Macrobius[[548]] has preserved for us the formula of a solemn devoting or dooming of a city, and of imprecations against her, by devoting her to some hurtful and dangerous demon. We find in the heathen poets a great number of these invocations and magical doomings, to inspire a dangerous passion, or to occasion maladies. It is surprising that these superstitious and abominable practices should have gained entrance among Christians, and have been dreaded by persons who ought to have known their vanity and impotency.
Tacitus relates[[549]] that at the death of Germanicus, who was said to have been poisoned by Piso and Plautina, there were found in the ground and in the walls bones of human bodies, doomings, and charms, or magic verses, with the name of Germanicus engraved upon thin plates of lead steeped in corrupted blood, half-burnt ashes, and other charms, by virtue of which it was believed that spirits could be evoked.
Footnotes:
[[539]] Theocrit Idyl. ii.
[[540]]
"Lanea et effigies erat, altera cerea major
Lanea, que pœnis compesceret inferiorem.
Cerea suppliciter stabat, servilibus ut quæ
Jam peritura modis....
Et imagine cereâ
Largior arserit ignis."
[[541]]
"An quæ movere cereas imagines,
Ut ipse curiosus, et polo
Deripere lunam."
[[542]]
"Limus ut hic durescit, et hæc ut cera liquescit.
Uno eodemque igni; sic nostro Daphnis amore."—Virgil, Eclog.
[[543]] Lucian in Philops.
[[544]] Numb. xxi. 3.
[[545]] Deut. vii. 2, 3; xii. 1-3, &c.