Probably he would not have regarded the study of zoology or of physiology as so sublime. At any rate he considers only a comparatively few “natural questions,” and hence the amount and variety of belief in magic which he has occasion to display is correspondingly limited.
It is evident enough, however, that Seneca by no means accepted magic as a whole. He tells us that uncivilized antiquity believed that rain could be brought on or driven away by incantations, but that to-day no one needs a philosopher to teach him that this is impossible.[169] And, although he affirms that living beings are generated in fire, believes in some rather peculiar effects of lightning, such as removing the venom from snakes which it strikes, and recounts the old stories of floating islands and of waters with power to turn white sheep black, he is sceptical about bathing in the waters of the Nile as a means of increasing the female’s capacity for child-bearing.[170] He qualifies by the phrases, “it is believed” and “they say,” the assertions that certain waters produce foul skin-diseases and that dew in particular, if collected in any quantity, has this evil property.[171] I imagine he did not believe the story he repeats that the river Alphseus of Greece reappears in Sicily as the Arethusa, and there, every four years, on the very days when the victims are slaughtered at the Olympian games, casts up filth from its depths.[172] The themes Seneca discusses of course afford him less opportunity for the taking up of the magic properties of plants, animals and other objects, but he was probably less credulous in this respect than Pliny, unless his pretensions are even more deceptive.
Seneca did believe, however, that whatever is caused is a sign of some future event.[173] He accepts divination in all its ramifications. Only he holds that each flight of a bird is not caused by direct act of God nor the vitals of the victim altered under the axe by divine interference, but that all has been arranged beforehand in a fatal and causal series.[174] He believes that all unusual celestial phenomena are to be looked upon as prodigies and portents.[175] But no less truly do the planets in their unvarying courses signify the future. The stars are of divine nature and we ought to approach the discussion of them with as reverent an air as when with lowered countenance we enter the temples for worship.[176] Not only do the stars influence our upper atmosphere as earth’s exhalations affect the lower, but they announce what is to occur.[177] Seneca employs the statement of Aristotle that comets signify the coming of storms and winds and foul weather, to prove that comets are stars; and declares that a comet is a portent of a storm in the same way as the Chaldeans say that a star brings good or ill fate to men at birth.[178] In fact, his chief, if not sole, objection to the Chaldeans would seem to be that in their predictions they take into account only five stars.
What? Think you so many thousand stars shine on in vain? What else, indeed, is it which causes those skilled in nativities to err than that they assign us to a few stars, although all those that are above us have a share in the control of our fate? Perhaps those nearer direct their influence upon us more closely; perhaps those of more rapid motion look down on us and other animals from more varied aspects. But even those stars that are motionless, or because of their speed keep equal pace with the rest of the universe and seem not to move, are not without rule and dominion over us.[179] Seneca accepts a theory of Berosus, whose acquaintance we have already made, that whenever all the stars are in conjunction in the sign of Cancer there will be a universal conflagration, and a second deluge when they all unite in Capricorn.[180]
It is on thunderbolts as portents of the future that Seneca dwells longest, however. “They give,” he declares, “not signs of this or that event merely, but often announce a whole series of events destined to occur, and that by manifest decrees and ones far clearer than if they were set down in writing.”[181] He will not, however, accept the theory that lightning has such great power that its intervention nullifies any previous and contradictory portents. He insists that divination by other methods is of equal truth, though perhaps of minor importance and significance. Next he attempts to explain how dangers of which we are warned by divination may be averted by prayer, expiation or sacrifice, and yet the chain of events wrought by destiny not be broken. He maintains that just as we employ the services of doctors to preserve our health, despite any belief we may have in fate, so it is useful to consult a haruspex. Then he goes on to speak of various classifications of thunderbolts according to the nature of the warnings or encouragements which they bring.[182]
IV. Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos and astrology
Astrology was more than a popular belief which extended to men high in social rank and public life; it was held by scientists as well, though naturally in a less naive and more scientific form. Nevertheless, the astrology of the scientist might be of an extreme enough type and of a more clearly magical variety than we were able to gather from Pliny, who, moreover, does not seem to have been acquainted with any systematic doctrine of the influence of the stars.
Such a systematized treatment Claudius Ptolemaeus set forth in the little volume known as the Tetrabiblos, or Quadripartitum. It would seem as if we ought to be able to regard a book by that noted geographer and astronomer as an example of the best science of his time, the middle of the second century. His works quickly became classics, and in the third century Porphyry commented on the Tetrabiblos. The Arabs eagerly accepted his writings, and it is generally held that in the Middle Ages his word was law in all the subjects of which he treated. The Tetrabiblos, therefore, would seem a landmark in the entire history of astrology as well as a crucial instance of how that branch of magic formed a part of science in the Roman Empire. True, Ptolemy does not cover the whole field of sidereal influence. He limits himself to the effects of the stars on man and does not attempt to trace out how they affect all varieties of matter and of life upon our globe. However, to make the stars control each individual man is the climax of astrology and implies that the heavenly bodies govern everything else here on earth. So the Tetrabiblos is a very satisfactory instance of belief in astrology by a scientist and its contents may well be briefly considered.[183]
The first of the four books opens with the trite contention that the. art itself is not to be rejected because frequently abused by imposters, and with the admission that even the skilful investigator often makes mistakes owing to the incompleteness of human knowledge. In the first place, our doctrine of the nature of matter rests, Ptolemy says, more on conjecture than on certain knowledge. Secondly, old configurations of the stars cannot be safely used as the basis of present-day predictions. Indeed, so many are the different possible positions of the stars and the different possible arrangements of terrestrial matter in relation to the stars that it is difficult to collect enough instances on which to base judgment. Moreover, such things as diversity of place, of education and of custom must be reckoned with in foretelling the future of persons born under the same stars. But although predictions frequently fail, yet the art is not to be condemned any more than one rejects the art of navigation because of frequent shipwrecks.
Thus far one might take Ptolemy for a well-balanced and accurate scientist in the modern sense of the term, but he does not maintain this level. After showing that it is useful to know the future and that astrology does not depend on fatal necessity, he proceeds to explain why the stars give knowledge of the future. This he intends to show from natural causes: ubique naturalium causarum rationem sequentes. This sounds well but his reasoning is superficial and childish, as his discussion of the influence exercised by the planets will indicate.
In each planet one of the four elemental qualities predominates (or perhaps two divide the supremacy) and endows the star with a peculiar nature and power. The sun warms.and, to some extent, makes dry, for the nearer it comes to our pole the more heat and drought it produces. The moon, on the contrary, causes humidity, since it is close to the earth and gets the effect of vapors from the latter. Evidently the moon influences other bodies in this way, rendering them soft and producing putrefaction. It also warms a little owing to the light it receives from the sun. Saturn, however, chills and, to some extent, dries, for it is very far from the heat of the sun and the damp mists of the earth. Mars emits a parching heat, as its color and proximity to the sun lead one to infer. Jupiter, situated between cold Saturn and burning Mars, is of a sort of lukewarm nature, but tends more to warmth and moisture than to the other two qualities. So does Venus, but conversely, for it warms less than Jupiter but makes moist more, since its large area catches many damp vapors from the neighboring earth. In Mercury, situated near the sun, moon and earth, neither drought nor dampness predominates; but that planet, incited by its own velocity, is a potent cause of sudden changes. In general, the planets are of good or evil influence according as they abound in the two rich and vivifying qualities, heat and moisture, or in the detrimental and destructive ones, cold and drought.
Ptolemy then goes on to discuss the powers of fixed stars. These powers he would seem to make depend chiefly on the relation of the fixed star to the planets or on its position in some constellation. Then he treats of the influence of the I seasons and of the four cardinal points, to each of which he assigns some one predominating quality. A discussion of the importance of such things as the twelve signs of the zodiac, the twelve “houses,” the Trigones (equilateral triangles each comprising three signs of the zodiac), and the position of the star in reference to the horizon, ends the first book and also the presentation of fundamental considerations.
The other three books contain “doctrinam de praedictione singularium.” — The second book, however, deals in the main with four points of general though subordinate bearing: under what stars different regions belong, how the effects of the stars vary according to time as well as place, how the heavenly bodies influence the nature of events, and finally how they determine their quality, good or bad. The third and fourth books, besides taking up separately the particular effects of each planet as it enters into conjunction with each of the others, comprise chapters with such headings as the following: “de parentibus” “de fratribus” “de mascidis et femellis” “de geminis,” “de natis qui nutrire non possunt sed mox extingunntur” “de dignitate,” “de magisterio” “de coniugiis,” “de liberis” “de amicis et inimicis” “de servis,” “de perigrinatione,” “de genere mortis.” These two books discuss how length of years, fortune, diseases, and various qualities of body and mind may be predicted from the stars; in short, how man’s entire life is ordered by the constellations. Such is the book which Bouche-Leclercq calls “science’s surrender.”[184]
V. The Hermetic Books and Occidtism
An account of belief in magic in the Roman Empire would be incomplete without some reference to the famous hermetic books. Hermes Trismegistus might, as deservedly as any other man — had he only been a man and not a myth — be called the father of magic, just as he used to be known as the father of Egyptian science and just as he was regarded by many as the inventor of all philosophy.[185] In the time of Plato the Egyptian god Thoth acquired the name of Hermes from the similarity of his functions to those of the Greek god. He also came to be considered as the author of pretty much all knowledge and was given the epithet of “Thrice Great.” The entire body of Egyptian occult lore was attributed to him, and Manetho, who pictured him as reigning over the ancient Egyptians, declared that in addition to his royal duties he succeeded in turning off some 36,000 volumes. Clement of Alexandria, however, speaks of but forty-two books as “indispensably necessary,” and says that the priests having charge of the hermetic books, by memorizing these forty-two, cover the entire philosophy of the Egyptians.[186] Diocletian is said to have dispersed the priests and burned their books, because he came to the conclusion that the frequent revolts in the locality received pecuniary aid by means of gold artificially manufactured in the temples.[187] Before that, however, lore supposed to be similar to that contained within the books had become disseminated. In the days of Hadrian and the Antonines, Jews and other Orientals at Rome offered to initiate persons into those occult sciences previously the monopoly of the Egyptian priesthood. Marcus Aurelius, in his later years, was thus instructed by an Egyptian diviner, who followed him in all his campaigns.[188] Also the custom grew up rather early of passing off works on occult subjects under Hermes’ name and of ascribing to him all such books which were of doubtful authorship. Of alchemy was this tendency especially true, so that it came to be known as the hermetic art. Sosimus, Stephanus and other Greek writers cited alchemical treatises under Hermes’ name, and the practice of publishing spurious hermetic books continued well into the Middle Ages.[189] Several such alchemical treatises are still extant; and writings on astrological medicine and the magical powers of gems, plants and animals have also come down to us under Hermes’ name.[190]
Some of the supposed writings of Hermes were mystical rather than magical; for instance, the famous Poemander,[191] which consists mainly of brief and disconnected utterances concerning God and the human soul and other subjects of a religious character. Still, one does not have to read far into its sixteen “books” before finding evidence of belief in astrology, of the mysticism of number and of an esoteric view of knowledge. It tells us “to avoid all conversation with the multitude” and to “take heed of them as not understanding the virtue and power of the things that are said.” It speaks frequently of the seven circles of heaven, the seven zones, and the seven “Governors.” It affirms that “the Gods were seen in their Ideas of the Stars with all their signs, and the stars were numbered with the Gods in them.” Hence, it is probably safe enough, when, for instance, we hear that Theon, father of Hypatia, celebrated in his day as a mathematician, and professor at the Alexandrian Museum, lectured upon the writings of Hermes Trismegistus and of Orpheus[192] — another legendary worthy charged with works of an occult character — to conclude that we have met one more case of the mingling of magic with learning.
In short, then, the mythical figure of Hermes Trismegistus became an actuating ideal to the Middle Ages, and the works appearing under his name had a considerable influence in extending belief in magic. Secondly, the hermetic books serve to typify that mass of Eastern occult philosophy and occult science which was so strong a force in the mental life of the Roman Empire.