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prisoner of war, and subsequently dwelt as a slave in the king's palace. One day as he lay asleep in the sight of
many, his head was observed to be on fire. The bystanders, terrified at the spectacle, hastened to bring water
that they might extinguish the flames. The queen forbade their assiduity, regarding the event as a token from
the Gods. By and by the boy awoke of his own accord, and the flames at the same instant disappeared. The
queen, impressed with the prodigy, became persuaded that the youth was reserved for high fortunes, and
directed that he should be instructed accordingly in all liberal knowledge. In due time he was married to the
daughter of Tarquinius, and was destined in all men's minds to succeed in the throne, which took place in the
sequel. [111]
In the year of Rome two hundred and ninety one, forty-seven years after the expulsion of Tarquin, a dreadful
plague broke out in the city, and carried off both the consuls, the augurs, and a vast multitude of the people.
The following year was distinguished by numerous prodigies; fires were seen in the heavens, and the earth
shook, spectres appeared, and supernatural voices were heard, an ox spoke, and a shower of raw flesh fell in
the fields. Most of these prodigies were not preternatural; the speaking ox was probably received on the report
of a single hearer; and the whole was invested with exaggerated terror by means of the desolation of the
preceding year. [112]
TULLUS HOSTILIUS. 44
Lives of the Necromancers
THE SORCERESS OF VIRGIL.
Prodigies are plentifully distributed through the earlier parts of the Roman history; but it is not our purpose to
enter into a chronological detail on the subject. And in reality those already given, except in the instance of
Tullus Hostilius, do not entirely fall within the scope of the present volume. The Roman poets, Virgil, Horace,
Ovid and Lucan, give a fuller insight than the Latin prose-writers, into the conceptions of their countrymen
upon the subject of incantations and magic.
The eighth eclogue of Virgil, entitled Pharmaceutria, is particularly to our purpose in this point. There is an
Idyll of Theocritus under the same name; but it is of an obscurer character; and the enchantress is not, like that
of Virgil, triumphant in the success of her arts.
The sorceress is introduced by Virgil, giving direction to her female attendant as to the due administration of
her charms. Her object is to recal Daphnis, whom she styles her husband, to his former love for her. At the
same time, she says, she will endeavour by magic to turn him away from his wholesome sense. She directs her
attendant to burn vervain and frankincense; and she ascribes the highest efficacy to the solemn chant, which,
she says, can call down the moon from its sphere, can make the cold-blooded snake burst in the field, and was
the means by which Circe turned the companions of Ulysses into beasts. She orders his image to be thrice
bound round with fillets of three colours, and then that it be paraded about a prepared altar, while in binding
the knots the attendant shall still say, Thus do I bind the fillets of Venus. One image of clay and one of wax
are placed before the same fire; and as the image of clay hardens, so does the heart of Daphnis harden towards
his new mistress; and as the image of wax softens, so is the heart of Daphnis made tender towards the
sorceress. She commands a consecrated cake to be broken over the image, and crackling laurels to be burned
before it, that as Daphnis had tormented her by his infidelity, so he in his turn may be agitated with a returning
constancy. She prays that as the wanton heifer pursues the steer through woods and glens, till at length, worn
out with fatigue, she lies down on the oozy reeds by the banks of the stream, and the night-dew is unable to
induce her to withdraw, so Daphnis may be led on after her for ever with inextinguishable love. She buries the
relics of what had belonged to Daphnis beneath her threshold. She bruises poisonous herbs of resistless virtue
which had been gathered in the kingdom of Pontus, herbs, which enabled him who gave them to turn himself
into a hungry wolf prowling amidst the forests, to call up ghosts from the grave, and to translate the ripened
harvest from the field where it grew to the lands of another. She orders her attendant to bring out to the face of
heaven the ashes of these herbs, and [Errata: dele and] to cast them over her head into the running stream, and
at the same time taking care not to look behind her. After all her efforts the sorceress begins to despair. She
says, Daphnis heeds not my incantations, heeds not the Gods. She looks again; she perceives the ashes on
the altar emit sparkles of fire; she hears her faithful house-dog bark before the door; she says, Can these
things be; or do lovers dream what they desire? It is not so! The real Daphnis comes; I hear his steps; he has
left the deluding town; he hastens to my longing arms!
CANIDIA.
In the works of Horace occurs a frightful and repulsive, but a curious detail of a scene of incantation. [113]
Four sorceresses are represented as assembled, Canidia, the principal, to perform, the other three to assist in,
the concoction of a charm, by means of which a certain youth, named Varus, for whom Canidia had conceived
a passion, but who regards the hag with the utmost contempt, may be made obsequious to her desires. Canidia
appears first, the locks of her dishevelled hair twined round with venomous and deadly serpents, ordering the
wild fig-tree and the funereal cypress to be rooted up from the sepulchres on which they grew, and these,
together with the egg of a toad smeared with blood, the plumage of the screech-owl, various herbs brought
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